"We do not need to invent sustainable human communities. We can learn from societies that have lived sustainably for centuries. We can also model communities after nature's ecosystems, which are sustainable communities of plants, animals, and microorganisms. 

Since the outstanding characteristic of the biosphere is its inherent ability to sustain life, a sustainable human community must be designed in such a manner that its technologies and social institutions honor, support, and cooperate with nature's inherent ability to sustain life."

This quote is from Fritjof Capra, the Founder of the Centre for Ecoliteracy.

The Center for Ecoliteracy is a leader in the green schooling movement. The Center is best known for its pioneering work with school gardens, school lunches, and integrating ecological principles and sustainability into school curricula.  

The Center for Ecoliteracy offers books; teaching guides; professional development seminars; a sustainability leadership academy; keynote presentations; and consulting services.

The Center's website offers hundreds of downloadable resource materials, including practical guides, essays by leading writers and experts, and inspiring stories of school communities and organizations across the country that are engaged in this vital work.

Visit it here: Centre for Ecoliteracy

Farmers Markets directly connect producers of food with consumers. These simple, effective transactions unwind the complex system of efficiencies and 'economies' which make modern markets unsustainable.

Effectiveness versus efficiency

The smaller farms are, the greater their yield. This discovery was first made in 1962 by the Nobel economist Amartya Sen and has been confirmed by many other studies since then. In some cases, the difference is enormous. A recent study of farming in Turkey, for example, found that farms of less than one hectare are twenty times as productive as farms of over ten hectares.

Small-scale intensive farms not only produce more food they also provide more jobs with less environmental impact. So why aren't all farms small? Because small farms are less profitable. This is an example of the perverse paradoxes that our modern economy creates; by pursuing efficiency and economies of scale (and consequent profits) effectiveness is reduced. In the search for cheaper food and higher profits some farmers will maximise output and minimise internal costs. This is often achieved by increasing external costs such as water and soil degradation, job loss and climate change.

Effectiveness can be defined as 'doing the right things' and Efficiency defined as 'doing things right'. The point is that if you are doing wrong things, being more efficient is at best less bad and at worst it is much more bad. Efficiency is important but only if you are doing the right thing. Large-scale factory farms are the wrong thing.

Many people believe that the effective purpose of business is to make profits. It is argued that profits, which are ultimately fed back into the economy, benefit everybody. However profits are often spent on creating more efficiency (e.g. larger farms, more machinery, more fertiliser) and therefore more profits. This spiral of efficiency leads to ever-increasing imbalance and unsustainability.

The super-scaling of business

Farming and food production is just one example of an industry that utilises economies-of-scale but they exist in all industries.

Large mass manufacturing plants have taken over small-scale factories and craft workshops. Many New Zealand manufacturers have shut down entirely and moved overseas to take advantage of cheaper labour and overheads. This has led to a plethora of cheap products that are sold at a high profit. Also, chains of large retail outlets have proliferated as the number of small local specialist shops has declined. 

Even the news media has succumbed to efficiency. A large proportion of the news in your local newspaper, radio or TV has been created by huge news agencies that tend to have too few overworked 'churnalists'. (For an excellent review of the state of modern news media industry read 'Flat Earth News' by Nick Davies.)

Queen Street farmers

Unlike most other countries New Zealand has always had big farms.

When New Zealand was first colonised by Europeans (as in other colonies like the USA, Australia and Canada) land was plentiful and cheap but labour was scarce and expensive. This led pioneer farmers to create huge pastoral 'runs' on native grasslands or to clear large areas of native bush for grazing. This caused massive erosion in many hill country areas as well as a general ongoing degradation of soils.

Since the Second World War this situation has been compounded by the drive for more efficiency with the centralisation and supersizing of production, distribution and retail. This has led to growth in the size of certain farms and to the rise of corporate farmers. Increasing numbers of people profiting from food production are not farmers but absent owners and middlemen.

