Sustainability Principles

Sustainable Civilization: From the Grass Roots Up

Chapter IV - Sustainability Principles or Guidelines The apparent principles and guidelines of our present civilization ignore natural limits. Once we recognize these limits exist, we need to shift the focus of our thinking to different paradigms.

INTRODUCTION

"Sustainable" is a word you will more readily see added to the name of programs. Real change though will be difficult to actually implement and maintain given present individual attitudes, institutions and paradigms.

Civilization, operated on sustainable principles, could eliminate starvation, poverty, pollution, etc. But such will not be implemented by a starving population or by those who benefit from the present system. Such will be resisted by the selfish and greedy who contribute nothing while demanding others support them. It will be resisted by those who feel THEY have the “right” to have as many children as they want, to do what they want, to go where they want, regardless of whomever else upon which the COSTS of such actions are imposed.

Given humanities civilization is now global, for many practical purposes, we've got to recognize we are living in a closed environment. Our resources are finite. Other than energy from the sun, there is virtually no input to our resources. Absent a breakthrough in technology, we are effectively limited to the confines of the Earth for the foreseeable future.

HOW LONG

The word sustainable implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. To put sustainable into an easier to comprehend timeframe, consider seven generations.

"In our every deliberation, we must consider the impact of our decisions on the next seven generations"

- From the Great Law of the Iroquois Nation

Seven generations is somewhere between 96 and 280 years. A properly maintained and managed neighborhood or cooperative housing association provides a minimum genetic population, and can provide for the life-support needs of residents for seven generations and beyond. But it appears clear that a homeowner association scale community, if isolated, will be unable to sustain much technology, education, or skills.

Humans and all other animal life on earth are dependent on plants to use light to recycle our wastes and mortal remains to create food. We in particular are dependent on our agriculture art and technology. Without it, the natural systems on the Earth could not support the present human population.

Given present science, what comprises a sustainable community?

There are no secrets to success. It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure. - General Colin Powell

PRESERVE GOD'S NATURAL ECOSYSTEMS

We must avoid interfering with any unique micro environment, or the environment overall, such that we cause species extinctions, or such that natural evolution is prevented. Therefore a key initial question, what is the upper limit for the portion of the environment to be devoted to human use? 1/10? 1/3? 1/2?  More? Less? Please note, humans are already using 50% of the productive life of the world.

Within such dedicated space, or indeed the entire world, simple logic shows the number of humans who can be sustained, and the per person ability to use resources, are inversely related. The smaller the population to be maintained, the greater the resources per person.

Despite the appearances of vast remaining wide open spaces, estimates are that almost 50% of the productive life of the globe is already diverted in some manner to human use.

FEEDBACK LOOPS

If you stick your hand into the fire, you need the negative feedback of searing pain letting you know there's not much time to get your hand out.

There are consequences to actions; whether those of an individual, family, neighborhood, city, nation, or humanity as a whole.

Foul your air and you're dead in 3 minutes.

Foul your water and you're dead in 3 days.

Foul your food and you're dead in 3 weeks.

You may be able to temporarily obtain resources from elsewhere, but in a long-term sustainable world where everyone is in balance, there may not be excess to share.

POPULATION CONTROL

Some maximum population can be fed, but with no resources available for any other purpose. A technological civilization, in particular to continue developing, requires "excess" resources that can be invested for the future, and lost in failed projects.

At the other end of the scale, there is certainly a minimum human population, and distribution program, for safety, maintenance and development of skills, knowledge, scientific discovery, etc.

The smallest human population is that required for genetic safety. (A tribe? Six families? Twenty families?)  While this size might be appropriate for a "survival" community, or a well organized and supported project (i.e. an interstellar mission) it is doubtful that technology could be indefinitely maintained, let alone development continue.

We need to allow for some specialization, maintain skills and simple technology.

