A Neighborhood Resilience Lunch Discussion

In my first “Report From The Front Lines” post, I mentioned that a co-worker and I were planning to host a brown-bag lunch discussion on community and neighborhood resilience at our office. Last week we finally sent out an e-mail announcement, and today we actually did the discussion.

Eight people showed up, including me and my co-worker partner. We had a good time and discovered a rather deep well of interest among the other attendees. I began the discussion by stating that in this time of economic uncertainty it was necessary for each of us to begin building alternatives and safety nets to help cope with sudden adversity. I got a laugh out of everyone when I said, “Most of you who have had to endure my 'soapboxes' over the last year or so probably know where I think our economy is headed, and the reasons why. There are three possible responses to such a point of view: first, to plug one's ears while singing 'La, la, let's not think about that!'; second, to head for the hills with a stash of five tons of baked beans and five thousand rounds of ammo; or third, to reach out to one's neighbors to form a network of people who take care of each other.”

I talked also about the systems of a neighborhood, and how they break down under economic stress. Lastly, I defined resilience as the ability of a neighborhood to bounce back after a shock or stress. One of the other employees spoke up at this and mentioned the difference between the response of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the small communities in Iowa after the most recent flooding in that region, and how the Iowans had learned to be self-reliant and to help each other instead of waiting for the government to rescue them.

At this point my co-worker partner took over. He described how he himself had experienced adversity a few years ago due to a death in his family and a prolonged stretch of unemployment. He spoke of how he chose to make his needs known immediately to his neighbors, and how he was able to trade skills and manual labor for basic necessities. He also spoke of the need to spend the necessary time and effort to get to know neighbors and their needs, including volunteering to meet those needs as he is able. He lives in a neighborhood in which many of the homes are occupied by widows and the elderly.

This prompted me to mention a post by Sharon Astyk on her blog Casaubon's Book, titled, “The Party's Not Over – It's Just Getting Started!” (http://sharonastyk.com/2009/03/19/the-partys-not-over-it-is-just-getting-started/) That post talks about taking steps to forge community connections in one's own neighborhood. Since we had a laptop and a projector in our conference room, we all took a bit of time to peruse her post. We also discussed the optimum size of community circles.

We finished with a query of each of us as to how well we knew our neighbors. One other co-worker told the story of the neighbors of his cul-de-sac, who all know each other and who went out of their way to welcome him when he moved in. They went so far as to bring baked goods as a housewarming present, and to loan him a few air mattresses (without his asking first) when he had relatives over. They also have neighborhood showings of movies and have even volunteered to help each other with large house/yard projects, where during a particular year all the neighbors will go to one house and do something like removing a tree or a project of similar scope.

We had an extensive agenda of topics to cover, but our lunch hour was over before we could even finish discussing this first topic of establishing community connections. However, we plan to get together again in a few weeks to discuss other things, like building lending libraries of tools, community gardening, and swapping skills. I'm excited to think of where this discussion might go, and am itching to try a few things in my own neighborhood.

Self-Reliance And Regulatory Capture

In my post, “Knee-Capping The Peasants,” I described various pieces of legislation that are either being proposed or that have already become law, the effect of which is to prevent ordinary people of small means from becoming self-reliant. This, of course, results in forcing those ordinary people into continued reliance on the global system known as the “official” economy, forcing those people also to pay an ever-larger portion of their income to the masters of that economy in return for basic necessities. The system is now breaking, due in part to the inability of ordinary people to pay any more than they are already paying because they are being crushed by a huge debt load. The system is also breaking down because these ordinary people are losing the means to pay – i.e., their jobs and incomes.

Yet the masters of the official economy are using the leaders of government to attempt to pile yet more obligatory dependence on that economy on the backs of common folk, by cutting off alternatives to that official economy. I previously mentioned a particular case, H.R. 875, the Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009, introduced to the U.S. Congress by Representative Rosa DeLauro. The purpose of this act is ostensibly to provide enhanced protection of America's food supply, but the actual effect of this bill will be to drive most small farms in America out of business by burying them under an unworkable weight of regulations. There has been much online protest over this bill, resulting in a lot of media attention.

But now it appears that bills like this are multiplying in Congress. Two such bills were recently sponsored by Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) The Dingell bill is even more burdensome than DeLauro's bill, since it would require small farms to keep electronic records of food production practices. Now here's the funny part: small farmers are feeling justifiably threatened by these bills, yet large agribusiness firms like the Kellogg Corporation are supporting these bills. In fact, the W.M. Kellogg Foundation has teamed up with a “nonprofit” group called Trust For America's Health to lobby for passage of the DeLauro bill.

This is yet another proof that our government, at least at the Federal level, has degenerated into a tool of the rich, to be used to maintain the power and position of the rich at all costs and by any means. For if ordinary people of small means were able to find genuine alternatives to the industrial food system, that would cause a huge disruption to the profits of a significant sector of the official economy, and would bring real trouble on corporations like Kellogg, Archer Daniels Midland, Monsanto, Cargill, Kraft and others. Therefore, in the minds of the leaders of these firms, such alternatives must be crushed.

In other words, we are seeing yet another example of “regulatory capture,” defined thus: “a term used to refer to situations in which a government regulatory agency created to act in the public interest instead acts in favor of the commercial or special interests that dominate in the industry or sector it is charged with regulating.” Or, to put it another way, gamekeeper helps poacher, or fox guards the henhouse.

Regulatory capture of government by the elites of our society is one of the primary threats to our ability to prepare for and adapt to life on the downside of Hubbert's Peak – a life characterized by the increasing failure of the very systems established by these elites. We must therefore vigorously oppose any further attempts to use the government to keep us enslaved to and dependent on the existing elite-run systems. But I have a (somewhat) hopeful prediction: we won't have to worry too much longer about such things as regulatory capture. I see a coming weakening of the power and reach of large-scale government. I think it will happen rather soon, as the tax base of large-scale government dries up due to our present economic crisis. Within a couple of years, things may be very different.

So grow your garden, learn to tend your homestead, and get your chickens. And don't let anyone try to tell you that such self reliance is dangerous.

Sources:

• “Regulatory Capture,” Wikipedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture

• “Small Farms, Big Rules,” Temple Daily Telegram, 28 March 2009, http://www.tdtnews.com/story/2009/03/28/56745

• “Small Farms Fear Bearing Brunt Of New Food Safety Regulations,” New York Times, 3 April 2009, http://www.nytimes.com/gwire/2009/04/03/03greenwire-small-farms-fear-bearing-brunt-of-new-regulati-10431.html

• Trust For America's Health Board Of Directors, http://healthyamericans.org/pages/?id=28

• “CEO Of Kellogg's Speaks To Congress About Increasing Food Safety,” Redorbit, 19 March 2009, http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1657160/ceo_of_kelloggs_speaks_to_congress_about_increasing_food_safety/

The Chicken That Laid Leaden Eggs, and Other Horror Stories

I have become interested in raising urban chickens as part of my strategy for decoupling myself from the breaking system of the “official” global economy while living more sustainably. Thus I recently found myself at an urban chicken-keeping class which covered various aspects of the subject, including building backyard chicken coops. During the class, one student mentioned a rather disturbing article that was published in the Portland Tribune on 26 March, titled, “Chickens Eating Lead Not So 'Sustainable.'”

