Cheap and Fast Trade-off for Quality

January, 2015
Living in the Future Tense #05

When Fast and Cheap Is Not Good Enough

Edward Renner

For 5,000 years, humans lived in the past tense: “Yesterday was the same as tomorrow. “ For the next 500 years people lived in the present tense: “Today can be whatever we want it to be.” But now, for the next 50 years we must start living in the future tense: “Tomorrow’s social, economic and political constraints must become today’s reality.”

As a boy, I knew that my grandfather respected the John Deere dealer. At 15 I got my first job in agriculture. A John Deere tractor did the heavy work. Although I lusted to drive it, I was never allowed to do so.

My chance to own my tractor came when I purchased 3 acres in western North Carolina. As an urban back-to-the-lander, everything I know about tractors I learned from Keith, who runs a small engine repair shop near Hendersonville North Carolina. His specialty is to fix and resell used tractors.

I now know that my grandfather’s deep sense of loyalty and respect for the legacy of John Deere was well deserved.

In 1933 when small farmers were losing their land, houses and equipment to foreclosures, the exception was tractors financed through John Deere. The company, though losing money itself, told farmers who owed them money to keep the tractors and pay as much as they could when they could. The nation needed food, and the farmers needed their tractors.

Keith has a classic 1941 Model B John Deere tractor. This model

was the most popular one in the company's history, remaining in

production from 1935 until 1952. With the exception of the occasional

replacement part it is still mechanically sound and functional. It has

already seen more than one owner out. Photo courtesy of Keith. 

But it is not 1933. The small farmer with his own tractor is a thing of the past. In 2000, John Deere obtained a banking license in Luxembourg giving it the ability to finance the sale of large equipment used by corporate agri-business throughout Europe. In 2012 it celebrated its 175 anniversary with record sales of over $36 billion.

In 2003, not to be closed out of the small rider mower market by cheap garden tractors from China, John Deere sold the use of their label to Home Depot. Now, you too can have a John Deere label for a two hundred dollars premium price, but other than the green and yellow paint it will be just like the ones for sale beside it with a 500-hour life expectancy before major repairs or replacement is required.

But this essay, like most legends, is not just a story about tractors. The John Deere legend is about the political and social consequences of achieving cheap prices and easy access at the expense of reduced quality. What economic globalization has created is the 21^st Century mind-set that fast and cheap is an acceptable trade-off for quality.

John Deere is not alone. Levis did the same thing for Wal-Mart, as other brand names have done for big market retailers. This is the new normal.

The modern way to make a profit is by shifting the commercial focus from quality and customer loyalty to cheaper prices and more accessible markets. While this may serve the financial returns of global corporations in the short term, it is not necessarily in the best long-term interests of individuals, the nation or sustainable living on a finite planet.

But, the potential damage is magnified when this global economic mindset also intrudes into the political and social aspect of our lives. In particular, that a cheap (lower taxes) smaller (fewer regulations) government is also best for our general wellbeing.

 

If we insist on lower taxes and smaller government with fewer regulations we will not have effective food inspections, air traffic controllers, parks and recreation, affordable public education, and all of the other services that living in a complex global world requires. Adequate taxes, effective government and a high level of social wellbeing are each fully dependent on the other two.

What would have happened in 2008 if the Bank of America had said to the people who had lost their jobs “keep your house and pay what you can when you can”?

The Bank of America would have been better off in terms of customer loyalty, and perhaps financially, if they had done so. Certainly the homeowners and the nation would have been better off. In the end, the bank had to pay a 17 billion dollar settlement for their predatory loan and automated foreclosure processes.

The John Deere legend perhaps explains why I bought a 15 year-old garden tractor manufactured in Kentucky for which I was able to download a complete mechanical schematic and parts list. This summer it hauled 5,000 pounds of gravel, mowed my field and carried logs from the forest for firewood.  Last week it wouldn’t start. I replaced the ignition solenoid for $14.03 plus shipping and it is working fine again. With the exception of an occasional replacement part, I expect it will see me out, thanks to Keith, unlike the one I might have bought new from Home Depot.

Fast and cheap is not a substitute for quality, either for us as consumers or for our government. Two out of three is not good enough.

_________________________________________________________________________________

Edward Renner has been a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois in the US, and at Dalhousie University in Canada. He is now retired and teaches one course, Forums for a Future, as an Adjunct Professor in the Honors College at the University of South Florida. . He blogs at http://forumsforafuture.blogspot.com

on the modern challenge of living sustainably and peacefully on a crowded planet in the 21st Century. He maybe reached at kerenner@usf.edu.

