Coming Together to Prepare for Economic Change

Below I have included an essay I wrote and published on Daily Kos in February of 2008 when oil was high dollar and the war in Iraq was ongoing. We had an administration which was not only failing to take the proper action, but was acting against any effort to repair our economy, consider alternative energy resources, or to prevent further critical climate change. In it, I suggest some ideas about social action on a local level to prepare for a period of transition.

At this time, we are so consumed with the economic meltdown alluded to in the piece below, that climate change and energy/resource depletion are out of focus. But the ideas I launched at that time are still appropriate, with some revisions, for dealing with problems we will face as we move through the next years of this current economic depression. Yes, we are hopeful that some of the actions being taken by the Obama administration will save us, or at least delay or diminish the effects of a severe long term depression or monetary collapse, but still it is wise to prepare.

Common Security Club is an organization providing a structure and support system for forming local groups that can offer:

• A place to come together to grapple with our personal security in a rapidly changing world.
  
• To learn about the root causes of our economic and ecological challenges.
  
• To explore ways to increase our personal/economic security through mutual aid and shared action.
  
• To build on what we have together –and strengthen the institutions that we all depend on.
  
• In the process, make friends, find inspiration, have fun, and strengthen community.
  
• Be part of a national movement of common security clubs that are connected to religious, civic, labor and small business organizations –working to transform the economy so that it works for everyone.

This new blog is dedicated to the support of such a group being formed now in the greater Houston area. Below this point is the essay from February, 2008. Other related essays published around the same time are here and here.

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The Tsunami of Peak Everything

How may we even begin to prepare for the panic that will occur when mainstream awareness of our most likely future scenarios begins to dawn? On that day, I want to have something in place! I refer you to my previous post: “Peak (Everything?) Stress Syndrome” , and Peak Oil Blues , which will give you some background for making sense of the effort I'm making here, today. My intention is to bring more awareness and direction to these pressing needs by repeatedly giving voice to this topic in my writings.

What I have thought about doing locally (here in Houston), is to invite a group of people, including our mayor's department of sustainability, to consider supporting a foundational fund and effort for building an eco-center which would contain information, classes, not only on sustainability, but on mental health and the emotional mastery of change. (Mayor Bill White, a friend of green construction and a candidate for the 2006 World Mayor Award, was an attendee and supporter at the recent Peak Oil Conference in Houston.)

Maybe the establishment of this effort could best be explained if placed in coordination with a "heritage days" celebration, so as not to scare people or incite resistance. Classes such as cooking, food preserving, spinning, weaving, mechanics, and gardening with hand tools could be offered--classes in which skills in living primitively on the land, living locally, could be taught. Perhaps the reasoning could be presented as how “our heritage from the past can meet the needs of our future”.

This eco-center could be a central source, an enclave, for storing information and local resources on providers of green design (architects savvy on LEEDS standards), on green builders, and on suppliers of green technology. Maybe the center itself could be a zero-energy design (one that supplies its own energy through wind and solar means, reusing water, etc.) It could be, in itself, a model for community building. This center could contain a database of current information on renewable energy technology and information about climate change and peak oil future scenarios. Films and videos could be made describing these conditions and possible outcomes.

This beginning would lay the foundation for the mental health support that will be needed when awareness of "peak everything" reaches a notable level in the public consciousness. Then we will be teaching about change, signs of stress--situational depression and anxiety and the skills for dealing with it. At the time it’s most needed, the center will be established and already known as a place to go for of information and support. I can imagine that the foundation's funding could come through the use of an alternative/complementary currency such as Ithaca dollars, Time dollars, or other database currency points that become accepted for use in the larger community as Bernard Lietaer has suggested in the Future of Money.

Another thing I would like to do through this center is to begin, with a group of others, to envision a possible future beyond what we know is inevitable—a livable and sustainable future in which we would like to live. I would like to instill hope (beyond the depressing reality we are facing) that we can still carve out a niche of safety, sanity, beauty, and order—and some form of green mobility. I know we can't count on technological innovation to save us from the power-down energy crunch and from the relocations and massive migrations to come with climate change, from the scarcity of resources and the potential for resource wars/competition--from the future pandemic of death and diminishment of our population. We who are in the know realize there is no place to hide. We don't have mega-bucks to buy an energy efficient fortress guarded by Blackwater troops.

But we have to believe we have some power to save ourselves to create something worthwhile that will help motivate us to go forward! Accomplishing this will require a positive vision and good leadership. I like to think of our future as being healthy, happy, green, and mobile, and I believe that with as many enthusiastic people as I've met locally we can, together, come up with a plan and course of action to build the future we want, in spite of our government and its economy. It just requires taking our way of life into our own hands, designing our own local economies and fortifying them with some kind of god-juice that will protect them from the madding crowds--the throngs of those who didn't do their planning.

And so I come back around now to the original point: that we must continue to disseminate accurate information so that all people will be adequately forewarned and forearmed. This information must be presented in such a way as to avoid panic and predation. Once we do this for ourselves in our local communities in the US, we need to try to facilitate this same kind of activity in other countries--China, India, Africa, Mexico...etc. We, here in Houston, and the Netroots has a basis for building these connective threads between our communities here in America and out into our global community—our Mother Earth! I’m thinking of calling this center MotherSource! What do you think?