Lifestyle farmers

In fact the average size of farms has been decreasing in New Zealand since the 1970s but this is largely due firstly from sheep and beef farms changing to dairy which tend to be smaller and secondly to an enormous increase in small 'lifestyle' farms which, in many cases, are not farmed intensively and in some cases are not farmed at all.

The renaissance of farmers markets

A farmers’ market is a food market where local growers, farmers and artisan food producers sell their produce directly to consumers. Vendors may only sell what they grow, farm, pickle, preserve, bake, smoke or catch themselves from within a defined local area. The market takes place at a public location on a regular basis.

Modern farmers markets buck the trend towards scale. The vendors are small farmers and food producers who can not produce food as cheaply as factory farmers but by selling directly to the public they can compete on price.

In most cases their goods are more eco-friendly, and human-friendly, using less inputs such as herbicides, pesticides, fertiliser and energy. The goods are local, seasonal and fresh. This also means that they are using less resources (packaging, chemicals and energy) to produce.

Farmers markets are fun too. There was a time when all food was sold in farmers markets. In the past market day was a time for socialising, networking and sharing information as well as trading. Modern farmers markets are just the same. They are also a way for you to learn more about the food you eat and to meet the people who produce it.

There are many benefits of using wool for garments, textiles, carpets and insulation. The following list of benefits has been provided by The Campaign for Wool which was set up to promote the use of wool.

Wool growing has declined over many years as the competition from cheaper synthetic fibres, often oil-based, has made it cheaper for farmers NOT to shear sheep (i.e. the cost of shearing a sheep is more than the farmer will get for the fleece.

Natural and Renewable

Wool is a natural fibre. It has evolved to produce a fabric that has become one of the most effective natural forms of all-weather protection known to man.

Every year sheep produce a new fleece, making wool a renewable fibre source. Woolgrowers actively work to improve efficiency and care for natural resources, endeavouring to make the wool industry sustainable for future generations.

Safe

Wool has a naturally high UV protection, which is much higher than most synthetics and cotton.

Fire Retardant

A fabric made entirely of wool doesn’t readily catch fire. Even if it does, it burns slowly and self-extinguishes when the source of the flame is removed.
                         

Biodegradable

When a natural Merino wool fibre is disposed of it takes only a few years to decompose and can be used to put fertility into soil for crop growing. Most synthetics on the other hand, are extremely slow to degrade.

Breathable

Wool has a large capacity to absorb moisture vapour and sweat next to the skin making it extremely breathable.

Durable

A wool fibre can be bent 20,000 times without breaking and still have the power to recover and return to its natural shape, this reduces the need to replace garments and top quality wool products stay looking good for longer.

Easy Care

Wool's fibres have a natural protective layer which prevents stains from being absorbed, they also pick up less dust as they are static resistant.

Recent innovations mean wool garments are no longer hand-wash only, many wool garments can now be machine-washed and tumble dried.

Multi-climatic

Wool is active, reacting to changes in ones body temperature to keep you warm when you’re cold but releasing heat and moisture when you’re hot.

Natural Insulator

Wool can insulate the home providing and retaining warmth; reducing energy costs.

Elastic

The natural elasticity of the wool fibre means it stretches with the wearer, but then returns to its natural shape, so there is less chance of garments sagging or losing their shape.

The main players in The Campaign for Wool are representatives of the International Wool Textile Organisation, representatives of the British Wool Marketing Board, representatives of Australian Wool Innovation, and key industry figures from the National Sheep Association, New Zealand, Norway and important sheep producing nations of the world.

The Campaign also embraces leading figures from the fashion industry, the decorating and design industry, the wool carpets industry and the world of insulation and building. The Campaign works closely with manufacturers and retailers across the world

Visit their website here:

The profit motive has led to more and more services being automated. The increase in self-service – at banks, airports, petrol stations and supermarkets for instance – also reduces the number of jobs but increases the amount of profit. The economist Herman Daly makes the point that automation and self-service also reduces the number of human interactions we have and it reduces the number of 'entry-level' jobs available. By getting people to serve themselves businesses are simply labour-shifting.

