http://www.ucolick.org/~de/Snarf/EthanolScam_Corny.JPG
"DeAnander and Nomad ask what it would mean to take seriously the Other Option — the one that capitalism cannot afford to put on the table, but which humanity cannot afford to keep off the table — the option of contraction, convergence, and demand reduction. What would it really mean to live a "sustainable" lifestyle? What would we have to give up? What hard choices would have to be made? Would we really be "shivering in the dark" as anti-environmentalist propaganda repeatedly asserts? Or could a sustainable level of energy and material consumption be satisfactory — comfortable, amusing, convivial and pleasant enough to keep us happy? After so many decades of the feverish dogwaggery of industrial and finance capitalism, are we even capable any longer of honestly distinguishing want from need? What are the consequences if we cannot learn to do so? How can we go about understanding the true cost of how we live and what it means — for our own future, and for others? How does one even start on an "energy audit" of one's consumption and living habits? How does one deal with the results, if the answer is "It would take 2 Earths for everyone to live the way I live"? What practical steps can we take to make our way of life more negotiable? We'll start a thread at Feral Scholar for further discussion. Below the fold, you'll find the article in full: In the last diary I metaphorically cartooned our civilisation as a hot air balloon losing altitude, with the passengers tossing things overboard — hopefully not each other — to try to gain altitude or at least to soften the inevitable landing. And I asserted that we were going to have to jettison some foundational beliefs of our culture, which — as Jared Diamond reminds us at great length and detail in his Collapse tome — is not easy for a culture to do. Some have literally chosen to commit collective or civilisational suicide rather than toss the baggage." In full: http://www.insurgentamerican.net/2007/07/07/something-to-be-enthusiastic-about-thinking-about-demand-reduction/
