The Emperor Has No Clothes A Practical Guide for Environmental and Social Transformation (24 page)

According to published US Government
information one of the primary objectives for obtaining the 54.5
mpg car mileage goal is to reduce the need to import oil by 2
million barrels/day. At the present time the United States is
importing 18.9 million barrels of oil each day. By switching to the
suggested electrically powered transportation system our oil
consumption would fall by 2.52 million barrels per day exceeding
the needed reduction of 2 million barrels per day.

Achieving the goal of eliminating oil imports
is exceedingly important. At the present time a great expansion of
fossil fueled transportation is occurring throughout the world. For
example, China is producing and adding 14,000 new cars to their
existing fleet every day. The result is that the amount of oil
being consumed is rapidly increasing, placing progressively greater
demands on a declining non-renewable resource. The result of this
situation is that ever increasing levels of competition for this
resource is taking place between nations, creating tensions that
has and will produce wars.[98] Another problem with oil imports are
that most of it originates from the middle east where a highly
volatile political situation prevails. This fluid political
atmosphere greatly compounds the already rapidly increasing
geopolitical instability caused by oil's declining availability. By
eliminating imported oil a reduction in international tensions
would result. As a result of reduced geopolitical tensions and need
for oil it would no longer be necessary to ensure the continued
flow of existing foreign oil supplies. Thus, by eliminating middle
eastern oil imports no rational would exist to maintain a military
presence in the middle east. Thereby, providing the possibility of
a large reduction in the size of the U.S. Military and the
associated military expenditures.

98. If you consider the two recent wars the
United States has had with Iraq there can be no doubt that securing
a reliable source of imported oil was one of the primary factors.
In fact going back to the first Gulf war when Iraq invaded Kuwait,
President Bush 1 explicitly stated that maintaining US oil supply
was vital to our national interest and threats to this supply would
not be tolerated.

Everything that has been discussed so far
with the exception of a few minor things [99] can be quickly and
easily accomplished, because they already exist, are adequate for
the task, are cost effective, and can be immediately implemented.
The result would be a reduction of the price of everything,
improved health, and a huge reduction in the causes of the
environmental problems that currently prevail. In order to
accomplish this task approximately 2,500 modules would be required
and if the rate of construction was at the suggested 300 module lot
size per year it would take about 8 1/3 years to accomplish. Since
at this scale of production significant reductions in costs would
be achieved, I will make an educated guess based upon my
experience, that an approximate cost for the project would be
around $677 billion at the discounted rate. So if we add the $345
billion in savings estimated by the Harvard study for elimination
of coal and the additional $80 billion in reduced health care costs
from reducing diesel particulates, we could expect this program to
pay for it self in 1 3/4 years.

99. The minor things are establishing a
national transportation standard for standard battery
configurations. This would make a practical demountable battery
system to be established enabling the formation of a battery
service station network. With this network the disadvantages of
battery charging time hindering long range battery powered travel
would be eliminated.

The discussion of the challenges and some
possible solutions that has been presented in this text has largely
been focused on the United States. While the United States has been
a major contributor to the current level of pollution, the
environmental problems that we must overcome are global in nature.
Therefore, an international cooperative effort will be needed to
resolve it. In order to engender the necessary true cooperative
spirit required to effect the profound changes that must be made,
the extractive mode of relationships that currently prevail will
have to be attenuated. In the final part of this guide we will
explore some possible modifications in our political and social
system that can produce the desired results and also provide an
improvement in our general life situation.

Structural Social Change
- In order to
effect the desired changes, in this section we will consider the
following:

1. Characterize the likely conditions arising
from current trends that will form the environmental matrix we will
have to cope with,

2. provide a few suggestions that will reduce
the currently prevailing rigidity in the U.S. Political system,

3. propose a reorganization of the basic
(grass roots) social pattern to provide an appropriate system able
to operate effectively in the new environment.

The environmental factors that will probably
exist are; a climatic regime that is expected to have greater
variability, while the shorter term weather patterns are expected
to incorporate larger but more persistent swings. The percentage of
strong storms and other forms of extreme weather is expected to
increase. The effects of climatic change will also produce a
redistribution of the current moisture patterns. These changes in
the weather regimes are expected to produce a reduction in
agricultural output. Sea level rise is expected to encroach upon
coastal areas that are generally heavily populated and
developed.[100] Diminishing amounts of resources, particularly
fossil fuels will be available. The greater amplitude of weather
variation will produce increasing costs for maintenance of
infrastructure.

100 Recently the Florida legislature past a
resolution to divide the state in half. This occurred as a result
of sea level rise impacting the southern more populated area which
averages only 50 feet above sea level (the northern half enjoys
much higher elevations). Because the remediation has been very
expensive and mostly paid for by the southern inhabitants. They
feel that the state hasn't been fair in the apportionment of tax
derived funds to offset these expenses. Thus, we are starting to
see some of the political ramifications of climate change.

At the present time we are relying on a
global economy to provide many of the goods and services that
support us. This type of economy relies upon opportunistic
exploitation of locally favorable conditions and economies of
scale. The types of conditions that are typically sought out are;
areas with easily trappable resources, governments that allow or
can be induced to accept externalization of business expenses and
give concessions, ineffectively or unregulated labor practices, low
labor costs, poor or nonexistent environmental regulations, and
places where the populations can be made dependent upon the
presence of the remotely owned multinational corporation. Economies
of scale are achieved by consolidation of production and
specialization. Basically with this type of system you have all
your eggs in a few baskets where systemic interruptions,
perturbations or breakdowns can produce significant disruptions or
collapse. An example of these characteristics can be seen in the
manufacture of computer key boards which are currently being made
in only two locations, China and Taiwan.

