climate change and the economy

This is a recurring topic of conversation around my house. To us it seems clear that the effects of climate change are inextricable from social justice and the economy. There is a group out there that says that any action to drastically reduce carbon emissions and increase carbon sequestration would do harm to our economy, and therefore everyone will suffer. We will need to restructure a lot of infrastructure and change a lot of expectations but since fossil fuels are a finite resource, we will have to restructure anyway!

Here is an article my husband wrote about this topic. He includes a section of video of himself interviewing Noam Chomsky. I'm interested in what y'all think of this.

The article is the jumping off place. The question now is, how do we get there? building wofati and rocket mass heaters is one thing, growing food and consuming less plastic junk is another obvious one. But what about the politics of it? "Systemic problems require systemic solutions" What are macro permaculture solutions?

I know "small and slow solutions" and I know this culture is a big ship that is hard to change course, but we live in a village that is literally washing into the ocean with every storm, so it feels really urgent.

Nice article and right on point!

I reposted to Reddit and it's getting a lot of thumbs ups! http://www.reddit.com/r/Permaculture/comments/1xw5t0/chomsky_putting_the_eco_back_in_economy/

I grew up in a county with the lowest tax rate in the western half of the state and free buses. There is nowhere I cant get by hoof, nail, pedal, or bus. If I could get them to put on kayak racks and haul around a flatbed trailer with tie downs behind them they'd be perfect in every way. I never got why other places didn't have free buses. And like, the cities are the worst. In rural Washington I can get 40 or 50 miles for a dollar and a half of course you need to be willing to make the right bus or wait all day for the only other one. In the cities they're like 2.50 or even 4$ a trip and the transfers stop working after like 6 hours or something. Its crazy. Why is this? Free buses make sense to me.

Looking dispassionately at climate change and sea level rise, I feel very hopeless. I don't think there is any way outside of a major disaster that the people of the earth will slow down their consumption enough to slow down climate change. The wheels have been set in motion and we are rolling down down down. I have good friends doing direct action to stop fracked gas pipelines as seen in this article about yesterday's protest and I am grateful for their sacrifices and dedication. The fossil fuel industry and the desire to consume fossil fuels are both so big and so ugly that if I think about it enough I feel sick and can't sleep.

I have decided to turn my attention to better relations between people, making the largest positive impact with my daily life, outreach and action.
Enough with the arguing and power struggles! Fuss fuss fuss. More love, more beauty. Now! No time to waste. Maybe I'm playing my violin as the titanic goes down. Ah, sweet gasp of beauty.

Matu Collins wrote:
I have decided to turn my attention to better relations between people, making the largest positive impact with my daily life, outreach and action.
Enough with the arguing and power struggles! Fuss fuss fuss. More love, more beauty. Now! No time to waste. Maybe I'm playing my violin as the titanic goes down. Ah, sweet gasp of beauty.

That's a commendable attitude.

There was a piece in the Guardian recently where the writer was pointing out that something like 2% of the population is responsible for 98% of the emissions, so all we have to do is to get them to change their lifestyle. I would say that he is making a big mistake, because for each of those 2% that can be convinced to adopt a low-carbon lifestyle, there are 10 in the on-deck circle wanting to increase their carbon consumption.

The civilization that you live in dictates your carbon consumption for the most part. Even if you turn vegan and walk for all your transportation, you still buy broccoli that was industrial farmed in California and have to buy stuff that was shipped in from China. Individual actions can't change the flow of civilization, but you can get along better with those flowing next to you.