THE ALTERNATIVE, SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY;THE SIMPLER WAY.
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Summary: If the limits to growth analysis of our predicament is correct we have no choice but to undertake significant changes in lifestyles, values, the geography of our settlements and especially change to a different economy. We must move to The Simpler Way. The required alternative society must involve far lower rates of per capita resource consumption and environmental damage. This must mean materially simpler lifestyles, in highly self-sufficient and cooperative communities within an economy that is not driven by market forces and profit and that does not grow over time. The simpler way would not involve living in more primitive ways or doing without important things or giving up modern technology. It would raise the average quality of life. All the ideas and technologies we need already exist and are in use in many places. There is now a Global Eco-village Movement in which many small groups are developing settlements of the required kind. |
Contents:
More simple and less expensive lifestyles.--Self-sufficiency, decentralisation "small is beautiful".-- More communal, cooperative and participatory way -- Alternative techologies -- The new economy.-- The new values.-- Conclusions.--The simpler way is the richer way.-- A step backwards? --Does the change have to be that extreme?
Our society, based on market forces, the profit motive and economic growth, is grossly unjust and unsustainable. It only works well for a very few. Even more importantly, it has run into the limits to growth; it involves levels of resource consumption and environmental impact that only a few can have for a short period of time. (For the detailed analysis see The Limits to Growth.)
There are now many books and articles dealing with the general form that a sustainable society must take. The essential princples must be:
Obviously there are many details that we can't be sure about at this stage and will have to be worked out as we go, but following is an indication of the probable form that the new society must take.
SIMPLER AND LESS EXPENSIVE LIFESTYLES.
We must have far less affluent lifestyles. We must aim at producing and consuming only as much as we need for comfortable and convenient living standards. We must cut right back on unnecessary consumption and we must recycle, design things to last and to be repaired. We must phase out entire industries, such as sports cars. But this does not mean deprivation and hardship. There is no need to cut back on production of anything we need for a very comfortable, convenient and enjoyable way of life. It is a matter of being satisfied with what is sufficient, e.g., a sufficiently comfortable house.
The Buddhist's saying sums up the implication for personal life; "Poor in means, rich in ends." We must develop ways of having rich and satisfying lives without having high incomes or high levels of consumption. It will be emphasised later that living "frugally" can be very enjoyable. But whether we like it or not it is essential. (It is by no means certain that every household in the world could have fridge.)
SELF-SUFFICIENCY, DECENTRALISATION, "SMALL IS BEAUTIFUL"
We must develop as much self-sufficiency as we reasonably can at the national level (meaning much less trade), at the household level, and especially at the neighbourhood or local regional level. We need to convert our presently barren suburbs into small, thriving local economies which produce most of the goods and services they need from local resources.
Reducing out society's resource consumption is not primarily a matter of reducing unnecessary personal consumption, although that is important. The main changes that are needed are in our social systems and procedures. For example our food producing system involves much transport, so we must change to producing most food close to where people live, which in turn means we must redesign suburbs and cities to have many home gardens, orchards and market gardens within them.
In your suburb there would be many small productive enterprises such as the local bakery and pottery. Some of these could be decentralised branches of existing firms, enabling most of us to get to work by bicycle. Many could be backyard and hobby businesses. A high proportion of our honey, eggs, crockery, vegetables, furniture, fruit, clothing, fish and poultry could come from very small local family businesses and cooperatives. We would however retain some mass production factories. Many items such as furniture and crockery could be mostly produced via crafts. It is much more satisfying to produce things in craft ways rather than in factories.
Market gardens could be located throughout suburbs and even cities, e.g. on derelict factory sites and beside railway lines. This would reduce the cost of food by 70%, especially by cutting its transport costs. More importantly having food produced close to where people live would enable nutrients to be recycled back to the soil, e.g., through garbage gas units. This is essential for a sustainable society. Two of the most unsustainable aspects of our present agriculture are its heavy dependence on energy inputs and the fact that it takes nutrients from the soil and does not return them.