It seems that this article is a response to the explosive popularity of the “urban chicken-keeping movement” in our fair city, and is a criticism of that trend. The author, Tamara Rubin, stated that there is a high risk of lead contamination of the soil of most Portland home lots, due to the lead paint that was used on homes built or painted prior to 1978. She also stated that it takes only two grams of lead dust to heavily contaminate an area the size of a football field. She asserted that chickens on farms are typically less likely to ingest lead, due to the non-lead-based paint used on barns and farms, as well as stating that “most free-range farm chickens and eggs are therefore lead-free.” After giving a few short, general suggestions for testing soil and siting a chicken coop, she concluded by suggesting that the better alternative to backyard chickens is to “[buy] locally farmed, organic, free-range eggs from the store and don't risk inadvertently poisoning your own children in the name of personal sustainability.”

This article hooked my interest, though perhaps not in the way that Ms. Rubin had intended. My interest is always piqued when I hear people warning me or other ordinary citizens away from specific steps toward self-sufficiency. My response is always to ask, “What's really going on here? Is what I'm hearing true? Even if it is true, is it the whole story? Why am I being told these things – especially now?” It was with these questions in mind that I began to study the issue of lead soil contamination in urban areas. This is what I found:

Is It True?

It is a fact that many older urban neighborhoods in the U.S. have soil that is contaminated by lead. The sources of contamination are lead compounds from automobile exhaust and industrial processes, and lead paint on older buildings. The lead from car exhaust was generated by the burning of leaded gasolines, which were gradually phased out in the U.S., starting in 1973 and ending with a complete ban of lead as a component of automotive gasoline in 1996. However, leaded gasoline is still allowed in aircraft, off-road vehicles and farm equipment. The sale of lead paint for residential use was banned in the U.S. in 1978.

Because of the high concentration of heavy industry and car traffic in older inner cities over time, soil lead levels have built up to very high values in these places. The United States Environmental Protection Agency standard sets a maximum “safe” soil lead level of 400 parts per million (PPM) in areas where children are likely to play, and 1,200 ppm elsewhere. As a reference, lead levels in virgin, uncontaminated soil range from 20 to 50 ppm. In cities such as New Orleans, Boston, Detroit and Philadelphia, soil lead levels of nearly 2,000 ppm can be found.

These heavily polluted areas are where poor and ethnic minority populations have historically been concentrated. The small children of these neighborhoods absorb lead via breathing dust and windblown dirt from bare lots, or by ingesting dirt. They frequently suffer central nervous system disturbances as their blood lead levels build to very high values relative to the general population. The children of some of these cities have rates of chronic lead poisoning that are ten times higher than rates of children in affluent suburban neighborhoods.

The lead contamination problems found in older American inner cities is greatly amplified in the cities of the developing world, where environmental and health regulations are much more lax than in the U.S., and where large multinational corporations have moved most of their dirtiest manufacturing operations as a result. The environmental damage wrought by lead pollution prompted this quote from Caltech geochemist Clair C. Patterson: “Sometime in the near future it probably will be shown that the older urban areas of the United States have been rendered more or less uninhabitable by the millions of tons of poisonous industrial lead residues that have accumulated in cities during the past century.” If this is true of the United States, it is true in spades of many places in China, India, South America and other places of outsourced manufacturing.

Lead And Urban Agriculture

Is there a danger then to those who raise their own food in their own backyards? Not as much as one might think. Many studies of this subject have been performed by many groups, including U.S. Government scientists, local universities, local non-profit food security and urban gardening groups, and public-private partnerships between two or more of these agencies. In addition, studies have been performed by NGO's and governments of other nations where lead and heavy-metal soil pollution is a problem. These groups have discovered that lead is not readily absorbed by many plants, nor is it readily concentrated in their tissues to a significant extent. (There are some notable exceptions, however.)

A 2003 study titled, “Lead Levels Of Edibles Grown In Contaminated Residential Soils: A Field Survey,” by Northwestern University, found that those plants that in any way took up or concentrated lead in their tissues did so in their roots first and foremost. Thus, root vegetables such as carrots or onions might absorb between 10 and 21 ppm from growing in highly contaminated soil. Plants were less likely to concentrate lead in their shoots or leaves, although some leafy vegetables like mint had leaf lead levels as high as 60 ppm. Lastly, the fruit portion of fruiting vegetables like corn, beans, grapes and other varieties was least likely to absorb or concentrate any lead. Mitigation of risk from eating these vegetables was easily handled by thorough washing with soap and water. In addition, the 2005 study “Sources, Sinks and Exposure Pathways of Lead In Urban Garden Soil” by Wellesley College concluded that a small child's standard serving of garden vegetables would contribute no more than 10 to 25 percent of the lead found in that child's standard daily portion of tap water.

Then What About Urban Livestock? (Specifically, Chickens)

I was only able to find two studies that directly examined lead uptake and concentration in tissues of chickens. One study, “Lead Contamination of Chicken Eggs And Tissues From A Small Farm Flock,” was cited by Tamara Rubin on her website about lead poisoning, and dealt with chickens that had actually eaten chips of lead paint from an old farm building. While the report states that lead tissue concentrations rose as high as 1,360 parts per billion for the livers of these chickens, concentrations in the eggs of these chickens rose no higher than 450 parts per billion. This study did not analyze the uptake of lead by chickens from polluted soil.

The other study is titled, “The Content of Cadmium And Lead In Muscle And Liver Of Laying Hens Housed In A Copper Industry Region,” and was published by the Agricultural University of Wroclaw, Poland in 2005. This study tracked the lead uptake of two sample groups of hens raised in a region that had formerly been mined for copper, with resulting heavy metal contamination of the soil. This study found that free-range hens and their eggs were likely to have higher concentrations of lead and other toxic heavy metals than their caged counterparts. The weakness of this study is that measurements of soil metal levels were not included, nor were they correlated with the locations of the flocks studied. Therefore, it is not possible from this study to plot the relationship between specific levels of soil and environmental heavy metal pollution and heavy metal blood and tissue levels in chickens raised in this environment.

