Welcome to the Island Bay World service.This blog provides an introduction to our activities and to our concerns. Below you will find a notice of the regular weekly meeting, a copy of the manifesto, an letter to all MPs and civil leaders by George Preddey, and a flyer which we hand out at other meetings to inform and attract interest.
The world is a big and complex place, and many real limits to human activity are approaching. That is well based on hard science. As the UK chief scientist said recently in a warning to that Government, “we head into a perfect storm in 2030, because all of these things are operating on the same time frame.” So we have a great deal to talk about, and a number of issues are explored on companion sites.
The ersponse of Wellington City Council, refusing to meet us to accept an IBWS Brick Wall World Wrecker Award is found at
http://www.ibwswccaward.blogspot.com/An essay on our philosophy (‘Heroes for our time’) is found at
http://www.ibwsheroes.blogspot.com/A policy statement is found at
http://www.ibwspolicy.blogspot.com/An essay on the global economic crisis and the leisure society is found at
http://ibwseconomics.blogspot.com/Comments on population at
http://www.ibwspopulation.blogspot.com/An essay on A slice of history - one long lifetimeThis world in 1940 - 2040 is found at
http://ibwslifetime.blogspot.com/An essay critical of the Treaty of Waitangi in the law is found at
http://ibwstreaty.blogspot.com/Response by George Preddey to Hon Dr Nick Smith
http://www.ibwsnicksmith.blogspot.com/Letter to The Listener by George Preddey, "Its the stupid economy"
http://www.ibwsletterlistener.blogspot.com/Some comments on peak oil by Austin Brookes at
http://www.ibwspeakoil.blogspot.com/Critical comments on capitalism by Austin Brookes at
http://www.ibwscapitalism.blogspot.com/Musings on the two very different worlds we live in by John Robinson at
http://www.ibwstwoworlds.blogspot.com/Comments on some of the meetings we have attended at
http://www.ibwscomments.blogspot.com/We have copies of two books written by members. These are "Five holocausts" (2001) by Derek Wilson ($25) and "Excess capital" (1989) by John Robinson ($20).
REGULAR MEETINGSThe Lodge, Southern Cross Bar, 39 Abel Smith Street
First Monday of each month from 6 July 2009
From 6.00 p.m. to 7.30 p.m.Drop in at any time to listen in, voice your opinion and exchange information in a lively and open forum. 
This painting by Lois White speaks clearly of our preferred leisure and conserver society, with a focus on security and contentment.
ISLAND BAY WORLD SERVICE
MANIFESTO
Speaking out
The history of life on earth has been a history of interaction between living things and their surroundings . . . Only within the movement of time represented by the present century has one species acquired significant power to alter the nature of the world
Rachel Carson, ‘Silent Spring’ (1962) p. 2
The global environment crisis is, as we say in Tennessee, real as rain, and I cannot stand the thought of leaving my children with a degraded earth and a diminished future
Al Gore, ‘Earth in Balance’ (1992) p.16
Aims
We will publicise the extent of the set of interlocking crises now evident on the world stage and call for adequate action from the public, other environmental groups and government (both local and national). In doing so we will speak where necessary outside the current conventional wisdom with its emphasis on growth and ‘business as usual’.
Preamble
We are as a group joined round a table to share a meal when a call of ‘fire!’ is heard, to be met with general denial, with a response of ‘go away we are busy’. The meal continues uninterrupted. The problem will become truly critical when the fire reaches the dining room – too late to stop its spread.
We repeat the Churchillian experience of calling people to wake to a looming danger while crowds cheer Chamberlain’s “peace in our time” celebration on his return from talking with Hitler.
So we live in two worlds with a split reality. In one world we understand that the world is deeply troubled by human activity, and we read each day of events describing the extent of the current global crisis. In the other, we hear calls for growth – of economies, population, and work – and see large vehicles parked in rows outside the supermarket. One world tells us of a looming oil shortage, the other acclaims V8 Supercar races in city streets, glorifying useless consumption.
The fire which was threatening is now upon us. Those many global problems are no longer a problem for the future, but have become daily experience. Meanwhile denial continues.
We will repeat the efforts of the awake few of previous generations and call for awareness, and action. We will be the ‘think global’ addition to ‘act local’ initiatives, asking others to think of the whole and to ‘walk on two legs’ as complete human beings instead of fiddling while Rome burns around us.
