Download a copy of the paper here: NJSustainableEconomicStrategy23Aug2010b. If you have any comments, or want to to reference this in your own work, please email jcloud@jonathancloud.com.

We learn in the Landmark Forum that life has no one overriding meaning, but that we’re not to really make anything of this:

“Life is empty and meaningless, and it’s empty and meaningless that it’s empty and meaningless.”

In other words, life just is. What we make of this (including “nothing”) is entirely up to us. This is, I believe, more or less definitionally true, but it’s not all there is to be said.

Perhaps we need to ask the question differently. Is there a meaning that encompasses all of the other meanings, including their contradictions, and including both meaning and no-meaning?

If there is such a meaning, then knowing what it is is clearly the most important question we need to be asking ourselves.

It is a meaning that needs to include the good, the bad, and the ugly. It needs to encompass both a scientific and a religious worldview, the meaning of both peace and war, virtue and vice, and the cause of human suffering. To even conceive of such a meaning, from an open-minded and inquisitive point of view, is already a big step in the right direction. It demonstrates that we have transcended the assumptions, the prejudices, and the limitations of the more traditional world views.

This is not about spending one’s life in abstract philosophical speculation. Even to arrive at that requires some fundamental choices in life, choices that privilege some kinds of discourses and activities over others. So in a sense the issue really is, how do we choose to lead our lives—inside what frame of meaning, or no-meaning, and what aspects of reality does that frame give us access to?

So in a sense we’re back to choosing amongst the multiplicity of views. But now at least we’re doing so from a place where we can ask the question, is there a larger view, that incorporates all of the others, and if so what does it look like?

The overarching view is not, in itself, the meaning of life; but if there is such a thing, then it must lie somewhere in this realm, and encompass and explain all of it. This overarching view may be as elusive as the posited “Theory of Everything” in physics (which surely must somehow encompass imaginary worlds as well as real ones). It may look very much like what Huxley and others have called “the perennial philosophy” or “the perennial wisdom”—or it may not.

It’s possible that none of us, individually, could articulate such a universal view. We’re trapped in our own worldview just as much as we are trapped in our body: we inhabit it, and we take it with us wherever we go. Perhaps each of us just has a small piece of it. Yet in a sense, if it exists, we must all be touched by it.

It is not “God,” because if it’s truly universal, it must also encompass, include, and account for atheism, as well as for the multiplicity of gods and of interpretations of God that humans have fought over ever since the awakening of human consciousness. But it possibly could help us to understand what the experience of there being a God is based on, i.e., a glimpse of the spirit at the heart of the one great meaning that encompasses all others. (Whereas atheists rightly decry the deification of this spirit, its personification and anthropomorphizing—as opposed to recognizing it as an impersonal force, that manifests itself in the continued unfolding of the universe, in all of its dimensions and details.)

So the feeling of awe is understandable, and the yearning to surrender to a higher purpose in life, to what “God calls on us to do,” if we can figure that out (or convince ourselves that we have). It is being moved by that unseen force, to act in perfect harmony with the universe, to express our unique identity, and to fulfill a purpose “mightier than ourselves.”

Can we get certainty around this? Probably not. Even the great saints and mystics had “doubts.” So whatever path we choose is fraught with uncertainty. This may lead somewhere or, on the other hand, may lead nowhere. But then the same is true for everything else, so we might as well go down this path for a while, to see where it leads. Through the Looking Glass, into Topsy-Turvy Land; or through the wormhole, a portal in time and space that leads to another dimension?

There is some evidence, actually, that what we live in on a daily basis is Topsy-Turvey Land; and that the worldview of “larger meaning” is what’s right side up. So we recognize, for example, that we live in a world of environmental peril, social injustice, and irrationalism; whereas in the larger picture it all makes sense, in a way that we do not yet fully understand. Maybe we’re here to do battle with these things; or maybe we just happen to run into them, and recognize that they are the source of humanity’s greatest sufferings.

If this is true, we must be on our guard about the blandishments of the world. Every religious tradition has also recognized this, and has sought to focus our attention of otherworldly goals, whether the form of personal salvation or a collective focus on a more “moral” way of life. Yet no sooner are these possibilities articulated, they are transformed into a new worldly orthodoxy, from being “born again” to Moslem fundamentalism, from being sold indulgences to being persuaded to drink the KoolAid, from “The Imitation of Christ” to Rick Warren’s “A Purpose-Driven Life.” These are based on deeply-felt emotions, but in the end fail to take into account the complexities of human existence, and the profound mystery and miracle of the universe.

