Running out of World

News and Updates

Mad Men

The hard drinking, chain smoking, fast living heroes of the Mad Men television series are compulsive and often highly enjoyable viewing. Their lives are dedicated to persuading people to buy things and the exploration of the many different facets of how this is done. The story is spiced with topical issues such as the scientific underpinning of the link between cigarettes and cancer; and the rise of television as an advertising medium. Marketing was the very front line of the battle for expenditure and the victories lay in enticing people to buy stuff that they didn't necessarily want or need, or indeed which might be inherently injurious. The marketing profession drew the cream of manhood and womanhood to its cause and their relentless dedication over five decades has in no small part resulted in the acquisition orientated society that we live in today.

Can society regain its balance? Are people equipped to escape the consumption mindset and decide for themselves how to attain happiness and quality of life?

Can we muster the same passion that the Mad Men generated, to essentially undo the corruption of the relationship between people and the abundance of the planet?

The Consumption Curve

If Terracopia is adopted as the worldwide standard for the measurement of environmental depletion, one of the desired outcomes will be a reduction in the personal demand for new things. Consultations have been carried out to test whether this can really be expected and the following facts have emerged:

  1. People who have amassed a satisfactory level of material possessions are the people who see the least need to accumulate more "stuff". For these people, possessions become burdens.

  2. People who can witness other people as having more desirable "stuff" than they have, are generally unwilling to forego further acquisition. Here we particularly refer to young people and/or people in developing countries. This is the same indignation as the populations of developing countries feel, when the developed nations start bullying them into emitting less carbon: "Why should we give up something that you have had, but we haven't had yet?".

One participant said, "It's OK for you, you have driven so many cars that you are bored with cars. Now you don't want a car. However, I haven't driven a car yet and I want that experience, I want a car (and your sanctimonious attitude isn't going to stop me!)." We added the bit in brackets as we read between the lines.

The upshot is that any individual is likely to have a lifetime "consumption" curve which will have a similar shape for all people, because we cannot stop people wanting to own things that they can see other people owning. What we can do however is plot that curve, learn about it and learn from it.

Consumption_curve

Sample Consumption Curve

We can explore ways of influencing the curve: lowering the peak, peaking earlier, and in general reducing the area under the curve which represents a person's lifetime consumption in terms of ADV (the Abundance Depletion Value of Products, Services and Activities).

Gateway Two Approaching

The development of Terracopia as a project is being guided by "Gateways" which is a tried and tested project management system. Most of the work packages for Gateway Two have now been completed and we are planning to carry out a formal review by the end of January. Currently we are seeking funding for Gateway Three. If you are interested in becoming a sponsor please click the Investment Proposition link in the sidebar to the left.

Now, back to business....

  • We are destroying the planet that we live on.
  • Purchasing goods and services is the mechanism of the destruction. When we spend money, an environmental price is paid.
  • We are blind to this; we are too far removed from the impact of our purchasing choices
  • Terracopia’s mission is to provide a comprehensible link to connect us with the impact of our purchasing decisions

We are destroying the planet earth, our home. Each minute, for example, an area of forest equivalent to 30 football pitches is being cleared, according to WWF data. Each minute; and all these minutes are connected together. When one minute finishes, another one starts, then after that one another one; another 30 football pitches. Each minute we use enough oil to flood one of those football pitches to a depth of 4 feet. The minutes will continue after you’re left this website, they will continue while you eat, while you work and while you sleep. Our plunder of the planet is devastating.

It is our consumption that is causing this destruction. Everything we do or use depletes the abundance of the earth in some way. Terracopia’s mission is to confront people with this depletion, by means of an environmental price tag.

People buy products and services and they carry out various leisure activities. All of these things – the things people spend money on – deplete the earth’s abundance in measurable ways. Think about it. The materials that are used are either grown or they are mined or drilled for; and the energy that is used is predominantly supplied by burning fossil fuels or enriching and decaying uranium. No natural abundance is increased by man’s spending, but inevitably there is depletion.

In modern society however, we are very often shielded from the depletive effects of creating a demand for products and services. There is no visible or obvious connection between buying a TV set and the environmental costs of extracting all of those materials from the earth and using enormous quantities of energy to convert them into the components of the television. Even if we are aware, we cannot compare the environmental cost of one TV set with another, or compare a TV set with a personal computer for example. This is the gap that Terracopia fills. This is the connection that Terracopia makes. Terracopia confronts the purchaser with the environmental cost of his or her purchase.

It is not an easy message and it is not a message that people necessarily want to hear, so the confrontation must be strong, just like monetary cost. The environmental cost must be as obvious and important as the monetary price. It must sit there right next to the dollar price.

Terracopia is an environmental currency which tells you the full environmental price that the earth has to pay when you spend your money.

The left box below will take you to pages which explore this connection. The centre box commences an explanation of the system itself; and the right hand box is for those who might be interested in investing in the future of the planet by bringing Terracopia into the forefront of everbody’s daily decisions.

Headlines

  • Copper

    There is enough copper to last us another 88 years at current rates of consumption and recycling.

  • Oil

    Taking into account both discovered and undiscovered oil, there will be enough to last for another 26,500 days at our current rate of consumption. Oil cannot be recycled, once it is burned.

  • Atmospheric Carbon

    Atmospheric Carbon and other Greenhouse Gasses are compromising the earth’s ability to cool itself, causing mean surface temperatures to rise. The accumulation of CO2 in the earth’s atmosphere is trapping 0.12% of incoming solar radiation.

  • Atlantic Mackerel

    Although North Sea Cod is still in crisis (biomass is one third of its 1964 level), Atlantic Mackerel staged a great recovery in recent decades. Prior to the collapse of Atlantic Mackerel stocks in 1976, the peak biomass had been 1.7 million tonnes in 1972. In 2004, after severe measures had been implemented by the US Government, stocks had bounced back to 2.3 million tonnes. If we know, we can act.

  • Biodiversity

    Biomass is the engine of the earth, converting the sun's energy into food, materials and sub systems to sustain life and circulate nutrients. Mankind is eroding this engine at an alarming rate and dispensing with known and unknown bits of it, without heed to how the function of the engine is affected.