Low Wage Jobs Are Bad for the Country

Living in the Future Tense #04 January, 2015

When First Is Last

Edward Renner

For 5,000 years, humans lived in the past tense: “Yesterday was the same as tomorrow. “ For the next 500 years people lived in the present tense: “Today can be whatever we want it to be.” But now, for the next 50 years we must start living in the future tense: “Tomorrow’s social, economic and political constraints must become today’s reality.”

My wife just walked through the door declaring “I may never again shop at T J Maxx!”

She had just seen the store’s advertisement for clerks and supervisors at $7.93/hour.

The large number of low wage jobs is one reason why the World Bank, in its business Environment Ranking 2014, ranked the US fourth out of the 185 nations of the world in which it is best to do business.

Some of the other criterion are permitting indefinite out-sourcing of permanent jobs, not requiring paid vacation time nor giving notice or severance pay for redundancy dismissal, to list a few examples of what makes a country good to do business in.

Other countries that are similar to the US, but are less easy to do business in, have government regulations that provide workers with higher levels of economic security and benefits.  One such comparative set of nations are the members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), which account for 85% of the world’s economy.

A report by the OECD, Employment Outlook 2014, sheds some light on what it means to be one of the best countries in which to do business, and whether that is something the US should want to be.

Source: OECD Employment Outlook 2014, Table N, page 288.
Data for Norway 2009, France 2008, the Netherlands, 2005

Of all of the OECD countries, the US has the largest percentage (25.3%)of its workforce in a low-wage job (less than two-thirds the median wage) and pays its low-wage workers the least amount of money (46.7% of the median wage).

Source: OECD Employment Outlook 2014, Table N, page 288
Computed from OECD data on 1st to 5th decile earnings ratios

It is important to understand that this data is compiled by experts from the member countries and are the agreed upon benchmark for these comparisons. They are not “just statistics,” but an occasion for civic discussions about the proper balance between the ease of doing business and the social price of the US becoming a low-wage economy – a country with a shrinking middle class and a large gap between the rich at the top and all the others at the bottom.

Should the US strive for first place -- to be more like Singapore and Hong Kong, which topped the World Bank ranking – or rather to be more like the European Union countries with whom we share a democratic political process?

  

One reason why the US is in last place among the OECD nations is that we have allowed corporate money to corrupt the political process toward favoring business over individual wellbeing. As voters we have accepted their purely theoretical message that little government regulation and low taxes are best for the country.

In contrast, the actual reality is the exact opposite.

Historically, lack of regulations has led to corporate excess. Theodore Roosevelt in the early 1900’s introduced anti-trust legislation as the corrective action to end abusive labor practices by the large industrial monopolies. The regulations of Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930’s corrected the unsanitary conditions in the meat packing and food industry, established industrial safety standards, and constrained the financial sector from the speculations responsible for the great recession.

In this Century we have experience the cumulative negative results of de-regulating the progressive legislation of the Roosevelt eras. First there was Enron, then the mortage bubble of 2008, and now there are more financial troubles on the horizon, such as the pending student loan defaults.

Likewise with taxes. Sufficient tax rates are essential for general well-being. People need to be healthy. Public parks, community centers, art and recreation make life livable for everyone. Schools have to prepare students for success. A living wage is the basis for equality of opportunity, social stability and personal happiness.

Over the decade preceding the OEDC report (2002 to 2012) the average measure of inequality in the member nations declined from a score of 3.44 to 3.38. In contrast, the magnitude of inequality for the US actually increased from 4.66 to 5.22, the highest of all OECD nations. While the rest of the developed world held steady through the great recession, it became an opportunity in the US for the wealthy to increase their ability to restrict government regulation and to increase their share of the income.

The prescription for swinging the balance back from corporate excess to greater individual well-being is to move toward greater similarity with the OECD countries which share our democratic political processes: A steeper income tax on the very wealthy, a living wage for low-wage workers, more public entitlements such as universal healthcare, and sufficient government regulations to insure that workers are not treated as disposable components of a global economy.

What is difficult to understand is why this pending end of the American Dream – once the envy of the world -- could be possible in a country with freedom of the press, democratically elected leaders and a political philosophy of equality of opportunity.

