The book Toolbox for Sustainable City Living, by Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew, discusses the nitty gritty of composting, raising chickens, aquaponics, bioremediation of polluted land, water purification, and other topics that seem alien to the interests of modern North Americans. I bought it because some friends and I are pondering technologies and skills that may be relevant to meeting the basic nutritional needs of a particular community in Mexico whose residents are so poor they can hardly afford the bus ride to a supermarket.
Yet the authors discuss these practices as part of a sweeping agenda to change the social fabric and living systems of affluent North Americans as well. In the light of global warming, diminishing nonrenewable energy resources, the pollution caused by prevailing industrial and agricultural practices, etc., they believe we urgently need to RADICALLY cut our consumption of resources and make radical lifestyle changes, individually and as communities, to achieve that goal. This involves building living systems in which the inputs, processes, and outputs are ecologically accounted for and controlled locally by the end users. Below are pertinent quotes. More on this perspective is at http://www.radicalsustainability.org and http://www.rhizomecollective.org.
How on or off target do you think the authors’ diagnosis, predictions, and proposed solutions are? Is this the “way forward” for the poor as well as affluent of our world? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
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Quotes from Toolbox for Sustainable City Living:
Cultures of the future will be shocked by the current society’s extreme selfishness and utter lack of regard for future generations. (p. 135)
Even if the planet was covered with solar panels and windmills, it still wouldn’t meet the needs of an economy based on infinite expansion. Without a drastic reduction of resource usage, no sustainable options exist. (p. 135)
When the massive energy inputs required by today’s world are no longer available, humanity will be forced to transition into a low-energy society. If people are wise and have foresight, they will use the energy surpluses that exist today to invest in the development of a sustainable global infrastructure. If the greedy and arrogant path of today’s political and economic leaders is continued, total collapse will be inevitable. The world will experience scarcity and starvation on levels before unknown. (p. 135)
The actions taken in the near future will be critical. A “descent culture” must be created–one that is capable of functioning on the lower energy provided by renewable sources. This low-energy life needn’t be a grim existence. (p. 137)
It is in the interest of sustainable communities to develop autonomous energy. Autonomous energy comes from sources where the means of extraction, development, maintenance, and disposal can be managed completely on the scale of a village-sized community, or by an equivalently sized neighborhood in a city. The energy source must be renewable and non-polluting in nature, decentralized in structure, and most importantly, give total control of its processes to the people who are using it. (p. 138)
Energy sources such as solar panels, big wind farms, tidal power, and large-scale biofuels production are examples of technologies that utilize renewable resources to some degree, yet are still highly centralized in their means of production. While they may be a transition into a more sustainable future, they have considerable social and ecological shortcomings. (p. 138)
The world’s energy problems will not be solved by biofuels, hybrids, hydrogen, clean coal, nuclear power, or any other energy source. Humanity’s current demand for energy is fundamentally unsustainable. The only feasible choice is to conduct a massive downscaling of all economic, industrial, and political operations. A decentralized, autonomous, and locally-based energy infrastructure is ultimately the only sustainable option. (p. 140)
Veggie diesels may make the act of driving somewhat less offensive, but their use does nothing to change one of the least sustainable and most destructive aspects of the modern world–automobile culture. It is important that mass transportation and bicycles be emphasized over any alternatively fueled automobile. (p. 148)
When people today are confronted with climate change, peak oil, and other energy issues, often their main concern is how their standard of living can be maintained. Questions such as “How will I drive?” or “How can I keep my air conditioning?” are more frequently asked than the important ones like “Where will our food and water come from?” or “How will our waste be processed?” Energy is necessary for providing society with its most basic needs. This is commonly forgotten in an age when energy is primarily associated with the electricity that powers the television. (p. 176)
In the near future, enormous investments will be made trying to develop energy sources that can maintain the status quo. Since no known energy source is capable of this, the only rational option is for everyone to get by with less. While many of the autonomous technologies described in this book are helpful transitional tools, they will be of no use unless an ethic of conservation, efficiency, and reduced consumption is adopted. (p. 176)
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BTW, if anybody would like to interact with this at the level of economic theory, seems Herman Daly is an economist to reckon with, who criticizes economic models that assume the goal is sheer growth of products and services without taking into account community well-being. If anybody has read him, I’d love to discuss his views.
Steve
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I like where they’re headed
There’s many advantages to working at a more local, community level. Many of Denver’s neighbourhoods have a little “hubbub” with restaurants, bookstores, yoga/exercise classes, knickknack/yarn/whatever stores, even grocery stores, all within walking or easy biking distance. Many grocery stores provide local grown food or a local grown section and many restaurants at least claim to buy and use products from local farmers in their dishes. I at least notice it, while mom and pop stores often get hit the hardest in a tough economy, there’s still a wide range of unique-to-denver shops that have been able to keep their doors open.
Perhaps needing a little kickstart with appropriate tools and tips-and-tricks(a little applicable education) I can see more impoverished countries actually succeeding better than richer countries.
Kate wrote: “Perhaps needing a little kickstart with appropriate tools and tips-and-tricks(a little applicable education) I can see more impoverished countries actually succeeding better than richer countries.”
I find this suggestion extremely intriguing, especially depending on how “success” is defined. I gather there’s nothing easy about getting such stuff to “take” in a culture…. Just finished reading a great little book on this called The Human Farm. Very enlightening stories.