These studies do indeed show a correlation between environmental sources of lead and increased concentration of lead in poultry tissue. However, these sources do not show the correlation as clearly as it should be shown, especially for lead uptake by poultry on contaminated soil such as is found in urban environments.

There is one other thing to mention, namely that even on regular farms, animals and poultry are being exposed to heavy metal poisoning through exposure to pesticides and inorganic fertilizers. Being on a farm is not necessarily safer in this regard.

Remedies For The Urban Homestead (The Other Side Of The Story)

When one reads Tamara Rubin's writings, as well as the sources I have cited above, one can get the impression that urban gardening and self-sufficiency is scary and dangerous, and that one is better off continuing to rely on the official food system. However, such a conclusion ignores several facts. First, non-profit urban gardening groups and scientists from universities have studied strategies for making urban gardening safe even where soil is contaminated. Northwestern University has published the following recommendations for urban gardeners:

• Survey the property to determine the potential lead hazards, extent of the contamination and location of high-risk areas.

• Plan to locate fruit and vegetable gardens away from buildings, especially if peeling paint is evident and sites where sludge with heavy metals was applied.

• Analyze lead concentration in soil samples from areas where vegetable gardens exist or are planned.

• Do not grow food crops in a soil that is contaminated to levels greater than 400 ppm. Instead, use either containers or construct raised beds, with a semi-permeable barrier between the clean and contaminated soil.

• Where container or raised bed gardening is not possible, fruiting crops should be grown.

• Root vegetables, leafy greens and herbs should not be planted in contaminated soils.

• Test new topsoil before using it and annually retest the garden soil to monitor for recontamination.

• Do not use plants grown in contaminated soils for compost.

• Use mulch or a weed tarp in garden beds to reduce the potential for aerial soil dust deposition or soil splash up on crops.

Others have studied the effect of adding various soil amendments to reduce soil lead bioavailability. One such study, conducted by Hangzhou University in China, discovered that adding phosphorus to lead-contaminated soil bound the lead and made it insoluble, thus less able to be absorbed by plants. Other studies have shown that adding raising soil pH or adding compost and manure to contaminated soil reduces the bioavailability of lead. Lastly, there are agencies who are studying phytoremediation techniques, where specially selected plants are used to draw lead out of contaminated soil in order to reduce total soil lead concentrations. While the other techniques have documented success, phytoremediation is still in an early, experimental stage. And as for chickens, there are several very simple strategies that can be employed in the building of their coops and runs to keep them from coming into contact with contaminated soil.

But before anyone rushes out to secure remedies for soil contamination, the first step is to get your soil tested by a reputable laboratory. It may be that you live in an area that is not heavily polluted.

Conclusion: Bustin' Loose From The System

Having examined the evidence behind Ms. Rubin's article, I believe that she does raise some legitimate concerns regarding lead contamination of urban soils. However, I disagree with the tone of her article, because it forces ordinary, average people of small means into a corner. These are the people who are being squeezed and bruised by their continued reliance on the breaking system known as the official economy. Last year, most of them found it increasingly hard to afford food and fuel as resource shortages led to skyrocketing prices. Most of them even now are being crushed by the weight of unsustainable debt. Very soon they will be squeezed yet again by rising food prices. Midst all of this, they are losing their jobs at a terrifying rate.

What shall we say to such people? “Don't garden; don't raise urban livestock, don't try to be self-sufficient; it's too dangerous”? Shall we tell people that they can only get their food from the store? Shall we pass laws making self-sufficiency illegal? That will go over about as well as a lead chicken. We can't not garden; we can't not keep urban chickens; we can't not learn self-sufficiency. We have to pursue these things. Rather than trying to scare people away from self-sufficiency, let's work on fixing that which has become so broken, while going after the people who did the breaking in the first place.

I'd have been much happier with Ms. Rubin's article if she had mentioned the public/private partnerships between Government and University researchers and urban food security non-profit groups to find remedies for lead soil contamination. I'd have been much happier if she had suggested pressuring the government to make urban polluters clean up urban neighborhoods instead of trying to scare people away from raising backyard chickens. The truth is that the city is where most of us will take our stand, where we will rise or fall in our efforts to carve out a meaningful life to hand down to our descendants amid the crises now converging upon us. We can't all run away to the farm, nor can we continue to rely on a breaking system. As Bruce Sterling said, “The ruins of the unsustainable are the 21^st Century's frontier.” We're starting to live in those ruins now. That's where the new pioneers will make their stand. Whatever's broken, it will be up to them to make it work. There is no other choice.

Sources:

• “Field Demonstration of Reduction of Lead Availability in Soil And Cabbage (Brassica Chinensis L.) Contaminated By Mining Tailings Using Phosphorus Fertilizers,” Journal of Zhejiang University Science, 2006, http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=1361759

• “Sources, Sinks, And Exposure Pathways of Lead In Urban Garden Soil,” Journal of Environmental Quality, 27 October 2006, http://jeq.scijournals.org/cgi/content/full/35/6/2066

• “Lead In The Home Garden And Urban Soil Environment,” University of Minnesota, 2002, http://www.extension.umn.edu/distribution/horticulture/DG2543.html

• A Resource Guide: The Phytoremediation of Lead in Urban, Residential Soils, Northwestern University, http://www.civil.northwestern.edu/EHE/HTML_KAG/Kimweb/MEOP/INDEX.HTM

• Urban Gardens: Lead Exposure, Recontamination Mechanisms, and Implications For Remediation Design, Department of Geosciences, Wellesley College, Wellesley, MA, July 2008 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18456252

• Greennet Chicago, Chicago's Greening Network, Publications Page, http://www.greennetchicago.org/soil_contamination.html

• The Annual Conference On Soils, Sediments, Water And Energy (Formerly known as the Annual Conference On Contaminated Soils), http://www.umasssoils.com/

• “City Soil Lead Exposure Maps,” http://urbanleadpoisoning.com/maps.html

• “Lead In Soil,” Lead's Urban Legacy, Tulane University,

• http://www.som.tulane.edu/cbr/ecme/leadhome/soil.html

• “Lead for Car Batteries Poisons An African Town,” MSNBC, 4 January 2009, http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28484477/

• “Lead Contamination of Chicken Eggs And Tissues From A Small Farm Flock,” Journal of Veterinary Diagnostic Investigation, 2003, http://jvdi.org/cgi/content/abstract/15/5/418

Big And Small Business - The Muscular Widget-Sellers

Imagine, if you will, a group of widget-makers and widget merchants in a particular country. Let's say that some of these widget-makers are actually large firms that employ over a thousand people, whereas some of them are very small outfits run by a husband and wife and a couple of children. Let's also say that most people in the widget business in your country believe that it is imperative to grow as large as possible, and to capture as much market share as possible. Those who believe thus might also believe that it is acceptable to use any means available to achieve growth and to wipe out competition.

