Wendell Berry's Rule #17

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

"A sustainable rural economy will be dependent on urban consumers loyal to local products.  Therefore, we are talking about an economy that will always be more cooperative than competitive."

So, we come to the end of the 17 rules.  With this last one, I see that Mr. Berry is stressing the connection between different communities and different people in a region.  It is the rare person or family that can make it completely on their own.  I, for one, wouldn't want to.  I like people (usually!) and I like the idea of an economy that is based on things that can be grown, raised or made in rural areas supporting people in cities and suburbs while those people engage in activities that create value-added enhancements to the rural lifestyle.  Regional micro-financing of small businesses, will depend, in the future, on everyone re-investing in their own communities and not so much on the global mega-corporations.

Explore sustainable investing through mutual funds such as credit unions like the Permaculture Credit Union (www.pcuonline.org) which will provide capital for small projects such as solar systems, energy efficiency upgrades or rainwater catchment systems.  Or check out Green Century Funds, a mutual fund which considers the actions and ethics of companies selected for the fund.

PLEASE NOTE, I am not a financial planner and cannot specifically recommend any particular fund or credit union.  My objective here is to raise the IDEA of sustainable financing and investment and NOT to give a financial recommendation.

In this final Rule #17, we see that a sustainable community cannot operate in a vacuum.  A sustainable economy must be one where we are interdependent on one another, our neighbors and our neighboring communities, first, before become dependent on other parts of the world.

Wendell Berry's Rule #16

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

"A rural community should always be acquainted with, and complexly connected with, community-minded people in nearby towns and cities."

Just as it won't be worthwhile if our own households are the only sustainable ones in our community (after all, if our neighbors are hurting, suffering, struggling, how will we in good conscience live happily in our sustainable homesteads?), we must reach out to neighboring communities and work together to create large oases of sustainability that are resilient to whatever comes from climate change, oil shortages, general natural resource shortages, weird weather, whatever.

Wendell Berry's Rule #15

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

"Always be aware of the economic value of neighborly acts.  In our time the costs of living are greatly increased by the loss of neighborhood, leaving people to face their calamities alone."

I believe people in my little town would say we are doing pretty well on this matter.  However, I think it is an important topic to raise especially with more frequent and more severe storms happening.   Wouldn't it be a good idea to know exactly who is living alone, may have mobility or other health issues and could be very isolated in a crisis.  In a small town like mine, there are many people already thinking about these issues - the volunteer fire and ambulance crews, for example, and church members, the senior committee members and others working in various capacities at town hall.

But, perhaps, a simple neighborly act is all that is needed, sometimes, to help a lonely or confused neighbor out of a tough spot.  It's what extended families always do for each other, but nowadays, many people live far from their families and friends and neighbors become their support system.

Wendell Berry's Rule #14

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

"Look into the possible uses of local currency, community-funded loan programs, systems of barter, and the like."

Wouldn't it be great if you could exchange your product or service for what you needed, from someone in your own community, without using regular money?  Well, the idea is springing up all over the place.  The nearest example to me is in the Bershires of western Massachusetts.  Go to this website below for lots of information on what people are doing and how it all works.

http://www.berkshares.org/

Also, here's a good book reference on the subject:

"Local Dollars, Local Sense: How to Shift Your Money from Wall Street to Main Street and Achieve Real Prosperity," by Michael Shuman (Chelsea Green). 

It's not so much about direct barter as about looking for sustainable and local ways to invest.

Wendell Berry's Rule #13

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

Account for costs now conventionally hidden or "externalized."  Whenever possible, these costs must be debited against monetary income.

What does this mean? How are costs hidden in an economic sense?

The easiest way to think of this is to think of a manufactured product that comes from raw materials that are shipped, probably from one country to another, to a manufacturing plant.  In accountancy, the cost to the environment of the planet of extracting the raw materials, is not taken into consideration.  So, for example, the effects on the land, the air, the water and ultimately to the people in nearby communities and the world at large, of clear cutting forests or strip mining or mountaintop mining, which are extreme examples of negatives effects of materials acquisition, are not figured into the cost of production.

This means that, although there is a huge cost in terms of health, safety and welfare of all living beings on the planet by these actions, the monetary cost to repair (if that's even possible) is put off to some indeterminate time in the future to be borne by future generations.

Eating wild harvested fish that are being caught in vast numbers that boggle the mind, contributes to the profit of fishing corporations or even individual fishing families, but the crash of fish species populations in the oceans lead to devastating disruptions of the oceanic ecosystem with far reaching results for ocean health and therefore climate and biological health of the planet.

None of these types of costs are shown on the debit side of a corporations bookkeeping ledgers. What Rule 13 is asking is to have these costs clearly shown and the profits of a corporation should reflect these costs in an honest way so that profits made from the product should be reduced accordingly to repair the damage created by the companies activities.

By buying locally produced goods and foods we can more easily see the results of the businesses actions and choose whether the products meets our needs of living sustainably and in harmony with our belief that the human race must choose options that do not harm the planet so that we all may live (the human race in concert with other creatures).

