[joshfloyd]

I think John cuts to the heart of things here with respect to the pervasiveness of the “big-system” worldview. The Beyond Zero Emissions approach to thinking about energy transitions is a sobering case study of just how hard it is to climb out of the “big systems” and “hard engineering” way of thinking about effective response to our situation. I have some first hand experience with this. I’m in Melbourne, Australia, where BZE is also based. Matthew Wright, BZE’s founder, gets a lot of air time here, and in fact the last time I heard him speak was at a debate as part of the Sustainable Living Festival in February, the subject of which was “Economic growth will save the planet” (https://festival.slf.org.au/program/sustainability-edge/economic-growth-will-save-planet). Nicole Foss was also a participant, and the gulf between the quality of Nicole’s response and Matthew’s couldn’t have illustrated more starkly the divide in worldviews. Those I spoke to afterwards agreed to a person that Nicole was far and away the standout, both in terms of message and delivery, while Matthew just shouldn’t have been on the same stage. To be fair, he wasn’t actually spruiking the BZE message–but if his contribution to the debate was anything to go by, it did little for BZE’s credibility.
In terms of the scale of the challenge in bridging this worldview divide, I also have some direct personal experience. For a number of years I’ve taught post graduate courses in sustainability thinking and energy foresight, the approach to which is well aligned in many important respects with TAE, and with the concerns John raises above. At least one of my former students was part of the team that produced the BZE stationary energy transition report. I don’t know for sure that he wasn’t trying to bring the influence of our courses into that work–but if so, this certainly wasn’t reflected in the outcomes. This is pretty much reflective of the overall experience bringing a worldview-centred approach to formal “sustainability education”. Some run with it, for others it’s just a source of bemusement.
I’ll be keen to hear Illargi’s expanded views on the problems of Big Green Tech. My own take on the BZE approach (along with the Greenpeace Energy Revolution report from a few years back, and the similar one from WWF) is available here: https://beyondthisbriefanomaly.org/2012/02/29/energy-transitions-feasibility-studies-and-the-limits-of-abstraction-the-case-for-a-soft-systems-approach/

[Author]

Posts