Happy Ecological Overshoot Day — or Not
Fostering Ecological Hope
Today from Margaret Swedish:
Well, friends, this is the happy day we come to each year when we have taken from the Earth, and spewed into it in the form of waste, as much as the Earth can handle, as much as it has to offer the human species. From here on out, everything we take, consume, throw out, spew into the atmosphere, forests, soils, rivers and oceans is beyond the capacity of the planet’s generative and regenerative capacity.
Everything we take, consume, use up, throw out from this point on we are stealing from future generations of humans and other life forms, from the atmosphere and biosphere.
From the press release of one of my favorite organizations, the one that started this form of ecological measurement, the Global Footprint Network:
…on Sept. 25th, humanity will have demanded all the ecological services – from filtering CO2 to producing the raw materials for food – that nature can provide this year, according to data from Global Footprint Network, a research organization that measures how much nature we have, how much we use, and who uses what. From now until the end of the year, we will meet our ecological demand by depleting resource stocks and accumulating greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
Congratulations. We did it again. I don’t know about you, but this has me looking all around my immediate world right now and feeling pretty sober. It has me thinking about my 11-week old godchild, and feeling pretty frightened — and very, very responsible.
Just stare at that image for a while as it flashed forward to this day. Think about what it really means.
Now look at this graph below and if you are a U.S. American, again, think about what this really means.
Deficit ecological spending comparison - Global Footprint Network
I can wax eloquent on and on about the spiritual and moral meaning of these things, the challenges this data poses for U.S. society; but I cannot possibly be more eloquent or sobering or bleaker or challenging to the moral and ethical dimensions of this culture, to its spiritual frameworks of meaning, than what this graph portrays.
Nor can I make a better, more urgent argument for why we need to change how we live, drastically, urgently, if future generations are to have, as Jesus might say, “life, life in all its fullness, life in abundance.”
How dare we steal that from our children, from their future, from the hopes of future generations on this planet!
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I highly recommend a visit to the Global Footprint Network website at the link above. It is loaded with resources and information you can use to educate yourself and others.
September 28th, 2009 at 11:45 am
http://transitionculture.org/shop/the-powerdown-show/
This is a video on the work of the Transition Towns initiative. These folks’ philosophy seems to be to search for the silver lining of community empowerment and economic resilience in the dark cloud of Post Peak Oil. I like the “when the going gets tough, the tough get going” attitude.
In my own city, Montréal, Québec, Canada, an attempt to launch a Transition Towns initiative is just begining this autumn. Time will tell what it brings – qui vivra verra!
There is surprising amount of material accessible on the net. Try a google search with
keywords: COMMUNITY RESILIENCE
exact phrase: “PEAK OIL”
http://www.google.ca/search?as_q=community+resilience&hl=fr&num=10&btnG=Recherche+Google&as_epq=peak+oil&as_oq=&as_eq=&lr=&cr=&as_ft=i&as_filetype=&as_qdr=all&as_occt=any&as_dt=i&as_sitesearch=&as_rights=&safe=images
168,000 hits! (Maybe the tide is changing..)
and a search on google BOOKS with the same keys located nearly 30 recent texts:
http://books.google.fr/books?lr=&as_drrb_is=q&as_minm_is=0&as_miny_is=&as_maxm_is=0&as_maxy_is=&q=community+resilience+%22peak+oil%22&as_brr=0&sa=N&start=0
September 28th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
The Transition Town movement is up-and-coming and I recommend checking it out. It is one of many creative initiatives that focus on inventing the new way of life in anticipation of (rather than in reaction to) the various energy crises, shortages, and collapses to come. Do have a look at their website. It will give you hope.
Thanks for posting these links. Here’s another approach right here in Milwaukee, focusing on the concept of ‘resilience’ within an urban setting: http://sub.resilientcities.org/content/DiscoveringResilience/ThreatstoResilience/tabid/92/Default.aspx