Addicted to growth

"We used to think you could spend your way out of recession ...  I tell you, in all candour, that option no longer exists. " Jim Callaghan 1976 Labour party conference.

Whether or not those words were true then, in light of the 'recession' we are unwittingly bestowing on Gaia, they are certainly true today. In very crude terms, the more the economies of the world grow the more the natural economy of the earth is compromised and displaced.

Recently there seems to be a growing realisation of this more serious airtime given to the ideas of the growing base of the enlightened among us who see this global recession as an opportunity to re-evaluate the core values of the world's economic system and as a real chance for building a better economic system which values decisions based on quality of life rather than profit and the futile pursuit of unlimited growth and increasing GDP. 

As Herman Daly reminds us in his paper on the virtues of Steady-state Economics: the verb "to grow" has become so overladen with positive value connotations that we have forgotten its first literal dictionary denotation, namely, "to spring up and develop to maturity." Thus the very notion of growth includes some concept of maturity or sufficiency, where by physical accumulation gives way to physical maintenance; that is, growth gives way to a steady state. It is important to remember that "growth" is not synonymous with "betterment."

Still though, world leaders are unquestioningly following growth as the ends rather than the means to the ridiculous point where we have the Taiwanese government giving each citizens over $100 shopping vouchers as if it will be a cure to the countries economic woes. And here in Japan, we have the Prime Minister proudly announcing a similar scheme, while a local city government is giving over $1,100 to people who purchase a new Mitsubishi vehicle. 

Consider for a moment - giving people more money to consume when every kg of consumables produced by our current economic system, in turn, creates a staggering impact on the environment - an average of 32kgs of waste. 

Alternatively, rather than wasting money on these mindless and irresponsible schemes couldn't it just be redirected to public social and environmental programs?  President Obama seems to be more in line with this reality by pledging to implement a huge spending scheme to create new jobs in the renewable energy sector.

 

As highlighted in the film the 11th Hour when is the time going to come when, all governments and policy makers switch back the ends and the means so that once again quality of life rather than growth is the focus for 'development'? 

The first step is to ditch GDP as a measure of a country's development and replace it with one which more accurately measures development .... but that's another blog I guess

 

Conditioning from conveniences

On a very merry night out in Osaka on New Year's Eve, while coming out of a pub housed on the 1st floor (2nd floor in Japan), seeing exiting customers waiting for the lift to go down to the floor below got me going. 

How is it that we have got to the point where people unquestionably wait for a lift (elevator) to come to their aid for moving up or even down one floor, when next to the lift there is a 'manual' device (stairs!) which invariably offers the same service in a quicker and cheaper (in environmental and health terms) manner?

While my cohort on that night's merriment thought that moaning about this point was perhaps taking things too far, but for me it represented a larger problem - our conditioning that comes from conveniences, which paradoxically, leads us to lose-lose habitual actions and decision-making. 

In everyday life similar the results of this conditioning can be seen everywhere. Just go to any check-out counter to see shop assistants putting single items into tiny plastic bags and customers with bags and pockets, unquestionably accepting them.

Anyway, sorry to start the new year with a bit of a moan but once you notice these things you may see that it soon becomes something you need to periodically vocalise, or indeed, blog about.

May 2009 be filled with a greater awareness about how we are being conditioned and where it is leading us.

Never so easy

It's sometimes difficult to be upbeat about the future of our planet with the daily stream of eco-related stories and reports that indicate the continuing decline of the earth's environment. I've recently given this some thought however, and decided to pay more attention to the positive stories and items that I come across. Yes, it's necessary to be aware of the (often depressing) facts to gain an awareness and appreciation of the need for change and action, but surely, once one reaches a certain level of awareness, it would seem healthier and probably more productive in terms of motivation, to focus on the positive news.

Anyway, this train of thought led to this entry. Recently, the number of products and services available in Japan to the ethical consumer appear to be on the rise.  In addition to the niche products and services which have for sometime now have been out there on the internet, more mainstream and visible products are starting to surface. Here are a few of those.

Carbon-free nengajo (new year's cards). These can be bought at post offices and for an extra 5yen a fund is collected to offset the carbon used in the production, and possibly delivery of the card. Last year 38,000 tonnes of CO2 were offset with these cards.