Now let's say that the making of widgets requires great physical strength for the purpose of assembling heavy parts that are hard to handle. Let's also say that some of the biggest names in the widget business are outsourcing their production to countries whose labor costs are extremely low, in order to boost production per dollar spent and to increase company profits. The only problem is that the workers in these countries are not very strong, since they only get a dollar a day and often go hungry. Thus some widgets sold in your country begin to fail prematurely, causing widget users to stub their toes and smash their thumbs.

Now stubbed toes and smashed thumbs hurt (and make their sufferers mad), so these victims start complaining to the government. But the biggest names in the widget business have bought off most of the legislators and officials in the government, so when public pressure forces these officials to do something about the problem of widgets that break, they naturally don't attack the source of the problem. Instead, they draft a law which states that "in view of the danger to citizens from breaking widgets (and more importantly, in view of the danger to the widget business from the perception of danger posed by defective widgets), our Government will now require all businesses engaged in widget-making to demonstrate that the personnel in their firms have the necessary physical strength to make widgets. We do therefore establish a Widget Physical Fitness Administrator with full authority to test each widget firm's physical fitness."

The Administrator then issues a decree that each firm collectively or each sole proprietor must do a thousand push-ups every time they ship a certain number of widgets (say, a thousand push-ups for every hundred widgets). Moreover, each batch of a thousand push-ups must be completed within five minutes. For the personnel of Circle D Widgets and General Widgets, this is easy, since there are at least five hundred project managers, deputy vice presidents, marketing directors, project engineers, and lawyers at each firm. As soon as the Administrator visits their firm, they all drop down and knock out one push-up each. But the proprietors of Little Widget On A Hill have a much harder time, since this firm is comprised of a middle-aged hobbyist (who goes to the gym religiously every day), her couch-potato husband (who handles the paperwork), a couple of grade-school grandkids (whom the hobbyist takes along when she goes to the gym), and a ten-year-old calico cat. How long do you think Little Widget On A Hill will be able to stay in business?

Knee-Capping The Peasants - Three Examples

I have written on several occasions that we are all increasingly dependent on the global system known as the “official” economy, and that this official system is now breaking. I have also repeatedly mentioned that the masters of this present global system are waging an active war against anyone who tries to create a safety net of alternative systems. One of their means is the use of governments to pass laws that make various acts of self-sufficiency illegal, or that impose a penalty on people who use alternatives to the official system. Here are three beautifully evil examples:

Oregon State House Bill 3008. Are you an Oregonian who recently chose to save money by bicycle commuting instead of driving? Four members of the Oregon legislature want to take that money away from you. They are Republican Representative Wayne Krieger, Republican Representative Sal Esquivel, Republican Representative Bill Garrard and Democratic Representative Michael Scaufler. They have introduced House Bill 3008 (http://www.leg.state.or.us/cgi-bin/searchMeas.pl), a measure that, if passed, would require all bicycles ridden in Oregon to be registered by their owners via a $54 biannual fee. Failure to register would result in a traffic fine of up to $90. This is the same amount charged for registering cars!

Ostensibly, the bill is designed to raise funds for improvement and expansion of bikeways and bike paths, but in actuality, the bill may be yet another attempt to discourage people from using bikes as transport, and to force them back into cars. One of the bill's sponsors, Rep. Wayne Krieger, had opposed the Oregon Vulnerable Roadway Users bill in 2007. He has also stated his belief that bikes don't belong on the road. (Source: http://bikeportland.org/2009/03/06/mandatory-bike-registration-bill-introduced-in-salem/) The other thing is that only two thirds of the registration funds collected would go toward bikeway/bike path projects. The remaining third would be kept by the registering agency (who could be a private contractor hired by the State).

Is this the way to protect the budgets of struggling families, or to combat global warming? Is this how to address impending energy shortages? And what about the many, many homeless people one sees on bikes nowadays, people for whom a bicycle is a vital piece of equipment? Is the state going to try to shake them down, or will they try to confiscate their bikes? House Bill 3008 is just plain stupid.

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act of 2008. This is the law which is causing consternation among thrift shop owners, small home-based makers of childrens clothes and toys, and sellers of children's books. This law, sponsored by Democratic Congressman Bobby Rush and signed into law by Republican President George W. Bush, requires that any toys, apparel or other “children's products” (products made for children 12 years old or younger) must be subjected to third-party testing for lead and phthalates before being sold. Enforcement of this law was intended to apply even to items made before the law was passed. Moreover, the law was intended for any product consisting of a completed assembly of various parts – even if those parts did not contain lead or phthalates themselves.

These requirements mean the effectual destruction of thrift shops and garage sales, as well as other sellers of used children's books, toys and clothing. Moreover, they mean testing for things that clearly could not possibly contain lead, such as rag dolls made from cloth, cotton stuffing and thread. And the third-party testing requirements threaten the very existence of small-scale, home or cottage-based industries and sellers, since they can't afford the third-party testing fees. (See http://www.roanoke.com/news/roanoke/wb/197224, http://www.amadirectlink.com/news/story.asp?id=629, http://www.middletownjournal.com/hp/content/oh/story/news/local/2009/02/18/hjn021809leadlibraries.html, http://www.ldnews.com/ci_11810629?source=most_viewed, and http://www.khnl.com/Global/story.asp?S=9799062&nav=menu55_2)

But the requirements of this law are good for Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and the really big children's product manufacturers, who are the only ones with enough cash flow to afford compliance with this law – yet whose products, made outside the United States in countries with lax regulations, were responsible for causing the very problems that this law is supposed to fix. Were you trying to become self-sufficient by starting a home-based children's craft business? Has this law just wiped you out? You could always try to get a job at Wal-Mart or McDonald's. How effective are laws to protect chickens when they are written by foxes? Look, there goes a ten-year-old right now, chewing on his bicycle chain! Was that kid's bicycle subjected to third-party testing before it was sold??!

Food Safety Modernization Act of 2009. This bill, also known as House Resolution 875, was introduced into the U.S. House of Representatives by Democratic Representative Rosa DeLauro and 39 co-sponsors, all Democrats. This bill has many bloggers upset because of the perceived threat the bill poses to our ability to be self-sufficient in providing our own food without having to rely on the present global system of industrial food production. The fuss over the bill made me curious, so I downloaded a copy of it (you can get yours here: http://www.govtrack.us/congress/billtext.xpd?bill=h111-875) and read the whole thing this afternoon.