The essential role for government is same today as it was in 2008, 1929 and 1908. Theodore Roosevelt had it right, an essential role of government is to protect individuals against the abuses of corporate power.

________________________________________________________________________________

Edward Renner has been a Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Illinois in the US, and at Dalhousie University in Canada. He is now retired and teaches one course, Forums for a Future, as an Adjunct Professor in the Honors College at the University of South Florida. He may be reached at kerenner@usf.edu, and blogs at http://forumsforafuture.blogspot.com on the modern human challenge of how to live sustainably and peacefully on a crowded planet in the 21st Century.

For too many, working more means making less

Living in the Future Tense # 03, September 14, 2014

Reprinted in the Tampa Bay Times, Tuesday, Sept. 16, 2014

Restoring Dignity to Work 

Edward Renner

For 5,000 years, humans lived in the past tense: “Yesterday was the same as tomorrow. “ For the next 500 years people lived in the present tense: “Today can be whatever we want it to be.” But now, for the next 50 years we must start living in the future tense: “Tomorrow’s social, economic and political constraints must become today’s reality.”

 In my leisure time, I do woodworking.

My signature piece is mirror made of two interlocking circles. It sells for $175, of which 15 percent ($26.25) goes to the store less $90 for materials, which leaves me with $58.75 net for 8 hours of work. That is about the minimum wage of $7.25/hr.

I could sell more mirrors if I charged less, say $140 each. In that case $42 would go to the store, less $180 for material, which would also leave me with $58.00 net, but for 16 hours of work.

Why would anyone work longer hours for the same amount of money?

Yet, my situation is similar to the one faced by most low wage workers who are often criticized for making the same choice as mine.

Today, someone working at minimum wages (discounting any overtime differential) would need to work slightly more than 63 hours a week for 52 weeks to earn the $23,850/year required to support a family of four at the poverty line.

But, a family of four cannot live on that amount of money. Some of the short-fall is made up through subsides such as food stamps, Medicaid, and the free school lunch program – which last year served over 30 million children.

To qualify for these subsides a family’s income must be below an eligibility criterion. For the school lunch program it is 130% of the poverty line. Even if it was possible to work more than 63 hours, it would simply remove the eligibility and leave the person no better off in the end.

That is exactly the reason I charge $175, work 8 hours and make one mirror. If the goal of the American Dream is that everyone should be rewarded for hard work, what minimum hourly wage rate is required? A minimum wage of $10.10/hour is currently being proposed. At that rate, if two adults continued to work 63 hours per week between them, the family would then lose their eligibility and not be any better off financially than they are now with the subsides. That is not the American way. But even retaining the subsidies would not solve the problem simply because the qualifying line is too low to cover the actual cost of living.

The poverty line is an official government statistic calculated each year to provide a consistent indicator of poverty. Because the official poverty line under estimates real needs, eligibility for assistance is frequent set as at some larger percentage of the poverty line. The eligibility line show in the graph is 130% which is the 2014 criterion for the free school lunch program, established by Congress in 1966. The Living Wage value of 210% of the poverty line was determined for 2014 by using the MIT living wage calculator based on official regional economic data.

Historically, the criterion for a living wage has been a matter of debate. The best current indicator is the MIT living wage calculator. It is based on the actual living cost in different regions of the US. The results show that a couple would need to work 136 hours at current minimum wage to cover the average cost of providing a low-wage family of four with food, clothing, housing and medical care.

Of course, it is impossible for two adults to work a total of 136 hours each week for 52 weeks each year and take proper care of their children. But, it is no longer just the fast food industry and retail stores, such Wal-Mart, that do not pay a living wage. It has become a national standard. A recent study by the Labor Center of the University of California found that “nearly one-third of the country’s half-million bank tellers rely on some form of public assistance to get by.” This is at a cost of $900 million dollars per year in the form of food stamps, tax credits, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

However, if the minimum wage was increased to about $15.00/hour, then two adults working 63 hours per week between them would make a living wage for a family of four. At this pay rate there would be a positive incentive to do so. That is what the striking fast food workers are asking for.

But, this should not be the end of the story.

My lifetime of work provided me the dignity of a pension, now to be topped-up by earning minimum wage for continuing my leisure time hobby.

In contrast, for the low wage worker there is no pension or leisure time. The 63 hours are most often composed of juggling several part-time jobs that intentionally do not include health insurance nor provide for retirement.

The families of 30 million children who need a subsidy for their child’s lunch is a national embarrassment. It isn’t that we can’t afford to pay higher wages. The profits at the nation’s banks topped $141.3 billion dollars last year. The public subsidies, the indirect costs of poverty, and excessive corporate profits and executive pay, such as the $552,000 median salary of the CEOs for whom the tellers work, are the real expenses.  

Transferring some of these actual costs into living wages for workers would be good for the economy. Fewer people working long hours, but earning a living wage, would result in more jobs for others, little unchosen unemployment, and a heathier and more equitable society.  

The US has one of the lowest levels of minimum wages and highest levels of poverty of all the developed countries in the world. Most similar countries avoid the high financial and social costs of extreme poverty simply by requiring a respectable minimum wage for work, and by providing some universal entitlements, such as health care and mandatory retirement benefits, that effectively supplement everyone’s wages an equivalent amount.

Sure, a hamburger might cost a little more, but other public and personal expenses would be far less. In the end, the total cost to the economy, by most calculations, is actually less expensive than what we have now.

 Where has the dignity and shared prosperity gone which 40 hours of work at a living wage should provide?

A good thing turns bad if there is too much of it

Living in the Future Tense #02, August 28, 2014
Reprinted in the Tampa Bay Times, September 8, 2014

When More of a Good Thing Is Bad

Edward Renner

If something is good, surely more must be better. But it is not necessarily so. It is true that when you are alone or don’t have any money that a friend or any amount of money is very valuable. But, the more you have of either, the less valuable any additional friend or money becomes, just as a meal for a hungry persons is more important than for someone well fed. What we often don’t fully appreciate is that both too little and too much are extremely damaging, but in very different ways and for very different reasons.

I recently received a friend request from someone I did not know.Why would a complete stranger want to be my friend? Maybe, it was because they liked my last column? A new Fan!

No, It was because we have the same last name. It turns out he had over 3,000 friends, many with our last name. It turns out he had more than 3,000 friends, many with our last name.

So, when is a few friends not enough, and a large number too many?

Facebook now has 1.11 Billion members. The 10% with the fewest friends have less than 10 friends each; but the 10% with the most friends have 500 or more friends, some up to the maximum limit of 5,000.

The typical Facebook participant has between 100 and 190 friends: These include close friends, colleagues, some personally unknown associates, and even some family. With some, they have a genuine reciprocal relationship, for others mainly one-way communication.

This number is very similar to the 150 people that social science research has show that most people can manage in a meaningful way. Facebook is a much more immediate and personal than e-mail, which in turn was more immediate and personal than the Post Office.

 

However, to collect 5,000 friends has little if any redeeming social value. In fact, what is true for the distribution of friends on Facebook is also true for the distribution of wealth in the US.




The Distribution of friends on Facebook and the distribution of wealth in the US are identical functions. For both groups of people the upper 10%, and in particular the upper 1%, have an excessive number of either friends or amounts of money

The important difference is that the supply of potential Facebook friends is endless, and individuals with an excessively large number of friends are the primary victims of their own excess: Too many superficial friends may be the means to loneliness no less than too few friends.

In contrast, there are only so many dollars in the economy. The supply of wealth is limited. How wealth gets distributed does make a difference. In this case, the primary victims are the 90% of individual who do not have an equitable share of the wealth.

At the poor end of the distribution a small additional amount of money makes a big difference for the person with little money. At the rich end of the distribution any additional amount of money does not make any noticeable difference.This fact is neither new nor radical. In classic free-market economic theory it is the “law of diminishing marginal utility.” But, this well established economic principle seems to have been forgotten by the current economic policies that have allowed the excessive accumulation of wealth by the1%. 

One way to correct this distribution is to increase the minimum wage to be an effective living wage, including adequate food, shelter and health care. However the very rich have used their money and influence to blocked this simple reform. Clearly, their excess has not trickled down as the promised alternative; indeed, just the opposite.

The damage this false argument has caused is great compared to the economic stimulus and improved quality of life that would result from a greater degree of equality.

In a democracy, individuals are generally free to behave in self-serving ways as long as it does not harm others. That is why a few people are free to choose to distribute their social energy to accumulate an excessive number of meaningless friends.

Perhaps, the question we should re-consider is whether, like Facebook, to permit a few people to accumulate excessive meaningless amounts of the national wealth, when the result is so harmful to the national level of well-being.