So far what we have is a path of inquiry, and of dogmatic skepticism. If we can find a way to align ourselves with nature, with the appreciation of all things human, and with the possibility that, in the unfolding of the universe, the most meaningful is yet to come, we may perhaps begin to create a path that is worthy of consideration.

In New Jersey, Governor Christie has taken an axe to the state budget, apparently with the approval of many voters; but he has not followed through on his commitment to stimulate the economy at the same time. On the contrary, he is looking to seize funds from the Clean Energy Program (which are ratepayer contributions, not tax revenues), which will cripple that fledgling industry; when he promised during his campaign to support renewable energy as the future engine of NJ’s economy. Is it possible to do both at the same time?

I believe that it is, and understanding this is part of the key to emerging from this recession into a new and more sustainable growth economy. First of all, this economic downturn can be used to remove programs and activities that are essentially wasteful or unproductive, rather than simply slashing across the board or cutting valuable social and economic programs. Second, new investment needs to be just that—investment, not just expenditure. Communities, public and private institutions, and individuals need to look at cutting back expenditures and simultaneously increasing investments, even if they need to borrow to make those investments.

Borrowing is in fact an important part of the investment process: it provides a vehicle for private wealth to be put to work, and it provides a means to pay for work that will yield savings or profits in the future. Municipalities need to find new ways to generate revenue to pay for the services that the community wants and needs; while taxpayers rail against “taxes,” they don’t want their sewers to back up or their schools to be shut down. Certain kinds of things, like utilities for example, they would rather pay for on a usage basis, and to the extent that municipalities can provide these services they stand to generate future revenues in order to support these and other public functions. Governments, in other words, need to become more like businesses.

Businesses, at the same time, need to become more like governments. They need to understand that their responsibility is to serve the public good, not just the interests of their private shareholders. Private shareholders deserve a fair return, but only if the business they own is actually contributing value to the marketplace, which is to say, to the community. When it starts causing more harm than good—as for example in the case of the tobacco industry, some military contractors, and some in the prison industry—they need to be reined in. Responsible public policy needs to set limits to what is allowable behavior, and what adjustments need to be made to markets to produce socially responsible outcomes. And businesses need to be about these outcomes at the same time and to the same extent as they are about making profits.

We also know that some businesses do better going through and coming out of a recession than others. The conventional albeit seemingly contrarian wisdom is that smart companies forge ahead when everyone else is pulling back, because both talent and resources are cheaper and it costs less to increase market share or expand into new lines of business. People often say that the New York Times, Proctor & Gamble, Chevrolet, and Camel emerged as strong companies after the Great Depression because they continued to advertise heavily and strengthen their products. Of course, these companies are usually the ones that have the resources already stockpiled just for this very situation; others, like the auto companies, are simply forced to cut back and seek to invest in a very limited way in new products.

And new research from the Harvard Business School suggests that success is less a function of either defensive strategies or aggressive investment, but of looking for “operational efficiency, expanding markets, and acquiring additional assets.” (“Roaring Out of Recession,” by Ranjay Gulati, Nitin Nohria, and Franz Wohlgezogen, Harvard Business Review March 2010.) In other words, it’s a combination of smart cost reductions and smart investments in areas of potential growth.

And it just so happens that this is what the “green economy” is all about: it’s about reducing energy costs, rising waste disposal costs, and other inefficiencies; and about growing in sectors where new products and services are needed. What we don’t need are more consumer goods that end up going into the waste stream; what we do need are better homes, schools, transportation systems, public health, sustainable agriculture, recycling, and waste handling. There are areas for growth in a more sustainable economy; they’re just different ones. And the wealth to be generated is even greater, since it is less likely to be catastrophically devalued by the traditional boom-and-bust cycles.

Let’s take some practical examples. Under New Jersey law, counties and municipalities can get into the energy business by a simple resolution, and effectively become their own suppliers and cost-cutters. But they don’t have the resources or the expertise to set up these operations. So companies and nonprofits are being formed to provide these programs and offer them to municipalities on a profit-sharing basis. This grows both the local economy and the coffers of local governments. Companies that invest lowering their energy costs, reducing their wastes, eliminating toxic elements in their products, and providing smarter choices for consumers will do better no matter what happens to the wider economy. And individuals who cut back their own expenses while investing their energies in new ventures will build a strong future for themselves and their families.

Sounds pretty obvious, doesn’t it? Yet too many governments, businesses, and individuals appear to be responding like the deer in the headlights—frozen in the face of budget cuts, declining sales, and unemployment—instead of using innovation and ingenuity to get through it and emerge stronger than ever from the experience.

