Fixing The Future?

     There is a growing movement throughout the world today to create local communities with economies serving local needs. Sometimes they are called “transition villages.”  It is the burgeoning of a renewed vision of the “other world that is possible,” but this time in very concrete terms and in ways that take into account the scale of economy that fits the ecological context.      

     The movement coincides well with the vision of “right relationship” proposed in a book of that name by Peter G. Brown, professor at McGill University in Montreal (Canada). In the book (published by BK Publishers) he establishes the framework for a “whole earth economy” that can realistically replace the savage capitalist system that is currently ravaging the earth and its creatures, including ourselves. It is an economic theory that measures the impact on the “spaceship earth” of all its creatures by a formula that sees the global impact as a combined function of population, affluence (consumption), technology and ethics (values). He also outlines a process for gradually bringing about transformation. It involves four stages: grounding and clarification (beginning with awe and reverence for the planetary eco-system), design (including modeling), institutional change (He proposes a global reserve that would do the necessary research and develop policy proposals, a planetary trust to enact measures designed to protect life systems, a global federation for security and taxation and finally a global court.) and as the final stage, non-violent reform, that is to say actually going about the process of pressing the changes into being much as the “transition villages” are doing. Much of the transition could be built in part on what already exists locally and internationally.

       After viewing Inside Job (2010, directed by Charles Ferguson) or Gasland (with Josh Fox), it is not hard to recognize that our current economic system based on the fantasy of financial speculation is doomed. The sooner it can be replaced the better – for everyone. In contrast I much enjoyed Fixing the Future (a PBS production) focusing on what communities are doing to localize their economies.