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I read The Limits to Growth when it first came out in paperback and it seemed well presented and intuitively obvious to me. I responded favorably to Jimmy Carter's infamous "sweater speech", a member of a decided minority. Had I done the "smart" thing and towed the official line on wars and foreign policy I would have been able to get a job with one of the defense contractors, say Hughes, could have purchased a house on the West Side while the rents were still low, had a short commute and ridden the real estate escalator to a significant personal net worth by age 35.
But I never even tried. I despised the Vietnam war and everything that supported it and didn't even want to apply for a job that might require a security clearance. I loved the technology involved in the defense industry but unfortunately was encumbered with a conscience. In 1978 I was offered a job at Hughes in technical instruction. It was tempting, but I would have literally been teaching mixed classes of Greek and Turkish military personnel how to use the same weapons systems! I knew that I could excel at that task, and I was assured that they got along well in class but teaching Greeks and Turks how to kill each other I found unacceptable.
Instead I built recording studios, deferring income that never actually materialized and ended up in electronics contracting, earning less than I could have. I loved the work and could sleep at night, but ended up with a 40-50 mile daily commute in order to have a single residence dwelling in an area with acceptable schools that I could afford: Van Nuys -> Reseda -> to Northridge over 27 years.
Where we find work and where we chose to reside are complex choices. I have always supported policies, such as mass transit, that would reduce the impact of such choices, but was never in the position to personally benefit until we found commuter buses that my son could use to commute 35 miles to college while living at home. Nor were such choices mine alone to make, once I was married, if I wanted to stay married and be a part of my son's life. This is something we all face--a dilemma of our existence.
For me the compromise consisted of driving Japanese cars and putting close to 200,000 miles on them before donating them to charity for the tax deduction. From 1972 until the mid-'90s the wife's vehicle was a 1972 Honda Z-600, with a 600cc engine! Got >40 mpg and would pull the Sepulveda grade southbound without dropping below 50mph and requiring a downshift! We both loved that car. I drove a '67 Toyota Corona with a 2 liter engine that was almost a hot rod, then a '78 Corolla wagon, a Volvo 140, a Mazda and an Altima, all the while doing my part to melt the polar ice caps.
What can I say? It was the best I could do? The greater problem is that the American Suburban Middle Class even now refuses to consider that this must and will change. The real challenge will be managing that change while retaining any vestige of democratic governance. Treasure all of the allies you can find, regardless of how sordid their past. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
great diary, paul. well written and personal. i really liked your inclusiveness.
@magnifico... i see it differently. the means used to reduce carbon eventually first used more, (the 'speeding up to get to the rest spot' syndrome.)
ultimately though the means to get there (simpler, less consumption-driven life) can be upgraded, what's important is to keep the thread unbroken between city and farm, and to keep alive the knowledge and skills.
with the global exodus towards cities, any move the other way is worthwhile in the interests of balance.
there are already too many overcrowded cities, overdependent on fossil fueled supply lines.
some people will still move from countryside to city without any economic pistol goading them, for though farming supplies physical needs, it cannot concentrate culture like cities can, so we need transport and travel between the two, though i suspect it will have to be a lot more ecologically justifiable than popping out to the local bigbox supermarket a few dozen driving miles away for something trivial, or just going out for a spin.
it comes down to country culture desperately needing right sustenance revival, and public and/or private transport that is both carbon neutral and plentiful, both tough nuts to crack, though i believe we the people have all kinds of intelligent solutions that are being and have been suppressed in order to keep the dying elephant stagger on another few miles.
but die it must, and unless more people do similarly to paul, there will be far too many city folk wondering where their next meals are coming from, and realising late in the game that farming is not going to be as simple as chemfert-plough-herbicide-combine-truck-to-table has been making it since the beginning of the last century.
it's not whether we can't afford it, we have to, instead of dismissing it we need to make it easier and above all ecologically cheaper, that way removing, by incremental amelioration, the validity of your objection.
some things are worth the cost, most aren't. time's lessons will add considerably to our somewhat atrophied powers of discrimination in this regard, methinks. 'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty
I read The Limits to Growth when it first came out in paperback and it seemed well presented and intuitively obvious to me.
In 2008 Graham Turner at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia published a paper called "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with Thirty Years of Reality".[5][6] It examined the past thirty years of reality with the predictions made in 1972 and found that changes in industrial production, food production and pollution are all in line with the book's predictions of economic and societal collapse in the 21st century.[7]
And were Paul 27 today I suspect he would chose a different path.
The diary, however, was simply using my experience to try to demonstrate some lifestyle - what shall I call them? - imperatives, perhaps. Skill development, physical labor, simple recreation, and political/social involvement are my prescriptions. They are all important factors in the present and - in my opinion - will be more important in the future - especially in the U.S.A.
I left out some of the more speculative elements of the rural/urban interface in the future. Melo touched on some of them in his comment. The interdependence of the two sectors is skewed a bit: the urban areas are more dependent on the rural for essentials. And I don't think that urbanites - and suburbanites - appreciate that fact. When disruption occurs, the urban areas are going to need plenty of spokespersons with some 'standing', such as myself, to maintain the interface. The simple fact is that we can survive out here on the land, and the urban areas cannot - at least they cannot survive intact. paul spencer
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