Which approach to rethinking production (from State of the World Chapter 3) most inspires you?

It's not about efficiency of production, but efficiency of the whole society.

We are too easily dealing with sub-systems, like production, when we should think of the whole system. Any manager knows that optimising parts separately isn't good for the whole, but despite that the modern society is in fact based on optimising parts only. Now we should finally think wider of the system we are optimising.

There are very many aspects of this. For example, car may be the fastest way of getting from A to B, but when compared to walking or cycling, it creates the need for doing sports separately in order to keep decently fit. In fact driving may thus be waste of time. Modern society is full of examples like this. We do one thing efficiently only to create a new need somewhere else.

In many cases the inefficiency is linked with complexity. We should try to keep systems (both technological and human) simple enough for them to be easily understandable. Complexity always means many times greater risk for effects we are unable to take into account. In human systems, it also has many psycholocigal effects.

E.F. Schumacher wrote very well about these things in Small is Beautiful. In my opinion time still has not gone by it.

While the benchmark for progress is economic development, we are tied to the tracks. Production is the means for economic development. For a solution to the current dilemma, perhaps we need to rethink "progress" and how we define it. Bhutan places more importance on "Gross National Happiness" rather than "Gross National Product". Perhaps they are on the right track.

While we look for solutions within the context of economic development we are backing the illusion that you can have unlimited growth in a limited world.

Einstein said "we cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them".

When we plunge into global economic depression or worse the shortcomings of our current definition of "progress" will become apparent, and people left will resort to making do, growing their own food, providing their own medicine, providing their own shelter and pondering what just happened. On the other hand if we found some appeal (some definition of progress) in self sufficiency now, therein would be the path to sustainability.

Cheers,
Craig

I would like to comment on the options provided for the vote on rethinking production:

"In nature there is no waste" - in nature, creatures are only concerned with meeting their needs for growth, repair and reproduction, while societies are increasingly more concerned with meeting expectations for status, entertainment, and other abstract objectives - the products and wastes of which are of no value to the rest of nature.

"No two things are alike...yet there is a pleasant orderliness in this chaos" - production is possible because atoms that are identical in nature can be identified as chemical elements and used as building blocks to achieve reasonably reliable results.

"Achieve profit but also protect people and the planet" - the concept of 'profit' is 'pie in the sky'. Wherever material 'profit' is perceived, there is loss somewhere else which has not been accounted for, in ignorance or conveniently ignored.

"Without eco-efficiency, no system of production can be said to be sustainable" - eco-efficiency operates by the principle 'adapt or die' with the environment serving as the stimulus for continual change in production. Considering the complexity of the environment, it is highly unlikely that a secret formula for sustainability (as an ideal'status quo') could be found in eco-efficiency.

Other (leave comment)
Apart from people, the 'product' (observably) most valued by all other organisms on this planet is its offspring. These organisms devote their life's work to doing whatever it takes to produce the healthiest, most genetically viable offspring. I somehow doubt that if this was society's top priority many of our methods of production and products would resemble much of what they presently do. Perhaps the closest the world might get to a formula for sustainability lies in carefully considering all aspects of worldly production in terms of what qualities people intend to equip their offspring with to remain viable on the planet, for the time being, until the following generation reconsiders the options for the next.

Regards,
Vicki

Christopher N. Maiuri
No amount of production design is sustainable without first considering human needs within a community. Human requirements for shelter, food, energy, and transport should first be satisfied predominantly on a local level -- which has big implications for such activities as agriculture, construction, and community planning. The commercial ties between communities should predominantly deal with products and services that are other than necessities, each community providing a contribution to the larger whole and purchasing from the larger whole. This leads to intelligent consideration of what each community will provide and hence what employment it will offer. Within that framework production planning can then proceed. This also presupposes a sane pricing system that reflects true costs of transport and time, not the current crazy quilt of subsidies and tax incentives.

