Relocalization: A Strategic Response
to Peak Oil and Climate Change
by Jason Bradford, PhD Biology on 23 May 2007
Introduction
Here are a few of my predictions: Many trends of the last century or
more, made possible by cheap and abundant energy sources, are going to
be reversed. These trends include population growth, centralization of
political and economic power, vastly increased quantity of global
trade, and mass tourism.
I am not giving dates of when these indicators of a shift from global
to the more local will occur, except to say sometime during the 21st
century, likely during the first half even. My initial point of view is
not from any particular group with a political or social agenda, but as
a scientist who makes deductions based on the laws of physics and
ecology.
However, information from the natural world does eventually have
political and policy implications that I am aware of, and have opinions
about. The ability of a culture to accept information and respond
timely and rationally will likely hinge on the entrenched mindsets of
the populace, institutional norms, and their ability to willingly
change expectations, organizational structures, and behaviors. Perhaps
with prudent planning, measures of quality of life or conditions of
happiness may not decline.
People may
be scared or shocked and depressed by predictions of change that could
lead to environmental and social disruption, but for the most part I
see indifference, and that is more concerning. How people respond
emotionally to facts and deductions is important too, but ultimately if
people and institutions are unable or unwilling to accept information
because it makes them feel badly or goes against current norms then
positive change is not possible. The greatest hope, in my opinion,
rests in the ability to honestly accept the reality of a difficult
situation and then make the best of it before it becomes a crisis.
This is why I want to draw attention towards a global movement forming
to challenge the existing economic and political systems in light of
energy constraints, threats from pollution, degradation of ecosystems,
the social costs of mass consumerism, and a living arrangement designed
around automobiles. I am referring to the strategy of “relocalization”
as promoted by the Post Carbon Institute, a think tank, media outlet,
and networking and support organization for local citizens’ groups
around the world.i The crises we face require altering some of the
basic operating assumptions of global consumer culture, politics and
finance.
Relocalization may be a new term, but conceptually it has long roots.
Some related recent precursors include E.F. Schumacherii, Ted
Traineriii, Garrett Hardin,iv and Wendell Berryv as well as what are
called the “anti-globalization” movement, the “slow food” movement, the
“voluntary simplicity” movement, the “back to the land” movement, “new
urbanism,” and the “environmental movement.” In general, common themes
include decentralization of political and economic structures, less
material consumption and pollution, a focus on the quality of
relationships, culture and the environment as sources of fulfillment,
and downscaling of infrastructural development.
Purpose
This paper will describe relocalization (also sometimes referred to by
the related but not always identical terms “economic localization” or
simply “localization”vi) by contrasting it with what we have now. It is
crucial to understand the basic assumptions of our current economic and
social arrangements, and to develop a new set of premises for guidance.
I will argue that the premises behind relocalization are sound, being
grounded in good science and common sense. By contrast, the assumptions
of most dominant economic and social models only hold for a short
historic period and have led to our current environmental and resource
predicaments. Many proponents of current economic policies may be well
intended, but often we end up with unsound rationalizations to justify
short-term, often individual interests. What has been lost is a sense
of the common good, future generations’ needs, and non-human welfare.
The case for relocalization will be made in the context of responding
sensibly to two problems facing societies right now: climate change and
peak oil and gas. Both problems are a result of our dependency on
fossil fuels, but some solutions to one will only exacerbate the other.
This is why a new approach, that of relocalization, is necessary.
Relocalization is based on a systems approach that doesn’t solve one set of problems only to make another problem worse.
Ecological Economics
During the era of cheap energy, which roughly corresponds to the entire
20th century, the study of economics became divorced from an
understanding of how human systems are connected to systems of
planetary ecology. Not surprisingly, the nearly free energy available
from fossil fuels, and the rapid technological advances they fostered,
made people in modern industrial societies believe they were no longer
constrained by tangibles like food, energy, water, and the weather. We
are now entering an age of disillusionment. The hubris of our recent
past is being revealed and many are searching for a more honest and
realistic reckoning of our place on Earth.
