150 years On Liberty

Next year (2009) is the 150th anniversary of John Stuart Mill’s landmark “essay”, On Liberty. Much credit, perhaps the majority, should go to his wife, Harriet Taylor, so please take that as read throughout the rest of this deposit.

I have to admit to have been 149 years behind the time in reading On Liberty, but I do have the excuse of not being born for 110 of those. But this isn’t such a bad time to catch up.

The basic principle that everyone should be free to do whatever, say whatever and think whatever does no harm to others is often forgotten in politics, even and sometimes by those that call themselves liberal.

Green Party politics (in England and Wales but also in much of the world) is quite akin to traditional Liberalism and its policies are stacked with ideas that would impose the Green “opinion” (to use Mill’s vocabulary) on the rest of society. Education, healthcare and animal rights, for examples, would all have national guidelines and rules to ensure that the “right” sort of education, healthcare and animals rights were being supplied nationwide.

In fact, nationhood was something Mill never questioned, as far as I can tell, but he did have a sense that the national level was not always the most appropriate one for running society’s affairs. He was greatly impressed by the way ordinary Americans could establish order in remote townships, without help or hindrance from a central bureaucracy, and thought it a model for England.

If anything, On Liberty is more applicable today than it was on its publication. I say this because, although we have gone through a century of clashing ideologies and many would now have us believe that politics has been reduced to the perfection of societal management, opinions are still being thrust upon us and withheld from us.

The most notable opinions that it is not considered suitable to hold and express are those of Jihad and theocracy. Like Mill I am merely advocating the right to hold and express these views, or to establish consensual communities that follows their ideals, while also considering these opinions to be deeply flawed.

Again, as Mill would have it, it is only when someone’s actions negatively affect others that society has the right to react. A theocracy established by military coup is obviously not OK, let alone killing others to “promote” your cause.

Where we draw the line, however, is an important part of how we win the argument. The Terrorism Act 2006 gets it very wrong, by making it illegal to disseminate a publication which is either: a) likely to be understood as directly or indirectly encouraging terrorism; or b) includes information which is likely to be understood as being useful in the commission or preparation of an act of terrorism.

The main focus at the time of the legislation was on periods of detention, which is also deplorable, but the first conviction (although subsequently successfully appealed) was on possession of records likely to be useful in terrorism. Samina Malik had, it seems, some dangerous books and wrote some dangerous poems.

In some ways this is farcical: who can handle dangerous books? A licensed librarian? Worse, it is counter-productive: removing people’s right to read, associate, discuss and disseminate as they please weakens our own position. Society, as Mill was saying, is stronger when everyone freely forms their own opinions.

Are you OK?

Was (Not Was) asked the question. As a side note, can I explain the name? The Was brothers at the heart of the group always had to explain how to say their name, much like I do. It’s pronounced “wahz”. Not “was”.

Seems like they were on a hiding to nothing.

Anyway, the question was one of concern. And people do get concerned. People care about other people. People care a lot more about some people than others, but there is an overwhelming amount of consideration going on.

How does that scale up in society? In a static society, it means that everyone knows about everyone else’s problems and the majority looks after the minority. In nomadic cultures, everyone is aware of how delicate life’s balance is and everyone looks out for everyone.

Maybe that’s a bit over-simplistic, or even rosier-then-reality, but I do think there’s more than an element of truth in it. And I also think there’s more than element of truth in the assertion that large-scale societies don’t have the same tendency to care for the vulnerable.

Like climate change, nuclear waste disposal, child labour and poverty, there is a tendency to see caring as something for others to deal with—somebody else’s problem.

If a centrally organised society will not support those in need, can a devolved one do any better? Obviously, I think it can. By taking responsibility for anyone that strays into your community, it ceases to be anyone else’s problem.

There are a couple of real-world examples that strenuously test my assertion. First, my experience of a successful “intentional community”—what would be colloquially termed a commune. Second, the way the most difficult-to-deal-with homeless people in my own neighbourhood.

One of the longest-lasting intentional communities in the United States, if not the world, is in rural Virginia and I had the privilege of staying for a night and meeting many of the members. One of the reasons it might have been so successful is a refusal to deal with members with serious mental health issues: minor problems and idiosyncrasies were almost de rigueur but the members would ask anyone that was, in their opinion, too disruptive to leave.

