How to Grow More Vegetables (and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops) than you ever thought possible on less land than you can imagine

By John Jeavons

2002 Edition

Ten Speed Press

Book Review – Part I

(Part I summarizes the theory of biotensive farming and Part II practical techniques.)

Originally published in 1974, How to Grow More Vegetables remains a vital resource for farmers, agricultural researchers and planners, sustainability activists and home gardeners, as the world confronts the challenge of feeding a global population of 7-9 billion without access to the cheap fossil fuels that have run “industrialized” agriculture for the last century. The book is unique in that it combines theory and research (and includes a fifty-three page bibliography of references) with a cookbook style manual for households preparing for a future in which they grow most or all of their own food.

Although most people associate “technology” with machines, I use the word in its literal sense: “science or study of the practical uses of scientific discoveries (Collins Modern English Dictionary).” The Chinese method of “miniaturized” biointensive agriculture is 4,000 years old (see F.H. King’s 1911 book about this method, Farmers of Forty Centuries). However the “GROW BIOINTENSIVE” methods described in How to Grow More Vegetables are also informed by thirty plus years of research into soil, plant and ecological science. Thus they represent an innovative technology in the truest sense of the word.

Growing Soil, Not Crops

The GROW BIOINTENSIVE approach, developed by John Jeavons and Ecology Action of the Midpenninsula (Palo Alto), is centered around preserving the microbial life (mainly bacteria and fungi) that are abundant in healthy soil and which are essential to plant health and growth. Up to 6 billion microbial life-forms live in one 5-gram sample of cured compost (about the size of a quarter). This microbial life, so essential to plant development, is destroyed by specific aspects of industrial farming. This is the main reason for the relatively poor yields of factory farms (in contrast to traditional biointensive methods). It’s also responsible for the extensive destruction of our topsoil. Repeated plowing and chemical fertilizers disrupt the delicate ecology of topsoil organisms, and pesticides and herbicides are as deadly to soil bacteria and fungi as they are to insects and weeds.

In his introduction, Jeavons reveals that industrial farming destroys approximately six pounds of topsoil for each pound of food it produces. China’s soils for example remained productive for more than 4,000 years, until the adoption of mechanized chemical agricultural techniques led to the destruction of 15-33% of their agricultural soil. Another example is North Africa, which was the granary for Rome until overfarming converted it into a desert. According to Jeavons, the world only has enough topsoil left to last 42-84 years.

Quadrupling Crop Yields

Based on thirty-plus years of horticultural research, Ecology Action members have ascertained that the GROW BIOINTENSIVE method, in the hands of a skilled practitioner, can produce enough food to feed one person (on a vegan diet) with 4,000 square feet of land. This contrasts with the 7,000 square feet required to feed a vegan using fossil fuels, farm machinery and conventional chemical or organic techniques. Without fossil fuels and machines, the amount of land required (using conventional chemical or organic techniques) would be 21,000-28,000 square feet.

At present it takes 31,000-63,000 square feet per person to produce an average US diet (including eggs, milk, cheese, and meat), using fossil fuels and mechanization and conventional chemical or organic techniques.

In addition to producing a 200-400% increase in caloric production per unit of area, the GROW BIOINTENSIVE method also significantly reduces water consumption (by 67-88%) and increases soil fertility (by 100%).

To be continued with an overview of specific GROW BIOINTENSIVE techniques.

Dr Guy McPherson

“The opera ain’t over till the fat lady sings” – Dan Cook, sports writer and broadcaster 1978

I have spent this past weekend at a lecture and workshop by Arizonan Guy McPherson, who is currently touring New Zealand. McPherson blogs at Nature Bats Last and has recently published a book called Walking Away from Empire: a Personal Journey. During his lecture he presented some very interesting oil production/price data that has made it possible for a number of mainstream and non-mainstream economists and financial advisers to project a date for the next economic crisis. Many, like McPherson, believe the next one will be so catastrophic it will bring down the global financial system and world trade and monetary system, and possibly our energy and telecommunications grid. In other words, TEOTWAWKI (The End of the World as We Know It).

For nearly a decade various Peak Oil economists have been predicting the collapse of the global economic system, based on the growing cost of oil extraction (we’ve used up all the sweet stuff that’s easy to get at – sucking it out of tar sands and from deep water wells is far more difficult and costly). While the mainstream media rarely makes the connection, all industrial activity and economic activity has always depended on the ready availability of cheap fossil fuel. Yet a close examination of world oil reserves and production shows that the era of cheap fossil fuel has ended. Owing to the high cost of extraction, world oil production virtually plateaued in 2004. According to current data it will begin to decline sharply (by 4% per year) in 2014.

You know the coming crisis is real when the world’s most two most famous insurance companies, Lloyd’s of London and Chatham House, advise the businesses they insure to begin scenario-planning exercises for the oil price spike they expect in the “medium term” (Lloyd’s 2010).

Until recently the exact timing of the next oil spike (and economic collapse) has been difficult to predict. In large part, this relates to the failure of industrialized countries to operate as free markets. While no other country is as generous as the US in the corporate welfare government provides multinational corporations, all industrialized countries do it to some extent.