The world in trouble
The world is within a set of interlocking crises. This is not a forecast for a troubling future, but a description of the current reality. Those events are reported daily in the media, and include:
· Climate change is occurring and ice is melting at both poles.
· The price of oil has boomed and shortages can be foreseen as the peak of global oil production passes.
· This is nothing new. When the USA oil production reached its peak in 1970, that set the scene for the subsequent oil price rises, shortages and carless days.
· The war over oil in Iraq is the most recent of the many struggles over oil supplies.
· The world population continues its growth, adding 3 billion (3,000,000,000) each 40 years – from 3 billion in 1960 to 6 billion in 2000 and 9 billion in 2040. The projected failure to feed that number threatens starvation, disease and war.
· Most recently the production of subsidised biofuels has taken land from food production. Food stocks are dwindling, and food prices are soaring.
· The development of China and India, and their efforts to join the over-developed world, put greater strain on finite resources and pollution stains the air of Peking.
The full extent of the crisis now (in 2008) can be understood when we recall that 36 years ago in 1972 “The limits to growth”, a report to the Club of Rome, forecast a series of global crises (leading to possible mass starvation and population collapse) for around 2030 – while failing to take into account the of an oil-based economy, and not knowing of global warming (which became recognised in the 1980s). The situation has become much worse since 1972 and yet we live in a civilization with a continuing fixation on growth – in both population and economic activity. This is a flat earth society, on a world without end, not awake to the finite nature of a spherical planet.
It is too late to stop these trends, and the point of widespread damage has been passed. Sustainable growth is an oxymoron. Indeed a move to sustainability is now impossible, under any reasonable definition of that slippery word. The issue is now survival.
A moral imperative
As Al Gore pointed out in his film “An inconvenient truth”, any decision on the wise use of a finite resource such as fossil fuels, must be based on a moral imperative. The current growth mentality of global capitalism is based such a moral judgement – to use resources as fast as possible, to build a non-sustainable society on a resource base which will soon be gone, and to rob future generations of their share.
We find ourselves living on a finite planet. People have increased in numbers until we now occupy all the space available. The increase in knowledge has led to an economic development which provides a high standard of living for many, but which has now reached the limits of the possible. In that process peoples have changed the surface of the globe and driven many species into extinction. Now a series of species extinctions is happening.
That rule and control bring a responsibility for the well-being of other species as well as other peoples, and that responsibility for the whole is shared by every community of every size - from Island Bay to Wellington city and the nation of New Zealand.
This requires action. As oil is in short supply, we should act to conserve and reduce use at every level. As the world population is far past any sustainable limit, we should act to stabilise and then reduce our numbers. And much more, as growth could be replaced by a stable and caring conserver society
A way forward
Many current statements and activities directed at ‘sustainability’ are little more than displacement activities, quite minimal and out of proportion to the challenge – the only outcome being to act out a concern and assuage anxieties without any real impact on the global crisis.
Since global warming is caused by the use of fossil fuels, the need is to reduce that use considerably – not to take up the displacement activity of trading in carbon credits (where those who were planting trees anyway get an extra income while those who should cut production of greenhouse gases continue business as usual and pass the cost of the credits on to the customer), nor to waste effort on dreaming up a fart tax on cows, or the like. In any case, the cost of oil will go on rising while the availability will be sharply curtailed by both the limits of supply and the efforts of those more powerful than us to get their hands on a dwindling resource. There must be added taxes on larger personal vehicles, requirements of fuel efficiency on new vehicles, carless days and a ban on wasteful use of fuels such as motor races.
The entire world must stabilise and then reduce population to a fraction of its present size. Us too. We must encourage small families and accept childless couples as playing a positive role. Town planning must be based on a preferred population for each area, and not predicated – as now – on a desire for growth.
A debate is urgently needed to develop ideas of a new economic and social philosophy to replace growth-oriented market- based global capitalism, building on those systems which have worked in the past – and in particular the post-war New Zealand mixed economy (which was destroyed in 1984).
Since that debate was lively in the 1970s, we may reach back to the ideas of that era. When new technologies were improving so rapidly, many thinkers imagined a shorter working week, making good use of the improved efficiencies. Why did that not happen? A leisure society, a conserver society, is possible. In so many ways, a society of reduced consumption, without the pressures of growth in population and consumption, will be a better place to live in, with the emphasis on quality of life and equality of material wealth. That is our moral society.