This bill is our government's response to recent food safety scandals such as melamine residues in baby formula and pet food shipped to the U.S., as well as outbreaks of samonella in peanut butter, eggs, meat, poultry, pet food and vegetables. The introductory paragraphs of the bill make it clear that the bill's purpose goes beyond merely protecting consumer health: “Congress finds that the safety of the food supply of the United States is vital to...public confidence in the food supply and to the success of the food sector of the Nation's economy...” and “...loss of public confidence in food safety [is] damaging to consumers and the food industry, and place[s] a burden on interstate commerce and international trade...” (emphasis added). In other words, one of the primary purposes of this bill is to repair the damage to the global food industry due to loss of consumer confidence on account of recent food safety scandals.

The bill proposes to set up a far-reaching bureaucracy responsible for enforcing uniform standards for all “food establishments,” as defined by the bill. “Food establishments” are defined as facilities that slaughter animals, that process raw seafood or other raw animal products, that process cooked, pasteurized, or otherwise ready-to-eat animal products or that processes raw, ready-to-eat fresh produce, or any establishment that process all other categories of food products not described in the aforementioned definitions. The bill also has requirements for “food production facilities,” defined as farms, ranches, orchards, vineyards, or feedlots.

For “food establishments,” the bill sets up requirements for mandatory inspections, quality control processes, testing and documentation of records. It also requires all “food establishments” to register with the Federal government. For “food production facilities” such as farms, the bill requires the operators to follow the National Animal Identification System, as well as “minimum standards” related to “growing, harvesting, sorting, and storage operations” for “fertilizer use, nutrients, hygiene, packaging, temperature controls, animal encroachment and water...”

The concern over the safety of our nation's food supply is commendable. Some of the provisions of this bill seem to address that concern in a reasonable manner, including testing requirements for food imported to the United States. However, as I read this bill, I got the impression that too many of its provisions are poorly defined, and could lead to draconian, hugely invasive government interference in small, family-owned farms, driving them out of business. The requirement to follow the National Animal Identification System is a sure-fire small farm killer, written expressly to drive small meat farmers out of business due to the huge cost of compliance. This bill seems to be yet another attempt at knee-capping the peasants.

One thing about the peasants: Since I am a peasant who wants to escape from reliance on our breaking system, I care a great deal about the attempts by the corporate masters of our present system to force me into continued dependence on their system. In fact, I get mad. There seems to be a shortage of anger about these things nowadays. When that anger is expressed, it's usually in the form of calls to “write your congressman!” Should chickens appeal to foxes for protection? But if chickens figure out a way to make predatory behavior hard on foxes, they're apt to get more satisfying results. Write your congressman if you like, but don't stop there.

Therefore I'll just inform you that H.R. 875 sponsor Representative DeLauro is married to Stanley Greenberg, principal of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a political campaign company (http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Greenberg_Quinlan_Rosner). Among his company's recent clients is Monsanto, a large-scale manufacturer of pesticides and other farm “inputs,” as well as genetically-modified seeds. As a huge agribusiness player, Monsanto is a company that would have a great deal to gain from driving small farms out of business, and has actively campaigned against organic agriculture. (Source: http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Monsanto)

Monsanto also makes products such as Roundup Herbicides and Fielder's Choice Seeds, and is a partner with the Scotts Miracle-Gro company in distributing lawn care products. You can find their products in any Home Depot or Lowe's or Tru-Value hardware store. Or then again, maybe you can't. At least I can't anymore. My anger toward Scotts and Monsanto has induced a selective blindness in my eyes – I can't see their products anymore, no matter what store I visit. Oh, well. I guess I can't buy what I can't see. As I find out more about other corporate sponsors of this sort of foolishness, I may stop seeing their products also.

Oh, and if you want to find out more about the National Animal Identification System, read this: http://www.dcexaminer.com/opinion/columns/TimothyCarney/Livestock-tracing-bill-could-be-end-of-family-farms-ranches--41197442.html. I guess I won't ever again be eating at McDonald's either.

Neighborhood Resiliency - An Introduction

You tell me there's an angel in your tree.

Did he say he'd come to call on me?

'Cause things are getting desperate in our home,

living in the parish of the restless folk I've known.

“Burn Down The Mission,” lyrics by Bernie Taupin

As I have become more aware of Peak Oil, resource depletion and environmental destruction, I have also become more aware of the probable effects these crises will have on the communities in which we live. While the biggest part of those effects is economic, there are and will be many other effects. The result of all these effects is likely to be hugely negative unless a neighborhood has existing neighbor-initiated, community-based systems, relationships and connections which are resilient in the face of stress. “A neighborhood's resiliency depends on the stability of its initial equilibrium state. A neighborhood that possesses a large stock of social and physical capital is not easily dislodged from its beneficial equilibrium, but if dislodged by adverse shocks, its reservoir of capital enables it to return to its initial equilibrium.” – Margot Breton, “Neighborhood Resiliency,” Journal of Community Practice, June 2001.

The problem is that many (perhaps most) of the neighborhoods, communities and cities in America are now very fragile. They do not possess large stocks of social and physical capital; instead, no one knows his or her neighbors and almost everyone is dangerously in debt. The present economic crisis is unraveling a great many of the people in these neighborhoods, and the government on all levels is doing very little to fix this.

When I think of neighborhood resiliency, I do not look to the government to provide answers or help, although sometimes I am pleasantly (even delightedly!) surprised by some of the things my particular city is doing. Yet I have decided not to waste my breath/writing paper/Internet time trying to tell Washington my idea of a policy solution. I don't think even now that they're really interested in helping us. Instead, I believe that building up resilient neighborhoods is up to the neighbors who live in them. We will have to be the fix for the problems we face.

Nor have I decided to abandon cities and neighborhoods altogether in favor of holing up on a spread of several wilderness acres with a stash of five tons of baked beans and 5,000 rounds of ammunition. Some may elect to do this, but it's very clear that we can't have 300 million Americans all trying to do this, and it seems to me to be a rather short-sighted and selfish approach to our present times. Instead, I see myself as being somewhat like Billy Joel in the 1970's, who was living in Los Angeles and heard that New York City was going bankrupt, as well as hearing the smug sneers of Angelinos gloating over New York's potential demise. The sneers made him so angry that he said, in effect, “Hey! I'm a New Yorker! If that city's going down, I'm going down with it; we stand together!” As a result, he returned to New York, and wrote, “Say Goodbye to Hollywood.”

I live in a city. Yes, the city has problems and challenges, and the stress of our present emergencies may very well make those problems worse. But I'm getting a little tired of people (even though these people are very smart and far-sighted) who only have time to talk about the likely negative effects of Peak Oil and economic collapse, who have no solutions other than to “bug out and head for the hills,” nor any predictions other than rapidly spreading crime and chaos, who seem to relish the potential onset of “Mad Max – the 3D, Real-Life Version.”

