Last night I watched the film, “Escape from Suburbia.” If you haven’t already seen it, do. I think it might have been better titled “Transformation of Suburbia,” because the last part shows what is not only possible, but actually being put into practice in various places.
In that movie, those who are waking up to the intense, complex, and ramifying crisis/opportunity presented by limits to runaway growth of nonrenewable energy use on a finite planet all realize that if and when long-distance transportation grinds to a stop, then, unless we have learned to grow our own food, we are done for. This doesn’t even take into account the poisons in our big-ag and packaged food, GMOs, etc.
My son Colin’s Garden Tower Project was initiated in direct response to his recognition of this issue. The accelerating growth of permaculture, the Transition and relocalization movements are also directly motivated by the need to respond to this crisis in advance. Even if we do manage to switch from extractive technologies to renewable energy technologies, these will take time. Time we will not have if we begin to starve.
Remember Cuba’s experience, when the Soviet Union collapsed and the oil spigots stopped flowing, back in the 1990s? If not, see this film: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. It’s the one that woke me up.
All in all, anyone who thinks deeply about the subject of how industrial society is quickly using up easily available energy sources while wreaking further havoc upon Earth in order to extract what remains comes to realize that food sovereignty is the central issue of our times, that around which everything else revolves. Which is why we should pay attention to the people of Maine, who are showing the rest of us how. Thanks to Keith, for the pointer.
