RE: Thrive Podcast: I finally listened to parts of the podcast, which I had not heard before. I remember clicking on a link that implied the podcast was 1:24, as in one minute and 24 seconds, but in truth it's 1:24:26, as in 1
hour and 24
minutes, and it is rare indeed that I will sit and listen to an audio stream for that long... I have an easier time with a streaming video with graphics, maybe due to my ADD/ADHD.
Anyhow,
I really support Paul's opening premise that whatever avenue you take, and however wacky they seem at first, if you look at it long and sometimes hard enough, all roads naturally lead to Permaculture and consciously living well with less consumption, and less consumerism -- my paraphrase, but that's what I remembered, and I'd vote for that!
However nice and benign Mr. Gamble seems to be, I think Paul is being too kind in suggesting that while we may need a tin foil hat to take this guys BS, that it's harmless and an interesting thought experiment, and why not be inclusive of divergent views, and welcome all comers to the tent of Permaculture and all things Transition.
Here's my take: if Foster Gamble arrived at my door next week or next decade, I'd welcome him in,
feed and house him if he needed it, and if he wanted to help us raise food and manage our homestead, he'd be most welcome. As a person, he's probably a terrifically nice guy.
My bitch with his "movie" basically boils down to two larger issues:
1. This is not benign and harmless pseudo-science, it is completely antithetical to science; it is anti-science. Acceptance of this sort of batshit-crazy drivel brainwashes people to accept all manner of hokey and completely unsubstantiated notions -- in his case, utter nonsense -- as actual science. Let's remember, and let's get this straight:
science does not require "belief"; rather, it requires the acceptance of evidence that can be verified and repeated. Belief is the realm of religion, not science. When someone asks me if I "
believe in Climate Change", they are pointing out a real problem in our larger society. Mr. Gamble may have no connections to the Koch brothers, Roger Ailes, Rupert Murdock and all those involved in the dis-information campaign to keep people from seeing the terrible truth of (human caused) Global Climate Change, but in the end, they are all taking our eyes off the ball, and diluting -- some might suggest poisoning -- the actual science of the matter. The net result is that we keep breeding like little bunnies, and we keep using great gobs of energy without taking responsibility for the damage we inflict all around us, and in the assumption that some brilliant engineer will teach us how to "solve" the energy crisis through I-pads and slick technology. Thus, we (and I do not mean Permies here, but the wider brain-dead cultures in which we find ourselves embedded) fiddle while the whole freakin' planet burns. Sorry kiddo's, this guy is simply crazy.
2. What if we DID find an infinite source of clean, renewable, even cosmic energy... would that be a solution to any problems we currently face? Since our current paradigm is to kill everything and everyone that gets between us and our fossil fuels, I suppose we might be able to call back the Marines, and re-think the whole military domination of the planet, but the odds of that happening are pretty small! Would Donny Rumsfeld, Maggie Thatcher and their ilk want to live in a just and egalitarian non-violent world like some alien creatures on Star Trek? Not so likely. So, we currently have around 7.5 BILLION people, and the trends point to 10 billion, then 12 billion, then -- well, don't worry, we won't be here long enough to get any higher than that. We have a world-wide economic system predicated on infinite growth of population, consumption, production and wealth on a FINITE planet with FINITE resources. Your reference to Chris Martensen's
Crash Course in the podcast is spot-on, BTW. The carrying capacity of the Earth is around 1.8 - 2.2 billion, and we have somewhere around 4 times that number. Completely ignoring Peak Oil and Climate Change, we gotta get to a much smaller population if we intend to survive very far into the future. Throw in all the climate disruption we've already caused, and the feedback loops already triggered, and we're toast.
At this point, evidence suggests that having more energy available to us would only allow us to continue to overpopulate the planet, while causing the extinction of every living thing around us. It would most likely allow us to stop focusing on the terrifying implications of Climate Change (Climate Chaos, as Guy McPherson calls it), and blithely ride into the sunset until we complete our mission of suicide by gluttony... I'm not convinced that "free energy" -- from any source -- would be a very good thing at all.
Why not open our eyes to see the damage we've created already, and derail this omnicidal express locomotive while there's still a slim chance for human survival. Let's all learn to live with LESS energy, not more, and with FEWER people. The alternative is certain: near-term human extinction -- along with all the other mammals on the planet. Nice.
Footnote on science: Many have vilified science itself as the root of all evil, such as nuclear power, nuclear weapons, or terrible biologic weapons. These are very real issues we have to deal with, but these are caused by evil people, perhaps even evil scientists, but not by science. Science is a way of thinking, a method of answering questions, and this is usually expressed as a careful and calculated search for cause and effect based on observation and experimentation. Science itself does not cause animals to be tortured testing drugs or "beauty" products, but rather, some people have chosen to use scientific methods to do evil or unkind things. These are problems of our wider society and culture, such as placing a high value on wearing fur coats or animal skins, and not caused by science. The problem is that we desperately need science to help us figure out how to survive this awful mess we've created, and anti-science teaches us to look to all sorts of utter nonsense that just takes our eyes off the real issues.