When I was a boy in 1955 in the UK there were almost no cars, no motorways, no central heating, no TV, and no planes in the sky. There were problems, but life was not bad, in fact, as commented in the video, people were happier than ever post war. They had time, for tea breaks, for conversation, for reading. Suppose we aimed to bring that time back. The main problem I remember was keeping houses warm, and the bronchitis and smogs that resulted from coal burning in homes. Then lack of hot water, no shower. We can heat our homes to the standard of back then using a single air to air heat pump. I have been responsible for the installation of 12 of these (COP 5.5 at 7C outside) by myself and family, and they are great. Each takes around 400W to produce around 3kW. In 1955 the light bulbs in our living room took about that, and now the LEDs take one tenth of that. Large screen TVs, computers, etc take very low power. Ration miles travelled, and especially air travel, lets say to one tenth of present, and you have just about a workable solution. We used to get excited saving up and waiting for things; for holidays, for Christmas, for things we wanted (like the SLR camera - now everyone has a camera so no excitement and no incentive for skills), and this was a good lesson for kids. Lets get back to that - no instant streaming. Holidays abroad should be for a month at least, and less often - same pleasure, half the cost to the planet and to us. Houses, interestingly, cost little (to the planet) long term. A good brick or stone house lasts 200 years and is passed between generations with just occasional upkeep, and UPVC windows eliminate painting and last for 50yrs or more ( I have some 35 yrs old in near-new condition). So living well with a big house and garden need not be penalised at all. We must penalise knocking down and rebuilding. Jobs near home, no horrible commuting, hence a lot less trains - less jobs, but that should be the aim; more free time for reading, films, learning, nature. Disposable batteries should be elliminated in favour of a set of STANDARD size lithium ion ones - for everything from power tools to torches and radios. Back in 1955 we invented the A,B, C and D cells - a brilliant move, but now we have hundreds of sizes and throw them away constantly. I'm up for that - any one else? Life has become life's overheads in an over-complex set of interacting frenzy. People must learn to relax.

@SteffiReitsch

10 ай бұрын

80% of the U.K.'s food has to be imported. Do you folks understand the precarious situation you are in? What are you blokes going to do when the food ships stop coming? With accelerated climate change inevitably a global food crisis is coming. Heaven help your country when it comes, and it will. Heaven help us all.

@lindosland

10 ай бұрын

@@SteffiReitsch Oh yes, those of us that are 'awake' to what is going on know how precarious our food supply is, though I think we can actually supply around 50% of our food needs if you cut out all the luxury foods involving air-miles (vegans and vegetarians rely on exotic foods far more than the average British guy who eats beef, pork, lamb and British veg.) A few, like me, are 'preppers' with enough food stored up for a year. I grow my own food, and I know a few who are taking on land or allotments in order to become more self-sufficient. My own family though, tell me I am a mad conspiracy theorist, and continue their hedonistic lives. I don't actually think climate change is the main worry; it's the WEF and globalist masters pushing for the elimination of meat, and of farming, as witnessed in the Netherlands especially, but also here now. We have payments for 'rewilding' of farmers land that many farmers are taking up because they are attractive compared to actually taking the risk of planting crops that may fail. Yes, heaven help us all!

@SteffiReitsch

10 ай бұрын

@@lindosland 50%. Still not good.

@Changeworld408

9 ай бұрын

Your personal experience is worth reading. Really great suggestions. It is really a disgrace that people are commiting quick or slow suïcide with overdosing alcohol or chemical drugs.❤

@Changeworld408

9 ай бұрын

​@@SteffiReitschad far as i remember my grandparents on both sides had a potato and vegetable garden and some fruit trees and even some chickens and even a pig and a horse. They had no PhD in agriculture and seem to even enjoy it more than the people in retirement homes enjoying their soapserie 😂

Another great interview.

Thank you for uploading and sharing.

This episode was so good, especially the land institute mention at the end

Love the idea of energy rations! Excellent interview...we need more 'non-experts' bringing in fresh perspectives that are not limited by their small area of expertise

@davidbarry6900

2 жыл бұрын

This is one of the topics where if you love something, you probably don't understand it very well. Energy rations will be be ugly and horrible for a LOT of people, in many ways - it's just that they may be necessary to avoid even worse outcomes. It may be our best approach to the climate issue, but it will (like many other options) be VERY problematic politically, and you can BET that we'll need to keep looking for better options.

