Showdown in Navajo Land Ivan Illich on Tools JULY 1980 for Subsistance Packing Your Pedals VOLUME VI NO. 9 $1.50 No Advertising
Absentee and Local Ownership of Maine Manufacturing, by Jeff Faux and Russell Libby, 1980, 29 pp. (free?) from: National Center for Economic Alternatives/Augusta Office 122 State Street Augusta, ME 04330 207 / 622-5683 Another good report from NCEA, this study shows that an economic development strategy based on local ownership may be the key to long-term employment growth in Maine. Its major conclusions are:' 1. At least 55 percent of Maine's 212 manufacturing firms with 100 or more employees are absentee-owned. 2. Absentee ownership is concentrated among the larger firms. 3. Despite their smaller size, firms that were locally owned throughout the past ten years created 1391 new jobs, while absentee-owned firms reduced their work force by 1387. If we exclude the partkularly hard-hit shoe industry, Maine-owned COMMUNITY ACCISS firms created a net 3341 jobs compared with a reduction of 677 jobs by absenteeowned firms. 4. The state government could take at least 13 specific steps to assist locally owned business investment and expansion. These last include ways to generate equity capital and stimulate bank credit for local entrepreneurs, assist producer cooperatives, tighten up on plan_t closings, and encourage employee ownership in cases where a local Maine business would otherwise be sold to an out-of-state corporation. Detailed and well-documented like other NCEA reports, the study may prove useful to people in other parts of the country working to create locally resilient economies. -MR 1980 Shareholder Campaign Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility (A Sponsored Related Movement of the National Council of Churches) 475 Riverside Drive, Rm. 566 New York, NY 10027 212/870-2293 • School Sisters of Notre Dame, WI, has 13,500 shares worth $178,875.00 invested in Madison Gas and Eiectric. In April the church filed a resolution with the utility calling for: 1) a halt to further planning RAIN and construction of nuclear power plants, and 2) immediate steps to develop energy conservation and alternative energy programs, with annual reports on program development. • Priests of thµa/red Heart, Sisters of Mercy (Chz'cago), and a handful of other religious organizations have a combined total of 8,862 shares valued at $485,194.00 in General Electric. At GE's annual meeting in April the churches filed a resolution to: 1) prohibit sale of the Morris, Illinois, nuclear waste storage facility to the federal government, 2) develop plans to phase out the facility, and 3) develop evacuation plans in the event of an accident at the facility or at one of six nearby nuclear reac-:- tors. These are only two of over a dozen such resolutions filed for the first time this spring by church shareholders to utilities, investment firms, and corporations. Several church bodies have adopted policies concerning nuclear energy in relation to health, safety, and environmental issues. In addition, many churches have also produced statements on the risks of nuclear weapons proliferation resulting from commercial nuclear power use, and on the consequent need to develop benign alternatives. If your church isn't involved yet, maybe it's time to pound the pulpit, don't yc,m think?-MR Journal of Appropriate Technology RAIN is a national information access journal making connections for people seeking more simple and satisfying lifestyles, working to make their communities and regions economically self-reliant, building a society that is durable, just and ecologically sound. RAIN STAFF: Carlotta Collette, Mark Roseland, John Ferrell , Jill S~apleton Laura Stuchinsky Kiko Denzer RAIN, Journal of Appropriate Technology, is published 10 times yearly by the Rain Umbrella, Inc.., a non-profit corporation located at 2270 N.W. Irving, Portland, Oregon 97210, telephone 503/227-5110. Copyright © 1980 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho Cover Photograph: Carlotta Collette
