All The Wrong Solutions

As I deliver pipe in the oilfield I have occasions to read and plenty of time to contemplate what I have read. I recently finished reading; “World On The Edge” by Lester Brown. He does a good job of laying out the global climate change scene with solutions. “Bowling Alone” “The collapse and revival of American community” by Robert Putnam, heavy on statistics. “Fortress America” by William Greider, an analysis of the state of the military industrial complex. And “Thrive” a documentary video that follows the money to global domination and solutions. And I am just starting “Prosperity Without Growth” “Economics for a finite planet.” By Tim Jackson.

At the same time I get to listen to the news and deal with desperate drivers, who have come from all over the country, rushing to make a buck. Thus the title of this blog.
If we look at the stands so called conservatives take on the issues of the day they are by no means conservative. Let me list the issue, the “conservative” solution, and then the approach that I feel would actually conserve (con/com = with, serve = protect). Those in power have traditionally been granted that privilege because they protect the common good. Let’s start in the oilfield, where I am.

Energy – The issue: energy to support the economy.
“Conservative” solution: drill baby drill, suck it up and burn it as fast as possible even if this means flaring (burning off the natural gas with the associated sulfur and other toxic elements) enough natural gas daily to heat all the homes in ND for a year because we can’t wait for the gas line to be constructed that would make it useful. Pipe tar to Louisiana. (By the time the tar gets there we will have outlawed the pollution that would result from refining it.) Pollute the ground water. Lay waste to natural areas. Devastate any communities in the way. Meanwhile oil companies make billions and speculators push the price upward so the average person sees little benefit.
Conservation would consider the welfare of future generations, the environment, and conservation of the resource itself. The petrochemical industry would increase profits by utilizing the byproducts that now pollute. Green measures including; conservation, solar, wind, efficiency standards, and sustainable community design would employ more people and leave resources for future generations.

Economy
The issue: jobs.
“Conservative” solution: Borrow more (lower interest rates), free the market for unbridled competition, bailout the banks to keep the economy going, bailout big corporations so they provide jobs, individuals spend more government spend less, cut wages, ban unions, and evict immigrants.
Conservation would encourage savings by increasing the interest rate, encourage a living wage (so all work pays enough that Americans can afford to do it), encourage cooperation in the workplace to increase efficiency, and provide training and education so all citizens can thrive. We would discourage consumption and encourage life cycle planning. We would tax corporate profits from offshore enterprises to fund infrastructure that supports the common good; public transit, education, affordable housing. We would transition away from high employment to high enjoyment, sustainable systems.

Housing
The issue: Affordable housing.
“Conservative” solution: Maintain home values, refinance loans, foreclose on underwater loans, encourage new loans.
Conservation would find ways to make housing affordable by lowering the cost of home ownership to match the median income or by increasing median income. This can be achieved by conserving energy usage (maintenance costs including transportation to work), reducing the cost of construction by increasing the life expectancy of the home, and accounting for life cycle costs of new homes. Established neighborhoods and older homes need to be insulated from speculators so the value of a home is based on its value as shelter and community rather than as a speculation on future inflation. A living wage would bring median income up to a level that most people could afford the average home.

Health
The issue: Healthcare.
“Conservative” solution: Let the poor die, (a Malthusian concept that controls population) and is a boost to the disease care industry that supports the profits of the insurance, pharmaceutical and medical industries.
Conservation would insure healthy nourishment (organic food free from toxic contamination), healthy environments (homes, community, work, and world), healthy relationships (community, work and family), and affordable counseling to make healthy choices in our lives. Health includes the ability to make choices (to have or not have children, to take or not take a particular job), to feel we make a difference in the world, to feel that we contribute to those around us. Gardens, parks, bike trails to work, community gathering places, all contribute substantially to public health.