If the world were composed of intentional communities, where would that leave its most vulnerable? I would like to think that, like many things that require concerted effort, that resources would be pooled to help those that need specialist care, while retaining a sense of responsibility for each individual. That, I have to admit, is still a sizeable issue.

The other instance worth mentioning are the homeless, here in Shepherd’s Bush. We have a hostel (or two) in the area, in which very few local people have any involvement (me included). I like to think that most people feel that their presence is no major inconvenience. At worst, it is depressing to see people in bad shape, begging, living from one can of beer to the next, or sometimes exhibiting the behaviour typical of smack addicts. At least, we can think, they have somewhere to sleep and get some hot food.

But even these hostels cannot accommodate anyone and everyone. Like the intentional community, without extra help, some people are just too disruptive. Excluded from shelter, their situation only gets worse and their attitude more belligerent.

One particular individual, Paul, was a real nuisance to everyone. Before they started locking the gate, he was sleeping in the parking area behind my flat, usually with his girlfriend, which was no big problem in itself, except they would scream at each other at all times of the night, fight, and break anything that came to hand. During the day, they would demand money on the street, still fighting each other, and turn on random passers-by.

The result for the community was edginess and extreme discomfort. The police were often called and eventually they used the only tool available to them—an anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) that excluded Paul from the area altogether. I’ve been told that ha has accommodation elsewhere, but essentially they made it clear that this was someone else’s problem.

Again, how would a world of intentional communities have dealt with Paul? And again, I can only suggest that individuals as difficult as him would have to be supported with the pooled resources of several communities, whether that meant improving the resources of the local hostel (in current terms) or having a specialist institution shared between, say, all West London.

Heroes Season Two

Having wittered on about the difference between fictional heroes and those worth giving some credit as humanity’s great achievers (might I also mention that I want to distance myself from childhood idolatry—something I don’t believe I ever really suffered from), I only had time to credit Per Gahrton as my first “hero”. This time, I won’t hang around.

Obviously, as someone calling himself a Gandhist, the Mahatma is a hero of mine. I’m not as widely read as I would like, but I deeply admire what I’ve discovered. I don’t believe in perfection, by which I don’t want to offend those who believe Gandhi achieved spiritual perfection, but I do want to acknowledge that there might be a grain of truth in accusations about his ego or sexuality. But his spiritual quest is not what makes him a hero of mine anyway.

The two things Gandhi did that I most admire are: that he professed a unity of faith with the conviction of Akbar, in which he saw common spiritual, but also highly practical, bases for all religions; and that he put his beliefs into practice with complete conviction. I think of what he did and said whenever I am trying to resolve issues of principal.

From the same country, but still very much alive and influencing people is Vandana Shiva. If anyone is the inheritor of Gandhi’s legacy, she is. She and I are also physicists first, but I have yet to see any influence on her ecological writing.

Shiva would be my hero for her chapters in Ecofeminism, which she co-wrote with Maria Mies, but she is also a leading light in the anti-globalisation movement (defending poor farmers against the grasping food multinationals). There are times when it is difficult to reconcile ideas in one area (such as feminism) with those in another (such as ecology), and it’s invaluable to have someone as lucid and sane as Shiva to guide you through.

At another point in my life, when I had joined the Green Party, read the manifesto, and a handful of books and pamphlets, I needed to make sense of how it all fitted together. If ever there was book to satisfy a need for a deeper understanding of green politics, it is Green Political Thought by Andrew Dobson.

I’ve met Andy Dobson (I’ve been in the presence of Vandana Shiva, but couldn’t find the courage or words) and he’s incredibly easy-going and approachable. Should I be surprised? After all, he’s provided an intellectual yet easily understood text contextualising almost all of ecopolitics.

My guess is that everyone in green politics has been inspired by the books or speeches of certain individuals: Henry Thoreau, John Muir, Petra Kelly, Jonathon Porritt, Ralph Nader, Al Gore, and even David Icke. These are many people’s heroes and deserve credit for the inspiration they have provided.

And I have one more to add, who I can’t quite call a hero because of a racist and sexist edge to his writing. Yet his writing is still inspirational: the original monkey-wrencher, Edward Abbey. Go read The Monkey Wrench Gang and consider blowing up a dam.