Somewhere there is a range of population that allows continued human achievements without destruction. It requires however understanding and individual responsibility to achieve the local action which is essential to achieve stability on a global scale - unless you WANT war and pestilence.

Every factor I've examined indicates the population must decline dramatically. Once we have reached sustainable levels, the population can only be permitted to fluctuate within a limited range. Consider the factors of fluctuation, lifespan, child bearing age, and birthrate..

Lifespan. Given other factors being stable (child bearing age and birthrate) an increase, or decrease in the average lifespan of a population will cause a one time increase (lifespan divided by child bearing age) in the number of generations alive at any given time, and therefore the total living population.

Child Birth Age. Given other factors being stable (lifespan and birthrate) an increase, or decrease in the average age of parents when children are born will cause a one time increase (lifespan divided by child bearing age) in the number of generations alive at any given time, and therefore the total living population.

Birthrate. Given other factors being stable (Lifespan and child bearing age) an increase, or decrease in the average number of children born to parents, in simple fact, ANY deviation from a strictly replacement birth rate, will cause a continued, and essentially geometric change in the actual number of people alive at any given time.

Regardless of the size of the population units, it appears practical to blend living, working, entertainment, etc. facilities in as close proximity as practical.

INFRASTRUCTURE

Modern civilization, as we experience it, is a product of the present global socio-economic-industrial infrastructure. Surely, no one believes this present infrastructure is indefinitely sustainable. Flying the face of logic, we have expanded our numbers such that much of the present 6+ billion human population depends on this infrastructure not only for an economic livelihood, but for essentials of life (water, food, shelter, etc.) Our infrastructure itself though is dependent on the destruction of a finite resource.

What does human-scale infrastructure look like?

Background. We cannot indefinitely burn fossil fuels, pump groundwater stored millennia ago, mine, etc. The easy discoveries and recoveries of such are past. Very soon, we must begin to live with the declining supplies.

The Earth, and every definable (political or geographic) area has a maximum population that can be maintained using local resources or sustainable trade.

The present global population is well beyond sustainability even for food, let alone a functional and developing civilization. There are some places and peoples who may have attained a stable population, but none is good example of stable population and sustainable resource utilization.

Most places on the globe are so overpopulated (and still expanding) that they have no chance of attaining higher standards of living, let alone sustainability, absent a massive, premature, and unpleasant death of the bulk of the population.

Those in poor, but expanding population areas, in seeking to emulate higher resource use nations, or emigrate there, are acting contrary to sustainability.

The smaller the sustained population, the greater the resources available per person. But a small population is vulnerable to the "needs" of the majority being imposed unwillingly. If the world is not composed of sustainable units, conflict is the logical outcome.

A small, sustainable community, must be capable of resisting unwelcome and oppressive "neighbors", and needs appropriate defensive and policing capabilities.

Throughout the globe, humanity needs to "...get it's act together...". But there is no indication it will do so in time to prevent a crash.

RESOURCE BASES

Use of a finite resource (i.e. fossil fuels, minerals, ancient groundwater) in a manner not readily recycled is foolish. Having the infrastructure of civilization dependent on such use is insane.

Use of a renewable resource beyond the reasonably reliable applicable renewal rate is foolish. If it takes 50 years to grow a tree, our use to growth relation must be balanced. For every tree needed annually, we need to have fifty growing. (Growing in the human resource dedicated areas.)

Technological innovations may for example, possibly eliminate our dependence on fossil fuels (ancient stored solar energy) prior to effective exhaustion of this resource. Absent such leaps in technology, we will, relatively soon, need to again rely on our annual solar energy allotment.

Further, it is not in the present day "best interest" of business or political leadership to prevent the crash, or even take steps to mitigate it.

Air / O2 / CO2. In theory, the area of plant material necessary to balance the breathing of a human is the same as that needed to produce food. The same area is that which can be practically fertilized by the humanure and urine from an adult.