A helpful place to look for such honesty is the discipline called
Ecological Economics.vii A conceptual model based on Ecological
Economics is useful both to comprehend the current economic system and
its vulnerabilities, and to guide the development of a sustainable
alternative.
Predominant economic thinking usually distorts or fails to fully
understand the fundamental interconnectedness of “the economy” and “the
environment.” In recent decades economists have begun to give more
attention to the environmental or ecological dimensions of human
productive activity. But even so, their formulations are typically
partial or misguided from a vantage point that takes the global
environment seriously.
For example, in discussions of sustainability, the relationship between
the economy and the natural environment is often framed as a “balance.”
This connotes the idea that somehow more of the economy means more of
the environment too. After all, if two things are in balance, they are
of equal weight. But any empirical study of what economic growth means
today discovers that it intrudes on the environmentviii Wealthy and
purportedly environmentally-responsible nations are sometimes touted as
examples of how economic growth and stewardship of the planet go hand
in hand.ix However, while local measures of air quality, forest cover,
and water cleanliness may be high, the damage is simply occurring
elsewhere. All wealthy nations are importers of much of their
environmental carrying capacity, whether it is raw materials or
finished industrial products, and these imports are possible because of
fossil fuels used to mine, harvest, manufacture and transport goods.
Wealthy nations protect their own environment while outsourcing the
harm caused by over consumption to other places.
In the Ecological Economics model, the Human Economy is a subset of the
Earth System, and therefore the scale of the Human Economy is
ultimately limited. The Human Economy depends upon the throughput or
flow of materials from and back into the Earth System. Just pick up any
trinket in your possession and ask: What is it made of? Where did these
materials come from? How much energy was used? What happens to the
waste products?x Limits to the size of the Human Economy are imposed by
the interactions among three related natural processes:
The capacity of the Earth System to supply inputs to the Human Economy (Sources)
The capacity of the Earth System to tolerate and process wastes from the Human Economy (Sinks)
Feedbacks caused by too much pollution
For example, mining coal makes available a “source” of energy for
industry that produces pollution, including sulfur dioxide, which
causes acid rain. Too much acid rain degrades built infrastructure, and
overwhelms the capacity of natural “sinks” such as forests, killing
them or slowing their growth. This damage to forests not only affects
our ability to use them for lumber. The loss of highly functioning
ecosystems also creates new costs to society that were previously done
“free of charge” through ecological processes. Air and water filtering,
climate stabilization, and species interactions that moderate outbreaks
of pests and disease are all “ecosystem services” that are compromised
when we damage those ecosystems. Now, instead of benefiting from free
ecosystem services, the human economy must provide these services
itself through expensive technologies such as pollution control
devices, flood control walls and canals, pesticides and medicines, and
so on.
The current Human Economy is clearly unsustainable because it relies
heavily on non-renewable raw material sources, the use of which
produces tremendous pollution, leading to many negative feedbacks that
impair ecosystems and disrupt climate. In contrast, a sustainable
economy would need to run on the income from solar energy and not
degrade ecosystems through the build up of wastes or the mining of
nutrients.
This model can also be understood in the classical terms of different
forms of capital. The Earth System can be viewed as the Natural Capital
and all other forms of capital are nested within and dependent upon it.
Population can be thought of as Human Capital, referring not just to
population size, but also to people’s education, skill sets, norms,
standards and laws. Industry can be more broadly thought of as the tool
sets people use, including their homes and transportation networks,
which are also known as Built Capital. Ecological Economics views Human
Capital and Built Capital as subsets of Natural Capital. Furthermore,
these different forms of capital cannot easily be substituted for one
another but are instead complimentary.
In the common framework of what is called neoclassical economics (think
of Alan Greenspan), these different forms of capital are viewed as
potential substitutes for one another. With this line of thinking, less
Natural Capital is not so bad as long as you have plenty of Built
Capital and/or Human Capital. These different forms of capital are
called “factors of production.” Production can remain high and Natural
Capital can be exhausted as long as enough Built and Human Capital are
around. Of course, at its theoretical extreme this would result in a
rather absurd world: cars and drivers with no gas, ovens, kitchen
utensils and cooks with no food, and chair lifts, ski instructors and
season passes with no snow.