The flaws in the footprint

I have plenty more heroes to talk about, but first I’d like to address some questions I’ve been posed recently. First, how does what I’m proposing affect or apply to vulnerable places like the Arctic? Second, what makes carbon footprinting in any way right?

OK, I’ve paraphrased a little, but these are the thoughts I’ve been led to. And I think the two are the specific and general aspects of the same thing.

What carbon footprinting (auditing, backpacking, whatever) does is estimate the energy involved in any activity or product. Relativity doesn’t really apply here, but mass of one sort or another does have an equivalent energy, basically what it takes to make or replace something. For example, you can imagine the steps involved in making a wooden rafter (growing, felling, hauling, milling, treatment, etc.) and dealing with the waste.

This makes local, minimalist, low-impact operations more desirable than heavily mechanised ones that involve long-distance shipping. But is that the whole story?

Generally, one gallon of petrol is considered equivalent to any other. But one might have been extracted easily and without displacing people or animals, then refined, shipped and used carefully. Another might have been taken from a corrupt regime, by using armed might to exclude native people, and using processes that pollute and kill.

That’s where the general cynicism comes from: the suspicion that there is no right answer that we can ever approximate. Which is possibly true, except that the primary environmental problem is climate change and it is our energy use that is directly related to human carbon dioxide production.

Having said that, the environment is no our only concern and climate change is not our only environmental problem. If we are going to address sustainability as a whole, we do need other measures: for social justice and the economy. In other words, carbon footprinting is not fundamentally flawed—it does what it is meant to do—but it doesn’t provide a measure for all ills.

At the same time, carbon footprinting is a general measure of environmental impact. Our combined footprints criss-cross over the entire globe, several times over (hence the cliché that we need something like seven planets to support our lifestyle). Parts of those prints are in places that cannot take the impact.

Even the carbon in the most dainty footprint shares its effect with all the others, and parts of the world like the Pacific islands and the Arctic suffer disproportionately from the combined effect.
But there are more specific environmental problems than rising sea levels and changing and increasingly chaotic weather patterns: pollution, disrupted migration routes, imported pests and disease for example. All these have to be taken into consideration, along with the other aspects of sustainability.

Again but: but what this consideration does tell us is that our global carbon footprint has to be reduced by more than enough to save Western civilisation. It has to be reduced by enough, and fast enough, to save the most vulnerable ecosystems.

Heroes, Season One

There is a basic premise of superhero fiction, that the actions of an extraordinary individual (or group) can make all the difference between disaster and the safety of millions, if not all of humankind. It’s a premise I’m willing to accept for the sake of entertainment (I’m probably one of the sizeable minority eagerly waiting for Hellboy II).

The premise is flawed in a couple of ways when compared to reality, however. First, humans come equipped and/or develop a spectrum of abilities, but it’s a limited spectrum, with Olympians and geniuses at the upper limits. We know what they can do and, extraordinary though they might be, we know they cannot fly, leap tall buildings or move objects with the power of their minds. Second, and partly as a consequence of the first flaw, individuals can only have a limited effect on the course of human history.

There have been some disproportionately effective individuals, but their effect is more often as a catalyst for social forces that would find form with or without them, later if not as soon they made it so. The ironic example is Karl Marx, who pushed the cause of proletarian empowerment with Herculean forcefulness. The Twentieth Century is often portrayed as entirely coloured by the ink from his pen. Yet Marx himself recognised that revolution is a consequence of the social environment more than a conscious decision of the people. In other words, socialist-communist thinking would have evolved and manifested itself if Marx had never been heard.

It is difficult to argue that the world would be the same today without the actions of Adolf Hitler, but over centuries, I believe we would reach the same stage of development. Having said that, the rise of the Nazi Party was as much the consequence of the circumstances in Germany between the wars: economic depression, extreme national pride shamed by failure in the “Great War” and the disproportionate suffering of the poor Germans. So another catalyst might well have led Germany to the same awful state.

If all I’ve said here means anything, is there any point in having real-life heroes? Well, yes.

