I was talking with some friends and what came out of the discussion was why I believe that localization matters so much. Another comment that arose out of that discussion was the notion that we must rebel against the globalized society to become sustainable. Let me say straight away, I don’t think we need to get rid of the globalized society because it has immense benefits but it cannot be the dominant factor in our lives as its current incarnation exists. I see a sustainable world where localized systems are dominant in how we live sustainable, but that the globalized system will co-exist along side the local systems. It will be a blending that maintains a technological future that aligns spiritually with a humanity that practices a mindful awareness of all life on the planet as a single system.
Let me be clear here. I think we will condense down to smaller enclaves everywhere, but to have technological manufacturing at only the local level is not only inefficient but impractical. To have a million micro-manufacturing systems for complex manufacturing of components for computer systems for example, would be ridiculously redundant. Some industries because of their complex nature will need more centralization around the world, but a world run by mega-corporations will be a thing of this era, not the coming sustainability era. I see future centralized manufacturing more like a cooperative endeavor overseen by regional councils represented by the multitude of sustainable enclaves. I have talked briefly about this but let me expand on what could be a model for a world living sustainably.
First, let me revisit what we think about the past. When we look at how most people lived before the industrial revolution, it was as low technology, generally poor monetarily, but self-sufficient, agrarian, peasant communities (see earlier posts 1, 2 and 3). Everything a peasant community needed, such as tools, carts, wagons, and homes was done with local materials by local crafts people. Food was grown locally, and more often than not, collaboratively within the community. Like indigenous communities, peasant communities relied on each other for survival and had to be self-reliant. A big difference was that most peasant communities were paternalistic, and while they appreciated the land, saw it as a resource, and not with the deep spiritual connection that indigenous societies exhibited. Another big difference was that indigenous communities were more autonomous while peasant communities existed within a hierarchical monarchy or empire.
We need self-sufficiency in all our future local communities, but as Jared Diamond emphasized in his book ‘The World until Yesterday’ we can learn a lot from the best ideas of indigenous societies. Their lives were dominated by tribal social norms generally dictated by resource control. Technology needing more energy was also a limiting factor. A question I asked students in my worldviews class was what might the world have looked like had an indigenous society developed high-level technology and large-scale communities and kept their spiritual values? First, dispel the romantic notion that indigenous societies were paragons of ecological virtue that lived unobtrusively off the land. Once humans left hunter-gathering behind, they started changing the land for agriculture. The difference is modifying with organic farming versus using modern chemical destruction of the land.
One of the most amazing things about the destruction of the Amazon Rain Forest for modern farming and grazing is the revelation that the amazon basin is not a pristine and virgin ecosystem. While popularized by writer Graham Hancock, South American Anthropologists, for many years have been finding the remains of large towns and even cities that existed throughout the Amazon basin. In 1542, Spanish explorer and conquistador, Francisco de Orellana, inadvertently travelled the length of the Amazon River from Ecuador to its mouth on the Atlantic Ocean. Along the way he described seeing numerous large towns with extensive farms that grew extensive types of crops. For reasons unknown, but probably because of some epidemic like Smallpox introduced by the explorers, all evidence of inhabitants and these highly-developed towns were gone only a few years later as the rain forest quickly covered them.
Amazon Basin soils are typical poor in nutrients, but researchers find that soils in and around the remains of these rediscovered ruins are unusually rich in nutrients. Further investigation has shown that these farmers seen by Francisco de Orellana used a unique process that regenerated soil in the region. They created soils that kept their mineral richness and productivity for years. Even today after hundreds of years of rain forest growth over them, these soils are still rich and fertile. These soils, known as Terra Preta (black soil in Portuguese) is rich in organic material, minerals and beneficial microorganisms, containing large amounts of biochar (charcoal) that gives the soil its dark color. This loamy biochar soil has a high carbon content, so it retains nutrients and prevents them from leaching during heavy rain. Yet, this soil retains enough water to lessens run-off, that in turn attracts beneficial micro-organisms requiring less additional fertilizer need for a soil that can last years (centuries to date now).
Sadly, we know almost nothing about the societal structure of the high-level societal peoples living in this region. We can infer from other native peoples like the Aztec, Inca, and Maya, but even then, our knowledge of these empires is viewed through the societal lens of the conquistadors. We may never whether they were like these empires, off-shoots of them, or a unique indigenous advanced system living sustainably. Nevertheless, what they knew about farming in marginal areas of nutrition gives us a hopeful and unique model to extrapolate to our own future.
As a guest blogger on another environmental blog site, I recently offered five items that must be part of our developing a localized society in which each enclave is self-sufficient even as it is connected to the global society. I don’t seen globalization going away, but it cannot continue in its present form as a transnational corporately controlled system. The advantage of modern living is that globalization has made us a global system, yet it is failing because of the hierarchical control. I think we could have a global society that lives sustainably, but not in the near future; maybe decades from now. As I envision it, we will become sustainable at the grassroots-local level and then create a global interconnected system of sustainability without the need for some global hierarchical controlling body. As I have also said often, our current systems are deconstructing on their own. So, it is now time to rethink about reconstructing them anew – something we could not do for the longest time. I no longer believe that this can happen from the top-down. It is just too corrupt and incapable of changing. It is already unravelling and we will soon be living more locally whether we like it or not. That will be the impetus to rebuild the world as we want it.
So, to help those who need a bulleted list of essentials and not just ideas, here is a start of five things that we must do to develop local self-sufficiency and resiliency. I’ll cover them in-depth in the next few weeks.
item number one: Mindfulness. We must start being mindful and conscious of every thought and action. A question to ask yourself every day,” What will the world look like when we are all enlightened, and practice mindfulness.”
Item number two: New Economics. Since the 1980s, the world has been caught in a whirlwind of economic transformation called ‘Globalization.’ While it has had many benefits, one major consequence has been the erosion of local economic systems, knowledge, and supply chains (e.g., The Walmart Effect).
Item number three: New Metrics: Redefine what success means for your community.
Item number four: Food resiliency. This is important since true resilience means creative thinking about how communities regenerate themselves for self-sufficiency.
Item number five: Energy resiliency. Our lives revolve around technology that uses energy, and we need to control it at the local level.
To Be Continued ……………..
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