Throughout the last year we have been discovering the commons – parks, streets, a city hall and the city budget. Lots of our common real estate has been sold and privatized, however, there is still some of it left. It seems that most of our fellow citizens don’t realize it yet that the money on the account of the city hall is our common money. The land in the park is their land. They think that the city funds belong to the city council and that the mayor is like a mighty king that governs people. While, in fact, it’s the other way around. Citizens own the city hall, it’s our money on the bank account and we hire the mayor and the whole city council to work for our common good.

Pedestrian mall in Sopot

What is also vital for us is also a sense of community. What we’ve experienced is that it comes by itself, as a side-effect, so there’s no need to organize a special workshop for it. We don’t have strong social ties in Polish cities like in indigenous societies. It seems to me that even if you know a lot of people in your neighborhood, that’s not a community yet. Community means that people share something, that there is a common cause. That there is a life together. What can you do then to restore social ties? How can you empower citizens and create this sense of community? Some sort of action together is necessary. Well, what kind of action?

What we campaign for in Sopot is participatory budgeting, which means that citizens are able to decide directly on what our common funds are spent on. That’s the action that we suggest for a start. Besides strengthening social ties and getting to know your fellow-citizens, it is also an opportunity to propose solutions for generating renewable energy, to promote local food and to discuss other ideas for an eco-city. We have lots of funds in our budget, it’s just that they are now used for other purposes than lowering our carbon footprint. Actually, they are mostly spent on attracting more tourists. Even though we could insist that the city council installs a biogas digester now (that’s called lobbying), it is also important to ask other citizens if they would support this project. Since we would like to use funds from the common budget, then all citizens should have the right to express their opinion, and even reject the project if they don’t like it. After all, common is common. Lobbying is not bad by itself, it can be effective in putting forward green projects, however, it’s not the same as democracy where citizens are empowered and fully engaged in decision-making process. Thanks to direct participation a sense of responsibility and ownership are also created. Right now our local democracy still needs some refurbishments, as you can see in case of the Grodowy Park.

Saving public space

One might expect that when the mayor asks citizens what would they like to have in a certain area of the city, and citizens fill the questionnaire writing that most of them would like to see a green area there, open to public, then that’s what they get. Well, that’s not the case with our mayor. Even though he declared that the will of Sopot citizens expressed in the questionnaire is binding for him, the new plan for this area was somewhat surprising (1). Instead of a park, the whole are was to be divided into parcels and sold for small hotels, offices and other services. Hmm… We were pretty sure that’s not what the citizens meant. The issue of Grodowy Park has mobilized many citizens. It wasn’t just about a park. It was also about democracy, about respecting the will of people.

Tunnel of lime trees in Grodowy Park

Grodowy creek. In this area there are 133 plant species
and 149 animal species – including 17 kinds of birds

We have arranged a guided tour around the park for the members of the council and citizens of Sopot that attracted around 100 people. Some of the members of the councils visited this area for the first time in their life, even though we live in a rather small city of 37,000 people and Grodowy Park is near the center. If we didn’t organize the tour they would have voted to sell out the area without even visiting it, based only upon recommendations of the mayor. Old trees would be left standing, but the area would no longer be a park. Public space would be turned into private properties.

Beginning of the tour. The park covers a large area of around 16 hectares.
This house still belongs to the pool of our commons.

Next, with the help of other people, the first public consultations with the mayor were organized to discuss the future of the park. The room was packed. The mayor and city architects presented their plan which was aimed to allow construction of new buildings, parking lots and fencing off most of the public area. The reaction of the citizens was strong, and eventually the mayor gave ground. The conclusion of the meeting was that a there will be an open contest for arranging the park and the rules of the contest will be presented to citizens for their acceptance. Several months later we’ve met with the mayor and still there were few buildings left in the proposal. Much less than previously, but still these were new buildings. Citizens said no, we don’t want any new buildings, we want a park, and the rules of the contest are being rewritten once again.

The case of the Grodowy Park has become well known, and it has become an opportunity for us to meet with other people that live in Sopot. It has become a common cause for those involved in saving this park. However, other issues like climate change or organic food don’t attract so many people, so far. I’m always impressed when I read about the meetings organized by the Transition initiatives that attract hundreds of people. How do you guys do it? It seems to me that many people in Poland are also not accustomed to being able to influence the matters of their city. It’s easy to understand when you see how the mayor dealt with the answers to his own questionnaire. But it doesn’t have to be like that. It’s in the hands of ordinary citizens to change it.

The Valley of Wetlands – a protected area inside the park

Citizens’ charters

If we wish to improve public participation in city life, then citizens need appropriate tools for it. One of these tools is a citizens’ charter that we suggested in Sopot. When a city council in Poland wants to change the name of a street or to introduce a school gardening programme they vote upon a charter. Who can propose the charter? It can be written by e.g. five members of the council or by the mayor. There’s just a handful of cities in Poland where citizens can present a charter to the city council, and now Sopot is one of them. According to a new city statute, when a group of 200 citizens sign the draft charter it is submitted before the committees and then for voting by the city council.

The members of our city council were supportive of the idea. Only one voted against it arguing that it is the job of the members of the council to do that. That’s true, nevertheless, in practice, it’s not easy for the citizens to convince a member of the city council to get involved even in a simple issue. A vast majority of the charters are prepared on behalf of the mayor by the employees of the city hall. The job of the city council, as they see it, is to discuss them, perhaps suggest some minor amendments, and then vote for it. As you’ve probably guessed now, the majority of the members of the council are from the same political club as the mayor. With new rules, however, we can now write draft charters ourselves. That’s a huge step forward, but please keep in mind that this tool is not actually democratic. It only gives the citizens an opportunity to present ideas before the city council. It is the city council, not the citizens, who eventually decide whether the idea goes ahead or not. But that’s not the only tool that is useful.

Hawthorns and the red horse chestnut in bloom

Improving public consultations

Do you remember the Pirates of the Caribbean? When Elizabeth Swan is caught by the pirates she says to captain Barbossa “Parle!” which means, according to the pirate’s code, that now they have to talk and come up with an agreement. Making use of the citizens’ charter we would like to give citizens a right to announce official public consultations. The results of these consultations, if they are carried out according to the rules, should be considered binding for the city council or the mayor (2).

What would one need the right of parle for? Imagine that you learn that a new supermarket is planned right next to your home. You want to talk to the mayor about, but he doesn’t want to meet you. You talk to the members of the city council, but they say “Oh, but what can we do about it, it’s all up to the mayor”. Then you say “Aha, the mayor doesn’t want to meet me? Parle! I’ll ask 200 citizens to sign the petition to arrange an official consultation to decide whether the supermarket can be built there or not. You can come to this meeting Mr. Mayor or not, but even if you don’t show up, we will expect that you’ll respect our decision”.

There are several criteria that must be met for the decision to be considered binding. First of all, the citizens must be well informed about the meeting – we would like to design a standard procedure for posting information on the website, printing posters etc, for all consultations. Then, all voices must be heard during the meeting. Different types of consultations are possible, including Open Space, but the general idea is to allow all interested parties to express their opinions. And finally, when all attendees deeply understand the issue, they are aware of the pros and cons, of other possible solutions (if any), and then a decision is taken. Consensus is best, however, if it cannot be reached, than voting is necessary. It is vital that the voting is not done openly, e.g. by raising a hand, but anonymously on sheets of paper. In this way people are free to vote as they feel is right.

Preparing a budget together

According to Polish law it is the mayor, not the city council, who prepares the budget of the city. So, how can we introduce participatory budgeting in Sopot? Luckily for us, there are elections coming this fall. Our plan is to encourage all candidates for mayor to include participatory budgeting in their programmes and we’ll ask our fellow citizens to vote only for those who did. In this way, hopefully, all candidates will have participatory budgeting in their programmes, and no matter who wins the elections we will end up with the same result.

Creating a budget means: we have around 60 million US dollars to spend each year with a large portion for new projects. What can we do with it? Oh, let’s buy a couple of buses that run on biogas. Or, maybe we could build a wind turbine. No, wait, I’ve got an idea, let’s extend the bicycle lanes. No, no, we need a new gym at the school, let’s fund this project. The process of creating a budget can be lively and fun, and Open Space can be used for it. The general meeting of citizens is needed just for final voting once a year, so it doesn’t have to be very time consuming. And by the way, if you can build a local economy, you can design it in a way that people have more free time.

Notes:

1. Most probably the mayor did not expect that anyone will check whether the results of the poll are put into practice. According to the rules of public consultations that we propose these results can’t been considered binding, because anyone could have filled the questionnaire (even a person from another city), one person could have submitted more than one questionnaire thus distorting the results, and the issues were not clearly explained and discussed over.
2. From a current legal perspective, decisions taken during public consultations cannot be legally binding. We hope to make them binding on the grounds of an informal agreement between the citizens and the city council and a mayor. Yes, it means that still they will be able to trick the citizens, but even if it was a law they still could try. We hope they won’t, because they will be aware that it will cause a public outcry. What we would like to do is to develop a trust between citizens and the members of the council and to make these rules a cultural norm rather than a law. What is currently legally binding is a local referendum, but its procedure is so difficult that it’s not practical for small issues – more than 3 thousands signatures are needed to hold a referendum in Sopot. However, if the mayor or the city council are very naughty, citizens can hold a recall referendum to throw them out of the office. That’s our stick.

Photo: Amehare/Flickr

When plants grow they convert CO2 and water into carbohydrates with the help of sunlight. This process is called photosynthesis. For many years scientists tried to mimic photosynthesis to produce methanol. It wasn’t easy. The main challenge was to design a catalyst that would allow the whole process to work. And it’s exactly a right catalyst that was recently discovered by professor Dobieslaw Nazimek from Poland. His team also found the way to provide the optimum conditions for production of methanol from CO2 and water. If their method was applied on a commercial scale, it could allow the production of methanol at 3 cents per liter (or US$0.11 per gallon) (1). Methanol can be used directly as a fuel for cars or it can be further processed to create regular gasoline or diesel (e.g. in the Mobil methanol-to-gasoline process). And it would be a clean fuel with no sulfur at all. Artificial photosynthesis can be also used to make fuel for electricity generation, heating or cooking. If designed with the cradle to cradle principles and introduced in a socially desirable way, it could provide a meaningful solution for the post oil future and help to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

Following the plant’s trail

How does the artificial photosynthesis work? CO2 emissions from coal-fired plants or fertilizer companies are captured and dissolved completely in water. Then the simple catalyst splits CO2 molecules and converts them into CH3OH, which is methanol. The energy for the process is provided by a special light. The end product of artificial photosynthesis is a kind of wine which contains 15% alcohol (2). All that is left to do is to separate methanol from water and… voilà! The fuel is ready.

It will take another year of research to design the large scale facility in Poland. If there is sufficient funding for the project, the first fuel for sale could be produced within 2 years. Professor Nazimek insists that the whole project should be funded from public money and for the benefit of people. This technology is already patented and some details are to be revealed in a publication later this year (3).

What is seminal about this method is that CO2 emissions can be reused. This creates a whole new situation. From unwanted waste from coal-fired plants, CO2 becomes a commodity. It gets a market value, because you can actually make something from it. One tonne of CO2 could provide around 918 liters of methanol. Nevertheless, the technology discovered in Poland is still dependent on fossil fuels to produce the CO2 needed. The efficiency of coal or natural gas is highly increased – they are used once for burning them directly and a second time for production of methanol from the CO2 emitted. Although the need for oil for transportation is eliminated (which is a huge reduction in greenhouse gas emissions!) carbon extracted from coal still comes out of the car pipe and contributes to climate change. Right, but what if we captured this CO2 and used it to make fuel again and again, like plants do… then what?

Capturing carbon dioxide is possible in two ways. One way is on board the vehicle – before burning methanol a fuel processor separates carbon dioxide and stores it in a liquid form on board a private car or a truck. Although methanol goes into the tank with this method, it is hydrogen that powers the car. Hydrogen can be used in an internal combustion engine or in fuel cells (4). The energy density of methanol is higher than a lithium ion battery, so a tank filled with methanol could allow the driver to go further than a car with a battery. The drawback, however, is a slightly increased weight of the vehicle (5). For widespread use several major improvements are necessary including development of a new material for a selectively permeable hydrogen membrane (currently the best one is made of the rare and expensive metal – palladium) (6).

The second option is capturing carbon from the air. Fuel is burned in a car engine and the CO2 emitted is captured from the air in any other location. So, we can take a ride on a bus, for example, in London and catch the equivalent CO2 emissions in Stockholm or Berlin (we can certainly do it in the same location as well). In this way CO2 emissions do not increase the overall CO2 level in the atmosphere. There are several technologies currently developed for capturing carbon dioxide from the air, like absorbing it into a potassium carbonate solution and then using low-energy electrolytic stripping process for CO2 recovery (7). If the captured CO2 is reused, than the carbon cycle is closed. However, doing it on a large scale could be a real challenge. For example, the tower scrubber designed at the University of Calgary is able to capture the equivalent of about 20 tonnes per year of CO2 on 1 square meter of scrubbing material (8). Capturing 2 billion tonnes of CO2 emitted by the transportation sector in the US would require 100 km2 of scrubbing material (9). Nevertheless, for fuel production a new method could be invented for capturing CO2 in water using passive air flow system.

Although artificial photosynthesis seems to be very promising as an alternative source of energy, there may not be enough time to develop the infrastructure to produce large quantities of methanol before the oil crunch. In the future, when coal and natural gas reserves are depleted, it would have to rely on recycling CO2, which is good, but the total capacity is as yet unknown. There are other bottlenecks and loopholes possible, nevertheless, it seems to me that the right question to ask is not whether we can replace oil. A more important question is do we really want it? Do we wish to sustain car-centered cities and consumer culture, even if we could?

Life without oil

Though peak oil is certainly a challenge, it is also as an opportunity. It is like someone hitting you on the head: “Hey, wake up! What are you doing?”. Without sufficient supplies of cheap oil the consumer society is brought to a halt and it is an opportunity for positive change. It is a chance for a good life. As oil becomes less available we could redesign our neighborhoods, so that they become walkable and more people-friendly. The pace of life could be slower, people could be able to meet more often, work less and perhaps even eat together like in the village of Gaviotas in Columbia. We could reweave social ties, produce food locally, provide meaningful jobs and become independent from a global economy where people must work 10 hours per day because for some unexplainable reason they have to compete with each other and be more and more efficient. We could finally get past the culture where the quality of life is measured by a number of goods and services consumed.

It is certainly useful to have trains and buses connecting cities and villages, or even airplanes if their CO2 emissions could be captured. But trying to sustain car-dependent societies and the idea of never-ending economic growth is not the best way to make us happy. There are already places in the industrialized part of the world that are car-free, not because we have run out of oil, but because the quality of life in the city or on an island is better when there are no cars. There are a car-free areas in Copenhagen (Denmark), Prague (Czech Republic), La Rochelle (France), Freiburg (Germany), Siena (Italy), Växjö (Sweden) and even the entire city of Zermatt in Switzerland. When tourists come to Zermatt they leave their cars 5 km outside the city and arrive to Zermatt by train. Inside the city there are electric vehicles allowed for local commerce, horse-drawn carriages, electric taxis and buses and of course bicycles. To learn more about car-free cities you can download the sourcebook “Car-Free Development”.

Artificial photosynthesis could bring some immediate environmental advantages. If cheap methanol was widely available then the price of crude oil would go down so much that it no longer would be profitable to exploit tar sands in Canada. Tar sands could simply stay in the ground, possibly forever. What’s more, an incentive could appear to further develop air carbon capture technologies that could in the future lower the CO2 level in the atmosphere. Methanol produced in this way could also slow down the rate of CO2 emissions from transportation because less oil or in some countries no oil would be necessary. The need for biofuels could be eliminated, thus freeing agricultural lands for crop production for the growing population. The demand for palm oil would go down as well, so possibly less rainforest would be burned in Borneo and some of the natural habitat for orangutans could be saved. “The exploration of oil fields in the Amazon could stop as well,” I said in a conversation with professor Nazimek. “Yes” he answered, “We are aware of what we have come up with.”

If the plan in Poland works then in 2011 around 25% of Polish CO2 emissions could be converted to fuel (10). There are no modifications in car engines needed. It’s a regular gasoline that could go straight into tanks, only the input material for chemical reactions would be different. No changes in infrastructure for fuel distribution would be necessary. Nevertheless, if we are to replace oil with another cheap fuel, let’s do it wisely.

It is important to remember that CO2 to methanol technology is not the ultimate solution for environmental problems around the world. It’s just a “patch” that we can apply to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and help to deal with peak oil. The sustainable, long-term solution is changing our ethics. It is embracing the ethics of earth care and people care, it is the ethics of sharing with others and compassion. It is the cultural change that is needed most. The real solutions for forging a new sustainable world are promoted e.g. by the Transition movement, the ecovillages movement and permaculture.

Transition to CO2-based fuels

Artificial photosynthesis allows us to buy some more time, before fossil fuels run out. It also creates an unexpected situation where large amounts of oil that were about to be extracted may be left untapped. We still need to power down, consume less and make a transition to a sustainable way of living. We still have only one planet to live on and we need to share the available resources in a just way. CO2-based fuels are a surprising opportunity that potentially allows us to solve the climate change problem. As long as CO2 is emitted from power plants we can produce cheap fuel. Within this time we should construct a transportation system that will be able to run on a CO2 derived fuel in a closed cycle. We can do it before we will need to use crude oil again. It can be a system where the basic mode of transport is a bus or a train rather than a private car and where food is grown locally so that the need for long-distance transport is dramatically reduced. With the invention of affordable fuel made by artificial photosynthesis, we have dodged the bullet, so let’s leave the oil for good, before we’ll be shot at again.

The important issue is how to make this transition? Who will produce these fuels? State-owned companies or private corporations? In many countries, such as the US, citizens could reclaim some of their political power if the CO2-based fuels production facilities where owned by and run by the state. In other words, they would be owned by people. It is an unprecedented opportunity for president Obama to make his country truly independent of imported oil. And it can be done fast. Just within a few years. The amount of funding needed is fairly modest. The fuel distribution infrastructure is already in place. Car engines don’t need to be modified. There are more than 2 billion tons of CO2 emissions from the transport sector in the US every year. They could be eliminated to zero.

Climate negotiations in Copenhagen could provide a world platform for promoting this technology and helping developing countries to build necessary infrastructure. This time China will be very interested to participate. Since they have lots of coal, they can fuel their cars and trucks without importing oil. The risk of resource wars could be minimized. China would no longer have to compete with the USA for oil supplies. And the air in Shanghai could be cleaner. India could be willing to join the project as well.
The target discussed in Copenhagen for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions could really make a difference. Now we can think about at least 90-95% reductions by 2050. Some countries could even soon create zero carbon economies, following the example of Maldives. Within just 5 years CO2 emissions could peak and finally start to go down. We can develop a plan that could make it economically viable and socially acceptable. It could include not only emissions from transportation, but also other sources of greenhouses gases, like methane from paddy rice. For CO2 levels in the atmosphere, we know what’s the safe number – it’s 350ppm, max. We are now at around 388 ppm. It means we need to suck some of the CO2 out of the air, but what we could also do is to cool the planet. I’m not talking about corporate mega projects, but about working with poor farmers around the world to help them grow forest gardens. These gardens provide people with food, clothes, construction materials and medicines. A good example of such a project is community-based reforestation in Borneo. The food forests in Borneo actually cool local climate by 3-5°C, increase air humidity by 10% and increase the rainfall by 25%. When they started, there were only 5 species of birds living in the grassland, but now when the forest gardens are flourishing you can find 137 bird species. What’s more, they provide livelihood for around 3000 people (11). If we could reduce the air temperature in other tropical areas by 3-5°C in just 3 years and tackle hunger and poverty at the same time, wouldn’t it be something?

The new fuel could be accompanied with a set of policies that would promote sustainable transport rather than increasing congestion by selling cheap fuel. Cheap fuel is good, but for the public transport alone. In means cheaper bus tickets or cheaper train fares. But for private cars or delivery trucks there could be a fuel duty that would keep the price reasonably high at the gas station. Why? Because cheap fuel means more cars on the roads, more traffic jams and the spread of suburbia. More cars produced means more resources and more energy used. So, the policy priority could be to develop a sustainable public transport system thanks to low fuel prices. The fuel duty could have one more important role. It could provide funds for the transition to clean, carbon-neutral energy and climate change mitigation.

We need to act fast because we don’t have much time left to stop the melting of the Arctic Sea Ice. The Arctic Sea Ice is vital, because once it’s gone it jumpstarts several reactions that reinforce global warming (positive feedbacks), including the permafrost thaw in the far North and the release of enormous quantities of methane and carbon. There are already lakes forming all over the Arctic and methane is bubbling out of them. The carbon stored in the permafrost could potentially raise global temperatures by 10°C or even more (12). Let’s not mess with the permafrost. We have the opportunity for a global agreement to reduce the human impact on climate change. Indeed, we can solve it.

As Sir Nicholas Stern puts it: “The conference in Copenhagen is the most important international gathering since the Second World War.” Decisions made there will have a profound impact on the future of life on Earth. There are several important meetings on the road to Copenhagen, with the first ones starting in June. A concept of the new plan could be presented there.

Citizens’ power

In a democratic country it is not the government that is in charge. It is always the people. We literally hire the government to run the country on our behalf. The country belongs to the people and people can make decisions regarding the country directly or through their elected representatives. We choose members of the parliament, we choose the presidents. They work for us. President Obama is the employee of American people. Prime minister Gordon Brown is the employee of British people. The climate crisis is not just about technologies. As Al Gore points out, we have to become active as citizens. Politicians will act, if we ask them to act. That’s why the “Not Stupid” campaign in the UK includes a pledge that can be signed by citizens that they will not vote for the Labour Party ever again if the Labour government does not ratify a meaningful proposal in Copenhagen. That’s a strong message!

On the other hand politicians do need our support. They want to know that we are interested in stopping climate change, that we support bold and ambitious actions. It is inspiring for the ministers to know that people support their work. Members of the government are citizens, just like us. They are mothers and fathers. They have kids for whom they would like to provide a good future. It’s just that they are trapped in the political and economic system. It seems to me that in the end of the day, when many of them come back home, they do understand what climate change is about and what is at stake. And they want to do the right thing.

The reason why we can be optimistic about reaching a breakthrough agreement in Copenhagen is that now we have the technology that could eventually replace coal. The CO2 to methanol process provides fuel that can be used to generate electricity and heating in a cogeneration plant. And this process is renewable. The CO2 emissions from burning methanol are captured, dissolved in water and thanks to the catalyst converted to methanol again. Then the process is repeated on and on. There are no emissions from this cycle. The extra source of energy that is needed for the catalyst can come from solar panels, a wind turbine or other renewable source.

We can use this technology to create a distributed energy system that would include small and medium-size generators owned by local trusts or community co-ops like the famous wind co-ops in Denmark. Government support could go to fund local initiatives and this approach could be backed by national policy. We have the opportunity to repower world economies using clean and renewable sources of energy. We have finally the technical solution needed to create zero carbon economies in the short time that we’ve got left. Let’s just do it.

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Marcin Gerwin is a co-founder of Earth Conservation, a non-profit group working for sustainable development. He graduated with a Ph.D. in political studies, from the University of Gdansk, Poland, with his thesis: “The idea and practice of sustainable development in the context of global challenges”. He is also involved in a local initiative promoting participatory democracy in his home city Sopot, Poland.

References:

1. Personal communication with Dobieslaw Nazimek, 14.04.2009.
2. Agnieszka Maderska, Czy CO2 zrobi z Polski drugi Kuwejt?, wnp.pl, http://nafta.wnp.pl/czy-co2-zrobi-z-polski-drugi-kuwejt,5404_2_0_0.html, 30.03.2009.
3. Personal communication with Dobieslaw Nazimek, 14.04.2009.
4. Carbon Capture Strategy Could Lead to Emission-Free Cars, Georgia Institute of Technology, http://www.gatech.edu/newsroom/release.html?id=1707, 11.02.2008.
5. Personal communication with Andrei Fedorov from the MITf-Lab at Georgia Institute of Technology, 12.04.2009.
6. David L. Damm, Andrei G. Fedorov, Conceptual study of distributed CO2 capture and the sustainable carbon economy, Energy Conversion and Management no. 49, 2008, p. 1682.
7. F. Jeffrey Martin, William L. Kubic, Green Freedom: a Concept for Producing Carbon-Neutral Synthetic Fuels and Chemicals, p. 3.
8. U of C scientist captures global-warming gas directly from the air, University of Calgary, http://www.ucalgary.ca/news/utoday/sept29-08/carboncapture, 29.09.2008.
9. US estimate transportation emissions from: Emissions of Greenhouse Gases Report, Energy Information Administration, http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/1605/ggrpt/carbon.html.
10. Personal communication with Dobieslaw Nazimek, 14.04.2009.
11. Willie Smits, TED conference 2009, http://permaculture.org.au/2009/03/30/community-based-rainforest-restoration-work-is-huge-success-in-borneo, slide at: 13:50 min.
12. Fred Pearce, Arctic meltdown is a threat to humanity, New Scientist, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20127011.500-arctic-meltdown-is-a-threat-to-humanity.html

Many analysts suggest that the price of oil will rise sharply after the peak. They predict that one barrel of oil may cost 280 USD, 350 USD or even 600 USD. Speaking strictly from the economic point of view, this is correct. Demand outstrips the supply, so the price goes up. But… there’s something missing from this picture – that being politics. At the moment world leaders are working hard to restore economic growth. It doesn’t matter if it makes sense or not, that’s just what they intend to do. The price of oil directly underpins the livelihoods of millions of people. What would politicians do if the price of oil started to rise again? Would they react or not? Would they allow their economies to crash again under the high price of oil or would they counteract? And what would people do? Would they march on the streets demanding their governments to act or not?

When analyzing the future of oil supply to my home country, Poland, I looked at it from a social perspective, and I just cannot imagine that prices on the gas stations will go up, up and up. If the fuel prices crossed a certain level, let’s say 5 zlotys per 1 liter of petrol (at current exchange rate that would be USD $1.51 per 1 liter or USD $5.71 per gallon) we would have massive social unrest, road blocks and protesters screaming from the top of their lungs right in front of the prime minister’s office. They would wave the “Solidarity” flags, bang pots and blow sirens until the prime minister’s ears would fall off. People would demand the government reduce the fuel duty in the first place. In Poland taxes are a large chunk of the price of petrol, even 53%. Our government would have to react or it would face defeat in the next elections. That’s the political logic. It seems to me that the same situation would be repeated in other EU countries that have high fuel taxes. In 2008 thousands of truck drivers brought Spain to a standstill as they went on strike over rocketing fuel prices. There were also fishermen protests Netherlands, Portugal, Italy and Belgium, and the famous lorry drivers protests in UK in 2000. And Tony Blair’s government eventually had to give ground.

But what would the US government do if the oil prices reached 147 USD per barrel again? Would Barack Obama react or not? Would he allow more foreclosures, more job losses, more families not able to make ends meet? However, one thing that is different in the US than in Europe, is that there is not much room for lowering fuel taxes.… If Obama wanted to have socially acceptable prices at the gas stations he would have to deal with the price of crude oil itself. And he would have the full support of the EU governments for it, because they don’t want to lose the substantial income from fuel taxes at home.

The record oil prices in 2008 sparked a discussion about curbing market speculation. If the price of oil starts to rise again, politicians may call another G20 meeting so and they can take on this issue. They can take the price of oil out of the hands of hedge funds, investment funds and the others. They can even have a regulated price of crude oil. How could it be since OPEC countries may not be willing to cooperate with the USA or the European Union? Well, they don’t have to. The prices are not set by sellers alone. They can be influenced by buyers as well. If oil buyers agree on a common price, how can sellers get around it? This is just a possible future scenario, but it seems very likely to me.

Keeping oil prices at the relatively low level after the peak may mean that fuel rationing will have to be introduced quickly. When I was a kid we had fuel rationing in Poland. It wasn’t that bad. Actually, it was quite normal. With today’s technology it could be e.g. plastic cards zipped at the gas stations. We can certainly live with it.

Photo: Korean Resource Center

Political and economic systems can be designed just like gardens. We can design them in such a way that they will allow simple, harmonious living with nature, without much bureaucracy. It is not written in stone that there must even be taxes. Taxes are very practical, but, for example, Native Americans managed to do just fine without them for hundreds of years. And they did create a country, the Iroquois Confederacy can be considered as one. I’m not suggesting we get rid of taxation, my point is only that it’s not an obligatory feature of a design. Many people see governments with ministers and presidents as the only way of ruling a country, even in democratic systems. It may seem that since all countries are now ruled by some form of government – parliamentary, presidential or monarchal – it must have always been like that. Well, it wasn’t.

Swords and spears

Let’s begin this story in the age before kings. Not so long ago, in the 6th century, dozens of tribes lived on the lands around the Vistula river in Central Europe. Romans called these lands Terra Incognita – the Unknown Lands – as they were a blank spot on their maps. People settled there along the rivers. They were farming, fishing, hunting and gathering crops in the forests. They grew wheat, rye, millet, barley, beans, and had cherry trees, apple trees, plums and peaches. They kept sheep, pigs, cows and horses. They were the Slavic peoples. There was no country there at that time. People lived in small groups and if there was an issue that the community wanted to deal with, a meeting of the all members of the community was held. The leader was chosen only at a time of war, to lead the defense of their lands from invaders. This simple political system is now called a war democracy.

For some strange reason Slavic peoples were fighting not just with the occasional invaders or robbers, but also among themselves. There were also signs of cooperation however – a 100 km long, fortified wall with moats was built by several tribes to protect themselves (the remains of this wall still exist today). Due to frequent wars a group of farmers or hunters became professional warriors. This is a crucial moment in human history. A community transferred some of its original power to a small group of people who became a military elite, a squad stronger than the rest of the community. Their original job was to protect the settlement, but some squad leaders realized that they had power not only to defeat the enemies, but also to dominate their own communities. It was a physical power, a power of sword and spear. The squad leader called himself a lord, a prince, the one who will set the rules – and whoever didn’t want to obey his orders could be eliminated. And many communities did obey.

In the 10th century a prince from the Polans tribe, decided that he wanted to extend the area of his influence. He wasn’t satisfied with merely ruling his own tribe. He wanted more. He had the same kind of sickness as the kings of men in Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” – he wanted more power. So the prince gathered his troops and started to conquer his neighbours, successfully. At the end of his life he almost doubled the area of his princedom. You might expect that historians will condemn the ruthless acts of tyrannizing and killing people for the pride of some prince. But, actually, no. They call it the unification of a country.

It’s participatory democracy, or the alternative… Click pic for full view. Courtesy: Throbgoblins

At that time of history, in the Middle Ages, if you wanted to justify your power, what could you do? There was no United Nations to turn to. The prince had an idea. He decided to baptize his country. It was very clever. Since he was baptized, he was not a pagan anymore and the kings from the neighourhood didn’t have a legal reason to attack his lands. And, he had to be recognized among the Christian rulers as a lawful one. What’s more, he could now receive a crown from the pope. This was really a big thing. It was believed at that time that the power to rule a country came from God, and if you were a king it meant you were chosen by God himself and everyone had to listen to you. Although he didn’t become a king, his son managed to do just that.

Now, in a traditional monarchy all the land is the personal property of a king. The king owns all natural resources, all forests, rivers, wild animals, rocks, everything. He is the lord of all people, their father and the highest judge. People were obliged to grow food for him and to provide him with goods and services. His power and his country could have been inherited by his family. Like a set of plates or a house. That was quite a change from the tribal rules where the land was common and people were free.

Since it wasn’t easy for one person to rule a whole country without telephones and the internet, the king decided to lease some of the land to his trusted colleagues, in exchange for keeping his power there. In this way feudalism was born and aristocrats, barons and landlords with it. There is no doubt that for the privileged ones this system was very beneficial. They didn’t have to do anything. They didn’t work. Yet, they received all they needed just because of their social status. You know, I’m sometimes tired with capitalism in Poland and I wish it could be gone as soon as possible, along with the whole concept of the industrial society. But we’ve had capitalism in Poland, in its present form, for only 20 years. Just 20! And think about feudalism. It lasted in Europe for some 1,200 years. The last feudal system of government in Europe was abolished on the 9th of April 2008 on the Sark Island in the English Channel. That’s just a year ago….

The collapse of feudal systems and monarchies in Europe started with the French Revolution at the end of the 18th century. Next there was a time of Napoleon, World War I and the rise of communism, World War II and the division of the world into spheres in US or Russian influences, and at the end of the 20th century we have ended up with democratically elected governments in most parts of the world and capitalism as a dominant, global economic system. Although some countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Spain, Norway, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan or the Netherlands are still constitutional monarchies, the role of the monarch remains mostly symbolic. After many centuries, people can make decisions regarding their lives, for themselves, once again.

What is a democracy, anyway?

Bill Mollison writes:

In very recent societies, our basic ‘right’ is to vote, form unions, protest, or go to law (i.e. to support professional classes). Truly basic rights to grow or protect forests, to build a shelter, grow food, or provide water from our roof areas are commonly denied by local or state regulations. – Bill Mollison “Permaculture: A Designers’ Manual”, p. 509.

We can change that. We can use rainwater and grey water, build our own house and even have free access to a small parcel of land. We can pass a law to protect the forests and to clean up the streams. In a democratic country we, the people, can pass any law we wish. That’s the whole point of a democracy.

Democracy means that people, not the king, set the rules – people govern the country themselves or by their elected representatives. Do you agree? Please read this definition again. If you still agree, then we have a problem, because many countries that claim to be democracies plainly are not. Take the USA, for example. The whole world watched the 2008 presidential election and cheered after the Americans chose Barack Obama. No, they didn’t. In the USA people vote for the electors, not the candidates. The electors who pledged to vote for Obama received the majority of votes, so he won. OK, but does it really matter since Obama is the president now? Oh, it does matter, it does…. In 2000 Al Gore received about half a million more votes in presidential elections than the candidate from the Republican party. It was the same Al Gore who later starred in the “Inconvenient Truth” and won the Nobel peace prize along with the IPCC. And who became the president? George W. Bush. The guy who received less votes. Furthermore, corporations and their lobbyists have such a strong influence on US politics that some people call this system a corpocracy – a country ruled by large private companies.

In Poland things are different. Private companies are not allowed to sponsor political campaigns. We choose our presidents directly. The election process is clear, transparent and if there is even a tiny problem, like someone tearing down posters in the night, it is reported in the mainstream media. When our representatives get elected, however, things get less wonderful. For example, a person can be elected to the parliament, because he promised to help fishermen to set higher limits for catching cod. Then, after the elections, the first law that this deputy passes is a complete ban on cod fishing on Polish Baltic sea. Can he do it? Yes, he can. And what can people who elected him do about it? Nothing. Our constitution guarantees that deputies cannot be influenced by the voters. It’s even worse. Even if this deputy wanted to help people who voted for him, his political party may force him to vote as the party wishes instead, even against his own will (or they throw him out). And you cannot get to the lower house of the parliament if you are not a member of a political party. So, since neither the deputies nor the president have to listen to the people who voted for them, how can they be called our representatives? That’s not a democracy at all. This design looks more like an elective monarchy.

There are other problems with choosing our representatives. Our favorite candidate may have a very green programme – he or she may promise to promote renewable energy, invest in public transportation and support soil restoration. But for some unexplained reason they may also wish to promote genetically modified food. We may not share this enthusiasm with the candidate, but we cannot cross out this single point from his proposal – we have to vote for the whole package. The ban on GMOs may be proposed by some radical right-wing candidate, so we have to choose the lesser evil. Why not vote only for the ideas and solutions that we fully support?

There’s one more thing – the very process of elections has become a beauty contest. Voters don’t bother to think about implications of the economic or social programmes proposed. Some may vote because of the color of somebody’s tie or the cut of a dress. Some candidates don’t reveal details of their plans at all, or, they suggest solutions they know don’t make any sense, however they do so to receive more votes. This whole system promotes irresponsibility and short-sightedness. And even if people did elect a candidate who decided to implement sustainable solutions to change the current course, they may oppose them. They may not want to go to work on a bus, they may prefer to drive their SUVs. Why pay more for electricity generated from coal? I don’t want to pay more for that! The reason for this is that they didn’t think it over themselves and these new policies are imposed on them. Even if it is done by the candidate they have chosen themselves, people may feel resentful.

Do you know that there were no political parties in the early days of US congress? There were no Democrats, no Republicans, not even a Green Party. There was a legal restriction on formation of political parties. Why? To keep partisan interests out of politics. To be honest I don’t see what role political parties can play in a democratic system. There can be think-tanks promoting different opinions on economy or on various social issues, and I don’t suggest a ban, but I just can’t imagine why political parties need to exist. Perhaps they could be associations of people who have a similar world view, who meet for a chitchat over tea. But real discussions and decision-making takes place during open community meetings. It doesn’t matter who is in favor of which political party. All that matters is whether the idea presented is good or not.

In a democratic design people have a direct say in all issues that they wish to have a say in. What’s more, if people decided to invest in public transportation and to introduce a carbon tax, it means that they discussed this issue in their community. They understand the pros and cons, they have consulted on this with experts. They have digested the whole subject on their own and they have come up to a solution that they understand and accept. That’s something very different from voting for a candidate from a TV commercial.

Democracy means meeting together, like in the old days, before kings. It is discussing the matters of your community and taking free decisions. It means that all people can have a say no matter what their sex, color of skin, social status or religion is. If we agree on this, then we have to make some amendments in history books. In school text-books it says that there was a democracy in ancient Greece, in Athens for example. But, guess what… women and slaves didn’t get to vote.

Rule of the interest

Community-based democracy is a time-consuming thing. It’s not as easy as voting once every 4 years and then just watching the news and criticizing politicians while drinking beer in a pub. That’s one of the reason for leaving it all to our representatives.

When we were thinking how to design the process of decision-making in our city, the burning question was (and still is): how many people will come for the meetings? If only 1% of the citizens will come, would this vote be valid? Perhaps the remaining 99% of citizens would have a different opinion? And what about the city council? More than 60% of citizens took part in electing them, so they may have the right to decide on their behalf. The answer to this is pretty simple: the 99% of the citizens who didn’t come for the meeting, didn’t come most probably because they didn’t care about the issue. The 1% of those who did show up was interested in it, and since only they care about it, they have the right to make this decision (we assume that all citizens will receive a printed calendar of events to their mailbox, so they would all know about the meetings, and a major vote on a budget will take place only once a year, and small meetings would be scheduled on specific issues, such as selling public land for private investments). Here is an example: I may be deeply concerned about what happens with the woodland around the archeological site in our city. There are some plans to “revitalize” this area, and I would like to keep it as it is (I’ve seen a deer there, in the middle of the city!). So I would definitely come for the meeting about this issue. However, if there was a meeting about leaking roofs in the communal flats, I wouldn’t show up, because that’s not really something that I’m interested in, and I would leave it to the people who live in these flats. Certainly, some people may be on vacation or really busy at work, so an additional voting time could be scheduled for them.

Now, regarding the role of the elected city council. If you start the community-based democracy with the existing law, it is all based on trust and cooperation between the city council and citizens. The candidate for the city mayor must have it made very clear that he or she will respect citizen’ decisions taken in open public meetings after being elected. That’s why it doesn’t matter that the mayor was elected by a larger number people than those who came for a meeting. He or she was elected because of the pledge to respect the choice of the people. So, if only 1% of citizens come for a meeting, then their decision is valid. Those who are interested in the issue decide.

Democratic country – a network of communities

How much independence should local communities have? Actually, that’s not the right question. In a democratic country we could ask instead: how much of our independence would we like to give away? It makes sense to have the same traffic laws for the whole country. It is reasonable to have a common foreign policy, tariffs or an army, if you wish to have an army at all (Costa Rica doesn’t have one). Some other basic laws could be country-wide and… that’s about it. I may be forgetting something, but there are not so many issues that it makes sense to set one law for for the whole country. If people wish to harvest rainwater in their community, they should be able decide about it locally. If they don’t want to harvest it, they should be able to make this decision as well. It may be against the law to sunbathe naked on the beach in one community, while in the other it may be perfectly legal. Why should the deputies decide about these things for the whole country? Why should some dude from the parliament who has never been in our city decide about the primary school curriculum? All these decisions should be left for the local communities. The formal name for the process of making more and more decisions on the local level is decentralization.

And people could decide on the country-wide issues in their communities as well. Hmm… it would be interesting to vote on the foreign policy of our country! I can already imagine the discussions that we would have: tell Putin that we don’t care about the missiles he has! He can place them along the whole border if he wishes to! Yeah, yeah! And what about this EU food policy? What do you mean we can’t process cheese they way we did for the centuries? It’s dirty? Who says so? And this French guy, what’s his name… ah, Sarkozy, when is he coming for the working visit? I heard he wants to ban GM food in the whole European Union. Oh, wonderful! We’ll get rid of this franken-corn at last! It would be fun. And if you ask who I would vote for regarding our country’s support for the 2016 Olympics candidate, it’s Madrid (1).

We are starting with small steps, however. First a democratic municipality, hopefully combined with a Transition initiative. Then we need more democratic communities in our country, lots of them. But people can establish them only by themselves, if they wish to. It all sounds like a chance for a real change and a step towards a good life. So we try.

Notes:

1. The official support of the Polish government goes for Chicago, but they forgot to ask us about our opinion.

Democracy first

Tiger’s nest in Bhutan Photo: Thomas Wanhoff

In 1994 the government of Haiti lifted tariffs and allowed imports of cheap, subsidized rice and other crops from abroad. This policy was recommended by the International Monetary Fund and urged by the U.S. government (1). Over the years this tiny change in policy led to an estimated 830,000 job losses, it damaged food security and rural livelihoods, and eventually led to food riots and hunger in 2008 (2). If people in Haiti were to decide by themselves on their country policy, would they choose the recommendations of the IMF that brought them into starvation? Would people of Ecuador allow toxic pollution in the Amazon for the sake of Chevron Texaco profits? Would people in India accept genetically modified seeds of cotton that caused crop failures, spiral of debt and hundreds of farmer suicides? And would people in the USA support bailing out banks with their own money in a way that is not transparent and does not lead to the recovery of the financial system? They wouldn’t. These things happen around the world because we still don’t have true democracy, where people set the rules for themselves.

Women sowing rice in India Photo: Michael Foley

In 2001 twenty subsistence farmers, small traders, small food processors, and consumers, mostly women, and some of them illiterate, met in Indian village to decide on the future of agriculture in the state of Andhra Pradesh. They were chosen to represent the rural diversity of their state. They were presented with three different models of development. The official plan, put forward by Chief Minister of the state, was backed by grants and loans from the World Bank and the UK government. The plan was to mechanize, consolidate and genetically engineer agriculture of the state to produce cash crops for export, and to reduce the farming population from 70% to 40%, to have more workers for industry. The second vision involved developing environmentally friendly agriculture to produce cheap organic products for domestic and Northern supermarkets and it was supported by the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements and the International Trade Center. The third vision was influenced by Gandhian and indigenous ideas, and involved increasing local self-reliance and sustainability in both agriculture and economics.

Each model was illustrated by videos, farmers and traders could hear the summary of the policies, ask questions, consult with government officials, scientists, corporate and NGO representatives from the state, national and international level. They also considered advantages and disadvantages of each vision, based also upon their own knowledge, priorities and aspirations. After one week they made a decision.

Tom Atlee writes:

In their recommendations (…) they said they wanted self-reliant food and farming, and community control over resources. They wanted to maintain healthy soils, diverse crops, trees and livestock, and to build on their indigenous knowledge, practical skills and local institutions. They wanted to maintain the high percentage of people making their livelihood from the land, and did not want their farms consolidated or mechanized in ways that would displace rural people. Most of them could feed their families through their own sustenance farming. They did not want to end up laboring in dangerous brick kilns outside of Hyderabad, like so many who had left their farms. They also rejected genetically modified crops and the export of their local medicinal plants. (3)

If we wish to make some meaningful changes in the world, we need appropriate tools for that. A number one tool in the earth repair workshop is community-based democracy. It is a key for unlocking the potential for sustainability. In most cities in the world we choose our representatives to manage them. They decide on our behalf what the taxes will be spent on or what new investments will be made. It may work well, it may be a disaster. However, we can make these decisions directly together, as a community. We can meet, discuss, consult with experts and decide ourselves what the future of our city or village will be like.

What can we decide about? We can make decisions regarding all the issues that are relevant for a municipality. We can set the priorities for the budget spending, plan the new investments, hire personnel, decide on the level of their salaries, give permissions for private infrastructure investments, set local taxation and monitor the work of the city council. In some countries municipalities can even write their own local law. It is very important to understand that it is the citizens who employ the city council and the whole administration, not the other way around. They are all our employees, we hire them! If you live in a democratic country it is already written in your constitution. We employ the local administration to help us manage the issues of a city or a village, and with a community-based democracy their jobs is to put our decisions into practice.

In democratic countries collecting taxes is nothing but a fundraising event, which aim is to gather money for the projects for common good. There is no reason why we shouldn’t have a say in what our money is spent on. And, even if we spent these funds on exactly the same projects as the city council, thanks to community-based democracy we could gain something more, something that otherwise may have not appeared – a sense of a common cause, a united action that brings people together, that can create a feeling of “us” – a real community. In the same city there may live people who share the same interests, who could be friends, yet, they usually don’t have the opportunity to meet each other. With community-based democracy this opportunity is created. People meet and talk with each other and that is a great benefit by itself.

Community-based democracy could be useful also in taking decisions on state-wide issues. It could work exactly the same as with decisions on local matters. People meet, discuss, consult with experts and talk to other communities to see what their opinion is like and why. After final discussions in communities people vote, votes are counted and decision is made, directly by the people. Currently there is only one country where people vote often in state-wide referendums, and that’s Switzerland.

How do you get started?

You need to check the constitution of your country first. In our Polish constitution we have an article that says that our country is a common good of all people and that people can govern it directly or indirectly through their representatives. If you have an elected government, then it all should be fine, as somewhere in the constitution it is written that power in your country belongs to the citizens. Then, you need a city council that will listen to the people. They need to agree to accept the decisions of the citizens taken in meetings. From the legal perspective these meetings can be regarded as a public consultation event, with a small difference – according to an informal agreement between citizens and the city council, decisions taken by the citizens are final. Most probably it wouldn’t require any initial changes in law. Participatory budgeting, which is a form of community-based democracy, has already been introduced in Brazil, Ecuador, Spain, France, Germany, Colombia, Portugal, Italy and the UK among others.

Parkowa Street in Sopot, Poland. Photo: Marcin Gerwin

Next, talk to your friends or people who you think might be most interested in a community life. The process of starting a community initiative has already been designed by the Transition Towns initiative and you can learn a lot from their experience. What you need at the beginning is a steering group which should be designed for its demise from the outset. The steering group is the ignition and the catalyst of the process, it is the group of people that organizes the community meetings and awareness-raising events. If you are already involved in a Transition initiative, then community-based democracy could be a practical extension pack for you. Community-based democracy can release the budget of your community and redirect it towards sustainability. If you would like to start an initiative for community-based democracy from scratch, then you don’t need to worry about establishing an organization. When I was asked if our initiative in Sopot is an NGO, I answered “No, we don’t need to register an NGO. We already have an organization and it is called a municipality of Sopot. We have more than 39,000 members and a yearly budget of around 60 million USD.” It’s just that people are not aware of that.

How do we plan to change the way our city is governed? In 2 years we will have new elections for the city council. We will ask the candidates for the mayor, if they would agree to accept the decisions made during the community meetings. If yes, then we will vote for them. If no, then we will not vote for them. If the situation gets desperate you can always have your own candidate, but it is important that the initiative for community-based democracy is not run by a political party, but by a movement. Will we succeed? I don’t know. It all depends on how many people will decide to participate directly in community life. But we will try.

How you organize the process of decision making in your community, depends entirely on you. We plan to use Open Space Technology for running meetings and setting the agenda and the KJ method for selecting priorities for the budget. In some cases formal voting may be necessary, in others consensus can be made. The city of Porto Alegre in Brazil has 20 years of experience in participatory budgeting (830kb PDF), so you can find out how they designed their process of managing the city budget.

The next step is creating a common vision for the future of a city or a village. It is a good moment to learn about sustainability and to consult with experts on your plans. Citizens may not necessarily be specialists in renewable energy or in designing public transport, they may not be aware of peak oil or climate change and may plan for highways or want to build new coal fired plants. Can you make them choose sustainable solutions? No, you cannot. They are free to choose any solutions they find most appropriate. We take this risk in Sopot as well. When I told a friend about this initiative, she said: “You know, that is very dangerous. There are some guys who may want to burn down the forest in our landscape park.” In theory they could propose that. But in practice, in our city at least, the rest of the people would not let them do it anyway. So, besides introducing community-based democracy, it is a good idea to run awareness raising events and educate people about sustainable living.

Women serving torillas on a parade in Cotacachi. Photo: feserc

The experience of participatory budgeting in Cotacachi canton in Ecuador is a very encouraging one. It is a small and ethnically diverse canton that stretches from the Andes to the lowland tropical areas. In 1996 the people of Cotacachi elected a new mayor (a native Kichwa), who introduced participatory budgeting there. People decided to use their budget to improve health care services and invest funds in education and electrification. Cotacachi was declared by UNESCO the first illiteracy-free area in Ecuador and the quality of healthcare is one of the best in the country (4). All people are invited to take part in the planning process, regardless of age, gender or ethnic and economic background. They decide on the use of 100% of investment resources. Decisions are made after meetings in the working groups that focus on health, education, tourism or children and youth issues. In 2000 the people of Cotacachi decided that they would like to live in an ecological canton, the first of this kind in Latin America (5).

The advantage of this system of governance is also that there is no conflict of political parties, there are no clashes for votes between left and right. We, the people, have already won the elections. No one is going to throw us out of the office in 4 years. We don’t need to prepare for the next elections. We are already there. We can sit down and decide what is best for our communities.
It seems to me that community-based democracy could fit very well with Transition initiatives. Democracy can provide involvement of the whole community, funding and a real influence on decisions made, while the Transition approach could provide a direction – sustainable living, adapting for peak oil and localizing economies. Democracy alone is not enough to create a sustainable world, we need a clear direction to understand where we would like to get to, and Transition initiatives provide just that.

Towards sustainability

When you have a community-based democracy in your city, or better in the whole country, then you can start changing the economy. It is vital that localizing and greening the economy is not imposed on people, but instead, it is something they choose themselves. Sustainability is not an abstract idea that only environmentalists can comprehend. It is just common sense, based on the understanding of how nature works. You don’t need a Ph.D. to get it. If you cut trees in the forest faster than they can grow back, sooner or later the forest will be gone. A child in a kindergarten can understand that. Adults can understand it as well and what’s more, they can do something about it. Yet, sustainability is not just about survival and living within the limits of our environment. It is about maximizing happiness, about flourishing communities, thriving nature and a wealth of natural resources.

We need to redesign our economies in a way that we will be able to feed ourselves with nutritious and healthy food, provide clothes, housing, clean water and a good life for all 8 billion of us in the next 20 years. That’s quite a challenge, but it is doable. It is doable if we have a real democracy. If we don’t, then the corporations and politicians may successfully defend the global market economy. If you have real democracy, than people can pass the law that is in the interest of their common good. They start to think about the economy, about what is really best for them and, I hope, they start to act responsibly, if they are told what the environmental consequences of their actions are and what impact it will have on their future.

Courtesy: Throbgoblins

The way the economy works, the very economic model, has an influence on human relations and the environment. Modern capitalism, for example, is based on self-interest. As Adam Smith points out: “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest.” Another important feature of capitalism is competition in the free market that is supposed to keep the prices low and provide an incentive for innovations. Hmm, since everyone is concerned with their own interest, then how can capitalism help to create healthy communities where people help one another? The answer is: it can’t. That’s just not what it was designed for. It was designed for increasing profits and minimizing costs for the companies, while the invisible hand of the free market was supposed to help the rest society to improve their material standard of living. Unfortunately, the struggle for profits encourages polluting the environment to keep the costs down and saving on work conditions. There is no doubt that capitalism can increase Gross Domestic Product fast. But it does so at the expense of social life and the environment. Yet, ever increasing GDP doesn’t have to be the aim of the country’s policy anyway. How about a good life instead? In Bhutan the national policy is focused not on GDP but on GNH – Gross National Happiness.

McDonald’s in Tokyo Photo: nicolacassa

Economic globalization, which is associated with modern capitalism, didn’t happen by chance, it is not unavoidable, as if it was winter or gravity. Economic globalization was designed at the end of the World War II by US planners and it was officially launched with the international conference in Bretton Woods in July 1944. The main objective of the design was to allow US corporations to enter foreign markets and to allow US control over the world economy by removing trade barriers, allowing free exchange of currencies and setting up a system of fixed exchange rates that would minimize the risks involved with exchanging foreign currencies. Over the next years three institutions were established: the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and later on the World Trade Organization, and their job was basically to enforce free trade rules in as many countries around the world as possible and to dismantle local self-sufficiency. Governments that didn’t want to cooperate were encouraged in a more informal way, which is described in a book written by John Perkins “Confessions of Economic Hitman”. Economic globalization can be reversed with a simple flick of a pen, if people decide to raise tariffs on imported goods.

Socialism, as it was experienced in Eastern Europe or in Soviet Union, has many flaws as well. First of all it was not a democracy. Even now, there are no free elections in Cuba nor in China. There is no free press nor freedom of speech. The country is not run by people, but by an authoritarian government, which cannot be changed after 4 years. Common ownership of resources is good, but in a classic socialist country, “common” doesn’t mean that it belongs to people. It belongs to the government. If a factory is run by state, than in practice it means that it belongs to no one, and if the workers get paid, they don’t really care what they produce nor if the quality of what they do is good. The manager may be incompetent, but he is a friend of the Minister, so he gets a job. There is no direct public oversight of the commons. The country is vulnerable to corruption and cronyism. Bureaucracy is rampant. Not so cool.

La Paz, Bolivia. Photo: Jessie Reeder

Socialism, as it is emerging in Latin America, in Bolivia, Venezuela or in Ecuador, is different. There are free elections and people can influence policies in some ways. Public participation was allowed, for example, in Ecuador in 2008 when a new constitution was drafted. More than 3,500 organizations presented their proposals to the assembly, and thousands of public meetings were held in schools, universities and communities to decide what the new constitution should include (6). Whether these new forms of governance in Latin America will be successful, depends very much on how much public oversight will be agreed upon – in other words: how democratic these countries will be. If in Bolivia, for example, the state decides to run a gas company, who will hire the manager? Who will monitor the company’s performance? Will people be able to fire the manager at will, if they decide he is not doing his job well? Who will decide about what the revenue of gas sales will be used for – the people or the government? If people, then they may use it well. If the government, then these funds may be used for buying votes or for funding projects that people don’t really need.

Do we have other choices besides capitalism and socialism? We sure do. Just what’s important to remember is that both capitalism and socialism may be very different from one country to another. Capitalism in Sweden, for example, with public healthcare, public universities and very high taxes is not the same as capitalism in the USA. The economic model of Sweden is still capitalism, but it is different from the latest US version, because the state budget in Sweden is used to help people rather than to support corporate gains.

Prayer flags near Leh in Ladakh Photo: ReefRaff

OK, but what if we wanted to create a society based on cooperation and sharing, rather than on self-interest and competition. Could it work? Of course, it did work for thousands of years in traditional communities all over the world, in communities of the Yanomami Indians in the Amazon, in Ladakh in the Himalayas, among the San Bushmen tribes in South Africa or in traditional Aborigine tribes in Australia (7). Economy based on sharing is also present in the industrialized countries now, and it is, for example, open source software (Linux or Wordpress), open encyclopedia (Wikipedia), posting scientific research on the internet, voluntary fire brigades, food banks where people donate food or even uploading photos on Flickr with a Creative Commons license. The formal name for an economy based on sharing is a gift economy. Its taste is very different from capitalism.

In many cultures people still work for free for the common good or simply to help their friends. In Ecuador, when people in the Indian communities meet to accomplish some task together, like weeding a garden or cleaning around a school, it’s called “minga”. In Sri Lanka, when people meet to build a road or a new well, it’s called “shramadana” – a gift of labor. A whole network of 15,000 villages, where people work together on various projects for the benefit of communities, has evolved there (it’s called Sarvodaya Shramadana). And when people in the cities in Australia meet to establish a permaculture garden, share skills and have fun, then it’s called a “permablitz”. All of these are forms of a gift economy.

When designing an economy in your area, you can choose elements of any economic system and mix them as you please. For example, you can have a communal forest in your village, but keep private housing (some tribes in the Amazon live in long communal houses). You may have a communal garden, gather food and cook meals together, but sell ginseng from this garden as a cash crop to the pharmaceutical company 100 miles away. You can also trade without money exchanging goods and services directly (barter) and, for example, you could supply fresh salads to the urban community in exchange for dental care. You can have a free market, but set caps on companies so that they stay small and share the market with each other rather than compete endlessly for customers, and besides that promote cooperative ownership by special taxation or financial incentives. Corporations could be given charters for one or two years for activities, that could be renewed if necessary, and their stakeholders could be directly responsible for any corporations’ wrong doing. Not all things can be produced locally, like hard disks or cameras, and in some cases a big producer could be an advantage.

You can also choose a cooperative economy, where people decide on what needs you have and then share responsibilities – who does what – grow food, cook, teach in school, run a kindergarten. It’s teamwork. A good example of a cooperative economy is Gaviotas, a village on the Colombian savanna. The economic model you choose depends on the personalities of people living in your community. It depends on how much individual and how much community life you would like to have. You need to talk it all over together. Don’t push it.

Going local

Let’s imagine a community that decided to begin a transition to a sustainable economy. They have just voted for a community-based democracy, they have mobilized more than half of their citizens and now would like to plan their budget expenditures. What can they do? What can they spend their money on? Boy, this is an exciting perspective! There are so many things you can start in just one year! After many meetings, discussions, community parties and consultations with experts, people decided on the following: they want to have their local currency to keep the money circulating in the local economy and they want their own bank that will issue this currency and provide credit at a 0% interest rate. This bank will also be able to issue credit in the national currency, however, since it is owned by the community, it will keep the credit rate at the minimum level and provide credit only for investments that are agreed upon by the community. The maximum amount of credit available per person was set to keep the inflation down and consumption at a sustainable level. Local currency is a top priority in this community due to a high unemployment rate, and equally important is access to land.

The municipality owns several hundred acres of agricultural land that is not privatized. This land is leased to citizens who want to grow their own food in exchange for land stewardship and supplying part of crops for school meals. There are more people willing to have a garden than land available, so 40 more acres were bought with the money from the city budget. Contracts have been also made with local farmers to supply various vegetables, fruits and grain to city shops. A discussion sparked about how to manage distribution of this food and it turned out that it was easiest to work together with local grocery stores, rather then to built a special warehouse.

Bicycle hire system in Paris (Velib). Photo: Filo.mena

Two buses with electric engines were ordered from the factory (there was a long waiting list, so they will arrive one year later) and a credit line was opened for cab drivers who wanted to exchange their internal combustion engines for electric ones. A car sharing club was established with just 4 cars for a start and a public bicycle hire system. To provide clean electricity a plan for a transition to completely renewable sources of energy was developed in 6 months, and the purchase of the first vertical wind turbines, photovoltaics and small hydro generators was scheduled for the next spring. Since it was the citizens who managed the municipality there were no problems with obtaining permission for placing them. All large generators were to be owned by the community and electricity was to be sold at the cost of maintenance.

Vertical axis wind turbine installed in London Photo: thingermejiq

A local law was passed to allow reuse of grey water in gardens and the use of compost toilets. All food scraps were to be collected, composted and sent back to farms and gardens. Environmental standards were set for all new buildings, and from now on only passive houses were allowed to be built in this municipality. A large sum was designated for insulating school buildings and installing solar collectors for water heating, but it was calculated that increasing energy efficiency will eventually bring yearly savings in heating. People in this city also decided that they would like to help other communities around the world, especially in developing countries, so they earmarked part of the budget for this purpose. In the first year they have chosen to support organizations that teach people how to establish forest gardens in tropical countries, how to purify water using plastic bottles placed in the sun and those that promote family planning in poor districts.

Magic ingredient

How does it happen that one company that makes carpets cares about the environment, uses recycled materials, reduces its energy use and cares for its employees, while the other dumps toxic waste to the stream, pays such meager salaries that people hardly make ends meet and burns tons of coal without any thought about climate change? How is it possible that in one community meetings are peaceful and people manage to find solutions that can be accepted by all, while in the neighboring community, just 10 miles away there are always conflicts, people are divided and everyone sits on the meetings with arms crossed? There is a magic ingredient necessary for the community and environmental projects, one that makes their success possible. It does magic, because it makes people listen to and help each another, it makes people plant trees or work to save humpback whales. Do you know what that magic ingredient is?

References:

1. Haitians blame U.S. for food shortages, Marketplace, American Public Media, http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2008/05/08/haiti_food_crisis/, accessed on 01.02.2009.
2. Hunger in Haiti, photo gallery, Guardian.co.uk, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/gallery/2008/jul/22/haiti?lightbox=1, accessed on 01.02.2009.
3. Tom Atlee, “Tao of Democracy”, Chapter 13.
4. Tatyana Saltos, “The Participatory Budgeting Experience: Cotacachi – Ecuador”. See also: “Interview with Leonardo Alvear: Participatory Democracy Part I, Cotacachi’s Participatory Democracy Revitalizes Politics in Ecuador”, http://www.pro-ecuador.com/participatory-democracy.html and “Cotacachi Democracy in Action: Choosing Good Health”, http://www.pro-ecuador.com/Cotacachi-democracy.html.
5. Environmental Management Intersector Committee, http://www.cotacachi.gov.ec/htms/eng/asamblea/nosotros.htm, accessed on 28.01.2009 and The Rainforest Information Center, http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/projects/anja/anjacoto.htm, accessed on 28.01.2009.
6. Helga Serrano, Eduardo Tamayo, “Change Triumphs in Ecuador’s Constitutional Referendum”, Center for International Policy, http://americas.irc-online.org/am/5571, accessed on 02.02.2009.
7. See: Helena Norberg-Hodge, “Ancient Futures”.

It might sound ridiculous, but for every container of bananas, coffee, tea or cocoa imported, we should send back a shipment of a fluffy, earth-like smelling compost. Why is that? With each container of food we import nutrients taken up by plants from the soil. We import calcium, potassium, magnesium, boron, iron, zinc, molybdenum, copper and many others. One of the essential elements imported in food is phosphorus. For every ton of bananas we import 0.3 kg of phosphorus, for every ton of cocoa it’s 5 kg and for ton of coffee it’s 3.3 kg of phosphorus. Tea is a bit more complicated, because the amount of phosphorus depends on the origin of tea – for example in 1 ton of tea leaves harvested in Sri Lanka there are some 3.5 kg of phosphorus, while tea from South India contains 6.6 kg of phosphorus (1).

Each year some 13.5 million tons of bananas alone are exported around the world (2), containing 4,000,000 kg of elemental phosphorus up taken by the plants from tropical soils. And most of this phosphorus never comes back to the soil it was removed from. Yes, but can’t the farmers replace the nutrients lost using fertilizers? That’s what the fertilizers are used for, are they not? Sure they can. Farmers can buy a bag of ground phosphate rocks or guano (bird or bat droppings) or even a bag of artificial fertilizer such as superphosphate if they don’t farm organically. No problem. They can replace every kilogram of phosphorus taken from the soil by plants and sent overseas with their produce.

So, why should we send compost back on ships? This would add extra cost to the imported food and make it much more expensive! We should start closing nutrients cycle soon, because the world reserves of phosphate rocks, which are used for the production of phosphate fertilizers, are declining. They can be depleted even this century (3).

The problem with the lack of phosphate fertilizers does not start, however, when all phosphate rock reserves are gone. It starts as soon as the demand for phosphate fertilizers exceeds the supply of phosphate rocks available for export, meaning: farmers living in countries that do not have a local source of phosphate rocks would like to buy phosphate fertilizers, but there are not enough bags for everyone. And this situation may appear within the next 10-20 years.

This short timeframe is based upon the assumption that the demand for phosphate fertilizers will continue to grow and that within 10-20 years US reserves of phosphate rocks available for mining will be considerably depleted and USA will have to rely on imported phosphorus. It is unclear whether the phosphate exporting countries will be able to respond adequately to keep up with the rising demand by opening new mines or increasing production in the existing ones, which otherwise could lead to lack of sufficient amount of phosphate fertilizers on the market. A 50% rise in the US imports would require 50% rise of present world phosphate rock exports. A similar situation may exist in countries other than USA, but it was not taken into consideration due to lack of sufficient data. Demand for phosphate fertilizers in the USA may drop, however, owing to fall of agricultural production caused by droughts, depletion of water resources or by other climate related events. This could slow down domestic production of phosphate rocks and conserve these resources for a longer period of time.

What plants need Phosphorus for?

White sweetclover. Photo: Kristian Peters

Phosphorus is one of the key mineral nutrients that are necessary for plants growth. Phosphorus stimulates root growth, flowers blooming and seed development. It is an essential component of DNA, RNA, cell membranes, sugars and carbohydrates (4). Without phosphorus plants just don’t grow and there is no substitute for it. Although in many soils there are large reserves of phosphorus, it is often present in the form that cannot be used by plants (such as insoluble calcium or aluminum phosphate salts). Some plants, however, like white or yellow sweet clover for example (5), can mobilize phosphate by secreting organic acids (when harvested they can be used as a green manure with high phosphorus content), but far more efficient for this job are mycorrhizal fungi and microbes that secrete enzymes, various acids and chelating agents that turn organic and inorganic phosphate into a solution that can be taken up by plants (6). Nevertheless, when the content of phosphorus in the soil is low, all that farmer can do is to bring in some kind of phosphate fertilizer.

How much phosphate rocks is available for export?

Worldwide approximately 30 millions tons of phosphate rocks are exported every year, mainly from Africa (62.8% in 2006) (7). It sounds like a lot, but it is less than is needed for the consumption of a single country – the USA – the largest consumer, producer and supplier of phosphate fertilizers in the world. In 2006 the USA consumed 32.6 millions tons of phosphate rocks (8). Fortunately, USA is currently almost self-sufficient in production of phosphate rocks. In 2007 US imports accounted only for 2.8 millions ton of phosphate rocks (8.6%) and 99% of it came from just one origin – Morocco.

Phosphate rocks mine in Togo. Photo: Alexandra Pugachevskaya

However, the reserves of phosphate rocks in USA are limited. In 2007 there were only about 1,200 millions tons left (9). As soon as USA runs out of its phosphorus there will be a huge demand for the phosphate rocks. When might this happen? If the consumption in the USA continues to grow, the US domestic reserves could be gone in 25 years (10). At the current rate of production this could be in around 40 years. Most of the phosphate rocks in USA are mined in Florida and according to Stephen Jasinski from the U.S. Geological Survey “production in Florida could begin to drop in about 5 years or imports will be needed if the new mines are not opened (11).”

Demand for fertilizers is growing at the rate of 2.8% per year (12). It is expected to continue to grow, because fertilizers are needed to feed the increasing human population and to satisfy the need for biofuels. The acreage of industrial farms around the world which rely on artificial fertilizers may still increase in the years to come (e.g. in Russia, Brazil or even Madagascar) and in consequence the overall demand for phosphate fertilizers will rise. Certified organic farms can also use phosphate rocks (in unprocessed form), when phosphorus is deficient in the soil.

There are many countries like India, Australia, Poland and most of the Western European countries which are completely dependent on imports of phosphate rocks for fertilizing soils and growing food. And we import it mainly from Morocco as well. Without phosphate fertilizers yields of wheat, maize, tomatoes, strawberries, potatoes and many other crops will drop and eventually they could even fail. In Poland we have huge reserves of phosphate rocks. The problem is that the content of elemental phosphate in these rocks is low, they are located under villages, forests or farmlands or there is too much water in the mines to continue extraction.

However, if we manage to close the phosphorus cycle, there’s no need to worry about phosphate rock reserves. What we have mined so far can circulate from farm to table and back again, without depleting the soils. Let’s have a closer look where the phosphorus is leaking now.

Where does the phosphorus go?

In tropical climate phosphorus can be lost as soon as the farmer burns the rainforest to clear the site. Most tropical soils are poor in nutrients, and phosphorus is stored not in the soil, but in the vegetation. When rainforest is burnt phosphorus is left in the remaining ashes, but these ashes can be washed away by rains very quickly. There may be some old branches or unburnt leaves left on the ground and microbes can feed on them releasing phosphorus to the crops for some two years. But later on, when there are no more sources of phosphorus for the microbes to feed on and to release for plants, the land becomes infertile. And the farmer? If he cannot afford to buy commercial fertilizers he burns down another patch of the rainforest or he is forced to move to the city. There are more than 300 million slash-and-burn farmers worldwide, each one clearing about a hectare of forest a year (13).

On many farms, however, fertilizers are applied and farmers continue to grow crops. Some minimal amounts of phosphorus may leach from farm to groundwater, especially when artificial soluble fertilizer is used (such as superphosphate) (14). Most phosphorus losses occur through surface soil erosion, when soil is washed away by strong rain, or through harvesting of plants. Runoff of the nutrient rich water from the fields into the streams, lakes and oceans often causes explosion of the algae population and can lead to depletion of oxygen, seriously affecting aquatic animals and even coral reefs.

And what was the former one? Harvesting of plants? That’s right. With each apple, carrot, cucumber, coffee, cherry or watermelon a small bit of phosphorus is taken away from the soil. It can be eaten by the farmer and his family or loaded on truck and transported to the market. It can be also shipped overseas to the foreign supermarkets. So long nutrients! Have a good time in Italy or France! Please come back… one day.