Because ecopolitics has an element of fatalism, which it shares with Marx, that doesn’t mean that it is without hope. Which brings me to my first hero: Per Gahrton. When I met Per, it was near the end of his long career in electoral politics. He had been a member of the Swedish Parliament for the People’s Party and left to co-found the Swedish Green Party. I don’t know why he did it, but he was one of the few “eurosceptic” voices in the European Parliament.

I’m not sure how effective he was in fighting “ever deeper union” from within, but I suspect he found it depressingly futile. He published a small booklet on his views of Green politics and it included an indictment of those who took Sweden into the EU, with their promises of Swedish independence on issues of economics and [stricter] environmental protection. Both were eroded almost immediately after Sweden joined.

At the end of the booklet, having exposed the erosion of all the Green principles he believes in, Per asked himself if this meant that he could still be optimistic. “I am not optimistic,” he said, “but I have hope.”

It’s a quote that makes me teary-eyed because I believe in the same principles and share the sentiment.

Next season: more heroes.

Human nature, part two

Self-determination, it has been said, is the route to insularity, prejudice and conservatism. And it’s certainly difficult to argue that a village of Daily Mail readers will become more liberal, progressive or anarchist. But I’ll try.

This is the issue of whether cultures that are already closed-minded can flourish when they are allowed to close themselves off from the rest of the world. Surely it is isolation, if only information-isolation and the isolation of the poverty divide, that has created enclaves of bigotry; self-determination would simply allow them to pull up the drawbridge.

In stating the problem, I’ve had to use some of the common misconceptions about self-determination, most common of which being that self-determination implies isolation. The assumption is based on the concept of communities that no longer share information because they share very few of their resources.

It’s certainly true that early human history was mapped out as knowledge and limited cultural understanding followed trade and migration routes. Even in the early-to-mid Twentieth Century, ordinary people got their glimpse of distant peoples in the tea, spices, fruit, fabrics, plates and other goods that made it around the world.

But we have moved on to an information age. Our global trade in bulk goods is destroying the planet but there is no reason why the internet shouldn’t be sustainable—an information resource that will be almost unlimited by human standards.

So, if we draw back our commitment to long-distance trade, that does not mean we will stop talking.

Communication includes the sharing of best practice—examples of what works and what does not. The examples of communities that spearhead sustainability could lead to initial fragmentation of nations and regions. The continued flow of information would not only encourage further devolution, but it could encourage individuals and communities to self-organise in more open, more inclusive and less oppressive ways.

The village of Daily Mail readers, slowly let go from their commuter-based incomes might initially think that the world was falling apart with the nation they felt rooted to. But kinship with other villages with similar cultures would not vanish. Large gardens and the surrounding farms would make it relatively easy to feed the populace. Inter-community support networks would mean that disasters such as floods did not mean devastation.

In other words, the rise of self-determination should actually mean a decline in isolationism.

Another argument in support of this assertion is that greater self-determination should erode centralised media. So, the Daily Mail would wither and die anyway.

I'm so glad for the meek

As Michael Stipe sang:

“I can't say that I love Jesus
that would be a hollow claim.
He did make some observations
and I'm quoting them today.”

One quote that stuck with me from childhood was “the meek… shall inherit the Earth”. I seem to remember that this was not a prophecy, as such, in the mind of our teachers. How, they reasoned, would the meek take control if they were, well, meek. The only possible explanation was that old JC didn’t mean it literally, more that they were yet another of the bless-ed crowd.

Meek, after all, means courteous, kind, merciful, indulgent, or not violent or strong, mild. How can these attributes gain you any territory or win you any elections?

Even allowing for mis-translation and shifting meanings, this is only one of His pronouncements that are often sidelined, ignored or re-interpreted. The teachings of Jesus form part of a pan-Eurasian heritage of religious thought that commonly advocates non-violence and fair-to-generous treatment of others.

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is karmic in its effect. The common Western belief that karma is what ensures that what goes around comes around, is less accurate than the directive that to do right by others is simply the right thing to do.

But the role of the meek is both more complex than “do unto others…” yet more simple than my teachers made out. If anything, it encapsulates everything I’ve been trying to say in this blog in a single phrase. Violence is counter-productive and can only destroy. Those who practice humble non-violence will ultimately triumph. (Triumph isn’t exactly the right word, however, since this is the antithesis of will-to-power.)