Organic wines now seem to be much easier to find. These include wines from Cono Sur which has gone one step further towards reducing its environmental impacts by using carbon neutral delivery. Look for the bicycle on the label if your interested in this wine. Available at Liquor Mountain.

It is also encouraging to see the growth of the fair trade goods from places such as Sisam, which has an ethical interior shop East of Hyakumanben, on Imadegawa, Kyoto, and People Tree, a long established fair trade outlet.

Other ethical and eco-friendly shopping links can be found here and should expand during 2009 

Beginnings of an idea

My major and main interests are in sustainable development so needless to say, buying a car had never been an option for me, at least, not until our first baby was born.

Living in the far north East corner of Kyoto, has the benefit of clear cool air and on-the-doorstep access to Hiezan forest. However, this comes with a cost; a long gradual climb finished off by a short but extremely steep ascent, which only a small percentage of the local population can regularly conquer by bicycle. So, with our house positioned as it is, and the growing weight of our daughter on the back of our bikes, the need for a car steadily grew

Over the past year, we were lucky enough to car pool a small k-van with some friends but this was only a short-term answer. By the summer of 2007, I was faced with the realisation that, as I saw it, I would have to fork out some real cash, and get a Toyota hybrid Prius. However, after a couple of months of prevarication, I started thinking more about the opposite end of the spectrum, opting for an old, cheap car, that might allow me to drive with an even smaller and less guilt-ridden carbon footprint experience than even a Prius could offer. And, it was more of a challenge - to run a diesel car on waste vegetable oil (WVO). Also referred to as SVO (straight vegetable oil) it is different than biodiesel in that, as the name suggests, only oil is used as fuel and no chemicals or heating is needed to process the fuel. This was the way I wanted to go, and in September 2007, my WVO project officially started.

Information and a complete log of developments (so far) with this project can be found at http://homepage.mac.com/ifd66/WVO.html. A shortened version should be appearing here soon ....

Biomass for the masses

A joyful memory from my childhood is of wading knee-deep though accumulations of leaves along the pavements and roads leading home from school . Early early this morning, while passing a long, neat line of plastic bags, bursting to the brim with freshly fallen leaves, it occurred to me that my daughters here in Japan might might never be afforded the same autumn memories from their childhoods.

In Japan, there is a curious obsession with taming nature, with making it neat and tidy, and presentable. Yet in doing so, they are often destroying the nature that they so profess to love. It is a common sight in autumn to see large groups of city workers hacking off tree branches before the leaves have a chance to fall. What happens to the proceeds of their labour I'm not sure but with Japan's current measly 1% of energy coming from renewables such as biomass, wind, and solar, surely there needs to be a revaluation of the nations energy policies. Blessed with natural hot-springs (onsens) from almost every nook and cranny of this archipelago, why isn't it that geo-thermal energy doesn't supply a significant amount of Japan's energy? Japan should seriously follow the lead taken by countries already producing significantly higher percentages of their primary energy from renewable energies (Austria 65%, Sweden 44%, Portugal 26%, Finland 24%).

One of the more interesting successes in this field can be found in the city of Stockholm (and in particular, the district of Hannarbysjostad). Each house and apartment is connected to a network of collection tubes for biodegradable and burnable household rubbish. Periodically this is vacuum-tubbed away to a collection point where the biomass is used in a combined heating-power station. All sewage is collected in a similar manner and used to produce bio-gas for household gas supplies. This was also featured in a recent BBC Radio 4 podcast for the One Planet programme.

There are also many lessons to be learned from the traditional Japanese method of farming known as Satoyama. It was as little as 40 years ago that most farmers were still harvesting leaves from the forests surrounding the rice fields to use as fertilizer. In stark contrast, today, Japanese agriculture is now characterised by the pay and spray policies of its Government which ensures that Japanese farmers are among the highest users of agro-chemicals in the world.

Bring back the power and beauty of fallen leaves.

What's this all about?

This blog is an attempt to record my reflections, frustrations, and aspirations inspired by my daily coexistence with the environment. I hope much of the content will be positive and inspiring, though inevitably, there will also be content that will appear negative, but which I hope will highlight how small changes in the way we think and act can greatly reduce our impact on the environment.

There will, I hope, also be regular-ish updates on the Kyoto Biofuel project, the aim of which is to use a car that runs on waste vegetable oil (WVO) to help raise awareness of locally sourced, renewable energy.