As Herman Daly says:

"...the automation of services of bank tellers, gas station attendants, etc. is usually praised as labor-saving technical progress. To some extent it is that, but it also represents labor-shifting to the consumer. The consumer does not even get the minimum wage for his extra work, even considering the dubious claim that he enjoys lower prices in return for his self-service. Ordinary human contacts are diminished and commerce becomes more sterile and impersonally mechanical. In particular interaction between people of different socio-economic classes is reduced."

Social equity is reducing in many western countries including New Zealand. The ideology of economic growth which fuels the profit motive leads to an ever-increasing gap between the rich and the poor.

It is time we listened to economists like Herman Daly, Tim Jackson and E.F. Schumacher because our future will only be ensured if we stop thinking in terms of economic growth and start thinking in terms of social equity and environmental sustainability.
Read Herman Daly's article here: Elitist Growth by Cheap Labor Policies

An article in Business Day calls into question what progress really is.

 

The article highlights what progress isn't: the strain of both parents having to work, rising debt and huge interest payments, increased environmental degradation from houses that are getting bigger and bigger, the stress of job security in an economic system that is based on making money and not based on making people happy (NB These are not the same thing, no matter what the free-market ideologues say!)

 

The article states:

The rampant cost of living means two-income families are increasingly worse off than single-income families were a generation ago – and it is threatening to put them under.

While median incomes and the number of women in the workforce has risen substantially, the money that families are putting into servicing the long-term commitments of a standard middle class lifestyle – comprehensive health insurance, a house in the right suburb and investment in education – has soared.

"It is increasingly clear that two incomes have trapped many families under a mountain of long-term financial commitments," said economist Gareth Morgan.

 

And goes on to say:

Infometrics economist Matt Nolan said all recent government policy had been about getting second earners into the labour market, but that extra income – thanks to easy credit – was simply going into extra debt in the form of larger and flasher houses.

 

That income has gone into building bigger and better houses than they had before. The square metreage has doubled.

 

Read the full article here: Price of progress hurts Kiwis

 

The percentage of people in Northern countries calling themselves happy peaked in the 1950s - even though consumption has more than doubled since then. Indeed, there is no consistent correlation between income, consumption and happiness. A global comparison of measures of happiness in relation to levels of income per capita indicates that the richer the country, the smaller the correlation between income level and individual happiness.

It is no accident workers who are earning a lot of money because they work long hours provide the market for the very goods they are producing, and never mind if they do not really need the goods in question. The consumption becomes the reward for the hard work and the long hours.

Nevertheless, it cannot be a very satisfying reward, the conditions of dissatisfaction must be maintained, or markets for useless products would disappear under a gale of common sense. We become addicted to consumption, which provides no lasting satisfaction.

Source: Carley, M. and Spapens, P. (1998) Sharing the World: Sustainable Living and Global Equity in the 21st Century, Earthscan, London, p. 143.

This explanation of the paradox suggests that 'dissatisfaction' is central to market economies as they rely upon people becoming caught up a vicious 'cycle of work-and-spend' - just like a fast-spinning wheel in which consumption must be paid for by long hours of work - which need to be rewarded by more consumption, and so on.
 
A second explanation of this paradox relates to the lack of regular contact with nature in modern life:

The consumer society required that human contact with nature, once direct, frequent, and intense, be mediated by technology and organisation. In large numbers we moved indoors, A more contrived and controlled landscape replaced one that had been far less contrived and controllable. Wild animals, once regarded as teachers and companions, wee increasingly replaced with animals bred for docility and dependence.