We should convert one house on each block to become a neighbourhood workshop. It would include a recycling store, meeting place, leisure resources, craft rooms, barter exchange and library. Because we will not need the car very much when we reduce production and decentralise what's lef, we could dig up many roads, thereby making perhaps one-third of the area available as communal property. We can plant community orchards and forests and put in community ponds for ducks and fish. Most of your neighbourhood could become a Permaculture jungle, an "edible landscape" crammed with long-lived, largely self-maintaining productive plants such as nut trees.
There would also be many varieties of animals living in our suburbs, including an entire fishing industry, based on tanks and ponds. In addition many materials for production can come from our neighbourhood. The many communal woodlots, fruit trees, bamboo clumps, ponds, meadows etc., would provide lots of free goods. Many areas could easily supply themselves with the clay to produce all the crockery needed. Similarly, just about all the cabinet making wood needed could come from those forests, via one small neighbourhood sawbench located in what used to be a garage. Instead, we import wood from Oregon and our coffee mugs are made in Taiwan.
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The Scope For Urban Food Production. There is a surprising amount of land in cities that could be used to produce food and other materials.
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There is immense and largely untapped scope for deriving materials from plants and other things that exist or could be grown around where we live; bark for tanning, dyes from plants, tar and resins from distilled flue gases, wool, wax, leather, feathers, paint from oil seeds like sunflowers, and many medicines. Many of these things would come from the commons we should develop in and around our settlements, the orchards, ponds, forests, fields, clay pits, bamboo clumps, herb patches etc. that the community owns and mainatains cooperatively.
We could build most of our new housing ourselves, using earth. The 1990's typical Sydney home buyer had to earn well over $300,000 to obtain a house, (after taxes on earnings have been paid and the bank has taken back in interest two to three times as much as it lent), when a perfectly satisfactory house could be built for less than 1/20 that amount. Similarly water can be provided free from a house roof, yet in 1990 the average Sydney household was paying over $300 p.a. for water and sewage services.
One of the most important ways in which we'd be highly self-sufficient would be in finance. We'd have small town banks run by our elected boards making our savings available only for lending on socially useful projects in our town or suburb. At present our savings are not used for our benefit; they are borrowed by distant corporations. Each town and suburb would also have a "business incubator" which would help small local firms to get going. The bank can give them low or zero interest loans. We would then be in a position to start up the many little firms that would enable unemployed people to start producing to meet needs presently being ignored.
It would be a leisure-rich environment. Suburbs at present are leisure deserts; there is not much to do there. The alternative neighbourhood would be full of interesting things to do, familiar people, common projects, animals, small firms, gardens, forests and community workshops. Consequently, people would be less inclined to go away at weekends and holidays, thereby reducing national energy consumption.
Because all our local small industries would be owned by people who live in our area, profits would not be siphoned out to distant shareholders but would be spent or reinvested in our area.
Thus most of the things we need in everyday life could be produced within a few kilometres of where we live, indeed many would come from within our neighbourhood, including much food, repairs, and services such as entertainment. Many larger items such as radios and stoves would come from factories that are within say 10-20 km. Perhaps a city might need one fridge manufacture and repair centre. Some but few items might have to be moved hundreds of kilometres from highly specialised factories, and some but very few would have to be imported into the country, such as high-tech medical equipment. Rational social decisions would have to be made about where to locate these firms which export out of their region, so that all towns and suburbs can earn a sufficient small amount of export income to pay for the imports they need. The free market will not do this at all satisfactorily; it will concentrate the industries where profits can be maximised and deprive most regions of earning capacity. Thus these decisions will have to be made by the political or planning process, and this will not necessarily be easy. (It does not have to mean we must accept an authoritarian state; see below.)
MORE COMMUNAL, COOPERATIVE AND PARTICIPATORY WAYS.
The third necessary characteristic of a sustainable society is that there must be much more communal, cooperative and participatory ways. We must share more things. For example we could have one stepladder in the neighbourhood workshop, rather than one in many houses. We could give away surpluses. We would have regular voluntary community working bees. These are powerful devices for developing and maintaining rich communities. These could carry out most of the child minding, nursing, basic educating and care of aged and handicapped people in our area, as well as performing most of the functions councils now carry out for us, such as maintaining our own parks and streets.