Privacy versus the Right to Information

Living In the Future Tense #1, May 28, 2014

 

Privacy versus the Right to Information

Edward Renner
 

The European Union court ruled on May 13, 2014 that Google must give people a say in what comes up when they are googled. This has touched off a counter charge in the US as both an unfeasible and unreasonable form of censorship.
 

The legalistic perspective is a conflict between the public’s right to obtain information and the individual’s right to privacy. But, that is too specific. It is based on old ways of thinking.

The digital age has altered every aspect of our lives, including what we believe to be either good or bad.

The response by Wikipedia, Facebook and all of the other corporate giants affected by the ruling was quick and strong. Yet, they all have carefully protected secrets of their own.

This suggest the critical issue is not individual privacy versus the public right to know, but rather whether the distinctions between individuals and corporations makes sense today.

Individual citizens must disclose and pay income tax on their world-wide income. Google, Apple and all of the other technology giants have secret sums of cash stashed in tax shelters concealed by complex accounting facades. The corporate world of finance is still largely secret. They have proved to be too big to regulate, too big to fail and too big to jail.

If people are like corporations, we too should be able to protect our secrets. But, as is increasing the case, if corporations wish to be treated as individuals, they too should be transparent. Google and the others cannot have it both ways.

As it now stands, individuals are small enough to fail and jail, but important enough to be required to disclose and pay taxes on world-wide income. But the corporations are too big to fail or jail, but not important enough to be required to disclose and pay taxes on their world-wide income.

 

The time frame for change today is no longer millenniums, nor even centuries, but rather decades. Decades define an individual lifetime. The Google case is about how today should be re-structured to accommodate the inevitable future conflict between individual and corporate privacy.

Technologically, transparency is big part what the next 50 years are about.

The Google debate is not about whether individuals should or should not live in glass houses, but whether privacy by corporations for commercial profit, and by a democratic government for security, is acceptable, while equivalent personal privacy is an unacceptable form of censorship.

The National Security Agency secretly spied on US citizens and foreign leaders of our own allies. In Florida the House and Senate leaders met secretly to re-define voting districts. True transparency is neither a by-product of whistle blowers or good investigative reporting.

Transparency is a value. It is a way of life. It is an entirely new mechanism for successfully living in the future tense. It must be universal and not selective. Privacy as only a tool for profit and control is very dangerous for individuals; whereas, transparency as a tool for public accountability is essential.

 

 

Lecturing Other Nations Won't Fix Climate Change

This essay may be freely reproduced and distributed with appropriate attribution. Reprinted in the Tampa Bay Times, February 23, 2014, P6.

 

Lecturing Other Nations Won’t Fix Climate Change

Edward Renner

 

In 984 AD the Vikings established a remote settlement in Greenland. The chiefs over-used the land and its resources to support a luxury life-style for themselves. When this most western outpost of European society collapsed 500 years later, “the chiefs had preserved for themselves the privilege of being the last to starve.”

From Collapse by Jarred Diamond

 

Last week (February 16, 2014) Secretary of State John Kerry in a speech delivered in Indonesia called climate change “the world’s most fearsome weapon of mass destruction.” He urged Indonesia, and other Developing Nations, to limit their rapid growth in greenhouse gas emissions.

 The Developing Nations, like Indonesia, have been unwilling at the UN sponsored international conferences on climate change to agree to reduce their rapid growth in emissions because of their essential need to reduce the large proportion of their population living in extreme poverty.

 However, if they continue to increase emissions at current rates, they will crash the capacity of the planet to support a growing world population of over 7 billion, bringing the Developed Nations down with them.

 But, the stark reality is that no Developing Nation will reduce greenhouse gas emissions unless the US and other Developed Nations first take meaningfully steps to assist them in alleviating extreme poverty.

 The Developing Nations have nothing to lose by waiting. We have everything to lose by lecturing them to do more.

 The Developed Nations grew their prosperity by deferring the costs of protecting the capacity of the planet to support human life. As the worst offender, the US has the largest historical ecological deficit of any nation in the world.

 On a per capita basis we, of all the Developed Nations, are the weapon of mass destruction.

 At the UN International Conferences, we have refused to pay “backwards” for the harm already done in proportion to what we are asking the Developing Countries to pay “forward” as future prevention. That is what the Developing Nations have asked for as a basis for reaching an international agreement.

By standing firm, all we will gain for ourselves is the privilege of being the last society to collapse.