Beyond Experts: A Guide for Citizen Group Training,_ t:,y Duane Dale with David Magnani an<l Robin Miller, 1979, $5.00 plus $.50 postage, prepaid from: • Citizen Involvement Training Project 138 Hasbrouck University of MassacJtusetJs Amherst, MA 01003 Beyond Experts: A Guide for Citizen Group Training is a manual designed to "help citizens prepare for a broader and more influential role in public policy decisions." Advocating self-reliance and a departure from the traditional, de,Pendence on "experts," the manual is aimed at putting information into the hands of the community, enco-qraging community groups to plan and nm their own training programs. The material is organized to take the group through the steps of assessing needs (be it fundraising, group process, or technical information), developing learning activities (speakers, films, role-plays .. '.), and eval- ,uating the results. There is an abundance of · exercises, work sheets, diagrams and discussion questions to help s'tructtire the proce~s. A resource list is included with an •index to the seven other manuals that CITP h~s written on organizing; meqi.a and public re,ations; citizen involvement mechanisms; federal, .state and local government; group process; and program planning and evaluation. Beyond the obvious skill and information needs of citizen groups, the authors recognize the importance of other proble'ms · faced by citizens--:-:-particularly discrimin'ation. "The people most'prone to get involved in citizen groups are the ones who are relativ~ly advantaged already, in terms of education and other status measures. ... The point is.this: People who need . help to be powerful won't get it if we work only with presen_t participants in citizen groups." Dissemination of information, and thus power; is clearly an effect~ve means of encouraging citizen involvement. But, just as the needs and experiences of people vary, so also does there need to be a variety of strategies for making that infor- - mation accessible. In_many instances individual contact-a facilitator rather than an ''expert"-can transfer information and tools more effectively than a manual or book (see Paulo Freire's work Education for Criti,cal Consciousness and Pedag~gy of the Oppressed) . CITP has taken an important step in presenting this information to the public. The task is now for us to implement and interpret this material~bo~h orally and in written form-,-to better suit our · needs and the needs of our respective communities. -LS NEXUS: resoµrces for persons and poli- 1 tics, 1979, $5.50 from: Self Determination: A Personal/Political Network P.O. Box126 Santa Clara, Ca 95052 For Californians only. This directory is part of the Self Determination Network, a California-:wide effort to promote decentralist and cooperative processes to "encourage self.-reliance, personal responsibility, and mutual interdependence." (They also used to put out the now-defunct Self Determination Journal.) The goal of the Network and the directory is to create what they call natur~l helping networks: "You won't find 'experts' on these pages; what you will find are people who are attempting to make their own·changes in the world, and who are willing_to help ypu do the same." NEXUS covers the same basic topics as most People's Yellow Pages ( see Rainbook, pp. 86, 102), listing individuals, organizations, and publications. In addition, there are short articles on alternatives in education, energy, health/mental health, media,. networking, co~puters, m,ailing lists, politics, and work. -MR The YAT Manual, by Craig A. Sundlee & Willie Stapp, 1979, $4.00 from: Social Action Research Center 18 Professional Center Park Way San Ra~ael, CA 9490~ • The Youth" Action Team (YAT) Manual is both a primer for youth activism and youth employment. The authors draw from their • own experiences as members of a team in • San ~afael, .California. Taking advantage of California's 1976 Independent Study Legislation, the team combines both accredited academic learning and social action. YATs have worked on projects as diverse as a youth-operated and IJl~maged recycling center, a Youth Employment Planning Team, and a Youth Advocacy program in social and legislative issues. Teams are composed of 8-12 members,between the ages of 12 and 21. Two coordinators as5ist • with group.facilitation and structuring the academic component of the project. The authors stress the importance pf having a . group repre~ented by people of varying ages, races and economic background to ''encourage members to confront their per- • sonal biases and stereotypes of others." A particular emphasis throughout the book is the desire to "develop the individual's capacity to think for herself." All of the structures within the team support this aim. The manual includes extensive information on decision making, establishing _learning contracts, and devel_oping strate- 'gies. Resource·s and references are listed throughout the book: Program_development is by far the strongest aspect of the book; other sections are weak by comparison. All in all, the manual provides some valuable information for those working with or who are themselves youth activists. Rather than diffusing the focus by trying to meet a variety of in.terests, the authors could have more effectively directed the manual to the needs of youth activists themselves, and dealt with the problems of coordinators in a supplement. Nevertheless, The X AT Manual is a good beginning in an area that needs much more attention. -LS
