Is Civilization A Universally Bad Idea?
Written by Adam Frank
November 15, 2011
The ice ages came and the ice ages went. For more than a half-million years Homo sapiens endured the changing climate by adapting. Then, deep in the frozen expanse of the last global big chill, something new happened. We woke up to ourselves in a new way.
We became self-conscious, creating art, culture and tools of far greater complexity than anything that had come before. When the ice pulled back yet again, we eventually took a step of even greater consequence. We domesticated ourselves and put the Earth to the plow.
With agriculture came surplus and with surplus came new social arrangements. Eventually, we built cities and far-ranging empires to support them. Human beings began buildingcivilization. In doing so we set ourselves and the entire planet onto a new trajectory.
But did anyone ever stop to ask if it was a good idea?
Now before you give in to the easy snort and chortle that accompanies a seemingly absurd question like this, I am going to ask you to take the long view. In this case long means billions of years, and billions of planets.
We don’t want to ask the question: Is civilization good for you (or me)? Instead we want to ask: Is civilization good — in the long term — for planets and their capacity to support life (or at least technologically adept civilizations)?
In other words, we want to frame the question of sustainability in an astrobiological setting. (more…)
[AUDIO] CBC RADIO’S QUIRKS AND QUARKS DISCUSSES THE HUMAN POPULATION REACHING 7 BILLION, HOW IT HAPPENED, WHAT IT MEANS, AND WHY WE SHOULD CARE
The United Nations estimates that on October 31st, the world’s population will reach 7 billion. Although the actual number is not certain, it does underlie the fact that our population is growing at an alarming rate. It took until the early 1800′s to reach the 1 billion mark, but the last 50 years alone have seen the births of 4 of the total 7 billion This rapid increase raises the question, how many more people can the earth sustain? Or have we already surpassed the earth’s capacity? Among the many people asking questions like this are Dr. Madeline Weld, President of the Ottawa-based Population Institute of Canada, and Robert Engelman, President of The Worldwatch Institute in Washington. They discuss how various factors – including access to contraception, the empowerment of women, poverty, consumerism, and the environment – apply to our population growth, now and in the future.
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_________RUDHROISM
“Be afraid, be very afraid…” I love this–I have thought about so much of what they discuss in this two person interview. Oil, a non-renewable resource has allowed us to “over-shoot” where we as humanity really oughtta be today. The ‘stlen’ or ‘free’ energy boost since the 1850s. The unsustainable industrialized production of foods such as corn. The inefficient production of meat. The fact that cultures have not changed, yet babies no longer die. Cultures dictated that a “real man” or a “real woman” reproduce at a rate much higher than necessary for population replacement. But this was so when if you had 8 children, 5 perhaps were not expected to reach reproductive age. Today all 8 will make it, and in turn produce 8 of their own children due to cultural memes such as religion which dictate that this is the ONLY WAY.
So many have disagreed with me. So many have called me simplistic to point to the growth of population as the REAL problem and climate change as merely a symptom. But it is in no way ‘Malthusian’ to ask, what is the POINT of ‘conservation’, ‘kyoto protocols’, ‘environmental awareness campaigns’ etc etc etc, if EVEN IF we maintain 1990 levels of pollution, carbon consumption, garbage, the number of showers a human takes, and how many times a toilet is flushed per day–thus water use…the food one eats and from whence it originates, IF?
There are 10 Billion, 20 Billion, or 100 Billion humans?
This is not an irrational observation, though I have been told it is. This is not a simple minded, non-intellectual, comment.
This is about the Tragedy of the Commons. This is about witnessing the growth of certain cities, such as Calcutta, Shanghai, Lagos, Mexico City, Tokyo etc and seeing that for a given level of infrastructure, from trains, buses, roads, all the way to the farming lands that feed and the water basins that provide potable water to these megalopoli–only a certain number of people can enjoy them before it all becomes a hellish experience of the scarcity of resources writ large, on a daily basis. No room for your child in school, no electricity, no water, no fresh fruits and vegetables, no room on the road for your car, no sufficient public services of any kind.
