We are not programmed for growth. We are programmed to attempt to survive. We attempt survival by addressing problems. The problems we address are limited by our own human perceptions.

But our vast social system contains myriad specific complexities that exceed the capability of the human brain to manage them properly in real-time. Instead, we are forced to wait until problems become crises. When the crisis hits, we address the problems on the back end. This ends up requiring growth because we don't do away with the broken components of the failing system on the front end, we instead add new components by acquiring and usurping more resources. The new system components then cause new levels of complexity and problems of their own.

Wash, rinse, repeat, ad nauseum.

Take for example the problem of air pollution from cars. We first addressed this by switching from regular to unleaded fuel. Then smaller cars, vapor recovery, and additives. Now, hybrids and electric cars. While all along the way, adding more cars to the roads and adding more roads.

Without ever asking the questions, "why do we need so many cars at all" or "why do we need to travel such long distances at all". Which are where the problems originate, at the front end.

The complex answers to these questions are also not "easy", and being already overwhelmed by information overload, overwork, media saturation, and general disconnection from other humans, other living things, and our environments, we tend to find "difficult" answers to be wholly unpalatable.

It's ironic that sustainability, in the truest sense, is about the end of growth (or equivalently, the continuation of some kind of growth starting with a much smaller population) ...

We don't realize how true this is. It is, in fact, the life-cycle of the human body. We start as a single fertilized cell, which divides several trillion times, specializing along the way, until we reach maturity where growth slows. As a mature adult, we repeat the process through having wild sex, which hopefully after several attempts results in another fertilized cell. Then the mature adult usually gradually declines in energy requirements and body mass (losing many individual living cells in the process). Then the systemic interaction of cells that make up and support the body as a whole abruptly ceases, in what we call "death".

Our civilization (1) has no renewal process for the eventual decline and crash of its complex system and (2) is so incredibly poorly designed as to continually require vastly larger amounts of matter and energy inputs to avoid collapse.

Fast crash.

It seems we discussed that a while back too. "Sustainable" being an overused word that suggests you are a lefty treehugging libberul. It's just a word, though.

I suspect in about another decade, the watchword will be "survivable". (what with multiple crises coming alont)

I agree. One person who is exploring this is William McDonough. He seems to think that celebratory is a more apt description of the aspect of nature that we want to emulate. He points out that life grows and is fecund and it does not get into trouble the way we do because its growth promotes other growth. Where we make waste, other forms of life make food. Where we tear up ecosystems, other predators improve the stock of the prey. "Sustainability" is an outcome of a celebratory attitude towards nature, not a goal in itself. And, ecosystems are not really sustained, the evolve in their balance, growing more diverse and robust.

Chris

Absolutely, re the Nate quote, and the post.

In the popular imagination, sustainable in its genuine sense, not as a commercial or duplicitous, politically touted, buzzword, is assimilated to, equalled to (as far as I have been able to figure out), renewable, as in a natural cycle that with ‘natural’ inputs, just spins on and on, a simple system with guaranteed, immutable, input (most often sunlight but not only), which steadily produces desired outputs, without any feed back loops. The metaphoric image appears to be an idealized vision of Nature itself: soil, rain, sun, pollination, non man-made events, *natural*, with minimal proper, decent, conventional, human work, like weeding by hand, will lead to germination and all those lovely flowers in the garden, grain in the fields, chirpy birds, and plump boars or deer waiting to be killed, etc.

The vision is both historic, resting on reliance on land, its control, management, usurpation (colonialism..), the self sufficient homestead, those rough and ready times, etc. An archaic paradise. Supplemented, sneakily, and mysteriously, by the idea of 'capital' in monetary terms (as pointed out by Nate.)

We are coming up to 7 billion ppl. Those who eat and survive are dependent on mechanized, fertilized, water-pumped, global-traded, agriculture.

in general I would say you have a valid point, however I did NOT make piles of money on wall st (or rather, I did make alot, but spent it all in profligate ways). I do have a small warchest, and somehow manage to make more money each year than I spend because I've drastically reduced expenses, but I am not wealthy by any (U.S.)standards.

Perhaps I have a mutation -things like truth and discovery have always been more valuable to me, even in MBA graduate school. Of course, this assumes I have food on table and roof over head and next years food and roof paid for etc.. If I had unlimited funds, I would write much more often here - you are right about that. Oh, that is if I had finished my phd, finished my speeches, planted my garden, read the 30+ books I have sitting here, spent time with friends, exercised, etc. etc. Dunbars number applies to the human cognitive limitations of how many people we can realistically have relationships with, I don't know if theres a name for how many activities a 1400 cubic centimeter brain can physically handle...but whatever the name/number is, I'm close to it. (Schizophrenia to follow...)

Matt- I'm no saint and don't claim to be. If I really wanted to make money doing peak oil/resource depletion research, I'd do it privately with a hedge fund, etc. To me this is more socially rewarding, (except for the BS administrative side...) But its not all a one way street - I have learned tons from the commenters in this community, things that would be difficult to find elsewhere all in one place.

Then again, this all may be my own self-deception, which will be the subject of my next post as it relates to Peak Oil, Climate Change and resource depletion.

I believe (faith again) that it is human curiosity to ask these questions that is the truly sustainable part of our nature.

The words belief and faith have distinct origins which have been conflated semantically. The etymology of belief is a fervent wish and stems from Old English. Faith is a cognate of the Latin 'fides' and means 'to trust (in)'.

Africa is a Malthusian Trap. Other parts of the world might join it as oil production starts declining. I would prefer we use birth control rather than death as the preferred method of population control.

I think it's premature to talk about population decrease. The first step is to talk about population growth and get recognition that it is a factor when dealing with finite resources. We're not there yet. The next step would be to talk about population leveling off.

"The greatest obstacle to discussing population decline is that it inevitably leads to having to discuss "active measures" most of which are decidely grisly. China's one child policy and its brutal enforcement is a case in point."

I work with someone who is from China and has a brother still in China. According to him the enforcement of China's one child policy was far from brutal. You got fined or were not given certain government services for free. Now it is not even being enforced. Apparently because people now have private sector jobs, pay for their own health care and in general are wealthier - the one-child policy is no longer considered required and is like illegal immigration in the US - not enforced to any great extent.

Just to avoid misunderstandings -- what I meant is that my own comments aspire to belong to the light infotainment end, not that TOD is in any way a 'lightweight'. In my layman's view, it is a class above the others.

... we'd find a higher distribution of well rounded, integrative thinking, big picture aware people than any blog on the planet ...

Yes, and thank heavens for Hubbert Linearisation, differential calculus and its delightful deltas. It certainly keeps out hoi polloi. Let them eat organic cake at The Alternative Consumer. :-)

Since I have discovered it, it is my favourite site. Now I do not claim to have all these qualites that you mention, but I am trying in that direction, that's for sure.

The most important point (which is too often neglected) is the big picture. Not that new giant LCD =)

My only complaint is that I need several hours a day to process daily articles and posts. =)

I don't know...they let me in.

if the demographics of this site were compared to others, we'd find a higher distribution of well rounded, integrative thinking, big picture aware people than any blog on the planet.

I wholeheartedly agree with you, Nate.

I would think the demographics of this site are mostly engineers and investors.

The posts I see here demonstrate an understanding of mathematics and physics only seasoned technical people understand.

The contributors and moderators here do an absolutely fantastic job of screening content; deletion only in the worst case, but usually by quite pointed observations of the fallacies of incompletely thought out posts.

I have not seen this level of self-policing of this kind of content anywhere else on the web.

I wish I had more to contribute to this forum than kudos, but I do feel the need to express my gratitude to those who share so many hours of time preparing the posts I find so insightful, and the wisdom they freely share with me.

One of the things I like so much here is its all about sharing, not selling. We are all concerned over a common situation - which I believe all here know the seriousness of - and any of us that has any relevant knowledge is free to post.

If nothing else, I hope for insight on how to minimize the withdrawal pangs of petroleum addiction.

I dunno about that, Nate. Every blog or website I've ever been on has claimed to have lots more smart people than almost anywhere else.

I think we're just confusing, "I like the company here," with "the company here is smart."