The Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association predicts auto sales in Japan will fall to 4.86 million in 2009 – the first time below five million in more than three decades. This year, sales are projected at 5.11 million, the worst since 1980.
My decision to give up car ownership several years ago has required me to turn to other forms of transportation. For local travel I initially turned to cycling and walking, while carrying a strip of bus tickets in my wallet as backup. Since June, for several reasons, I have been using the local bus system more (known as OCTranspo here in Ottawa) , so I have purchased a bus pass, in conjunction with membership in a car sharing organization, vrtucar. So far so good, until, a week ago, within hours of the city being hit by its first major snowstorm, and in the midst of the already increased traffic generated by the holiday season, the bus drivers went on strike.
Similar scenes can be observed in modern day European cities where the streetscape came before the automobile, as shown below in Dublin Ireland in 2003.
The difference is that today they don’t have to pay for it. The real problem for newspapers, in other words, isn’t the Internet; it’s us. We want access to everything, we want it now, and we want it for free. That’s a consumer’s dream, but eventually it’s going to collide with reality: if newspapers’ profits vanish, so will their product.
...a guy who could not control his own party, pretending that he can now control a government populated with his former political enemies in the NDP, propped up by separatists — the very people that Mr. Dion entered public life to defeat. Now he's going to give them legitimacy, he's going to also give them more power in Ottawa than they have ever enjoyed. More smart, yes. But this isn't smart. This is dumb.He further opines that:
...if Mr. Dion becomes prime minister, he's only going to be there for a few months. And to accomplish that, he has had to enter a pact with union-beholden social democrats and separatists. Mr. Dion lacks the moral authority to form a government.He characterizes the proposed coalition as
...inherently unstable. These three leaders have been at each others throats throughout their political lives. They have no common policies, only a common interest in attaining power through the back door. No matter what their agreement states, it seems highly doubtful that a Prime Minister Dion could keep this together for long, nor is there much hope that Mr. Dion could deliver the kind of leadership required during such uncertain times. That's the point: it's time for leadership in Ottawa, and since the incumbent prime minister and opposition leader are incapable of providing it, we need look elsewhere.
For the federal Liberal caucus members, they must come together and create something larger than each, something larger than three very talented colleagues among them – Michael Ignatieff, Dominic LeBlanc, and Bob Rae – who must set aside personal goals in the short run and assume a shared responsibility at this critical moment in concert with Mr. Dion. These four are thoughtful Canadians very capable of a sense of doing the right thing that we need so desperately at this moment.
The Liberal caucus must choose both a process and outcome worthy of the short term moment at hand, with concurrent concern for its future, and the nation's, in mind. They must opt for stability, integrity, humility and respected and respectful collective leadership.
Regarding a more permanent expression of leadership, my Federal cousins need to construct a process and plan, along with a historically composed Cabinet that must serve our nervous nation with calm and strategic intellect. Over the next number of months, their work must be free of distractions of a personal and political nature if a promising accord of fiscally prudent and progressive decisions are to be made and set in motion.
What in the world motivated Prime Minister Stephen Harper to bring his own government to the brink of defeat? Is he bored? Did he bet one of his colleagues that he could find a way to exhume Liberal leader Stéphane Dion and make him prime minister?
Harper's retraction of his pointlessly antagonistic plan to stop public financing of political parties puts an end to what will long be remembered as one of the dumbest stunts in the history of Canadian politics. Consider it. The guy wins an increased minority and everything is cruising along as he says the right things about the economy, until he comes up with virtually the only issue that could possibly unite the three opposition parties. Then, Harper dares his opponents to defeat his government over political party financing, something that matters not a whit to the average Canadian.
Someone recently asked anthropology professor Ian Prattis what future society will look like.
"I told him we would have a lower standard of living," Mr. Prattis recalls. "Second car -- no. Cottage -- no. We'd have different infrastructure just to move around, because the infrastructure in our city is not sustainable."
Here are some lines that really intrigued me.