Our sense of reality, once shaped by our complex sensory interplay with the seasons, sky, forest, wildlife, savanna, desert, river, sea and night sky, increasingly came to be shaped by technology and artful realities. Compulsive consumption, perhaps a form of grieving or perhaps evidence of boredom, is a response to the fact that we find ourselves exiles and strangers in a diminished world that we once called home.

Orr, D. (1999) The ecology of giving and receiving, in R. Rosenblatt (ed) Consuming Desires: Consumption, Culture, and the Pursuit of Happiness, Island Press, Washington DC, p. 141.

Read the original source at UNESCO

In a New Zealand Herald article called Time to defy the worship of growth the writer John Peet calls for a new economics that isn't based on the bankrupt ideology of growth. Of course many others have been banging on this theme for a long time, including myself. Books like The Limits to Growth, Beyond Growth, Prosperity without Growth and The End of Growth all explain the dire need for economic growth to end.

The idea of a steady-state economy has been promoted by a number of thinkers and was expounded by the nineteenth century philosopher and economist John Stuart Mill who eloquently explained the benefits of such an economy: "It is scarcely necessary to remark that a stationary condition of capital and population implies no stationary state of human improvement. There would be as much scope as ever for all kinds of mental culture, and moral and social progress; as much room for improving the Art of Living and much more likelihood of its being improved, when minds cease to be engrossed by the art of getting on."

Studies show that when people are 'engrossed by the art of getting on' they tend to be less happy. People are driven to overwork, accumulate debt and defer happiness so that they can 'keep up with the Jones' by consuming more.

What is the point of prosperity if it just makes us want more prosperity? When is enough enough? The fact is we simply don't know that we have enough because we are continuously told that we don’t.

What will happen if we stop growing the economy and improve it through redistribution of wealth, fairer trade, restoration of natural capital, greater resource efficiency and redirection of human energy toward social progress and sustainable wellbeing for all?

We will ALL be better off, that's what.

For more information about the new economics visit:

NEF | The New Economics Foundation

CASSE | Centre for the Advancement of a Steady-State Economy

A recent opinion piece on the Celsias website called "Fracking in Canterbury - No Compulsion to Publicly Notify and No Need to Consider Seismic Effect" highlights several issues that concern sustainability generally.

The "suck it and see" attitude

Just because a technology is available doesn't mean it has to be introduced. Unfortunately the development of any new technology is likely to create economic opportunities which unscrupulous businesses can take advantage of whilst ignoring, or otherwise being ignorant of, any indirect negative impacts.

History is chock-full of technologies that have been banned once their danger and damage has become evident (although usually not before a few people have become wealthy from it). DDT, asbestos and fluorocarbons are well-known examples.

Fracking involves hydraulically fracturing rock seams in order to release trapped fossil fuels. It is is a highly controversial technology that has been connected to seismic activity as well as concerns over groundwater contamination, air pollution and the use of toxic chemicals in the process. There is more than enough doubt of it's environmental safety to invoke the precautionary principal and ban it.

However the Environment Canterbury's website states:

"Environment Canterbury does not have specific regional plan policies or rules for fracking."

The website goes on to say that consents will be required for such activities that are controlled by the Resource Management Act such as water use and discharges but apart from that it seems that it will be another case of "suck it and see".

Mandates by Central Government  trump local concerns

Fracking in Canterbury has been opposed by some local bodies and yet the Government has more or less dismissed their concerns. In fact Phil Heatley, the Minister of Energy stated on Christchurch talk back a week ago that anyone who opposes fracking is from the “extreme green lobby” – and therefore should be ignored, presumably.

"Under the Crown Minerals Act, the Minister of Energy gives approval for hydrocarbon exploration and production work programmes but does not deal with the environmental effects of fracking, or approvals/consents required under the Resource Management Act. These matters fall to regional and district councils."

It seems that in this case, and in many other cases, central Government's goals and ethos (the Celsias article sums the ethos up as "Drill till it kills") are completely at odds with the values, goals and concerns of local communities.