It’s my limited belief that it was the co-option of Christianity as a state religion, first by Constantine, and then by other opportunist kings and emperors, that ensured its general decline as a radical force for peace and equality. To align a religion with nationalist sentiment, it must be stripped of anti-authoritarian ideals and skewed to show a preference for one group over another. The course of Christianity has been perverted through Late Roman, Crusading, Conquering and warring times.

The most extreme neutering of the Christian ideal was arguably the silencing and partial co-option of the Catholic Church in Nazi Germany. No religion built on non-conformity and peace could have been cowed in that way.

Incidentally, Gandhi’s opinion on what should be done about the Nazis--that the German people and all those affected should have stood up against them non-violently, both in opposition and to demonstrate how ruthless the Nazis were--is considered one of his most ridiculous ideas. But ridiculous though using non-violence against those capable of genocide might seem, and courageous beyond almost all belief that it would have been, it might have saved the world from the horrors partially covered by war.

With all I’ve said already, I must note that something of the pre-Constantine religion has lived on: in various “heretical” sects; in rebellious priests and preachers; and in groups such as the Quakers and Mennonites.

I can’t say that I love Jesus, but he did make some exceedingly good observations.

The local migrant

Green politics is all about the local. By which, I don’t mean just the pub, but everything that goes into a strong, positive community: from the basics of housing, food and education to the less tangibles of trust, belonging and sharing. In describing these things and how to achieve them, it is often implicit that this is a long-term, geographically rooted programme.

Well, it is. So where do migrants fit in the picture?

Let’s be clear: a migrant is anyone who moves from one local community to another, whether they do that regularly or just once in their lives, and whether they do that across the globe or between neighbouring villages. Not all (maybe hardly any) problems of migration are directly related to international movements, and it makes no difference what the motivations for moving are.

I write this as a migrant myself. I have not worked in my country of birth since I first left university. I have moved about once every two years in the last twenty, usually from one community to another and twice between continents. I did so out of what I would claim was necessity, to work or to affordable accommodation. And I’m far from exceptional.

There are some things we migrants can do easily: we can shop locally and take an interest in local affairs, wherever we are. We can also take over responsibility for our garden, join community groups that we find appealing and volunteer to help in local projects. From the beginning, we can bring an attitude of openness and experience of projects in other locales.

We can be the nomadic local, joining in wherever we go.

I’m not going to discourage anyone from being nomadic. It has its rewards: we understand what we all have in common and what makes one place unique compared to any other. Most positively of all, the local nomads can bring a cosmopolitan open-mindedness with them to counteract any insular tendencies.

Of course, sensitivity isn’t a guaranteed characteristic of the migrant, and I’ve known plenty incomers that have little respect for indigenous culture, import goods rather than try the local alternative, or generally annoy their new neighbours with brashness or insularity.

Then there are the elements of community that nomads can never bring, particularly continuity of experience and long-term commitment. Communities need continuity because there are elements of the community (mainly its spirit) that take time to develop. A place where people are only passing through is never much more than the sum of its parts (although hostellers know that even a little goes a long way).

In other words, a community is more than just a place or a group of people. A “hood” or “manor” has a reputation, its pubs and shops have a reputation and an atmosphere, and it has a direction. Plans for the development of social housing, schools, doctors and dentists take long-term commitment.

Individuals within the community have to invest years, often decades, of their lives to the institutions that reflect community will: teachers, doctors, councillors, police officers, residents’ association officers, etc.

If both migrants and locals have an important part to play in the community, there must be a sensible balance between them. It might be interesting to find indicators of community cohesion and positivity, measure them and compare communities with different amounts of resident “churn”. I suspect that getting a sensible mix is not particularly difficult and that the optimum will depend on many factors, including the cultures involved.

Which leaves us with the extreme communities: entirely local or overwhelmingly migrant. Are mono-cultural communities too slow-changing to be sustainable, and are they inherently xenophobic? And how much migration is too much migration?

These are questions that deserve a large space of their own.

Human nature, part one

David Mamet has decided that he is no longer a “brain-dead liberal” because he no longer believes that “people are basically good at heart”. In other words, there is no point in putting your faith in humanity, so we need a greater degree of authoritarianism. I also infer that Mamet would prefer that the educated (if not the rich) should have a greater say in the running of things.

