Everything is Connected - Part 1
Physically
Please note: This post may be too long for email, you can read the whole post on the website by clicking the title.
To my veteran subscribers and newcomers, welcome. I’m excited you’re here and reading my first online essay, and the first in this series, I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Have you ever stopped to think about the impact everything has on everything else? The butterfly beats its wings in Asia and there’s a hurricane in the America’s. A tree falls in a forest and does or does not make a sound. Both of these statements, and others like them are often used as metaphors for unpredictable change and chaos theory. And whilst we could debate whether they are factually true or not, they also point towards something we instinctively know but often choose to ignore, because the ramifications of having that degree of awareness are too challenging for us to contemplate within the context of our own lives.
Yet contemplate them we must, because if we don’t the unintended consequences of not doing so will eventually, perhaps even in the short term, begin to bite back.
Over a series of essays, I want to explore how everything is connected so we can all learn to move away from the single issue thinking that seems to pervade today’s societies. This first essay is one I’ve wanted to write for several years but for the reasons I outlined last month I didn’t feel able to. Instead, I effectively self-censored in the mistaken belief that what I had to say would be either too challenging, too boring or of no interest for the loyal audience I usually serve. In other words, I was afraid to put my head above the parapet and talk about what matters to me. Hopefully, that time is over and my confidence will grow as time (and words) pass. I hope that you’ll bear with me too as I learn to articulate with the written word that which I’ve observed, learned, experienced and debated over many years with the spoken.
I want to take a deeper look at the practical, economic, political, environmental, social and spiritual ways in which everything is connected to everything else, and how these phenomenon shape both the world we live in and the way we experience it. I’m starting with the first of the list because it is the densest of the topics literally and figuratively. As I write its possible other things may occur to me and the list might expand or contract. And if you dear reader, have any suggestions, comments or thoughts to add I am always happy to hear them as that is the only way we can all learn and grow.
It’s also important to make clear that these essays are not a series of rants about all that is wrong with the world. Personally, and despite mainstream and alternative medial’ focus on doom and gloom, I believe there is much to celebrate about the planet we live on and I’m generally positive and hopeful about the future. Having said that, I’m under no illusion that we are living through some challenging times although you could choose to view that as exciting too.
And so, to begin.
I’ll repeat the question I asked at the top of the essay, have you ever stopped to think about the impact everything has on everything else?
To frame that question in the practical world just stop for a moment and take a look around you. Perhaps you’re in an office, a room at home, on a boat or ship, a train, a cafe, a shop, a classroom or even outside enjoying a walk. Now take a closer look at the physical things around you.
Right now, I’m writing this at my PC in the office at home and without turning my head I can see my PC tower (yes, you heard that right I still have an ‘old fashioned’ tower!), the screen on a stand bolted to my desk, the desk itself, a lamp, a clock, an extension cable for plugs, a picture on the wall, next year’s calendar waiting to be turned to January, a pot of pens and rulers, a box of tissues ... I could go on but the list is long and that’s just what I can see without moving my head to look at the rest of the room, let alone the house.
I’m pretty sure if you’ve done the same thing, you will notice a bunch of ‘stuff’ around you. Maybe some tables, chairs, people, cups, laptops, paper, pens, toys or plants, paths and animals.
Now, I’d like you to consider what all the things around you have in common, perhaps with the exception of wild nature?
There are two common denominators and the first is oil, which brings me to the question I’d really like to pose which is ‘what happens if we just stop oil’?
There is little in our modern world that doesn’t depend on oil. The food in the supermarket is not grown or made there, it’s brought in with diesel lorries having been grown for the most part using fertiliser made with the help of oil and gas. Fruits and spices, toys for Christmas, electronic gadgets, and our clothes are shipped across oceans in container ships and are often made with or from oil derivatives.
Our clothing whether made in China or here in the UK, is manufactured using machinery that knits and stitches together fabrics that are made by following industrial process that were once powered by steam using water, coal or wood. The tools we use in our gardens, the knives, forks, spoons, pots, pans and plates are all made using materials extracted from the earth by diggers, moved to manufacturing plants by lorries, wagons and trains running on diesel and then potted, moulded or smelt often with the support of oil.
The electronic devices we use minute by minute were all manufactured with materials made from oil and the rare minerals mined using oil-based processes. The electric cars we’re encouraged to buy because ‘they don’t emit C02’, create far more C02 than they emit through the mining of rare minerals and ores for the batteries. And oil is used throughout the production plant that builds the cars using components made elsewhere in the same scenarios as above, over and over and over.
