John Kerry posted a blog today about the need for an energy plan in the United States.  Why am I posting this on a blog about the Iranian elections?  Because stability in the middle east depends on less global dependence on oil.  Until we control our oil addiction and reckless waste of this natural resource, we will be victim to extremist/ abusive regimes whose pockets are bloated from oil income.  Until we are each able to live a life of less waste, we will be prey to the horror it takes to arrange for our excessive lifestyles.  Here is an exerpt from his blog, as well as the link below:

We send a billion dollars a day overseas to feed our addiction to oil. Our economy is at the mercy of fluctuations in the price of a resource we don’t control. And scientists and generals warn that the climate change caused by carbon pollution threatens our health, our environment and our security. Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/john-kerry/taking-control-of-our-ene_b_304882.html

Vail Resorts brand “RockResorts” has just unveiled its new “Green Rooms” initiative to bring progressive environmental standards to every single guest room in order to not only enhance the existing environmental efforts of each resort but also help engage and encourage guests to take part in the resource conservation process.

Whilst perusing the local CVS’s beverage selection, I was advised by a friend against the consumption of bottled water. It occurred to me, at that moment, that while I quite agreed with him I would still throw down my dollar fourteen with tax for a BOGO on iced tea. I would have my very own tasty drink experience, and another could be saved for later or given to a tea-less friend – and that for a cost that seems, even in harsh economies, nigh unto pittance.

Now, before you all run out to CVS and buy up all the iced ea, you should know two things. Number one is that CVS’s prices on certain contraceptives are double that of the gas station up the block, a poignant example of how capitalism can literally hold you by the balls. The other is that the tea in this bottle might seem cheap, but a dollar and a pan of water will fetch you a between ten and a hundred bags of tea, depending on the refinement of one’s palette.

This revelation made my purchase of the tea seem like lunacy. What could possibly be so expensive as to warrant such a mark up? I came to two conclusions.

First, the expensive glass bottle which chilled the tea seemed thick enough to raise expenses, but this only served to make things worse. By choosing to buy the tea at a store, not only am I paying through the nose, I’m wasting resources which will then be chucked back into a landfill, possibly in a developing country. Or your backyard. Or something else scary – people seem to believe things when they’re afraid. In any event, the materials for the bottle were a horrible excuse.

(I suppose one could argue this about shipping as well, but this follows the same reasoning while necessarily implying the consumption of fuel and the consequent worsening of air quality.)

The second thought that sprung to mind was that it may be for sugar or some such thing, and for most of us, that may do the trick. Unfortunately, I had been drinking sugarless tea for awhile in he interest of physical health – not only was the stuff costly, but it was overwhelmingly potent. I felt so ripped off, I thought about cutting the tea with water as the bottle drained, to extend its life and decrease its seeming toxicity.

I like the idea of brewing my own tea. It also seems natural that the modern go-getter should keep themselves perpetually armed, a ready bottle ever at their side for the filling should the need of drink assail them! They could even fill it with –

Water.

Good, clear, natural water. I’ve been drinking more of this, and the taste does become acquired. Shit, you could even carry a thermos of water and tea bags simultaneously, perhaps even with some mint plucked from a kitchen garden.

There is so much to my simple life that strikes discordantly against the cry of reason. In these thoughts I find wonder, inspiration, maybe even…

potential for change?

Redpillneo is a contributing writer for Project Group Think. Follow us on Twitter via the name PGTblog.

Incentive is a central concept in economic theory. Without proper incentive, it’s difficult to compel action which in the catalyst necessary to extract value from resources (human and material). That’s the capitalist outlook. It has been posited that one failing of communism is its lack of meaningful incentive. Collectivism may not motivate people as much as personal gain. If you’re only going to make the same wage no matter how hard or efficiently you work what is the motivation to work extra hard or to pursue efficiency or quality through innovation? The state of Cuba and North Korea today and Russia after communism’s collapse, bear some of this thinking out (though I do acknowledge other factors are also involved in all three situations). It is also worth noting that China’s ascent accelerated greatly only upon adopting some capitalist aspects into its economic structure. While this is a broad, sweeping account, I believe it is safe to say that incentive matters.

Incentive also figures into business quite a bit. From compensation to marketing to the strategies and tactics involved in buying and selling entire companies. Incentive leads to motivation and motivated people tend to be more productive.

Interestingly, incentive and motivation aren’t always matched to the people being asked to act. I attribute this to the easily-triggered trap of assuming that the people being solicited are like the people doing the solicitation. In short, assuming they want the same things the solicitor wants. Parents deal with this when their child’s life goals(“I want to be a painter”) are different than their own (“We want you to be a lawyer”). Managers deal with it when their employees goals (“Don’t rock  the boat, rocking the boat gets you fired”) are not aligned with that of the company (“Think outside the box.”). Marketers encounter it when their perception of a product’s value (“Thicker, stronger denim”) proposition is not aligned with what the target is looking for in the product (“The label is too big and the cut is weird”)  Sometimes the product itself is simply being sold to the wrong target altogether.

Recently I’ve been working on projects related to the Green space. Here, again, I see ongoing evidence of a misalignment of incentives and motivators between the solicitors (organizations seeking funding) and those solicited (corporations).

Today “Green” is enjoying immense popularity. It has emerged from niche interest to become a national headline topic. It’s on everyone’s agenda from the President on down.  Not coincidentally, we’re in a recession too.  That’s a blessing and a curse for the Green groups. The problem here is two fold.

1. On the plus side, recession boosts awareness. Without pesky money to think about, we have time to think about other aspects of our lives – like the environment. Corporations, often vilified in recessions for their greedy behavior also turn to social issues during recession for some much needed PR love. However, the very lack of money running around the economy that gives people and corporations time to think about the environment can also inhibit them from acting on it.
2. When the economy recovers lenders start lending, spenders start spending and soon the popular incentives of growth in a capitalists culture – more money, a promotion, a bigger home, that plasma TV – distract us from those feel-good balance-seeking social concepts. We see this cycle repeated after each recession. The media’s fickleness only compounds our inherent A.D.H.D. and we’re easily swept up in the next big thing (which sometimes is also the next big bubble).

For  Green to sustain itself (financially and as a priority topic among corporate benefactors) especially during boom times, it needs to be recontexualized in terms of incentives that motivate corporate interests These incentives are well known – enterprise value, growth, higher share price, positive brand perception, loyal customers, etc. They are the incentives that surface in marketing campaigns and around finance discussions.

In this sense, if Green organizations want to appeal to more than the philanthropy wing of a company they must translate the incentives that motivate them (protecting the earth, reducing pollution, saving wildlife, conserving resources, etc.) into those that motivate corporations.

How might carbon offset, renewable energy, pollution reduction, resource conservation etc. contribute to reducing manufacturing costs or improving customer purchase intent? What is the quantifiable value of these outcomes in terms of sales, marketshare, or enterprise value?

Conversely, because today Green tends to be more expensive than the environmentally less-friendly options, it might be worth looking at the negative angle of the argument (though the marketing folks don’t like to lead with a downer). For example:

Let’s assume a loyal customer base of 100,000 people.

You produce 100,000 widgets at -1¢  cost/widget  saving $1000 each month supplying widgets to your full customer base. Over a year that’s $12,000 saved by using a less environmentally-friendly manufacturing process.

Then let’s say you get ‘outed’ via the Internet which feeds into the mainstream media spreading the word quickly. (A very real scenario in a Twitter-impulse world.)

In response, 10,000 customers (10% of your audience) stop buying the widget because it pollutes the environment.

That’s 10,000 fewer $1 transactions per month or $120,000/year in lost revenue.

Even at 2% customer base reduction, you still end up losing twice as much as you saved using a polluting process vs. a Green one. (Say nothing for the flaming you get from bloggers, activist Facebook groups, nosey reporters, etc., all of which will cost money to turn around through positive PR and advertising.)

Admittedly these numbers are oversimplified, but the point is clear. Rather than talking to corporations with an emotional appeal positioned as a charity with soft metrics built around it, Green interests should seek actionable, consumer insights about their customers, the corporate executives. Doing so might reveal a way to address Green as a core business proposition that impacts a company’s balance sheet.