Our actions must be forthright to capture the attention of a public bombarded with calls to consume and borrow, told to live selfishly with no thought for tomorrow or understanding of where we have been heading. We intend the radical, challenging voice that is needed to stir up discussion on issues like population control and to take a quite hard-line approach on issues. We will stimulate the required debate and build a blueprint for survival in the coming decades of global stress.
- END -
Global Economic Crisis:
could it ameliorate the current mass extinction event and coming human cull?
George Preddey PhD
Toitu te marae a Tangaroa, toitu te marae a Tane, toitu te Iwi.
The Global Economic Crisis (GEC), currently causing significant human distress and perplexing politicians and economists, may be the harbinger of much worse to come by the middle of this century. It may also offer a last chance for humans.
THE EARTH is 4.567 billion years old. The first life appeared about 3.5 billion years as single-celled anaerobes that evolved an ability to release oxygen by photosynthesis. Unfortunately for them, an oxygen-rich atmosphere was toxic and most became extinct.
This first Mass Extinction Event (MEE) allowed single-celled oxygen-breathing aerobes to dominate Earth’s biosphere for the next 2.3 billion years. About 530 million years ago, evolution accelerated and complex multi-cellular plants and animals suddenly appeared.
Since then, life on Earth has experienced six subsequent MEEs attributed to various causes including climate change. The fifth, penultimate MEE is attributed to an asteroid impact 65 million years near current Mexico that ended the dinosaur era but allowed mammals to emerge. Just 0.16 million years ago (0.0035 percent of the Earth’s age), anatomically modern humans emerged in current Ethiopia.
THE CURRENT MEE is attributed to humans. It is predicted to mark the extinction of one-half of all living species within 100 years, testimony to greed and human inventiveness in environmental destruction and to anthropogenic global warming. The consensus among scientists represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is for anthropogenic global warming of 2 - 6°C this century.
“Earth 2099: population crashes, mass migration, vast new deserts, cities abandoned” may read like promotion for a disaster movie, but appeared on the cover of New Scientist (28 February 2009). Science warns that a warmer earth isn’t just “an inconvenient truth”: all of Africa and China and most of Europe, the US, and Australia will be uninhabitable - too hot or dry to sustain human populations.
These dire consequences are predicted if the Earth warms by IPCC’s mid-range prediction of 4°C - possibly as soon as 2050. A recent conference of 2,500 climate scientists in Copenhagen delivered a strong message to politicians: “act now or face climate catastrophe” (The Guardian Weekly, 20-26 March 2009). Such uncharacteristic activism by climate scientists is not unreasonable, since their recent observations show that global warming is happening even faster than IPCC’s worst-case scenarios.
OF PARTICULAR CONCERN are the instability of Earth’s polar icecaps (and associated sea level rises) and “runaway” global warming driven by a positive feedback loop between melting permafrost/methane hydrates and methane release - potentially capable of increasing mean global temperature by 10°C (New Scientist, 28 March 2009. p32).
President Obama does not require convincing: “The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Delay is no longer an option. Denial is no longer an acceptable response” (New Scientist, 20/27 December 2008. p30).
THE GREATEST THREAT to life on Earth since the asteroid MEE 65 million years ago is human economic growth (including population growth). Politicians and economists see no limits to economic growth despite strong warnings from scientists that it threatens life on Earth (New Scientist, 18 October 2008. pp40-54).
Economic growth is driving air pollution (acid rain), oceanic and fresh water pollution (dead zones), resource depletion (oil, topsoil, fisheries, artesian water), deforestation, expanding deserts, coral reef bleaching, ozone depletion, rising sea levels, and, unsurprisingly, the current MEE. Climate change is implicated in many of these calamities.
There is growing evidence that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as the global economy depends on continuing economic growth to avoid recession or depression. Science warns that to be serious about saving Earth, humans must substantially reshape the global economy.
Easter Island provides an insight into what may lie ahead. During the late 18th century, humans cut down the forests and drove many plants and animals to extinction. A complex society spiraled into cannibalism and near-extinction. New Zealand scientists are investigating whether the cull happened because humans overshot the capacity of the island’s degraded soils to sustain them.