And so, it goes on. I challenge you to find something in your home that is not dependent in part or fully, on oil. I know I can’t, I’ve looked.
The second common denominator is energy, not just the energy that comes from using oil to manufacture and ship goods, but the energy we depend on day in day out to get us from A to B, to heat our homes and places of work, to cool food, to run manufacturing plants and again it goes on and on and on. Without consistent energy the modern, technologically ‘advanced’ world we live in cannot function. I write ‘advanced’ in quotes because sometimes I wonder just how advanced we are to have ended up in the situation we are in.
Yes, we are building more wind turbines. But even so-called green energy like wind turbines is not really ‘green’. The average turbine requires in the region of 80 tons of concrete, manufactured using oil, for the foundations, unless of course they are built from concrete when they will use so much more. They need to be manufactured, built, shipped to the location, constructed on site and connected to the electricity grid before they produce a single kilowatt of energy. And let’s not forget the parts that need replacing, repairing or modifying.
According to a report from the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory1 and depending on make and model, wind turbines are predominantly made of steel (66-79% of total turbine mass); fibreglass, resin or plastic (11-16%); iron or cast iron (5-17%); copper (1%); and aluminium (0-2%). All these materials require oil and energy to produce before they can be consumed in the manufacture of a single wind turbine. If you want to learn more about what it takes to build a wind turbine Octopus Energy have an interesting interview with one of their engineers on their website 2. One energy sceptic says “an average house weighs from 72 to 104 tons. So, each 2 MW wind turbine weighs at least as much as a single small home. And that’s renewable?”
When you start to think about them holistically and with regard for everything else, they are no longer as environmentally friendly as suggested by the green lobby. This is especially so when you learn they have a limited lifespan of around 20 - 25 years and around 15 years if they are offshore (Daviddson et al 2014)3. Their parts need maintenance and replacement with items such as new gear boxes every 10 years. And in the United States despite being the third most important source of electricity Wind still only provides 8.7% of production energy. Given the ongoing environmental cost are they really worth it?
And I could talk in the same vein about solar panels where the environmental cost of mining the rare and precious minerals used for panels and batteries decimates their marketing as ‘green’ and ‘renewable.
In the UK, the Energy Trends Report April - June 2022 shows that wind, solar and hydroelectric generated a fraction of the electricity that was generated by oil, gas, nuclear and biomass4. According to the UK Office for National Statistics tables for 2022 report ‘Fuel used in electricity generation and electricity supplied (ET 5.1 - quarterly)’ green energy sources account for 28.03% of our electricity generation 5.
In the same way we cannot ignore oil, we cannot ignore that other primary fossil fuel gas because here in the UK at least, it is responsible for generating 42.5% of our electricity. And that electricity is used to power our industrial and domestic use 6.
It certainly looks as if we will be dependent on fossil fuels for the long term and therefore it makes no sense to vilify them and make them the enemy. If we are to remove our dependence on fossil fuels then the only thing, we can do is reduce our demand by making sensible choices about where the energy they generate is used. But to do this inevitably means making significant changes to the way we live our lives.
We use fossil fuels in every facet of the modern lives we live and yet ‘just stop oil’ and ‘zero carbon’ have become a bandwagon to hitch a green agenda to because it’s apparently ‘good for the planet’. If only that were true!
I’m not suggesting for a moment that we don’t consider what is good for the planet, to be honest that is the ultimate point of this series of essays. But what we forget are the unintended consequences of single issues because there is no such thing as a ‘single issue’ on any subject because EVERYTHING is connected to EVERYTHING else in an endless, never-ending flow chart.
The trouble with single issue thinking is that it encourages us not to join the dots and see the bigger picture, in fact we’re actively encouraged to avoid seeing multiple dots in the first place. Of course, that plays right into the hands of politicians and large corporations where the intent is to focus our attention only in the direction they are pointing. It’s rather like watching a magician at work, he directs our gaze and interest to the left whilst what’s really going on is to the right. I’m often reminded of the Wizard of Oz when I listen to them hold forth about their latest pet project, wondering at what point we’ll all become more Toto like and pull back the curtain to see what’s really important.