Relocalization
is based on an ethic of protecting the Earth System--or Natural
Capital-- knowing that despite our cleverness, human well-being is
fundamentally derived from the ecological and geological richness of
Earth.
Overshoot
If the scale of the Human Economy is too large relative to the Earth
System, the Human Economy is in a state of overshoot. This means that
the environmental load of humanity on the planet is greater than the
long-term ability of the planet to support it. Overshoot means we are
above carrying capacity. This environmental load will eventually be
reduced through declines in some combination of population, resource
consumption and pollution. Either we tactfully manage to reduce our
environmental load, or resource constraints and pollution will limit it
for us unpleasantly.xii
The concept of overshoot can be confusing. You may ask: How can a
population go beyond the carrying capacity of the environment to
support it? Won’t a population simply increase until it reaches
carrying capacity and then stabilize? Isn’t the human population
projected to stabilize this century? Sophisticated modeling of
resource, pollution, and consumption dynamics provides answers to these
questions that support the reality of overshoot.
Human demographic models of population show a plateau this century,
whereas systems models show a decline. The difference exists because
human demographic models do not include negative feedbacks from either
resource scarcity or pollution, whereas systems models do.
Population biology is the science of how population size changes due to
factors such as mating patterns, resource availability, environmental
quality, and interactions with other species, such as disease,
competition and predation. Homo sapiens can be studied and modeled just
like any other species with respect to these factors, though the high
variance among people with respect to consumption and waste amounts
complicates the analysis.
Population overshoot happens in a few different ways:
1. Resource windfall and drawdown,
2. Release from negative species interactions,
3. Demographic momentum, and
4. Fluctuating carrying capacity
These mechanisms of overshoot are not exclusive, and in fact, they can
feed positively on one another. Here is one example of how these
mechanisms have interacted (1-3) using the current human population,
and what the results may be sometime this century (4):
1.
People discovered a dense and versatile energy source with fossil
fuels, especially oil. The use of fossil energy freed up resources,
especially land and labor. Without the need to feed draft animals to
power equipment, more land was available to grow food for humans.
2. With fossil-fuel powered equipment, fewer humans were needed for
manual labor, enabling extended educational opportunities and a shift
of resources into fields such as public health and medicine. Increased
attention to public health and medicine, and corresponding technologies
like vaccines, antibiotics and sanitation, increased human life
expectancy.
3. A rapid increase in the human population led to a surge in the
number of people within the reproductive window of life, who then
reproduced also, leading to an even larger population.
4. As this population became very large it began to impact the world
around it substantially. Toxic emissions built up that harmed the basic
life support systems humans depend on, eventually making it more and
more difficult to provide essentials, such as food. As food production
declined, so too did the population.
Experts in the field of human demography project that the human
population will stabilize around the middle of the 21st century.xiii
Most people accept this analysis from population experts without
knowing the underlying assumptions. Unfortunately, most studies of
human population are akin to most studies of the human economy. The
broader environment is not factored into models of growth. If you have
ever asked yourself, “How are we going to feed 9 billion people when
the soils are eroding, the aquifers are depleting, the climate is
changing, deserts are expanding and oil and natural gas are going to be
in short supply?” then you have stumbled upon this disconnect between
most human population models and the physical world. Biologists
studying any population would include those environmental factors in
their models, whereas human demographers do not.
However, models exist that do incorporate the human population and our
well-being into a dynamic study of resource availability, pollution
levels and even climate change and the fate of ecosystems. The classic
example is the World3 model developed by the authors of “Limits to
Growth,” where the baseline scenario shows human population declining
after 2020.xiv Another model is GUMBO from the University of Vermont’s
Gund Institute of Ecological Economics.xv These models are not perfect,
and are not presented as predictions, but they at least begin with the
right premises and tell us what to be careful about.
Relocalization
starts from the premise that the world is a finite place and that
humanity is in a state of overshoot. Perpetual growth of the economy
and the population is neither possible nor desirable. It is wise to
start planning now for a world with less available energy, not more.