Page 4 RAIN July 1980 by Ivan Illich As a historian, I am used to looking back and viewing events which •distance has put into some perspective. Personally, I most enjoy • exploring the shadow just outside the powerful searchlights of other historians who use their precision instruments to zoom in on towns and councils, markets and churches, great men and wars. I want to understand what has happened with customs and superstitions, with curses and gestures, with water, soap and bed, with begg~:r:s and women. I want to find out about the tools by which most people provided for most of their livelihood, together with the folkways within which these ~ools were used. I am less interested in kings, wars, treaties, and the prices of goqds which were always reserved for the few. This is why I collect proverbs and riddles and the rare records of the actual speech of poor people that I find embedded in the court ,testimonies given by witches and rogues..These are some of the faint traces which the past of the poor has left. But most of what the great majority of people lived and experienced has blown away, rotted with their ·bones or been buried by the powerful feats of the rich. 8 :ecause of research d~ne during the last twenty years, we can now reconstruct the ways people felt and looked at their world- ·how people in the Nevernais washed themselves and their clothes, how Welshmen cooked, how Alsatian men began to be careful when sleeping with their wives, as previously they had been only with virgins or prostitut~s. Such history alone can sharpen our eyes for the enormous variety in which subsistence flowered in Western societies before it was ruthlessly mowed down between the el}closure of pastures in England and today's total enclosure of reality on TV. By reading/' histoire des inentalitees in the Annales de Strasbourg or studying the feminist history on women's work during the confinement to the domestic sphere of the newly invented "weaker sex," we can reach insights into what has happened around the world during the last three decades. Historians reporting on the first great war on Western subsistence-:--waged by absolute monarchs and,nation states with their witch hunts, universal conscription, and construction of tenements, hospitals and jails-speak mostly oft.he progress of these institutions, while covering with a layer of-silence the competencies forgotten and the tools lost. From the second war on subsistence, now worldwide in its reach and allinclusive in its scope, in which the bulldozers and computers of development have displaced a much more variegated pattern of subsistence activities, the reports-now written by social scientistswould have us believe that subsistence has disappeared forever, ·never to be recovered. This view, I submit, is a st~pid e_rror due to a very special kind of arrogance. • 1 would like to look at ~his modern war on subsistence. But on such recent events, I cannot report ~storian. Indeed, I myself .• was stuck in such battles, up to rrty neck. I was carried along by them, and only an occasional plank allowed me to lift myself above the stream and catch a short glimpse about. I now need"to find the language .which befits my afterthoughts, as I speak out of sadness of options that we may have lost forever, and out of hope that new and more difficult options may yet be open. Rrhaps this is the time to revive an old tradition that distinguishes between research into the way things are1 and research into the ways things can be done. Let me call research into the nature of things science, and research into decisions about the use of things technology. Technology thus always implies art ethical stance, because things cannot b~ used without affecting me and all others. Further, we have learned that the same scientific insight can be applied with either of two different attitudes on the use to which , things ought to be put. Let me call the first a productivist frame- , work of technology, and the second; convivial, each at the opposite end of cil spectrum. In a productivist framework, tools enable people engaged in wage-work primarily to increase the output of goods and services. In a convivial framework, tools ertable people primarily to achieve satisfaction from what they do with them, rather than contributing to the market economy..Research which applies science to the increase of productivity is generally called R&D. Research which applies science to incr~ased.independence from the market· has been called by me and others counterfoil research. A decade ago, many of us