Open Space write up (UK conference May-07)

Specific Topic Disarming the technofix solutions argument

 

Overarching question How do we sustainably expand and support the network of communities working on transition?

Proceedings

Psychological attachment to technofix

  • A key problem is that young people, adults and wealthy people have so much to lose
  • From a psychological perspective:
    • we're very divorced from our life sources
    • we believe that "someone's got it all figured out"
    • many people are in denial and/or depression - can ecopsychology help?
    • people will have to face up to themselves and take responsibility
    • people will need to look at their own addiction to technology
    • people will need to challenge the dominant paradigm

Some tools to break the attachment

  • Identify "fixes" and evaluate
    • recommended reading
      • Paul Mobbs - Energy Beyond Oil
      • David Fleming - Nuclear Power: a broken cycle. Available in pdf here.
      • [Ed Note: good section in Heinberg's The Party's Over]
      • Chellis Glendenning - Hello My Name is Chellis and I'm Recovering From Western Civilization. You can read her Schumacher lecture here.
  • It's possible that human ingenuity leads to progress which inevitably leads to collapse

Non high tech solutions

  • For appropriate technology in micro energy generation, there is trustworthy research at www.warwickwindtrials.org.uk.
  • Community wind farms can work
  • We need to be focussing on:
    • conservation
    • then efficiency
    • then a realistic assessment of alternatives, selecting the least of evils
  • There's nothing wrong with getting some power from appropriate souces, depending on scale and time.
  • Regarding social responsibility, who is responsible for taking care of the most vulnerable?
  • Politicians need to be creating policies responsibly - on what we know, rather than on what we hope for?
  • There's a question around what kind of society would the technofixes deliver, with implications for the majority of the world - we're all in this together
  • It would help to move beyond "fix" to "inspiration"