In Business, Creating Sustainable Enterprises & Communities

WATERSHED EVENTS

In Business, March-April, 2006, Vol. 28, No. 2, p. 32

SUSTAINABLE COMMERCE

Robert F. Young

IN 1861, two events were unfolding that would have profound impacts on the economy, society and ecology of the United States and the world. The first of the two is well known. In April of that year, the American Civil war began igniting the conflict to end the role of abject slavery in the American economy. The lesser known, but in some ways equally profound event of that year, was the founding of Standard Oil by John D. Rockefeller Sr.
The first struggle sought to eliminate forced human labor as an energy source and driver of the American economy. It was a titanic event that would involve nearly the entire nation. On the sidelines of that war, the move by Rockefeller went virtually unnoticed, yet it would lay the foundation for the energy source that would replace human labor the world around and drive the global economy into a new, petroleum driven era.
That era now dominates the economic activity of the globe to an extent that perhaps only a monopolist like Rockefeller could have imagined. In less than a century, his product became the mainspring of world agriculture, transportation and manufacturing to the extent that their ability to continue to function without it has become equally beyond most people's imaginations.
Yet again, virtually unnoticed, another watershed event is unfolding, nearly offstage, in the American scene. Across the country, the infrastructure of the postpetroleum economy is beginning to take shape. Like the quiet founding of Standard Oil, it comes without much fanfare, but in time it will usher in a new era in the American and world economy.
The county where I live is a microcosm of this transformation. While new big box retailers are finishing the facades on their recently built stores and people argue the merits of our involvement in Iraq, the pieces of the new economic mosaic are being fit into place behind the scenes. The rising interest in fresh, trustworthy foods has brought about a revival of the local farming economy. For the first time in over half a century, the county has witnessed an increase in the number of farms within its boundaries. In the hills outside of town, old fields that haven't been plowed since the Second World War are coming back under cultivation and new barns dot the landscape.
As war in Iraq, insurgency in Nigeria and Saudi Arabia, progressive grassroots electoral victories in Bolivia and Venezuela, and climate change-driven natural disasters disrupt supplies and drive up the cost of fossil fuels, seven new renewable energy companies (five solar/wind/hydro installation firms and two biodiesel producers) have become established here locally. Joining them is a coalition of small local recycling companies who are working with the County to launch a Reuse Center. The Center will provide a one-stop location for consumers to find recycled commodities such as furniture, electronics, building materials, clothing and books.
In a further, profound step toward local self-reliance, the county Cooperative Extension office (whose traditional focus had been on conventional agriculture and nutrition) is initiating a strategy to encourage new land-uses that would promote the production of biomass to fuel local energy needs. The goals of this program are increasing biodiversity, maintaining the rural landscape and increasing energy security, while generating carbon-neutral energy for the local economy.
Lastly (for now), the largest community in the county is inviting proposals for the development of 600 new housing units on a parcel of publicly owned, land in the city. The town officials have made it clear that they are looking for something that is a sharp break from development patterns of the past. In lieu of the standard (oil) dependent communities that have been erected over the past half century, they are seeking to build a community free of auto dependence that invites different types of property ownership (such as cohousing) and preserves all of the forest on the site.
In combination, these actions surrounding food, energy, housing, commodities and transport will not create a world-conquering centralized monolith like Standard Oil. What they are harbingers of instead is the type of diverse, decentralized, life-affirming economy that will free us from the petroleum plantation on which we are all slaves. It is as yet a nearly underground economy but in its quiet way it, and other such efforts like it across the nation, are setting the stage for the next great economic era of this country and the world.

Robert F. Young is codirector of the Sustainable Business Alliance and runs an organic farm in New York State.