Years ago, economics teachers used to list food, clothing and shelter as basic needs. Modern society has added energy, health care and transportation to that list. But we have become entranced with the idea that we can best meet those needs by instituting far-flung networks encompassing production, processing, transportation and distribution of products, those we need and those we want, over large distances. Food, a basic need, is a good example. The food we eat travels, on average, thirteen hundred miles before getting to the consumer and each step in the process, most notably the transportation, has negative environmental consequences, serious ones.
We need to cut that distance down to a minimum by putting together systems of production and distribution centered right here at home, where we have an abundance of resources, knowledge and talent that can provide us with what we need without the extra costs and damages involved in the long-distance and long time-lag centralized system we've become accustomed to.
Let's look at basic needs one at a time. Food is relatively easy. This area has good soil, good planting sites, adequate water and a decent climate. We can organically grow pretty much all the plant proteins, vitamins, minerals and trace elements that our bodies need right here in the county. But how do we go about doing that in an area where agriculture focuses on making money rather than feeding people? We start small, with our own personal gardens and with community gardens, that's how.
We have to make arrangements for processing. It's one thing to have plenty of flour, but if you can't make bread out of it, it's not worth much. With good organization, we can deal with baking, cooking, preserving and storing the products we produce
Distribution may be a little more complicated. Local supermarkets won't buy local products (that's why we pay a dollar a pound in the supermarket for pears shipped in from far away, in a county that's noted for its high quality pears). We'll have to establish local, small outlets and a system to gather produce from gardeners, process it at least minimally, and put it up for sale at prices that don't involve the financial and other costs involved in long-distance shipment of products into the county and money out of the county. Is there anybody around who thinks we can't do that?
As for clothing, we produce wool here, and we can produce cotton and other fabrics. Many Mendocino County denizens know how to spin and weave. How about a local clothing industry that combines use of newly-grown fabrics with re-use of older cloth, crafted by local people and distributed through local outlets? We can do that.
Shelter is in short supply. Using our own local resources, we can build more. We do have sources of wood hereabouts and with legalization of industrial hemp and a shift to other techniques - straw bale, cobb, etc.- we can create structures without having to destroy our timber base. As well, we can encourage shared housing arrangements, thereby utilizing living space that otherwise would house fewer people.
Energy is easy. We have the means and the know-how here to produce any number of alternative energy devices and systems and we have the sun, wind and water to make them produce. The big hurdle is getting away from our fossil fuel addiction.
Transportation is on the way to becoming fossil fuel-free with development of electric vehicles and fuel cells. Let's start with a push to get charging stations around the county for EVs. But we need to be sure that the juice provided at those stations comes from sources that are non-polluting and non-destructive of habitat, human and other (see previous paragraph). Can we produce hydrogen here? Let's look at that.
Health care starts with good health. Good food is basic to good health (see above). A community that prizes health will do what's necessary to make it easy for people to be healthy. As for actual care of those diseases that do get us or of injuries from various kinds of trauma, we have a good supply of medical practitioners here in the county, not all of them MDs. And many medications are here right for the picking.
None of this means we have to immediately shift into a different, somewhat slower and less demanding life-style. We'll always need things from the outside and we'll always have to be able to buy or trade for them. But can't we arrange, over time, to conserve the wealth generated by the products we grow or manufacture and use that wealth to gain the products that we need but can't produce here? Sure we can.
This isn't a call to abandon all the material civilization we know, only the part we don't really need. Think of it as a call for action over an extended period, a call for working underneath the present system, boring from within, so to speak. We can create a community that functions by itself, for itself and of itself, shedding reliance on far away, centralized institutions that work in their interests, not ours. Imagine what a world it would be if communities everywhere made that kind of shift..
Note: This superficial overview is an introduction to a more comprehensive treatment of sustainability in Mendocino County. We will cover each of the topics mentioned here - and others - in much more detail in succeeding issues. We invite persons knowledgeable about these issues to get in touch and lend their expertise to a fuller discussion of sustainability issues.
Copyright Mendocino Environmental Center 2000
Permission granted to excerpt or use this article if source is cited