In contrast to the stark, short-sighted, and overly confident editorial in The Groton Herald’s December 9th edition, “A Plan to ‘Reform’ and ‘Save’ Groton Center [and other 'Villages'], the community of Groton, its character and ideals, its preservation-mindedness, its planning for a common and shared future, its recognition of interconnectedness to larger systems which govern it, that being the systems of Earth, these things are not simply the result of the presence of money, as The Herald asserts. Nor are they habits of 40 years of thought that The Herald mentions as solid ground for future planning. Great, forty years, thanks for the trajectory. Neither are they the result, according to The Herald, of “thousands of mostly private decisions….a kind of ‘race to the top.’”
Wow! What’s the view from the top? What does the road down look like? What do you propose we do to plan for the decline of the systems which support life on the planet, the ones on the other side of the hill, (or the top of whatever you are looking down from)?
Let’s be straight here. How can a village exist, not the one in quotes, but the real one, without people to live in it, and make it livable and walkable, edible, lovely, lush, responsive, caring, slowing down, sharing, growing, buying, building, …You can imagine, right?
News Flash; systems and conditions for life are declining rapidly (soil, atmospheric and climate, water, all the ones responsible for our food base) world markets are closing and shutting down, populations are expanding and changing, and Groton’s character will not be decided by the colors of paint chosen for the architectural styles of the historic district.
Our town character is defined by all its citizens (whether or not we are aware) and how we choose to adapt and cultivate solutions that our children and grand children can abide by. Our character will be apparent in the design, retrofit and restoration of neighborhoods and villages that foster resiliency and true community in the face of a very different, less materially rich American landscape.
Can you answer me this? How will you propose to feed the community in the near future on 1/4 of the abundance of life that exists presently, or in a climate that is hundreds of times more extreme, and unreliable, and thus less conducive to an already teetering suburban ideal, and on a small fraction of the energy in the way of fossil fuels that we can’t seem to curb in the way of profligate consumption?
In his book, The Long Emergency (2005), James Howard Kunstler states that “The tragic truth is that much of suburbia is unreformable. It does not lend itself to being retrofitted into the kind of mixed-use, smaller-scaled, more fine-grained walkable environments we will need to carry on daily life in the coming age of greatly reduced motoring. Nor is a Jolly Green Giant going to come and pick up the millions of suburban houses on their half-acre lots on cul-de-sac streets in the far-flung subdivisions and set them back down closer together to make more civic environments. Instead, the suburban real estate, including the chipboard and vinyl McHouses, the strip malls, the office parks, and all the other components, will enter a phase of rapid and cruel devaluation. Many of the suburban subdivisions will become the slums of the future.”
I think we better start reframing the discussion, don’t you? And maybe take the long view, shall we? Though, as you say, is the view, the short one, I am surmising, “just too precious a portion of our collective ‘treasure’”‘?
And with regard to the Herald’s paranoid assertion that addressing the lack of equity and affordability in the town, that planning for a just, shared and livable future is somehow “social engineering”; Is not 2-acre zoning social engineering? Are not the hundreds of thousands of ads that we have seen by adulthood a different social engineering? Is not the linear growth-based economic model, not based in any science whatsoever, and designed to keep us on a track of destructive consumption, social engineering? Is not the fact that most of the people in this town are white not the result of much social engineering? Is not the whole premise and promise of the suburb, replete with two car garage, SUV, and remoteness from pretty much everything not social engineering? Is not the fact that many of our children (or us adults) sadly do not know where our food comes from the result of social engineering?
The bottom line is that we have to learn how to share more of what is left of the land base (with an additional, coming soon, two billion people) and learn new ways of thinking about what it means to be a community with far fewer resources to share, and infuse our ever fleeting notion of town character with some new breath and life.
We need a new paradigm! One in support of progressive community response to changing realities, if we are to create a viable future for our children. We can appreciate and preserve the oldest and most beautiful of our houses at the same time that we can recognize the need to retrofit and expand upon the ideals and actions which have helped to preserve them, as a community. Envision people living together, sharing parks, benches, gardens, public theaters, music, adult learning and skill sharing, local bartering banks, um, free movies. Culture…
The longer we wait to frame a viable plan for a future with inherently less of the conveniences we think we are so entitled to, the more intractable, expensive, and difficult will be the problems we face, and the more painful and inconvenient the transition we will have to make. If we can start being more honest about the issues we face, maybe we can then see that the conveniences we so cherish would be gladly traded in for a more secure and equitable future, and that those supposed conveniences were really part of the problem to begin with, based on a woefully inflated sense of entitlement and self importance, and shortsightedness for the future.
I am sorry to sound like such a bad apple. But hey, gleaners all over the country are collecting the otherwise bruised or slightly damaged fruit before they all go on the waste heap as so much unrealized potential energy and sustenance, and are redistributing them to those people who wouldn’t mind a little imperfection, or don’t otherwise have a choice in the matter. For beholding perfection, be it in an apple or anything else, is a very subjective thing.
Respectfully,
Lisa Wiesner
Fitch’s Bridge Road
(7 votes, average: 2.71 out of 5)
Loading ...