Conference Dial-in number: (507) 726-4253

Participant Passcode: 100039#

For more details see the Haiti page at http://sustainableleadershipforum.com/?page_id=587 and our latest updates athttp://sustainableleadershipforum.org.

Some colleagues of ours at the Institute for Sustainable Enterprise met last week to discuss what we could do to contribute to a longer-term recovery, that would try to address the social, environmental, and economic challenges facing this troubled nation. We talked about a great many things, including the fact that many of us feel powerless in the face of such catastrophes, especially those that afflict human beings in distant places. We are all “overcommitted” to many worthwhile and challenging tasks already, and taking on such a monumental task as helping to chart the way forward in Haiti clearly seems to require that we steal time and energy from other causes. But if we can make even a small difference, while honoring our other commitments, this seems a compelling goal.

And the reality is that we do have a number of resources, ideas, and opportunities to contribute, and after discussing a great many aspects of what’s needed we agreed that as a minimum we would take a couple of small steps: 1) to write up what we had discussed (a forthcoming discussion paper to be published shortly), and 2) to reach out to others and invite them to join the conversation. Our hope is that others will step up to lead this conversation, and will simply be able to use what we have suggested as a basis for their own action.

Essentially, our discussion helped us to identify some of the obvious problems of Haiti’s long-standing plight, to sketch out the areas – infrastructure, public health, energy, housing, education, jobs, justice and security, government, ecosystem restoration, and so on – where a more sustainable approach is required, and to highlight some of the concerns that we have going in: that we empower Haitians to build a new society that is their own, not one handed to them (or, depending on your point of view, foisted upon them) from the outside.

We worried that we cannot think of a single instance where an impoverished society has entirely shaken off a culture of corruption and inequity; or – apart perhaps from the Marshall Plan – where a massive foreign intervention aimed at societal reconstruction has gone well. We noted that more than 8 billion dollars has been poured into Haiti since 1965, and yet the standard of living and the quality of life are no better than they were in 1945.[citation?] We also briefly acknowledged the possibility that there might be some hidden motives behind the interests of the US and other foreign governments because of rumors of significant oil and natural gas reserves that have yet to be fully documented or made available for exploitation. (See The Fateful Geological Prize Called Haiti, by by F. William Engdahl of Global Research, for some evidence of this.)

All of these are legitimate reasons for concern, but they are not reasons for inaction. In a remarkable piece by travel writer Rick Steves in yesterday’s USA Today, many of the realities of Haiti are plainly stated.

“as soon as the passion of this moment fades, the U.S. government, and others, will continue pursuing repressive trade policies that help keep places like Haiti poor.”

“We can blame Haiti’s chronic poverty on its heritage of slavery, on corruption, or on the fact that its main “export” is topsoil (in a treeless land, each rainstorm flushes precious soil into the sea). But we must also examine global trade policies that help keep nations like Haiti “banana republics,” poor lands whose economies are often dominated by the export of their leading natural resource.”

“Domestic subsidies for U.S. agricultural products also hamper development in poor nations…. In Haiti, fields that once grew rice sit unplanted. And across the street, a shack sells rice grown in the USA.”

Steves points out that in the face of any human suffering that affects others, each of us has to make a personal choice – to (a) ignore it, (b) respond charitably, or (c) “ask why, learn and act to address the roots of the problem.” We hope that most people who have the means to do so will respond with (b) – but also that enough of us will take up the challenge of (c) to make a difference in the long term.

Nor should we gloss over the fact that many of the “responses” to Steves’ article are ignorant and mean-spirited. Just as many Americans are incredibly generous, and have finally elected a President capable of responding to this humanitarian tragedy at the level it deserves, many others are cynical and uncaring.

So let’s not imagine that, as Americans, we have “the” solution for Haiti, or the means to implement it. But if we are able to inform ourselves as to our own country’s complicity, and to frame a dialog with Haitians themselves, with the international development community, and with sustainability leaders here at home, we should seek to do this.

We’re planning a conference call on the topic of “Haiti: The Way Forward” within a few weeks, to bring others into this conversation and see if we can identify and support those who will take action and seek to influence the outcomes for what has been the poorest county in the Americas, but may now have the opportunity to “leapfrog” our own unsustainable economic model and develop a sustainable society of its own. If you are interested in being part of this conversation, email me at jcloud@slforum.org and I’ll send you a copy of the formal outline of our discussion and let you know when the conference call has been scheduled. Thanks.

Original published as Toward a Sustainable Future for Haiti at www.SustainableLeadershipForum.org.