Sure, the corporation’s marketing arm will put a feel-good consumer-facing spin on it for advertising purposes and glean that benefit as well. But alone, positive feelings and goodwill are not likely to motivate a corporation to look any further than that small, discretionary philanthropy budget.

Meanwhile an opportunity is lost to Green interests and corporations alike because more and more, the trajectory of the planet, its resources, pollution level and the collective cultural environment consciousness lends itself to a truly quantitative ROI for incorporating Green not as marketing spin but as a core operating principle.

]]> http://green52.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/weekly-green-tip-46-from-green52org/ Sun, 15 Mar 2009 22:56:30 +0000 green52 http://green52.wordpress.com/2009/03/15/weekly-green-tip-46-from-green52org/

Green tip for week #46 — Week of March 15, 2009

Use a tankless water heater

Tankless water heaters are an energy-saving solution.  As we all know by now, less energy consumption means less environmental impact, and anything we can do to shift our habits from consumption to conservation can have a profound impact on environmental responsibility.  Tankless water heaters are unique from the traditional water heaters most of us have, as they do not store hot water for an indefinite period, which is what creates wasted energy with a traditional water heater.  Many people who use traditional water heaters keep an unecessary amount of hot water on “reserve” in their water heater, when their actual hot water consumption may only be a fraction of what they are continually heating and storing.

By contrast, in a tankless water heater a heating element heats the water “on demand”, or only when it is needed.  Water flows through the water heater and gets heated for the application it is being used for (shower, sink, clothes washer, dishwasher, etc.).  Since the rate of heating may be insufficient for heavy-demand users (multiple showers in a home or apartment running at once, etc.), varying applications and installation configurations can include multiple units, a unit at each hot water source, etc.  Since traditional hot water heaters (with a tank) have a limited duration of useful life (often 8-10 years), you will inevitably have to replace yours.  Before you purchase a new one, give serious consideration to the enviornmental and energy-saving (i.e., money-saving) benefits of a tankless water heater.

For resources to check out, look at the tankless water heaters from Noritz (tanklessisgreen.com) and Navien (navienamerica.com).

Keep reading Green52.org weekly to find green living and environmental responsibility tips that you can incorporate, with a new tip each week.  Green52.org encourages you to spread the word about resource conservation and environmental responsibility — an easy way to start is by telling your friends about Green52.org.

_____

For more weekly green tips, come back to Green52.org and tell
your friends and colleagues about the weekly green tips found at
Green52.org.

Hi,

.

My friend Sree had posted recently about irresponsible and profligate behaviour generally, and specifically at his college – IIT Bombay.He was talking about things he saw, and typical reactions when he intervened. Really happy that he took the effort to write on this and post.. We can never have enough bellwethers GREAT GOING, SREE!!

I’ve had a lot of similar experiences, and have thought a lot about such people and incidents. This post is an off-shoot of them..

.

First, I’ll describe a typical scenario:

A guy picks up a piece of trash and throws it in the dustbin. His friends ridicule him. Their arguments are

- you cannot clean all streets

- what’s the point? Its not your business

- you cannot bring about any change

- just because you throw away trash, people are not going to stop all this. They might in fact be encouraged further because they’ll think there’s someone to clean up (I’ve personally been at the receiving end of such assumptions)

- fuel conservation, conscionable usage of resources, discipline and such lofty ideals are impractical and are good for movies and crusades; not for daily life

- why do we pay and keep cleaners? Let them do it

- mind your own business; don’t be supercilious and act saintly. You cannot tell me what to do and what not to do. Its a free country

- I’m too busy to think about all this

- I can afford to pay for fuel. Why can I not use my car?

and finally, the MOST important point

- What difference will it make my me alone changing? Its not going to result in any perceptible gain

.

It could be keeping the environment clean, or conscionable usage of resources like paper, fuel, electricity, or the like. The reactions are always the same. I’ve listed just some of the most common reactions I’ve faced, when I’ve spoken to them about this. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot, but this captures the attitude of such people (majority, in fact). This leads me to my question – how will you convince these guys to become more aware?

.

I’ve tried a lot of arguments, but none seem to work :l I’ve tried telling them about

- being the change you want to see

- effect of scaling and accumulation (the famous Anniyan 5 paisa * 5 million dialogue )

- demonstrating responsibilty

All to no avail Have you faced any such scenarios? Were you able to influence them? How? I’d LOVE to hear from you all on this.. It’ll be of great help to many

–

karthrags

P.S. – The title is a bunch of some of the attitudes I’ve encountered on this issue. I’m sure all find possession of such qualities reprehensible (though the words themselves are quite beautiful ). But are you indulging in such behaviour? Would such epithets be applicable? If so, is it fine to leave it so? Are you going to give me one of the reactions I listed in the blog?

.

Update: Talk about timing! One of my friends’ gmail status message:

If you think that you are too small to make a difference, then you have never tried to sleep with a mosquito in the same room.

By Angela Asby
The Steamboat Local

What does green building really mean? In its simplest form, green building encompasses three components: Energy efficiency; resource conservation and good indoor environmental quality.

Energy efficiency is the foundation of a good green building program, especially if you live in these parts! Energy efficiency relates to energy used during construction as well as how the home will perform after construction. Proper insulation and sealing, energy efficient appliances, proper sizing and efficiency with the HVAC systems, solar gain (remember the sun is free!), energy efficient windows are all pieces of the puzzle.

Resource conservation is just smart. If you can use less materials and come up with a better designed and energy efficient home, doesn’t that just make sense? Framing techniques, land use, recycling on site, use of recycled materials and smaller footprints are just a few things to chew on while you begin your drawrings for your dream home. Then there is the concept of “buying local”. It supports our local economy, reduces our carbon footprint and perpetuates the influx of local suppliers and manufacturers. Try using local beetle kill wood for finishes in your remodel or new home.

Indoor environmental quality sometimes goes unnoticed. Glues, formaldehyde, carpets, stinky paint and finishes have been known to cause allergies, asthma and God knows what else will be uncovered in the years to come…three heads! Did you know that indoor air quality can be 10 times worse than one of the worst days in a smoggy metropolis? The image of Snoopy coughing up a fur ball comes to mind. With that image in mind, I encourage you to take a little extra time to research what is in your paint, carpets, cabinetry and other items that may contain VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds). There can be some nasty and toxic stuff hidden behind and inside your walls. It is also a good idea to have a radon test performed on your dwelling. Radon is a cancer-causing natural radioactive gas that you can’t see, smell or taste. According to the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), radon is the leading cause of lung cancer among non-smokers and claims about 20,000 lives annually. We have a very active radon presence in our valley, so it would behoove you to spend the money and get the test done.

The encouraging news is that there are several groups, businesses and individuals in your community that are trying to make advances in these healthier efforts. Yampa Valley Sustainability Council is working on a host of environmental and sustainable initiatives and is looking for dedicated folks to expand the scope of the organization. The Chamber’s Sustainable Business Program is advancing their program every week by helping businesses with their efforts at energy efficiency, resource reduction, recycling, etc. Yampa Valley Recycles has been doing great works for several years as well as Home ReSource in promoting reduction, reuse and recycling. Everyone should visit the “Milner Mall”.

The City and County recently adopted a Green Building Program with an ENERGY STAR component. Other groups that have been working on efforts such as beetle kill issues, water conservation and job creation through the green industry. In the next issue, I will expound upon what your local community organizations are up to these days and how you too can get involved. Read up, stay tuned and if you have questions or comments please send them my way.

Now that ‘Drill, Baby, Drill‘ is an echo of the past, a revolutionary GREEN technology is discovered that will increase America’s oil production by billions of barrels, from right beneath our feet!

[Houston, TX, Nov. 10, 2008] As the hunt continues for new and renewable sources of energy, a remarkable discovery comes out of Texas that will increase America’s present oil production by billions of barrels, and it’s all beneath our feet.

In a step towards reducing, or even ending America’s dependence on foreign oil, a Houston company has announced a revolutionary breakthrough in oil recovery. Planet Resource Recovery, and its amazing GREEN product, PetroLuxusTM have completed nine months of down-hole field tests with low producing [marginal] oil wells. The end result: oil well production increased 2, 3, 4 & 5 times original output (actual studies are available upon request). Oil wells that were once producing 80 barrels per month are now producing 200, 300 and 500 barrels monthly.