Peak Oil and Implications for a Transportation-Dependent Economy
Much of the relocalization movement was sparked by concerns about “peak oil.”xvi
Petroleum is a fossil fuel derived primarily from ancient deposits of
dead algae and so is in essence “ancient sunlight.” The age of oil
deposits can be determined from analysis of decaying radioactive
isotopes and most are 10’s to 100’s of millions of years old. The
biological origin of fossil fuels is clear from its association with
“fossils” and the ubiquity of certain kinds of carbon chains.
Given that oil is finite, then at some point in time less is going to
be available to us than in the past. That is the meaning of peak oil.
It doesn’t mean oil “runs out,” but it does mean the cheap and easy oil
is gone, and that what remains is more costly to produce, both
energetically and financially, and is extracted at a progressively
slower rate. The rate of decline of oil after peak is difficult to
predict, but scenarios range from 1% to 8% per year. The peak may be
somewhat “flat” (a plateau), giving a slow initial decline, which
accelerates over time towards the higher end of the depletion rate
range. How human societies respond to the post-peak environment will
likely be as important a factor as geology in determining what is
available to societies. Do we cooperate or fight over dwindling
resources like cats in a sack?
Going back to the Ecological Economics model, peak oil is a “source”
issue. Several source problems face the human economy, including peak
natural gasxvii and peak water. Greater expansion of the human economy
requires greater inputs, and, aside from the ecosystem services
provided by nature, oil is probably the single most important economic
resource on the planet.
Oil is critical for at least two reasons: energy density and versatility.
The energy output of a single person doing manual labor over a period
of days gives about 200-300 British Thermal Units (btus) per hour. A
single gallon of gasoline contains about 150,000 btus of potential
energy, roughly equivalent to 500 to 750 hours of hard human
labor.xviii The energy density of oil has not simply permitted a life
of leisure and travel for those with access to it—it has in fact
greatly expanded the short-term carrying capacity of the human
population. By harnessing the energy of oil (and other fossil fuels),
our species has been able to out compete others for space and
resources. The expansion of industrial agriculture and “green
revolution” technologies are based on oil and natural gas feed stocks
and energy. Construction of large dams, water diversion systems, and
pumps for ground water and water delivery to fields and cities depend
upon plentiful fuel. Land, water and other resources that in the past
had been available to a diversity of species are being funneled towards
the appetite of one—hence the biodiversity crisis.
Oil is versatile because it is a liquid, making it is easier to extract
and transport than coal and natural gas. Oil is more readily available
as a fuel for a global market because it can be put into pipelines and
tankers without requiring special treatment. Natural gas, by contrast,
needs to be cooled and pressurized for tanker travel, and coal needs to
be pulverized into slurry to be piped, or put on freight cars or barges
for long-distance transport.
Because oil can be delivered anywhere, modern transportation systems
have become reliant on it. A few buses and cars use natural gas, and
some trains run on electricity, but the vast majority of transportation
applications on the planet, over 90%, use oil in the form of gasoline,
diesel or kerosene (jet fuel).
Consequently, modern economies are extremely vulnerable to shortages in transportation fuels for a few reasons.
The relative stability of the oil market over the past several decades
has led to the development of “just-in-time” delivery of products, and
commercial linkages across the globe. Local and regional warehouses are
uncommon now, with stores and businesses relying on frequent shipments
to maintain a low overhead. Before the era of cheap transportation,
each town and city had a full complement of craftspeople who relied on
each other. Nowadays, businesses are connected through vast
transportation networks, with a manufacturing company in California,
for example, relying on components shipped in from Asia and Europe.
The food economy is perhaps the finest example of the insecurity that
is now bred into normal societal infrastructures. Markets selling food
are typically restocked daily with only a few days supply available in
the store, leading many people concerned about peak oil to reason: no
fuel, no trucks; no trucks, no food. The shifts in agricultural
practices over the past thirty to forty years make it difficult to
quickly switch to a less transportation-intensive food system. Many
agricultural regions are overly specialized to serve global markets.
For example, a place where fifty years ago granaries, dairies,
vegetable farms and ranches coexisted is now dominated by premium wine
grapes.
As modern economies have become addicted to oil, they now find themselves in an ecological trap.