Micronutrients. Whether from humanure, ruined clothing, a damaged wood item, or the body of a human, when the micronutrients that comprise the object, or person, are no longer needed, they need to be recycled to the growing medium.

Physical Limits. Absent scientific breakthroughs, humanity is effectively restricted to the limits of the Earth for the foreseeable future.

ECONOMICS

First, do no harm. Present businesses make huge profits selling products engineered for short useful life and disposal, with no concern for the damage to the environment. Pre-crash, while cheap fossil fuels are still available, sustainability engineered products might compete, but to a limited public.

Consider, no one asks you what the "payback" period is for an investment in a new "Corvette", but put up solar panels, and expect the question.

We already arguably divert 1/2 of the production of the planet to human uses, and we continue in most places to despoil our own communities, and common resources. It must stop, or after an oil shortage, we will face shortages of safe places to live, safe food, water, and air.

Fossil fuel has for around 150 years put into the infrastructure concentrated easy to manipulate energy, with only the minute cost of initiating the digging (coal) or pumping (oil) process, after which diverting only a small portion of the coal or oil sufficed to drive and expand the removal, refining & distribution process. It has been a great self-enhancing feedback loop, soon to end.

Absent a breakthrough, we will not have the "free" energy store such that we can expend 10+ times as much energy to get a can of corn to your home, as there is food value in the corn.

High shipping prices should lead to a concentration on local production and virtually closed recycling loops for necessities.

Centralized design and manufacturing of critical components, with local assembly and craftsmanship of non-critical components, cases, frames, etc.

Proactive maintenance and repair.

Solar energy. Sunlight powers the photosynthesis process, and feeds virtually all life on Earth. It powers the evaporative process, giving us rain and hydroelectric generation. It powers the winds and wind driven waves. But as great as it may seem compared to the size and capabilities of a human, it is still limited. The probable maximum effective solar collection area of the Earth that faces the sun at any given time is a disk of around 5,000 mile diameter.

An economy requires a stable and readily acceptable currency. As touched on earlier with mention of the "Wheat Receipts" lecture, even a fully "backed", gold-based currency remains subject to fraud and inflation by whomever issues the receipts. Far worse than this, virtually every nation today uses "fiat" currency, which only has value because the government directs that it does.

The present (2007) currency is backed by the "full faith and credit" of the nation, which in reality means the productive capability of the nation. Now remember what happens to the economy with peak oil. What is a real currency that cannot be subject to false receipts, theft and deliberate inflation? One that creating more of the backing adds actual value to the community?

Wheat is a real example where the entire community gains when more “currency” is generated. Finding more gold does not necessarily add to the capabilities of an economy. Beyond food and life support, it really appears that power is the prime driver of a robust   like to know.

POLITICS

As human groups become larger and more complex, we tend toward establishing and expanding formal government, whether by a religious cast, or secular organization. All tend toward becoming kleptocracies, using the force of government to involuntarily take from those who produce and accumulate, whether to enrich the king and royal caste, or provide for an underclass that keeps the "generous" politician in power. Can human civilization exist without surrendering to the power of thieves?

What is the minimum "necessary" level of government, how to achieve it, and maintain it? Perhaps most significantly, can such be maintained against opposition that is organized in a more authoritative manner?

Business and political leaders advocate trying to attract new industries and populations to their areas, then complain and wonder what to do about the consequent increases in taxes, pollution, congestion, crime, costs, etc.

Political and business leaders use the circular arguments of self-fulfilling predictions regarding population growth, which then CAUSES population growth. Consider the process where projections of the "inevitable" future population growth in the area are made. Plans are then generated to ensure the infrastructure can meet the projected future “needs”. They then borrow to finance the needed expansion of basic infrastructure, ignoring real improvements for those already living there. Typically, programs are then put in place to attract the new business and residents needed to pay for the loans. When the new businesses and people move in, those who “predicted” the growth pat themselves on the back, and look to the future...

Dumping toxic waste on the land of the poor TEMPORARILY keeps it out of your personal ecosystem, but only temporarily. It must not be generated.

