The Great Simplification with Nate Hagens - NOT for Sale | Frankly #24

Episode Date: February 3, 2023

Recorded January 30, 2023   Description This week, Nate reflects on one of the biggest questions humanity is facing - what is and is NOT for sale? The Biden Administration approval of a 20 year ban on mining near the Boundary Waters and the regional 'Not for Sale' movement to prevent selling water from Lake Superior to the West are evidence that perhaps we can see nature's value beyond monetary gain.  What have we already "sold" to feed an insatiable appetite for more energy and more materials? And where will we draw the line between what humanity is willing to "sell" and what we decide is sacred and non-negotiable?  Have we thought about what might be 'for sale' in our own lives in the future - and what will not be?  To Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Mgf7GyGPt4 For Show Notes and more visit: https://www.thegreatsimplification.com/frankly-original/24-not-for-sale

Greetings. I'm off to the airport, but wanted to reflect on something that's been on my mind for a bit and was accentuated with a news announcement in the last week. Last summer, I was biking and hiking in northern Wisconsin, and I saw these signs that had a beautiful blue silhouette of Lake Superior and then some words that said not for sale. And I thought they were like some real estate agent that was doing the don't think of an elephant. Like this house is not for sale, meaning that it is. But I saw hundreds of them in biking around. So I got back to my Airbnb and I looked it up and what this is about is local people around the shores of Lake Superior are becoming active to avert and avoid. people in the southwest building pipelines to transport the water from Lake Superior to areas that need water. Not for sale, and they're drawing a line in the sand.

For many of you that live in Minnesota, especially, you might have seen last week the Biden administration announced a 20-year moratorium on the metals and mining in the Boundary Waters canoe area. There is copper and nickel there, and there's been this long fight between environmentalists and people in industry to avoid the environmental pollution from drilling in the Aquatico and Boundary Waters area. You know, this all brings up this issue of what is for sale in our culture. Last week I talked about two scenarios where if we continue to grow, if we are able to generate productivity from a combination of technology and available resources that will gradually head towards a mortar economy. Under that scenario, if it happens, we will be resource and sync and beauty constrained. under the other scenario, which is a lower EOI, great simplification where we can no longer increase productivity in order to maintain our existing financial claims, we're going to be affordability constrained.

And in either of these scenarios, there becomes the issue of what will be for sale during those times in the natural world, in our own lives, what will we take for granted today that will become for sale tomorrow? So humans are an odd species in that we think that everything belongs to us. Perhaps all species think that we can't know, but it never becomes a problem because what happens in the world of moths stays in the world of moths. The problem with humans is that in partnering with fire the last 200 years, we now neither own things abstractly nor temporarily, and we can actually find reasons to permanently use things up and rationales on ways to do it. So what are we selling now and don't even realize it?

I think just in our normal everyday lives and economic systems, we are selling the oceans. We've traded or sold coral reefs and most large species in the seas for a CO2 buffer. 90% plus of the extra heat added from fossil fuels has gone into the ocean. So it's greatly slowed the warming and the events we experience on land. If we could buy another generation for living the high life and global commerce, who cares if the seas get more carbonated. in very real ways, we're influencing dolphins, whales, seals, swordfish, tuna, and the roughly 25% of sea species that spend time in coral reefs and the ones that cannot exist without calcium

carbonate skeletons. So we're selling that without even reasoning or being aware of it. What else are we selling? We're selling our time. given the benefits from fossil hydrocarbon to our society, the global north should really be working 10 to 15 hour work weeks, if that. But it isn't about work. The fossil armies are doing that work for us.

So these jobs have become this unequal distribution of the monetization of Earth. And jobs provide that rationale while keeping us too busy and tired to consider. to consider what we've done. So there's lots of aspects of our society where we're already selling things that we don't realize. So my friend West Jackson, I think the quote he used was that

leisure is a great enabler of morality or virtue. and we are so rich as a global culture, especially the global north, that we take for granted the beauty, the ecosystems, and even our ethic. We say that we do these things, but we don't really see the externalities of our actions. So in thinking about Lake Superior, in thinking about the metals and mining that will be required as humanity tries to double our footprint again in the next 30 years, when we monetize everything, we wind up selling everything.

So the core messages from my perspective is we've monetized a world that doesn't belong to us. We belong to it. So in the financialization of the human experience, we have arrived at this precipice of biophysical accounting and like some real personal conversations. So this is just a short reflection. and if we can envision that things are going to get tougher and tighter and more economically constrained in the future, maybe listening to this and being aware of the issues on the podcast and in the polycrisis space, use your intellect and your ethical compass today to trump your future emotional mind. What things in your region, your community, your old,

own life, your own principles, your own rules of living might become for sale in coming decades. Similarly, which things for you as a personal live during these amazing and perilous times are a red line and you decide are not for sale and never will be for sale. I think about that and I hope that myself in the future. The future, Nate, is someone that I would be proud to know and the decisions that I make in five years or ten years from now as things economically become more Wiley Coyote and the leisure disappears.

Will our virtue disappear with it? I hope not. And that's a reason I'm doing this work. More in two weeks, I'm traveling starting two hours from now. Thank you all. Talk soon.