Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
insurance and government disaster aid money to build what they are calling “America's greenest
community,” emphasizing energy efficiency and using 100 percent renewable energy.
Economist Milton Friedman may have laid down a manifesto for crisis-led theories of change
when he wrote: “Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When the crisis occurs,
the actions that are taken depend upon the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic
function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the polit-
ically impossible becomes politically inevitable.” In this brief passage, Friedman not only sums up
the theory nicely, but also forces us to contemplate its dark side. In her 2007 topic
The Shock Doc-
trine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism
, Naomi Klein describes how Friedman and other neoliberal
economists used crisis after crisis, beginning in the 1970s, as opportunities to undermine democracy
and privatize institutions and infrastructure across the world. Somehow, citizens and communities
need to be the first to seize the opportunities presented by crisis, to build local, low-carbon produc-
tion and support infrastructure.
The post-carbon theory of change doesn't seek to expedite or exacerbate crisis; instead, it en-
courages building resilience into societal systems in order to minimize the trauma of rapid change.
Resilience is often defined as “the ability to absorb shocks, reorganize, and continue functioning.”
Shocks are clearly on the way, so we should be doing what we can now to build local inventories
and disperse the control points for critical systems. We should neither simply wait around for crisis
to hit or
hope for crisis
as an opportunity to alter the status quo; rather, we should do as much as
possible to conserve ecosystems and relocalize production and trade now, so as to minimize the
crisis—which, after all, could potentially prove overwhelming for both humanity and nonhuman
nature. If and when crisis arrives, such preparations will be crucial in guiding response efforts and
providing a basis for resisting “disaster capitalism.”
What's the likelihood of success? It depends partly on how we define the term in this context.
Many people speak of “solving” problems like climate change, as though we could make a modest
investment in new technology and then carry on living essentially as we are. Implicit in the post-
carbon crisis theory of change is the understanding that the way we are living now is at the heart
of our problem. Success could therefore be better defined in terms of minimizing human suffering
and ecological disruption as we adapt toward a very different mode of existence characterized by
greatly reduced energy and materials consumption.
Some self-proclaimed “doomers” have concluded that crisis will overwhelm society no matter
what we do. Many have joined the “prepper” movement, stockpiling guns and canned goods in
hopes of maintaining their own households as the rest of the world comes to resemble Cormac
McCarthy's novel
The Road
. Other doomers are convinced that human extinction is inevitable and
that efforts to prevent that outcome are just so much wasted motion.
I do not share either outlook. Of course there is no guarantee that crisis will open opportunities
for sensible adaptation and not simply wallop us, leaving humanity and nature wounded and reeling.
But for those who understand what's coming to simply give up efforts to protect nature and hu-
manity before the going gets tough seems premature at best. There could hardly be more at stake;
therefore extraordinary levels of effort and extreme persistence would appear justified if not mor-
ally mandatory. The post-carbon crisis theory of change may appear to be a strategy born of desper-
ation. But we should hold open the possibility that it will prove surprisingly apt and effective—to
the extent that we have invested our best efforts.