Since this announcement appeared in the Houston Chronicle on Sept 3rd, oil producers and investors from across America have been knocking on the door of this publicly-owned grass roots company (pink sheets: PRRY).

For more on this story, go to: www.talkguests.com/petroluxus.htm

Y
ou’ve heard all about it, but do you really understand it? Green. Is it possible to be truly green?
As designers we have an obligation to ourselves, our clients, the environment and all the people who live on this earth to be responsible in our recommendations of products, materials and finishes.

But one doesn’t have to stop there, recommending energy efficient equipment, using products with recycled content or recyclable, no chemical finishes or low-VOC emitting products, etc. are all part of the big picture.

So, how does one become “Green” minded? Below is a list of things we can do to help our families, clients and the place we live in to be safer and greener:

1) Use materials and products manufactured within a 500 mile radius of the projects locations.

2) Use energy efficient light fixtures and equipment (ie: kitchens, laundry areas), keep energy/resource conservation in mind.

3) Use green interior finishes such as certified EPP carpet or recycled carpet

4) Use sustainable materials/rapidly renewable materials such as cork, bamboo, etc. and consider the manner that they have been harvested, and consider how they will be used.

5) Use only low-VOC, non toxic paints, adhesives

6) Use furniture which respond to the issue of sustainability (ie: using recycled fabric, alternative construction materials such as recycled fiberboard, recycled laminates)

7) Consider alternative materials such as solid surface materials with recycled content, tile, concrete, etc. for kitchen counter tops, vanities.

8 ) Utilize natural sunlight to its advantage

9) Create green standards in your projects; setting goals will help you achieve ‘green’

10) Educate people on green options. As confusing as it is for professionals, the average person doesn’t understand the variety of possibilities on the market.

11) Choose green products first, if you’ve been hired to design, be responsible and design green.

12) Offer green services as part of your design services, soon green will be as important and common place as providing a structurally sound structure

The list could go on and on, but this gives you a pretty good idea of where to start. Keep in mind that safety, durability and resource conservation are among the most important factors in designing and recommending ‘green’.

Unfortunately, today there’s a lot of ‘green washing’ going on in the world today (similar to ‘brain washing’ and indicates deception). By implementing some of the recommendations above into your projects you join the rank of responsible, educated designers in saving our planet and our resources for future generations to come.

Economy as Interaction of the Man and the Environment, which

Unfolds in Space and Time. The Western and Eastern Approaches

Lucy Badalian, PhD

Victor Krivorotov, PhD

Millennium Workshop, USA

lucy@quantumart.com

“Those who do not forget the past are the masters of the future.”

Sima Qian,

China’s first great historian (ca 145-86 BCE)[1]

Abstract. East and West – the two dissimilar ways of using one’s environment for supporting the demographic growth. The path forward may lie through their merging.

It is a well known fact that many technological innovations that are associated with the West, such as gunpowder, printing, compass etc originally came from the East, mostly from China and the Arabic world. While they eventually led to the military and technological dominance of the West, they failed to produce comparable results in the East. We show that this was rooted in the fundamental dissimilarity of relationships between the technology and the society. In the West technology ruled, while in the East preservation of social balance was of utmost importance.

Historically, both East and West evolved to solve the same problem – feeding their respective demographic growth. However, their solutions differed, perhaps, with geoclimatic specifics accounting for the major part of their divergence (Diamond, 1996). Thus, successive western societies were shaped around the dominant technology of the time – witness, for example, the dissimilarity between the modern consumer society, US-style, an offshoot of the oil-based economy; and the industrial Britain, where King Coal ruled. Meanwhile, the eastern-style societies tended to be fairly conservative, oftentimes sacrificing the technological advance for the sake of social stability. Thus, the Mughal India easily coexisted with the earlier caste-system.

Up to the 16^th century the Eastern-style development led to a generally higher degree of evolutionary success – as it could support considerably higher levels of demographic density. However, as shown by a number of authors (Clark, 2007, Findlay, O’Rourke, 2008), starting from the 1850s, the Western-style development proved to be more successful. After a leap in labor productivity achieved through higher energy expenditures, the industrial society managed to break through Malthusian constraints. This was accomplished via significant efficiencies of scale and the growing use of non-renewable resources, often procured from colonial and post colonial territories of East.

Today, the amazing success of China attracts renewed interest in the Eastern model and stresses its profound differences from West.

1. Power versus precision. Historically, instead of increasing its energy expenditures western-style, East relied on its ample resources of manpower. Thus, any new need for increasing mechanical power was traded for more precision in energy applications.

2. Big versus small. With the demographic growth not channeled away via primogeniture – in the West, the entire inheritance was passed to the oldest son pushing the younger sons towards territorial expansion – the size of land holdings in the East tended to get smaller with time. This contrasts the prevailing Western trend towards reaping scale efficiencies by increasing the size of an average enterprise. In China, its tiny holdings led to remarkable nimbleness in using peculiar features of any natural niche.

3. King of nature versus its temporary servant. East and West differed also in their attitude towards their environments. It is a sad fact that any known type of economic activity leads to irretrievable ecological changes. For example, deforestation and the resulting erosion were typical both in West and East. However, the eastern-style reliance on growing a variety of interdependent cultures proved to be more preservation minded than the monoculture-based agricultural style of West. In China, the erosion from initial deforestation was in fact gradually reduced via terracing and other forms of accommodation to minute peculiarities of their environment.

4. Staying put versus territorial expansion. In China, expenditures in labor were never spared if they helped in improving one’s plot for handing it down to the next generation in accordance with Confucian values. Meanwhile, in West, uniformity of terrain was urgently needed for more efficient mechanical applications. Within the governing paradigm of the man as the king of the nature, there was always more open land beckoning on the horizon after exhausting the older plots.

5. Monoculture economy versus a carefully selected blend of multi-cultures. The monoculture-reliant large scale western economy presents thus a striking contrast to the eastern multicultural small-scale model, which thrived on the cultivation of many mutually complementing cultures within its highly specialized economy on tiny plots.

One would argue that standardization, machines and reliance on monocultures opened the way to much higher productivity, needed to feed the surging population of the planet. However, mounting resource shortages, on the background of global warming and pollution, point at the exogenous limit for the Western-style development. We show that switching back to the mode of small scale production may lead away from monocultures, with their heavy demand on land, energy and resources. This may prove feasible again in our near future by merging the western and eastern styles of development. Modern precision tools, nanotechnology and robotics, these newest creations of the western technological evolution, may be opening up an innovative option for a brand new economy of super-productive small series. It may lead to domestication of under-populated lands, unsuitable for horticulture. Eerily resembling eastern-style production, but on a much higher technological and organizational level, usually associated with West, this new style of small series of production may lead to considerable gains in productivity through increase in precision as compensation for lesser expenditures of power. We argue that this may put a renewed stress on the importance of social stability, which is currently taking main hit from the mounting imbalances of globalization.

Keywords: oil, economy, energy, demographic density, globalization, East, West, Malthusian pressures.

1. Part One. The Western Path.

1.1.The exogenous limits of oil-based economy and what it portends for our future.

The mounting shortages of oil, the dominant inelastic resource of our times, are producing inflationary pressures, first and foremost, on resources and food. This raises concerns about the exogenous limits of the current oil-based economy along with doubts on its ability to provide sustenance for the billions of the emerging world.

In this context, it needs to be noted that this situation is hardly unique. In the West, there were at least 5 other instances of similarly dire shortages of the dominant resource of the time.

The latter ranged from:

1. The alluvial mudsoils in the tiny area of the deltas of the great rivers, which served as the basis of the irrigation agriculture of the first civilizations;

2. Suitable land in the arid Mediterranean for cultivating the olive and the vine, the economic foundation of the classic antiquity of Greece and Rome;

3. Fertile clay soils for the subsistence economy of the medieval era in Western Europe;

4. Timber and hydropower in the early modern era with its early manufactures, bulk trade and long distance seafaring, including to the Americas;

5. Coal in the industrializing Britain, and;

6. Currently, oil.

The authors (Badalian and Krivorotov, 2006, 2007) showed that, up to our days, in the West, resource related pressures were always resolved via territorial expansion. After a considerable turmoil and bloodletting, a new, much more productive economy, complete with its unique, more powerful technologies, social/power institutes, types of property, forms of ownership etc, was created in a new location. The virgin resources of the new space under domestication fueled a jump to a much higher level of energy consumption. This opened up, for innovative productive uses, the unique features of a new geoclimatic zone, which previously could be used only barely.

