About the Author
Welcome to The Seventh Fold, a blog about energy, the environment, and the economy.
A bit about me. I am a husband, father, and a doctoral candidate in Geography at the University of Washington. I study the relationship between oil and the economy, and my approach is rooted in the theories and concepts of ecological economics. I believe that we – both as individuals and collectively as a global society – can prosper even under material and energetic constraints. We can become happier and healthier, but in order to do so we must first recognize the destructive capacity of business-as-usual and consciously work to lessen our impacts on the environment, society, and ultimately ourselves.
I envision a healthy and prosperous society as one in which both income and wealth disparities decline year-after-year. I imagine a society in which the pace of life slows markedly – one where the commute may still take 20 or 30 minutes, but will be increasingly be done on foot or by bike rather than by car. I imagine a world in which locally grown, nutrient-rich organic food comes to replace the empty calories produced by industrial agriculture. I envision a society in which health care costs decline not because of some government insurance program but because active, reduced-stress lifestyles and healthy food usurp the current status quo. I imagine a world in which our material economy is replaced by an experiential economy where energy and material ‘consumption’ are supplanted by the consumption of less material- intensive services. I imagine a world in which natural capital comes to be valued as highly as man-made capital – where we value the fish in the ocean as much as the fish in our markets and the fishing vessels moored at our docks.
Every day I see a new piece of evidence that we are slowly moving toward this ecotopian vision. Unfortunately, I also see active resistance to change. To many of the leaders of our society benefit from a system which concentrates wealth while spreading risk and cost across society, and they fight against any and all proposed changes to the rules of the game. The problem, of course, is that the world is a closed system. Both resources and sinks are limited yet we continue to permit corporations and profiteers to organize our global society as if these boundaries do not exist. We may choose to follow economic models that attempt to resist these physical limits, but ultimately such an approach will fail because when the laws of economics are pitted against the laws of physics, the laws of physics always prevail.
I believe that individually and collectively we face important decisions. If we continue to believe that business-as-usual can be sustained, we will blindly run full speed into these physical constraints, and the impacts will be devastating. Alternatively, we can choose to accept the limits imposed by nature and adapt our economy and our society to operate within them in a socially just manner. The choice is ours. Let your voice be heard, and speak with your actions.
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The Seventh Fold
I say we put Derik in charge. Nice thoughts and vision.
This is an outstanding web site. Not only is the topic extremely relevant to all of our futures, but also the content is well-written and compelling.
I fully share the author’s vision for a better world, one in which, among other things, “our material economy is replaced by an experiential economy where energy and material ‘consumption’ are reduced,” “natural capital comes to be valued as highly as man-made capital,” and “health care costs decline…because [of] active, reduced-stress lifestyles and healthy food.”
Regarding appearance, the emphasis on the color black is indeed appropriate. I am wondering whether the site’s elegant simplicity, including what I detect as less of the clutter that characterizes (and greatly detracts from) so many blogs and other web sites, is likewise intended to be symbolic — that is, of the simplicity and reduction in waste that our society must achieve in order to provide a more attractive future for mankind in the face of the continued depletion of oil and other natural resources.
Paul,
Thanks for noticing the paucity of visual cues. My intent was, indeed, to keep the visual display simple. ‘Simple’ is sadly missing from much of life.
I was actually just talking about this same concept with a musician friend the other day. She made a great analogy to music – that the greatest melodies left room to ‘breathe’. That is, the aural palate was not too cluttered with notes and beats… that silence was as important as sound… that empty space is as important as the built environment…
Cheers, and thanks for reading!
Wow! Derek. I followed the link to your web site vis linked-in. I am so impressed with your writing, research skills and passion for you subject! I look forward to reading more about your studies from your blog in the future! Nice to reconnect with you!
Derek;
I recommend that you take some courses in macro-economics. Your fears are well founded but your solution make no economic sense at all
Phil,
There are serious flaws in macro-economics, but this is not the appropriate forum to discuss them. I do feel obligated to point out that I don’t offer any solutions. Rather I suggest some mitigation strategies and a vision of an alternate future. And, in fact, what I suggest makes wonderful economic sense. We can very easily reorganize society to be much less energy and oil intensive. We can deliberately shift oil consumption away from discretionary, non-productive arenas. For instance we could shift consumption away from 1% efficient ICE-powered cars that make repeated superfluous trips, and free it up for productive uses (like the production of diesel). How could we do this? One way would be to encourage a portion of the population to commute by bicycle. Another way to do this is to simply change our diets – which would happen if we stopped throwing money away on an expensive corn subsidy. The corn subsidy has lead to the creation of CAFO’s (concentrated animal feedlot operations) which are responsible for more greenhouse gas emissions than the transportation sector. This, of course, would mean that the price of corn would go up, and we would eat less meat. Or, to take it to another level, we could actively promote the healthful benefits of an organic diet… or better yet, an organic vegetarian diet. Do these few things and we would see less money leaked from the economy for the purchase of oil. We would see rates of very costly diseases (like diabetes, hypertension, etc.) drop. Healthcare costs would drop, too. Why? Because we would, for the first time, be concentrating on preventative medicine! The result would be a happier, healthier population in which oil was actually put to its highest and best use. We would have a more productive population, as well, because sick days would decline. I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, that I am familiar with macro-economics, but not brainwashed by the Chicago School.