The working bees and committees would also maintain the many local commons we all benefit from, such as the orchards, woodlots, ponds, clay pits, workshops and windmills.
Because our neighbourhoods would be doing so many things for themselves we would need far fewer professional bureaucrats and politicians. For example, because all household wastes could be recycled through compost heaps and garbage gas digesters (providing fertilizer and gas to run fridges) we might need no city-wide domestic sewer system, and therefore no bureaucracy to run
it. This in turn means we would not need to pay so much tax. We would in other words, be largely governing ourselves. One of the worst faults in our present society is that we passively allow ourselves to be governed by distant professionals, and we take little responsibility for our own collective fate.
There would be far more community than there is now. People would know each other and be interacting on community projects. One would certainly predict a huge decrease in the incidence of loneliness, depression and similar social problems, and therefore in the cost of providing for people who have turned to drugs or crime, or who have depressive illness. It would be a much healthier and happier place to live, especially for young and for old people.
GOVERNMENT.
In these new communities we would be largely governing ourselves. One of the worst faults in our present society is that we passively allow ourselves to be governed by distant professionals, and we take little responsibility for our own collective fate. Because our neighbourhoods would be doing so many things for themselves we would need far fewer professional bureaucrats and politicians. For example, because all household wastes could be recycled through compost heaps and garbage gas digesters (providing fertilizer and gas to run fridges) we might need no city-wide domestic sewer system, and therefore no bureaucracy to run it. This in turn means we would not need to pay so much tax.
Thus there would be a transition to a radically different form of government, i.e., to small-scale participatory democracy. Most of our local policies and programs could be worked out by elected non-paid committees and we could all vote at general assemblies or town meetings on the important decisions concerning our small area. There could still be functions for state and national governments, but relatively few.
The crucial political process would be the informal discussions that take place in the town or suburb well before votes are taken at general citizen's assemblies. In these discussions the options that are best for the community will gradually emerge. The actual vote will usually be a formality. The soundness of these decisions will depend very much on whether we are conscientious and thoughtful, and set up the appropriate research and monitoring. If we don't think and discuss carefully we will devote our scarce resources to the wrong decisions. There will therefore be a heavy responsibility on all to think carefully and critically, and in the public interest. Do we really need another windmill or would it be better to build the solar pond? Thus involvement in government will be centrally important in our lives and will contribute to our sense of worth and solidarity, and to our education as responsible citizens. We will all have much time to devote to civic affairs, because we will not he to spend a lot of time working for money (see below.)
In a sustainable society politics would be focused on what is most likely to make the local region maximally capable of providing all with a high quality of life. Everyone would realise that they cannot survive let alone prosper as individuals. If their region does not thrive they will all suffer seriously. This would radically transform political processes from the current striving by individuals and interest groups to grab the best for themselves at the expense of others. Our circumstances, especially dependence on the locality and on others and on the systems we must maintain, would force us to be cooperative and sensible and to think about what is good for our society. We would all be very conscious of the fact that if our region, our windmills, our commons, our bakery are not kept running well we will all be in trouyble. If the bakery cooperative fails we will have to pay dearly for imported bread.
Among the many important details we will have to work out is whether or not we should keep the state in some form. Some people think there can be no element of it in a satisfactorty society. We would need some "bureaucracy" in the sense of agencies with experience and expertise responsible for the day to day running of things like railways. But these agencies should be purely administrative and advisory. All policy and administrative decisions should be taken by our general assemblies which would not be representative bodies; they should be participatory citizen assemblies, with extensive use of referenda and town meetings. There might be many "watchdog" committees monitoring the performance of agencies like the railway administration. The activities of any bureaucratic bodies must be fully accessible to public scrutiny.