Historically, in the West, there was a well defined progression of energy sources, which, by supplying more power, helped in domesticating ever larger and less hospitable territories.

They ranged from:

1. The muscle power of large work-gangs of the first civilizations in the tiny area of the deltas of the great rivers;

2. The ox of the antiquity, which was centered in the Mediterranean;

3. The horse of the medieval Europe;

4. Wind/water powered mills and oceangoing ships of the early modern era in Europe;

5. Coal of the industrial era that started in Britain and gradually encompassed global regions of the temperate climate; and, finally;

6. Oil that opened up the immense territory of the US, which was mostly situated in the region of extreme climate, previously out of the reach of the farmer.

The historic rise in energy consumption levels enabled considerable gains in efficiency, mostly achieved through labor saving – the size of an average landholding generally grew throughout eras. This promoted the drive towards uniform, monoculture style large scale cultivation[2].

Today, however, this tried and true path to resolving resource shortages seems to be hitting a snag. A leap to the next energy consumption level along with an increase in monoculture-style efficiencies seem to be closed – the ongoing global warming puts strict exogenous limits both on future energy expenditures and the further expansion into the remaining wilderness.

1.2.West and East – power versus precision.

However, the situation might be far from hopeless. As a matter of fact, the basic laws of physics state that an increase in the energy level can be substituted for by a commensurate increase in the precision of its application. It turns out that the Western path to creating more wealth via seminal leaps in energy expenditures had also a quite dissimilar historic alternative in East. For example, the evolutionary line of the Chinese development emphasized precision of its mostly manually based production. According to physical laws cited above, a labor intensive, but energy and resource saving model based on the extensive use of power-tools may be representing the only viable alternative to the Western path of development, which, in contrast, grew ever thirstier for energy and resources.

1. It is a well known fact that China eschewed notable increases in levels of energy, characteristic for the western lineage. For example, in agriculture, China never adopted the horse, which remained confined mostly to military applications[3]. Of course, possessing the extremely productive “wet rice” culture it made no sense to support the horse at the cost of 5-6 laborers[4]. Instead, the Chinese economy was run mostly on its widely available manpower and oxen. Indeed, the Chinese levels of demographic density achieved on large territories were unprecedented in history[5]. They can be only compared to densities at the time of first civilizations, albeit the latter were attained in the much tinier area of super-productive deltas of the great rivers. Thus, in a notable contrast with the energy-thirsty West, the eastern economy could extend into wilderness, turned productive by increasing the level of precision in its power applications.

2. Also, there were other notable outcomes of relying on the increase in the level of precision. Thus, instead of pursuing western style monocultures by incessantly increasing the size of land holdings, in China we see its direct opposite. With the growth of population came ever smaller holdings, promoting the evolution of highly specialized, small scale enterprises. As the time went, their diminishing size made them nimble. Uses were found for many dissimilar small geoclimatic niches in the richly varied Chinese territory. Thus, terraced rice paddies were used for aquaculture. The mulberry trees for sericulture, where mostly females were employed, were grown on their embankments.

3. It needs to be stressed that this highly specialized economy placed specific demands on its society. The tiny plots couldn’t satisfy the full range of needs of their owners, thus, the functioning of the entire economy depended on its ability to maintain advanced levels of exchange and trade. And indeed, this trade, mostly carried by the mighty Yangtze, evolved during the era, nearly synchronous to the European age of explorations[6]. The related increase in land productivity added to efficiencies of specialization led to a great population surge, with the Chinese population trebled within two centuries (1650-1850). Obviously, such an extensive level of trade was quite demanding and could be supported only through a significant degree of political unification. Thus, China of multiculture economy prospered, when unified, and suffered during the times of disunity. Notably, communication between distant parts, which evolved their mutually incomprehensible dialects, could be maintained seamlessly, using a unique Chinese adaptation. Its writing system was unrelated to the sound of the speech and could be shared across the terrain.

4. While both models of development caused significant deforestation in the territories under cultivation, both for agricultural needs and for fuel, the Eastern way, which found a way to benefit from any minute peculiarity of its environment by finding an appropriate plant benefiting from it, proved to be much more conservation minded. For example, the deforested hills in Southern China would have been much more erosion prone if cultivated in the western mode as uniform fields for monocultures. In China, at a great cost in labor, they were elaborately terraced, mostly for rice paddies. The embankments were strengthened by planting mulberry trees and other beneficial cultures. Such kind of preservation is, in fact, a trademark feature of multicultural labor-extensive approach as the opposite of monocultural labor-saving approach typical for technologically minded West. See, for example, the cultivation of the “three sisters” (mutually supportive cultures of maize, squash and climbing beans) by Native Americans or “terra preta do indios”, the artificially enriched and extremely productive soil of Mesoamerica. According to recent research, it could have provided sustenance to around 50 million people on the extremely poor soils of the Amazon. Amazingly, it preserved its fertility up to this day.

5. We need to stress that, despite its considerable sophistication, the Chinese economy never advanced past manually tended gardens, classical-antiquity-style. I.e., it never found appropriate uses for lands unsuitable for horticulture. Thus, it substituted its scarce animal proteins with plant proteins, mostly derived from soybeans. Meanwhile, in the case of West, domestication of the marginal “wastelands” pushed to technological advance, which indirectly led to its current dominance. First, it was the Atlantic coast, with its animal husbandry as the base for early industrial applications fueling the large scale bulk trade. Then, starting from the Industrial Revolution, there were found uses for the landlocked areas that could now be connected via railroads and steamships to the rest of the world economy. Finally, the modern oil-based economy further improved the access to remote areas, such as California, the Great Plains and Florida, mostly in the zone of extreme climate, making them economically important. As a side effect, its spread abroad during the ongoing globalization also increased the level of consumption worldwide – many peoples, including the Chinese, are now switching from grain-based consumption to a more varied diet[7]. Clearly, the time has come for domesticating the huge wilderness, still abundant in China and elsewhere, by using environmentally friendly, technologically advanced means for producing more proteins.

As we see, both the western and eastern ways are currently facing strong headwinds and may be in need for a totally new style merging their approaches in a mutually beneficial way.

In this paper we argue that these notable features – namely, substitution of power with precision of power applications and the high sensitivity to natural surroundings, with productive uses for any smallish geoclimatic niche suitable for cultivation – may be the underlying cause of the current Chinese success. Meanwhile, up to this date, they managed to escape the attention of researchers. Also, further development of these features, perhaps, by blending the beneficial traits both characteristic for West and for East, may provide a suitable way out of our current predicament. It may involve both trading more power for an increase in precision and finding new ways of using territories inhospitable for horticultures, both in China and elsewhere.

It can hardly be coincidental that China, feeding on its historic strengths, managed to develop the most successful economy of our days. However, it never domesticated the areas inhospitable for horticulture, perhaps because of its failure to accommodate the pastoral peoples inhabiting them. Today, the country walks a difficult tightrope between adopting western industrial technologies, which already showed their limitations, and preserving its competitive advantage of “small series” production within its specialized and richly varied economy. The latter served as its trademark in the past and, perhaps, is currently pointing to the future, promoting both the conservation of the environment and social stability through fuller employment of population. Meanwhile, currently China is considered one of the worse pollutants, as it eagerly acquires western technologies greedy for resources and energy.

1.2.The ecological catastrophes of the past.

We need to stress that the current situation of dire shortages and acute imbalances is far from unique. Such drastic periods, when it became painfully obvious that the existing economy can’t be stretched any further in order to feed many more people, had happened before. Encouragingly for us, up to this date, each and every time, despite the related considerable hardship, death toll and suffering, the Malthusian shortages and ecological constraints were somehow resolved.

