The Age of Scarcity Industrialism (Archdruid Report)

The Age of Scarcity Industrialism (Archdruid Report)

This is a most interesting comparison. Coping with death and dying turns out to be a good description of our reaction to ecosystem destruction and resource depletion. I hope he’s right that we are nearing the bargaining and acceptance stages. However it looks like a lot of us are still stuck in denial and anger.

To me, it seems a waste of time to debate the magic biofuel of the month. As someone suggested (for a UN Resolution), we should declare a worldwide five-year moratorium on biofuel production and get on with conservation. I think we should also have a moratorium on forest or wetland conversion to development or industrial agriculture.

In those five years we could easily cut energy use by 80%, allowing time to implement necessary policy changes such as elimination of tax breaks and subsidies for energy and land waste, begin to rebuild the rail system, etc. Conservation is feasible right now. We know how we use energy and how to greatly reduce that use through conservation and efficiency. Many very dedicated people are working on this. For example
National Center For Appropriate Technology (NCAT)
http://www.ncat.org
Cascadian Region Green Building Council
http://www.cascadiagbc.org
Transportation and Land use Coalition (TALC)
http://www.transcoalition.org
and many other organizations promoting zero-net energy buildings, smart growth, rail transit, pedestrian safety etc.

None of these conservation efforts is likely to be the next “Google” and therefore they are not attracting the billions of dollars in venture capital and taxpayer subsidies that exotic techologies attract.

Instead of simple things we know how to do, we continue to focus on exotic technologies in the vain hope that we can keep the freeways humming and maintain BAU forever.



Craig Vassel