In many areas people could still use as much modern technology as they wished, e.g., in medicine and dentistry, mettalurgy, information technology etc. However in most areas use must be made of relatively simple alternative technolgies, because these have far lower resource and ecological impacts, and because they are more enjoyable and convivial. For example most food will be produced by hand tools via home gardens, small local market gardens and Permacultured edible landscapes in neighbourhoods providing free food for all. These are the most enjoyable ways to produce the best food. Some farms will use some machinery, on a small scale, although little ploughing will be done.
Water will mostly come from rooftops and pollution-free creeks and landscapes. Much manufacturing will be via crafts and hand tools, as distinct from the factory mode of production. Many "services" such as "aged care", will mostly be given informally and spontaneously within supportive communities, not via bureaucracies and profesionals. Houses will be built very cheaply from earth, rock, timber and tiles made in wood-fired kilns. All energy will come from sun, wind, forests etc. Research would go into finding plant based substitutes for scarce minerals and chemicals. Many more tasks will be performed by human labour as distinct from machines, such as cutting firewood and producing food, because this is more satisfying and there will not be much energy available for running machines.
Although The Simpler Way looks for the simplest ways of doing things, it is not opposed to modern technology. Photovoltaic cells for instance are desirable although they are technilcally complex. However The Simpler Way recognises that sophicticated modern technology is mostly unnecessary and that that technical advance is of little significance in solving the world's problems or in providing a high quality of life. (The key to these objectives is applying simple ways to meeting human and ecological needs, which is not done in the present economy and competiive-individualistic culture.)
There is no chance whatsoever of making these changes while we retain the present capitalist economic system. This is the crucial implication from the "limits to growth" literature. The big problems are primarily due to this economic system. It allows market forces and profit to determine development, so the right things are not developed and extreme inequality is generated. It must have growth, so it inescapably generates resource and an environment problems.
The new economy will be organised to meet the needs of people, the environment and social cohesion, with a minimum of resource use and work, and a maximum quality of life. This is totally different from an economy driven by profit, market forces and growth.
The Key; Small, highly self-sufficient local economies.
Given the very limited availability of resources, a sustainable society must be made up of many small and highly self-sufficient local economies. Most of the items we need must be produced in small firms close to where we live, using local resources, labour and capital. There will not be enough energy to sustain much transport or importing. Much will be produced in households and neighbourhoods. Relatively little will travel more than 20 km. People will mostly be able to get to work or leisure on foot or by bicycle, although there will be public transport to small cities and towns. There will be relatively few big firms, little international trade, not much transporting of goods between regions and very little if any role for transnational corporations and banks.
The economy must be under social control.
Market forces, free enterprise and the profit motive might be given a place in an acceptable alternative economy, but they could not be allowed to continue as major determinants of economic affairs. The basic economic priorities and structures must be planned and regulated according to what is socially desirable (democratically planned, mostly at the local level, not dictated by huge and distant bureaucracies -- what we very definitely do not want is centralised, bureaucratic big-state "socialism"). However, much of the economy might remain as a (carefully regulated and monitored) form of "private enterprise" carried on by small firms, households and cooperatives, so long as their goals were not profit maximisation and growth. There would have to be extensive discussion and referenda deciding how to sympathetically phase out the many unnecessary and wasteful industries that now exist and how to relocate their workers.
We will probably find it quite difficult run a basically socially regulated economy satisfactorily, but this must be done and if we are sensible we will gradually develop more effective ways over time. The altlernative, leaving the economy largely to market forces, is incompatible with sustainability and justice. Note that the task will be made easier by the fact that we will not be under pressure to maximise "efficiency" in order to compete in global export markets, and people will not be under constant pressure to produce and sell a lot in order to survive.
Social machinery, especially the economy is very complicalted and problems often arise. Social systems often need adjustment. In a satisfactory society a great deal of effort would continually go into debating options and managing this machinery. It is absurd to assume as the neo-liberals do that if regulation and interference is minimised our economic machinery will work well for all; that only guarantees that the rich will be free to take most of the benefit. (Does your car work well if you never monitor it or deliberately "interfere" with it?)