Within the European line of development, most historians distinguish at least six grand periods, each of which evolved in its own distinct geoclimatic zone. They were on the scale of:

1. The first civilizations in the tiny area of the deltas of the great rivers;

2. The classical antiquity in the arid Mediterranean;

3. The Medieval Era in Western Europe;

4. The Age of Exploration of the Atlantic;

5. The Industrial Era of the British Empire and colonialism;

6. The current oil-age of the US-style mass production now spreading worldwide.

Each of them was unique, with a notable break of continuity in-between – more or less prolonged and destructive “dark ages”. While there was no shortage of wars in history, events between these periods were so extraordinary and accompanied by such great upheavals and mass migrations on the scale of Völkswanderungen that they stuck in the memory of generations.

1. The historic accounts and archaeological data testify of the fury unleashed during the Catastrophe of the Bronze Ages between the 13-12^th centuries BC[8].

2. Its devastation was amply matched by the one wrought by the immense tide of barbaric invasions, surging in destructive waves from the fall of Rome in the 4^th century and up, until the Normans settled in Europe following their raids of the late 8^th-9^th century.

3. Then, there stands out the lengthy tumultuous period between the 1348 Black Death and the end of the wars of Reformation, the so called religious wars of the 16^th Century. The latter redrew the map of the Atlantic coastal regions, previously considered of little use.

4. The French and British competition in the 18^th century, oftentimes carried out far away, by proxy, in the North America[9], was an important, often overlooked factor of the American Revolution. It was followed by the bloody French Revolution, brought forth by the related overextension and famine. It ended with the Napoleonic wars, often called the world war of the 19^th century. With the loss of their American colonies, the British hopes on obtaining timber etc from overseas were extinguished, pushing them instead towards industrialization

5. The rise of the mass society of the 20^th century was announced by a series of great revolutions and two world wars

6. Most recently, we are facing a wave of terrorism that may be announcing the start of another period of insecurity on the background of massive human movements, with entire countries supported by cash sent home by migrant-workers.

1.3.The inner logic of the switch to a new resource.

Historically, a society usually collapsed in a giant upheaval after being overstretched to its utter limits. At its end, dire shortages of a particular dominant resource were especially daunting, causing unbearable inflationary pressures. Ecological upheavals followed as people were pushed to cultivate wastelands. Among examples of such inelastic resources: coal at the start of the 20^th century or alluvial mudsoils for the irrigation agriculture of the first civilizations.

Amazingly enough, the successor society was usually effectively weaned off the stranglehold of this formerly inelastic and exceptionally dear/scarce item. I.e., from the 1950s, after the debacle of two world wars, the prosperous consumer society US-style still used significant amounts of coal, but only as one of the many substitutes of its own main inelastic resource, which was and is, of course, oil. The industrial society lessened its dependence on timber, previously grown in the so called coppice woods. Or, the classical antiquity of Greece and Rome thrived on its olive and vine, in the arid Mediterranean, mostly unsuitable for irrigation style grain farming. Grain, meanwhile, was procured from Egypt, rich with alluvial mudsoils. This area was suitable for irrigation agriculture, still worked in the fashion of the first civilizations. There were also other striking examples of similar switches of dominant inelastic resources between eras. Here it was – the dominant resource of a fading era, the most dear and wanted thing – causing inflation and wars. Soon, after a fortnight of huge suffering, while a brand new economy was being formed around an altogether different resource, it would end up out of limelight and mostly forgotten.

For example, at the start of the 14^th century, practically all suitable lands in Europe and even a good deal of barely producing wastelands on its outskirts were already cleared off from forests and placed under cultivation at a great cost to ecology. Then, there came the sad moment, when, in the situation of acute shortages of productive lands, the medieval subsistence economy failed to support any additional demographic growth. The latter was somewhat channeled away during the territorial expansion from the 10^th to the 13^th centuries: to the Palestine; conquest of the Slavic lands; the Albigoan crusade, which placed the lands on the south of France, previously part of the earlier olive/vine economy of the Mediterranean, under the French king, within the reach of the medieval grain-based subsistence economy etc. Nevertheless, there was significant overpopulation and famines became more acute and damaging.

At the start of the 14^th century, the recent prosperity, still fresh in people’s memories, was replaced by the lingering suffering. An ecological disaster of a prolonged bout of cold weather accompanied by a decades-long rain led to widespread hunger and thoroughly weakened the population immunologically. This increased its susceptibility to the 1348 Black Death, which, according to some estimates, killed from one third to one half of all people living in Europe.

1.4.The formation of the next economy, based on a totally new resource.

One would expect that, after such a drastic cull, the medieval economy, newly flush with depopulated but still sufficiently producing lands, would be restored anew, in a more or less the same shape. Amazingly, this never happened. The next economy (of the early modern era) was in fact based on a totally different foundation. The lands that only recently were deemed so dear that people would till them for the mere hope of bare survival were left fallow and gradually morphed into meadows.

The landscape of Europe was thus totally changed – it shifted from dense forests typical up to the 9^th century to open grasslands that prevailed after the 14^th century. Animal husbandry, wool production and other value added occupations more than filled the need for nourishment, which couldn’t be obtained anymore at a reasonable cost in labor closer to the end of the failing subsistent economy of the medieval era. Meanwhile, the disappearance of forests, cleared off from the 10^th century, created needs unknown before. Fish, meat and timber, which previously could be obtained in the neighboring forest or creek, turned into valuable commodities to be bought and sold. In its turn, starting from as early as the 12^th-13^th century, the rise of markets fueled the large scale shipping and the so called bulk trade. Of course, this caused a dramatic power-shift – including, for example, the formation of the modern nation-state and the early forms of banking. The Genoese merchants participating in the annual Champagne market in France could operate so far of their home due to annual revolving lines of credit within the rising global financial system of the Latin Christendom, which stretched from France to the Palestine.

Thus, it was perhaps only fitting, though, no doubt, controversial, that Eleanor Carus-Wilson (1941) considered the 13^th century as the starting point of the early industrial revolution. She justified her conclusion by pointing to a dramatic increase in commercial uses of the mill. The switch in energy sources was especially visible in the Atlantic. This area was on the far periphery of the medieval economy, being mostly unsuitable for its subsistence style grain production. During this immense technological and social transformation, the Atlantic acquired new economic importance as the center of the rising early modern economy and its long distance bulk shipping. The products of animal husbandry, first and foremost, wool, gave rise to the early modern manufacturing, powered by the mill, gainfully absorbing a large labor force dependent on grain coming from elsewhere, mostly from Eastern Europe. This new economy, in its infancy, was serviced by the Hanseatic League, starting from the 13^th century. Perhaps, not surprisingly, the halcyon years of this monopoly, which started with salted fish trade at the start of the 13^th century ended with the killing rampage of the 1348 Black Death in Europe[10].

The happy outcome of feeding and gainfully employing many more people on the Atlantic coast would only come much later, after other, much more pressing concerns were successfully resolved. First among them, was, of course, the question of ownership over the newly valuable land! The new importance of the previously marginal Atlantic territories led to substantial social and political tensions as these lands were carved up in the course of desperate and prolonged wars. Amazingly enough, the so called religious wars of the 16^th century, while quite stringent regarding the division of property rights[11], were much more lax and accommodating as to the faiths of the warring sides. Among other examples, Cardinal Richelieu was a major figure, the fundraiser and the supporter of protestant armies, aimed against the all-Catholic Habsburgs[12].

The growth of population in France could be resumed only after 1715, after all questions of ownership of the newly rich and important lands were dutifully resolved. The rising economy was based on a newly built infrastructure for large distance trade, which was based on an extended system of water based transportation. Water bodies, ranging from rivers to seas and oceans, were joined in a sophisticated, fully navigable network via manmade canals. These were amazing engineering feats built at a great cost[13]. They were supported by an extensive system of taxation, which would make a modern state proud, and served as the foundation for the sophisticated production of luxury goods at royal manufactures etc.

There are more examples of a dramatic shift between economies. The most recent was much closer to our times. It is a well known fact that the inflationary peak of prices on coal was reached in 1913. In the grip of an inflationary spiral, eerily resembling our times, there was a desperate search for coal as the chief inelastic resource. People had to reach deeper and/or extract thin shallow coal deposits that, only recently, weren’t considered worthy of the effort. This created new needs, such as ventilation for deep shafts, and lifts and conveyor belts for moving people and coal[14]. Open fire and coal-powered steam were used at the start, but had to be replaced, as too dangerous in the mine. New sources of power were urgently needed, which, in time, led to electric generators ran on diesel. Meanwhile, in strip coal mining it was necessary to expose the thin shallow layers of coal. This greatly exceeded the capacity of steam, which couldn’t be used without costly railroad tracks[15]. Thus, it was necessary to develop diesel-powered excavators and bulldozers and powerful explosives, while also much increasing both the reach and might of mechanically applied power.