@paranoah1925

2 жыл бұрын

@@davidbarry6900 Well, the way we are headed, most solutions will require drastic measures and this seems like the most fair thing to do. We can't keep penalising the poorest for the sake of the most privileged. As always, we have the imperial core asking 'developing' countries or the 'global south’ or whatever you call us, to give up basic necessities to support the extravagant lifestyles of individuals in the core countries

@paranoah1925

2 жыл бұрын

@@davidbarry6900 Here is a statistic to persuade you According to the UN emissions gap report, the world’s wealthiest 1% account for more than twice the combined carbon emissions of the poorest 50%.

Hi Rachel, just found your podcast and can’t get enough! Have you compared most cultures to perhaps the best practice in Norway. Seems like the benchmark but I’m no expert. Keep them coming!!!

Thanks Rachel. I agree with Richard that, although appealing, positive policies like 4 day work weeks etc. alone will not be enough. When things get tough (and they will) rebellion and chaos will kick in... I think you are getting closer to the root cause every week and every podcast. Purpose and meaning and togetherness / connectedness is the key. Get to this root and people can achieve amazing things and will walk on hot coals to do the right thing. Your point about the second world war and happiness is starting to tap into this - I think and hope that you will keep going on this particular journey. I would like to see some stoics and neoplatonists on the show :) Best Anthony

@PlanetCritical

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Anthony!! So wonderful to hear your thoughts on each week's episode.

@lindosland

10 ай бұрын

I agree. I've just finished reading George Orwell's story, 'Coming Up for Air' (1935) and found it very interesting to see his passionate description of life before WWI and how so much in the way of feelings of community and a sense of continuity was lost after the war. I highly recommend it. Another book 'From Smoke to Smother' by Douglas Reed gives a similar account. What we have lost now is just the final scrap of British togetherness and culture that was not lost in WWl WWII and the 1968 cultural revolution. Few alive now actually experienced Britain's best times to be able to see how bad it has got. Life was hard back then in many ways, but what comes across is the feeling of security. As Orwell puts it, 'it's easy enough to die if the things you care about are going to survive. You've had your life, you're getting tired, it's time to go underground, Individually they were finished, but their way of life would continue. Their good and evil would reman good and evil; they didn't feel the ground they stood on shifting under their feet.' Very much how I would like to feel at the moment, but don't, as the ground shifts every day.

@anthonylawton5363

10 ай бұрын

@@lindosland yes shifting very quickly. I have just finished a book by Ann Graber "Viktor Fankl's Logotherapy" - I would highly recommend it - very practical for philosophy!

@AudioPervert1

9 ай бұрын

Heinberg is Green Scare, just like Bill Mckibben, Greta Thundberg etc etc. Digging deeper into Erich Fromm’s measure of modern society, might help us understand the visceral ways which connect the Left and the Right. While on the surface we get the impression that two opposing forces are at it, in reality, behind the populism both sides exist to maintain the status quo. “Those who are attracted to the non-alive are the people who prefer “law and order” - to living structure, bureaucratic systems to spontaneous methods, gadgets to living beings, repetition to originality”(CounterPunch 2013). The ongoing “Green Scare” orchestrated simultaneously on many fronts by an enormous league made of scientists, academics, green energy pundits, green political parties, Hollywood stars, teenage climate activists and the “woke” mainstream media is heckling global consciousness. More because of the ‘injected’ fear and less for the ‘supposed’ outcome. Regardless the planet is heating up rapidly. Even if not orchestrated, subconsciously millions of people are being swept into one gambit: Energy transition or civilization collapse! That mortal fear, as motivational as it may seem, leads us further to reckon with the rising violence against indigenous peoples, against land and forest protectors, smear campaigns and lawsuits against independent activists and radical Eco-conservation groups, who are often labelled and punished as “Eco-terrorists”. The Left and the Right both are complicit in this global suppression and violence. The conservative and the woke lashing out at each other, yet just to protect their given lifestyles and not the planet. As temperatures rise in the global north and south, mainstream media (Left or Right leaning) is on the button. Ramping up climate news and regular doses of visual anxiety, teenage angst, fossil fuel bashing, short nuggets of science and lots of Bright Green Lies. The panic brigade is out, with Greta Inc. on the top, along with a brigade of Hollywood stars, pop singers, green energy gurus and their bestseller books!

Thanks

we have reached all limits......we have reached tipping points.....there is no green energy....even the great simplification will not save us now.....good luck everyone.