Cheap petroleum-fueled transportation has increased the geographic
range over which economies can import resources not available locally,
a phenomenon called “scope enlargement.” The beneficiaries of scope
enlargement were able to increase local carrying capacities by
overcoming the limitations of local ecologies. Unfortunately, this
situation now makes us very vulnerable since a fundamental concept of
ecology is Liebigs Law of the Minimum, which states that the growth of
a population will be limited by whatever single factor of production is
in short supply, not the total amount of resources. The expression “for
the want of a nail” captures Liebigs Law, and is exemplified
historically by the practice of 19th century nations importing guano
from South America and Pacific islands to shore up local agriculture.
Potential shortages of guano supplies were supplanted in the 20th
century by fossil-fuel based fertilizers. Some argue that our economy
has a nearly unlimited ability to find substitutes for scarce
resources, like fertile soil. More realistically, for many resources no
substitutes exist. As an obvious example, living beings require a
certain proportion of mineral nutrients to thrive. We can’t substitute
elemental phosphorus for some other atom in the DNA structure of
bacteria, fungi, plants and animals--no matter how much Human Capital
we have. Nothing can replace simple water either.
Cheap energy makes adaptation to resource scarcity possible, by pumping
water from deeper wells or extracting nitrogen out of the air, for
example, but expensive energy can make substitutions unworkable.
Because oil possesses a unique combination of attributes, finding
suitable substitutes is no easy task. Current products such as ethanol,
biodiesel and hydrogen are under consideration to wean us from
polluting and increasingly scare oil. However, nearly all of these fail
the test of Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROEI).xix For an
energy source to be useful to society, it must deliver more energy than
it takes to find, harvest and distribute the source. Our economies have
become addicted to energy sources like oil with EROEIs of 100:1 to
20:1, whereas biofuels, tar sands, and many renewable energy
technologies range from about 10:1 to 1:1 or less. If a fuel has an
EROEI of 1:1 it may be useless because as much energy goes into
producing the fuel as the fuel delivers. A complex society will
probably require substantial EROEI profit ratios, such as 5:1 or
greater. Energy policies need to be devised based on sound EROEI
analyses, which are currently difficult to find, and in any case it is
probably wise to restructure our society to be less dependent on high
EROEI energy sources.
In the U.S., a high EROEI energy source permits about 1% of the
population to feed the other 99%. In places without widespread access
to fossil fuels for agriculture, such as Afghanistan, over 90% of the
working population is engaged in growing food. Agriculture is, in
essence, a means of capturing solar energy through investment in
planting, maintenance and harvesting. While the Afghan agricultural
system looks inefficient from a labor point of view, it is actually far
more efficient from an EROEI perspective than U.S. agriculture. The
extensive use of fossil fuels in industrialized food systems makes them
energy sinks. Highly industrialized food systems require about 10 times
more energy to grow, harvest, process and distribute the food than is
contained in the food itself—an EROEI of 1:10.xx
Climate Change and Need to Eliminate Fossil Fuel Use
While peak oil is a “source” problem, climate change is a “sink” problem.
During the most recent ages of geologic history, Earth has cycled
between ice ages and intervening warm periods. These cycles are
primarily driven by orbital variations, both with respect to the angle
of tilt of the Earth towards the Sun and the shape of Earth’s orbit
around the sun.xxi Carbon dioxide fluctuated as a result of how
ecosystems responded to changes in Earth’s temperature, which then
amplified those changes. In systems theory, this is known as a positive
feedback loop.
Currently,
carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas concentrations are rising not
because of orbital changes, but from the use of fossil fuels and
landscape changes usually caused by human activities. The
pre-industrial level of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere was 280
parts per million (ppm) and is now about 380 ppm. Fossil fuels are
ancient deposits of carbon and hydrogen chains that are being liberated
from storage through combustion. The burning of fossil fuels
(oxidation) not only releases stored energy, but increases the
concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Carbon dioxide
allows visible light from the sun to pass through to the Earth’s
surface, but reflects infrared light (also known as heat) back to Earth
that would otherwise go out into space. This is why climate change is
sometimes called “global warming.” The general tendency is for Earth to
become hotter, on average, because of the “greenhouse” effect induced
by the “blanket” of extra carbon dioxide. If our eyes were sensitive to
infrared light we could see the changing color of the sky, which might
serve as a constant reminder of the problem.