Crime
The issue: Safety.
“Conservative” solution: Tough on crime, lock them up. Criminalize more behaviors (such as abortion) and lengthen sentences at a cost of $35,000/yr/person rather than pursuing remediation.
Conservation would look for ways to restore community and realize the value of the individual. We already have over two million in prison, most for minor offences. Most, with a little support (at less cost) would be valuable members of the community. Instead of preparing them to rejoin the community and contribute their talents to the community the system labels them, as felons, so they cannot get a job or vote and are pushed back into crime.

World Governance
The issue: America’s role in the world.
“Conservative” solution: Police the world. Dominate, be in control, we know best so you need to do it our way. (An extension of competition.) Make war on drugs and terrorism. (As we marginalize and disenfranchise an ever increasing portion of the world.)
Conservation would look for a way to value all of our planetary cultures and honor the evolution of each community keeping traditions, values, and maintaining communities. Rather than making war and alienating others we would help establish a world council to mediate peace or in the event of genocide to intervene forcefully on behalf of the population. We would ban arms manufacture and sales by any American business. Rather than letting, encouraging, transnational corporations to raid the resources of communities we would tax corporations to remunerate those communities. Conservation would recognize that we are one people on one planet with finite resources and do all we can to optimize the vitality of each and every community while conserving our resources (including clean air and water).

We need to revoke the privilege of those in power. They are not protecting our common interests.

Back in 1972 I went to work in the WY oilfield to earn the money I needed to buy land and settle in South America. After that six month stint I concluded that the oilfield is the base of our economy and that it is also the rape of the earth.
Now, 40 years later; after a year and a half of caring for my dying father, eating from a greenhouse and large garden, caring for a couple dozen chickens, building compost heaps, and improving soil; I am back in the oilfield in ND. Once again, saving money to get back to the land. The technology of drilling and extraction has improved, more oil fewer holes. It seems pollution of water wells is less. At the same time sky dumping is still common, pits seem to be filled and covered over, roads are beat to death by truck traffic and rural bridges are overstressed. In addition the new technology pumps large quantities of fresh water from the water table into the oil bearing rock and must dispose of quantities of saline water somewhere. The state legislature has approved of the practice to try to prevent the EPA from banning it in the future.
All in all, the mindset still refuses to include conservation and favors consumption. The prevailing mentality favors short term profit over the long term common good. An example: apparently local tribal authorities are pushing to drill more on tribal lands, good for short term cash flow, but the resource would be a gold mine in 50 years. Why not wait?
Oil has been a major industry here for some 60 years. The field boomed in the 80’s and is booming again. Workers come in from everywhere and live wherever they can to make as much money as fast as they can. Rigs and trucks run 24-7. However, the claim that got me up here, that there is too much work and too few workers does not seem to be holding true. There have been many days with little or nothing to do. I suspect the ebb and flow of the field and the weather are both factors and that there are days when there are too few workers. On the other hand it is always to management’s advantage to have an oversupply of workers. This way they can set high standards, 20 years driving with no accidents, and get the best employees at the lowest cost.
When I look at the news and catch up on email it seems the world situation is an expansion of these same dynamics. People and countries are struggling to put food on the table and wreaking environmental havoc to do so. If more of us could just grow and preserve the food we need rather than buying it we could do our planet a huge favor. A simplistic approach I know, but most of the planet has been moving the other way for centuries. Instead of using our intellectual and technological gains to enrich life on the land we have used them to glamorize life in the city. In the process we have created huge economies based on moving food from the land to the city, oil based transportation and agriculture. At some point, hopefully before food revolutions (Tunisia, Egypt), we will have to turn this around.