LIMITS TO GROWTH (hereafter LTG) was published in 1972 by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. LTG presents computer models of a future Earth that simulate five global concerns: accelerating industrialisation, rapid population growth, widespread malnutrition, resource depletion, and a deteriorating environment. The conclusions of LTG’s business-as-usual model are that:
[a] the limits to growth will be reached sometime mid-century if present growth continues;
[b] the probable consequences will be sudden, uncontrollable collapses in population and industrial capacity;
[c] limiting growth to achieve sustainability will be very difficult but not impossible;
[d] limiting growth will require long-term goals and commitment;
[e] without these, opportunism will drive growth to the limits of Earth and catastrophic collapse sometime mid-century;
[f] with these, humans could begin a transition to a sustainable future.
Unsurprisingly, LTG was attacked by politicians and misrepresented by economists for whom economic growth is axiomatic. That a collapse didn’t happen around 2000 was used to denigrate LTG, even although collapse at this time wasn’t a prediction. In a 1992 update of LTG, the authors concluded that humans have already overshot the limits of Earth.
THIS IS PURE HERESY for politicians and economists, for whom growth is as essential as the oxygen-rich atmosphere they breathe as aerobes. They claim it is the only way to lift the poor out of poverty, feed a growing population, and fund increasingly expensive lifestyles.
These claims are disingenuous. Growing the global economy in response to a financial crisis caused by excessive greed and consumption in the over-developed world is irrational. Converting food into vehicle fuels while there is famine in the under-developed world is unconscionable. The trickle-down argument that economic growth eradicates poverty is self-serving and fallacious.
Whereas the under-developed world has unmet needs, the over-developed world has over-met wants – and the disparity is growing. Through consumerism, the over-developed world confuses needs with wants. Children educated by Dr Seuss (The Lorax) will understand this. Vast marketing sectors in over-developed world economies exist to create confusion and increase consumption.
The New Zealand Minister of Finance, Hon Bill English, promised on 23 January 2009 that “in these tough economic times … the (National) government will implement a credible medium to long term economic plan that will raise New Zealander’s incomes and achieve sustainable economic growth.” The Minister is promising more consumption.
LTG CONCLUDES that sustainable economic growth promoted by politicians and economists is an oxymoron, albeit expressed in the language of science. Physicists familiar with closed systems would consider this conclusion self-evident, as would biologists familiar with bacterial growth in finite petri dishes. Evidently economists are scientific illiterates.
Standard scientific practice is to collect data by observation and develop a mathematical model that fits that data. The model can then be used to study trends and predict future outcomes. LTG followed this practice using the data available in 1972.
A model’s validity can be tested by comparing predicted outcomes with actual outcomes revealed by more recent observation. In 2008 the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) conducted this test on LTG.
THE CSIRO ANALYSIS SHOWS that LTG’s business-as-usual predicted outcomes in 1972 accurately track actual outcomes as determined in 2008. In essence, LTG withstood re-calibration by CSIRO (hardly a radical organisation) after 37 years. Its predictions are accordingly more credible.
LTG’s business-as-usual model predicts a dramatic decline in global population beyond 2027 to one-half of the current population, a substantial increase in crude death rates beyond 2018, and a substantial decrease in food per capita beyond 2013. Although detailed time-scales should be treated cautiously, a “coming human cull” is an apt description of predicted business-as-usual outcomes.
SOME REPUTABLE SCIENTISTS are more pessimistic. The Astronomer Royal, Lord Martin Rees, predicted in 2004 that “this century will be mankind's last”, a chilling assessment from a respected member of the science establishment.
James Lovelock, architect of the Gaia hypothesis (that life on Earth moderates physical and chemical processes through complex interactions allowing the biosphere to exist) predicts a 90% cull of humans around mid-century. His previous work on man-made CFCs contributed to a global ban on these ozone-destroying chemicals, saving humans from lethal sunburn.
The ozone layer will take centuries to recover from human depletion. Carbon dioxide released by humans will persist in the atmosphere for tens of thousands of years. Anthropogenic global warming has very long-term implications. Accordingly, immediate and substantial reductions in carbon emissions are critical.
A STEADY-STATE ECONOMY is required to avert catastrophic collapse rather than an exponentially growing economy. It is a radical concept but the alternative – an economy structurally required to grow beyond Earth’s ability to sustain it - is irrational. That hasn’t discouraged politicians and economists from promoting the alternative.