Numbers That Point to a November-December 2012 Oil Spike (and major economic crisis)

1. Oil production has plateaued

The following graph is from an exhaustive paper analyzing global oil production trends by Russian economist Dean Fantazzini. Fantazzini counts all liquid fuels (e.g. liquified natural gas), owing to their ability to be used interchangeably with oil. You can see that production virtually flat lined in 2004:

2. Demand from energy hungry countries like China and India continues to increase rapidly.

When demand exceeds supply, the law of supply and demand dictates that the price must increase – unless government intervenes to stabilize it.

3. All Modern Recessions Were Triggered by Spikes in the Price of Oil

Even more surprising is the following graph, published in the Wall Street Journal in February 2012. It shows that every recession since 1973 has been triggered by a steep increase in the price of oil. It’s perfectly logical when you think about it. Businesses have no choice but to cut their oil use when the price goes up. And because of the direct link between energy use and industrial production, economic activity decreases accordingly. This, by definition, is a recession.

WSJ Oil price recession chart

Other economists have extended the oil spike/recession link back to World War II. Since 1947, according to James Hamilton, every recession but one was linked to a spike in oil prices.

Recent Demand Collapse

The price of oil per barrel has decreased 25% in the last three months, mainly due to demand bottoming out in dying economies like Greece and Spain. The price of gasoline hasn’t reflected this decrease, in part because Eurozone oil sanctions against Iran are expected to push the per barrel cost up again. Bloomberg’s predicts the price to rise to $114 per barrel in the 3rd quarter of 2012.

What Obama Could But Won’t Do

Owing to the upcoming elections, we can expect Obama to release most of America’s strategic oil reserves. However this is a drop in the ocean, compared to the billions of barrels lost to Europe and the US due to the sanctions on Iran. Other options open to the President are to implement price controls (like Nixon) or to ration gasoline (like Roosevelt during World War II). Obama’s past behavior suggests he worries more about pissing off oil companies (by interfering with their price gouging) than voters angry about the price of gasoline. Thus I think bold action on his part is highly unlikely.

Preparing for Economic Collapse

McPherson’s presentation had a powerful effect on the hundred or so of us who listened to it. Perhaps the fat lady hasn’t quite started singing, but I can sure see her standing in the wings. About thirty of us met with McPherson and his wife the following morning to begin drawing up a detailed food security plan for New Plymouth. If there is a second, more severe economic crisis in December, New Zealand’s oil imports could cease overnight. Without petrol for our vehicles, we are a long way (by horse or donkey) from the agricultural centers that currently provide most of our food. While many of us already produce large amounts of fruit and fresh vegetables in our gardens, we are very short on staples (like potatoes and grains), sources of concentrated protein and seeds.

McPherson will be doing an interview with Radio New Zealand, and I will post a link to the MP3 file when it’s broadcast.

Teena Borek

Florida farmer Teena Borek was on Radio New Zealand National last weekend. In the US, Teena seems relatively unknown outside of her own state, where she works tirelessly to support family farmers struggling to compete with factory farms and cheap imports from Latin America. Teena, who took over her husband’s farm when he was killed in 1989, was named Homestead/Florida City Agriculturist of the Year in March. In 2004, she was named Florida Female Agriculturist of the Year.

An Endangered Species

In the US, the family farmer is becoming an endangered species. According to the USDA Census of Agriculture, the number of U.S. farms peaked at 6.8 million in 1935 and had plummeted to 2.1 million by 2002. In 2012, family farmers are being squeezed off their land faster than ever. They face ruthless price competition from large scale factory farms – and, with the passage of NAFTA in 1994, from cheap imports from Mexico and Central and South America. They also have serious cost pressures. Increasing urbanization has made investment groups and equity firms extremely keen to exploit farmland for commercial development. This serves to drive up property values and real estate taxes. The American Farmland Trust estimates an acre of U.S. farmland goes into development every two minutes.

This trend has very ominous implications for all Americans. As the American Farmland Trust explains on their website, the advent of Peak Oil and skyrocketing fertilizer and transportation costs means our reliance on large scale factory farms and imported foods is neither economically nor ecologically unsustainable. Our ability to feed ourselves into the future depends on the continuing availability of quality farmland. However once paved over for urban development, it becomes extremely difficult to reclaim for agriculture.

The Great Tomato War of 2012

In her interview, Teena describes successfully surviving these pressures for nearly two decades by specializing in heritage tomatoes and miniature vegetables she sells to local high end restaurants. She has also been a major player in Florida’s highly visible “buy local” campaign, helping to start a local farmers market, as well as creating her own Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) scheme.

This year, owing to circumstances totally beyond her control, she was forced to leave most of her winter tomato crop in the field. Due to a flood of imported tomatoes from Mexico, the cost of labor to harvest her crop would have been greater than what local restaurants and supermarkets were willing to pay for it. It costs small Florida farmers $9-10 to produce a box of tomatoes, while Mexican producers sell the same box to Dade County supermarkets for five dollars. Lower production costs in Mexico relate mainly to lower land, labor and compliance costs. While Florida farmers can face thousands of dollars in food safety compliance costs, tomatoes imported from Mexico, which has very lax food safety regulations, aren’t even subject to inspection.

Teena explains in her interview that NAFTA was passed main to benefit large wheat and corn producers seeking to maximize overseas exports. In contrast, vegetable growers rate so low with federal authorities that the USDA refers to their products as “specialty crops.”