I have been listening to the Awakening The Impulse To Evolve conversations at: EvolutionarySpirituality.com. I am greatly encouraged that there are many of us exploring this evolutionary edge. Humanity is evolving. Can we grow to be the critical mass that is needed to breakthrough? Will we do it in time? Am I doing my part? What is my part?
At the same time I hear other messages. That: this is the last generation. Souls will no longer need human vehicles. Physicality is evil. Suffering is good. The more people there are to suffer the better. Basically; Trash the place we are on our way out. Or: We will leave in rapture and everyone else will be left to suffer a horrible end. Or: We are a malignant species killing our host planet therefore we deserve to die. Human species physical extinction? Spiritual evolutionary success or failure?
What a way to go! We are all connected. To the degree anyone suffers I suffer. The extinction of the human species could be really good for the planet but I doubt that doing it this way could be very helpful to our spiritual evolution. Evolution demonstrates increasing complexity and cooperation. The wisdom traditions point to inclusivity, community, kindness, forgiveness and love. Extinguishing our species through cruelty, neglect, abuse, and other manifestations of our inhumanity would seem to be a major setback to our spiritual evolution.
As I delve deeper into my spiritual evolution I am finding that somewhere in my early years I must have sworn to hate my father forever. Now as I care for this 93 year old, as I hear of the horrors of war, the unfairness of life, and as we both regress to our two year old selves, I find my two year old hates him. Like all my years of dysfunction come out of that oath. Intellectually I can rationalize that this vet had been traumatized, had a short fuse, and deserves to be forgiven for his violent rages. Emotionally, when he gets upset, I still can feel the explosion coming and want to run and hide. I still have the rage inside that kept me going when all I wanted was to die. When I agreed to care for him I knew I had healing work to do. I didn’t know it would be this hard. It feels like my spiritual life hangs in the balance.
I recently wrote that we are called to bless everyone and every situation. I would like to have no resentments, no regrets and no unfinished business (Michael Dowd). I would like to see the Universe as friendly (Einstein). I would like to be awake to the beauty of existence and drawn into intimacy and trust (Brian Swimme). To some degree I do feel I manage to be in a place of always learning (Duane Elgin). I hope I move the evolutionary action forward (Andrew Cohen). I hope I change the universe by the change I am (Cohen). I want to rise above my personal particulars to universal capacities, awakening to context (Jean Houston). All these wants and hopes feel like the long forgotten memory of the future (Houston). We know we can have a world that works for everyone. Everyone includes me, stepping into each new day, free of fear, free of rage, free of hate, full of gratitude, blessed and blessing everyone and everything. Ah! Forgiveness work!

Of all the news and analysis I have read concerning COP15; from American deniers of climate change, to conspiracy theorists who see any agreement being one step closer to giving away our sovereignty, to fear mongers on the other side decrying planetary ruination; few pieces get at what I consider the heart of the matter. Other than a few brave individuals I don’t see the people of the world standing up for themselves. Yes, the issues most people face will be intensified by climate change but we, humanity, should be dealing with these issues regardless. Yes, making international agreements to limit industries and contribute tax dollars to help green the world do limit our governments sovereignty, but the results of unbridled corporate greed will limit all of humanity. The heart of the matter lies in the very personal decisions we each make that either satisfy our personal desires at the expense of others or forward collaboration with others for our common good. Are we the people of the world committed to collaboration for the common good? And what can I as an individual do to forward this action? We the people of the world need to evolve a communication and power system that can eventually make it clear to the powers that be that it is in their best interests to protect the common good.

I just finished watching Chris Martenson’s “Crash Course” for the second time. I have known or intuited, most of the facts he presents for some time. Between the video, the news, and the cost estimates I have been working on for the inert fill home, I am hard pressed to see a way I can contribute to the development of community and the well being of my fellow man. On the other hand when I refocus on the tasks at hand, caring for my father, catching up on my own affairs, and working out the details of inert fill construction; I have my work cut out for me for the winter. Revisiting the vision.

Inert FillTM - The Vision
This is a process rather than a product. The resulting home should be able to conform to the local environment. This includes urban multistory situations.
• The shell should use a maximum of local, abundant, surplus or recycled materials.
• The shell should go up in a matter of weeks.
• Without supplemental energy it should neither freeze nor overheat.
• It should be habitable for 500 years.
• It should be fire proof.
• It should only rarely need supplemental energy or water.
• It should include a tempered food storage area and tempered fresh air.
• It should be habitable with minimum amenities.
• It should be easy to add domestic hot water, refrigeration, electricity and other amenities.
• All wiring should be in conduit and plumbing in chases so as to be easily maintained.
• It should be easy to beautify.