When we go along with the wizard’s game be it fossil fuels, climate change, Covid-19, green energy, the politics of left or right, war, human rights and so much more we are infantilised because we put our trust in mummy and daddy to solve the problem without us ever having to consider the consequences of our own individual and collective actions. And in allowing them to ‘solve’ the problem for us we willingly give away our power.
As you might imagine, I’ve been reading a lot of environmental books and blogs and listening to a lot of podcasts as I was doing the research for this essay and I’ve been struck by how similar they all are. The intent of most is to focus on a single issue so that life as most of the Western economies know it can continue without really addressing the elephant herd in the room. This was most neatly put by Tom Heap when he quotes Professor Julian Allwood in 39 Ways to Save the Planet “The whole literature of sustainable consumption has focused on households, so there are lots of academic papers about washing machines, which is fun but not important. At home we don’t buy very much cement and steel, so the most important thing we can do about materials are at work.” 7 The implication from this is that we as individuals don’t have to do much of anything because our efforts don’t make a lot of difference. But can you spot the deliberate mistake in this assumption?
What that statement forgets that it ALL starts with us as individuals because EVERYTHING we manufacture, ship or build is in SERVICE to humans in some way. Yes, the car manufacturers could change the way they manufacturer cars, but if we didn’t buy them in the first place then there’d be no need to make them!
I know my response might come across as trite or reductive and my aim is not to say we have to stop living our lives. But I do believe we have to accept that for every action there are consequences, some we can anticipate but most we can’t until they trip us up. What we do individually and collectively matters, a lot.
The problem
My observation is that the way we are in the world is mostly in relation to how we each think about ‘happiness’.
If I am going to continue with this as a frame of reference then it’s essential, I provide a definition of ‘happiness’ with which you can agree or disagree. When I searched online for a dictionary definition, I was disappointed to find that on the whole they were all similar to the Cambridge dictionary which states happiness as: feeling, showing, or causing pleasure or satisfaction. Whilst I agree that it is a feeling, my dismay was in the assumption that happiness is akin to pleasure or satisfaction. And that is where I think the problem with ‘happiness’ in general lies.
We have it seems, conflated happiness with pleasure and the latter is almost always an extrinsic (that is outside of oneself) experience, rather than an intrinsic (that is inside oneself) experience. My sense is that the 17th century English philosopher John Locke was more astute when he wrote that the foundation of liberty is built on the need to pursue happiness and that this pursuit is not merely an imaginary quest or a satisfaction of personal desires, but an ability to achieve the greatest good free from any predetermined will or forced action. Practically, this means we achieve peak actualisation or ‘happiness’ by living a good life full of positive actions, not by the acquisition of things to demonstrate we had lived ‘successfully’8.
When we equate happiness with the acquisition of ‘stuff’ we require more energy and thus oil to satisfy that need. When in turn, we equate success with said acquisition, it becomes self-perpetuating that we demand bigger, better and faster ‘stuff’. And our consumerist culture is built on the assumption that your success is measured by how much bigger, better or faster your ‘stuff’ is than mine.
But we don’t have to play that game. We don’t have to believe that the only value we have is in what we own. And it’s a fact that you cannot buy ‘happiness’ except when happiness is only measured by pleasure. Before anyone reminds me that being in poverty is not going to make you happy either, I agree. Studies show that levels of income do equate to levels of happiness but only up to a point9. And yet I would contend that most people when they are asked about what makes them happy in these surveys and pieces of research think of it in terms of what they can buy with income rather than in any innate sense of contentment.
The Solution
The key to our current practical predicament could then be to shift the way we think about happiness and success away from the acquisition of ‘stuff’ towards an innate sense of well-being.
Whilst this is not THE solution (I only wish it were) it is a suggested solution, at least in part to meet the need to reduce both the consumption of energy and oil and reduce the impact that our use of such energy has on the well-being of the rest of the planet, human and non-human alike.
I’ve been watching with interest the degrowth and donut (doughnut to me!) economics debates developing, and whilst this is not the essay to discuss either of these, they are largely responsible for shifting the way I think about the world and my part in it.
I can think of dozens of ways we can divert energy from things that don’t foster happiness into those that do such as:
1. The energy used by one manufacturer of plastic toys destined for a Christmas cracker or chocolate egg which will no doubt at some point end up in landfill could easily be diverted to better uses if we no longer bought ephemerals like Christmas crackers or chocolate eggs. You’d also be richer.
