Interesting point, dymo - how many people noticed that last Thursday was the 150th year since the very first production oil well was drilled in Pennsylvania? And despite recent 'deep ocean' finds that are as yet uneconomic to extract, we are still considered to be past 'peak oil'.
The Roman Republic (500 years) and the Roman Empire (1500 yrs; inc eastern Holy Roman Empire) lasted around 2000 years all up and at it's peak under Trajan controlled 6.5million sq km. And it eventually collapsed due to infighting and greed.
In less than 7 generations we have squandered the largest and most useful fossil fuel resource. So much for the Age Of Oil.
Humans are fundamentally 'self-interested' - that is, in the face of diametrically opposed choices we will tend to choose that which we feel is in our 'private' best interests, rather than the interests of the 'common weal'. This almost invariably means 'status quo' - or at best, incremental evolution of society and economic structures.
The problem with that notion is that, as others have mentioned, there are too many people now living on the planet for the remaining resources to afford all of us a 'standard of living' equivalent to our Western mode of consumptive capitalism.
The recent example of the GFC highlights how dangerous our inexplicably intertwined socio-economic relations really are.
That a policy of dangerously risky mortgage lending in the USA could almost bring the entire global economy to a standstill should have provided a wake-up call, but of course, those with a vested interest in maintaining status quo being those capitalists who hold the key to the different modes of production, means that real or significant change did not or has not taken place.
An intereasting comment on birth rates comes from a Kenyan study which identified a clear correlation between the introduction of compulsory primary schooling for all children (M & F) with a decline in birthrate in Kenya. The eventual failure of the compulsory schooling program post-colonial influence has seen it return to its previous rate.
This idea is further strengthened by a similar correlation between decreasing birthrates in Western liberal democracies with higher than average workplace participation by women of child-bearing age, eg: Sweden and Australia.
Add to this mix the now accepted understanding that Napolean's introduction of enforced equitable devolution in rural France has been the cause of the current inability of very-small-holdings to provide more than subsistence or to compete internationally without state subsidies.
Throw in the work being achieved by NGO's and charitable foundations in the developing world in female education and non-tillage organic farming methodologies (see the article on Howard Buffet in Good Weekend today for example).
Take note of the work of Swedish socio-economist Gunnar Myrdal who accurately described the 'naturally occurring' pattern of capitalist development as clusters of smaller nodes of production around larger nodes of capital concentration and the interrelations between them in his core-periphery theory and theory of cumulative causation.
Further add in the concept of decentralisation, pioneered in this country in the seventies by Whitlam, but with the addition of the latest NBN optical broadband technologies, theoretically enabling any office-based enterprise to operate from anywhere in the country (or the world for that matter).
And here's where I am going with these apparently random thoughts:
- educate the kids, it reduces global population to (just barely) 1:1 reproduction
- educate women as this further assists in reducing the population (see above)
- educate all rural communities globally about organic no-dig techniques and sustainable farming practices based on permaculture principles
- provide each jurisdiction with the means to determine the minimum productive unit size of rural landholdings and prevent further devolution by legislation, thus ensuring future generations of rural families with the means to maintain their own production
- apply an active decentralisation policy to (especially) 'big business' with, if necessary, incentives to assist with initial transfers to sustainable but more devolved centres of production - reduce the size and spread of large cities
- link these smaller centres with high-speed rail to reduce necessity for road transport of goods and people
- encourage localised food production around each of these decentralised 'nodes of production' to further limit need for travel of food and goods
And finally, drastically increase finding for innovative enrgy production technologies to reduce gloable dependence on fossil fuels, especially innovations which make these technologies cost-effective in developing nations, assisting them to leapfrog the developmental ladder.
All it would take is political will, the one commodity that, sadly we appear to have in even lesser abundance than our diminishing oil reserves.
Posted Saturday 22 May 2010 @ 8:02:39 am from IP
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