Hi Elan,
I strongly agree with your advocacy of personal sustainability. You
suggest, however, that policy changes are not the main way to solve the
problem:
On Wed, 11 Jun 2008 11:01:44 -0400 Elan Shapiro
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
when we face vast challenges like global warming, habitat
> destruction, growing income inequities, rising fuel and food costs,
> and social fragmentation, it's easy to assume that policy changes are
> the main way to deal with the problems. It's also easy to feel
> isolated, overwhelmed, and "too-busy-to-deal-with-it-all;" unable to
> afford the more expensive aspects of green living; and trapped in a
> culture where our car, computer, and media dependencies encourage us
> to live at a frenzied, self-destructive pace. It's easy, in short, to
> feel powerless.
I propose a different interpretation, one that includes yours, but
recognizes that we are not only "trapped in a culture" (a set of values
and beliefs) but also trapped in a political economy (and the policy
framework that sustains it) that makes significant personal change
impossible without great personal sacrifice. Individuals will make only
so much sacrifice unless policy changes reward and enforce lifestyle
changes across the whole society or at least the local community. Policy
changes are necessary to reconfigure the economy to eliminate the
dependencies you point to, on social structural elements like car
transport, suburbanism, the distance food system, and what Wendell Berry
long ago called the colonial economy. This last element of our political
economy creates inequality, then poverty, then social conflict, crime and
the prison industrial complex.
Sufficient policy change will occur only if forced on governing elites by
mass movements. Political education creates mass movements. This is where
your personal sustainability comes in. People who are willing and able to
model at least some of the necessary changes in our lives (that the end
of cheap energy will eventually force on everyone) AND DO IT IN WAYS THAT
MAXIMIZE POLITICAL EDUCATION, can make personal sustainability serve the
ultimate goal of restructuring our economy and resource use.
A local example is our Ithaca Farmers Market. Only a tiny fraction of the
food consumed in the Tompkins County foodshed comes through that market.
After all these years it has had little impact on the local food system.
I believe that is because we built the institution to serve limited
goals. We should have built it as part of an aggressive political
strategy to build a local mass movement. Those of us who did think of it
in political terms assumed that this food production and market model
would simply proliferate once we showed the way. How naive! As soon as
our farm was involved in the development of the market 20 years ago,
people would tell me, "We can't afford that food!"
The point is, it is unfair and unrealistic to expect individuals to
change significantly without policy changes that enforce change on
everyone. Moreover, without structural changes in the political economy
to pave the way and make lifestyle change fair and accessible for
everyone, little will happen until the shit really begins to hit the fan,
and cause great suffering.
My two cents,
Karl North
Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA
www.geocities.com/northsheep/
"Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard
"Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying
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