Other Florida agriculturists clearly support Teena’s views. The international online newsletter HortiBiz refers to “The Great Tomato War of 2012”. According to Tony DiMare, vice president of the Homestead-based DiMare Company, one of Florida’s largest shippers, the USDA is neglecting its statutory obligation to crack down on illegally low-priced Mexican tomatoes and on shipments that are not meant for export but wind up in the U.S. anyway.  Foreign competition under NAFTA, according to the University of Florida, has led to a situation where nearly all  Florida pepper and tomato production is controlled by a small number of large corporate agribusinesses, which can spread their “risk” over several crops or growing cycles.

The USDA gives lip service to promoting small farmers and local food production through their Know Your Farmer Know your Food Compass campaign. What the family farmers of south Florida really need is for the USDA to enforce the anti-dumping rules the US and Mexico have agreed on, as well as establishing an inspection protocol that subject  Mexican imports to the same food safety standards as US crops.

How to Support Family Farmers

As the American Farmland Trust website makes clear, none of these pressures are limited to Florida. The best way to support family farmers is to consume a diet consisting mainly of locally produced foods, purchased from local farmers markets or CSA schemes. As Teena suggests in her interview, people can also demand that local supermarkets stock locally grown, rather than imported, fruits and vegetables. Finally you don’t need to be a farmer to join the American Farmland Trust. I first became a member fifteen years ago when I lived in Seattle. A membership is $35, but they also have a special donor program where people can adopt an acre of farmland in their home state for $10.

2012 STATE OF WYOMING

12LSO-00441 HB0085
HOUSE BILL NO. HB0085
Government continuity

Sponsored by: Representative(s) Miller, Burkhart, Davison, Edmonds, Jaggi, Kroeker, McKim, Peasley, Quarberg and Teeters and Senator(s) Jennings and Peterson

A BILL for
1 AN ACT relating to governmental studies; providing for a
2 task force to study governmental continuity in case of a
3 disruption in federal government operations; providing for
4 a report; providing appropriations; and providing for an
5 effective date.
6
7 Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
8
9 Section 1.
10
11 (a) There is created a government continuity task
12 force consisting of the following members:
13
14 (i) Two (2) senators appointed by the president
15 of the senate;

2012 STATE OF WYOMING 12LSO-0044
2 HB0085

1
2 (ii) Two (2) representatives appointed by the
3 speaker of the house;
4
5 (iii) The director of the department of homeland
6 security or his designee;
7
8 (iv) The attorney general or his designee;
9
10 (v) The adjutant general or his designee;
11
12 (vi) The director of the department of
13 agriculture or his designee; and
14
15 (vii) The director of the oil and gas
16 conservation commission or his designee.
17
18 (b) The task force shall study potential impacts on
19 Wyoming of, and preparation of the government and the
20 people of Wyoming for, a potential disruption of the United
21 States federal government including, but not limited to:
22
2012 STATE OF WYOMING 12LSO-0044
3 HB0085

1 (i) Potential effects of the rapid decline of

2 the United States dollar and the ability to quickly provide

3 an alternative currency;

4

5 (ii) Potential effects of a situation in which

6 the federal government has no effective power or authority

7 over the people of the United States;

8

9 (iii) Potential effects of a constitutional

10 crisis;

11

12 (iv) Coordination between the governor’s office,

13 Wyoming national guard and any federal military in Wyoming;

14

15 (v) Potential effects of a disruption in food

16 distribution;

17

18 (vi) Potential effects of a disruption in energy

19 distribution.

20
21 (c) The task force shall submit a report and
22 recommendations with respect to the issues specified in
23 subsection (b) of this section to the governor and the
24 legislature by December 1, 2012.

2012 STATE OF WYOMING 12LSO-0044
4 HB0085
1
2 (d) Members of the task force who are legislators
3 shall be paid salary, per diem and mileage as provided in
4 W.S. 28-5-101 for their official duties as members of the
5 task force. Members of the task force who are state
6 employees shall not be paid any additional salary for their
7 official duties as members of the task force. The
8 legislative service office shall staff the task force.
9
10 (e) There is appropriated from the general fund:
11
12 (i) Eighteen thousand dollars ($18,000.00) to
13 the legislative service office for purposes of this act and
14 payment of salary, per diem and mileage for legislative
15 task force members;
16
17 (ii) Fourteen thousand dollars ($14,000.00) to
18 the governor’s office for payment of authorized per diem
19 and mileage for nonlegislative task force members.
20
2012 STATE OF WYOMING 12LSO-00445

From http://legisweb.state.wy.us/2012/Introduced/HB0085.pdf

http://transitionculture.org/

Book Review-Part V (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 5 and 6 of Fleeing Vesuvius are entitled “Changing the Way We Live” and “Changing the Way We Think.” Both are about solutions. They propose broad strategies for supporting large numbers of people in downsizing their energy guzzling way of life.