Reading this made me realise that I haven’t addressed what is the most common objection to idealistic politics: human nature.

The practicalities of winning elections form one barrier, but ultimately it’s human nature that most people believe stands in the way of anything they regard as utopian. We’re violent, greedy, distrustful, racist and lazy. How can we expect humanity to converge on a society, or societies, where we don’t use violence, don’t take more than we need, trust our neighbours (on every level), treat everyone fairly and all contribute to our community?

The question isn’t how we overcome these aspects of ourselves, and I won’t deny a tendency towards most, if not all, of these “sins” in myself, but whether these traits are significantly inherited, or whether they are predominantly learned.

This is (I would say “of course”) almost unknowable, but there are some things we do know make them worse. It could be argued that some are even a creation of society and not individuals. Racism is the obvious example: there is no reason to fear or hate those who are different from ourselves. Racism rises and falls with poverty and unemployment; differences are exaggerated to deflect blame from those in power or as a source of power for others.

The main counter-argument is that some of our less admirable traits have evolved in us, to give us an advantage in surviving and reproducing. Greed drives us to get what we need to feed our family and survive the winter. But that doesn’t explain the laziness. And evolution also seems to have provided us with the altruism that helps communities to stay together and survive.

So, is the balance essentially positive or negative? I’ll give one example of why I believe we are prone to act positively: Hollywood.

As Chomsky, if no-one else, has pointed out: powerful nations are inclined to behave badly. It is not the mix of ethnicities that makes the USA behave as the world’s bully while pretending to be the world’s policeman, it’s the need to consolidate its position as the world’s only superpower. But the American creative media do not, on the whole, reflect this need. American books, music, tv, and most especially movies, take a far more moral stance (on the whole).

Bad behaviour is punished in proportion to the crime. Good behaviour, particularly if it is otherwise motiveless gets rewarded. If not, the viewer is made painfully aware that this is an “unhappy ending”.

So, what motivates the film studios? Their own behaviour does not echo the morality of their movies. They are giving the movie-watching public what they think they want. We are the movie-watching public and most of us want the world of the movies to be good and just.

Don’t try and tell me that we don’t want the same in the real world.

In the end, does it matter what is in our nature? Well, yes. If we are not capable of sustaining a better world of better communities, then there is no point trying for anything better.

Not just trees

I realise I’ve been guilty of overlooking two aspects of sustainability: social and economic.

Economic? I remember when the New Labour definition of sustainability was unveiled in the late 90s. Sustainability had long been a pillar of ecology and ecological politics, but that was explicitly environmental sustainability. The other pillar of ecological politics is social justice, because this is human politics and one without the other is neither sustainable nor just.

It’s worth emphasising this point. Where the rights of the poorest and/or indigenous people have been forgotten, attempts to protect the wildlife of countries like Kenya have led to conflict; the people who need to migrate in and out of National Parks to feed their cattle have been excluded to land that cannot sustain them through drought. Conversely, socialist states that focused on unfettered heavy industry to make the people rich have created little more than wasteland.

Economic growth was added to the official definition, which has since been adopted globally, because it would otherwise conflict with the orthodoxy that wealth creation is what’s needed to improve everyone’s situation while competing with other nations. That was the orthodoxy that green politics set out to oppose in the first place, so the inclusion of economic growth in the definition of sustainability was an un-subtle but successful attempt to subvert the use of the word.

Thankfully, subsequent definitions have been tempered to include “economic development”, which is at least broad enough to encompass more holistic development. But it still leaves a bad taste in the mouth.

So, I have been remiss in not mentioning social justice (or the social dimension to sustainability, if you prefer). But there are as many concepts of social justice as there concepts of liberty invisible to the mind of George W Bush. Our rights, as has often been pointed out, are often in conflict with one another: my right to live as I please conflicts with yours and everyone else’s, not to mention every other creature on Earth.

That’s why it’s “social” justice. Like environmental ecology, human ecology is all about striving for balance. Human ecological systems are societies, communities, families, networks. Starting with the almost infinite number of concepts of social justice, searching for a balanced system in any given social group will only leave a limited set of solutions.

The working solutions for one human eco-system will be similar but different from any other, which is one main reason why we need self-determination. The other main reason being that self-determination is a right in itself.

