Talking about and trying to understand the complexities of sustainability

by Robert McLean

Devastation on the east coast of the U.S,
following the recent superstorm - such
scenes will become all to familiar as
climate really kicks in.

The idea that the Goulburn Valley, and so Shepparton, becomes sustainable introduces a paradigm of a complexity that most don’t yet comprehend or understand.

“Sustainability” is an idea poorly defined and littered with confusions and as most of us are tainted by the wastefulness of our modern lives (including myself), we are trapped within a blizzard of consumption and so being unable to see, we must imagine the future; a future without the fineries that presently provide contentment.

Blinded by the brilliance of what exists, and what is promised, and with imaginations hammered into shapes desired by powerful neo-liberal corporate consumerist forces, we struggle to comprehend a different way of living.

Climate change is an implacable force, witness how nature has closed down the “city that never sleeps” and New Yorkers scurried for cover as a collision of natural events stalked America’s east coast, the nation’s most populous area.

Sustainability is not about simplistically replacing a few light globes and adding a few newspapers to the recycling bin, for although those actions are driven by the appropriate intent, they are absolutely inadequate.

Climate change – complex and awe-inspiring

Climate change is the most complex and awe-inspiring event humanity has ever confronted and so it will only be a response equal in complexity and of awe-inspiring dimensions that will give humanity any chance of easing the injury to our climate.

Sustainability is about embracing those complex and awe-inspiring undertakings.

As devastatingly dangerous as climate change is, its complexities are worsened by the social inequity that world-wide research conclusive illustrates the correlation between increasing inequality and worsening mental health.

Considering that, I think of the late American astronomer, cosmologist, astrophysicist, science popularizer, author and communicator in astronomy and natural sciences, Carl Sagan, who, while writing in one of his books, “The Demon Haunted World” said:  “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time when the United States is a service or information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of very few, and when no one representing the public interests can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost their ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.”

Heinberg tells us that ‘The Party’s Over’

Richard Heinberg spells out
exactly how the 'party' will end.

To quote at title of a book from author, Richard Heinberg, “The Party’s Over” and no longer can civilization treat the world with disrespect, or treat ourselves, ourselves with disrespect and, to enlist a colloquialism, we have to “step up to the plate” and relearn how we live in concert with nature.

Achieving sustainability is about many things, but among those matters most needing attention is the welcoming of all people, regardless of personal habits, fancies or perceived failings, back into the human family.

So the task is massive, daunting and demands a response that may well be beyond our intellectual capacities for any response to the tremors that facing humanity need us to instantly re-set our present trajectory and shift from our present individualistic, ego driven way of life to one that is collaborative, community orientated and about building strong, resilient and resourceful communities that are the antithesis of the present direction of the “business as usual” boosters.

Climate change deniers search for short-term profit, while those who entreat their fellows to reach for, and work for, sustainability understand that we are simply guardians of our planet and grasp the fact that our behaviour will either leave the world in reasonable condition for those who follow or, rather, in decided disarray.

The modern life, as comforting as it might be, is funnelling civilization into a col de sac, a blind canyon, a dead end street and a way of living from which the only way out is to slow those things that worsen human life on earth.

Those things driving civilization toward damnable difficulties and possible catastrophic troubles are the exponential growth of human numbers; our voracious consumption of earth’s finite resources; our fondness for distractions; and our inability to understand, and accept, that the science that has made all the modern wonders of the world possible is the same science is at the root of all civilization’s difficulties.

Interestingly, that same science explains how, why and when the changes will unfold and, if we listen carefully, how we can avoid, or at least ease, those evolving differences.

Discussion about sustainability frequently brings a hail of protests from many who argue they don’t want to go back to horse and cart days (and neither do I), but without the arrival within the next few years of some breakthrough, idea, technology or concept, then the horse and cart will be something of a luxury.

Most everything humans presently do is about the opposite of a sustainable lifestyle ranging from our industrial, consumptive way of living through to the distractions and entertainments that absorb our time.

Writing in “Dead End Path” David L Brown said our species has acted with far more cleverness than wisdom.

Our need is to cultivate common sense

Brown's book that
helps us
understand the
crushing difficulties
of industrialized
agriculture.

He wrote: “The challenge for our descendants will be to cultivate common sense solutions while making peace with nature.

“In short, our challenge is to invent new and better ways of ‘being human’. In the long stretch of future possibilities, true and beneficial stewardship of the earth must become the primary of any successful human society. If we fail to achieve that, like the dodo or the passenger pigeon our species will simply cease to exist.”

Further discussing civilization’s unfolding problems, Brown says: “Signals such as these are many and ominous, and yet most people in the advanced parts of the world choose to pretend that everything is just fine. It’s business as usual. Even though we passengers on Planet Earth are metaphorically riding the Titanic, many fail to recognize the dangers and refuse to accept that over-population caused by industrial agricultural lies at the heart of the problem.”

Sustainability begins with surrendering our individuality, as it applies to our ego-driven consumerism, embracing fellows with an altruism that will help build resilient and supportive communities.

I look forward to our next gathering Beneath the Wisteria at which we will discuss sustainability and a society appropriate for that desired sustainability.  We gather again Beneath the Wisteria on Saturday, November 24, at 11:30am.