Growth means in the short term more votes and money for leaders, but only in the short term.

It is easy to talk about sustainability, but too often it‘s just talk, with no personal conviction, (i.e. Al Gore and his four children.)

Many nations and their citizens will continue to believe that the environment can be preserved without the need of addressing population growth.

Re political leadership, consider the career of a politician who announces legislation drafted to remove incentives for a growing population. To attack the root cause of humanities problems, overpopulation, would lead to a short career. But it needs to be done.

Those who feel they have a right to take from others will resist sustainability. It will be resisted by those who benefit from an expanding population, and by those who want to pander to the above.

Given present technology, it is unclear as to how the majority of the present population can be sustained.

We must however voluntarily attain sustainability, or it will be imposed, probably not in a pleasant manner.

Criminal Sanctions. Laws and police action tend to grow in areas where is easy to show "accomplishments", vs real protection, leading to an enlarged force with an emphasis in the wrong areas. That tossed out there must still be some means of maintaining order in disputes between individuals, to deal with fights, theft, assault, etc. Ignoring crime leads to a free-for-all. Prisons as in place today are gymnasiums and institutes of higher criminal education.

Taxation. Fee for service? At what level do you accept that you no longer get to decide who benefits from the fruits of your labor or investments? With a collapsing economy, tax revenues will fall, regardless of tax rates. Higher rates lead to greater avoidance, until either government is swept away, or becomes openly totalitarian.

Regulation. At what level do you accept that someone, not one whom you voluntarily submit to, is authorized to initiate force to make you change behavior, even though you are not harming anyone else?

1. Compassion which gives a drunk the means to increase his drunkenness is counter-productive. 2. Compassion which breeds debilitating dependency and weakness is counter-productive. 3. Compassion which blunts the desire or necessity to work for a living is counter-productive 4. . Compassion which smothers the instinct to strive and excel is counter-productive. - Attributable to Benjamin Franklin

TERRORISTS

Why can’t we all just get along? Because there are those who would kill you for a jacket, the change in your pockets, to make a point, or for the fun they find in it. There are those who would hold a gun to your head to force you to comply with their whims.

Via oil, Americans are voluntarily helping to pay for the rope which will hang them. Via our own government, we are involuntarily taxed to pay for programs and policies that are contrary to our best interests.

A thug, is a thug. A terrorist, is a terrorist. The typical terrorist “cell” member has been told who to trust, and devalues everyone else. How does this differ from our politicians who mandate what you do, say, spend you earnings on, etc? The “enemy” of civilization, is first anyone with a birth rate higher than replacement who then seeks to force others to bear the consequences. It is anyone who insists that THEIR approach to civilization is one worthy to be imposed involuntarily on others at the point of a gun.

Whether you see it or not, we are engaged in a multi-front war. The object of war is not necessarily to destroy the enemy, but to destroy his will. Terrorists seek to do so with preemptive acts of violence. Politicians seek to do so thru a combination of promised government benefits, that must be funded by theft.

Regardless of what YOUR religion is, if it is NOT radical Islam, you are going to be involved in a religious war. Our civilization cannot continue to use resources at the same rate as at the turn of the millennia. Regardless of your personal resource use level and you are going to be involved in a resource war.

On September 11, 2001 the citizens on flight 93 did not sit on their hands. They used their cell phones, and discovered news of the World Trade Center impacts. When big government plans failed, it was the acts of free men that prevented the final flight 93 from reaching its terrorist intended target. What of security measures and gun control? Everyone on all of the flights, and in the two World Trade Towers would have been safer if every citizen had been armed.

You, your family, your community need to be “armed” with the information and abilities essential to resisting thugs, and terrorists.

Recognized terrorists do not want you to be armed, neither do the politicians who see you as their surfs.

