Saturday, March 29, 2014

Adaptation is about understanding how we live with something different


Adaptation to the rigours of climate change that will settle upon society is often contemplated in terms of what exists.

Adaptation is about
learning to live
in a society as
different from what
we now have as a
blink is from a wink.
First, people need to understand that what exists today, and what has taken shape over the past two centuries will be strikingly different from what will exist as the climate change template is pressed upon communities.

Adaptation is not about the preservation of the status quo, it is about understanding that what exists today and what we will have tomorrow will be fundamentally different.

Adaptation is about learning to live in a society as different from what we now as a blink is from a wink.

Survival in tomorrow’s circumstances will force us to disengage to from now is normal and live a life significantly less energy intensive and one in which happiness and contentment is found in things other than material and consumer goods whose existence  depends almost entirely upon the world’s finite resources.

We need to turn our attention from profit and growth, the mantra of our capitalistic world, to the enhancement and enrichment of peoples’ lives where they live.

Our modern world has brought many positive things and improved the lives of millions, but the cost has been alarming with an inequality that denies the egalitarianism boast of many.

Adaptation to the strictures settling upon us will force us to at least consider a Four-Hour Work Day, that is excepting public services, genuine farmers and privately owned businesses employing four or less people, will be inevitable.

The Four-Hour Work Day will make all of us fundamentally poorer and so less able to consume energy and resource intensive goods; force a dynamic that will see us all to live within walking or cycling distance of where we work; create more jobs as business eager to operate longer than four hours will need a whole new shift of workers; as second jobs will be frowned on (taxed at about 95%); and people will have much more free time which they can us to contribute to their communities, grow vegetables, repair household goods, share their resources (skills and tools) with their neighbours and work with their neighbourhood to build resilience into their communities.