...he sees a lower standard of living as a good thing, in the long run.Once I read this, I knew that I wanted to learn more about Ian Prattis. It turns out, according to his website, that he is
...economics is "a failed science" and ... our society suffers from a pathological "culture of greed." He has asked the Nobel committee to stop awarding a prize for economics and give one for ecology instead.We need to abandon greed and capitalism and return to our instinctive understanding of sustainable, he argues.
Greed "is pathological. It makes people ill. It kills them. It will kill any possibility of our species being alive on this planet past this century."
a poet and scholar, peace and environmental activist - has trained with Masters in Buddhist, Vedic and Shamanic traditions and gives dharma talks, seminars and retreats around the world.He is the founder of Friends for Peace - a coalition of meditation, peace and environmental groups that works for peace and planetary care and also the resident teacher of a Buddhist meditation community in Ottawa, Canada - the Pine Gate Sangha.
I am hoping to meet him in the near future.
Randall,
I am hoping to have time to write a proper 'letter to the editor' response on this one.
I fully agree with you that we should be making these kinds of decisions being fully apprised of the facts. However, in your cursory analysis I believe you, like every other commentator I have read on this subject, fail to mention one of the biggest subsidies provided for automobile users; the provision of a road system. Yes, buses use roads, but they are completely overwhelmed by the sheer volume of cars.
And, I know, car users pay a vast array of taxes directly related to their auto use, but, the question is, do these taxes fully pay for the capital and operating costs of these roads?
Also, no one ever points out the imposition of the massive space required by all these cars. Is it any wonder that our cities lack population density when every person of voting age seems 'driven' to bring their own two tons of metal with them? A car sits idle for more than 90% of its lifetime, but we have to find space for all of them 100% of the time. They require a road to drive on, as well as a parking space at home. Such parking requirements put immense pressure on the design of our urban space. In my years of participation with my local community association, the number one question that always comes up revolves around traffic congestion. Yet, time and again, people drive to these public meetings to voice their complaint without every seeing the irony.
Yes, lets gather ALL the facts. Once compiled I believe they will state the obvious that providing sufficient infrastructure at public expense to enable everyone to own a vehicle that will provide for all of their transportation needs is much more costly than having a long term vision of redesigning our urban environments to reduce car use. Mass transit will never compete with sheer convenience of having a car in your driveway and a set of keys in your hand. My point is that the cost of providing such convenience should be born fully by the car user, not the taxpayer.
I am like you, I want to know all the facts. Lets gather them.
Leonard Poole
Overbrook
One of the curses of being a member of the boomer generation is that everywhere you go, you find that a crowd of similar-aged people just got there ahead of you. We used to flock to inexpensive, unspoiled countries, driving up the cost and spoiling whatever was there. Then we all decided to move to certain popular urban neighbourhoods, driving up the cost and changing the neighbourhoods for the worse with our demand for condo buildings and upscale coffee shops. Now we're flooding to the countryside, buying up waterfront, lakeview properties and even properties with views of lakeview properties. Costs are heading in the usual direction. As a generation, we're like a plague of locusts, destroying everything we touch.I often note the cynical touch to his articles. He doesn't disappoint with his conclusion:
By my observation, my generation is well on the way to ruining the attraction of rural living. But hey, we're boomers. Ruining things is what we do.
Good Morning Randall,
Spot on with your Sunday morning article!
We have met the enemy, and, so often, it is us. If we could only understand that for every action, there is a consequence. Over the long term, nothing is free. There is always a price. What you speak of is one more consequence of our consumer driven, must always have more society. For this to be turned around, everyone of us must start taking the concept of stewardship to heart. I am deeply concerned that this will not happen within my life time as too many of us continue to believe that we can build/buy/consume our way out of the mess we have created.