But nuclear advocates have found new hope in the argument that nuclear power is “carbon-free.” New organizations have been formed to promote nuclear as “clean, affordable, and safe.”

As Environment NJ’s Matt Elliott has noted, “Recently, Exelon Corp. funded the creation of a group with the misleading name of Affordable, Clean, Reliable Energy (ACRE) Coalition. The group is little more than a front for the nuclear industry.”  (Philadelphia Inquirer – 2007-09-17)

And I was alarmed to hear the Deputy Speaker of the NJ Assembly say the other day that a new nuclear plant in New Jersey was “inevitable,” and could be approved as early as 2015. He based this in part on the delays in getting massive amounts of renewables in place – as called for in the state’s new Energy Master Plan – to meet the goals of the Renewable Portfolio Standard. In his view, and that of many others, the implementation of the state’s energy policy goals was hopelessly inadequate, and would fall so far short of these goals as to make nuclear inevitable.

For all these reasons, it’s important to state why nuclear energy is still a bad idea – for New Jersey, for America, and for the world:

• To start with, it’s not renewable. Uranium is a fossil fuel, that has to be extracted through mining, and there is a limited amount of it that is accessible and likely to be recoverable on a cost-effective basis. The IAEA report, “Uranium 2005: Resources, Production and Demand- also called the “Red Book” – estimates the total identified amount of conventional uranium stock, which can be mined for less than USD 130 per kg, to be about 4.7 million tonnes. Based on the 2004 nuclear electricity generation rate of demand the amount is sufficient for 85 years, the study states.” (Global Uranium Resources to Meet Projected Demand, 2 June 2006.) While this may not be a limiting factor immediately, the way peak oil appears to be, the same arguments will ultimately apply: this is not a sustainable source of energy.
• It is also not “clean.” While no greenhouse gases are emitted in the reaction cycle, nuclear power plants are massive construction projects, requiring huge quantities of cement and other materials; and the process of mining uranium is itself very energy-intensive and damaging to the environment.

• Nuclear energy is not cheap. Massive subsidies to the nuclear industry are now widely understood as “hidden costs” that give the lie to the idea that nuclear electricity can be generated for as little as 3¢ a kilowatt hour. It is not even possible to fully account for the “externalities” involved in producing electricity, because the final costs of disposing of wastes, decommissioning power plants, cleaning up accidents, protecting plants from terrorist attacks, etc. cannot be known.
• The storage problem remains unresolved. Despite technological advances that may allow for the re-processing of spent fuels (for something other than making nuclear weapons), the ultimate disposal problem remains.
• Public opinion is now firmly against the development of more nuclear, and is likely to prevent siting of  nuclear plants near dense population centers (where the energy is needed), leading to even higher costs or the need to site plants far enough away to require an even-more massive upgrading of the grid.
• Nuclear power is more “centralized” energy production, rather than distributed generation.

Max Schulz, a senior fellow at the impressive-sounding Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment, warns that “Inefficient eco-friendly technologies destroy more jobs than they create” (The Green-Jobs Engine That Can’t, City Journal Winter 2009). The Manhattan Institute’s Center for Energy Policy and the Environment “advances ideas about the practical application of free-market economic principles to address today’s energy issues.” According to their web site, they are “leading an effort to show how a pro-growth, supply-side energy policy can be harmonized with a concern for the environment.” But others argue this is very much the philosophy that got us into the present crisis.

The central issue is whether sustainable initiatives are viable unless the market already supports them. Traditional economists argue that they are not, and some even dispute the concept of “market failure,” claiming there can be no such thing in a capitalist system. Even many sustainability advocates are inclined to push conservation and other measures on the grounds that they will result in cost savings as well as reducing environmental and social harm. But the deeper problem is that the market only recognizes near-term economic costs and benefits to individual participants, and fails to include “externalities” and systemic variables. The most obvious evidence for this is the current financial meltdown, which apparently took most analysts as well as most private investors by surprise. The “market” failed to factor in the systemic risks that snowballed when individual institutions pushed the limits on financial instruments that were, initially, designed to spread risk and minimize loss.

While there is plenty of room for debate as to the “causes” of the present crisis, there is no doubt that it is deep, global, and likely to be prolonged – not only by all the usual economic factors, but also by the fact that no one knows what it really means to “get the economy back on track.” It seems unlikely that we can return to anything like the previous pattern of “economic growth” without rapidly increasing fuel prices, significantly altered consumption patterns, rebuilding much of our infrastructure, and most of the other “radical” changes being sought by the Obama Administration – many if not all of which are likely to be resisted by the conservatives in Congress. The possibility of finding a new, interrelated solution is to a large extent what our 2009 Green Ventures Conference is about.