The main lessons I draw from these chapters are

1. Politicians don’t lead – people do. The notion that elected officials will lead us in finding solutions to the economic crisis, climate change, Peak Oil or the impending food and water crisis is a myth created and perpetuated by the mainstream media. The only solution politicians and the media can think of is to push the poor and disadvantaged off the cliff through massive austerity cuts. One of the important points Gar Aperovitz makes in America Beyond Capitalism is that Franklyn Roosevelt didn’t create the New Deal jobs and social programs (like Social Security). With the New Deal, he merely enacted on a federal level (in response to popular pressure) programs that had been operating for years on a state and local level.

2. There is an awful lot happening on the state and local level to take back our economy and lives from corporate rule. Just because people don’t hear about it on the six o’clock news doesn’t make it any less real. In addition to the Citizens Rights movement and similar movements in other countries, hundreds of US cities (representing nearly one-third of the population) have signed up to the Kyoto Accords and are massively reducing their carbon emissions. Likewise, as Aperovitz points out, hundreds of millions of Americans have opted out of the corporate economy by joining cooperatives and credit unions and creating worker owned businesses, alternatives currencies, farmers markets, etc.

Part 5 Changing the Way We Live

This section starts with economist Brain Davey’s article entitled “Danger ahead: prioritizing risk avoidance in political and economic decision making.” It looks at the difficult proposition of getting national and international leaders to enact meaningful energy and transportation policy. He suggests that we need to stress the dire risk – focusing on an impending food and public health crisis – of not doing so. I find it intriguing that the elitist World Economic forum, which meets every January in Davos Switzerland, makes the same argument in Global Risks 2012 (see http://dissidentvoice.org/2012/01/occupy-wall-street-the-view-from-davos/)

The second essay, “Transition thinking: The Good Life 2.0,” describes the philosophy and success of the Transition movement in helping thousands of local communities to make the local infrastructure changes that will facilitate a transition to carbon neutrality and energy self-sufficiency. As a member of Transition Town New Plymouth, I have been extremely surprised at the receptiveness of our local council to the initiatives we put forward (for example reconfiguring streets to make them safer for cycling and walking, rewarding council employees for leaving their cars at home, and enacting incentives to help residents insulate their homes and install solar water heaters).

“Sailing Craft for a post-collapse world” talks about strategies for replacing expensive, fossil fuel based land transport with boats powered by free wind energy.

Part 6 Changing the Way We Think

This section is a little disappointing, as some of the essays buy into reductionistic drug company hype attributing human behavior to brain molecules. The notion presented here that resource overconsumption is based on the dopaminergic reward system overlooks important work by Robert Putnum, Ralph Nader and others on the link between depression and alienation and breakdown of community and civic organizations. Kalle Lasn (founder of Adbusters) and others have written at length about systematic efforts by the public relations and advertising industry to persuade people to compensate for chronic loneliness and emptiness by consuming. This section also overlooks extensive neurophysiological research showing that human beings are hard wired to crave social interaction. These studies also show that hormones, such as ocytocin and endorphins, and mirror neurons are far more important than dopamine in this programming (see http://www.opednews.com/articles/Marketing-Serotonin-Defici-by-Dr-Stuart-Jeanne-B-100713-513.html).

I found the later essays in Part 6 more helpful, especially those that address the apathy and inertia that prevent most of the developing world from taking serious measures to address impending economic, ecological and resource crises. In “Cultivating hope and managing despair,” psychotherapist John Sharry compares this widespread apathy and inertia to Kubler Ross’s stages of grief in bereavement or impending loss (denial, anger, depression, acceptance). The impending collapse of the global economy, industrial capitalism and possibly civilization itself is the worst loss any of us can imagine. It should be no surprise that human beings’ initial response to such news is denial.

Sharry suggests that Kubler Ross has left out an essential step between depression and acceptance – namely hopeful and constructive action. Based on personal experience, this makes perfect sense. Transition Town New Plymouth draws in many people who still aren’t totally convinced we are heading off the cliff. As they become involved in constructive activities to move our community away from blind corporate consumption, they seem to find it easier to accept that mankind faces a rocky future.

People can follow the progress of the global Transition movement at the Transition Culture website http://transitionculture.org/

To be continued.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Biochar pellets

Book Review-Part IV (of VI)

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Parts 3 and 4 of Fleeing Vesuvius, “New Ways of Using the Land” and “Dealing with Climate Change,” focus mainly on  local and national strategies for reducing fossil fuel use (both to conserve fossil energy and reduce carbon emissions).

Industrial Symbiosis

The first essay in Part 3, “Cutting transport costs and emissions through local integration,” talks about bringing similar and related industries into close proximity with one another. The term for this is “industrial symbiosis.” Emer O’Siochru gives the example of Kalundburg Denmark, where all waste products are someone else’s raw material. Siochru describes how surplus heat from the coal fired power plant is used to heat 3,500 local homes and a fish farm, whose waste sludge is sold as fertilizer. Meanwhile steam from the power plant is sold to a pharmaceutical company, and gypsum collected from the the sulfur dioxide chimney scrubbers is sold to a wall board manufacturer.

Food Security and Localized Food Production

The other essays in Part 3 deal with food production, in an era where energy, water and resource scarcity make food security increasingly precarious. It may be difficult for urban dwellers who are isolated from food production to comprehend the urgent need to transition from centralized industrialized agriculture to small scale local and regional farms. Factory farming is extremely energy intensive. The synthetic nitrogen fertilizers used are manufactured from natural gas, while most pesticides are petroleum-based hydrocarbons. This is in addition to the substantial energy cost of running farm machinery and food processing and packaging, to say nothing of transportation costs (especially in the case of imported foods). In New Zealand, as in many parts of the US and Europe, the cost of meat, dairy products, eggs and fresh fruits and vegetables has increased 20% since 2008, along with the cost of energy.