For me, it seems a nobler challenge and a fight worth fighting to try to improve the place where I live, trying to make it a decent place in which decency is honored. (“So why didn't you stay in Southern California?” some may ask. Sometimes I wonder if I should have – but when I left I was trying to pick my battles wisely, and I had a mortgage on which I still had 25 years of payments to go.) So here I am, kicking off an on-again, off-again series of posts on building a resilient neighborhood. I'll be writing about some of the efforts I will undertake here in my own neighborhood. One thing: I have decided I'm going to have a bunch of my neighbors over for coffee some time in the next three weeks. So I have to get the house ready for company. And now that I've said it over the Internet, I guess I have to go through with it.

But I will also write more analytical posts dealing with building neighborhood resiliency, starting with an exploration of the factors which have contributed to making our neighborhoods brittle. This applies particularly to minority neighborhoods, though the factors are now present in almost all American neighborhoods. I will focus especially on the role governments and big businesses have had in undermining neighborhood stability. An understanding of how things got to be so broken and messed up is crucial if we're going to have any chance of fixing things.

One last thing: Both Jeff Vail (http://jeffvail.net/) and John Robb (http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/) have written about resilient communities in the context of adapting to Peak Oil. You may want to check out their articles. I will take a slightly different approach in my analysis, however.

Thoughts On Not Needing The Money

The ongoing collapse of our global, “official” economy means that increasing numbers of us are going to be cut off from our present livelihood, just as many of us have already been cut off. According to a recent Washington Post article, some economists are saying that the U.S. economy shrank by 6 percent during the last quarter of 2008. (Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/01/29/AR2009012902248.html) Those of us who still have jobs and rely on them should have a plan for restructuring our lives so that we can survive without a job (or at least the jobs we now have). Now I can hear some readers saying “Duh! You should have started thinking about such things long before now!” Let me assure such people that I have indeed been thinking about such things for the last several months, though I am nowhere near as prepared as I'd like to be.

But I've also been reading blogs and other writings from others who are thinking of how to survive and thrive without a job. It's natural for many minds to gravitate toward this subject, when one considers that most workers are debt slaves, which leads to becoming wage slaves of corporations. Because these corporate masters put the profit motive above all else, most employees find themselves under some form of constant daily stress from antagonistic or uncomfortable elements of their day-to-day work environment. This stress gives rise to the oft-expressed wish to break away from corporate slave-drivers, yet the debt load carried by many workers prevents them from doing so, and indeed keeps them in a constant state of terror over the prospect of losing their jobs.

As I just said, the stress and fear of debt/wage slavery is fertile ground for thoughts of escape. These thoughts are sometimes expressed in songs, like “Big Boss Man,” “Maggie's Farm,” “Five O'Clock World,” and “A Hard Day's Night,” from the 1960's, or Paul McCartney's “I've Had Enough!” from a later time. But they are also expressed in plans, and the plans all seem to run along one particular track, as follows: One day an employee faces the implications of the fact that most of his “possessions” are only his to enjoy on credit, and that his employer knows that he “needs the money,” and is therefore likely to submit to any conditions imposed on him. The employee naturally does not like this, and longs for escape. To him, escape means “financial security,” which in turn means having all that he could ever need or want without ever again having to worry about how to pay for it.

Those who advise such an employee regarding financial security tell him that the road to that security consists of getting as much money as he can, maximizing his claim on the official economy as much as possible, in order to claim as much as possible of the resources produced by that economy. So our employee may embark on strategies suggested by the media, who hold up examples of people who got rich quick by doing nothing more than showing up on a TV game show, or who struck it rich as singers, cartoonists (like Scott Adams, creator of Dilbert), or freelance writers. Or he may go out every week and buy Lotto or Powerball tickets from 7-11 or Plaid Pantry or Circle K. Or he might try to generate secondary income streams by trying to make money from the Internet, as in starting a “financial planning” website and marketing his own advice. Goodness gracious, he might even take up “frugality,” with the goal of putting aside a little money every week for the purpose of “reinvesting” it in some supposedly wealth-producing part of the economy.

But if the global, official economy is in fact collapsing, and if this collapse is due to the appearance of fundamental, structural ecologic, environmental and resource limits to growth, then such a strategy is profoundly wrong. If the economy is collapsing for the reasons I just stated, then trying to achieve “financial security” by maximizing one's claim on that economy through getting lots of money is as misguided as trying to buy a penthouse office in a skyscraper that is crashing to the ground.

Therefore when I think about learning to live without a job, I am not thinking about trying to become “independently wealthy” in the usual sense. This isn't about money. But it is about readjusting one's life so that one no longer depends on a breaking system. One thing that a person discovers in that readjustment is that a man can't really escape the need to work. As the Good Book says, “If anyone will not work, neither let him eat,” and, “...that you make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands...” There is also this: “Let our people also learn to maintain good works (more literally, “honest occupations”) for necessary uses, that they may not be unfruitful.” (Titus 3:14 and other Scriptures, World English Bible.) Work has formative and redemptive value, as long as it's not carried out under conditions of enslavement. But living without a job, as many jobs are currently defined, means being able to find your own work and reap the fruits of your own labor without having to rely on some huge corporate employer for these things.

If we are going to find our own work, many of us will need to develop entirely different skills – skills that are essential to life, rather than merely optional. In a deindustrializing, shrinking economy, most of us will find that we can live without personal life coaches, yoga teachers, baristas, auto detailers, financial consultants, plasma-screen TV salesmen and cable service providers, time management experts, and so forth. But if you can set broken bones, fix infected teeth, create a business that makes bicycle parts, build a rammed-earth house, design a safe (and it had better be safe!) sewage-recycling/composting system, teach basic academic subjects, make secondhand machinery from recycled parts, or do other vital or extremely useful things, you'll have a very large amount of work to do.

A Safety Net Of Alternative Systems - Small-Scale Manufacturing

The global, “official” economy of our modern society is breaking apart. The signs seem to indicate that the breakup is rapidly accelerating. Those who have been trained to rely wholly on that system are increasingly finding themselves in trouble, as the system is now increasingly unable to provide its two staple products – jobs (with income), and goods for consumption – to those who rely on it. Yet there is still a need for meaningful work in the making of the things necessary for everyday life. This post will introduce the role of small-scale manufacturing and industry in restoring our ability to take care of ourselves. This is an especially urgent topic for citizens of the United States, which allowed its manufacturing base to be decimated over the last few decades in the name of globalism.