I have been told that life and economics is not like this, as eventually all people reduce their fertility rates when they reach a standard level of income. I actually have a minor in Economics and have studied a variety of theories on developmental economics. So I am not speaking from ignorance or ‘a little learning is a dangerous thing’. Listen to what is stated as ‘the scientifically sustainable human population’ in the audio link above.
I’d also recommend listening to Robert Wright’s Massey lectures on his book (or reading the book itself) called ‘The Short History of Progress’–where he shows that human history is filled with groups of humans not paying heed to the natural feedback loops of nature. We are a part of nature. And it frustrates me to no end, when humans in 2011 deny the unity that is humanity. There are no more ‘groups’–we are all one group, and are aware of this, in some respects yet not others.
We are all one. It doesn’t MATTER if you live in Edmonton, Mexico City or Calcutta. It doesn’t MATTER what your last name is, what religion you’ve been handed down or converted into and what this meme teaches you. There are basic facts about the sustainability of the human earthling population.
If you add to the population, it affects the whole world. But I don’t think humanity is yet ready to understand that we are indeed one.
THE EARTH AS VIEWED FROM A SPACECRAFT ON ITS WAY TO JUPITER
“Earth (on the left) and the moon (on the right) as seen by NASA’s Juno spacecraft on Aug. 26, 2011, when the spacecraft was about 6 million miles (9.66 million km) away. The photo was taken by the spacecraft’s onboard camera, JunoCam.” – NASA
Somewhere out there in the vast nothingness of space,
Somewhere far away in space and time,
Staring upward at the gleaming stars in the obsidian sky,
We’re marooned on a small island, in an endless sea
Confined to a tiny spit of sand, unable to escape,
But tonight, on this small planet, on earth
We’re going to rock civilization…
– Lyrics from “Prelude/Slam,” Pendulum
A NASA spacecraft cruising toward Jupiter glanced back and snapped a rare picture of Earth and the moon. Taken last week when Juno was 6,000,000 miles away, the image shows two white dots, one brighter than the other.
The solar-powered Juno blasted off earlier this month on a five-year journey to Jupiter. Though previous craft have visited the giant gas planet, Juno will get closer than ever before, flying within 3,100 miles of the dense cloud tops to learn more about Jupiter’s origins.
The $1.1 billion mission is managed by NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California.
“This is a remarkable sight people get to see all too rarely,” said Juno principal investigator Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute in a statement. “This view of our planet shows how Earth looks from the outside, illustrating a special perspective of our role and place in the universe. We see a humbling yet beautiful view of ourselves.”
–news.discovery.com
““If you’re a typical North American, at the end of a long, stressful day at work, you’re not saying, ‘I can’t wait to get in my car. I would just love to go for a drive.’ It’s much more likely you’ll say, ‘I wish I could go for a walk,’ ” That’s the point at which people run up against what’s called the Marchetti Wall – the psychological barrier against spending more than about an hour getting to work or coming home. The concept is named for a Venetian physicist named Cesare Marchetti, who posited not only that human beings instinctively adjust their lives to avoid travelling more than that amount every day, but that we’ve been doing so since the Neolithic era…”
Cars have ruined our cities, our societies and are relationships–not to mention the more obvious environmental issues. I used to LOVE them…dream about them, yearn for them and have them define my concept of freedom, adulthood and status. I grew up in Edmonton though. Having since driven my last car from Vancouver to Toronto and sold it while it sat unused, cost me parking, insurance and other sundry charges–as I rode my bike or walked in the downtown splendour that is superurban downtown Toronto..I now just view them as moving chambers of internal combustion explosions–whether super new or an old beater: the technology is 150 years old. They are a hassle downtown, and I love that. ”Where do I park?” ”Where’s the gas station?” ”Shit! Another ticket??!!” ”My car’s broken down, I have to repair it for $2500…” “I still can’t find parking!?”
No more for me. And as an Urban Planning Grad Student in 2011, I relish the opportunities awakening in the cities of the world, to go back in time and redesign neighbourhoods and streets for human beings…
To rediscover what Jane Jacobs had referred to as the Ballet of the Streets of her beloved Manhattan. The death of the love affair with the car, is like how smoking is so frowned upon now…a paradigmatic shift is in the works, and as a soon to be professional Urban Planner, I can’t think of a better, practical, more necessary vocation.
