A better world is possible - Global Commons Institute

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Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com What are the implications? We need to move away from “bigger, further, faster and more” to moderation. It is not a move from one extreme to another but a better mix. We need a change from one way of thinking to another. It will be a revolution driven by the multiple crises the world is confronted with. A Paradigm shift Here I summarise the paradigm shift we need to make. My source is a book I strongly recommend , written eleven years ago but still providing the thinking required today - Greening the North - a post-industrial blue print for ecology and equity, Wolfgang Sachs, Reinhard Loske, and Manfred Linz, eds, 1998, Zed Books. The book describes eight paradigm shifts: A Paradigm shift Moderation in time and space A green market agenda From linear to cyclical production processes Well-being rather than well-having Intelligent infrastructures Regeneration of land and agriculture Liveable cities International equity and global solidarity Moderation in time and space - Moderate speeds, shorter distances and regional scale. Transport and travel would be more regional and local, de-emphasising long distances and intensifying shorter links and more sustainable forms like trains, buses, cycling and walking and substituting electronics for travel. A green market agenda Move from market euphoria and growth. Place more emphasis on local than on global division of labour. Move from everything calculated in financial terms to protection of climate, ecology, environment, including well-being. Value the social, historical and cultural. Support health, community, fulfilling work and security. Avoid large scale uninsurable risks and liabilities. Re-use existing capital rather than whole scale demolition and new build. Ban toxins. Enable decentralised, locally based generation of electricity and heating. Steer with taxation and subsidies reflecting all these objectives; taxing the unsustainable, not the sustainable, enterprise or jobs. From linear to cyclical production processes Follow nature’s example, not wasting and valuing diversity. Create an economy founded on solar and nature’s energy and the principle of recycling; longer product cycles, emphasis on durability, service and repair. Instead of competition based on constant innovation, larger market share, ever shortening product cycles and lower price, initiate ecological leadership based on meeting real human needs. Produce more and more products and materials locally and regionally in decentralised workshops and mini-mills, providing skilled and rewarding work again. It is unsustainable to ship products and waste around the world. Involve human creativity in selling utility and services rather than products – for example individual transportation rather than cars – opening up fresh possibilities. Well-being rather than well-having This opens up the possibility of a complete change in values, to meeting post materialistic needs, moving from affluence to, for instance, conserving, informed eating, freedom from toxins, local and regional orientation, using instead of owning, rich in time, and the elegance of simplicity. 108
Copyright Bruce Nixon 2010. All rights reserved. This electronic copy is provided free for personal, non-commercial use only. www.brucenixon.com Intelligent infrastructures Today’s infrastructure projects are lavish and massive, both on the surface and underground, consuming vast resources, giving rise to enormous wasteful throughput, emissions and waste. Ultimately these projects will be demolished leading to even more waste. Magnitudes have more than doubled in Germany, for instance, since the sixties for motorways (260%), networks for gas (230%), water (206%), electricity (398%) and transportation of goods by road (159%). A switch is needed from a throughput economy to meeting human needs. As the magnitude increases for roads, the congestion and delays get worse. The switch needs to be from magnitude and constant growth to services meeting human needs, saving the planet and bringing about global justice. This means energy saving, eco-efficient products and services and better local and community infrastructures – just the opposite of what is happening! It means a shift to energy suppliers becoming energy efficiency service companies, integrated resource planning, decentralised and least cost planning (LCP) of heat and power that can lead to big savings. The same can be done for water supplies with fewer dams and less ground–water extraction. The concept of service orientation and orientation to what is close at hand can be applied to mobility with fewer journeys and road schemes – e.g. cycling, car-sharing and buses. Instead of building ever larger housing estates, there needs to be a shift towards “functional intermingling” of housing, work, shopping, leisure, recreation, food growing, land and buildings, local power and energy linked to both housing and offices. Regeneration of land and agriculture In Europe 75 % of the population, 80% in UK, live in densely populated urban areas. However, these are heavily dependent on the countryside for food, water, air, materials and recreation. City and countryside are inter-related. We need to move from a parasitical relationship between the two towards regionalism. We have depleted and neglected the countryside and damaged the capacity of farmers to feed us by underpaying them. Industrial farming methods have harmed the soil, the ecosystem and polluted our water. The countryside, trees and plants, play a major part in absorption and regeneration, renewing soils, water and air. This requires respect for the ecosystem, a shift from monoculture to diversity, from plantation to woodland, from linear agribusiness to organic cultivation, from food as a commodity and heavily processed food to healthy food, from globalised supermarket to regional farmers’ market. We need to be reconnected with food as the source of health and energy; learn how to grow and cook again. It means producing food in our gardens, allotments and community gardens. Liveable cities are described in Chapter 13 - Sustainable cities, towns and communities. International equity and global solidarity It is most important that we manage our transition in a way that does not harm the rest of the world, already suffering greater poverty as a result of the downturn, but brings about greater equity. Chapter 9 will describe how we can create greater equality through a fairer global economic system, global co-operation and involving poorer nations as equal partners. Strategies To avoid catastrophic climate change and secure energy supplies, governments need to take urgent action to implement a coherent strategy on a massive scale. The two largest industries causing CO2 emissions are energy, i.e. heat and power, and then transport. Here are outlines of what can be done: Heat and Power 109
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