Along with prices on coal there was also a rampant inflation on food fueled by the migration to cities caused by industrialization. Even though the rise in food prices was quite steep, it, similarly to our times, was singularly outmatched by a parallel rise in the cost of fertilizers. Just as today, fertilizers were badly needed for increasing the land’s productivity[16].

Both these daunting needs, in cheap fertilizers and explosives, were eventually satisfied by a single brilliant invention that earned F. Haber a well deserved Nobel Prize. The first commercial production of nitrates out of air started working in 1913 and changed the course of the 20^th century. First and foremost, the sudden easy availability of this chief component of explosives broke the British control over the trade in nitrates. Regardless of the underlying reasons for WWI, its prolonged battles would hardly be possible without this new abundant source of cheap gunpowder. Everything that followed may have been a mere consequence. Powerful, long-range cannons required aerial observation. After an unsuccessful attempt to use dirigibles, there was a furiously paced evolution of planes – 4-6 generations in the course of the five years of the war. Britain entered the war with 600 Lorries, ended it with 60,000. Thus, WWI led to the mass entrance of the internal combustion engine and its speedy refinement to commercial prototypes. This placed an indelible mark on the world, first in the West, then, gradually, elsewhere.

John Roberts (1989), a noted historian of the 20^th century, once famously noted that the most daunting legacy of wars may be not the ruins, which are comparatively easy to clear off and rebuild, but rather the rise of wartime industries. They can’t be shut off at one’s will. What must follow after the war is their long and painful assimilation to peace. Thus, he described the period between the two world wars as a wholesale shift from coal to oil, building a brand new society around the winning technology of the internal combustion engine and its dominant resource, oil. The political system dominated by Britain was replaced by the post WWII Pax Americana. A great deal of new wealth was created, as California, the Great Plains, Florida and other territories of the extreme climate, previously out of the reach of the farmer, were successfully domesticated within the heavily mechanized agriculture based on petrochemicals, the US-style.

2. Part Two. The Chinese way.

2.1.East and West: parallelism in development despite differences in means.

In the West, history is seen as linear, while the Chinese worldview visualizes time in a cyclical manner. “When what is below moves up, what is above moves down, ready to rise again”. (Shaughnessy, 2000). Despite this and many other fundamental differences, many observers note that subsequent stages of the Chinese history more or less mirrored those in the West.

This parallelism becomes especially visible, if we look at the functionality accomplished during particular periods both in China and West. It seems that in both cases the development was driven forth by the same means, through domestication of new territories. Only, in West, they were opened up by using new, more powerful sources of energy. Meanwhile, in China new land was made sufficiently productive with the coming of the next horticultural staple, which could support great levels of human density in a new place.

Thus, after the first spurt of growth in the delta of the Yellow River, which mostly followed the familiar Mesopotamian patterns[17], from the 8^th century AD upward, the next demographic burst was brought in by the new culture of “wet rice”. The development was shifted south, gradually domesticating the difficult, forested, swampy and hilly, but also incredibly productive valley of the Yangtze River. This process, in full force after the 10^th century, resembled synchronous great forest clearances of the medieval Europe. It was followed by the wholesale drainage of swamps and water management projects, which had its parallels in Europe, starting from the Netherlands in the 16^th century. The much slower but steadier pace of domestication of the Yangtze valley can be attributed both to its more difficult conditions and the absence of the horse in economy.

Then, there was the huge demographic growth of the 16^th –early 18^th centuries, trebling the population. It is usually attributed to the effects of globalization, of the 13^th-17^th Centuries[18] (Findlay, O’Rourke, 2008), which greatly increased the volume of trade. Females could now be employed almost exclusively in sericulture and other semi-industrial occupations within the family farm, leaving the agrarian tasks to men. Even more importantly, the additional hands producing luxury silks, tea, cotton and sugar for exports found abundant new sources of food. Globalization brought important new cultures, especially the maize and the potato, from the Americas. This allowed domestication of the hilly terrain in the inner provinces, previously of little use. Financially, the Chinese version of the early modern era, with its much greater specialization of households on tiny family plots was enabled by a surge in the universal means of exchange. Silver came from Japan and from the Spanish possessions in the Americas, through the Manila trade. The switch to the negative balance in the global trade starting from 1825 was caused by the European (mostly British) effort to staunch the debilitating loss of silver by selling opium from India. This ruined the Chinese exchange balance, which was finalized by the infamous Opium wars. After the 1850s, China was in decline. This is vividly shown by numbers. From 1741 to 1840 population rose from 143 million to 430 million, “… a gain of around 200 per cent while the amount of arable land grew by only 35 per cent.”[19]

The massive outflow of silver after the Opium wars triggered a decline in the demand for Chinese exports of silk, porcelain and tea, which also faced competition from the European factories. The non-agricultural sources of employment were severely diminished. Having no cultures which would allow domestication of territories unsuitable for the traditional horticulture, China was hemmed in and ruined, with no outlets for its excess labor. What followed was a long and painful adjustment to the world dominated by West and its technologies.

Today, despite its considerable advance, the Chinese predicament, also contributing to worldwide inflation, can be characterized with an impressive list of hard numbers. Since the terrain of the greater China is mostly inhospitable to horticulture, “six sevenths of the population have to live on the one third of the land that is cultivable. The inhabited part of China is roughly half as large as the inhabited part of the United States, yet it supports five times as many people … crowding some 2,000 human beings into each square mile of cultivated earth in the valleys and floodplains[20] … In short, China must feed about 23 percent of the world’s population from about 7 percent of the world’s arable land.” (Fairbank, Goldman, 2006, p.5). Meanwhile, the shift from a mostly grain-based diet to a more westernized lifestyle, with its heavier demands on resources, puts a great strain on global supplies. Obviously enough, China, once again, is facing a need to domesticate its vast territories. It must produce a breakthrough, comparable with the agricultural revolution of wet rice which enabled the move to the valley of the Yangtze River.

2.2.The military driven development of West versus the agrarian pursuits of East.

If we were to pick a single one out of a multicultural range of Chinese cultures, there can be no doubt it would be the wet rice, a singularly productive staple food. Its enormous productivity explains the centuries-long reliance in China on muscle power, with technology taking secondary positions. There was simply no agricultural land left for draft animals. Instead, we oftentimes see early usage of such, seemingly more advanced power sources as coal, natural gas and the mill. In the course of Chinese history, a precarious balance was slowly established. Technologies were let in, but only when they didn’t overly disturb the social order. They were suppressed mercilessly, as soon as they did. “Rice culture, with its greater inputs of water and labor, until recent times yielded more than twice as much food as wheat-growing[21].” (ibid, p.11) Along with the distrust to technologies came also distrust to the military, generally deemed perhaps more dangerous than the possible foreign invaders[22]. The An Lushan rebellion of 755-763 thus marked “the permanent shift southward of the center of Chinese civilization to the Yangtze river” (p. 35). Unlike West, the main goal of the Chinese Empire wasn’t in conquering any exterior lands, which had few productive uses, but rather in defending its borders from the northern barbarians.

Meanwhile, in the West the technological development was driven forth by the need in conquest and, thus, military applications. This especially concerns the trend towards increasing energy expenditures, noticeable from the medieval Europe. The horse, for example, was first used by the knight. Pushed by the laws of primogeniture out of their ancestral lands, the young sons had to gain their holdings elsewhere by the strength of their arms. The agricultural applications also greatly benefited from the availability of the baron’s stallion and his blacksmith. Likewise, the European age of exploration, otherwise known as the early modern era, was enabled by the ocean-going ship, with its substantial firepower. It withstood the ocean gale, the hostile fire and the recoil of its own cannons. At around the 1750s, advances in line-shaft driven machinery and better cutting tools of the early modern era led to the appearance of cast bronze muzzle-loading cannons. The skills learned in the production of its successor, the carronade, the cast iron gun, preferred by Nelson, were later used in boring tight fitting cylinders for the steam engine of James Watt. Then, Bessemer invented a new, more powerful firing shell, which, however, required stronger cannon barrels. The invention of cheap steel by Bessemer was aimed at satisfying this new urgent need. (Merson, 1990, 193). Further development brought in steel cannons of Krupp. Similarly to the Watt’s steam engine, the internal combustion engine, with its thin uniform walls, benefited from steel working technologies, first developed for military uses.