Consider that 100 ppm is what separated the ice age from the warm,
stable climate of the past several thousand years, and that the
temperature transition from ice age to a warm climate took about a
thousand years. By comparison, over the past 30 years nearly half the
energy used in the history of the industrial revolution has been
consumed, and global average temperatures are rising about 100 times
faster than during transitions out of ice ages.
Changes in greenhouse gas concentrations are only partly responsible
for the changes in temperature between an ice age and today. Much of
the rise in temperature as an ice age ends is due to the loss of ice
sheets and their influence in cooling the planet through enhanced
reflection of sunlight. The current rate of change in the chemistry of
Earth’s atmosphere and oceans is only comparable to a few previous mass
extinction episodes over the past several hundred million years that
appear to be related to radical, rapid climate change.xxii The rate of
change is perhaps more important to the climate system and life on
Earth than is the amount of change. A slow rate of change is akin to
gently applying the brakes to stop at a light, while a fast rate of
change is akin to hitting a brick wall. Both take the vehicle and a
passenger from 60 to 0 mph, only one does it more quickly.
Nobody really knows what this means for the climate system, the acidity
of the oceans, the physiology of plant growth, and many aspects of the
global ecosystem. Policy-makers ask scientists how much pollution can
be tolerated before “dangerous interference” occurs. Unfortunately,
answering how much is too much is not possible, and in all probability
we have already passed some very dangerous thresholds that will only
become apparent as the future unfolds.
There are many reasons why a precise
answer to “how much is too much” is not possible. Consider that for any
factor that goes into a model, scientists (1) work with what they know,
(2) try to incorporate plausible ranges for what they know they don’t
know, and (3) obviously exclude what they don’t know they don’t know.
Some would argue that because we can’t be sure climate models are
correct, we should do nothing. Would “do nothing” skeptics be as
cavalier about uncertain dangers if the food being served their
children had possibly been contaminated by a deadly poison? What you
don’t know can kill you. Given the stakes, many advocates for energy
policies leading to a curtailment of greenhouse gas emissions take a
precautionary stance.xxiii After all, if the U.S. is so concerned about
security that it is willing to spend about half a trillion dollars a
year on the military, what is it worth to help secure our climate?
Computer
power limits the ability of models to capture many of the details of
climate change. For example, models can’t scale to the future climate
of a single town, making it difficult, perhaps, for local officials to
understand the implications of global models. Nor can models usually
identify critical thresholds in a complex system with much accuracy.
Systems can remain remarkably stable over long periods under stress
until something snaps, like a balloon expanding until it pops. The
Earth system has been remarkably tolerant of the stresses it is under,
but when something finally gives it will probably be “loud.” Recent
studies of the pace of change in Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets
underscore the fact that thresholds can be difficult to detect, and
that current models may often underplay the true threats of climate
change.
Although climate models have these limits, they also do an incredible
job accurately modeling the past climate. For example, when comparing
images from weather satellites to the most advanced climate models, one
can even see how well models match the actual formation and movement of
storm clouds around the globe. One of the tests climate modelers
perform to decide whether human-induced changes in the atmosphere are
causing climate change is to run climate models for the 20th century as
if we hadn’t burned so much fossil fuel. The rise in global
temperatures and the shifts in rainfall patterns seen during the 20th
century can be accurately modeled only when fossil fuel induced
greenhouse gas emissions are included.
Beyond any reasonable level of doubt, natural variations in solar
radiation and the shape of the Earth’s orbit around the sun do not
account for recent climate change. Climate change is a problem with
known causes related directly to known human behaviors such as driving
cars, flying in airplanes, heating and cooling homes and businesses,
manufacturing products, mining, harvesting, pumping water, removing
wastes, and producing food using big machines, among others. The most
pressing question of our time is: How can societies function without
pumping more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere? If we don’t make
answering this question our top priority there’s a good chance the
planet may become uninhabitable for the current generation of children.
