Summary. Discussion of CO2 embedded in the production and delivery of products in the consumer culture, and recommendations for transitioning to an ecological culture.
The Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) continues to track innovative energy solutions and ask important questions, like this one:
How much CO2 is embedded in a product? [Read full article here.]
The article frames the issue and explores new metrics to tease out estimates that will help government and corporations understand their commitments to greening the economy. All good. But what about us shopping citizens? RMI cuts to the chase:
“Very few consumers are aware of the carbon that has been generated in the production and delivery of products and, as a consequence, virtually nobody takes action to abate these emissions. This is a problem because only 9 percent of carbon emissions come from passenger fuels and 25 percent come from the generation of electricity, while 40 percent of emissions come from the production and delivery of commodities in industrial value chains (31.5 percent from the industrial activities themselves, and 8.5 percent from freight and transport).”
These are Did You Know? stats. Please use them to “Break the Trance” that we who live with chronic affluenza experience while shopping at the anywhere big box stores, fast “food” reheat and serve restaurants, browsing the behemoth that is Amazon, visiting car dealer showrooms and used car Lots!
Simply Living along with minimalists and the broader voluntary simplicity movement have challenged excessive consumerism and offered an alternative approach that we now see is a key strategy in addressing the climate emergency.
Take heart. Our generation has the opportunity to create a beautiful future AFTER the more or less inevitable stock market crash ending 40 years of unsustainable neoliberal economic policies.
Welcome to the Great Transition — to a new economics, to sustainable communities rooted in the values of an ecological culture. It won’t be easy. We are all called to participate. We must co-create new ways of life that will supplant the business as usual consumer culture that has brought us to the 6th extinction and the need to reverse global warming.
This great evolutionary transition has already begun and offers a foundation that we can build upon. There is a new economics champing at the bit to fund and inspire a planetary Green New Deal. There is a simple U.S. constitutional amendment to get money out of politics and reclaim our democracy from corporate control. Our engineers are designing a renewable energy grid. New legislation has been crafted to provide a tax on carbon pollution, There is new bill to provide health care for all, The Green New Deal proposes a guaranteed livable wage job for all who can work and there are plans for a basic income for those who can’t. There is even a homes guarantee for every family in on the horizon.
Pie in the sky? Not at all. Do your homework and start with the links provided. Are these proposals ignored or attacked by the status quo? Sure. In reality these proposals are not radical, liberal, or conservative. They are the common sense road map to a livable future. The Great Transition is the Great Opportunity for a Mayan Moment to stop serving the corporate Empire and reinvent our shared human adventure in diverse communities living ecological values.
Seeds of the future have been planted and will sprout when we lose the illusion of convenience and are forced to meet each other in communities – rural, small town, and urban neighborhoods. Localization everywhere, interconnected via the worldwide web of the Internet.