sought tQ encourage counterfoil research. "Poor" countries could thus develop the means to avoid being saddled with the bills for the terminal paroxysms of industrialization among the "rich." We defined counterfoil research as people-based, disciplined and critical inquiry into modern alternatives ~o commodity-intensive life styles. We argued that poor coun- ·tries, where the experience of an active domestic economy is still relatively widespread, could modernize their subsistence activities and thus outwit the developed nations. We insisted that such research could equip the poorest countries with the kinds of industry and service organizations whose main purpose would be to enhance the ability of people to satisfy many of their needs and desires by modernized activities. The outcome of these activities would be free from, because outside of, the formal economic sphere. During the past dec;.ade, much of this research has been don~. A recently published guide for librarians (Guide to Convivial Tools, see RAIN April '80) provides a good survey. This work contains about 450 items that are usually missing from librarians' reference sections. Each of the items lists research and experiments that deal with modern processes and tools which are so constructed th.!).t pe~-
July 1980 RAIN Page 5 ple can, by their use, unplug themselves from commodity circuits. This bias i:·: i;~rly ii·l~strated by the above-mentioned lacunae i_n They are reference books on technology that help people to become the reference section of modern libraries. But how explain the more active rather than more consumptive. I take these reference empty shelves? Librarians always find m·oney for reference books, works as evidence that research on technical progress is nb longer no matter how odd the subject. And lack of money could not exexclusively at the service of what Karl Polanyi called the dis- plain a phenomenon equally true of the Bodleian, the MIT System, embedded sphere of formal economic growth. People seeking to the U.S. Department of Energy and the Technische Univer~itat in '. heighten their satisfactions in ways that reduce consumption have Berlin. None of these major sources could provide me with any eviincreased in number and maturity. They are the ones who in ten dence of a two-volume annotated bibliography of small-scale windyears have found it necessary to print 450 bibliographies, abstract- mills, published two years earlier, the author a retired director of a ing services, journals, review media, reports on meetings and direc- national laboratory. It would be silly to ascribe this gap to some tories. A population that needs 450 reference books to find out what kind of conspiracy among librarians. From all my experienc·e with others are reading, writing and doing can be c~lled marginal no academics, librarians appear the least prejudiced against Don 1 longer. • Quixote. . . . 1 This ne~ kind ~f research i~ highly decentralized: It is meagerly Quite clearly , 1 technical progress can develop in on~ of two direcfinanced, does nothing for the producer of new commodities, but tions: it can evolve as part of a society whose values are centered on does provide directions for the group engaged in unpaid activities survival in small group subsistence, or of a society oriented towards and self-help. I have looked into most of these reference books. The large-seal~ production for people inade dependent on commodities. authors, besides knowing the gray literature in their own field (of- The first kind of society and progress will occur where the manual . ten self-published in small numbers for free distribution or volun- work of all the society's members is held in high esteem. The sectary contributions), have practical experience. In addition, the~e ond occurs as the inevitable outcome of a social structure where the authors are well acquainted with the standard indices, journals and status and self-esteem of a man are a function of how little he has to library resources that are used in ordinary ~cience and economics, use his hands; that is, of how many slaves, serfs, women or mainsofar as these touch on their fields. Some as gate-crashers, some • chines do his work. as laureates, many of the riew authors feel quite comfortable in the. In the last few centuries·the elite disdain for physical labor ~as Halls of Academies which ignore their work. Not surprisingly, such slowly but inexorably rationalized into elite responsibility-for the , is not true for their counterparts~the conventional information • development and management of so-called productive forces. • specialists whose works now fill our public.and scientific libraries. I. Progress was identified with the