The dichotomy between West and China was well understood by the Japanese. “In the sixteenth century, when contact was first made with the Europeans, the Tokugawa clan were keen to use western military technology and advisers to help them win control of the country. However, to manage the peace, they turned, as Japanese rulers had always done, to the model of Confucian China.[23]” (Merson, 1990, 166)

2.3.The final frontier – the ongoing merging of Eastern and Western practices or the path to the future through the past.

Today, both the eastern and western ways in their “pure” traditional forms face exogenous constraints. The historic trends of Western evolution through military-based technologies, which, on a later date, are accommodated to peaceful uses, are currently too dangerous considering the lethality of modern weapons. The traditional Western reliance on heavy machinery and monocultures is also resource and energy heavy, which is risky in the current situation of global warming. East, meanwhile, also cannot continue in its traditional fashion. It was outcompeted militarily and technologically. With technology in a secondary role it couldn’t improve the wellbeing of its peoples. Clearly, a merging of sorts seems crucial, and there are telltale signs that it is indeed already well in progress.

2.3.1. Domestication of new territories urgently needed, but where?

Persistent historical patterns show that, upon exhausting the older geoclimatic zone of the cutting edge development, a new era raises on its periphery. As a rule, it evolves a complex amalgam of known social institutes by adapting the existing technologies to demands of its geoclimatic zone. Historically, any technological development in a new place was preceded by an agrarian revolution, which could feed many more people. If indeed the modern development is about to switch to East as it seems to be happening, then there must be a sufficient new territory for domestication and food production. China in particular and East in general seem to be rich with territories unsuitable for horticulture, which remain mostly under-populated. In West such territories found their innovative productive uses starting from the early modern era, from the 16^th century. As shown above, the economy of the early modern era was based on animal husbandry as opposed to horticulture, prevalent up to the 1348 Black Death, which showed its exogenous limits. It would thus seem that domestication of under-populated territories within the multiculture-based economy of East may hinge on finding or developing a mix of suitable, profitable and mutually beneficial animals, possibly, centered at aquaculture etc. In a similar fashion to existing and mutually enhancing packages of horticultures, this may further extend the eastern tradition of small series, now merging it with the western style animal husbandry.

2.3.2. New social institutes – the merging of the old with the new, East with West.

In the social sphere there are currently several promising developments pointing at the ongoing merge of Eastern and Western approaches. Among them, during his keynote speech at the 15^th World Congress of the IEA (International Economic Association) Dani Rodrik of the Harvard University convincingly showed that, in the absence of Western-style law and business regulation, small businesses of East, for example, in Vietnam, rely on their traditional communal institutes. Instead of involving officials, whom they find unreliable and expensive, business owners resort to developing permanent ties with their suppliers and marketers. Then, they widely publicize their experiences, both negative and positive. This proved to be highly efficient. As pointed to the speaker by one of the authors, this also resembles a very modern development, Internet-based self-policing developed by eBay and its likes for their Western marketplaces.

There are other examples of similarly “old-fashioned” business solutions, which, in fact, are pointing to the future, representing a merge of Western and Eastern approaches. For example, it is a well known fact that, currently, the bottleneck in innovation isn’t in production anymore, but rather in costs and delays related to the process of design. Surprisingly enough, this significant hurdle may be cleared off by using an important new business model, which was first developed in Chongqing and is now being spread to other regions in China[24]. In Chongqing, the current world capital of cheap motorcycles, cost savings were achieved by a significant simplification. There are no detailed specifications for parts other than inputs and outputs that allow it to be compatible with other parts used in the end product. In fact, any wheel will do, as long as it has appropriate coupling, and acceptable weight and quality. The same applies to any other part of a given motorcycle. Genetically, this approach arose in conditions of tight initial investment, as an offshoot of mutual cooperation of artisans, who lived close together and trusted each other. Meanwhile, this practice also eerily resembles the most advanced techniques in computer code writing, the Object-Oriented Programming (OOP). Written in this way, the entire code consists of a collection of largely independent modules, which may be reused at one’s will. Only inputs and outputs of these independent modules may be controlled, everything else is “hidden” within the module. This approach greatly increases both the flexibility and reliability of the code and shortens the time of its development. Thus, by extension, the Chongqing business model, which was quite instrumental in the production of cheap motorcycles, maybe rightfully called the Object-Oriented Product Design (OOPD). In China, it is being actively deployed also to other industries, including the production of advanced solar-cells. Its main principle of a town devoted to a single product, with all suppliers housed close by is being spread around. It proved to be efficient under modern conditions and also closely resembles medieval artisan guilds.

2.3.3. New types of financing – from groups of mutual self-help to sovereign funds.

Of course, any new development must have adequate sources of financing. Recently, the danger of the “hot money” and easy credit became too obvious, as a contributing factor to the current credit crunch. Also, the IMF and World Bank-style development schemes were proved inefficient as promoting corruption. Fortunately, they have an alternative, recently rewarded by the 2006 Nobel Prize for Peace to Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank. This prize was a milestone, because it specifically linked economic development to the peace process. It also recognized the high efficiency of microloans for developing an impoverished community. It needs to be stressed that such loans aren’t anything new, but rather a revival of the old concept of communal self-help. Among its many examples, the Korean community in the US became highly successful, mostly by providing such non- or little interest bearing loans to its members. In the USSR, which didn’t have a working credit system, large purchases were instead financed through self-help communities, which functioned on any enterprise and many neighborhoods. Such self-help societies also operate in many faraway areas of the developing world, financing such small, but incredibly important purchases as a single cow, several chickens, a sewing machine etc. (Olsen, ) Thus, they provide a way to economic independence to households, often placing women them into the position of leadership. Surprisingly and most encouragingly, they also have nearly zero defaults. Instead of an impersonal loan officer from a remote big bank, the debtors are carefully screened by their coworkers and neighbors, who know them intimately and are well equipped to judge their trustworthiness. On a larger scale, such self-help financing also may become possible, if governments find democratic ways of using their sovereign funds. Being created to serve their constituents, they may provide means for bettering their lives.

These several examples show that, despite the absence of working financial institutions and business law western style, the emerging world may be equipped for business entrepreneurship, at least to some extent, both on a small and a larger scale. The example of motorcycle-producing town shows that many smaller enterprises may in fact add up to the rise of a large industry. This is sponsored by the very virtue of cooperation as opposed to cutthroat competition, western style. After amassing significant sovereign funds the governments also gained means for contributing to the overall sum of the public good. For example, the ability of the government of Saudi Arabia to work its own oil fields may be reducing the flow of oil for sale, but it certainly increases the wealth of its citizens. Thus, we can conclude that while the business practices of sovereign funds and similar enterprises may be yet not well defined, the popular belief that they don’t exactly fit into the western mold may soon become outmoded, if they gradually morph into an investing body serving the needs of development within their territories. Meanwhile, the presumably western way of doing business, is rapidly acquiring many of the features traditionally associated with the East, for example, by developing the Internet-based mutually cooperative communities.

2.3.4. The two-pronged movement, from East and West, and the dangers ahead us.

Thus, at this stage, there is a visible two-pronged movement, both in West and East, towards community-based small (independent vendors online) and larger (Wikipedia, open source community etc) scale enterprises, which seamlessly mesh together. This includes the OOPD, described above. These practices, diverse but very similar in their attitude, point to the future. They could acquire their current form thanks to the rise of the Internet. The Internet is popular both in the West and the East as a modern day revival of community, built on the stolid foundation of time-tested cooperation, but on a totally new technological level.

Thus, all pieces seem to be in place and waiting for a breakthrough of sorts, in the fashion of F. Haber’s invention of cheap nitrates, so the next agricultural revolution can be started. Meanwhile, there is precarious balance between beneficial developments, some of which were shown above and many dangerous negative trends, which run synchronously.