@Hippiekinkster

2 жыл бұрын

I think you are right. There are simply no restraints on human reproduction, and it is population growth which drives environmental destruction, in tandem with Capitalism, which REQUIRES growth without accounting for externalities, resource depletion, and increased energy usage. People just do not understand that no matter what energy sources fuel modern civilization, that energy ALWAYS ends up being converted to heat. This is high school physics. All that heat isn't magically radiating into space; it's being trapped here in the biosphere. And they do not understand exponential growth either. If Earth's population grows at only 2.5% per year, the population will DOUBLE in only 28 years. If energy usage tracks with population growth, it will also DOUBLE in 28 years. That's TWICE the current level of heat released into the biosphere. It will take DRACONIAN measures to even stand still. Extreme wealth will have to be confiscated, and used to pay for mass voluntary (bribed) sterilization. Nation-states must cease to exist. Corporations must be dissolved. Unused land must be reforested and held in trust for future generations. Mass factory meat farms must be banned, and the grazing lands restored to savannas or forests. No more air travel, except by dirigible. No more shipping/sea travel, except by sail. No more 4 billion vehicles belching pollutants and releasing heat. I can think of a LOT more.

We need to do this, we need to do that, bla bla bla. Face it, WE'RE DOOMED! Wait till the food trucks stop coming, the lights go off, and the water taps go dry. It's going to be murderous chaos.

Thank you so much for this discussion. It was so refreshing to hear someone willing to be frank about us (society) having to make difficult choices. We've had far too many politicians and authorities (and "climate leaders") pretend that there are "easy solutions", without mentioning the consequences we will face if following that path. Excellent point on the importance of preventing corruption from undoing our progress towards a climate solution. The concept of an "energy ration" sounds a LOT like the "tradeable carbon credit" that Prof Steve Keen talked about at one stage, possibly in your interview with him. I'm not convinced that rationing ENERGY is the correct approach, since it should not be a problem to produce more energy for yourself (via heat capture solar panels or similar), as long as you are not adding to the global warming problem. Restricting use of CARBON (and equivalents), perhaps through something similar to "food stamps" seems more appropriate, since we want to encourage ingenuity in developing alternatives, i.e. either low-carbon new energy, more efficient ways to use existing (and declining) energy production, or better yet, ways to achieve similar ends (e.g. standard of living) WITHOUT needing energy inputs. Unfortunately, human nature has shown that we always get a LOT of ingenuity going into ways of gaming the system, and the Carbon Offset markets have been a spectacular example of this. I'm with you on feeling uncomfortable in using the term "Rationing" though. This implies a completely limited resource, with no possible solutions for more. Although the "growth" paradigm is destined to end soon whether we like it or not (due to peak oil and demographic changes, even if we don't get political action to try meet global warming action targets and try limit the ongoing environmental damage from other causes), people simply don't want to THINK that they are doomed to be and have LESS in future. A lot of people will always struggle to find a new magic bullet, or hope that there will be a breakthrough in cheap fusion energy or similar (e.g. space-mounted solar power). To be fair, we could solve a LOT of problems with unlimited energy, even if it was bound to create new problems along the way. I would love to have heard more discussion of the importance of social cohesion in this interview. You can't keep any society functioning if it starts falling apart. One of the quickest ways to destabilize societies is through massive waves of migration, which global warming is likely to cause in future. (There are many other causes of polarization and instability of course). So, it is important to not only figure out ways to keep our OWN countries more stable, but ALSO to reach out and help other countries in Africa and elsewhere become prosperous, stable, and good places for their residents to live. Every "failed state" should be seen as a domino that is destabilizing the dominos in neighboring regions. Although it's important to keep our own countries stable and prosperous (we won't be able to make ANY sort of "green transition" to a "low carbon economy" otherwise), this is an incomplete solution if other countries start failing like dominos, and exporting their instability in all directions.

@PlanetCritical

2 жыл бұрын

I agree with much of what you're saying, although I think Richard's right that it must be an energy ration and not a carbon limit-reducing climate change to a problem of carbon is eery and suspicious. The problem is our economy and our material and energy use, as you've stated. Thus, why hyper-focus on a symptom rather than the cause?