A steady-state or zero-growth economy.
There must be no overall economic growth; it must be a steady-state or zero-growth economy, preceeded by a long period of reduction in resource use, production, consumption and GDP. It must be an economy in which we simply devote productive capacity to providing what we need to give a all a high wuality of life via frugal lifestyles and minimal resource use. In a sane economy there is obviously no need to go on increasing production and consumption all the time. We could therefore greatly reduce the amount of work for money that is done now. One of the worst things about consumer society is that we work far too hard, producing so much that is unnecessary! Anyone who wished to work at ac paid job all week could do so of course, but most of us would be freed from having to do monotonous factory and office work.
Other elements in the new economy.
There would be a large and important non-monetary sector of the economy, including giving, mutual aid, voluntary work on committees and working bees, and free goods from local commons.
The new economy would probably have a relatively small cash sector and would allow (carefully regulated) market forces to operate within it. Most important things would be planned and run by collective or public agencies or firms, not necessarily by the state but mostly by local community development cooperatives. Possibly the largest sector of the new economy would be run by community service cooperatives, e.g., the local energy supply or water supply cooperative "firm". The money-less sector would involve barter and gifts (i.e., just giving away surpluses), working bees, recycing and free goods(e.g., from the roadside fruit and nut trees). To contribute to a working bee is in effect to pay "tax"; i.e., to contribute to the maintenance of public facilities.
Most of us would live well without much need for cash income, because we would not need to buy very much. Consequently many of us might work only one day a week for money and spend the rest of the week work-playing around our neighbourhoods in a wide variety of interesting and useful activities.
There would be no unemployment and no poverty (There are none in the Israeli Kibbutz settlements). We would have local work coordination committees which would make sure that all who wanted work had a share of the work that needed doing in the area. All people could make important economic contributions even though some might be "uneducated" or mentally or physically disadvantaged, because there would be many simple but crucial jobs to be done in the gardens, workshops, forests and animal pens. All people could be fully active and valued participants in the economy.
Towns and regions would create and issue their own currency, to be used alongside the normal money. Why? Because at present in every town there are many people who are unemployed while at the same time many needs go unmet. This absurd situation would not exist if people had more money with which they could pay each other and trade with each other. This problem is easily solved. For example in the many LETSystems now operating people without normal money work for each other and sell things to each other and then record at a central agency how much they own owe each other. They have in effect created the money they need to interact, in the form of IOUs they can pay later with other IOUs they earn from other people in the system. Many towns have done this, releasing a huge volume of economic activity and transfering to the town the production of many things previously imported. Many people who do not have the money to pay for imported bread for example can get new money with which they would be happy to pay for locally baked bread, meaning there is a powerful incentive to set up a local bread factory.
There would be much less need for capital, factories and infrastructures such as roads, dams and power stations, because the volume of production would be far less than it is now. There would be fewer types of products. For example we might decide to have only a few types of radios, TVs and cars, designed to last and to be repaired easily.
Few big firms would be needed, because there would be much less production, especially of elaborate goods. Most items would be produced in small family firms and cooperatives in which people invest their own savings and derive modest stable incomes. A few large firms would provide steel and railway equipment etc., and these should be run as public enterprises. Again their control must be via open and participatory mechanisms, not necessarily by the state. There must be processes whereby all people can be involved in constant review of performance.
There would be no interest paid. Apart from being unjust (only rich people get an income from interest), interest is totally incompatible with a steady-state economy. People currently dependent on interst for retirement income would be well provided for in other ways.