TRIAGE

Not everything we see today is practical or sustainable. We must salvage what we can and prepare to move on. We must prepare to survive the fall of the present infrastructure, which is a model of NON-sustainability.

What must be saved? What should be saved? What can be saved?

What should not be saved? What must not be saved? What cannot be saved?

Into the weeds...

What must be saved? Knowledge, skills, and technological capabilities. How much has been wasted in humanities history by the same discovery, invention, or even simple fact, being "rediscovered" multiple times?

Knowledge. I can't tell you off-hand which plants grow well with each other, and which can't stand each other. But I know the information is important to efficient gardening, and that the information is out there in books. I don't know which piece of information, invention, or discovery can or will become critical, so we need the maximum possible under whatever conditions we encounter. Post crash, I'd want to have access to an intact university, or at least city library. My own library is merely a few bookshelves of selected text.

Skills. Almost lost skills, such as blacksmithing, may need a revival. But if we lose skills such as precision surgery, bringing them back will quite probably be MUCH more difficult than resuming smithy work.

Teachers. What is the minimum level community expected to be capable of sustainably training specialized teachers of K to 12? (Or do we use the apprentice system?)

Medical. Continued practice of medicine requires either people get hurt and sick a lot, or a lot of people occasionally getting hurt or sick. I'd suppose that "apprenticeships" can/will return (for lots of purposes) if there is no formal university.

Technology. Even if it's a museum piece, like a Pentium computer that won't run anymore… A key point of mine is to avoid the folly of reinvention / rediscovery of the same thing, which has occurred OVER AND OVER in our history.

What should be saved? Examples of as many aspects of our present tools, technology, and even household items as can be practically managed, if for nothing else than eventual inclusion in a museum.

What can be saved? If we have the will, we can save most of our present scientific and technological knowledge and technology. (I.e. a limited number of internal combustion engines can be run on biofuels.)

What should not be saved? Programs that foster or enable population expansion.

What must not be saved? Any attitude, program, operation, function, incentive, etc. which requires, promotes, or encourages an expanding population, or the use of a finite resource in a manner which, given present knowledge and technology, irreversibly precludes it's reuse in any other practical manner.

What cannot be saved? Most of the present human population, any part of the infrastructure dependent on cheap, abundant fossil fuels, in particular oil.

SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION, CAN WE ACHIEVE IT?

Humanity must transition as quickly and thoroughly as possible to a rational sustainable basis for civilization. "Sustainable" clearly implies the ability to continue for an indefinite period. Stepping back from indefinite, to a more readily understandable timeframe, consider just seven generations.

Physical Growth has Limits. A community may have "sustainable growth" in the economy, education, or development of technology or infrastructure, but applied to any material thing, or the population, it is an oxymoron.

Consider "housing starts". Construction of each new home added to the inventory is a drain on resources. In recent years wood construction has been decried as unfriendly to the environment. But wood is a renewable resource, and with reasonable care in construction and maintenance can last far longer then the time it takes to grow replacement trees.

It‘s not that building ONE house of wood adversely effects the environment, it’s that building an expanding number of houses to meet expanding population demands is bad. With that realization, new housing starts that would consist of digging a hole are also unsustainable.

With a variety of materials and designs, homes can be built to provide reasonable temperatures without the need for externally powered HVAC. They can be built to last hundreds of years to house generation after generation. But a stable population is a necessity.

Population growth has limits. Every defined area, whether political or geographic, has an upper limit of population and resource consumption that can be sustained by the local resources or by sustainable trade. We must eliminate any incentive toward population growth.

There are families who make the conscious decision to limit to two (and preferably for the immediate future) one child. This needs to be encouraged as a voluntary act, or it will have to be enforced involuntarily, whether by humans, or nature.

We're only borrowing the physical present from future generations. Sustainable development must meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. We must also sustain human progress.

WHAT COMPRISES A SUSTAINABLE CIVILIZATION?