 

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The per capita consumption of natural resources and wastes produced (Ecological Footprint) in the US is greater than the national supply (Biocapacity). The difference is the size of our ecological deficit. Our long-standing over-consumption has been possible only by depleting the surplus of natural resources (such as lumber) from developing countries like Indonesia. Many Developing Nations have had their natural resources reduced to the point of no longer being able to support their own population, which is the current reality of Indonesia. Yet, the Developing Countries are faced with growing demands from Developed Nations for even greater free trade access to their shrinking biocapacity



From the Global Footprint Network: http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/trends/indonesia/
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/index.php/GFN/page/trends/united_states_of_america/

 

Edward Renner blogs at http://forumsforafuture.blogspot.com

Carrying Capacity

A version of this essay was published in the Tampa Bay Times on Sunday, May 19, 2013, P1-2. This essay may be reproduced, reprinted and republished.

Saving Our Planet:

Why Climate Change Has Not Inspired Action

Edward Renner

 

While Climate change has entered the national conversation, it has not received popular support nor resulted in a cooperative international approach. New measurements show that the climate-changing gas carbon dioxide is at the highest atmospheric concentrations -- 400 parts per million – in at least three million years. And yet a recent Gallup poll shows that only a minority believe that global warming will “pose a serious threat to them or to their way of life during their lifetime.” 

One possibility is that the focus on climate change has let us, as individuals off the hook because there is not, really, anything that each of us can do personally that will make a difference. Yet, we know that something very significant is happening to the environment about which something must be done. 

With such a disconnect, and so little political will, action seems impossible. But there is a way. If we would shift our focus from climate change to the concept of Carrying Capacity, then are there many necessary things we can do ourselves, over which we have direct control, including holding our elected officials and global corporations accountable for specific changes in public policy.  

What is Carrying Capacity? 

Carrying capacity is a well-established biological concept: It is the maximum population size of the species that the environment can sustain indefinitely, given the food, habitat, water and other necessities available in the environment. 

As a practical metaphor, a row boat can hold a limited number of people. Add one too many and the boat will sink and everyone drowns. Likewise, the planet can support a limited number of people. Add too many and its capacity to support life will collapse. 

Of course the planet is far more complex than a rowboat. But only in two very simple ways: 

First, the impact on the planet of adding one more person to the population of the US is the same as adding 10 people to the population of Mexico. This is because the average American uses more resources and makes more waste than the average Mexican. Similar to the row boat, it is not the number of people that is important, but their combined weight. For the planet, this is the Effective Population; it is the number of people multiplied by their average impact which is the total burden of the human footprint on the planet. 

Second, nature is not a static situation like a row boat floating in still water. Nature is a dynamic system in which all the elements influence each other over time: When a growing population cuts down trees to clear land to grow food, the result is soil erosion decreasing the amount of food to feed the increasing number of people who are cutting down the trees. In a similar way, the row boat, when exposed to stormy weather rocks and dips in ways it did not when in still water. 

In the past, individual societies have collapsed when they exceeded the biological capacity of their local geographic area. When an area and thus society collapsed, other areas and societies emerged. Today, however, human activity is damaging the carrying capacity of the entire planet, and there is no other place to go. On August 22 we will have used as much resources and created as much waste as the planet can replace and absorb in a year. At that rate, it takes 1.4 planets to support our current life style. 

We are depleting the planet of its resources to support human life. That is the issue.

Clearly, there is a theoretical limit to how long the effective population can continue to increase all the while reducing the biological capacity of the planet necessary for living. Growth is finite. 

The Tipping Point 

When collapse occurs in nature, there is a “tipping point” in which the accelerating demands produce a rapid decline in capacity. The process is similar to the over-crowded row boat which, with the addition of a small amount of extra weight, starts to take on water, which, the moment that happens, causes the boat to take on even more water, and it quickly sinks. Once the tipping point is crossed, neither the boat nor nature can continue to support life. For thousands of years this has not been an issue for the planet. However, it is an issue for those of us alive today. We are the ones who will be responsible for bringing our planet to the tipping point. 

In nature, the rapid collapse occurs due to “Forcings.” These are incremental changes of one element that forces additional depletions in all of the other elements, which in turn trigger even greater reductions in each of the other elements. This leads to an accelerating Titanic-like downward spiral toward total collapse.

