The New Economy

From Here to There

With the "discovery" that 70% of the American economy was based on consumption, the current economic slowdown has hit many of us and effected many parts of our daily lives.

So for me, the questions that seems to rise to the surface are this.

What kind of an economy do we need which will allow us to live within our means (i.e. much less credit) yet still maintain a healthy and vibrant lifestyle?

If we are not in a position to buy so much stuff, we will move our focus to those things we really have to have. And what are they? Well let's start at the very beginning and food and clean water. We will always need food and water, and the healthier the better.

In the years ahead, I expect many Americans to start adding food growing into their lives. I do not see us all heading back to the farm but the expectation of digging in the dirt a few hours every day would not be unreasonable. I also find it therapeutic as long as it is not a grueling all day/every day routine.

But I am speaking about much more than lots and lots of gardens everywhere, I am talking about creating the "industry of small-scale urban farming." This section of the economy includes every task required to maintain a sustainable food production system. This includes Food farmers, market stands, seed growers, animal husbandry, and composters. We will also be reviving the arts of reusing, repairing and refurbishing out possessions. The stuff that is left over can then be recycled in local centers.

I do not believe that we should set up giant corporate networks to capture all this new business, I am more suggesting that as the economy continues to contract, as I think it will, we will see these kind of business networks emerging out of the growing realizations that the "new normal" will look substantially different than the "previous normal."

The City of Berkeley Zero Waste Commission has taken this even further by stating the following:

Reduce – Just use less. We are so use to thinking more is better that we have forgotten that using less is sometimes better.

Reuse - Stop throwing things away. So many items can be used again and again if not by you then by someone else.

Repair – Reclaim the lost art of fixing things. Many items just require a bit of effort to make them usable once again.

Rebuild – Complex items are well worth the effort and can end up better, stronger or more powerful that the earlier generation.

Refurbish – Sometimes it only takes a little sprucing up to be ready for use.

Refinish – Adding a new cover, color, or stain can make all the difference.

Resell – If it has value others may very well buy it from you. Ebay and others are growing rapidly!

Recycle - Send it back to be used again. Support your local recycling center.

Compost – Send it back to the earth – literally!

If this is not possible then the item should be restricted, redesigned or removed from production.

In addition to food and water we need shelter and clothing. The McMansions are on the verge of being converted into large shared homes. When we look back from the not too distant future, will smile to have all these enormous homes. Concepts like cohousing, shared housing, coops and a host of other as yet unnamed living arrangements will fill these voids. Hell an owner and their bank will be happy to get "rent" from a bunch of unrelated folks before letting the house rot away. But new housing will also reemerge in a new and shrunken variety. Katrina cottages have helped to bring the small home back into vogue, right when economic realities offer us little choice.

More to come...

Fix it? Now I am Really Confused.

I was reading recently about how the various futuristic pundits see how our current economic challenges will be evolving in the months a years to come. Many of these "knowledgeable" folks see the economic contraction we have been experiencing over the past year or so, continuing for at least a while longer. In addition, similar to a post of mine a few months ago, the ongoing promise that at some point in the not-too-distant future, things will "bottom out" and we will be back on the road to financial abundance. I just do not see much real evidence of this at this point in our collective journey.

I am starting to realize that many Americans are being shown a very powerful and perhaps life changing picture right now. For the vast majority of us we have only known the limitless abundance of a consumer culture, and we were convinced it would never need to slow down. But now it appears that the piper is calling and we are loathe to hear what he has to say. I read almost everyday that the economy is gaining strength and we are headed for a rebound. The fact that some Banks are showing profit is ludicrous to highlight since we recently gave them ten's of billions of dollars. And in case no one has noticed they have not been dolling it out very swiftly. It has to make their balance sheet look better!

So if all this economic activity is not filtering itself down to the common folk, what are we to expect? Well, I think it will be fair to say that we can expect to consume less in the years to come. We need some time to start paying off our debt and learning the joys of saving money for a change.

I predict that in the future,when that lawn mover, or drill, or God forbid the DVD player start acting up, instead of just tossing it away, we just might revert to that ancient tactic of fixing it. Huh? I realize this may make no sense to many of you so let me try to explain.