Let the War on the Car begin. Let’s rediscover the joys of having Main Streets, not malls, and Eyes on the Street, not eyes in the rearview, and the strengthened Social Capital of familiar faces on the stroll home everyone.
-rudhro
Are we reaching ‘peak car’?
ANITA ELASH
Saturday, Oct. 22, 2011
Anyone who has been stuck in big-city gridlock lately may find this hard to believe, but millions of Westerners are giving up their cars.
Experts say our love affair with the automobile is ending, and that could change much more than how we get around – it presents both an opportunity and an imperative to rethink how we build cities, how governments budget and even the contours of the political landscape.
The most detailed picture of the trend comes from the United States, where the distance driven by Americans per capita each year flatlined at the turn of the century and has been dropping for six years. By last spring, Americans were driving the same distance as they had in 1998. (more…)
Why living downtown has become more attractive
Tony Wong | Sun Oct 09 2011
When Jeff Walker purchased his home a decade ago in downtown Ottawa, environmental sustainability and transportation costs were a big reason.
“I had to sacrifice 20 per cent more space and yet pay 20 per cent more for the home, but I figured it was worth it,” said Walker, who is a vice-president and chief strategy officer at the Canadian Automobile Association. “I think it’s a calculus that many home owners do, especially since transportation in terms of time and money becomes a significant monthly overhead.”
The Toronto Board of Trade says the most pressing issue for the Toronto area is gridlock, costing the region $6 billion annually. A poll conducted for the board released last week says 61 per cent believe traffic congestion is at “crisis proportions.”
According to a Statistics Canada survey released in August, the Greater Toronto Area was once again the worst place to commute in Canada at 33 minutes.
Commute times and gas prices are two very big reasons that some buyers like Walker are avoiding the suburbs, even if they can get a bigger bang for their buck.
According to a recent U.S. based survey of agents by realty firm Coldwell Banker, the high cost of gasoline and long travel times is a major factor in influencing some home purchasing decisions.
Three quarters of agents said the a spike in gas prices influenced their clients’ decisions on where to live. Another 93 per cent said if gas prices continued to rise, more home buyers would choose to live somewhere closer to work.
“There is an implicit price that has to be paid for the length of a commute, whether it is in gas or in time,” said Phil Soper, CEO and president of Royal Lepage Real Estate Services. “The invisible hand of commerce is in the decision making process of urban verses suburban. People get a discount if they live in the suburbs and a premium when they live downtown.”
The 2004 documentary The End Of Suburbia argued that suburban sprawl is unsustainable. And that was when domestic crude was in the $37 range – where it has more than doubled today.
“America took all its post war wealth and invested it into something that has no future,” say the filmmakers.
That same year a study by University of Toronto civil engineering professor Eric Miller concluded that commuting costs and the extra expense of running a larger suburban home often eat into any mortgage savings.
What surprised Miller was that a similarly valued home in the suburbs also ended up costing more to run. That’s because you get more space for the dollar in the 905 compared with the 416.
But more space means higher utilities and maintenance.
The study didn’t include the value of time spent in the car traveling or the environmental impact of more pollution.
“I think the finding was that there is no such thing as cheap land, the further out you go, the more it will cost you,” said Miller. “And that comparison would be even more dramatic today since the cost of gas, cars and parking has gone up since then.” (more…)
[VIDEO] CBC’s Kevin O’Leary to NYT’s Chris Hedges: “You sound like a left wing nutbar”
Kevin O’Leary of CBC’s Dragons’ Den and Shark Tank cultivates the persona of a ruthless truth-teller.
But he came across as a shallow blowhard during an interview on his Lange & O’Leary Exchange show with Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges in New York about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
Hedges, a former New York Times foreign correspondent and prolific author on social issues, sympathizes with the protesters camped on Wall Street. But he might have been forgiven for thinking an interview on Canada’s public TV network would be a little more high-toned.
Instead, O’Leary tore into Hedges, whom he misidentified as a protest organizer, and denigrated the protesters with oft-repeated criticism that they’re unfocused and leaderless.