The fact is, sustainability and social justice are not just two principles in synergy. They are two inseparable parts of the same thing. As such, there is a social element in sustainability. But then, what New Labour really meant was the contradiction of “sustainable development”.

How sustainable?

Time for a bit of self-doubt.

Although I do believe that we can make a reasonable estimate of sustainable levels of resource use and waste production is not only reasonably estimable, and can be made more accurately with time, I sometimes wonder what level of sustainability we’re aiming for.

While sustainability is simple in principle, everything has an almost indefinite impact. At least, anything that hasn’t evolved as part of a self-contained ecosystem. And that doesn’t include us.

The example I gave in my first blog was of a wood being forested. Trees will grow to maturity in a predictable period of time, so you can take a number of trees every year, re-seeding to keep the canopy close to full at all times. But that barely begins to explain a sustainable wood.

Mature trees (even sycamores) play host to a variety of animals, birds, insects and other plant species. Removing mature trees destroys habitat and a portion of the ecosystem. Some species take longer to recover or can withstand less perturbation than others. So, while the trees will manage a replacement rate of, say, one tree per year per hundred, a particular species of moss might only manage to re-grow at 0.1% or 0.01% per year.

Where does that leave our calculations? If we forest this wood with the health of the moss—in other words, its sustainability—in mind, we can only take one tree in every hundred, every ten or one hundred years. I’m serious.

A couple of answers spring to mind.

The deep green response is that we need to follow this process to its natural conclusion: that the human population and the way it exists have to be pared back to a level where no species will be pushed to extinction anywhere in the world by human action.

Is that absurd? Yes and no. It should be possible, with almost the present human population, to live without destroying any more species. It would mean avoiding the most sensitive parts of the globe, in large part. Setting aside the most delicate ecosystems as no-go areas. But we already survive without them.

Which brings me to another solution to the sustainability riddle. We decide on “acceptable” levels of sustainability. As we progress towards total sustainability, we do not simply reduce our impact everywhere and in every way. For one thing, that would be impractical. For another, it would be too crude.

Shutting down coal-fired power stations is all-well-and-good but is unlikely to be matched with a reduction in energy use. The gap between generation and use could be bridged by new renewable sources, but those have an impact too.

The solution has to be a managed transition, sacrificing some ecosystems and risking the loss of some species, relying on the durability of the global ecosystem to withstand a little more pain. What we get in the end is an ecosystem of ecosystems that is going to endure.

Are we happy with that? It could be argued that we should then progress towards ecosystems more like those we had before the rise of humanity. And that would be deepest green.

The non-linearity of money

Everybody knows about economies of scale. Even without sharp practices such as selling basic commodities at unprofitable prices, large corporations have the advantage over small ones.

As a company grows, it can afford more of the trappings of the high-street giants: market-focussed and sophisticated image, consistency of product and services across all outlets, standard operational procedures developed to be easy to learn and be highly time efficient. Uniformity. Reproducibility. Expenditure on advertising is borne by the whole outfit and benefits every element; better brand recognition means more people through the door or finding (and trusting) you online.

But brand strength is only one benefit of being bigger.

Being bigger also means more buying power. Even when you get your supplies in the supermarket, buying a pack of twenty-four toilet rolls is going to be cheaper than six packs of four. Then there’s wholesale. Then there’s contract supply. Then there’s contracts with overseas suppliers and self-shipping. Then there’s ownership of the supply chain. Along the way, profits that were being generated by stores, wholesalers, distributors, and suppliers are absorbed by the parent company.

And the drivers, stock-keepers, farmers and manufacturers have become employees of a much larger company too. Where the people who did unnecessary packaging, shelving and selling have gone is open to speculation.

But buying power isn’t the end of the story. More revenue and profit means a greater ability to manage the cash and assets. Not an magical way with money, simply the purchasing power to get better accountants, investment bankers, and fund managers.

This is where capital is truly non-linear. Like toilet rolls, money is cheaper in larger quantities. It pays to be rich.

Is that right? Since Thatcher brought the highest rate of income tax down to 40% in the Eighties, political consensus in the UK has kept it down, while also keeping the threshold down. In other words, where only 750,000 people were eligible to pay the top rate of tax in 1974, 3.25 million were paying it in 2007. When, as the Times put it, lecturers and nurses are paying the top rate, there is going to be little sympathy for raising the rate.