Tahoe Valley Lines- "Second Dimension Surface Transport Logistics Platform"
It's all about perpetuating the private car... All the fuel gimmicks and frantic competition for the "perfect car". Anyone there have any inkling of a rehabbed legacy railway network in the 3066 USA Counties? Too bad you guys are all too young to know about a time when the USA was Energy Independent, a lending not a borrowing nation, and railways were a neighborhood fixture. Branchlines, mains & Electric Interurbans were part of a matrix that moved people & goods using about 1/3 fuel unit compared with rubber tire transport. Tragic choice, replacing that methodology. Selling our birthright for a mess of pottage: now, the reckoning! Wars ad infinitum, or gas rationing- probably both...

Better get off the idea that because we are now so committed to rubber tire transport, that is the only choice. Not so, still much rail corridor and footprint to be rehabbed. See RR Atlas Mapbooks from "SPV RR Atlas" on the web, get copy for your State & locale. Be the calm one when others are freaking out over shrinking options with alternative fuels and dead-end & unsustainable private car perpetuation schemes. How far are you from a place that can be rehabbed as a rr freight handling facility? Try to be within five miles, max.

Obviously cars & trucks are not going away soon; but how far away is a "FEDERAL EMERGENCY EXECUTIVE ORDER mandating fuel allocation for trucks & Gas Rationing for private cars? Some authorities are now talking about the real possibility of rationing. Before everyone goes apeshit, it is crucial to rehab rail plant, vastly expand & extend existing rr lines. Link to renewable as we go. See "Theoildrum.com" & Kunstler's "THE LONG EMERGENCY" for mental stimulation and motivation! For upbeat, see Christopher C. Swan's "ELECTRIC WATER" (New Society Press, 2007). Prepare yourself for changes coming. Maintaining SOCIETAL & COMMERCIAL COHESION is crucial, railways will help. Get to know your neighbors.

There is a crop we can grow to protect the planet against both global warming and global broiling under increasing UV-B radiation. At the same time we can make rain.

Monoterpenes are atmospheric aerosols that reflect solar radiation and seed cloud formation. This very good news because the hemp plant makes 58 monoterpenes, while producing food and industrial feed stock in global abundance.

We don't need more production. We need less consumption.

We could easily reduce our consumption of energy, and thus our emissions, by 30 % in a year or so with a concerted, leader-driven program. We could reduce it by 60% in five to ten years. This is based on: 1) Europe consumes half the amount of energy per capita as the US and 2) California EASILY dropped its electricity consumption by over 20% in the electric power crisis of 2002 over just a couple months. Our economy and life styses are so incredibly energy intensive as a result of our super cheap, and super subsidized, energy supplies that reducing energy consumption would be easy.

Why do we never hear this obvious truth from our media and our institutions?

I live in Ecuador, borned here. I whish there would be more talk about water and population/demographics. Water for rural areas, especially in Ecuador and similar areas in Tropics, can be obtained from rains. Why governments dont invest in rain water catching systems for houses or housing projects. Rain water also can be integrated in brewing companies like the beer industry. Many other industries can do same and save millions as well as save water waste etc.
We should talk more on population controls. We all know that the earth capacity to feed us by now will get to a critical point in 30 years..basically all problems surge from overpopulation. Even worse when this population increases every day its consuming habits, perspectives on waste, resources, in general taking more than giving. So one main root of the problem can be diminished by investing more in birth control to rural areas.

Ricardo Nunez/galapagosurf.net

I am working on a new project here in the gambia on solar ice makers for rural people.We hope to install about over thousands of these in the near future.I am looking for support group.

We need to change our thinking.
• Selflessness rather than selfishness.
• Less is more.
• Think global, not just local.
• Sustainability instead of exploitation.
• Transparency and accountability.
• Not ME but US. What I do affects EVERYONE.
• Creative problem solving.
• Learning to think for ourselves instead of following political or cultural mantras.

Putting "leaders of such companies as Toyota, DuPont, Unilever, Lafarge,
and Royal Dutch Shell" in charge of creating sustainability seems rather like putting the foxes in charge of the hen house. Unfortunately, it probably isn't possible to continue the same capitalism of the past century. Although I admire those who are trying to do the right thing within the current system, the true right thing is to reduce our population drastically and replace our consumption lifestyle with a much simpler way of life. Many more voices in support of that option, using the wonderful data gathered by Worldwatch, may make a difference.