 Last week in
my article A Sacred
Earth Culture
I outlined my environmental philosophy,
and expressed hope that, with a concerted effort by a
lot of people on initiatives like those in my How to Save
the World Roadmap, my 'Plan A', we can prevent 'eco-tastrophe'
occurring in this
century. I also indicated that, in case that doesn't suffice, sometime
in this century we will need a 'Plan B'. These are my early
thoughts
on the unthinkable -- what Plan B might entail.
The late 21st century scenario that would/will require this plan is
extremely bleak:
- A
world of 10-15 billion people, twice today's number, consuming the
resources of six or eight sustainable Earths.
- Constant warring over scarce oil
and water, and, as population sprawls, scarce
land, meat & dairy products, and, eventually, scarce everything.
- A world of staggering
inequality, where a tiny minority desperately hoards the majority of
the world's resources, and protects these resources and themselves with
huge, technologically advanced armies and private militias.
- A global collapse of economic systems and infrastructure:
stock markets,
currencies, education systems, health systems, law enforcement systems,
democratic governments, all abandoned because there is no money or will
to sustain them.
- Ubiquitous, grinding poverty, epidemic diseases of
overcrowding, and universal despair, strife, hopelessness, anger and fear.
Without a radical, global, and improbably
fast change in human culture and behaviour, this scenario is
inevitable. This is not Malthusian hysterics. It is already the reality
in most of the third world, and, contrary to what the corporatists
would have you believe, it is getting worse, not better, with
globalization and 'free' trade. There is no evidence, despite the fact
that we are already living well beyond our planet's means, of any
political will to replace our unsustainable economy with one that will
allow us to survive. There is no evidence that human population will
stop growing at 8-9 billion, as we optimistically predicted a
generation ago.
As countries like China attempt to emulate the Western economic model,
massively depleting their supply of water and arable land, producing
pollution in volumes not seen even during the coal era of the
industrial revolution, and increasing the demand for already scarce
energy resources at a staggering rate, the human 'footprint', measured
in number of Earths' sustainable supply of resources, is accelerating
even as population growth is decelerating. Economic disparity is
growing at a phenomenal rate, both between rich and poor countries, and
between the tiny elite and the increasingly destitute masses of people
within each country. Biodiversity is shrinking at a rate not seen in 65
million years, and we are increasingly dependent on a few,
unsustainable technologies (like the automobile and 'energy deficit'
agriculture), a few increasingly scarce natural resources (oil, wood
and water) and a few highly inbred, chemically-laden, and hence
vulnerable and unresilient food sources (the number of varieties of
plant and animal species eaten by man in commercial quantities has
dropped by over 80% in a generation).
And for those who believe technology and innovation will come to our
rescue, there is no precedent for the kind of massive, ubiquitous,
instantly-deployed human invention and ingenuity that would be needed
to transform not only our economy, but more critically its distribution
mechanisms, sufficiently to even begin to offset the crises of scarcity
and environmental devastation we are obliviously headed for today.
(The red lines above
show sustainable levels of population and consumption, with no
provision for survival of any other living species. They show we are
already living well beyond the Earth's sustainable capacity. The green
lines
show the sustainable levels of population and consumption if we want to
share a modest part of our planet with other species). More information
on this chart here.)
Even those who believe in Armageddon always
thought it would be
Someone Else's Job to solve the crisis. No matter how much we try to
deny it, we are careening out of
control, on an icy road going too fast towards a wall we can yet hardly
see. Stopping, if it is not already too late, is our job. Those in the driver's seat
are accelerating and looking in the rear-view mirror. And even those
who want to stop have forgotten where the brake is, or aren't in a
position to reach it.
If we find it is too
late to stop, we must have a Plan B, a way to derail
the vehicle of of our culture, our civilization, before it hits the wall.
It will
not be pretty, but for all those who do not romaticize our world
ending in apocalypse, it could be our only alternative.
To
continue the metaphor of the out-of-control vehicle headed for the
wall, Plan B involves turning off the motor of civilization, and
steering off
the road without flipping over.