So whether it’s right or wrong, our current political system is unlikely to provide any compensation.

The situation is so iniquitous that it far outweighs the disconnect and inefficiency of large human organizations. All those operating procedures, folders of standard processes, and networking lunches are an attempt to compensate for poor communications up, down and across a company. Small isn’t just beautiful, it works better.

Can't get there from here

In the autumn edition of the Green Party of England and Wales’ magazine, Green World, there was a decent article about how Stroud had become a Transition Town (http://www.greenworld.org.uk/page55/page72/page59/page59.html). The Transition Town movement is helping local communities to focus on methods of reducing their carbon footprint (http://transitiontowns.org/Main/HomePage). Where there’s a will, the Transition Network will help find a way.

The objectives are almost as imprecise as those of sustainable development, but this is still a large chunk of what I want in a sustainable community. I will do what I can to make Shepherd’s Bush a Transition Town. Ask me what I’ve achieved by Spring 2009.

However, in the next edition of Green World, Councillor Rupert Read is keen to point out that “the Transition Towns movement alone cannot save us” because, he says, if some people reduce their use of fossil fuels, the price will not rise as much and others will not be incentivised to change. How depressing.

Now, I’m not saying that I’ve suddenly decided that Transition Towns are the answer to all our problems, but what does Rupert say we need to balance the equation? Legislation. And how do we get legislation to limit the use of fossil fuels? Through the electoral mechanism.

In getting elected to Norwich City Council, Rupert has been far more successful than me in getting green policies implemented, but the pinnacle of Green electoral success, so far in this world, has been as minority partners in a few national governments. The most high profile of those being in Germany. National, and therefore international, democratic politics swings tightly around a conventional centre. Radicalism is never more than a spice that adds a little flavour to an otherwise bland stew.

In other words, legislative change to implement carbon rationing or something similar will always be too little too late. The first World Climate Conference, established in recognition of the phenomenon of global warming, was held in 1979. Even Margaret Thatcher was convinced of the need for radical action after the second conference in 1990. Yet it is 2008 and we are failing to meet the commitment made in Kyoto in 1997.

Communities have to lead by example. Transition Towns can make a difference.

Some unpleasant side-effects

While we’re waiting for the world to stop digging this capitalist hole and find a way out, there are a few secondary effects of the system we might think about mitigating. Top of my list at the moment are London’s house and rental prices.

“Supply and demand,” they say, as if it explains, excuses and dismisses unacceptable situations such as unaffordable housing. “Supply and demand” is the dynamic relationship between actors in the market: what it encompasses is always complex but is also highly dependant on the circumstances. Arch-capitalists will assert that self-balancing and mutually rewarding circumstances form the majority of real situations, but we all suffer from badly distorted markets. And accommodation is one of the worst.

According to the Office of National Statistics, family expenditure on housing has gone from 9% of income in 1957 to 19% in 2006 (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7213462.stm). Of course, this is the national average and people spend much more in property hotspots, and the younger and poorer spend much more too. Which is the situation a large chunk of London’s population is in. Like me.

The truism I prefer is “the price is what the market can stand”. Everybody wants to live in a pleasant neighbourhood, with plenty space, good schools and amenities, and only a short trip to work. When a city population is in the millions, it’s clear that not everyone can get what they want. In fact, very few can get most of those things, and those few are almost exclusively rich.

Hence, there is never the supply to meet the demand. Instead, house prices and rents are simply set as high as people can justify to themselves. How high, exactly? Well, here are some common situations for Londoners: mortgages that leave no room for frivolous or emergency spending; couples, and even families, in “studio” flats, which means only one living/bedroom; little terraced houses built for little terraced families split into two or even three flats. Or more specifically, a tiny triangular patch of land with planning permission for seven “luxury flats” (http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=w4&ie=UTF8&ll=51.493425,-0.267078&spn=0.00079,0.002511&t=h&z=19&om=0).

In the absence of a more radical overhaul, this town needs some form of rent and price control. A radical overhaul would mean changing to a system that has stewardship embedded. But that’s a different story.