After the Gas Runs Out: Civic Democracy and Prospects for Life and Living Inside the Blue Line

1. The Association for the Protection of the Adirondacks Arthur M. Crocker Seminar Series After the Gas Runs Out: Civic Democracy and Prospects for Life and Living Inside the Blue Line Bill Vitek, Ph.D. Clarkson University November 11, 2005

2. They used to tell me I was building a dreamAnd so I followed the mob.When there was earth to plow or guns to bear,I was always there, right on the job.They used to tell me I was building a dreamWith peace and glory ahead --Why should I be standing in line, just waiting for bread? Once I built a railroad, I made it run,Made it race against time.Once I built a railroad, now it's done --Brother, can you spare a dime? Once I built a tower, up to the sun,brick and rivet and lime.Once I built a tower, now it's done --Brother, can you spare a dime? From “Brother Can You Spare a Dime?” (E. Y. HARBURG/JAY GORNEY) (1932)

3. What Unites and Divides Us: This Adirondack Park

4. With Boundaries both Real and Imagined The Blue Line Boundary: A Post-Carbon Thought Experiment

5. The Gist • Things can’t be good if you call in a philosopher! • The “Oikos” is teetering: • Species • Climate • Pollutants • Energy • Human Population • Clogged Sinks and Limited Sources

6. http://www.oilcrisis.com/midpoint.htm

7. The Gist • The Delivery Systems aren’t Delivering: • Economic • Energy • Education • Health • Political • Social • The Systems can’t deliver what’s not there

8. The Gist • We are nearly at the end of a line of thinking that is no longer supportable by the material and energy conditions upon which it rests • Western Liberalism/Liberty depends on Geological Inheritance • We’ve burned through our inheritance in record time

9. The Challenge • The Race for Resources has already begun • Barricading has already begun • The reconceptualization of all the systems has already begun • What can this region become in the midst of, and beyond, this transition?

10. The Challenge • We’ll need a new line of thinking that preserves liberty without the high-test • It’s Long-term thinking • Fifty years out • Applications to the Park • Philosophers welcome! • Or anybody willing to think about system alternatives

11. Do’s and Don'ts • Stop thinking like environmentalists • Stop focusing exclusively on short-term problems • Stop talking to ourselves • Start preparing for the oil endgame • Start preparing a values shift • Start thinking like pioneers and founders

12. Time to Think Like Engineers!

13. Define the Problem • “Expand civic democracy in the Park during the global peak-oil transition.” • Civic Democracy: Citizens not Individuals • Public and Private goods • Expansion in the midst of current contraction and looming disruptions • Humans and Nature

14. Define the Problem • Put the Adirondack Biosphere to work in a Contemporary Solar Economy • Create a Civic Haven focused on local and Regional Political Autonomy • Promote the Park’s Aesthetic Dimension as a training ground for Citizenship

15. Time to Think Like Engineers!

16. Product Requirements • Optimistic and Motivating • Self-Maintaining • Simple and Elegant • Incorporate 19th Century discoveries • Ignorance-Based/Fail Safe (Evolutionary Biology: apes in lab coats) • Run on Contemporary Sunlight (2nd Law) • Minimal Human Populations (Ecosystem Complexity)

17. Product Requirements • Optimal Resource Consumption (Efficiency) • Use more of what we have more of, less of what we have less of (people, not petroleum) http://www.worsleyschool.net/socialarts/world/population.html • Democracy enhancing • Social Capital enhancing • Ecosystem enhancing • Paradox welcoming: turn vices into virtues (Hamilton)

18. The Product • On-the-shelf solutions, alternatives, systems, projects, and policies that demonstrably expand civic democracy in the Park during the global peak-oil transition.

19. Time to Think Like Engineers!

20. Generate Alternatives • Modern Ward Republics • Local Currencies • Putting the Park’s ecosystems to work without diminishing them • Wes Jackson’s work in agriculture • CO2 Sinks • Non-Propertied Tourism (Costa Rica) • Attracting the right kind of development • The Arts • A New Homestead Act

21. Generate Alternatives • Attracting the right kind of people • Adirondack Prize • R&R, Adirondack Style: Reflection and Research • Developing educational models that prepare students for the century they’re in, not the one we just left • Getting our educational institutions involved • Regional and Renewable energy, transportation, economic systems

22. Generate Alternatives • Asking well and often the right sorts of questions to the right sorts of people • Symposia • Traveling road shows • Contests

23. “Brother,* Can You Paradigm?” • Stay Focused • Become philosophical/system-building engineers/entrepreneurs • Create models, systems, concepts, and paradigms that solve the peak-oil challenge • Imagine that someone will actually use what we create! • Remember that creativity, commitment and optimism are our most powerful tools * And Sister!

24. A Most Necessary Revolution • A shared mental model • Life after carbon pools: puddle jumping • Liberty without consumption • Rebuilding citizenship/social capital • Studying the exits • Formulating and embracing a land ethic

25. The most important, meaningful, and longest lasting work that we can do for this place we call the Adirondack Park is to “Build receptivity into the still unlovely human mind”* Beginning with our own….. *Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac