Now
that the movement to address climate change at the systemic and cultural level
has gained unprecedented momentum, it is critical for us to establish a viable
alternative economy that committed citizens around the world can join. The
basic unit of that economy should be fossil-fuel-free (FFF) communities.
In these FFF
(fossil-fuel-free) communities, to be built from the ground up, nothing eaten
or consumed, no form of transformation or communication employed, and no aspect
of housing, furniture or utensils will contain fossil fuels (including plastics
or fertilizers). Nor will any of these items be produced, transported, or
manufactured using fossil fuels.
Such FFF
communities can serve as uncompromised building blocks of a truly carbon-zero
economy, polity, and culture. Although small at first, such communities will
not be dependent for food, energy, or finance on corporations or banks tied to
fossil fuels.
Creating such
communities will require considerable bravery and sacrifice, and the number of
people willing to commit will be limited at first. But recent demonstrations
around the world suggest that a critical mass is in place. It will not be long
before small-scale FFF communities can become powerful economic and political
players that can take on investment banks and oil companies and demand an
immediate end to all use of fossil fuels in the place of a vague and open-ended
plan to phase out fossil fuels in a manner that does not affect profits.
Such FFF
communities make for their small size with their complete independence.
Growing Food
The core of FFF
economics will be organic farms that produce 100 percent organic food and
transport it without the use of fossil fuels to its citizens. At the beginning,
citizens of these communities will encounter a significant drop in the
diversity of their diet because the food will be grown at home, or in the
neighborhood, or it will be brought in from local farms without the use of
fossil fuels.
Food will be sold
(or exchanged through barter) in communal markets that encourage collaboration
between farmer and citizen, rather than a transaction between a corporation and
a consumer. Such markets will serve as the foundation for new patterns of
economic exchange that are entirely detached from fossil fuels. We do not have
such communities these days, but they were the dominant paradigm for hundreds
of thousands of years.
Partial models for
self-supporting fossil-fuel-free economies exist today among the Amish
(currently the fastest-growing farming communities in
the United States). Although the media often portray communities who engage in
organic agriculture without the use of machinery as odd, they alone have
embraced a sustainable economy while the rest of the United States embraced an
unsustainable system of industrialized agricultural production tied to global
trade.
Such food
production will give young people paying jobs in agriculture and distribution
that will be morally dignified—and without the deep alienation created by most
modern work. To produce and deliver food in a manner that does not contribute
to the destruction of our Earth is a noble act that can inspire many to join
the effort. The use of carbon-free transportation, even if profoundly limiting
at first, will eventually be seen as acts of moral bravery not merely
unpleasant inconvenience.
Making Things
Another critical
part of the FFF community will be manufacturing. Production must not involve
fossil fuels or plastic in the manufacture, the transportation, or the disposal
of products. Moreover, manufacturing for the FFF community must start out 100%
local, at least until 100% FFF transportation systems are in place to link communities
in the region and across the world.
Local manufacture
without the use of fossil fuels will require producing items that will last:
desks and chairs, bookshelves and chopping boards, shirts and sweaters, cups
and pots that can be used for 20 to 50 years, or longer. That shift means both
an end to a commercial, consumption-driven culture and a focus on well-made
products. Such manufacture will also guarantee long-term jobs for the next
generation.
The greater
challenge is how to make integrated circuits and supercomputers without
employing fossil fuels. A massive effort will be required to find new
technologies that deliver the advanced technologies without falling back on
petroleum or coal.
New mechanisms of
finance will also be necessary to support this transition. A sturdy sweater
that can last for 30 years might cost $400. The current economic system
produces cheaper products that don’t last as long and are produced in a manner
that destroys the environment. By contrast, if financing were readily available
on a small scale, that sweater could be paid off over 10 years and the real
cost would be less than a less durable version. Similarly, solar panels
financed at zero interest over 30 years are cheaper than using natural gas or
coal immediately, even for those with no assets.
The establishment
of an FFF currency can be immensely helpful in this process. This currency
would represent the contribution of the individual to society and would be
backed by agricultural products and other manufactured goods that are produced
in the community. As the use of this currency expands across the local economy,
and eventually extends to the global economy, it can help support a parallel
financial system.
Finally, global
trade contributes a great deal to climate change. Shipping goods across the
Earth in the search of financial advantage does tremendous damage to the
environment through carbon emissions and the destruction of forests and jungles
to produce factories and factory farms. Displacing the ecological costs of cheap
production to India or China allows people the world over to enjoy cheap
products whose sticker prices do not reflect their true cost. FFF communities,
whether in Nebraska or New Delhi, offer a meaningful alternative to this
destructive cycle.
Changing Culture
At the deepest
level, the response to climate change must start with a revolution in people’s
attitudes and perspectives, not with innovations in technology and governance.
The FFF community can be a space where such a cultural transformation can take
place without being interrupted by commercials promoting automobiles or the
thoughtless consumption of food. The cult of the self and glorification of
immediate gratification promoted in a commercialized economy must be replaced
by a culture based on moral philosophy, frugality, humility, and the simple
virtue of participation in society. These communities, because of this
intellectual and moral independence, can create a culture that offers the
earth’s citizens a true alternative to the dominant commercial culture.
Such FFF
communities can start to undermine the false assumptions promoted by the
ideology of modernity which holds that human condition is improved by excessive
consumption, a vast increase in possessions, urbanization, and transportation
via private automobiles and airplanes. Without challenging this larger
ideological framework, a fundamental social shift cannot take place. Without
such a transformation, “going green” will be limited to cosmetic changes within
an economy built on fossil fuels (green lipstick on a filthy pig).
FFF communities
can introduce a new set of values such that citizens feel that the tasks
required to create a society without fossil fuels have greater value than
activities destructive to the environment.
The FFF community
can also help dethrone the misleading concepts of real estate and private
property. For example, a pledge by those joining the FFF community to end their
ties to fossil fuels could be central to membership. This action parallels the
village contract that was so central to agricultural communities in Europe,
Asia, the Americas, and elsewhere up until the establishment of enclosure acts
that ended the commons and the promulgation of the concept of real estate. The
modern village contract should spell out in a binding, rather than symbolic,
manner the responsibilities that each individual has to contribute to the
production of food, tools, furniture, transportation, and governance as well as
the commitment of the community to provide for the members of the community for
a lifetime.
Membership in the
fossil-fuel-free community must be open to everyone, not just those with the
assets the education or the cultural sensitivities necessary to act green. It’s
a dangerous delusion to think that the upper middle class can create a green
economy by driving Teslas and installing overpriced solar panels. Everyone
should have access to information about the climate crisis, and be qualified
for membership in a FFF community. The climate crisis disproportionately
affects the poor and the working classes. Their participation in FFF
communities, accompanied by access to quality education and other
opportunities, will be essential.
At first glance,
it seems mysterious that those who risk everything in demonstrations about
climate change return home by automobile to eat food produced and cooked with
fossil fuels. For all their spiritual commitment, they have not been able to
break out of the carbon cycle. But there is no mystery. Breaking away from
fossil fuels is not a matter of progressive policies, but of revolutionary
politics.
Circles and Squares 