Historic experience shows that, in order to advance into the happier days of any budding era, people had to first survive the carnage of a transition to it. Today, there are few doubts left that East in general and China in particular are capable of absorbing western technological expertise and evolve it further. The problem rather is whether it is possible to avoid the wholesale destruction of environment, as China takes on itself the industrial production for the remaining world, polluting its own environment and depriving other peoples of manufacturing jobs.

Thus, it is the right time to start relying on Chinese old expertise with development in general and machinery in particular. Far from being machine-phobic, China survived due to something that we prefer to call its power tools. These machines weren’t designed for applying power, as it was the case in the West, but rather for precision. For example, the seed drill was in wide use in the time of the Han dynasty (as early as 206 BCE-220 CE). Its version in the 18^th century Britain introduced by the famous agricultural innovator, Jethro Tull, may well have been an adaptation of the Chinese much earlier invention. (Merson, 1990, 23) Also, during Han dynasty “the widespread use of the iron-tipped plow and the mould board, which turned the earth, allowed for deep plowing, which significantly increased the productivity of the land.” This was synchronous with the classical antiquity in the West, where iron was much scarcer in non-military applications[25]”.

In China machines always served pragmatic needs, as they do also now. This may be an opportune time to further develop this historic adaptation to multicultural, small series economy by adapting to it modern technologies of precision tools from nanotechnology to robotics, developed in the West. The current rise of resource shortages and the related tensions along with growing mutual suspicions between East and West can only be mitigated by gaining mutual benefits from cross-cultural cooperation.

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[16] Guano extraction became economically important in the second half of the 19th century, when it was the chief cause of the economic boom in Peru. However, around 1910, these resources controlled by Britain were severely depleted, causing significant shortages and inflation. The importance of guano is underscored by the U.S. Guano Island Act of 1856, which provided American entities the power to claim for the US government any uninhabited guano islands in its oceans. 

More details came out on the recent Nielsen Online report on, ‘Sustainability through the Eyes and Megaphones of the Blogosphere‘, leading to some important conclusions about the state of the conversations amongst consumers regarding all green things:

#1 The buzz around sustainability continues to increase -50% in 2007.

#2 The kind of topics bloggers are interested in, is shifting away from global environmental wellness to personal health and practical solutions:

#3 The top greenwashing sins from consumers’ perspective show a concern for consistency, authenticity, and transparency from companies:

This may give us some clues as to the media’s seeming lack of sustained interest in global warming and other global environmental issues. It may be that the conversation is continuing, but under a different form. People like to talk about tangible things, that they have a power on.

i’ve been on a slow, meandering path towards voluntary simplicity for about a year now.  i’ve made a lot of lifestyle changes, but there are a lot more i’d like to make.  in the next few entries, i plan to summarize what i’m already doing and what i’d like to do in 2008 to make my life more environmentally and politically sound and personally satisfying. 

housing is an integral part of, you know, living, and the choices we make around shelter can have an enormous impact.  moving around a lot this past year has given me a chance to think a lot about the ramifications of my living space, consider what i would like it to be ideally, and move into a space that is as close to that ideal as i could find under current cirucmstances. 

i live in a cabin on ten acres in rural oregon.  it is about 500 square feet, and i share it with a roommate, although my current roommate mostly just keeps her belongings here.  our water is well water.  because there is no septic, my toilet set-up consists of a bucket with a toilet seat over it, woodchips, a hole, and a composter, which saves a lot of water and just plain makes a lot more sense to me.  “composting toilet” would be a bit of an overstatement, but it is simple and easy and works quite well.  

i do have hot water and a shower and bath, and i shower about once a week.  the bathroom, which is basically outdoors, is so cold that i’ve been leaving water on for the whole shower, but once the weather gets warmer i plan to go back to my normal method, which is using the shower head to get wet and rinse, but just having the water off the rest of the time and washing with doctor bronner’s soap diluted in a bucket.  i had big plans to wash my clothes in the bathtub, but given the frigid bathroom and the cold water, i haven’t been able to bring myself to try it, and have been giving in and using the laundromat in town once a month or so.  i would like to start handwashing and line drying again as it warms up.  i also am wasting water washing dishes, because i don’t have a stopper to fill the sink.  this year, i’d like to get ahold of some containers that fit nicely in the sink so that i can wash and rinse big loads without using much water. 

the cabin is heated by woodstove.  this winter i bought wood from a man who clears standing dead madrone off of his land, splits it, and sells it.  next year, i hope to be more prepared and enlist the help of a friend with a chainsaw to get wood from the dead timber of whatever land i’m on.  of course, that requires enough advance preparation, free time, and elbow grease to have it all split by the time the weather turns.    

 in order to save on wood (which saves environmental resources and dollars), i keep the house pretty cool, with the result that the temperature inside this winter has been between forty and seventy degrees fahrenheit, with an average around fifty or fifty-five degrees fahrenheit.  this winter, i’ve been starting a fire in the evening when i get home from work, but sometimes i don’t get home until eight or nine, in which case i skip the fire altogether if the weather is warm enough that i won’t freeze in my sleep.  on the weekends, i’ll sometimes burn a fire all day, but that is pretty rare.  it really isn’t too bad to just wear two or three sweaters and a hat inside (although i have found that my wool poncho is a fire hazard!).  though i sometimes feel like a character in a jack london novel when i’m trying to extract myself from my sleeping bag in the morning, i’ve become quite accustomed to it, and it seems that one and a third cords of hardwood will be more than enough to get me through the cold months.  

the house has most of its windows on a lovely southern exposure that gets a good amount of winter light, so i close all the drapes in the evenings and open them in the mornings to try to maximize solar heat.  it seems to have some positive results, but i think it would work better if the house were cob instead of wood.   

 the stove and oven run on propane, and this winter i’ve been using about four gallons a month.  as the weather warms, i’d like to build a solar oven.  as it is, i open the oven door after i cook to let the warm air heat the house. 

 i do have electricity, but i’ve been trying to conserve it.  this is easier now that i’m mostly living alone, and i usually don’t turn any lights on until it’s dark enough that it’s impossible to see what i’m doing, and then i try to turn on only one.  i unplug almost everything when i’m not using it, except my clock radio and the telephone, and my roommates’ lamps upstairs in the bedroom space.  i’ve been trying to keep most of my computer and internet usage at work, to save on electric in terms of both energy and money, but i end up having the computer on for probably three to ten hours a week.  i also sometimes listen to music or the radio, but the stereo usually isn’t plugged in and running for more than six hours a week.  the woman i’m subletting from has a tv, but i keep it unplugged and hidden away behind a japanese screen.  i haven’t watched any movies since my first roommate left in early january, sort of accidentally because she took her netflix subscription with her and i’ve been plenty busy doing other things, and i don’t miss them. 

in the coming year, i’d like to rely more on my oil lamps, and even look into practical, sustainable ways of making my own oil to burn.  first i need to look into whether or not oil lamps would actually have a conservation effect when compared to electricity, or if they just seem romantic.  i’d also like to play around with cutting out home computer usage altogether, because usually the internet just makes me depressed anyway, and i now have a lovely manual typewriter, which makes snail mail correspondence and general writing a lot easier. 

 in may i will need to find a new place to live, and with the warm weather, i am hoping to find a smaller, simpler space that i can occupy alone.  i would prefer a place that i can stay at through the winter, but it also might be fun to rent a yurt or teepee (there are a lot of those available on peoples’ land out here).  i prefer to sleep outdoors in the summer anyway.  my ideal home right now would be a small cob house (250 square feet or less), maybe with a loft space to sleep in, designed with careful attention to sun exposure, wind, and other permaculture elements to maximize heat conservation.  i don’t think i’m ready to give up a gas range, but if i had a woodstove that was more suited for cooking on, i’d be willing to try it.  i’d like to try living without electricity, because i think it would give me a gentle push into cutting out resource use and spending that i know is unnecessary, but that is difficult to resist when it is as easy as a flick of a switch.  if there was a root cellar, i think adapting to life without electricity would be relatively painless for me.  i’d like my house to have an outhouse or a composting toilet situation, and i’d like to have access to land i can garden on.  of course, this is the ideal dream, and i don’t expect to find it in a rental in may, but it’s the direction i’d like to move in.