To Retrofit or Rebuild

In 1960, there were slightly more than three billion people living on planet Earth. In less than fifty years, that population has more than doubled. The size of the Earth and its bank of resources, of course, has not experienced such remarkable growth. This fundamental conundrum presents our species with a challenge that would doom any other creature we know of to population decline and near-certain extinction: too many people, not enough food.

Yet because our species has been given the power of the rational mind and the ability to anticipate the future we may be able to accomplish in the impossible, turn back the clock on our collective doom, and salvage a pattern of existence for our species that is communal, sustainable, and healthy. The key word, however, is may. Our planet is wounded, the victim of an overaggressive carnivore species who has battered its fragile systems, the offenses myriad and scattered like so many bits of destructive shrapnel. Each of these wounds, the isolated environmental abuses we see mounting in size and scope each day, deserve our dedication attention. But as with a slashed artery, attending to these before stopping the bleeding seems to skip past unwise toward downright foolish.

The task is, by nature, too broad, too basic, too general. It will not be accomplished by traditional means, must not be approached as other problems have been, for one simple reason. The methods we have of solving international dilemmas – depression, world war, nuclear standoff, genocide – are incompatible with the environmental emergency we face today. The basis for international law and regulation, the basis from which we derive a system of global capitalization, and the basis for most of our social institutions (perhaps with the interesting exception of spiritual ones) is predicated on a paradigm of exploitation, use-value, and profit. These institutions and practices not only encourage environmental degradation; they cannot survive without it. How can we solve problems from within the very system that mandated their existence?

This view does not mean that the entire system of regulation, distribution, and domination must be torn down in some sort of grand expression of rebellious anarchy, nor does it mean that such measure are entirely unwarranted. Everything that can be done from within must be tried, and with haste. But it must be understood that ultimately these solutions will fail unless they are overwhelmed in the reasonably near future by a shift in mindset that transcends all systems of power and classification, be they monetary, national, racial, gendered, or otherwise. There are ways to make the current system more efficient, but as with retrofitting and existing building or machine, nothing can replace that gains to be made by rethinking the entire process from the ground up. What follows is an examination of some of the most successful attempts at piecemeal reform, what I’ll call retrofitting capitalism, and a few ideas for how to start fresh where and when we get the chance, called building a new humanism.

Retrofitting Capitalism

There are several successful examples of how to make capitalism less detrimental to the environment or how to use market principles to mitigate the destruction. While some are more successful than others, they provide insight into the type of reform necessary in the short term as we struggle to shift toward a sustainable human lifestyle.

The first and perhaps most appealing is the internalizing of externalities, most notably in the form of a carbon tax but extending to other reforms like higher tariffs on imports and more emphasis on transportation expenses passed on to the consumer. Because capitalism essentially fails to compute the worth of natural resources, the price point of the goods they are used for rarely reflects their actual human value. Not only does this encourage exploitation of resources at a grand scale, it promotes processes that create waste, what businessman Ray Anderson calls “throughput” – that portion of resources which is used but creates no value. Internalizing the cost of this throughput would mean higher production costs and higher prices at the purchase point – a boon to the consumer and producer alike. But as profits decrease capitalism can become our ally; firms will find ways to become more efficient and waste less or they will perish, victims of perfect competition. As the European Union’s carbon taxes and trading programs extend in scope and size, businesses are become increasingly aware of their CO2 emissions, as they would be any other increase in total costs. While the system has been only mildly successful at achieving significant reductions in total emissions (more credits have been allocated than necessary) , the ability to implement and enforce a such a system has been effectively proven. Excellent results are certainly possible within this approach, but they will be dependent still on the ability of the market to police itself through government regulation and enforcement. While providing the possibility for immediate reforms the ultimate effectiveness of the a cap and trade system is inherently limited because it seeks only to curtail current practices and makes little effort to create new ones. We must, wherever possible, strive to create change that is holistic and interdisciplinary, making new roads instead of retooling old ones.

Building a New Humanism

When we are presented with opportunities redefine the way we live in the world as a set of sustainable relationships with our environments and each other, we must understand how large and valuable the opportunities for wholesale change in lifestyle and process can be. We are given few chances to start fresh and must capitalize on them if we want a noticeable redemption of the natural environment.

The physical construction of new buildings, communities, and cities is perhaps the most obvious arena to enact these kinds of wholesale change, and yet it may also be the most effective and important way to begin a larger movement. As demographics continue to shift toward urban living arrangements and populations continue to grow, the way we structure our built spaces will have enormous repercussions for our physical and social patterns of behavior, our mental and spiritual relationship with the natural environment, and the size and type of impression our species leaves on the planet with each passing generation. If we can structure our living spaces to reflect a worldview and lifestyle that is sustainable, healthy, and integrated with our natural surroundings, the results can be enormous. The concept, though it may sound flighty and optimistic, is far from abstract.

The technology exists to create buildings that not only do less harm to the environment, but none at all. In fact, we have found the techniques to build homes and offices that actually create energy surpluses that can be fed back into the main grid. Greenhouse and hydroponic technology allows the cultivation of produce at latitudes and seasons previously unconscionable. A wide of array of environmentally friendly products and services are now available for construction and development projects, their costs decreasing every day. In simple terms, the opportunity for a sustainable future is on the table in front of us, we must use every tool we can find to make it a reality.

New buildings alone will not be enough – of that much we can be certain. By structuring built environments in ways that promote community, activity, and connection with natural elements, however, we can hope to move beyond physical change to social change. Imagine an inner city neighborhood in Calcutta or Hong Kong or New York. Imagine the same city with buildings that allow light to filter into the street, a park every two blocks, a solar bank and turbine on every roof next to a community garden. Imagine a passive heating and cooling system that allows fresh air naturally into the buildings’ corridors and common areas. Imagine terraces with plants, wide streets with bike lanes and a zero-emissions system of public transit, and imagine universal access to the rivers, lakes, parks, and shorefronts that a sustainable lifestyle values and protects. These are changes that can be made now, with each new building and community we construct. To choose otherwise – and make no mistake, it is our choice – is a fatal mistake.

We have reached a precipice, a point from which we can see two options and must decide for ourselves. We have the resources, the technology, and reasonable judgment to envision, plan, design, and build a new humanism that puts people ahead of profit, understands that nature and man will always be intrinsically linked, and pursues new and innovation solutions to complex problems. So far, however, we have chosen to follow a path that leads to expanding, accelerating destruction of the natural environment for capital gains – a pursuit of more for more’s sake that is fundamentally opposed to the reality of a finite planet. We can re-tool it, retrofit it, and slow it down with regulation, enforcement, subsidies, and the like. Yet until we are able to change our the pattern of our collective human habits, to realize the fundamentally integrated functioning of our species and its reliance on natural systems, we will be unable to rule out a catastrophic collapse, and eventually, extinction. If we are to survive, we must say goodbye to René Descartes, reconnecting the mind to the body and the body to the earth, once and for all.