Not all that long ago say in the early 60's, I can clearly remember hanging out with my Dad in the garage which doubled as his personal workshop. We would spend hour after hour with one another while he worked on stuff. I also remember that a significant amount of his effort went into fixing things. In simplest terms it means that when some household or recreational item stopped working as planned, he would take it into his workshop, get out his bright lights and special glasses that made everything look really big, and actually take the object apart and try to see what was the problem. It was truly fascinating and I often emulated him by taking many of my toys apart just to see what was inside.

I remember vividly taking going with my Dad and a shoebox full of glass "tubes" down to the electronics store and plugging them into the tube tester. The ones that register BAD were replaced by new versions. Then we would drive back home, put them all back into their respective sockets, flip the switch, and watch the radio or TV or tape player come back to life. It was almost magical!

The coming years are going to give us the chance, if we take it, to learn both how to fix things as well as make more and more things that can be fixed. Since there is no way we can spend our way out of our predicament, I suspect we will be forced to re-learn how to make things that last and when necessary, fix them when they break.

And maybe, just maybe, we will get to spend a bit more time with one another around the workbench instead of blissed out in front of the 52 inch HD plasma screen that virtually no one knows how to fix.

Read Anything Good Lately?

Over the past month or so I have found myself engrossed reading a number of very interesting books. While they are all quite different, they all fall under the overarching heading of resource depletion.

The first book, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate by Pat Murphy, describes in great detail a wide variety of actions we can do as individuals and as communities to deal with the coming challenges posed by the twin issues of Peak Oil and Climate Change. This book is packed full of information and should be required reading for any serious student of resource trends.

The second book which I suspect will become one of my favorites of all time is World Made by Hand by James Howard Kunstler. This near-future fictional depiction of life after the end of the oil age is both touching and disturbing. Because it takes place in the not-to-distant future, the remnants of our overly consumerist society are still very present. His attention to detail brings the challenges and success for the characters right into our hearts.

The third book, and one that is receiving a great deal of coverage these days, is Jeff Rubin's Why Your World is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller: Oil and the End of Globalization. Jeff is the chief economist and chief strategist at CIBC World Markets and was one of the first economists to accurately predict soaring oil prices back in 2000 and is now one of the world’s most sought-after energy experts. Jeff clearly lays out his decades of experience and makes an extremely convincing argument why importing plastic toilet seats from China and caesar salads from across the continent, will be totally uneconomical in the not too distant future.

Recreating Local Economies

With the growing expectation that abundant and inexpensive fossil fuels are quickly becoming a thing of the past, there is increasing talk about the need to recreate local economies. However, one of the largest challenges facing Americans, is that for almost anyone now alive, understanding exactly what that means is far from clear. We have grown up under the creation of global networks that bring us almost everything from baby bottles to toilet seats from across the globe. A growing circle of experts are sowing doubt about the feasibility of keeping 13,000 mile supply chains strong and financially competitive in the absence of inexpensive oil.

I do want to be clear that creating local economies which supply us with everything we need is both impossible and unnecessary. But shifting the current balance from 95% non-local to more like 75% local is worth the effort and would have a tremendous positive reduction on our usage of non-renewable liquid fuels like oil and natural gas.

The task of first re-imaging and then taking the necessary steps to implement a local economy, is both a necessary and imposing task. Because this is such an important topic these days, I feel a need to begin a series of posts which focus on how this kind of local economy would work and what would be the most critical elements to begin the process.

A concept of this magnitude needs a framework within which to help organize a coherent response. It feels obvious to me that I must lay out what elements are the most important and then drill down into each area over time. The areas I see as most critical include, food, energy, shelter, and clothing. By designing re-localized economies that can consistently provide us with these basics, I believe we can lay the foundation for resilient local economies.

Stay tuned...

Put GM to Good Use

Now that General Motors has successfully hidden under the protection of Chapter 11, closed thousands of its dealerships and laid off tens of thousands of it loyal employees, it is high time we make them accountable to their new owners - us! If the car companies have any future at all, it should be based on making products we urgently need - starting with public transit. Let the car era wind down gracefully. I project that the program to offer "cash for clunkers" will have a negligible effect on domestic car sales and even less impact on our national carbon emissions.