One of our biggest problems would be how to make sure firms were efficient. The free market system is very effective in eliminating firms that do not perform well, but it is brutally unjust in the way it does this. Firstly the new society would automatically reinforce new values of cooperation, desire to make a contribution, pride in one's work and enjoyment of work. This is because work will be mostly in craft form or carried out by working bees. We would have eliminated much producton,and thus much of the boring work that is done today (... we can and must cut production and consumption by a factor of perhaps 10.) We will probably develop procedures for independent monitoring of the performance of firms and cooperatives, for example through (friendly) voluntary watchdog/advisory committees which are in touch with similar firms in other regions. When problems are detected we will have to work out how to improve performance in humane but effective ways; if we don't then we will all be paying for our collective incompetence by, for example, having a poorer energy supply than is possible. However in the more relaxed and non-competitive world order we will have built, beating others to export markets will not be important, so it will not be essential to maximise productive efficiency. There are more important goals, such as making sure work is enjoyable and people are looked after. We will do many things in ways that are not so efficient but are just, humane, ecologically sensible and enjoyable.
But how would we keep hospitals, railways, universities etc. going?
The focus in the above account has been on the neighbourhood and suburban economy. Beyond these economies there would still be regional, national and international economies. Hoever far less would be happening in these than at present. A city might have one fridge factory, which might also export fridges to small towns in the surrounding region. It might have a university, theatres, museums and a port.
Most people would be working in these and other paid jobs for only one or two days a week, but that would be all the work time needed to keep this remnant of the present economy going. We would have eliminated much unnecessary production and shifted much that is necessary to the neighbourhood and cashless sectors. The relatively small amunt of production that still needs to take place in factories, offices, hospitals, museums, universities etc. might total only 30% of the amount we now do for wages. So it will be covered by the one or two days a week people spend on average working for wages.
POPULATION
The world's current 6 billion population is surely far beyond a sustainable number. A number of biological scientists believe that we must get down to 1/2 to 2 billion. Hopefully we will have enough time to do this fairly smoothly, through long term reduction policies. There are good reasons for thinking this will not be possible and that rapid collapse is probable. (See the material at www.dieoff.org.)
The analysis of our global predicament given by The Simple Way does not put the emphasis on the population problem. It is indeed an extremely serious problem, but there is a far more serious problem...which is overconsumption. Continued population growth will probably only worsen the global crisis by a factor of two. But if all the 9 billion people we will probably have soon were each to have the "living standards" rich countries would have by 2070 given 3% p.a. economic growth, total levels of production and consumption would be about 100 times as high as they are now. Clearly, although we must reduce population, it is far more important to reduce per capita consumption.
CULTURAL CHANGE; THE NEW VALUES
Obviously The Simpler Way will not be taken unless there is change from the present dominant values and habits. There must be a much more collective and less individualistic outlook, a more cooperative and less competitive attitude, a more participatory and socially responsible orientation, and a much greater willingness to be content with less affluence and with what is simple but sufficient.
These could be the biggest difficulties to be overcome in the transition to a sustainable society. However it is important to recognise that the society we have now forces us to compete against each other, e.g., for jobs, and that people now consume mainly because few other sources of satisfaction or meaning are open to them in capitalist/consumer society.
On the other hand, the simpler way offers many satisfactions and rewards and if people can be helped to see these they will be more likely to movbe from the consumer way. Consider for example,
The many people now living in alternative communities know that these sources of satisfaction in The Simpler Way make possible a much better quality of life than most people in rich countries experience at present.
Compared with people in consumer society today we would be very poor, wearing old clothes, living in small mud brick houses, earning very low cash incomes. But our quality of life could be far higher than it is in consumer society.
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FOR BUDDHISTS THE GOAL IS TO BE POOR IN MEANS BUT RICH IN ENDS. |
CONCLUSIONS; THE SIMPLER WAY IS THE RICHER WAY
To repeat, industrial-affluent-consumer society has vastly exceeded sane and sustainable levels of production and consumption and development. We could have a very high quality of life with only a fraction of the present volume of production, consumption, resource use, investment, trade, expertise, banks, corporations, insurance, lawyers, government, transport, work and stress that we have now --- if we agree to live more simply and in more self-sufficient communities. We only need a relatively simple economy to produce everything necessary to provide a good life to all people. We could then get on with the important things. At present we spend most of our time producing and consuming, i.e., on mere economic matters. If we lived more simply and self-sufficiently we could spend most of our time enjoying the sources of satisfaction listed above. In conventional economic terms we would be extremely poor, but in quality of life terms we could be very rich.