September first I quit driving truck and moved to the ranch, where I grew up, in South Dakota to care for my aging father.
After a month preparing for winter; gardening, restoring greenhouse glass, repairing the car, a bit of canning and freezing, and planting a bed of greens in the greenhouse, “sustainability” has a new feel. The big items of “getting tucked in for the winter” have been taken care of. And there is still a “to do” list for any Indian summer days that come along. I suspect my daily inspection of the tender little greens that I am trying to nurture for my winter nutrition has a lot to do with the shifting perception of “sustainability”. Over my years away from the farm, 34, and garden, 6, I have slowly forgotten the emotional impact of seeing my future salad being consumed by insects. Still, I made an outdoor hot bed on the south side of the greenhouse to give me a jump start in the spring. A farmer just keeps planting. Yes, it may be in vain, the bugs may win, but, if he doesn’t plant, there will definitely not be a crop. Obama is getting the Nobel Peace Prize for planting.
Another aspect of “sustainability” is shifting as well. As I listen to my father I notice my inherited tendencies and have the opportunity to reflect on my own attitudes and behaviors. How easy it is to blame others or the system for what is, rather than taking responsibility for what I may or may not be making of the circumstances in which I find myself. How easy it is to tear down rather than build up. Yes, we need to create an opening for the new. However, we create this opening by stopping, reflecting, contemplating, meditating, praying; rather than by tearing down. As I worked on the car I would get stymied, stumped, or couldn’t get something apart or together. About the time I was ready to try to force it, or take a sledge hammer to it, I would stop and do something else for a while, or just take a break, and when I came back to that task it would be easy. Of course, at times it took multiple tries.

So, as I tackle (nice cozy indoor tasks for cold nasty winter days) long neglected website maintenance, bookkeeping, and file clearing I am mindful that each task move me toward the construction of an experimental inert fill structure in a sustainable community. I need to be careful to not get the cart before the horse or to bite off more than I can chew. In other words, to set SMART goals: S- specific, M- measurable, A- achievable, R- realistic, T- timely. In the process regular blog entries will help keep me on track.

Wage slaves that is. The administrations dismissal of single payer universal healthcare moves me to take a couple actions.
1) Cross out “DONOR” on my drivers license. Without healthcare that provides for the working class the only people able to take advantage of any organs or tissues that may survive my death will be the rich who will then use those same tissues to further oppress the poor.
2) Refuse to purchase health insurance even when I begin making enough money to do so. The administrations action demonstrates the inordinate power of the health insurance industry. An industry that currently siphons off finances that should be providing healthcare. An industry that actively interferes with individuals getting the care they need. Insurance does not equal healthcare. How many people do you know who are hanging onto (chained to) a job they hate so as to keep their health insurance (which may or may not pay for needed care)? To stay politically viable Obama must cater to the capitalists. But we don’t need to. We can help free the slaves by following our consciences.

Signs of the times.
Ervin Laszlo refers to the chaos point we are at in terms of a full term pregnancy. Humanity needs to birth a new way of being. We are filling the womb, earth, to the bursting. We are using up all her resources and beginning to toxify our environment. Our existing systems can no longer meet our needs. Peak oil, global climate change, poverty, disease, marginalization of billions of people while plying them with advertisements showing them what they should have all add to the toxicity. In other terms we could say that the industrial age has run its course and the information age can’t get a breath yet. We are like two year olds fighting over real dump trucks. Our social, psychological, emotional maturity has fallen way behind our technological capacity. We need to move to a post-consumer economy but don’t know what that looks like yet.

Economies.
None of the economic systems of the past are going to serve us in this future. But just as Clare Graves concluded that each of the psychological systems he studied had part of the truth and formed these into what is now called Spiral Dynamics we must find the various parts of this puzzle that we can use. It will not serve us to revert to an old system. We must find the new pattern, in harmony with nature, in harmony with our inner natures and our planetary possibility, study it and support it.

