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By Chris Clugston

Our American way of life is unsustainable; rather than attempting to perpetuate it, we must transition beyond it—quickly. Should we fail to do so, our society will collapse—in the not–too–distant future…

Message to mainstream America: our American way of life—300+ million people enjoying historically unprecedented living standards—has been enabled by our increasingly dysfunctional ecological and economic behavior over the past 200 years. Our existing way of life is therefore unsustainable; in fact, America is facing imminent societal collapse.

Message to the informed few: we must overcome our tendency to waste increasingly limited time and resources on futile attempts to resolve problems associated with natural resource depletion, or natural habitat degradation, or climate change, or overpopulation, or the economic crisis du jour. These problems will only be resolved through the resolution of our fundamental “predicament”: our American way of life is unsustainable.

There is only one solution to our predicament, and to all of its derivative ecological and economic problems. We must, as a society, transition quickly and beginning immediately to a sustainable lifestyle paradigm, one in which we live entirely within our means ecologically and economically—forever. Any alternative course of action will, at best, only briefly postpone societal collapse.

The solution to our predicament is simple and straightforward; it is our incessant attempts to evade, avoid, and circumvent this solution that are complicated, convoluted, and ultimately suicidal.

The American Perspective

Since the inception of our American industrial revolution in the early 19th century, our access to seemingly unlimited ecological resources and economic resources has enabled historically unprecedented improvements in our material wellbeing. Between the years 1800 and 2006, our population level increased by over 50 times—from 5.3 million to 300 million1. During the same period, the size of our economy, as defined by annual US Gross Domestic Product (GDP), increased by over 1600 times—from $8 billion to $13.2 trillion (2006 dollars)[1]!

As a result, our average material living standard, as defined by annual per capita GDP, increased by a phenomenal 29 times—from $1,500 to $44,000 (2006 dollars)1—despite our 50X growth in population!!

THIS ARTICLE CONTINUES AT ENERGY BULLETIN