Limited intrusion on natural ecosystems. No more than ten percent (10%) of the ecosystem is appropriated solely for human use. (At the present, estimates are that 40% to 50% of the biosphere is diverted to human use.)

Recycling. We must not be dependent on consumption of a finite resource. (Fossil fuels, mining, ancient groundwater, etc.)

Stable population. We must limit our own numbers.

Human enclaves. Living, working, food production, recreation, etc. are consolidated, with open space around and interspaced. Human communities can be "ecologically sound", with natural processes meeting our needs, such as "living machines" processing human sewage. BUT, an ecosystem optimized for human habitation is NOT COMPATIBLE with a natural ecosystem.

Consider: We can grow food in biointensive gardens, live in earth sheltered homes within walking distance of shops or stores… But do you want wild rabbits or deer in your garden, bears wandering your sidewalks, or fleas in your bed? Human activity must be kept isolated.

Homes, business and public structures are engineered for long term service. Aspects which require periodic maintenance (pipes, wires, etc.) are accessible without damage to long-term aspects. (Stop digging up streets to access utilities!)

Spectacle test. Is the health and general physical condition of the residents such that the local technology can meet their medical needs? If you need eyeglasses, can you or some make them?

Technological progress test. Are there excess resources to be risked in development that may fail? Is there a broad knowledge base, and the availability of communications? Is there enough population for specialization, and a market for developments?

Governmental drain test. Programs, policies, and full time government positions are a drain on the productivity of any society, which requires the society to produce more than would otherwise be required to support the costs. Unfortunately, too many in full time / professional government / political / police military positions see themselves as rulers, rather than public servants, and are engaged in personal empire building. We must be prepared to wage war. If fighting on the level of war is required, total involvement is required, from the extra food to be grown, it's delivery to the troops, resupply efforts, etc. There are no civilians in war, only those incapable of actively fighting or providing support. But unless we’re involved in a war, maintaining a professional full time military is a drain on resources.

It is similar for police. They cannot be everywhere that real crime is, and the incentive is to criminalize actions that can readily show progress in dealing with crime by the police. Technically in most of the U.S., every citizen has the authority to make a citizens arrest, but it's discouraged by the professional police. We need to encourage personal initiative with offenders taken to the "on duty" staff.

We can’t continue to ignore and downplay self defense. Winning peace, not just at the level of "war", but down to local one-on-one crimes takes eternal vigilance at all levels.

It is the same for protecting the environment, it takes eternal vigilance of concerned citizens. There is no terminal point when we can declare we’ve saved the environment. It, as with many aspects, appears to require universal involvement of citizens. Absent such personal responsibility for security, there should be no vote, or other citizenship "rights" accorded.

Stable population test. Consider the energy and resources lost in public infrastructure, businesses, food processing, etc. to meet the needs of the spiraling growth of world population, which could instead be invested in progress.

There is an immediate need to develop strategies aimed at eliminating world population growth. The long term consequences of population growth are going to be demonstrated to all nations as the oil crash progresses.

Can you think of any problem we face where having more people makes it better?

Communities and civilization can slow their population growth by removing the many visible and hidden public subsidies that support and encourage growth. Welfare as it exists in America today must be eliminated. Its programs provide incentives for the unproductive to reproduce excessively. It is the same with dependency deductions, employer provided health insurance for families regardless of size, free public schooling, etc.

Stopping population growth will require educational, technical, and outreach programs in the areas of social responsibility, family planning, contraception, immigration, and resource use. We must make clear the greater the degree to which the carrying capacity has been exceeded, the more probable it is that coercion will become a factor in these programs. It also requires a review of governmental programs and taxes, which “reward” population growth, or penalize those who are successful.

The food chain is nature's equilibrium mechanism. It functions to prevent unlimited expansion of populations of flora and fauna. Primitive human societies were often able, if not forced to maintain approximately constant populations and to live within the carrying capacity of their ecosystems. The methods they used to maintain approximately constant populations were often cruel and inhumane.