Wendell Berry's Rule #12

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:


"See that the old and the young take of one another.  The young must learn from the old, not necessarily and not always in school.  There must be no institutionalized "child care" and "homes for the aged."  The community knows and remembers itself by the association of old and young."

This "rule" is quite thought provoking and not immediately, to me at any rate, obvious in its application. 

As for "no institutionalized homes for the aged" I have some doubts about that.  I think every situation is different.  I just returned from visiting my Mom in England.  She is 94 and Dad passed away last year after a very long number of years declining.  Mom took care of him at home.  With a large family of children and grandchildren nearby, she was never alone, for very long.  Visitors came and went.

After Dad died, Mom was naturally lonely.  She WANTED to go into assisted living and she would not have wanted to move in with one of my sisters.  She absolutely loves where she is living, and I must say, it's like at 5 star hotel. She does not need nursing care, just not to have to clean, cook, laundry etc.  She is very happy, says she is, often.  Loves her room, says all the staff are lovely and take good care of her and she has friends and entertainment.  The extended family are only minutes away from the facility and come and see her every day.

Surely, that is a good arrangement.  But I do agree, that "sticking" our old people somewhere against their will is a frightening thing.  In England, the National Health Service emphasises keeping people in their homes with professional care, if needed, rather than nursing homes.  And it is actually more economical to do so. 

We all know that an honest conversation is needed in this country about health care in general and care of the aging, in particular.  The conversation we are having is not an honest one because it is dominated by the needs of insurance companies and other segments of the capitalist economy.  Within our own communities, perhaps this conversation could be had at the local level and creative ideas come out.

Wendell Berry's Rule #11

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:


"Make the community able to invest in itself by maintaining its properties, keeping itself clean (without dirtying some other place), caring for its old people, teaching its children."

Should we be looking more deeply at our how we "clean" ourselves?  There is more to this than we might think at first glance.  This could relate to personal hygiene and the products we use and their effect on local water.  It could relate to how we clean our clothes and homes, with similar concerns.

Also, as a community, how do we clean our roads, public buildings and dispose of waste?  Should we assess the waste stream leaving our town or neighborhood and develop better ways of re-using the discarded materials in local manufacturing or soil building? 

As an example, every week my husband and I bring home as much discarded cardboard, and sometimes thick wads of discarded newspaper, as we can handle from the local "dump" (actually a waste transfer station).  We strip off the plastic packing tape or staples and use the cardboard or newspaper as mulch to smother areas of ground we want to convert to fertile food growing areas.  Over the cardboard we spread leaves, hay, grass clippings or other organic material which hides the cardboard and speeds up the soil building process at the same time.  Since we are farming on shallow soils over bedrock with lots of loose rocks and stones, this process allows us to easily and cheaply develop fertile soils in which we grow most of our fruits and vegetables, all of our flowers and herbs, and now mushrooms too, for the whole year.

Even where the soil is naturally good, it needs to be replenished with rotted organic matter in order to maintain fertility and avoid erosion.  A regular compost pile is a good thing to do as well, but most households cannot make the quantity of compost needed to produce large amounts of edibles on a regular basis.

Mulching the soil has other benefits too.  Mulch keeps the soil moist, maintains a more even temperature and smothers weeds.

If everyone in our community would do this one thing - using the waste cardboard and newspaper, our community would be cleaner, require fewer truckloads of waste to be transported "somewhere else" and would be on the path to future food security by building healthy soils.  Teaching our children these basic skills; growing surplus food to feed older citizens who may not have access to fresh grown produce of their own, fulfills other aspects of Mr. Berry's Rule #11.  I am sure there are many other examples that people can think of.

If readers of this blog can think of other ideas, please share them in the comments area of my blog.  This is a challenge to all of you out there!  Go for it.

This is just one example of a cleaner community.

Wendell Berry's Rule #10

As always, with thanks to visionary writer, Wendell Berry who wrote these provocative "Rules for a Sustainable Community" that are presented here as excerpted from the poster of the "Rules" published by Yes! Magazine:

"Make sure that money paid into the local economy circulates within the community for as long as possible before it is paid out."

Supporting your friends and neighbors in the community where you live, by doing business with them instead of the big box stores or on the internet, keeps the money in the community longer.  This allows the local economy to be more resilient and less susceptible to the ups and downs of the wider economy. 

This concept works even better when the materials for locally produced goods are also produced locally. 

These days, it is hard to do all your business locally, but starting small and finding out about local producers of things you need, is the first step.

In my town, our Transition Initiating Committee, aka the Celebrate Bethlehem Committee, is developing a master list of all business people in our town to include producers of primary products such as locally grown food, to producers of secondary products, e.g. yogurt or cheese from local dairy, and non food things as well, such as woodworkers who produce craftsman products from locally harvested wood; service people who provide a service from medical, dental, legal, housecleaning, pet sitting, etc.  The list is a first step in a plan to promote buying local within our own community.