“They want to reverse the corporate coup that’s taken place in the United States, that’s rendered the citizenry impotent,” Hedges replied.
“You sound like a left-wing nutbar,” O’Leary said.
“I don’t usually appear on shows who descend to character assassination,” said Hedges, clearly surprised by the personal attack but refusing to be baited. “You sound like Fox News.”
He went on to praise the ideas of Canadian thinkers such as John Ralston Saul, and the prudent banking system that helped Canada avoid the 2008 financial crisis that’s one of the motivating forces behind the Wall Street protest.
The “interview” ended civilly and O’Leary’s co-host thanked Hedges “for joining us.”
“It’ll be the last last time,” the former war correspondent replied.
–Yahoo News
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After Religion Fizzles, We’re Stuck With Nietzsche — By Chris Hedges
CHRIS HEDGES: This Time We’re Taking the Whole Planet With Us
"nothing-burger...very weak, low-budget"
O’Leary’s ‘nutbar’ remark breach of policy, CBC ombudsman says
Pedestrian-friendly city should be priority for all
Walkability needs to be an issue for consideration in the suburbs as well
Fact fatigue. I’m suffering from it after three days at the international Walk21 Conference and don’t quite know how to knit it all together.
So, here are some of the things I jotted down during the downtown meeting of 540 planners, physicians, engineers, architects and advocates.
It’s chic to be carless. People are willing to pay more – a lot more – to live in neighbourhoods where they can either walk to every imaginable amenity (including work) or have easy access to transit. Look no further than Yaletown, Coal Harbour, Gastown or most of Vancouver for proof. It’s happening worldwide.
But Daniel Sauter of Zurich’s Urban Mobility Research warned that as richer people crowd into city centres, the poor are pushed to where housing is cheaper in suburban areas that are generally badly served by transit, and often have fewer parks and amenities.
“The more successful we are [in promoting urban walkability], the more crucial it is that we think about the counter-effects of gentrification,” he said. “We have to think about that even as we advocate for improvements. Walkable cities are not just places for the well-to-do and tourists.”
The poor gain the most health benefits from walkable neighbourhoods. Low-income people have the highest rates of heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity, physical inactivity and chronic stress. That’s why British physician William Bird said poor neighbourhoods are most in need of retooling. Recognition of that fact is the primary reason the 2012 Olympic Park is being built in a financially disadvantaged, East London neighbourhood, he noted.
Inactivity accounts for four to six per cent of health care costs in Canada and the United States. That means health care spending could be reduced by five per cent if only people started walking.
350 calories. That’s how many there are in an apple tart or a pizza slice, according to Larry Frank, a professor at University of B.C.’s school of community and regional planning. He said it’s also the amount of energy a cyclist needs to travel about 16 kilometres (10 miles), a walker uses over 5.6 kilometres (3.5 miles), and an automobile needs to go 30 metres (100 feet).
Only 15 per cent of the suburbs are truly walkable and most North American development is suburban. Changing that means creating transit nodes, walking corridors, and increasing density with more infill housing and multifamily housing, according to Alex Taranu of the Council for Canadian Urbanism. But people will only walk if they have a sense of place, he said. That means to be successful, retrofitting the suburbs also means preserving green space (including agricultural fields) as well as heritage buildings. (more…)
[VIDEO] The Bottom of the Ocean is the ‘Holiest’ Place on Earth
Some of these things just look like DNA swimming around…disco ball? Huh?
I used to think what they uncovered in 1909 in the Burgess Shale was out there, but they’re all just super old fossils. These beings are so similar structurally but actually living.
We can actually see life living down there..like pure unadulterated, LIFE. In forms we could only dream of, or contemplate aliens as.
‘Aliens’ already share our space, we just never bothered to look. And they’re not aliens, they’re Earthlings.
I agree with the concept of LIFE.
MUSIC: Dark Angel by Katie Jane Garside
“There is one policy instrument that raises the cost of suburban development without hurting local landowners: Transferable Development Rights (TDR’s). This instrument has been successfully tried in the U.S. and our governments could improve on their experience. TDR’s allow the sale of development rights from a protected area to areas suitable for densification.”
