Sustainability: All In

Besides obvious solutions towards sustainability (solar, wind, hydroelectric, biomass, and geo-thermal) there are a number of other possibilities and permutations to generate electricity: hydroelectric power utilizing tides in the ocean, fuel cell tech, generating solar power on orbital platforms and beaming it to Earth (as Bucky Fuller suggested). It seems to me that all of these manners of tech must be employed concurrently to assist in solving the problems we all face. We cannot rely on tech alone to “save” us. Even the notion of tech saving us is a belief that we are non-responsible children looking to a parent to “fix-it” where we are exempt from sacrifice for the greater good (that includes us).

Conservation is certainly a part of the answer and needs to be integrated into our lifestyle. By changing consumeristic capitalism into a sustainable force — a materialistic capitalism, for example, as it once existed through craftsmen or craftspeople. Products that were meant to last a generation or more without needing replacement or repair are a part of our past abandoned for predatory capitalism. Craft must be part of a sustainable future where the craftsperson(s) are proud of their work and rewarded as role models, master craftspeople and solid members of community in addition to making a good living. If we as humans can embody the sacredness of our lives along with other species and Earth’s bounty, then we can live harmoniously for many generations in community.

A fast-changing economic system of cooperation first and profit second is needed if humanity is to be spared from the worst of the climate crisis; namely extinction. Think of the common good*, “what I give to you I also give to myself” or in other words — cooperation, planning out to the seventh generation for all biological species. Working towards sustainability on all fronts is paramount now lest we suffer more and perish in vast numbers.

I love the idea of free money, hell, no money and everything is free. Obviously, we are not ready for a “no-money” “everything is free” economy. That kind of economy must be a 7 generational goal or 560 years (generations are based on the average lifespan of individuals from the generation — now 79 years in the United States and 81 years in some European nations).

When we recognize greed, money, power and comfort as addictions that can never be sated, then we may be able to face the feelings of aloneness, loneliness and perhaps abandonment. Facing these emotional states while remembering and acting upon the common good is the context we must place ourselves within if we are to avert the sixth extermination event on Planet Earth that may include human beings.∫ Or will a little over one million humans worldwide emerge as a cooperative species or be doomed to repeat future mass extinction events?

Sustainability is something we need to work towards quickly. It’s far from perfect and without our full participation as well as from industry and government it won’t work because it needs all of us working together.

One non-profit I look towards as a possible holistic solution is: https://www.drawdown.org/

*The Common Good — https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/common-good/

∫ The 6th Mass Extinction Event and subsequent events — https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-timeline-of-the-mass-extinction-events-on-earth.html