Perhaps, Phil, you can argue how the current system is ‘working’… and for whom…
Very nice and highly useful thoughts and perception. I too feel we are squandering away the future of our younger generations, by the means of extreme consumerism and bias towards too much of meat eating. As you pointed out in your replies, a lot of green house gas emissions can be reduced by at least a partial conversion to vegan diets. It is an unpardonable fault that many billions are emaciated because of lack of food, we feed animals to make them fat so that we can enjoy their meat and in return are getting afflicted by heart disease, diabetes and cancer, not to speak of HIV and AIDS.
We shall start with white roofs everywhere to mitigate the problems.
In my opinion, it is the ONLY way we can handle climate change problems effectively under present situations. I made a lecture on “white roofs for climate change” in 2006.
CO2 based global warming leads to no where. It should be water vapor based. Agriculture produces 1000s of billions of tons of water vapor, every year while fixing CO2.
Normal thermal coal based power plants release more than 8 water vapor molecules per CO2 molecule released. Nuclear power plants reject 50% more water molecules than a coal based thermal power plant. Water vapor molecules store huge amounts of latent heat. One water vapor molecule can melt 7 solid ice molecules.
Only effective way to reduce water vapor molecules in air is to reduce heat in the atmosphere. White roofs easily achieve that. Most of the reflected energy can leave the earth without heating the atmosphere (visible light portion is least absorbed gas molecules in the atmosphere and white roofs reflects almost all visible light portion of incident sunlight which contains 47% of it).
Due to economic collapse, electrical energy use is reducing, resulting in less water vapor being dumped in the atmosphere. So hurricane related activities will slow down. Already for the past 2 years, hurricane activities are at bare minimum in the Gulf of Mexico region. The trend will continue.
Heard you at the morning talk on Nov. 7. What do you want us to do, besides spread info?
To: Derik Andreoli
From: CuChullaine O’Reilly
Subject: Equestrian Epizootic and Peak Oil
Dear Derik,
CuChullaine O’Reilly of the Long Riders’ Guild Academic Foundation here, writing to thank you for including my equestrian research in your insightful article regarding the perils of Peak Oil.
The Long Riders’ Guild has just issued its large yearly News Bulletin and made mention of your article. Here is a link to that news.
http://www.thelongridersguild.com/news.htm
However, in an important personal aside, I was recently involved in an ironic incident which illustrates the vital nature of linking your research and mine.
I am currently in France, preparing to depart on the first equestrian journey around the globe. ( http://www.theworldride.org ) A few days after being informed of your article, I witnessed a nationwide strike here whose implications were clear to all.
While the strike was called over a political issue, the result was that the sympathetic drivers of petroleum tankers chose to keep their trucks off the road.
In a very short time the normal day to day economy of France began to shudder, then threatened to come to a complete halt, as delivery trucks ceased delivering food to supermarkets, trash piled up in the streets, workers could not drive to their jobs, roads were emptied, etc.
As my article on the 19th century equestrian epidemic proves, when you undermine a nation’s entire transportation system, then country wide chaos is bound to ensure.
If you multiple that problem to a global scale, taking the chaos I witnessed here in France as a small example, you can imagine the panic and trouble which awaits our species.
In closing, I very much enjoyed your article.
Kind regards,
CuChullaine O’Reilly FRGS
CuChullaine,
Thanks for the note! You are entirely correct in your assessments with regard to the labor strike in France, and the liquid fuels shortage that ensued.
We can expect more problems like this as supplies tighten at the global scale and power relations shift.
And thank you for your excellent historical work on The Great Epizootic! Hopefully Hegel’s statement, “The only thing we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history” will not for once, ring true.
Good luck on your ride around the world! If you make it through Seattle (or anywhere in the Pacific NW), my 4 y.o. daughter would go absolutely bonkers if you took her for a ride!
Thanks again for the kind comments and the excellent work!
DA