In addition to skyrocketing costs, there is also the growing risk that extreme weather events – floods, hurricanes, tornadoes – will shut down vital sections of the food supply network. Owing to major cutbacks in federal, state and local emergency response programs, communities may be left to fend for themselves, as New Orleans was after Katrina.

It will take several years for local communities to become the major source of food for their residents. The global sustainability movement has launched a number of initiatives, such as the 100 mile diet, to facilitate this process. Bestselling author Barbara Kingsolver describes this quite eloquently in her 2007 book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.

Nutritional Resilience

The food security essays in Part 3 are quite technical and geared towards communities that have already taken the first steps to increase local food production. “The nutritional resilience approach to food security” addresses the problem of mineral deficient soils, which could cause major nutritional problems in communities that source all their fruits and vegetables from a single region. Healthy soil should contain a range of trace minerals (e.g. calcium, zinc, selenium and boron), which are easily lost through erosion and water run-off. Because industrially produced crops are often deficient in these minerals, they are more susceptible to pests, which results in massive overuse of toxic pesticides.

Bruce Darrell talks about the importance of addressing the mineral composition of soils, even in organic farming. He gives the example of the high prevalence of thyroid goiter in iodine deficient regions of England.

Methane, Nitrous Oxide and Biochar

The final essay in Part 3 discusses a variety of strategies for creating “carbon sinks,” which trap carbon in the soil to prevent its release to the atmosphere. “Refocusing the purpose of the land” also discusses methane and nitrous oxide emissions. These are far more damaging greenhouse gasses than carbon dioxide, especially in countries like Ireland (and New Zealand) with agriculturally based economies. Nitrous oxide comes from livestock urine and the overuse of urea as a fertilizer. Methane is a by-product produced (as a belch) when ruminants (cows, sheep, horses, etc) degrade grass and other high cellulose plants by means of special bacteria in their rumins.

The author, Corinna Birne, focuses heavily on the use of biochar (buried charcoal) to create carbon sinks. In addition to trapping carbon dioxide, it also locks up methane and nitrous oxide and important nutrients. Thus soil treated with biochar requires less fertilizer.

Cap and Share

The essays in Part 4 look at national and international strategies for reducing carbon emissions. Cap and Share is a simple method devised by Feasta in 2008 that is much fairer than either a carbon tax or emissions trading. With this approach, countries agree to a fixed cap on carbon emissions. They also require primary fossil-fuel suppliers (e.g. oil companies) to buy permits to introduce fossil fuels into the economy. Although fossil fuel suppliers pass these costs onto the consumer, revenue from the permits is used to help low income customers pay their energy bills. Over time this causes carbon-intensive goods and services to cost more, encouraging consumers to seek out renewable energy alternatives.

To be continued.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Book Review-Part III

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

The second part of Fleeing Vesuvius is entitled “Innovation in business, money and finance.” It draws on the main theme of Part I, describing how the current economic crisis is a direct result of fossil fuel scarcity and spiking energy costs. The second section focuses on the link between energy availability and money.

The late Richard Douthwaite is the author of the first and (I feel) best essay in Part II, entitled “The supply of money in an energy scarce world.” He traces the history of money, with special emphasis on the de-linking of money, production and wealth which occurred starting in the 1970s. This disconnect results from the “financialization” of the economies of the so called “industrialized” north. He points out the irony of calling Europe and North America “industrialized,” when currently most manufacturing takes place in developing countries, to take advantage of sweatshop wages. At present so called “industrialized” countries earn most of their profits through banking and other financial services. They also carry most of the global debt burden. Douthwaite finds it even more ironic that they owe most of this debt to so-called “developing” countries.

Getting Rid of Debt-Based Money

Douthwaite goes on to offer specific alternatives to our current debt based money system (under our current system, the one and only way money is created is by going to the bank to take out a loan – it’s called fractional reserve banking. A debt-based monetary system can only function in the presence of indefinite economic growth (see (http://stuartbramhall.aegauthorblogs.com/2011/10/30/documenting-the-collapse-of-capitalism/). Moreover the end of cheap energy also means the end of continuous economic growth. He also explores a number of strategies to facilitate the transition to a new steady state economy (one that doesn’t grow).

Douthwaite proposes to create inflation to eliminate the massive external debt that is suffocating the economies of Europe, North America and Japan. However he wouldn’t hand the money over to bankers, as the Federal Reserve does when they engage in quantitative easing. Instead Douthwaite would have governments create new money that they would spend directly into the economy to fix decaying infrastructure and provide essential public services. This would ensure that the new money would circulate in the economy to stimulate buying and increase jobs – instead of paying astronomical bonuses to CEOs.