The Breaking Supply Chain

The availability of goods to the typical “consumers” in industrial economies depends on a long and winding chain of supply. Over the years, the links of the chain have increasingly been held together by easy credit. Here is how it worked: business owners over the years stopped using their own savings to pay for the operation and expansion of their businesses. Instead, they took out loans to cover the costs of acquisition of new equipment, office/warehouse/industrial space, raw materials, vehicle fleets and so forth. The assumption was that they would make payments on their loans with the revenue generated by the use of the goods they bought on credit. For instance, a printing business might borrow money for paper, presses, computers, and related supplies, intending to pay the loan with some of the revenue generated by the use of these materials in the printing business.

This also extended to such things as farming, including large-scale agribusiness. Growers took out loans for seed, mechanized farm equipment and “inputs” such as fertilizer and pesticides, with the intention of making payments on those loans with some of the money received from harvesting and selling their products. And it extended to those who sold finished goods, who purchased these goods from suppliers by means of “letters of credit” issued by lending banks, and who planned to pay back these letters of credit through the commission they earned by selling the finished goods – goods such as textiles, machines, bulk cargoes, cars, tools, consumer electronics, and so on. In fact, the hugeness of the scale of economic activity for the last several years has been due to the easy and widespread availability of credit. The scale of economic activity would have been much smaller, if businesses in the official economy had been required to conduct their activities solely on the basis of their earnings and savings.

But the present economic crisis has put an end to easy credit, not only for individuals, but for businesses. Consumers, cut off from credit and hampered by stagnant wages, are not consuming anymore – at least, not like they used to. This is endangering all the other members of the supply chain, such as manufacturers who are no longer to make payments on the loans they received for their equipment, as well as retailers who bought the inventories of their stores on credit and find that they can no longer sell their merchandise like they used to. Farmers are curbing their planting due to lack of credit. Even shippers are hurting, since fewer people are hiring their ships, trucks and planes to send merchandise from producers to retailers. This is illustrated in a recent Times news article, “Commerce Becalmed Over Letters Of Credit (Source: http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/banking_and_finance/article5069065.ece).”

It is not an exaggeration to say that the supply chain is breaking. The links closest to the average consumer – the retail store chains – are the most obvious sign. Circuit City, Mervyn's, Linens 'N' Things, KB Toys and Sharper Image are some of the casualties. The United States has allowed itself to become a place where people get the things they need for daily life from stores which sell products made thousands of miles away. Few people here can make the things they need anymore. But now the stores are disappearing. Retailers can no longer secure the credit to buy things made thousands of miles away. Therefore, shipping traffic has almost evaporated. Many extractors of raw materials and manufacturers of finished goods are shutting down. Some analysts estimate that within the next year or two, many things that are taken for granted in the United States may no longer be readily available – either because they are not to be found in stores, or because there are no longer stores that sell these things, or because the foreign makers of these things are demanding a much steeper price for the things made. Some of these things are things that are useful and valuable in our transition to a low-energy future – things ranging from hand tools to bicycle parts.

The Revival Of Small-Scale Industry

It is quite probable that the United States is facing an impending cutoff of many foreign-made goods, due to the worsening credit crisis. This will not only involve such luxuries as consumer electronics, but very basic tools and means of transportation, as well as other necessities. How will we obtain these necessary tools in a deindustrialized nation, a nation whose natural resource base has been largely depleted?

I believe that the answer is twofold. First, we in this country will have to get used to the idea of living with less. Second, we will have to raise up local (or hyperlocal), small-scale industries and manufacturing in order to produce the basic, necessary things we will need. The types of small-scale industries will be quite varied, as the needs of citizens in each locality will be varied; yet there are certain characteristics which will be desirable in all small-scale industries, such as:

• The ability to produce finished goods from salvaged and recycled materials

• The ability to make things without exposing workers to health risks

• The ability to start business with limited financial capital and small (or no) loans

• The ability to make things without polluting the environs in which the industries are located

• The ability to make things using limited inputs of raw resources, energy, and technologically complex processes and machinery

It would be a mistake for anyone reading this to think of small-scale industries as the “next big business opportunity,” a way to cash in on a get-rich dream during an age of declining energy availability. Rather, as one Kenyan said during an interview on small-scale manufacturing, “Anyone who can be able to provide the basic necessities to his family ought to consider himself successful.” The goal is not profit maximization, but creating security for oneself, one's family, and one's community.

The Third World Pioneers

Much of the work done in starting, running, analyzing, and formulating policy regarding small-scale industries has been done by the citizens of the Third World, who for years have relied on these industries for a large portion of their gross domestic product. Several countries have created formal government ministries to promote and measure the progress of their indigenous small-scale enterprises. Among these are the government of India, which created the Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (formerly the Ministry of Agro and Rural Industries, and the Ministry of Small Scale Industries), and which has entered into agreements with several other countries, including Tunisia, Mexico, Rwanda, and Romania to further the development of small-scale enterprises. Small-scale industries have been extensively studied in Kenya, where researchers have suggested ways to integrate these industries symbiotically into the official Kenyan economy, providing the owners of small-scale enterprises with needed government favor and aid.

Small-scale industries in the Third World have arisen due to a combination of factors, including the existence of a long tradition of craft laborers who were present before the invasion of Third World cultures by the West, as well as the desire of many Westerners and some Third World citizens to “help” the Third World climb out of a supposedly backward existence into Western prosperity. Small-scale enterprises in the Third World have been hurt, however, by globalization, trade liberalization, and free-market policies forced on Third World governments by First World institutions. In addition, the large-scale industrialization of the Third World has been hampered by the exploitation of Third World energy and mineral resources by First World nations.

But now, as the availability of all sorts of natural resources worldwide peaks and begins to decline, the large-scale methods and technologies of the First World are becoming increasingly untenable, and the small-scale approach implemented by Third World citizens is becoming ever-more relevant. This small-scale approach may be the key to the United States quickly regaining its ability to provide basic tools and goods for itself. I shall examine the implementation of small-scale industries in specific countries in a later post.

