Alternative Economics
"We believe that the present economic system, one that marginalizes people and the environment, is the most costly system possible, and that moving towards restoritive , sustainable practices is the least cost alternative." http://www.naturalcapital.org/
In order to strive toward sustainable community development, humanity will have to rethink current economic structures.
Changes Include:
-Creation of the next Industrial Revolution
-Develop methods of production and patterns of consumption that use less energy and capital resources while applying more specialized knowledge.
"Good people everywhere can take financial and developmental control of their regions, give equal service to all people, and rise from an ethical but outcast sum of minorities to be a driving force in world stability" Bill Mollison
Community
-Adapt to the rising costs of energy
-Work with the system, to change the current path, to change the culture and build an alternative economy
Economics
-Shift to a Post-Petroleum Economy
-Local Sustainable Economics and Enterprises
-Produce social change by small business ownership and entrepreneurship
Food
-Eating locally
-Increase food security
Energy
-Alternative energy sources
-Renewable energy sources
Environment
-Natural Resource Protection
Alternative Economic Structures
Alternative Currencies
Is a term that refers to any currency used as an alternative to the dominant national or multinational currency systems. Alternative currencies can be carefully created by an individual, corporation, or organization, they can be created by national, state, or local governments, or they can arise naturally as people begin to use a certain commodity as a currency. Example: LETS (Local Exchange Trading Systems)
Bioregionalism
Bioregionalism is the philosophy of knowing the ecology, economy, and culture of the place where you live and making choices that enhance them.
"Understanding activities and evolving social behavior that will enrich the life of that place, restore its life-supporting systems, and establishing an ecologically and socially sustainable pattern of existence within it."
- Peter Berg and Ray Dasmann
A bioregion is a geographic, not political, area that is defined by natural characteristics such as soil, watershed, climate, native plants and animals, and human culture.
Principles of Bioregionalism
-Strive toward community self-sufficiency in terms of food, products, and services.
-Ask yourself if you really need to have something that comes from a great distance away.
Sustainability
-Practice sustainable ways to meet basic human needs (food, water, energy, housing, materials)
-Restore and maintain local natural systems
-Understand that everything you have is made originally from the Earth
-Treat everything with care and do not over consume Reinhabitation "Living in place"
-Become native to your place by being aware of the ecological relationships that operate within and around it.
-Become "fully alive in and with a place" (Berg and Dasmann)
-Identify with and set down roots in the place you live. Treat it as your home Approaches:
Politics
-Vote in local elections and become involved in political decision-making
-Become part of an "ecoregion" (Sierra Club) to solve problems
-Engage in protests against the destruction of natural elements.
-Organize a bioregional congress
Food and Land
-Understand the boundaries and ecology of your bioregion
-Eat locally gathered and grown organic foods
-If you live in a cold winter climate, buy food from or garden in local greenhouses
-Know the birds, animals, trees, plants, weather patterns, land features, and soil types of your place
-Create a compost pile for yard and food waste
-Grow your own food
-Cultivate native plants
-Take part in reforestation projects, community gardens, or native plant re-vegetation
Economics
-Seek out products made close to home by companies that are socially and environmentally responsible
-Patron co-operatives, collectives, and other variations on worker ownership of companies
-Bank with locally owned banks, especially those that invest in the community
-Reprimand and boycott companies that pollute
-Use local materials
-Bypass the money economy completely by trading or bartering skills and services
Community
"The Amish question 'What will this do for our community?' tends to the right answer for the world"
Wendell Berry.
-Turn off the television! Seek out entertainment that originates in your area; support local artists, musicians, theater companies, and storytellers.
-Spend more time with loved ones and neighbors playing games, making music, and having your own fun
-Get to know your neighbors and look out for each other
-Understand the human cultures that have occupied your place in the past and present, and respect their ways of life.
-Enrich your children's local and global knowledge; be directly involved in their education
-Create or participate in school, civic organization, and individual restoration of damaged areas; dismantle unused and abandoned industrial areas and put them to good use
-Whether you live in a big city or small village, make your own bioregional neighborhoods
-Use as few chemicals as possible in daily life; do not use chemical weed and pest control.
-Know where your garbage goes and reduce your waste to a minimum, recycle everything you can!
-Know where your water comes from and conserve it
-Know how and where your electricity is generated, use less of it, and utilize sustainable energy sources.
-Use less energy-intensive forms of travel, such as bicycles, trains, and carpooling
Community Based Enterprises
“Community-based enterprises relate to a variety of areas including social entrepreneurship, economic development, empowerment zones, grass roots enterprises, and collective entrepreneurship” ( )
Community Supported Manufacturing (CSM)
CSM is an extension of the Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) model, where local production is basically extended from the farm to the workshop. These production systems will likely have multilayered ownership, where municipalities, co-operatives, family businesses and local firms mutually support each other. The primary focus of CSM is to relocalize production and manufacturing, in order to reduce the environmental damage and the cultural erosion that has occurred from our reliance on a cheap energy source, that may soon be unavailable.
Conservation Economy
In a Conservation Economy, economic arrangements of all kinds are gradually redesigned so that they restore, rather than deplete, natural and Social Capital. This will create extraordinary opportunities for those who foresee and drive these changes. The Fundamental Needs of people — and the Ecosystem Services which sustain them — are the starting point for a different kind of economic prosperity that can endure generation after generation.
Ecological Economics
Ecological Economics is a branch of economics that addresses the interdependence and co-evolution between human economies and natural ecosystems. It accepts as a goal the improvement of human wellbeing through economic development, and seeks to ensure achievement of this through planning for the sustainable development of ecosystems and societies. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics
Energy backed Currency
Post Carbon Institute is also researching the benefits and different characteristics of an energy backed currency. This type of currency would be backed by the production of local renewable reliable energy, in a backing-method similar to the American dollar, when it was backed by gold. In this way, the currency system which is linked to local energy production, would have the effect of confining or restraining the level of economic growth, working to protect local businesses and eco-systems within the community.
Fair Trade
A commitment to social justice in which employees and farmers are treated and paid fairly, sustainable environmental practices are followed and long-term trade relationships are fostered.
Natural Capatalism
Natural Capitalism specifically addressed the massive waste of energy and material resources by outlining four principles to bring about a whole systems redesign of industries including transportation, construction, agriculture, and energy.http://www.naturalcapital.org/
Relocalization
Relocalization is a strategy which aims to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. This was developed in response to the environmental, social, political and economic ramifications of global over-reliance on cheap energy.http://www.energyfarms.net/
Principles
-Increase community self-sufficiency in production of local goods
-Decrease community consumption of all resources
-Prepare community for when the effects of energy decline become more intense
Approaches
-Locate and contact the people in your community that share an interest in peak oil and relocalization to decrease the feeling of isolation and create a networking base.
-Share information, concern and activity with others to instigate interest and to spread ideas about this subject.
Social Enterprises
Social enterprises are dynamic businesses with a social purpose working to deliver lasting social and environmental change.
“A social enterprise is a business with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximize profit for shareholders and owners”.
http://www.thesustainablevillage.com/servlet/display/microenterprise
Sustainable Micro-enterprise
Micro enterprises are generally started by low- and moderate-income individuals for the purpose of creating their own job or extra income for themselves and their families.