Scale.
Back in 1809 Charles Fourier proposed Associations of 10,000 acres and 1800 people as the scale needed to create the human dynamics for successful living. Our present world scale economy seems a bit shakey, but that could be the influence of capitalism. Co-housing developments need about so many people to work well. Peak oil could help us discover appropriate economic scales. By postponing the real cost of transportation (global climate change) cheap oil has distorted economic boundaries. We need to find out how much of what we need to live fully we should be producing locally. This will establish the local economic unit. Then we need to discover what this local unit can produce for sale so it can buy those things it needs but cannot produce.

Community.
As I looked over intentional communities in SW WI and SE MN I noticed that most did not propose an economy. How will the community make money? Most leave that to the individual. I would suggest that a community enterprise may be essential. The resulting synergistics, creativity, purpose, mission, teamwork, and interactions will enliven both the individuals and the community while providing a cash flow.
Begin with an asset inventory, natural resources, human resources, spiritual resources, shared values and vision. How can we serve the world and get paid to do so? How can we grow this? How will it grow us?
An example: In a Permaculture oriented community trees are very important. Grow and sell Christmas trees and firewood. Nut and fruit trees and the honey from the bees needed to pollinate them could make a great line of original, healthy, candies and cookies for the holiday season. These would provide a variety of year round jobs and could be expanded in many ways.
The community economy satisfies human needs first and economic needs secondarily. The necessities of daily life are produced and consumed locally. Several communities could work together to man an industrial plant to produce a product for the world market. It is essential that the communities own the business so that its purpose continues to be to satisfy the human needs of the communities.

Why Community?
Learning to live and work together is essential to the evolution of the next phase of our global economy. Unless we devote energy and resources to this learning process we will push ourselves past the chaos point and into decline.

5/25/09
Forward from Tom Atlee of the Co-Intelligence Institute:
U.S. President Obama issued a Memorandum on Transparency and Open Government, calling for an unprecedented level of openness in government. In the memorandum, the President outlined three principles for promoting a more open government: transparency, participation, and collaboration. Now, Obama is calling on U.S. citizens to help shape how that commitment is fulfilled.
The Administration has set up a website at http://opengov.ideascale.com to gather ideas from the field, get them commented on and voted up or down, and then to discuss the leading proposals and weave them into a program.
The brainstorming, commenting, and voting stage of this process is open to the public until Thursday, May 28, 2009. So if you want to join this effort, please do so now.

My thoughts upon reading the article: “Why Capitalism Shouldn’t Be Saved” by John Sanbonmatsu in the May/June Tikkun magazine at http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/may_jun_09_sanbonmatsu

Three Quotes that stick with me: “Steinbrück, a leading light of the conservative Christian Democratic Union party, stunned his interviewer by invoking the spirit of Marxism to explain what was occurring in the international markets. “Overall,” he said, “we have to conclude that certain elements of Marxist theory are not all that incorrect.”

“If capitalism is indeed beginning to consume itself, the same way it devoured the minds, bodies, and labor of countless human and nonhuman beings over the course of centuries, then for the first time in generations, perhaps ever, we may have a brief opening, a caesura in the long, breathless tale of capitalism and its violence, in which to imagine and to set the terms for a new way of organizing human society and economy.”

“But where are the demonstrations today against the bailout of the banks and brokerage firms, let alone against the capitalist system that is ruining our planet? Who is out there trying to build a vibrant, broad-based socialist movement? Ironically, the unfolding crisis directly or indirectly encompasses every conceivable social movement issue the Left could ever care about-war and peace, individual liberties, feminism, ecology, labor, and animal rights. Yet the Left as such is dead-or might as well be.”

We are still not talking about a post-consumer, post-industrial, economy. What will the post capitalist, post socialist economy look like? With the advent of consumer goods we rejected the ancient communitarian economies. We have been crying about the shortcomings of everything since. We need to have a human, a planetary conversation about how we want to function economically. What are our priorities? Are we ready to really commit to the millennium development goals? I do think that when we take peak oil and global climate change into account we will be talking about both local and global economies that place human development at the top of the list of priorities.