replacement of pe~ple's subsistence have checked a dozenfarge collectio_ns, and rarely found more than activities by goods an4 services which could be mass produced. And a very few of the reference books that I speak about in such places. this kind of progress has occurred. When asked and pressed, the librarians offered one of three ex- li cuses: they were unaware of the existence of these new kinds ~f here are, however, significant events and developments, like. references, unable to obtain them since they were not available counterfoil research, which make me believe that the tradjtion of through the ordinary trade channels, and finally, that they were small-scale subsistence.may now come to the fore as an adequate uncertain under what heading to classify them. Under creative countervailing force replacing the industrial system's hegemonywriting? Under.anarchy or political science? Under hobby or tech- that technology by people may soon be understood as the necessary • nique? U11der deviance or sociology? Or on the shelves of anat- and e_qually important complement to technology for people.• omy-where Dewey places women's studies? From these ~xperiences, I reached cert~in c~n~lusion~ about the . status of the "radical" wing of counterfoil research. FirS't,·it is distinct from the corporate enterprise that we call R & D. It is different in objective, method and recruitment. Its objective is not productivity but the substitution of subsistence activities for commoditydependence ..Its method is validation by reference to the satisfaction of a concrete, small group ra_ther than operational verific~tion. And its re·cruits-no inatter how much or how little previous academic qualification they poss~ss~are usually autodidacts in the chosen field of research. Second, counterfoil research on use-value oriented techniqu,es is a radically new form of technology I but not a new form of science. It draws·from ordinary science the data that it then applies within a revolutionary paradigm about the pu.rpose of technique. R &,D improves the efficiency of tools that produce standardized goods and services, and increases thereby the universal need for both. Counterfoil research improves ihose tools and processes that enable people to obtain more satisfaction from their actual use than they could ever derive from _the substitution of such actions by consumer goods. Therefore, counterfoil research thrives best when it is conducted by people who themselves enjoy li~ing an independent and simple life validated by a small, consensual group. And such research is always hampered and usually corrupted when the •technical expert, with his clinical perspective, succeeds in foisting his services on it. The third conclusion I reached is that this new kind of research, which substitutes unpaid activities for the consumption of commodities, is complementary to the R & D which seeks the development of goods an_d services which can be produced for people. For the time being, however, this distracting complementarity is understood from one side only. • For over a decade Ivan Illich has written cogent and provocative essays on the industrial mode of production and the modernization of poverty, assailing an age that creates false needs at the expense.,· of real problems and creates professional elites to perpetuate those needs. Austrian born, since 19601llich has made his home in Cuernavaca, Mexico. He is the author of Celebration of Awareness (1969), Deschooling Society (1971), Tools for Conviviality (1973), Energy and Equity(1974), and Meclical Nemesis(1976J. Tools for • Conviviality is__ a semin.al work in thr literature of appropriate technology. The article printed here is slightly abridged from 'its original form. Those interested in reading more ofIllich' s writings would do well to get hold.of Toward a History of Needs (1978, 145 pp. , $7.95 from: Pantheon Books, 201 East 50th Street, New York, NY 10022). This collection contains three illuminating essays on development, education, and medicine, and a previously unpublished essay called "Useful Unemployment and Its Professional Enemies." Also included is Illich'~ famous "Energy and Equity." -MR ~ --'"). '?. /7 . ... ~:✓ • -- '$7 ·:Y . ,\\\\\\ .... '