It is becoming ever clearer that the "Happy Motoring" era is over and we need to rapidly devote our remaining resources to re-localization, walkable communities, and public transit. It obviously requires a very drastic revision of our current collective self-image, of what we aspire to and who we are.

Instead of spending tens of billions of hard-to-justify dollars studying how to implement a high-speed railroad system, the most intelligent choice for us is to fix the existing passenger railroad lines and start cranking out ultra modern passenger cars that will be a joy to ride. We need to prioritize the highway maintenance agenda. Since we will not be able to afford to repave the whole existing system -- and let other nations meet our diminishing demand for cars in the USA.

Preparing for Coming Changes - LEARN

For those who understand where American's energy use is heading, here is a list five actions which will be necessary to help us prepare for the imminent decline of finite fossil fuels.

Source: www.solarcarandtractor.com

(L)OCALIZE agriculture, energy production, social services, essential manufacturing, etc. All will have to regress to a limited “twenty-mile radius” community. This will not be a choice. The inevitable curtailment of transportation fuel will reduce future travel. Intercity light rail will be impossible without energy. www.postcarbon.org.

(E)DUCATE yourself and others. We passed peak oil in late 2008. Natural gas, coal, and fissionable uranium are not far behind. Without ever-increasing energy, real growth, including a debt-based financial system based on future principal plus interest, cannot continue. Recognize the fallacies of bogus solutions like: “There’s plenty left”; “The scientists will save us”; “We can efficiency our way out of our dilemma (not if we don’t reduce consumption)”; “Biofuels, including waste, cellulosic ethanol, and grease will suffice” (at the expense of food). The honest facts must reach the public, the media, and decision-makers even in the midst of denial. Start with www.peakoil.net, www.theoildrum.com, www.321energy.com, etc.

(A)DAPT to a very limited solar-electric future as our only hope of perpetuating any semblance of the brief fossil-fuel age. This vision could be sustainable, clean, and far superior to our ancestor’s harsh existence. A solar-electric sequel could integrate with waning fossil fuels and all other energy sources such as limited hydro or geothermal into a modern electrically-based system and allow individuals to take control of their own production with PV. Also included are wind and concentrated solar.

(R)ATION all fossil fuels starting immediately with gasoline. This is the only way we can reduce consumption on a controlled basis without increasing price-competition and conflict over the remains. Rationing is probably our best chance to buy time for mitigation and give our kids a chance for the remnants of the party.

(N)EGATIVE population growth. This is the toughest and most critical issue. With peak oil we have passed peak growth. Our short cornucopia of excess resources (including fossil fuels and all natural resources) has ended. We have far too many people in the US and the world for a sustainable civilization. If we don’t get the correct facts out and convince people to begin negative population growth, mother nature will reduce population in her own cruel ways. See www.npg.org, www.optimumpopulation.org, www.worldpopulationbalance.org and others.

L.E.A.R.N. - We all need to understand and project this acronym.

Coming to a Yard Near You

The average plate of food travels over 1500 miles to get from the field to your plate. In the process it consumes copious amount of fossil fuels and ends up less than fresh the day it lands on your grocery store shelf.

What if there was a way to bring the growing of fresh fruits and vegetables closer to home? What if we were to take the dramatic step of moving the fields right into our own neighborhoods?

Consider Neighborhood Supported Agriculture.

By converting a small portion of the millions of acres of Kentucky Bluegrass that surround our homes with organic vegetable gardens and orchards we have the opportunity to greatly reduce our dependence on the fossil fuels required to plant, fertilize, harvest, process, pack and transport our food.

In Boulder, Colorado an innovative Neighborhood Supported Agriculture model is bringing local food production and distribution into urban settings. A 3 ½ year old urban farming project called Community Roots Farm was created by farmer Kipp Nash, who has successfully converted 13 front and back yards, and church lawns into vegetable gardens for neighbors and CSA shareholders, with surplus for the local Farmer’s Market and food for families in need - while creating increased community connections among neighbors at the same time.

This model which is being studied in order to help replicate it across the nation is at the forefront of the urban agriculture or locavore movement.

As the economic contraction continues and the cost of oil begin to go up again, the ability to eat locally produced organic food may become one of the most important aspects of sustainability.