Related posts:
Lisa,
The answer to your question (pasted below) is patently simple –> through advances in technology.
The same way similar challenges have been tackled for the past tens of thousands of years.
The notion that our world is in any danger of running out of food or energy sources ignores all progress in recorded human history.
Your siting of Kunstler as any kind of expert in this arena is laughable — just another in a long line of doom and gloom social architects in league with discredited forebears like Paul Erlich and Thomas Malthus. He’s a third rate science fiction novelist who has no formal training in the fields in which he presents himself as an expert. Kunstler is to economics as L. Ron Hubbard is to religion.
Sorry, but I’m not willing to move back into some communal cave.
QUOTE:
“Can you answer me this? How will you propose to feed the community in the near future on 1/4 of the abundance of life that exists presently, or in a climate that is hundreds of times more extreme, and unreliable, and thus less conducive to an already teetering suburban ideal, and on a small fraction of the energy in the way of fossil fuels that we can’t seem to curb in the way of profligate consumption?”
Hi, Wayne, thank you for your reply. I am no expert either, and I do not want to sound like a third rate novelist, or someone who thrives on doom and gloom, but on the other side of that coin are the technocrats who think that technology will save the day, no matter what comes down the pike. It is true that there are some amazing technological advances that will go a ways toward helping to solve some of our most intractable problems, but they are not going to go the entire way, and not without their own associated costs. Maybe it is a balance of taking the best of those tools to help solve some of our toughest problems, realizing that it is only a part of a much larger set of solutions that are not just technology-based.
I would not have quoted Kunstler to elucidate an economic paradigm. His quote elucidated the problem of bad design, or at least design based upon the mistaken idea that growth can continue forever and that prosperity is a given for the blessed American way. Rather, I would have mentioned Herman Daly (“Beyond Growth”), or Richard Heinberg (“Peak Everything”), or Bill McKibben (“Deep Economy”). Please check Daly out. I wanted to post a reference, but lost this page in trying to a minute ago, and don’t want to have to rewrite this again (I have not yet mastered this technology!). Daly is an ecological economist not in line with popular mainstream economic theory. To paraphrase, “if economics is a religion, which it is, then daly is the ultimate heretic.” He is about steady state, post growth economics, based on the science of nature, and the laws of thermodynamics. Please apprise me of an economic theory that can counter his sound approach and understanding of the systems which govern our economy, and our technologies.
I don’t think we can judge the effectiveness that technology will have toward solving some of our current issues until we can agree about the extent or breadth of those current issues. Are we on the same page about climate change, peak oil, ecosystem decline? I am not sure how technology, based on a steady supply of energy and raw materials for manufacture, and application, can replace the millions of species that will be extinct by the end of the century, or provide the free ecosystem services that will be concurrently lost with their demise, let alone keep pace with a burgeoning population slow to transition off fossil fuels, in a very different climate.
Also, if we can recognize that we are in a post peak period as a society, please see “Peak Everything” by Richard Heinberg, that fossil fuels pretty much define our cushioned existence, and that they are on the wane, maybe we can creatively, and proactively, minus all the gloom and doom, go about fashioning a descent from the peak which is about validating all that makes us human and able to share and live in community, and without the need for a communal cave, unless of course, you like that kind of thing. Technology is not going to teach us or help us how to be more human and resilient in uncertain times. Rather, don’t we inform technology. Ok, I hope we can continue this conversation. Please also see Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff, and Chris Martenson’s Crash Course. And send some books or literature that you think would help, too. One more that I just bought because of its title, provocative to me, Whole earth Discipline; Why Dense Cities, Nuclear Power, Transgenic Crops, Restored Wildlands, And Geoengineering Are Necessary. The book was written by Stuart Brand, of Whole Earth Catalog fame, and I bought it because it probably has some worthwhile stuff to teach me, as I must say, I wish we did not need nuclear power, geoengineering, and transgenic crops. Thanks again for your reply, even if it was less than flattering.
Ok, I did it! Here’s a link to Richard Heinberg’s Post Carbon Institute; http://www.postcarbon.org/person/36200-richard-heinberg
And, one to Bill McKibben http://www.billmckibben.com/deep-economy.html
One more, on transition culture (creative energy descent) http://transitionculture.org/
And , a little off topic, but kind of fun;http://www.storyofstuff.org/ This is Annie Leonard’s.
Lisa,
My apologies for addressing you in an unflattering manner – “laughable” may have been over the top, I suppose. I definitely DID intend to be unflattering toward Mr. Kunstler and neo-Malthusian thought in general, but not toward you personally.
Thank you for the links. I’m a bit of a sustainability economics geek, though likely drawing conclusions different from yours. I will take a look, and attempt to counter with some of my own. Truthfully though, it’s a very busy time, so I’m not sure how soon I will get it.
Happy Holidays to you.
Happy Holidays to You, too! Thanks, and no worries. I know it is a busy time, but I found myself really moved by this video below. Though it IS rather long, I can see it being a great vacation activity. It is pretty positive, potentially at least. Enjoy! I wish I could speak as well as Peter Coyote!
http://www.postcarbon.org/article/632881-you-are-here-the-oil-journey
Best, Lisa Wiesner