Creating Regional and Local Currencies

He also strongly supports the creation of regional and local currencies. This gives poor people access to money when the national currency is in short supply due to recession and deflation. People only have access to the official currency when their products and skills increase corporate profits. Regional and local currencies, on the other hand, provide access to money to anyone with skills and/or products other community members need or want. In addition to boosting support for local business, by requiring that local currencies be spent locally, a pricing scheduled is created that more accurately reflects the work invested and true value to the community. Food production is an excellent example. Small farmers can easily work 16 or more hours a day. Yet owing to competition from large scale factory farms, the “market” price they receive for their crops is rarely enough to support a family.

Douthwaite also explores the possibility of creating a currency based on future energy production, just as early national currencies were based on gold (which will have far less intrinsic value than energy).

Rethinking Financing, Corporate Structure and Property Taxes

Other essays in part II look at alternative methods (other than borrowing and incurring debt) of financing the new energy efficient businesses, farms, and homes. One model favored by several authors is a “limited liability equity partnership.” In an equity partnership, the landowner, builder, and future occupation finance a home or new business by assuming an equity interest in its construction. “Rethinking Business Structures” looks at new corporate structures that place social and environmental considerations ahead of external shareholders.

“Why Pittsburgh’s real estate never crashes” is an interesting essay on Pittsburgh’s land value tax (LVT). It shows how property taxes that differentially tax land at a higher rate than buildings discourage property speculation. It credits LVT for protecting Pittsburgh from the massive foreclosure crisis other US cities faced in 2008.  Dan Sullivan, the author of the essay, is the education director of Saving Communities, a Pittsburgh- based non-profit.

To be continued.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Book Review-Part II

Obviously getting by without fossil fuels (owing to impending shortages of oil, natural gas and coal) will be an incredibly rude shock for all of us. Our current telecommunication, transportation and retail infrastructure, as well as our current system of industrial agriculture, are based on the abundant availability of cheap fossil fuels. On the plus side, Fleeing Vesuvius is full of a number of specific strategies, currently being tried in Ireland and elsewhere, for building resilient communities to withstand this transition to a non-fossil energy  society. In his introduction, the late Richard Douthwaite lays out a kind of road map by identifying nine ways in which fossil energy use has perverted our economies and lives:

1. It has transformed manufacturing methods by displacing human labor.
2. It has transformed agricultural methods, replacing human labor, animal power and sunlight.
3. It has enabled the world population to grow to a level that may well be unsupportable without its use.
4. It has devalued human labour and led to widespread unemployment.
5. It has made the economy reliant on economic growth to avoid collapse.
6. It has enabled extremes of wealth and poverty to develop.
7. It has led to the development of industrial capitalism.
8. It has produced profits that had to be recycles. This led to the growth of the banking system and debt-based money.
9. By fueling powered transport, it has destroyed self-reliant local economies and the nature of local relationships.

I find this approach extremely valuable. It moves away from blaming capitalism, rich people and banksters for the problems of contemporary society. By treating them as a natural outgrowth of fossil fuel dependence, Douthwaite inspires optimism that these “perversions” will be easy to undo once we cease to rely on oil, gas and coal to provide for our basic needs.

Layout of Fleeing Vesuvius

Fleeing Vesuvius is divided into seven parts:

Part 1 – looks at energy and water availability in a post-carbon world, with a detailed discussion of our diminished capacity to produce food.

Part 2 – looks at models for new non-debt based monetary systems that will greatly facilitate our transition to a fossil energy-free economy, as well as alternative, non-corporate methods for financing land and business development.

Part 3 – looks at alternative land management strategies that will improve energy efficiency by promoting the “proximity” of complementary enterprises (for example, building factories near each other that use each other’s waste products), and specific techniques that increase and maintain soil carbon and mineral content.

Part 4 – looks at a novel “Cap and Share” regulatory scheme to rapidly reduce corporate carbon emissions. It would cap the emissions each company (and country) are allowed, while sharing the cost of running the scheme among the entire population.

Part 5 – looks at the immense lifestyle changes we all need to make to survive in a post-carbon world and how the Transition and similar movements are helping communities prepare themselves to make these changes.

Part 6 – looks at specific approaches for breaking through widespread apathy and denial about the imminence of economic and ecological collapse.

Part 7 – is a collection of specific suggestions of what people can do on the individual, community, national and international level.

The final section of the New Zealand edition contains a number a brief essays of the Transition and other sustainability initiatives currently being undertaken in this country.

Part I – “Energy Availability”

I have already discussed the connections made in Part I (i.e. capitalism ends when the oil runs out) in my last blog. However I want to share graphs that summarize the points made about EROI (Energy Return on Investment, aka EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Investment). Although there’s still a lot of oil, gas and coal in the ground, we have most likely passed the point where the “sweet” stuff, the reserves that are easy and cheap to extract, has been used up. Even more importantly, owing to low EROI, renewable energy sources will never replace fossil fuels. Thus we have no choice but to downsize our energy intensive lifestyles.

Illustration 2: An energy source can rarely be used directly. An energy extraction process is required to discover, extract and process the resource before its energy is available to society. This process consumes energy itself, a deduction from the energy otherwise available. The energy return on invested is the ratio of surplus energy to energy required to drive the process.

