Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
sumption would be less than is the case with our current centralized, globalized systems of produc-
tion and distribution.
A complementary bit of hopeful news from the technology world comes from farmer-physicist
Marcin Jacubowski and colleagues, who have spent the past few years inventing the Global Village
Construction Set—open-source blueprints that enable fabrication (from locally available recycled
materials) of 50 key industrial machines, including tractors, wind turbines, bioplastic extruders, and
3-D printers. Jacubowski's goal is to provide every community with access to the basic technology
needed to maintain a comfortable, sustainable, locally self-sufficient existence. So far, only a few
of the modular machines have been fully designed and prototyped, but Jacubowski's project has at-
tracted both investors and eager interns.
For solution-oriented localists, these hopeful developments coalesce into a vision of a nation
of small producers living in thriving cities, towns, and villages, with chickens in every backyard,
solar panels on every roof, a 3-D printer on every desktop, and an open-sourced set of productive
machinery in every neighborhood. In such a future, globalized communication (and hence cultural
exchange) might persist, but without job losses and export of pollution.
Which will it be—local dystopia or utopia? In all likelihood, our real future will hold a bit of
both. The relative mixture of the two probably depends on what we do now.
All Politics Is Local. . .Is Global. . .Is Local
Among environmentalists, the most common critique of localism is that climate change—an exist-
ential planetary threat—requires a global response. It is useless for individuals or communities to
reduce CO2 output if overall emissions from power plants and cars continue growing. If we can't
achieve an international agreement to cut carbon, we're all toast—even if we're proud to be locally
made, whole-grain toast.
Though I haven't conducted a proper survey, it's my impression that most localists strongly sup-
port a global climate treaty. But 20 years of efforts to hammer out a meaningful global emissions-
reduction regime have so far failed. The reason is plain: slowing climate change means pouring
sand in the gears of the fossil-fueled economic growth machine. Yes, coffee tables of environmental
nonprofits groan under the weight of well-meaning topics and reports striving to show how carbon
offsets, carbon trading, and green technology could keep economies growing even as greenhouse
gas emissions wane. But most such rhetoric is, in the end, politically motivated and unintentionally
misleading. Climate scientist Kevin Anderson of the UK-based Tyndall Centre displays refreshing
honesty in his call for planned economic recession. Anderson figures that industrial nations need to
cut carbon emissions by ten percent per year to avert catastrophe, and it's pretty obvious that such
a depression.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, Beijing, and London, virtually all policy makers cling to the
belief that growth is the only thing that matters. President Obama explained his priorities plainly in
a news conference in November 2012: “If the message is somehow we're going to ignore jobs and
growth simply to address climate change, I don't think anybody's going to go for that. I won't go
for that.”
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In effect, we environmentalists are stuck with two strategies, neither of which is working very
well: the first is to double down on grand energy transition plans that promise more jobs and growth