@davidbarry6900

2 жыл бұрын

@@PlanetCritical If you focus only on ENERGY use, the temptation would be to use simple, cheap, easily available sources for that energy, i.e. coal and oil, i.e. we would front-load a lot more CO2 into the atmosphere at a time when we desperately need to cut emissions as deeply and fast as possible. This is a bit of a straw-man argument, but it worries me. I'm guessing that an energy ration approach would have to be more comprehensive and probably include GHG restrictions too. I'm still of the view that if we can get a global ubiquitous cap and/or sufficiently high price on CO2 (+methane etc.), that this would solve a lot of the other related issues too. (I realize that a global carbon price is a HUGE challenge, probably politically impossible, and it would have to ALSO apply somehow to embedded carbon sources in tilled agricultural soils, or forestry logging etc.) Keep in mind that if you need to mine for rare earths and metals to provide "renewable" power, but you're using fossil-fuel energy to mine the ore and crush and refine it, that would raise the cost of the metals. This means we would get a much better idea of which materials are actually cost-effective for non-fossil-fuel energy production. We'd also have a much better idea of the true cost of industrial agriculture with industrial fertilizers - and food prices would reflect that. (Organic and no-till farming might be competitive in that scenario, but we'd likely also have a big shortfall in overall food production - this is not a perfect solution.) A pricing mechanism like this would generate enormous pressures to figure out better and cheaper ways of producing useful energy, better ways of USING that energy more efficiently and effectively, and better ways of living WITHOUT needing those energy inputs. It would also create incredible incentives to cheat and deceive of course - corruption is a risk in any solution. We're trying to deal with a very messy layer cake of different problems, of which some (e.g. inequality, lack of housing, antibiotic resistance etc.) I would happily pass the buck on to future generations to deal with if we can instead prioritize and try to deal with the crucial issues which will determine if there actually will be a habitable world for humanity in future generations. The top priorities (in my view) are a) climate change and related ocean acidification, b) ecological destruction, biomass and species loss, c) pollution and contamination of the environment (e.g. plastics in oceans, salt in soil), and d) threat of nuclear war or similar human-induced catastrophe. We have to solve (or avoid) ALL of these if we think that human civilization is worth keeping around. Running out of raw materials is definitely a problem, but it's not a civilization-ending issue. I can understand that you might see an energy ration as a fulcrum which might lead to progress on several important challenges at the same time. I'm not convinced that it's the correct approach though, nor that it is sufficiently flexible and supportive of the human ingenuity that we will need to figure out better solutions along the way.

44:36 “why hasn’t the world dealt with these environmental issues, the reason is that… because it’s hard, it would require sacrifice” That’s why the solutions that we create must meet or exceed the current value people get from harmful technology in order for widespread adoption and transition to happen

Thanks Rachel - Know this - you are covering one and perhaps last story of our generations. Truth is freedom

@PlanetCritical

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you, Robert.

I had dinner with Stan Cox - fun guy!

On the redistribution thing, I understand this seems like a partial solution, but I think proponents are going to be disappointed if they think there's this massive pool of dollar bills to be spread around. Most of that wealth is in physical assets that have been given a nominal value on a balance sheet somewhere. How much use is an office building worth $100 million and how do you redistribute it? Give everyone a brick?

We kind of have a perennial grain. They are called chestnuts. Start growing them now at scale. Plant then close together and thin them out as they mature. Yes, it would take about a decade before we start getting results but how long will it take perennial grains to start feeding people? Chestnuts as our primary grain would be healthier than what we have now and can give you a tangible timeline for food production which perennial grains can't.

After Parrique I thought about how I hadnt heard degrowth scholars discuss rationing. Your guests comes in chronological order :) I will look into the book Heinberg mentioned. Daniel Schmachtenberger would probably say we can avoid distrust in the rationing system by putting it on the blockchain. He would also have a technological angle on global sensemaking and social cohesion. Tristan Harris was just on Nate Hagen's channel and had good input on how to create algorithms promoting synthesis instead of division in social media. Parrique could have explained why commoning of things would lead to less resource use and pollution. We can take his word for it, but I think it requires a massive part of the population get educated on climate and ecology to manage the commons sustainably. And this is a good reason to like the term "degrowth". It is honest, honesty would be a clean break from status quo. On rationing, I don't like the idea of a market place. We should get our quota and that's it. If not, we will max out our consumption right up to the limit of overshoot.

@PlanetCritical

2 жыл бұрын

Thank you for your considered comments, will look into Tristan. And I'd love to have Daniel on the show-hoping for an intro from Nate!

as the prognosis worsens so does our measure of success. the pretense that slight modifications to global economies and energy can justify continued growth will end badly. given the current inertia perhaps we should avoid the marketable delusions and prepare for radical adaptation, when depopulation comes circular economies will sell themselves.

@jthadcast

2 жыл бұрын

@@JeffVader i prefer their honest approach to identifying real existential problems, it's the snake oil solutions i find dubious.

@jthadcast

2 жыл бұрын

@@chadsummerchild3047 i do not envy the underground survivors.

even degrowth will not save us now

The increasingly so faith in the people is well… disappointing to me. Around this patch of land are just clearcuts, and rampant capitalistic degradation entitled suburban sprawl in BC… the South Shuswap. Forestry just announced new clearcuts, more than doubling the dystopian stumped madness. The forest is shrinking to a pathetic little patch. At the same time miles and miles of burnt forests (and homes) cover the landscape. Are we learning? Send in your complaints to the Flack-Catcher, and you will be dismissed.

Mad Max is coming.