Phosphate processing plant in Soda Springs, USA, operated byMonsanto. Source: The Center for Land Use Interpretation

Before food reaches the table many crops are processed and there are various residues left which contain phosphorus, e.g. orange peels or rice husks. They are either composted or sent to landfill. Then, finally, the consumer prepares a meal from the food that farmers harvested, and then leftovers with the precious phosphorus are thrown into the garbage or on the compost pile. The meal is eaten and out of the pizzas, spaghettis and apple pies only less than 1% of phosphorus is absorbed by our bodies (15) and remaining 99% is, in industrialized countries, flushed down the toilet. The content goes to a wastewater treatment plant. Treated biosolids from the treatment plants are reused as soil amendments or sent to the landfills. Part of the phosphorus from the wastewater treatment plant is discharged with treated water into the rivers or the sea.

Not all phosphate rocks are used for production of fertilizers. Around 5% are used as animal feed supplements and another 5% for industrial applications, e.g. for the manufacture of detergents. Some of us (like the author) are allergic to phosphates in soaps or washing powders and are a living proof that we do not need to use them at all. There are plenty of natural soaps and washing powders without phosphates we can buy or we can make our own.

Phosphate is used also for production of glyphosate, a herbicide which is known under a trade name Roundup. The manufacturer of Roundup, Monsanto, owns even a whole phosphate mine and rock processing plant in Idaho, USA. Luckily, organic gardeners don’t have to spray any of these. A much better idea would be to use the remaining phosphate rock reserves to restore degraded lands, rather than to produce herbicides or detergents.

Closing the nutrients cycle

Ideally the same amount of nutrients that left the farm should come back to it. To achieve this goal we should compost or ferment all residues from farms, food processing plants and households and make them available for farmers. And yes, we need to compost urine and feces as well. There are many types of compost toilets, including the simplest sawdust toilet to the commercial types with electric fans. If handled properly they don’t smell badly and the final product of the compost toilet is just a plain ordinary compost. It can be collected in the city in special containers, standing along the curb near the containers for recycling glass and plastics. Joseph Jenkins’ “Humanure Handbook” is a great resource on the subject.

All organic waste can be collected as a part of a municipality recycling program and leftovers from the kitchen can be picked up weekly from the separate curbside container. For backyard gardeners and farmers who eat their own food there are many methods of composting to choose from – buckets, triangle cages, compost tumblers, worm composting, loose heaps or classic wooden containers. There are even composters which can be kept directly in the kitchen without any suspicious smells.

It seems also a good idea to extract carbon and hydrogen from the food residues in the form of biogas which is primarily methane (CH4). It can be used for cooking, heating, electricity generation or for powering vehicles. The exciting thing about biogas is that we don’t waste any of the minerals from the organic matter – carbon is taken by plants from the air in the form of carbon dioxide and hydrogen comes from water. After fermentation process in a biodigester the organic matter is still perfectly useful as a fertilizer.

If the resources of phosphate rocks become depleted this organic waste recycling program will be crucial for farmers. They will be able to buy or receive finished compost according to the amount of food they sold. It may sound absurd, but the content of phosphorus or other nutrients in crops may eventually be counted in the future, so that we can determine how much compost the farmer should receive. Ideally local food should be involved in this scheme to minimize transport needs. And what about the food from overseas farms like coffee or tea? Well, things get much more complicated here. Theoretically, we could exchange nutrients in the form of food, so that for every kilogram of coffee would send back wheat or barley with the equal content of phosphorus. What farmers can do now is to bring compost from the cities, where people eat imported food. The other option is sending compost back. Hmm… Wouldn’t it be just perfect to have a village scale economy where all nutrients would circulate without cars, trucks, cargo ships and complex municipality programs?

Growing food security

Trees in bloom in the Hunza Valley. Photo: bongo vongo

In places like the Hunza Valley (currently northern Pakistan) and many others around the world, people have grown food in one place for hundreds of years without depleting the soil. As Rob Hopkins writes in his Transition Handbook about the Hunza Valley:

Here was a society which lived within its limits and had evolved a dazzlingly sophisticated yet simple way of doing so. All the waste, including human waste, was carefully composted and returned to the land. The terraces which had been built into the mountainsides over centuries were irrigated through a network of channels that brought mineral-rich water from the glacier above down to the fields with astonishing precision.

Apricot trees were everywhere, as well as cherry, apple, almond and other fruit and nut trees. Around and beneath the trees grew potatoes, barley, wheat and other vegetables. The fields were orderly but not regimented. Plants grew in small blocks, rather than in huge monocultures. Being on the side of a mountain, I invariably had to walk up and down hills a great deal, and soon began to feel some of the fitness for which the people of Hunza are famed. The paths were lined with dry stone walls, and were designed for people and animals, not for cars.

People always seemed to have time to stop and talk to each other and spend time with the children who ran barefoot and dusty through the fields. Apricots were harvested and spread out to dry on the rooftops of the houses, a dazzling sight in the bright mountain sun. Buildings were built from locally-made mud bricks, warm in the winter and cool in the summer. And there was always the majestic splendour of the mountains towering above. Hunza is quite simply the most beautiful, tranquil, happy and abundant place I have ever visited, before or since (16).

Rakaposhi mountain near the town of Gilgit, Hunza Valley. Photo: bongo vongo

Villages can provide a good life and it is easy to design a local food system that ensures food security there. Food security means that all people have access to safe, nutritious and affordable food, at all times, without degrading the supporting systems (17). No matter if your food comes from the grocery store or the backyard garden, it contains some amount of nutrients it has taken up from the soil where it was grown. If we wish to sustain fertility of our soils, and thus food security, we need to return these nutrients to the soil, so that our tomatoes, corn and apple trees will be able to grow and produce crops forever.

In a natural environment this nutrients cycle is supported by a myriad tiny creatures. There are bacteria and fungi in the soil that hold the nutrients and extract them from rocks or the air. There are nematodes, protozoa, arthropods and earthworms that cycle these nutrients and make them available for plants (18). We, humans, are also a part of the soil food web. Our job is to return the wastes to the soil. We can design our farms so that they will work just like natural systems, cycling the nutrients over and over again. A good example of such a system in an old growth forest. It doesn’t need fertilizing, weeding or irrigating. It grows by itself and it is always productive. That’s a clever system, isn’t it?

Beach in Sopot, Poland. Photo: Marcin Gerwin

We can design for food security in cities as well, but it’s not as easy as in villages. Most people living in the cities buy food rather than grow it on their own, so the whole economic system must be working properly, so that they will be able to afford it. The food shortages in 2008 around the world were not caused by a lack of food, but because people didn’t have money to buy it. The first thing to do would be to start growing food right in the city. On vacant parking lots, on roofs, in backyards. But what if there is not enough space? I live in a small city on the coast of the Baltic sea. Sopot is a summer resort bordered by the sea, a landscape park and two large cities. The land here is among the most expensive in Poland. There is no way one could buy a vacant lot for a vegetable garden, it would cost a fortune. We do have many allotments, but there’s not enough for everyone. So, what can we do?

Wooden pier in Sopot. Photo: Marcin Gerwin

Right now access to food is not a problem. It is available in every grocery store and in all supermarkets. It’s not an issue. With peak-oil or unexpected weather events this could change. With the lack of phosphate fertilizers it could change as well. A large portion of food in Poland is grown in the conventional way and farmers apply artificial fertilizers and spray pesticides. Some of them believe that plants without fertilizers don’t grow, so I think it may be a little hard to try to convince them to use compost instead of the factory-made fertilizers.

I also find it hard to believe that everyone in Sopot could easily accept compost toilets. We would have to recover nutrients from the treatment plant, which is located… er… I must admit I don’t know where our sewage goes to. We will have to collect organic waste, however, that’s what the European Union regulations will make us to do in the years to come (you see, there are some positive aspects of our county being an EU member). We could also start a co-operation program with the farmers from the area, who could supply food directly to our city, rather than through distributors. We could have long-term contracts with them, just like in the Fairtrade scheme. We could set a guaranteed minimum price for farmers, so that their security would improve as well. And what if the economic system collapses? Then we need a land reform.

Continue to: Phosphorus Matters II – Keeping Phosphorus on Farms

References:

(1) Phosphorus content in food based upon: Organic Farming in the Tropics and Subtropics: Exemplary Description of 20 Crops, Naturland, second edition 2001.

(2) Calculated from: Banana facts, IITA Research for Development Review, http://r4dreview.org/2008/09/banana-facts/, accessed on 14.09.2008.

(3) D. Cordell, S. White, The Australian Story of Phosphorus, 2008, p. 1.

(4) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, Ecology for Gardeners, 2004, p. 149.

(5) Sweetclovers, UC SAREP, Online Cover Crop Database, http://www.sarep.ucdavis.edu/cgi-bin/ccrop.EXE/show_crop_41, accessed on 15.09.2008.

(6) Ibidem, p. 116 – 117.

(7) Production and International Trade Statistics, International Fertilizer Industry Association (IFA), http://www.fertilizer.org/ifa/statistics/pit_public/pit_public_statistics.asp, accessed 14.09.2008.

(8) S. M. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock, Mineral Commodity Summaries, January 2008, p. 124, (available at: minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/commodity/phosphate_rock/).

(9) Ibidem.

(10) D. Cordell, S. White, op. cit.

(11) S. Jasinski, Phosphate Rock (Advance Release), 2007 Minerals Yearbook, p. 56.3.

(12) P. Heffer and M. Prud’homme, Summary Report “Medium-Term Outlook for Global Fertilizer Demand, Supply and Trade: 2008-2012”, 76th IFA Annual Conference, Vienna, May 2008, p. 4.

(13) D. Elkan, The Rainforest Saver, The Ecologist Magazine, 01.02.2005, http://www.theecologist.co.uk/pages/archive_detail.asp?content_id=424.

(14) S. B. Carrol, S. D. Salt, op. cit., 117.

(15) T. N. Neset, L. Andersson, Environmental impact of food production and consumption, in: Water for Food, 2008, p. 102.

(16) R. Hopkins, The Transition Handbook, 2008, from the introduction.

(17) For more information on food security watch presentation given by Bruce Darrel: Converging Crises, Policy Responses: Planning For Food Security, Festa Seminar Series, June 19th, 2008. http://www.feasta-multimedia.org/2008/seminars/Bruce_Darrell.mov

(18) The soil food web is described in detail in the excellent book Teaming with Microbes by Jeff Lowenfells and Wayne Lewis.