Additional Sources:

Regarding Shipping:

• “Dryships Suspends Dividend, Dumps Expansion Plans,” Reuters, 22 January 2009, http://www.reuters.com/article/marketsNews/idINBNG42208020090122?rpc=44

• “Credit Tsunami Swamps Trade As Banks Curtail Loans,” Bloomberg, 31 October 2008, http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aPA4NMYtDIS4&refer=home

• “Shipping Rates Hit Zero As Trade Sinks,” The Telegraph, 14 January 2009, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/4229198/Shipping-rates-hit-zero-as-trade-sinks.html

Regarding Retail And Agriculture:

• “Circuit City Liquidation: 567 US Stores Closing,” The Huffington Post, 16 January 2009, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/01/16/circuit-city-liquidation_n_158474.html

• “Wave of Bankruptcy Filings Expected From Retailers In Wake Of Holidays,” Wall Street Journal, 12 January 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123171955382272193.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

• “Farmers Concerned About Ag Credit Crunch,” WALB News, 14 January 2009, http://www.walb.com/Global/story.asp?S=9673928

Regarding Small-Scale Industries:

• Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises, India - http://msme.gov.in/msme_intcoop.htm

• Memorandum of Understanding between India and Rwanda regarding Small-Scale Industries, http://msme.gov.in/MoU%20Rwanda.pdf

• “Small-Scale Manufacturing In Kenya: Characteristics, Problems and Sources of Finance,” K.R. Gray, W. Cooley, J. Lutabingwa, 1996, http://sbaer.uca.edu/Research/usasbe/1996/pdf/23.pdf

• “An Industrial Solution For Kenya and Africa,” Amollo Lorraine, Changing the Change Conference, 10-12 July 2008, http://www.changingthechange.org/abstracts/abs008.pdf

• “Why Small Scale Industries Deserve Attention,” Henry Muhanika, The Guardian, 24 August 2008, http://www.ippmedia.com/ipp/guardian/2008/08/24/121173.html

Report On The Portland "Fix-It Fair," January 2009

I have a number of things to talk about, and they are all somewhat unrelated from each other, so I will be publishing three short posts over the next few days. Tonight's post is the first of the series.

Last weekend, I attended a “Fix-It Fair” sponsored by the City of Portland, Oregon's Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. According to the City website, the Fix-It Fairs are “...free events designed to save you money and connect you to resources. They are held on 3 Saturday mornings during the winter (November - February) from 8:30 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., at various locations around the City of Portland.” The goal of these fairs is to teach residents how to spend less and stay healthy while conserving natural resources, all by the use of environmentally responsible techniques.

I learned of the Fix-It Fair via a mailer sent out by the City to all the homes in my neighborhood. I was intrigued by the impressive list of classes offered during the fair, as well as the fact that the whole thing was free, with free lunches provided. The classes started at 9 AM and lasted 45 minutes each, but I didn't manage to arrive until a little after 10 (I had stayed up too late the night before, doing things like blogging ;-) ). Since there were 40 minutes until the next class, I visited the exhibition tables and talked to a few staffers while snapping some pictures.

I was impressed by the number of volunteers and nonprofit organizations who had exhibition tables. These exhibitors had literature and displays which informed and instructed visitors on a number of topics, such as:

• How to clean a house without harsh artificial chemicals

• How to reduce stormwater runoff by garden design and disconnecting rain gutter downspouts

• How to transition from meat-based diets to vegetarianism

• How to weatherize a home to save energy

• How to compost

• How to choose a reputable home construction contractor

• as well as opportunities to volunteer to help meet neighborhood needs via the Oregon Food Bank and Friends of Trees, among other groups.

One of the most intriguing tables I saw was sponsored by a the ReBuilding Center (http://www.rebuildingcenter.org/), a group that teaches environmentally responsible building and structure demolition. They also demolish structures in such a way that most of the disassembled materials can be reused, and they stockpile these materials in warehouses that are open to the public. There was also a table sponsored by Growing Gardens (http://www.growing-gardens.org/), one of my favorite nonprofit groups, which holds classes on food gardening and helps plant food gardens in economically challenged neighborhoods.

At last, 11 AM rolled around, and I went in to a “Home Weatherization” class taught by a staffer from the Community Energy Project (http://www.communityenergyproject.org/). The class featured some very basic, yet valuable tips on how to reduce heat loss from windows, doorways and even receptacle and light switch openings in the walls of a home. At the end, each of us was given a free weatherization kit good for one or two windows of a house.

Once the class ended, I went out to the main exhibition hall in search of lunch, only to find that over a hundred people had thought of the same thing and the lunch line was barely moving. Disappointed, I tightened my belt and gritted my teeth and went to the next class on my list, a class on building raised beds in your yard in order to grow vegetables. This class too was very informative, as the presenter taught the various methods of preparing soil for vegetable planting. His favorite method was, of course, sheet mulching – a technique which is also my favorite. In addition, he gave us some facts concerning his own food garden (he has around 40 fruit and nut trees, either as dwarf trees or on espaliers), and the total cultivated area of his garden is 6000 square feet. He devised an interesting equation to illustrate his gardening philosophy:

NS + HI = AS ↕ HM

where, NS stands for natural systems

HI stands for human intervention

AS stands for altered systems

and HM stands for human maintenance.

His point was that in order to be a successful gardener with the least effort, one should alter natural systems as little as possible; otherwise, the amount of human maintenance would go up.

After his class ended, I went back again to the exhibition hall in search of lunch, but by this time the lunches were all gone. (This is one of the few bad things I could say about the event.) So I tightened my belt a little more and gritted my teeth a little harder, and attended the final class on my list, a class titled, “Emergencies – Beyond the First 72 Hours.” This class was well worth the minor inconvenience of an empty stomach, as I found it to be the most interesting of all the classes.

The instructor informed us that government offices such as FEMA typically promote having enough supplies to survive the first 72 hours of an emergency. The 72 hours, however, is a baseline estimate of the time between the onset of a disaster and the start of government help. This means that people in a disaster in the U.S. might have to be able to hold out much longer than 72 hours. The key to surviving the first 72 hours is to have adequate stored water, food, sanitary means and appropriate shelter.

But the instructor said that the key to surviving after that period is sustainability, which he defined as the ability to supply oneself with the basic necessities for the long term. The measures of sustainability must be integrated now into daily activities now, so that they are not foreign to people when disaster strikes. The instructor talked of the need for individuals, neighborhoods and families to come together and draft plans for long-term survivability, including making timelines for the activities needed for people to stay in place after a disaster, as well as finding space and finances for stored supplies. He also mentioned that businesses who practiced good disaster planning found that every dollar spent on preparation saved 7 dollars in response.

He went on to talk about long-term food storage, even mentioning the extremely helpful articles found on Captain Dave's website (http://www.captaindaves.com/guide/index.htm), as well as the importance of learning to garden for food and the need to use heirloom, non-hybrid seeds in gardening. There were times when his food security advice seemed to be right out of Casaubon's Book! All in all, it was a very informative class (as I said, well worth a skipped lunch), and at the end, the instructor said that he is available to visit neighborhoods and present a somewhat longer and more in-depth class to anyone who is interested. I think I'll take him up on his offer.

Below are some pictures from the fair. Enjoy! For those who live in Portland, the next fair will be on Saturday, 7 February 2009.

P.S., This fair is not the product of some special virtue or intelligence confined only to Portland. Any community can do such things as this. All it takes is a network of volunteers willing to look realistically at the world we live in and the times we are now facing, and to begin to learn and teach the skills needed for coping with such a world and such times. This is what it means to build a safety net of alternative systems. Build the network. Be a volunteer.