Technology has given many people the feeling that, through our own efforts, we are exempt from the cruel constraints of limited carrying capacities. Be prepared for the consequences WHEN our infrastructure fails.

Ancient civilizations have vanished, in part because they grew too large and their size exceeded the carrying capacity of the ecosystems on which they depended for support.

Education notwithstanding, civilizations today show considerable tendency to repeat the mistakes of earlier civilizations, but on a much larger scale.

Cheap international trade allows the developed countries to draw on the carrying capacity of the entire earth, providing an illusion of sufficient local life support.

Living machines. We need human communities to be fully integrated living ecosystems optimized for human habitation. “Science writer Janine Benyus points out that spiders make silk, strong as Kevlar but much tougher, from digested crickets and flies, without needing boiling sulfuric acid and high-temperature extruders. The abalone generates an inner shell twice as tough as our best ceramics, and diatoms make glass, both processes employing seawater with no furnaces. Trees turn sunlight, water, and air into cellulose, a sugar stiffer and stronger than nylon, and bind it into wood, a natural composite with a higher bending strength and stiffness than concrete or steel. We may never grow as skillful as spiders, abalone, diatoms, or trees, but smart designers are apprenticing themselves to nature to learn the benign chemistry of its processes.”

Pharmaceutical companies are becoming microbial ranchers managing herds of enzymes. Biological farming manages soil ecosystems in order to increase the amount of biota and life per acre by keen knowledge of food chains, species interactions, and nutrient flows, minimizing crop losses and maximizing yields by fostering diversity. Meta-industrial engineers are creating "zero-emission" industrial parks whose tenants will constitute an industrial ecosystem in which one company will feed upon the nontoxic and useful wastes of another. Architects and builders are creating structures that process their own wastewater, capture light, create energy, and provide habitat for wildlife and wealth for the community, all the while improving worker productivity, morale, and health. High-temperature, centralized power plants are starting to be replaced by smaller-scale, renewable power generation. In chemistry, we can look forward to the end of the witches' brew of dangerous substances invented this century, from DDT, PCB, CFCs, and Thalidomide to Dieldrin and xeno-estrogens. The eighty thousand different chemicals now manufactured end up everywhere, as Donella Meadows remarks, from our "stratosphere to our sperm." They were created to accomplish functions that can now be carried out far more efficiently with biodegradable and naturally occurring compounds.”

No processes with toxic waste. In fact, no manufacturing or any other process with "waste". Close the loops, use the waste as a resource in another process, or otherwise recycle it, and recycle products which have passed their useful life.

WHEN IS IT TOO LATE?

The complete era of the use of fossil fuels by humans will be a vanishingly short fraction of the span of human existence on the Earth. (Hubbert 1974)

The supplies of all non-renewable resources will effectively expire when the costs ( in cash, in energy, in ecological and societal disruption ) of making available a quantity of the resource exceed the value of the quantity of the resource.

Comprehensive educational, technical, and outreach programs in the areas of efficient use of resources will be needed in order to help achieve sustainability.

Peak world production of petroleum will probably happen before the year 2020. Peak production of coal and oil shale, may occur in the 21st Century. Other fossil fuels probably will not be available in globally significant quantities for more than a few decades into the 21st Century.

The probability is very small that technological breakthroughs will produce new sources of energy not already known at the end of the millennium that will have the potential of supplying a significant fraction of the world's energy needs for any appreciable period of time.

WHO IS GOING TO DO IT?

Maslow in his hierarchy of needs theory contends that only after humans meet 'basic needs', do they seek to satisfy successively 'higher needs' that occupy a set hierarchy. If you have a homestead, and neighborhood that can provide your life support needs, YOU may be the one called on to re-build civilization.

SO WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

The challenge of making the transition to a sustainable society is enormous, in part because of a major global effort to keep people from recognizing the centrality of population growth to the enormous problems of the U.S. and the world. We must have no further net overrun of nature by humans.