Over dinner with friends just last evening we discussed how essential it is that we begin moving far beyond simply changing personal habits. We need policy change at at all levels of government that start to shift the focus of our society to long term sustainability. If the activity is not sustainable over the long term, why do we as a society allow it to happen? Because we continue to believe that the promotion of ever expanding unrestrained personal wealth (what else can you call it but greed), is a good thing. I enjoy experiencing the comforts of what our society has to offer as much as the next person, but, when is enough, enough? The Europeans, particularly Scandinavian countries, are more than a generation ahead of us in this regard. We are so caught up in chasing our own tail in the blind pursuit of excessive material and experiential consumption. So sad. If only we could learn to Consume Less, While Enjoying Life More!
Thanks for writing this, and keep it up.
Leonard Poole
...by 2000 the average married couple with children was working almost five hundred hours a year more than in 1979. And according to reports by the Federal Reserve Bank in 2004 and 2005, over 40 percent of American families spend more than they earn. The average household carries $18,654 in debt, not including home-mortgage debt, and the ratio of household debt to income is at record levels, having roughly doubled over the last two decades. We are quite literally working ourselves into a frenzy just so we can consume all that our machines can produce.Spinning our wheels ever faster. And then we wonder why the environmental systems are collapsing around us.
It has become increasingly apparent over the past half-century that there is a growing tension between two seemingly irreconcilable trends. On one hand, moderate to conservative demographic projections indicate that global human numbers will almost certainly reach 8 to 9 billion by mid-21st century, only two generations from the present. On the other, prudent and increasingly reliable scientific estimates suggest that the Earth's long-term sustainable human carrying capacity, at what might be defined as an “adequate” to “moderately comfortable” developed-world standard of living, may not be much greater than 2 to 3 billion. It may in fact be considerably less, perhaps in the 1 to 2 billion range, particularly if the normative life-style (level of consumption) aspired to is anywhere close to that currently characterizing the United States.Although, as I read his essay, I sense how much he wants to be a positive voice of hope for humanity, he struggles to be optimistic. He concludes that he can only be:
...cautiously optimistic that the human species will be able successfully to confront the complex and interrelated problems we have managed to create for ourselves -- what some have begun to characterize as an ecological, economic, political, sociocultural, and moral “perfect storm.” In fact, when I see how little traction various mitigating (or ameliorative) efforts have gained over the past 30 to 40 years, I have become increasingly pessimistic that humanity -- potentially some 9-plus billion of us within our children’s and grandchildren’s lifetimes -- will be successful in staving off some very difficult times over the next several generations (throughout the 21st century and beyond).Read his full essay. It is sobering.
"What we most need to realize at this juncture is that the way things have been in the world’s industrial societies over the last century or so is in no way normal. It’s precisely equivalent to the new lifestyle adopted by winners of a lottery whose very modest income has suddenly leapt upward by $1 million a year or so. After a few years, the lottery winners might well become accustomed to the privileges and possessions that influx of wealth made possible, and children growing up in such a family might never realize that life could be any other way. The hard fact remains, though, that when the lottery money runs out, it runs out, and if no provision has been made for the future, the transition from a million dollars a year to the much more modest income available from an ordinary job can be very, very rough.Watching commentary today on the CBC news, one analyst was asked,(and I paraphrase), "With these rapidly increasing prices at the pump, have consumers begun to change their choices about where they work and live?" "No, not yet, but I expect to see this coming in the near future."
The huge distortions imposed on the modern industrial nations by the flood of cheap abundant energy that washed over them in the 20th century can be measured readily enough by a simple statistic. In America today, our current energy use works out to around 1000 megajoules per capita, or the rough equivalent of 100 human laborers working 24-hour days for each man, woman, and child in the country. The total direct cost for all this energy came to around $500 billion a year in 2005, the last year"
In a new report, Jeff Rubin, chief economist with CIBC World Markets Inc. forecast a continued run-up in crude prices, despite a slowing world economy and slumping petroleum demand in United States, the world's leading oil consumer. He predicts that
...crude prices – now trading at above $116 (U.S.) a barrel - to average $150 by 2010, and more than $200 by 2012. That would translate into pump prices of $7 (U.S.) per gallon in the United States, and $2.25 per litre in Canada, double the current levels.He points out that world oil production levels has essentially stagnated at about 85-million barrels per day over the last two years, while demand is escalating from the emerging powerhouse economies of India and China. He observes that “millions of new households will suddenly have straws to start sucking at the world's rapidly shrinking oil reserves”.