As author Jonathan Schell notes,

“The contemporary crises are interwoven, forming a kind of Gordian knot. The world does not have the luxury of dealing with them seriatim. Consider the relationship of the collapsing economy to the collapsing environment. Joseph Stiglitz has noted that economists are wondering if the graph of the economic crisis will eventually prove to be V-shaped or U-shaped; but he argues that it will prove to be L-shaped. Indeed, there can be neither a V, a U or any other upward-turning graph if the remedy does not include a green revolution and a sustainable-energy program. A dirty recovery, even if possible, would be worse than no recovery. It would be the quickest path to a bigger bust. The upturn cannot in truth be “re-” anything – short of revolution – for the just-crashed “successful” economy, excellent as it was in producing cheap goods, was also producing environmental catastrophe. (Paradoxically, the recession, by cutting back on fossil-fuel use, may have done more to ease global warming than electric cars or solar panels could have done in a comparable period.) Environmentalists have long observed that if China tries to reach Western standards of living along the automotive, carbon-gushing Western path, the planet will be cooked to a cinder in short order. Now we are all in a sense in the Chinese boat. China can’t have the economy we so recently had, and we can’t have it again either. We’ll all have to have something quite different.”

–Jonathan Schell, Obama and the Return of the Real, The Nation, February 9, 2009.

If we don’t use this crisis to make fundamental changes, then the opportunity it represents for real reform may be lost for another decade, a decade which – according to many scientists – may be the last one we have in which to avoid planetary catastrophe. As Jim Wallis, editor of Sojourners Magazine, stated at Davos – “if this crisis doesn’t change us, then all the pain and all the misery it will create will be in vain” – but this remains at this point still a minority view. The news media, and apparently many in the Congress, continue to see “restoring the economy” as separate from “reforming the healthcare system” or “transitioning to renewable energy,” and are currently debating whether the President can achieve “all of these things” at once. But the reality, as Schell points out, is that they are interrelated. It’s hard to believe that the $150/barrel oil, which caused gasoline prices to go beyond $4 a gallon and shifted a trillion dollars out of the hands of US consumers, had nothing to do with the slowdown in consumer spending, the growing number of mortgage defaults and foreclosures, and the collapse of the entire house of cards built on sub-prime mortgages, complex derivatives, and credit default swaps.

There’s a lot more I’d like to say about this, and I hope to do so in the coming days and weeks leading up to our May conference.

(Crossposted at http://GreenVenturesConference.org)

Let us be very clear about this. The “planet” is not in danger. The natural environment can tolerate an enormous amount of what we are calling “greenhouse gases,” temperatures can soar, oceans can rise, and the weather can become vastly more unstable. This has in fact occurred during the planet’s history. It’s simply that human existence may not be possible under such circumstances, and indeed many of the species that currently exist may become extinct – while others flourish. The age of the dinosaurs was much different from ours, and the ages that preceded it even more so. There was a time when oxygen was merely a trace element in the atmosphere. But what we call – presumptively, it now seems – “intelligent” life, simply did not exist under these circumstances. So the issue is not “saving the planet.” It’s saving ourselves.

The planet, frankly, does not need us. If we prove to be too bellicose to survive, and launch nuclear missiles at each other, we may in fact make the planet “uninhabitable,” but that just means “uninhabitable for us.” If we prove to be indifferent to the welfare of the whole, we will eradicate ourselves by destroying the foundation on which we depend. This may seem extreme, but it is not. The conditions necessary for human existence occur within a very narrow range. Exceeding that range is not just something we might do – as was the case during the era of nuclear confrontation – it is something that is inevitable if we do not change course.

There is almost total scientific consensus around this, and the “global warming skeptics” have now become an increasingly irrelevant fringe. But we hardly need science to prove that human development is on course to exceed the planet’s carrying capacity; it is simply a matter of recognizing that our way of life cannot be continued indefinitely, and indeed parts of it must change now if human development is to continue and to come into balance with nature. This seems so obvious that it almost goes without saying. But it needs to be our starting point in every serious conversation going forward: virtually everything in our economy and our society needs to be reexamined in the light of whether it contributes to a sustainable (and indeed restorative) way of life – or not.

Work in Progress (December 26, 2008)

Beyond Wordpress (December 25, 2008)

My Blogs (December 25, 2008)

Talking Past Each Other on the Highlands Issue (December 24, 2008)

Solutions that Scale (December 1, 2008)

Creating a Project Management Site with Wordpress (November 23, 2008)