While we can’t know future threats precisely, scientists do agree that
creating a carbon-cycle neutral economy should be the dominant task
occupying our minds. This is exactly what Relocalization aims to do.
Relocalization: A Strategic Response to Overshoot
Economic and population growth was made possible by the synergies
permitted by cheap energy. The limits of productivity in one locality
(i.e., Liebigs Law) could be overcome by importing something in excess
elsewhere. A global economy advocating that each place seek its
comparative advantage and specialize in what it produced for the market
place required that money, governance, and even customs be more
homogenized worldwide. As free trade agreements became the norm and
social barriers to trade were reduced, the power of resource synergies
permitting more economic growth became apparent to more and more people
in the world. Most only saw its benefits and few worried about the
long-term liabilities it imposed.
There are a few flawed assumptions behind globalization, but one in
particular is glaring: the assumption that transportation costs will
always be low, both in terms of fuel availability and the environmental
externalities associated with their use.xxiv If that assumption is
false—and certainly peak oil and climate change makes it appear
false—then localities should not be specializing to trade globally. For
example, I live on the edge of premium wine country. There are far more
grapes here than the local population can eat, but we lack just about
every other kind of food production in sufficient quantity. As long as
we can sell our wine to a global market and buy the other stuff we need
this situation seems reasonable. But a peak oil perspective makes us
feel vulnerable, and a climate change perspective calls this
irresponsible.
Because all localities that have bought into the global market place
have specialized to some extent, all could face shortages of some set
of basic goods. In the past, global trade was for luxury items, like
silk or spices, or key resources that permitted basic items to be made
at home more efficiently, like organic fertilizer and metals. The loss
of a trade partner would be problematic, but probably not catastrophic.
Relocalization advocates rebuilding more balanced local economies that
emphasize securing basic needs. Local food, energy and water systems
are perhaps the most critical to build.xxv In the absence of reliable
trade partners, whether from peak oil, natural disaster or political
instability, a local economy that at least produces its essential goods
will have a true comparative advantage.
When many analysts consider peak oil or climate change they start from
the position of “keep the current system going at any cost.” Rather
than envision an alternative that doesn’t have the same liabilities,
these “solutions” only perpetuate a problem.
A classic case of this kind of thinking is the Department of Energy
sponsored “Hirsch Report.”xxvi The Hirsch Report is great for
understanding the economic consequences of peak oil given how
integrated the global economy is. But its call for a crash program to
develop new sources of liquid fuels using non-conventional fossil fuels
without any broader context, such as what this would do to soils, air,
and water are misguided. A wise perspective would at least acknowledge
that these choices involve painful tradeoffs.
Relocalization takes a different perspective altogether. Instead of
working to keep a system going that has no future, it calls us to
develop means of livelihood that pollute as little as possible and that
promote local and regional stability. Since much of our pollution
results from the distances goods travel, we must shorten distances
between production and consumption as much as we can.
Summary
Responding appropriately to the problems of climate change and peak oil
and gas requires an understanding based on a systems perspective. From
this angle, clear limits exist for the ability of our society to
maintain growth in both resource consumption and pollution. However,
most of our economic and social norms do not recognize these limits,
and therefore find it difficult to respond to current threats.
Relocalization recognizes the liabilities of fossil fuel dependency and
promotes greater security through redevelopment of local and regional
economies more or less self-reliant in terms of energy, food and water
systems. Many social benefits might accrue to a relocalized society,
including greater job stability, employment diversity, community
cohesion, and public health.
The laws of physics and ecology will drive economic incentives that
begin to unwind some forms of global trade. However, as the “Stern
Review Report”xxvii on climate change and the “Hirsch Report” on peak
oil make clear, the market alone will not make this happen quickly
enough or smoothly. Given our advanced state of ecological debt and the
long social lag times involved in changing so many fundamental patterns
of behavior, only sound and consistent government policies can succeed
in setting up the right incentives for rapid, sustained change.