***

Offshore wind and tidal barrages give good energy returns

llustration 1: The world does not need just energy – it needs energy that is delivered with very low levels of carbon dioxide emissions (that is, a low-carbon intensity) while still giving a lot more energy back than it took to produce it. This chart, by Evan Robinson, shows the most promising technologies and those to ignore. The half dots indicate where a technology is beyond the limits of the chart. Source: http://evanrobinson.typepad.com/ramblings/science_nature/

It took me awhile to figure this one out – there’s a lot going on here. You read EROI (or EROEI) from left to right. Energy sources with an EROI of zero (at the far left) use up as much energy in extraction/production as they release. Solar thermal and geothermal have a very low EROI, while tidal energy has an EROI even higher than 1970s oil reserves. The EROI of Middle East oil isn’t listed (Saudia Arabia, Iran, etc aren’t very transparent about their production costs). Different Peak Oil websites estimate that Middle East oil has an EROI of between 20 and 30. This gives it an EROI somewhere between 1970s and 2000s US oil (it costs a lot more to extract US oil now than 30 years ago because it’s harder to get at). This doesn’t include the cost of transporting oil to the US, cleaning up oil spills, the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya (Iran?), etc – costs that keep going up and up. The vertical axis is the carbon emissions produced by each energy source.

***

The area of each bubble represents the energy return on energy invested — EROI. The most valuable energy resources are those with large bubbles – a high EROI – at the top of the chart because this shows that they also have a high Energy Internal Rate of Return – EIRR. In other words, they pay back the energy invested in developing them rather quickly. Photovoltaic, nuclear and hydropower have low rates of energy return. Graph compiled and redrawn specially for Feasta by Jamie Bull, oco-carbon.com

To be continued, with a discussion of Parts II-VII. No more graphs, I promise.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Fleeing Vesuvius, New Zealand Edition

(2011, Feasta and Living Economies)

Book Review

In my experience, there are two main forms anti-corporate resistance can take. The first involves direct confrontation of government and corporate official over their criminal and unethical activities. The hundreds of Occupy Wall Street encampments launched in late 2011 to protest banking greed and corruption represent the epitome of this direct, confrontational approach. In the second type of resistance, local activists collectively op out of corporate-dominated lifestyles by creating their own alternative systems of food and energy production and distribution and, in some cases, alternative banking and money systems. This second type of resistance movement is facilitated by a number of loosely linked national and international sustainability networks. These include groups such as Transition Towns, Feasta and Cultivate. The Transition movement, which started in 2004-2005 in Ireland and Britain, is the best known. Transition Towns New Zealand has been active since 2007.

Fleeing Vesuvius, published by Feasta in Ireland in 2010, is best described as a handbook or encyclopedia for individuals, groups and communities seeking to opt out of a corporate-dominated lifestyle and transition to a more sustainable one. Feasta (Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability) was launched in Dublin in 1998. The New Zealand edition was published by Living Economies in July 2011. The book is a collection of essays by Feasta members and others from a wide range of technical backgrounds. This first post is intended as a general overview of the book and the premises it’s based on. Successive posts will look a specific chapters in more detail.

Preparing for Collapse

The title, Fleeing Vesuvius, refers to the volcano that destroyed Pompeii in 79 AD – to the majority of residents who failed to save themselves, despite weeks of earthquakes, gaseous clouds and other obvious signs that the volcano was about to erupt. For at least a decade, most citizens of the world have been confronting growing evidence that the planet is on the verge of economic and ecological collapse. Yet the vast majority do absolutely nothing to prepare for the stark conditions ahead.

All the essays in Fleeing Vesuvius are written from the perspective that the age of cheap energy is over. In fact the beginning section asserts that oil depletion, not reckless subprime derivatives trading, was responsible for the 2008 economic crash. As the authors explain, the readily accessible surface oil is used up. What remains is much more difficult and costly to extract. Once oil reached $147 per barrel in 2008, energy and food costs (directly linked to the price of fuel under industrial agriculture), people had no money to repay their mortgages and the defaults started.

All the essays in the book are written from the perspective that humankind needs to drastically downsize their energy use. This includes returning to an era where people produced food and other basic needs with human labor and draft animals (horses, oxen, mules, etc), instead of engines that run on fossil fuels. One author makes the point that one barrel of oil produces the equivalent of an adult laborer working 40 hours a week for 12 years.

Fossil Fuels and Capitalism

The Introduction and Part I (“Energy Availability”) are the most mind blowing sections of the book because of the historical links they make between the fossil fuel revolution, industrialization and the birth of the capitalist economic system. I don’t pretend to understand all the math, but it’s clear from the references that the first five essays represent a consensus position of many prominent economists and energy engineers. Before fossil fuels, capitalism was impossible because an economy relying on human labor and animal power can’t support it.

By definition capitalism depends on capital accumulation, the production of an economic surplus that can be reinvested in new capital (property and machines) to expand production even further. In the beginning of Fleeing Vesuvius, the authors demonstrate how producing this surplus was only possible because of the vast amount of cheap (practically free) work performed by fossil fuel energy. Obviously there were rich people (landowners and merchants) prior to industrialization. However there weren’t any capitalists – production was far too limited to accumulate capital.

If capitalism is only possible with an abundance of cheap energy, clearly it will end when cheap fossil fuels run out. From the graph, it looks like this happens at $200 a barrel – which is predicted some time in the next six to thirty six months. None of the renewable energies (e.g. solar, wind, tidal, hydro) can match fossil fuels in terms of low cost and efficiency. Seven billion global residents will really struggle to produce enough food to feed themselves, much less accumulate capital to invest in new production.