However the main reason for taking The Simpler Way is to save the planet. Only if we move to it will we be able to cut resource consumption and environmental impact and to cease taking more than our fair share of the world's resources.
There is nothing backward or primitive about The Simpler Way. We would have all the high-tech and modern ways that made sense, e.g., in medicine, windmill design, public transport and household appliances. We could still have national systems for many things, such as law courts, railways and telecommunications. We would actually have far more resources for science and research and for education and the arts than we do now, because we would have liberated all those resources presently being wasted in the production of unnecessary items, including arms.
Many of our present arrangements could remain with little or no change at all. We could go on living in private houses with our different amounts of private wealth. We could move to a different place to live whenever we wanted to. We would not be trapped in unstimulating, closed villages. There would be many cultural activities in our localities, and we would have easy access by public transport to cultural centres in cities such as museums and theatres. The population densities in these (small) centres and in suburban "nodes" on the public transport networks could be quite high, but the average density across greater metropolitan areas would be relatively low due to all the space given to farms, forests, etc.
There would still be cities but they need only be very small. Indeed a region with only 50,000 people might be able to produce for itself nearly all the things such as fridges and footwear that it needs, through small factories.(Sale, 1980, p. 398.) Some things such as steel works need to be big to be efficient, but most productive units do not.
We would revive the many country towns now declining, and create many more. Many people would like to move from the overcrowded cities to these towns. At present much of Australia is unused paddocks owned by farmers who would like to sell out. We could establish a thriving Permaculture ecovillage every few kilometres throughout these areas. Contrary to first impressions this would be the best way to restore our rural ecosystems. Firstly it is the people who live in cities who have the most damaging environmental impact because they generate huge energy, materials, transport, packaging, infrastructure and waste costs. Secondly a sound eco-village design clusters the dwelling space off the best agricultural land, in orientations that will minimise or eliminate heating and cooling costs etc., and provide for the replanting of most of the area with original forest etc.
DOES THE CHANGE HAVE TO BE THAT EXTREME?
Yes it does! Remember the basic arguments put forward by The Simpler Way re the global situation:-
These changes cannot possibly be made without huge change in values, lifestyles, settlement patterns and especially in our economy. We cannot cut production and consumption to sufficient levels if we retain anything like our present commitments to consumer society, the market system, a growth economy and affluent lifestyles.
So, yes, the changes will have to be extreme, but we have no choice! It is not possible to conceive a of a sustainable society and a sustainable and just world order which does not include living more simply and cooperatively in highly self-sufficient settlements within an economy that is not driven by market forces , profit and growth.
There are many places in the world where these changes are being made, within the "Global Ecovillage Movement". (See Grindheim and Kennedy, 1997, Schwarz and Schwarz, 1997,The Federation of Intentional Communities, 2000, and www.gaia.org.) The fate of the planet depends on how successful this Movement is in getting impressive demonstration settlements up and running before the problems in rich countries become so acute that a sensible transition is impossible. Unfortunately the coming petroleum supply crisis is likely to give us at best only 20 years to achieve this task.
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For a detailed account of the alternative, sustainable society see F. E. (T.) Trainer, The Conserver Society: Alternatives for Sustainability, London, Zed Books, 1995.
Sale, K., Human Scale, New York, Coward, 1980.
Grindheim, B., and D. Kennedy, (1999), Directory of Ecovillages in Europe, Ginsterweig, Germany, Global Ecovillage Network.
Schwarz, W., and Schwarz, D., (1998), Living Lightly, London, Jon Carpenter.
Federation of Intentional Communities, (2000), Communities Directory, Louisa, USA.
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For a shorter account see The Alternative, Sustainable Society; The Simpler Way.
See also Collected Documents The Global Alternative Society Movement.
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The Simpler Way: Analyses of global problems (environment, limits to growth, Third World...)and the sustainable alternative society (...simpler lifestyles, self-sufficient and cooperative communities, and a new economy.) Organised by Ted Trainer. http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/socialwork/Trainer