Sabotage without suffering. Unlike almost every other revolution in our
history, this one involves killing no one, and saving everyone.
The objective of Plan B is to do the following:
- End the 'growth' economy quickly, putting a stop to the
increased destruction of our environment and increased consumption of
scarce resources. The vehicle
careening out of control would then no longer
accelerate.
- Drastically cut the disparity of wealth and power
between rich
and poor, so that the means of control of our future would return to
all of us. We would elbow the wealthy and powerful elites out of the
driver's seat of our careening vehicle, and seize the wheel.
- Increase our self-sufficiency, resiliency and
readiness to make the rapid transition to a new and radically different
human culture. If the vehicle ends
up in the ditch in the middle of nowhere when we steer it
away from the wall, at least we won't be helpless.
Here is the ugly part, the
unthinkable, obviously illegal, and hopefully
unnecessary, Plan B:
- Sabotage the energy and transportation systems -- Skilfully
but irreparably (and if necessary, repeatedly) dismantle dams,
pipelines, transformers, tankers, refineries, drilling platforms,
so that they can't function. But do so without causing
pollution
or death in the process. Intercept and
block the flow of weapons from rich countries to poor, and the export
of locally-needed and slave-labour-produced resources from poor
countries
to rich. Monkey-wrench the engine
and transmission system of our culture.
- Seize control of the communication system --
Jam, hack and occupy the broadcast facilities of the
complicitous and compliant major media, and then transmit anti-growth,
anti-consumption
messages -- warnings about the dangers of corporatism, consumerism,
commercialism, power and wealth concentration, privatization, big
families, environmental degradation, unreported family violence,
factory farm abuses hidden from public view, illegal incarceration,
suppression and removal of civil rights and freedoms, two-tier health,
education and transportation systems -- all the
programs and practices that sustain the fervent 'perpetual growth'
mantra that is accelerating us towards the crash. Turn off the blaring radio and tell the
six billion passengers of the vehicle that we're out of control and
need their cooperation and help.
- Boycott the corporatist economic system -- Opt out of investing
in governments, corporations and institutions that keep us addicted
to consumption and debt, and that provide corporatists with the capital
they need to further concentrate their power and control over us and
sustain the irrational belief in 'perpetual growth'. Starve the carburetor of the air that
keeps the vehicle firing on all cylinders.
- Destroy confidence in the food system -- Use viral marketing,
industrial sabotage and biological agents to undermine public
confidence in the foods produced in factory farms and owned or 'stolen'
from the third world by the global food oligopoly, without harming farmed animals or
seriously jeopardizing public health. Replace the system with
community-owned, local food systems that ensure self-sufficiency. Teach the passengers how to survive once
the vehicle is derailed.
- End human population growth -- Use evenly, globally
dispersed biological agents to reduce human fertility without
discrimination and without causing human suffering. No more riders in this vehicle -- it's
overloaded already.
- Seize control of the education system -- To end the
dumbing down of citizens to mere consumers, end the social, cultural,
political and economic indoctrination of our children, and re-educate
people about what is really happening in the world, and the need for
radical change. Make sure all the
passengers understand that we cannot survive a crash, and doing nothing
to stop it is irresponsible and not an option.
It is not yet the time to
launch Plan B. To move forward with these extreme
measures now would be seen, understandably, as immoral and irrational,
and be labeled terrorism. But in twenty, fifty, seventy years, if we
haven't replaced our culture
with a new sustainable culture, there will be billions ready, desperate
to
implement Plan B, and sympathetic to its cause. If it comes to that,
and you find Plan B too distasteful, too radical, you are welcome to
teach your grandchildren, whose legacy this catastrophic world will be,
to pray. I'm going to teach mine to do something. Because the
alternative
by then will clearly be death. If and when that time comes, we
will know. In the meantime, we can only be ready, and keep working like
hell on Plan A.
|
MADE IN CANADA
trust your
instincts 