To be continued.

***

Check out my free ebook 21st Century Revolution. Start the free download by clicking the Transact Socially link at the bottom of the right sidebar and either posting to your Facebook wall or sending a Tweet.

Much of the work that went into the Voluntary Simplicity and Y2K movements (see prior blogs) has been incorporated into Transition Towns and other sustainability-related movements. There are now literally millions of groups worldwide focused on some aspect of bioregional sustainability. The most visible evidence of their success are the blossoming of home veggie gardens, urban community gardens and orchards and farmers’ markets; the 1,040 cities and towns (nearly 1/3 of the US population) which have signed onto the Kyoto accord; and the 125 communities voting to place citizens’ above corporate rights (see http://www.tikkun.org/article.php/jan2011kanner).

One of the most important factors in this success is the ability of the sustainability movement to address apathy and alienation head-on, by reengaging people in neighborhood and community life. For many people, local civic engagement leads on to re-engagement in the political process. I would never argue that progressives should focus on local community building to the exclusion of critically needed government reforms. Corporate lobbies still have the ability to overturn local and state laws in the courts by claiming that they violate alleged constitutional rights. Thus organizing to end so-called constitutional protections for corporations (which clearly run contrary to the intent of the founding fathers) – either through federal legislation or constitutional amendment (www.movetoamed.org) must be an extremely high priority. At the same time, I see the neighborhood and community sustainability networks playing a pivotal role in building strong grassroots lobbies to tackle banking reform, restoring of civil liberties or ending the wars in the Middle East.

The Basics of Sustainability Organizing

Sustainability-related work can be broken down into concrete, achievable steps, which also lends to its appeal. In preparing for the End of the World as We Know it, Y2K activists predicted local communities would need to prepare for breakdowns in the following services:

• Global commerce (food imports being the most crucial)
• Water and energy utilities
• Waste removal systems
• Telecommunications, Internet and mass media
• Financial institutions
• Transportation systems
• Governance and government services
• Health Care
• Institutions and agencies responsible for education, justice, manufacturing and security

In most places, organizers have found it easiest to begin with food, water and energy security – in part because they are most critical to human survival. However the bioregional economic network established as a first step in addressing food, water and energy security can also be used to prepare for breakdowns in other systems. For 99.9% of human existence people have relied on a bioregional economic model in which they have sourced the vast majority of their food and other essentials for life within a 100 mile radius. The process of re-creating this network is very helpful in learning to shift our thinking away from relying on national and multinational corporations to meet our needs.

Although the sustainability movement receives little attention in the mainstream media, it has it has been quietly building for nearly two decades – often with the support of state and local government (it receives the most state support in California). In Europe it receives national and EU support. The following is just a small snapshot of local accomplishments around energy, food and water security.

FOOD AND WATER SECURITY

• Increased local expertise in permaculture and biointensive agriculture techniques, as industrial fertilizers and insecticides (manufactured from fossil fuels) become unavailable and/or prohibitively expensive.
• De-paving – digging up private and public driveways and parking lots and replacing them with backyard veggie gardens and community orchards and gardens. In addition to improving food security, this restores watersheds by reducing run-off, a major threat to water security in the industrial world.
• Lawn liberation – replacing lawns and ornamental trees and shrubs with fruit and nut trees and veggie gardens.
• Support of local farmers through farmers markets and Community Supported Agriculture Schemes (in which residents “subscribe” to weekly deliveries of fresh veggies and fruit).
• Neighborhood and municipal systems of rainwater collection and purification and gray water collection
• Adoption of active run-off management plans, in which lost groundwater is measured and minimized in development planning – and replaced, for example via the Blue Alternative (in which groundwater is replaced by digging small catchment pools in open spaces).

ENERGY SECURITY

• Reduced fossil fuel dependence in transportation:

o       Beginning work to create local consumer-farmer/consumer-retailer networks, including state and locally owned banks, credit unions and cooperatives. Given that local businesses struggle to compete (their costs and prices tend to be higher) with national and multinational corporations, this can be facilitated via the creation of local barter systems (example from Greece at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-12223068) and/or local currencies, such as Ithaca hours, that can only be spent locally.

o       Community and municipal initiatives to increase public and active transport (cycling and walking) through urban planning that incorporates growth management and sprawl reduction, creation of urban villages where residents live closer to essential services, and restricted permiting of malls and big box retailers (Portland and Vancouver, British Columbia are excellent examples).

o       Community and neighborhood street reclaiming initiatives to make streets safer for people to use cars less and walk and cycle more.

o       Increased uptake of car sharing schemes, employing efficient electric or hybrid vehicles or those run on regionally produced biomass fuels.

• Reduced home/business fossil fuel dependence:

o       State, local and power company subsidies for home insulation schemes and solar water heaters.

o       Subsidies and reduced permit fees for Green Building (buildings purpose-built to be energy/water/waste self-sufficient).

o       State and local regulations and subsidies (as per German model) to increase distributed energy systems based on alternate energy sources (solar, wind, tidal, etc).

o       Active promotion of Open Source computer and information technology.