The general trajectory of the pattern of
these international enterprises mode of operation is as follows. In
most cases these enterprises take root in a new location by
offering somewhat higher wages than locally prevails, usually some
where in the third world. The higher wages attracts employees often
with experience or skills relevant to the activities of local
enterprises, thereby depriving them of trained personnel. The
international presence also establishes the conditions where the
lower cost merchandise from the global economy becomes available
which the new wage earners partake of. The result of these
introduced changes are that many of the locally produced items are
supplanted and the local economies become simplified. Because of
the reduced production diversity the host community loses its
organic capacity to produce necessities. As time progresses the
constellation of desirable conditions that originally attracted the
international company will change. These changes typically provide
the impetus for the company to seek and find some new more
desirable location where it will relocate their operation. After
the company leaves its economic input is removed from the community
where it was located and the local economy collapses. Generally
these communities experience great difficulty regaining their
original vitality since the capability for local production has
ceased to exist. In general the area becomes impoverished and out
of necessity many of the inhabitants are forced to migrate in the
hope of finding an adequate life situation.

Not only does this style of economic activity
simplify and cause eventual hard ships in the third world
communities that are exploited but also diminishes the organic
capabilities of the first world nations. In the 1990's these
multinational enterprises launched a vigorous campaign to induce
the politicians to establish a legal framework to support their
practices. The desired legal framework they were promoting was
embodied in the World Trade Organization (WTO) treaty. This
international treaty was designed to promote globalization and was
instituted in the 1990's. Let's examine the effects this has had in
the industrialized nations. If the United States is considered,
since the implementation of the WTO over half of the nations
productive capacity has been lost. What has emerged is a simplified
type of dependent economy. The economic simplification has produced
a reduced local and/or regional manufacturing capability with the
ability to produce a full array of necessities. For example, the
number of fasteners that are domestically produced is minute. Very
few of the most commonly used items such as clothing, shoes,
electronics, etc., have any significant level of domestic
production. The point is that the highly dispersed specialized
nature of the globalized means of production is completely
dependent upon having a continuation of the favorable conditions
its based upon. It is really quite fragile. If the sorts of
environmental changes that are being predicted take place
accompanied by scarce resource availability, the globalized means
of production will not remain viable. Moreover, the condition of
scarcity or absence of necessities often produce social, political,
and economic disintegration as described earlier since they are an
interlocked system.

The question is how can the greed based
economic system that is the wellspring of our environmental and
social difficulties be phased out without producing undesirable
dislocations? Since this system does not exist in a vacuum there is
much that can be done in the matrix of the individual and
collective spheres. Considering this matrix more closely it becomes
apparent that it requires a social system that tolerates and
fosters an entire supporting suite of afflictive states of mind. So
in order to change to a society that doesn't embody greed as the
prime mover, the current social system needs to be overhauled. This
can be accomplished easily and painlessly by incorporating
psychological antidotes to attenuate individual greed and systemic
social mechanisms that can not effectively embody its activity.

The place where effective changes can be made
is in the individual character of people. Character is simply the
way a suite traits are constellated. These traits are selected from
an inherent inventory possessed by all persons. The degree of
presence in the personality's constellation of a particular trait
is dependent upon its frequency of appearance and associated level
of intensity. Increased frequency augments its presence as well as
the level of intensity. Both are governed by the conditions that
gave rise to its manifestation. Much of the operation of these
traits in our daily lives operate in pretty much an automatic
fashion producing preconditioned responses to events. During the
course of our lives we seldom recognize that this process is taking
place. However, occasionally after some particularly obvious
maladjusted response to some event we may wonder why we performed
the action. Haven't you had this type of experience? The degree of
presence in ones personality of these undesirable traits can be
altered. The Buddhists have effective methods for the attenuation
of afflictive states of mind and enhancement of traits that are
desirable. There are many methods they have developed for this
purpose, in general they consist of antidotes and the ability to
recognize the appearance of undesirable states of mind in real
time. By having this type of awareness the individual has the
opportunity to choose to enact the desire or not. Antidotes rely
upon the fact that opposites can not exist together at the same
time. To give an example, feelings of anger can not coexist with
feelings of compassion, etc. The capability to recognize these
emotions as they appear and also have the ability to choose whether
to enact them or not, is developed through meditation.

Before we can proceed further in our
discussion the afflictive psychological traits and their antidotes
need to be identified.[101] The psychological traits that are
essential and/or conducive to supporting the operation of greed
within our society are; an exalted valuation of the needs of the
individual, excessive competitiveness, an adversarial view point, a
narrow simplified perception of others as ciphers that are there to
be exploited or defeated if resistance is offered. Once the
competitor or recalcitrant individuals frustrate the actions of the
greedy self important person it often produces anger. The
attributes of anger are an exclusive focus limited to a few aspects
of a situation. The result of the limited focus is that the few
features that are focused on become very large in psychic
landscape, thereby producing distorted responses to the ignored
broader situation. The antidotes for these mental states are;
compassion which precludes anger, adversarial proclivities and the
view of others as ciphers. Generosity eliminates greed, cooperation
is antagonistic to competition, patience eliminates frustration and
empathy in the context of group solidarity negates a callous
outlook and exaggerated level of individualism.