LTG’s prediction [c] - that deliberately limiting growth to achieve sustainability will be very difficult but not impossible - may require reconsideration. The GEC has inadvertently created a quasi steady-state (zero growth) economy by financial mismanagement and greed, albeit in a highly unsatisfactory form. It is not yet, in the words of George W Bush, “mission accomplished”.
Inadvertently the GEC provides an opportunity to begin the required transition. It is easier to escape from a car while it is stationary than while it is accelerating towards a cliff.
Human lifestyles in over-developed countries are embedded in a socio-economic system addicted to over-employment. Many jobs represent excessive human activity that, sustained by fossil fuels, produces unnecessary products to meet excessive wants.
ECONOMICS HAS NO ANSWERS to the current GEC other than business-as-usual wrong ones. Central banks stimulate economies and growth by reducing their Official Cash Rates (OCRs) used to regulate money supply. Since borrowers cannot be paid to borrow, OCRs cannot have negative values. Major economies in severe recession currently have OCRs only fractionally above zero.
More drastic responses to the GEC include stimulus packages – injections of trillions of dollars of credit (public money) into a collapsed financial system. These injections have not yet resuscitated (unsustainable) economic growth, load massive debt onto future generations, and reward the greedy and profligate.
FEATURES OF A STEADY-STATE ECONOMY are beyond the scope of this submission other than noting it would be carbon-neutral (or better), have sustainable inputs from renewable resources or recycling, and have outputs (goods, services, and wastes) that didn’t increase environmental degradation.
As a thought experiment, a globally-mandated 20-hour working week would halve carbon emissions immediately (New Scientist, 14 March 2009. p24), save the Earth from irreversible global warming, help distinguish wants from needs, and address unemployment - not a bad start. Paradoxically, it would be easier to implement in under-developed countries where there is endemic under-employment than in over-developed countries where there is endemic over-employment reflected by a work-life imbalance. Indeed, switching from a work-dominated and materially-encumbered lifestyle to a more sustainable lifestyle in which people work, produce, and consume less may actually increase human happiness (New Scientist, 18 October 2008. p54).
A more measured response would be to make the current steady-state economy more equitable for its participants. Some proposals from the recent New Zealand “Jobs Summit” would facilitate this response (e.g. a nine-day fortnight, albeit intended to provide temporary respite until sustainable (sic) economic growth resumes.) The difference between a nine-day fortnight and a globally-mandated 20-hour working week is one of degree. Reiterating, to be serious about saving Earth, humans must substantially reshape the global economy (see above).
THE AGE OF STUPID is a 2008 film about climate change. Its central character living alone in the devastated world of 2055 looks at film footage of 2008 and laments why climate change wasn’t stopped. Despite stern warnings of concerned scientists, the actions of many political leaders indicate they are uninformed or in denial about the limits to growth and its consequences including climate change.
For example, the new National government in its first 100 days in office repealed the outgoing Labour government’s 10-year moratorium on new base-load fossil-fuelled power stations. At a more local level, Wellington City Council in April 2009 abandoned its plan to become carbon-neutral by 2012 - offering short-term savings for ratepayers at who knows what real cost. National’s and Wellington City Council’s responses to the threat of climate change show both organisations are firmly in the “Age of Stupid”.
THE FUTURE OF HUMAN CIVILISATION cannot be taken for granted, science warns. Humans have lived on Earth for just 0.0035 percent of its history, yet are driving a mass extinction event and accelerating towards catastrophe. Informed advice from scientists - not growth-obsessed economists – is essential for averting catastrophe, yet is virtually impossible whilst New Zealand’s science outputs are decided by bureaucrats.
Meanwhile humans, including government and business, continue to plan for a business-as-usual future, oblivious to the dire predictions of concerned scientists for mid-century. Politicians are customarily more focused on removing constraints to growth than on ensuring the long-term survival of a viable economy.
There are four requirements for averting catastrophe (if that is still possible):
[1] immediate and substantial global reductions in carbon emissions;
[2] acceptance that growth mandated by economics will lead to catastrophic collapse;
[3] a long term goal and global political commitment to limit growth and its consequences;
[4] an acceptance by the over-developed countries that unfettered consumerism driven by the deliberate confusion of wants with needs is unsustainable on a finite Earth.
Perhaps the global economic crisis offers a last chance for humans? Could it ameliorate the current mass extinction event, or are most humans destined to be part of it?
