What the Low Carbon Economy Can Learn from Zombies
Link to this post: http://www.lowcarboneconomy.com/_low_carbon_blog#blog4074
Or Why A Fictional Zombie World War Holds Seven Lessons for Us All
An unlikely premise I know, but as I was reading 'World War Z - An Oral History of the Zombie War *' I realised that there are perhaps lessons to be learnt. The book tells the story (retrospectively through the eyes of the survivors) of a global war between humanity and the undead that starts as a few isolated outbreaks of a poorly characterised 'African Rabies' disease and in a matter of weeks becomes a global pandemic of infection, in line with typical zombie guidelines. Infection is spread when zombie 'blood' enters a living person's bloodstream. When that person dies, they reanimate as a zombie with an insatiable thirst for blood, very limited intelligence and a variety of darkly comedic disfigurements. As the infection spreads, humanity retreats to various safe zones and attempts to survive, eventually succeeding in going on the offensive and largely retaking the planet from the zombies.
So what on earth has that got to do with a low carbon economy? Perhaps the most resonant thing for me was the perspective - the fictional survivors were looking back after a global disaster. That seems a poignant juxtaposition with the situation that humanity finds itself in in 2009 with the strong possibility of global disasters (albeit probably of a different nature) in the near future.
1. Unpredictability
In the book, no one predicted or expected a worldwide uprising of the undead. Whilst there are certainly some global threats we can see looming on the horizon: climate change, flu pandemic, over-population, water/food shortages or an asteroid impact, there are surely more possible disasters than this ahead of us, particularly those of our own making. Which one(s) will hit us, when and where are all questions we just can't answer. So what can we learn from unpredictability? I guess my biggest take-home is the importance of a balanced portfolio - ensuring we don't spend so much money on war that we are unable to invest in sustainability, balancing complexity with simplicity to ensure we're not all totally dependent on international supply chains and centrally-dependent technologies and ensuring there is enough redundancy and sustainability in the things we can’t live without: the environment being a prime example.
2. Rapid Onset
Zombie infection is an exponential process. If you assume that each zombie will infect (on average) one new person, the rate of infection doubles at every iteration. In the book, the true nature of the infection is kept hidden by national leaders for reasons of 'national security'. This leads to two phenomena: the relatively paucity of resources put to preventing the spread of infection, and perhaps more crucially a delay before most of the world even knows there is a problem, let alone can start to take defensive measures. In an environment where a problem is growing exponentially, the speed of response is critical - in a medical emergency they say there is a golden hour during which time the recovery rate is significantly higher. In the case of climate change, energy security and resource management, our problems are growing exponentially (in line not only with human population growth, but in the per capita consumption of resources). We need to start acting seriously now.
3. Effective Communications
Leading on from the problem that governments were keener to hide infection outbreaks than to communicate them, the human population in the book suffers unnecessary and grievous losses which leads to 'The Great Panic' where no one knows the true nature of the infection, survival techniques or even basic information about the zombies. Different media outlets delivered conflicting messages that lead billions of people to simply 'Go North' where the freezing temperatures will freeze the zombies solid and offer some degree of protection. However, many millions of people die because they are ill-prepared for the new environment in which they find themselves. Either they didn't know what to take, it wasn't available, or they expected the provisions to be provided once they got there. To move to a low carbon economy (read low zombie economy?), we need effective, consolidated communications, worldwide. We also need to ensure that we have redundancy in communications. The internet is the ultimate communications platform – we have that on our side – but it’s not something we should take for granted.
4. Importance of Localised Sustainability
To survive, we need surprisingly few (physical!) basics: food, water and shelter and basic healthcare. It worries me how dependent so much of the UK is completely dependent on supermarkets for almost all their food and clothing, which are in turn dependent on highly complex global supply chains. As for shelter, our houses are well built, but without national gas, electricity, fresh water and wastewater infrastructures, they’re little more than draught-proof, secure caves. Surprisingly few people could put you in the recovery position correctly, let alone treat an infection or set a broken arm. In short, we’ve lost a lot of our independence as individuals and small groups – in order for our society to advance and increase in complexity, we’ve specialised. Have we got the balance right or should our education include more basic life skills such as first aid and growing food? According to World War Z, basic survival skills were the ones in shortest supply during the war and aftermath.
5. Cooperation
Working together as humans. The characters in the book are forced to redraw national borders and to cooperate closer than ever the world’s population had since humans first left Africa. There are too many of us, and our technologies are too advanced for this one planet to support an indefinite arms race within the human species. I’m not talking about saving the planet: I’m talking about saving ourselves, these astonishing civilisations we’ve built and the knowledge we’ve earned with blood, sweat and tears. We need to acknowledge that we are part god and part devil, part order and part chaos, that dominance and hierarchy are part of our heritage and to find ways to work with that nature to find positive and constructive outlets for our less positive traits and cooperate as one species. I’m not being idealistic here, there will always be conflict and struggle to some extent, but we need to ensure that the overall trend is sustainable. The book describes many isolated pockets of survivors that manage to defend against the zombies for years, with apparently sufficient physical resources to survive, yet some of which collapse through social disintegration. Was that inevitable given the effects of such stress, or could they have made it through with a different mindset and culture?
6. Crisis = Challenge + Opportunity
I know it sounds like either an HSBC ad or a semantic yin and yang symbol, but it is a universal truth. In the book, I felt that the most important opportunity was for the survivors to be able to rebuild civilisation in their own image. Some countries and international communities took the opportunity to forge strong frameworks for international cooperation and rebuilding, for airing out the social frameworks that had governed before the war. In the low carbon economy, I think our greatest opportunity is the we have the same chance: to rebuild the world in our own image. The work that we have ahead of us is formidable, yet exciting. Never have we faced so many challenges of such gravity. In both scenarios the raw capacity for innovation and problem-solving is humanity’s greatest asset.
7. Global Impact of National Decisions
The book tells how the decisions of various countries around the world affect the unfolding of the war. Some countries work hard to control information about the outbreaks, for reasons of national security, whilst others simply fail to deal with the information effectively and coordinate effective communications. The countries that deliberately hide their outbreaks are considered to have hampered the rest of the world’s ability to coordinate an effective and swift response by providing the opportunity for infected people to be smuggled across borders and thus spread the infection further. In a similar way, countries whose governments either deny the need for a low carbon economy, or are failing to provide a proactive national strategy for transition are likewise threatening the ability of the international community to tackle the challenges we face.
These seven lessons help guide and motivate us (well me anyway) here at LowCarbonEconomy.com to build a central resource for the transition to a low carbon economy. Join us and help the world fight zombies, sorry, carbon.
*Not my usual reading matter, but I quite enjoyed it!
Discussion Replies
Age of Stupid
wrote:
Just watched this - a similar idea - future generations looking back and wondering why humanity didn't save itself.
Even the BBC agrees...
wrote:
If zombies actually existed, an attack by them would lead to the collapse of civilisation unless dealt with quickly and aggressively.
OK so perhaps they haven't seen the whole zombie comparison yet, but in time I'm sure they will...