Helena Norberg-Hodge writes: Localization is about shortening the distance between producers and consumers. It is not about eliminating all trade, but rather about reducing to an absolute minimum the exorbitant waste now caused by having everything from butter to raw logs crisscrossing the globe. Localization needs to happen simultaneously in both the North and the South. As things stand today, roughly 50 percent of the world’s population is still rurally based – the majority of them are in the South. It is vital that everything is done to prevent this proportion from declining. … In the rural villages of the South, life can be undeniably hard. But villagers can at least grow a few vegetables, maybe keep some chickens or even a cow, and they can rely on friends and family for help with agricultural work. In the slums of the big cities, by contrast, they suddenly become dependent on hard cash for all their basic needs. What’s more, every single thing they consume has to be brought in from outside, increasing CO2 emissions and placing a further burden on the environment. (04/02/02)
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Paul Hawken writes:  Measurements of energy-calories, BTUs, kilowatt-hours-are ways to indicate the amount of work a given amount of oil, gas, or electricity can accomplish. In the US, for every 100 units of energy that we introduce into our economic system nearly 98 units are wasted. That’s right, we are 2% efficient.  … In industry, huge cost and energy savings can be attained as we shift away from the petrochemically dependent reactive chemistry that has produced a witch’s brew of compounds that permeate our environment with toxins. New enzymatic techniques not only promise safer compounds, but low-temperature manufacturing the can reduce energy cost by 90%.  … We can continue to be the most profligate nation in the world with respect to energy, or we can begin to become the most brilliant and innovative. We lead in so many areas of technology. We can do it with energy too. Mark Twain said that you can’t see if your imagination is out of focus. To focus the imagination of a nation, a country that is economically strong and environmentally conservative requires just one quality: leadership out of the oil age, not halting backward steps into it.  (04/02/02)
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As neutrality fails, large neutral organizations have begun merging in an attempt to remain viable. Some of these efforts are not working and may result in the death of these superOrganizations. This article discusses the experience of AOL-Time Warner. It may also serve as a warning to Hewlett Packard-Compaq. (04/02/02)
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As I remarked yesterday, in a sad way the sentiment expressed by Aman and today seconded by Stuart Johnson and K.M. makes a strange kind of sense. Especially in our present world of overpopulation and fossil fuel depletion. Joseph George Caldwell has come to a similar conclusion and provides the rationale for that conclusion in his online book: Can America Survive ? … It is time for humanity to wake up and grow up! Our house is on fire and we are all asleep. Most of us continue as blind men and women earning our livings in the great market and leaving our future in the hands of politicians locked in the adversary paradigm of the third world where one bullet=one vote, or here in the West where one dollar=one vote. … We must put away the toys of adversity and neutrality, and begin to seriously work together.  Only a synergic society can change our future.  (04/02/02)
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Most of us have a genetic spectrum that can range between acts of the most heroic empathic caring and acts of the most unfeeling cruelty. Cruelty is related to excessive activity of a “fight-or-flight” system in the brain designed to cope with threats to survival. Caring is related to the activity of a system in the brain designed to promote cooperation, love, and family and social bonding. Both of these systems are necessary for our effective functioning, and both are the products of millions of years of evolution across reptiles and mammals. Maintaining the balance between the fight-or-flight and bonding systems is delicate. The results we cite indicate that the amount of stress in the social environment has a great effect on the balance point between these two systems. (04/02/02)
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