In any case, an easy or painless transition is highly unlikely. But
nobody is guaranteed an easy life and sometimes during our greatest
challenges we also find a profound sense of purpose, and a focus on
what makes life worthwhile, such as meaningful work, camaraderie and
beauty.
i www.postcarbon.org
ii www.schumachersociety.org
iii socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw
iv www.garretthardinsociety.org
v www.brtom.org/wb/berry.html
vi See for example: www.baylocalize.org
vii A college-level text book by Herman E. Daly and Joshua Farley
titled “Ecological Economics: Principles and Applications” (2004,
Island Press) exists. Also look for popular books by Herman Daly, Brian
Czech and Richard Douthwaite.
viii See measures like the Ecological Footprint (www.footprintnetwork.org) and the Genuine Progress Indicator (www.redefiningprogress.org/projects/gpi)
ix See recent reviews of the “Environmental Kuznets Curve” such as www.ecoeco.org/publica/encyc_entries/Stern.pdf
x A great book that leads the reader through this process for several
consumer items is: John C. Ryan and Alan Thein Durning, “Stuff: The
Secret Lives of Everyday Things.” New Report No. 4, January 1997,
Northwest Environment Watch, Seattle.
xi This graphic was developed based on the principles discussed in
Chapter 2 of Daly and Farley “Ecological Economics: Principles and
Applications” (2004, Island Press)
xii The book “Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change”
by William R. Catton, Jr. gives a thorough overview of ecological and
social mechanisms and consequences of overshoot.
xiii A great place to review standard population projections and the
underlying assumptions is through the United Nations Population
Division web site: http://www.un.org/esa/population/unpop.htm and http://esa.un.org/unpp/
xiv Donella Meadows, Jorgen Randers and Dennis Meadows, “Limits to
Growth: The 30-Year Update.” Chelsea Green Publishing, White River
Junction, VT, 2004.
xv www.uvm.edu/giee/research/publications/Boumans_et_al.pdf
xvi Literally dozens of books, websites and article about peak oil
exist. Richard Heinberg, “The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of
Industrial Societies.” New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, BC,
2005 (second edition) is highly recommended. On the web try: www.energybulletin.net/ and http://www.theoildrum.com
xvii Much less has been written specifically about natural gas, but
see: Julian Darley, “High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis.”
Chelsea Green Publishing, White River Junction, VT, 2004.
xviii For a slim but comprehensive book on energy and conversion
factors see: John G. Howe, “The End of Fossil Energy and the Last
Chance for Sustainability.” McIntire Publishing Services, Waterford,
ME, 2005 (second edition).
xix An important book covering EROEI and agriculture is John Gever,
Robert Kaufmann, David Skole and Charles Vorosmarty, “Beyond Oil: The
Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming Decades.” Ballinger Publishing
Company, Cambridge, MA, 1986. The website www.eroei.com is a good online reference.
xx A comparison of the energy balance of different food systems is
provided by David Pimental and Marcia Pimental, eds, “Food Energy and
Society.” University Press of Colorado, revised 1996.
xxi http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
xxii Dozens of references are possible for climate change. A good
recent book, written by a scientist, is: Tim Flannery, “The Weather
Makers: How Man Is Changing the Climate and What It Means for Life on
Earth.” Atlantic Monthly Press, NY, 2005. On the web see this site run
by climatologists: www.realclimate.org
xxiii http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precautionary_principle
xxiv In addition to the Limits to Growth series, a few books do a fine
job discussing both “source” and “sink” problems with fossil fuels,
including: Thom Hartmann, “The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight: Waking
Up to Personal and Global Transformation,” Jeremy Leggett, “The Empty
Tank: Oil, Gas, Hot Air, and The Coming Global Financial Catastrophe,”
James Howard Kunstler, “The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging
Catastrophes of the Twenty-First Century,” and David Holmgrem,
“Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability.”
xxv Books addressing the benefits of a local economy focused on basic
needs include: Richard Douthwaite’s, “Short Circuit: Strengthening
Local Economies for Security in an Unstable World,” and Michael
Shuman’s, “Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities in a Global
Age.”
xxvi www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/Oil_Peaking_NETL.pdf and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hirsch_report
xxvii http://krilloil.com/blog/economic-effects-of-climate-change/
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