Reducing sprawl doesn’t require a heavy hand
SUMEET GULATI
Friday, April 22, 2011
Our homes and personal vehicles generate a large share of carbon dioxide emissions. Approximately 40 per cent, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
While the government’s ‘One Tonne Challenge’ (2004) did not encourage us to reduce our carbon emissions, the right price might. If we paid for our emissions, we would choose the location of our residences, their size and energy efficiency, and our vehicles appropriately. But pricing carbon, especially for individuals, doesn’t sell in politics. In its absence, we pollute too much. We live in big, energy inefficient residences, far from work and other amenities, and operate large, and sometimes multiple, vehicles.
What is the alternative? (more…)
CHRIS HEDGES: This Time We’re Taking the Whole Planet With Us
“Human beings seem cursed to repeat these cycles of exploitation and collapse. And the greater the extent of the deterioration the less they are able to comprehend what is happening around them. The Earth is littered with the physical remains of human folly and human hubris. We seem condemned as a species to drive ourselves and our societies toward extinction, although this moment appears be the denouement to the whole sad show of settled, civilized life that began some 5,000 years ago. There is nothing left on the planet to seize. We are now spending down the last remnants of our natural capital, including our forests, fossil fuel, air and water.”
[VIDEO] They never taught me about Tree Kangaroos in school. This just made life that much more worth experiencing. How cute.
The hard to reach “plush toys” on Papua New Guineau have been outfitted with “Crittercams” for the first time. The breathtaking treetop footage is already solving tree kangaroo mysteries, researchers say.
There’s a Jungle in Madrid’s Train Station
Petz Scholtus, Barcelona, Spain
May 22, 2007
It seems sustainability and well-being have finally reached non-places such as airports and train stations. We wrote about Madrid’s T4 airport extension with its fabulous bamboo roof that lets natural daylight in. If you travel by train (the treehugger way to go), the Spanish capital doesn’t let you down either.
They decided to grow a jungle in the main train station called Atocha, just down the road from el Prado Museum. (more…)
Paradise saved? GTA growth plans aim to rein in sprawl
Checking sprawl is the fundamental idea behind the province's Places to Grow plan. But planning decisions being made now in cities like Mississauga will determine whether the uprecedented project succeeds.
Phinjo GombuUrban Affairs ReporterFri Jan 14 2011
Smart growth — or outsmarted?
Ontario won international kudos four years ago for Places to Grow, a revolutionary scheme to curb urban sprawl. But it’s the nitty-gritty decisions made in places like Brampton and Markham, often reluctantly, that will show over the next 20 years whether the plan succeeded.
The two communities have taken very different paths toward meeting the goals set out in Places to Grow, a master strategy for managing population growth intelligently and preserving as much green space as possible. (more…)
Why didn’t Indigenous N&S Americans develop technology at the same rates as Indigenous Europeans and Indigenous Asians did?
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–written by Kanien:kaha’ka
“compare natives pre contact with europeans at the same period in history, the 15th century.
europeans got the wheel from the persian culture just as they got gunpowder from the chinese, glass from the sumerians and many other things. north america did not have these other cultures on the same land mass and so was more isolated. (more…)
The 3,000-Mile Oil Change Is Pretty Much History
ALINA TUGEND
September 10, 2010
I STILL remember learning from my father how to carefully remove a dipstick to check the oil level in our cars. It was drilled into me — along with turning off the lights when you left a room and clearing the plates off the table after dinner — that oil needs to be changed every 3,000 miles or so.
I’m not sure what I thought would happen if I didn’t, but I vaguely imagined an unlubricated engine grinding to a halt.
Childhood habits are hard to undo, and that’s often good. To this day, I hate seeing an empty room with the lights on.
But sometimes, we need to throw aside our parents’ good advice. (more…)
Humans should leave earth: Hawking
August 10, 2010
Mary Ormsby
This could be the Canadian Big Bang Theory.
After spending six weeks this summer tootling around Niagara Falls, Stratford and Waterloo, Ont. — creative ground zero for BlackBerry-maker RIM — famed physicist Stephen Hawking says the Earth is doomed and mankind should flee to space. (more…)