This, of course, comes at the same time as surging world food prices. The price of Thai rice has now topped $1,000 per ton, which is more than triple the price from the start of this year.
Of course, those with money will continue to be able drive their SUVs to buy their rice and meat, and snow peas imported from half a planet away, while increasing numbers go hungry. Quite the world we live in.The key concept for councillors to remember is that this expensive new transit plan will only be justified if it can change our travel behaviour and development pattern, making the central part of our city one where people can live without cars. If it's all just to justify past and future suburban expansion, it's a bad way to spend public money. (emphasis added)I couldn't agree more. I forwarded the following comments to him after reading his column:
It needs to be recognized that the bulk of our planning decisions for the design of our cities have been based on the assumption that we can always depend on the automobile. It is becoming clear to increasing numbers of us that this is not possible. The 2020 vision in Ottawa of increasing transit use will not be fanciful and a 'nice to have' in a few short years. The clamour for automobile alternatives will be demanded by more people because of the ever increasing cost of automobile use.We have been getting it wrong for a very long time. Whether we like it or not, we will be forced out of our vehicles as our primary source of transportation. The type of expansive living we have accepted as the norm is coming to an end within the next generation or two. The convergence of the pressures from peak oil and climate change are narrowing our options. The sooner that individuals and communities come to terms with this reality, the better off they will be in the future. Those that continue to deny reality do so at their peril.
This fundamental redirection of our thinking is not going to be easy. It will require substantive compromise. The inner urbanites (self included) are going to have to deal with the pressures of increased densities in their own backyard. The suburbanites and beyond are going to have to accept that they can't have taxpayer supported instant mass transit at their doorstep while living in sprawling communities. Mass transit only is sustainable with sufficient density. If Kanata/Orleans/Barrhaven want mass transit, they will have to become dense enough to sustain it. They will not be viable simply as 'bedroom' communities.
I want to commend all of you for accepting the staff position on rejecting the offer of funding for an environmental assessment of expansion of Hwy 174. We must put an end to subsidizing inefficient automobile use. If there are to be subsidies, the most efficient forms of mass transit must be at the top of the funding list.It's a great start. Now, if we can just transform this thinking into solid mass transit investment.
Within a generation, transformation of the transportation infrastructure shall be imposed on all cities as a result of rapidly increasing costs of energy. Urban areas that depend on expansive road networks shall be left behind. It is imperative that the City of Ottawa become forward looking in how it makes these decisions. We are already hearing increases in the call for efficient mass transit in this city as expansive suburban living becomes increasingly expensive. These voices shall get louder and stronger in the very near future as more of us accept that building a city that is primarily dependent on the private automobile is more costly in the short term and not sustainable in the long term.
I went to the meeting this afternoon assuming there would be some debate. I was delighted to see this pass so readily.
The decision we make with respect to mass transit in the near future will only be the beginning of 'transformation' of the transportation infrastructure in this city.
Thanks for sending a clear message to the Province that we are not prepared to continue to subsidize inefficient individual car use at the expense of needed investment in mass transit.
| Written by Jan Lundberg | |
| Culture Change Letter #181 An observation on modern society, from a Mayan village Rich people can afford anything, or so it is assumed. But our rapidly changing world demands a new accounting of what goes on in the creation and distribution of material wealth amidst unprecedented global population size. We've heard that the high mucky-mucks will eventually find they can't eat money, nor get into Heaven as well as a camel can get through the eye of a needle. We've heard that "You can't take it with you," from the Keef Hartley Band's song of that title. But now it's time to think in terms of the historic change facing humanity, as the excesses of the pinnacle of Western Civilization take our breath away. |
Awareness of Peak Oil, Climate Change, impending global economic implosion, topsoil depletion, biodiversity collapse, and the thousand other dire threats crashing down upon us at the dawn of the new millennium constitutes an enormous psychological burden, one so onerous that most people (and institutions) respond with a battery of psychological defenses-mostly versions of denial and distraction-in an effort to keep conscious awareness comfortably distanced from stark reality. I discuss this in "the Psychology of Peak Oil and Climate Change," chapter 7 of Peak Everything, where I conclude that the healthiest response to dire knowledge is to do something practical and constructive in response, preferably in collaboration with others, both because the worst can probably still be avoided and because engaged action makes us feel better.