2. The energy used by the numerous large supermarkets and chains of coffee shops could be diverted to better uses such as supporting local communities, local coffee shops and local stores. It could be used to kick start a hyper-localism revolution that focused on what we had, could grow or make within a reasonable (define that how you want) distance.
3. The energy used in the manufacture and transportation of fast fashion from the other side of the globe to the UK could be diverted into local manufacture and transportation of better quality, harder wearing clothing designed to last. You’d also be richer because the fashion industry wouldn’t be demanding an update of your wardrobe every six months and we’d no longer send 11,000 items of clothing to landfill every single week10.
4. The energy used by the 1.59m electric cars on the road in the UK could be diverted to provide more frequent buses or trains and even making them free to use. When I looked into the cost of buying, setting up a charging point and running all these cars (based on the cheapest model available) for the first year it was a staggering £29,192m, whilst in 2015 (sorry they were the most recent figures I could find from the ONS) the cost of running all the national railways was just £7,400m11.
Given that the average car is owned for about 8 years on average, if we bought no new electric cars at all the cost differential between running the rail network as it was in 2015 and running our electric cars is less than 50%.
In 2021 the cost of running the bus network for England and Wales (outside London) was £3,651m12. In September 2022 there were 33,155m cars on the road in the UK of which the majority were diesel or petrol13. The average annual cost of running a car is £3,543 according to Car Plus14 giving us a rough annual cost of £117,468,156,000.
It goes without saying that I’m using the costs listed above as a proxy for the energy consumed by the different means of transport mentioned. And I admit I am making the gross assumption that the energy used is roughly equal overall. I have no idea whether this is true or not as I’m not a transport specialist and I do recognise there are other factors to account for like infrastructure, manufacture and commercial fuel costs. But let’s, for the sake of argument assume that the proxy stands, then is it possible that If we were to phase out the use of personal cars, the energy and oil saved could be ploughed into an expanded, improved and possibly free local transport service all other things being equal? If so it could in theory at least, be one that ran when and where needed regardless of the viability of individual routes and not according to the whims of the transport corporations.
These few suggestions have flaws and consequences that will be considered in future essays and I offer them here only to illustrate that it is possible to turn things around more easily than it might feel when you listen to the media.
We need a reset but not of the Klaus Schwab type.
It’s not enough to switch to ‘sustainable’ production mechanisms because they use the same amounts of energy and oil we apparently no longer have enough of.
It’s not enough to hope technology and ‘renewable’ energy sources will save us. When you consider the environmental impacts of both they are neither green nor renewable.
It’s not enough to put your head in the sand and hope that it won’t happen in your lifetime. It’s already happening, we can see it in the cost-of-living crisis, driven by the energy crisis, which is only a crisis because so much energy and oil goes into manufacturing and doing things that add no value to our lives or which can be achieved in a more holistic, simple or considerate way.
The power to make such a change in our use of energy and oil lies with us not the corporations, the politicians, the oligarchs, the technocrats. We do not have to play by their rules; indeed, we do not even have to play the game they are playing. We can always choose to kick over the monopoly board and focus on what builds and nurtures us and the planet rather than what degrades and debases.
In the next essay I want to explore our relationship with the environment.
Heap, T. 2021. 39 Ways to Save the Planet. P176.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/cost-of-running-the-rail-network#full-publication-update-history, https://www.gov.uk/government/statistical-data-sets/nts09-vehicle-mileage-and-occupancy, https://www.leasefetcher.co.uk/guides/electric-cars/how-much-electric-car, and https://nextgreencar.com/electric-cars/statistics/
Image by LoggaWiggler from Pixabay
yep. Interesting times. No need to reply, but what do we MEAN when we say "nanny state"? Jacob rees-Mogg is very attached to HIS nanny and a good nanny will take care of their charges until such time as they are of age to function independently - in Rees-Mogg's case well into his adulthood by all accounts! Interested to know what a terrible nanhy state wold be. Authoritarianism perhaps? In that case, that's the word for it, rather than the term which suggests infantilisation.
A lot of time spent on this, and well argued. Made me think about the reason we are given for why government should stand back from setting in place a more sustainable infrastructure. It would mean we are a" Nanny" state! Yet you are right that we hand over responsibility to them and expect daddy and mummy to sort it out, so really we assume a "nanny state" as a fundamental tenet of our lives. There is a huge tension between our current government and what we assume they will achieve and what their goals are. And they are wedded to an old economic system. Doubt many have read Donut Economics!