 

Jared Diamond in his book Collapse has chronicled how past societies which existed and thrived for hundreds of years – some more than a thousand – have collapsed over the period of one lifetime when a single forcing -- such an extended drought --- pushed the society beyond its tipping point. Today, climate change is Nature’s mechanism for causing forcings – drought, desertification, famine, water shortages, and dead seas, to name a few. The social, political and economic consequences of forcings are the ingredients for societal collapse: migration, social unrest, war lords, starvation, economic recession and growing inequalities in which a very few are rich and powerful while the vast majority are poor and weak. Civic order cannot withstand large numbers of desperate people.

The failure of national governments, dysfunctional internal political process and regional and ethnic conflicts are early warning signs of impending collapse. 

Avoiding the Tipping Point 

Fortunately, unlike the ways of nature, carrying capacity is something we can do something about. We have knowledge and control over all of the elements responsible for staying within the carrying capacity of the planet. We can measure the biological capacity of the planet to provide the resources we use and to absorb the waste we create. We already know how the growth of the effective population is exploding at the same time as our resources are shrinking. Although we do not know exactly where the tipping is, we do know that it is within the lifetime of the majority of people alive today. Given a six thousand year human history on the planet, that is all we need to know. The choice is ours. 

If, between now and 2015, just 3% of the effective population would reduce their total footprint by 25%, and by 2020 the percent doing so doubled to 6%, and by 2030 double again to 12.5%, and by 2040 to 25%, and by 2050 to 50%, then the total footprint of the effective population would be reduced, and the danger of crossing the tipping point would be averted. The collective effective footprint of the human population on the earth would start to decrease at around 8 Billion, even though the actual population is projected to reach 9 Billion by 2050.

An Interactive Graphic   To see the effect of different levels of participation or different percent reductions enter alternative numbers from 0 to 100 without the % sign in the highlighted chart. A negative number in the "% Reduction" column will illustrate the effect of continuing to increase the size of our footprint.

 

Half the population eventually reducing their impact by 25% over the next 37 years is not an unreasonable possibility. The largest population growth is in underdeveloped countries with relatively small per capita footprints. The largest footprints are in developed countries which have the capacity to make the necessary adjustments.  

The impact of total distances traveled and the efficiency of transportation, the amount and sources of energy used, and what we eat and how it is produced can each be divided into sub-categories, which can be further broken down into the hundreds of specific everyday actions over which we have personal control, such as using fewer plastic water bottles, driving one less mile or eating less meat. 

A small percentage of people making regular small contributions, and encouraging progressively more people to join with them, can have a large cumulative effect.  

However, while these individual efforts are all necessary, they alone are insufficient. Rather, they must be our daily reminder that public policy issues, such as effective mass transit to replace personal automotive commuting, the infrastructure of alternative energy sources and national policies independent of the short-term self-interest of big agriculture, big oil and multi-national corporations are essential. 

This challenge is of particular relevance to those of us living in the US, because we are putting in jeopardy our way of life, far more so than China who is our major competitor. We are the biggest offender in the world of per capita over use of natural resources. We have more to lose than any other nation if, collectively, the human race exceeds the carrying capacity of the planet.

We have become distracted from the necessity for institutional and political accountability by the emphasis on the abstract threat of climate change over which we have little direct personal control. Climate change is simply the most important of Nature’s mechanisms for causing forcings. In contrast, carrying capacity can be documented down to the number of gallons of gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel refined; the tons of fertilizer and pesticides used; the number of wind farms created; and, the BTUs of coal and oil that must be remain in the ground. These are all subject to public political control, and the policies required to regulate these events are known. 

What is absent is the social and political awareness to shift our focus away from the abstract event of climate change, and our necessary but insufficient personal responsibility for it, to the collective and essential government and corporate accountability for specific and measurable policies and practices of not using more resources and producing more waste than the planet can replace or absorb in a year. 

This, we know how to do.  

The political, economic and social discussions we need to have are not whether we need shift the burden from primarily a personal responsibility to one of greater government and corporate accountability, but rather the most feasible ways to do so. 

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Edward Renner is a Professor in the Honors College of the University of South Florida. He may be reached at kerenner@usf.edu. An introduction to his University level course, Forums for a Future, is available in pdf format from USF at http://tiny.cc/7ij7fw, or free in iBook format from iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/invitation-to-forums-for-future/id533089665?mt=11.The environmental data is from the Global Footprint Network data base: http://www.footprintnetwork.org