Some people who are aware of global threats respond psychologically with a relentless insistence on maintaining mental focus on possible positive futures, however faint their likelihood of realization. Other knowledgeable people are irritated by this behavior and prefer to plunge themselves into prolonged contemplation of the worst possible outcomes. On various Internet discussion sites this split plays out in endless flame-wars between "doomers" and "anti-doomers" (the latter differ from cornucopians, who deny that there is a problem in the first place).
I generally try to avoid both extreme viewpoints. To me, all that matters in the final analysis is whether awareness leads to effective action that actually reduces the risk of worst-case scenarios materializing.
He then asks:Who among us hasn't fretted over the likely impacts of societal collapse on oneself, family, and friends? Of course, it's perfectly sensible to make some preparations. We should have some food stored, we should be gardening and making efforts to reduce our energy usage and need for transportation. But the obsessive thought that it's not enough can be paralyzing. What if financial collapse proceeds to economic, political, and cultural collapse; what could one possibly do to insulate oneself in that case? Tough question. There are too many unknowns. No matter what we do, there can never be a guarantee that we will be immune to the consequences of Peak Oil and Climate Change.
But this quandary is similar in some ways to the universal problem of personal mortality: we do what we can to maintain health (we eat right, we exercise), knowing nevertheless that eventually we will die. Still, the point of life is not to spend every waking moment trying to cheat death; rather, it is to enjoy each day as much as possible, to grow, to learn, and to give of oneself. Time spent building a family emergency preparedness kit needs to be balanced against time spent helping make one's entire community more resilient, and raising awareness in the world as a whole-and time spent with loved ones, and time spent singing and dancing or whatever it is that makes us happy.
He concludes with some friendly advice:So with this pep talk comes some friendly advice (again, I'm also talking to myself here): Take breaks. Eat well, and make sure you get enough exercise and sunlight. Ask yourself: What would I do for joy if I knew I had only a year left? A month? A week? Would I make love, spend time in nature, play music, or...?
Well, do it! But remember the rest of us, and don't drop the ball entirely.
In the end, there is no blame or guilt attached to any of this. And there is a limit to the utility of pep talks. Each of us has different brain chemistry, a different reservoir of past experiences that has shaped our character and repertoire of behavioral responses, all of which results in differing levels of tolerance for bad news and hard effort. We will each do what we can, given our unique makeup. But if words can help, let no courageous worker down tools for lack of simple reassurance.
We're all in this together. Let's rely on one another's reserves of psychological strength when we need to, and provide strength for others when we can.
Yes, we are all in this together. I am most curious how the next few decades are going to unravel. Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to experience two or three of them to the fullest. Time will tell. It is going to be an interesting journey.It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on him not understanding it. ~Upton SinclairPeople are willing to risk communicating more openly when they feel respected. They usually are more receptive to allowing their ideas to be challenged when they feel safe as a person. Perhaps this is what has happened in the break down of communication that has been making news recently in the brittle discourse between the Federal Finance Minister and the Provincial Government of Ontario. They have stopped respecting each other, and subsequently, they have stopped listening. Each vainly attempts to score points, while they learn little if anything from each other.
"All anyone wants", the voice intoned, "when you look around you, is a safe place to raise their children, a place where they know that parents can age with dignity and grace. That is really all any of us really wants, wherever we are, whatever our station in life."And isn't that so true? Once you strip away all of the extraneous trappings of life that our hyper-consumer driven society encourages us to seek, what we really want is a safe place to call home for our family. What we incessantly debate are the finer details of how to make it happen.