Page 6 RAIN July 1980 C INSULATION ) Thermal Shutters and Shades, by William A. Shurcliff, 238 PP~, 1980, $12.95 from: Brick House Publishing Co. Inc. 3 Main Street Andover, MA 01810 In 1977 I managed to get my hands on a bootlegged copy of the·manuscript for the original version of Thermal Shutters and Shades . I was working in a_program that 1 taught people,why and how to insulate their homes and provided them with the materials to do so. After attics and side- . walls were insulated, doors and windows weatherstripped and caulked, ancl storm insidefac • of aide va1aw• quilt pane 1"d doors and windows repaired or replaced, we got around to such innovations as) nsulated window coverings. . Shurcliff's manuscript was a gold mine of ideas and models. The new version is still that, with "over 100 schemes for re- . . ducing heat loss through windows," but he's improved his ~ppendices to include equally valuable references and lists of materials, equipment and suppliers. I have two criticisms, however. His description of the electromagn.etic spectrum and radiant h_eat loss is still too complicated (though I can't imagine a way to simplify it) and his"Conclusions"·are so important • that_I'd have suggested they be "Introductions" instead. A good example of this is his inclusion of "Priorities" in Conclusions. The "Priorities" are "the cheapest and easiest first," i.e.: 1) turn down the thermostats and dress more warmly, 2) insulate the attic or roof, 3) "stop air-l_eakage at windows, outer doors, attic and base- .ment," etc. a side valance _panel Anyone preparing to make or buy insulating covers for their windows should first read Shurcliff's "Conclusions," then his chapter on the "Economics of Shutters and Shades." Remember, too, that the economics can be greatly improved by buying materials 'in very large quantities. Start a block club to buy in bulk. Contact manufacturers·and try to get special deal_s. We found that we could get bolts of "irregular" Polarguard for much less than the retail cost. The irregularities were slight but the savings were not. -CC Movable Insulation: A Guide to Reduc- •ing Window Heat Loss_es in Your Home, by William K. Langdon, 1980, 400 pp., $9.95 paper, from: 1 Rodale Press Inc. Organic Park Emmaus, PA 18049 William Langdon admits to having the benefit of Shurcliff's early version of Thermal Shutters-·and Shades to build on, and -his own ~oq_k is an excellent partner to its model. Both books cover the basics: the economics, how to calculate heat loss (the two have different methods, Langdon's is the more traditional), the basic design criteria, the basic drawbacks of using window insulating devices, and good bibliqgraphies. left dowel han~ wooden dowel (mounted on inside ) ·1 valance panel ow side casiny A note about those drawbacks: none of the higher R factor (more insulating) rigid board type materials can be considered safe in your home regardless of manufacturer hype. Thermax, for example, is an isocyanurate foam product (similar to that used in airplanes as insulation) and when burned it gives off lethal cyanide gas. Thera tace of side valance panel) with U-shaped cutaway . wooden strip added to hold shade snug against top casing wooden strip fitted behind shade track to seal in air when shade is down optional wooden strip flttad in front of shade track to seal in air when shQ is down ½" wooden dowel to hold pull cord b frame 2½" 6" 3" Insulation rlining rr-11-;;-;.__ 2½" Figure Al·2a: Exploded views of valance and shade track. Figure Al:2b: Exploded view of shade fabric. l. OUTER AND INNER FABRIC b FIBERFILL AND VAPOR BARRIER Outer fabric and With outer fabric and outer fabric lining~----~ fiberfill tt'w,·:,;, ,r ~ ·£:::::,::~~:, C Vapor barrier and fiberfill are laid out oil too of outer fabric and lining envelope for basting. b&W,l~~=~•:,.rrMtr -- outer fabric lining are sewn lining envelope inside out, The fabric envelope with vapor barrier and fiberfill basted in place is ready to be turned right side out. together inside out. corners are trimmed, and seams are pressed back.
~--. The qua of liqu°id material should never exceed¾ of • the pit volume· Put in and take out material frequently. When removing slurry for fertilizer. do not let the level fall below the upper edge of the passage to the fermentation compartment from A Chinese Biogas Manual July 1980 RAIN Page 7 1 from A Chinese Biogas Manual removabl.e cover -";~~-· - ,, f'. . .I\\ ,✓,~»t(#.✓, material • 1 outlet1 '/ ' • separatin.g v.vall fermentation. compartment pigsties built above a biogas pit. max has a lot to recommend it as a shutter •material, but that's·some drawbl;!.ck it's got there! Both L~ngdon and Shurcliff note these problems, but each of them tries to go on with'the business of promoting their use .anyway. (It's easy to argue that we are'surrounded by equally dangerous products in all of the plastics, adhesives, etc., with which we fill our homes. Most of these also •give off tQxic gases when they burn. There are no pat solutions.) Langclon actually does less to promote products and more to promote self-reliance. Many of the .curtains he describes were designed and fabricated by community groups and local self-help enterprises. He pays credit to these in one of his Appendices. He also provides details for constructing three of the models he describes and lists sources for many other sets of plans so you can save a bundle by making your own. -CC Windows, free from: Energy Efficient Windows Program c/o Stephen Selkowitz Bldg. 90, Rm. 311_ . Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory i Cyclotron Road • 1 Berkeley, CA 94720 The Lawrence Berkeley Lab is managing POE's Energy Efficient Windows Program. They offer this magazine to 11 accelerate exchange of information1 ' recognizing that much of the technology has been developed but needs to be communicated. A magazine is much more immediate for this sort of transfer than a book would be. Besides, it's free·and therefore more accessible to everyone. In this issue several window insulating • products a.re described (some clear enough you can make your own), legislation pertaining to energy efficient window systems is outlined, and there are lists of reference materials to turn to. Send for your copy. -CC I -c BIOGAS A Chinese Hiogas Manual, translated from the Chinese by Michael Crook, edited by Ariane van Buren, 1979; 135 pp., $11.95 from: ISBS, Inc. P.O. Box555 Forest Grove, OR: 97116 Available overseas from: Interm~diate Technology Publications Ltd. 9KingSt. London WX2E 8_HN England This book presents a sharp contrast to biogas books written in the West: The Chinese have made biogas work throughout the rural provinces, and they have done it mostly without electricity, mechanital feeders, agitators, pumps, piping, metal containers, or external heat sources. Build.: ing the digesters involves using local mate- . rials and labor intensive construction technique~. They_ run their digesters on local waste plant materials and local animal manure (in many instances they build chutes directly from the barns to the digesters). The digesters themselves are buried to tap into the relatively constant ground temperatures. Caring for the biogas pits and their contents is done entirely by hand. You should read this book even if you . don't want to build a biogas generator just to see a very different approach to A.T. Biogas in China is a luxury (as a cooking fuel and as a source of light) as well as a means to control the spread of disease which traditiorrally has been transmitted by 1 nightsoil. For us, it is a return to an aware-, ness of the cycle of living organisms. - • Gail Katz Metha-,ie.Digesters for Fuel Gas and Fertilizer, The New Alchemy Institute, • Newsletter #3, Spring 1973, 47 pp., • $3.00 from: . The New Alch~my Institute P.O. Box47 Woods Hole, MA 02543 This book helped start the wave of interest in biogas production in America. It is ~till the best basic introduction if you're toying ~ith the idea of building a methane digester, but don't know if it's right for your situatio~. You'll learn what you need to • put into a digester and what you can expect to get out. -=-Gail K?,tz . , The Comple at Riogas H~ndbook, by d. house, 1978, 400 pp., $8.00 ($9.00 outside the U.S.) from: • • • At Home everywhere, c/o VAHID, Rt. 2 • Aurora, OR 97002 - Please write to._the attention of Rita Dog for quantity prices and special discounts Once you've decided to build a methane digester and want to know all the details of putting one together, you should read this book. It is a basic, step-by-step description-what happens (and what can go wrong) in the digester; what you.need t'o do to the mixture; how to decid~ what to put in a'nd what not to; how to u~e the gas; advice on various decisions that will have to be made; how to trouble-shoot; and discus-' sions of equipment and designs. The · author's bias is towards a highly efficient, mechanized system, but he has included enough basic information'on all types of systems that the book wiJl serve as a useful source of information no matter,which way you decide to go. -Gail Katz
Page 8 RAIN July 1980 TIDD~ £ill©ffiD@JJ~ IP~£©~(§@IBIP~- a modest proposal to explOit - humble foreigners ' . . by Ianto Eyans That Boring Old.Energy Crisis Again There's nothing new about the energy crisis. There has been an energy shortage for most of humanity in every culture through all of history. As long as energy was hard to come by, humanity used it as any :;;carce resource, with cai:e and deliberation. So in most cultures, techniques evolved slowly for conducting life along paths . of least resistance; in general, ways didn't survive which involved any but the most conservative use of energy, re_;;ources and force. Technologies followed their own evolutionary paths and the unsuited ones died by a kind of Darwinian-selectivity when it was clear they couldn't be sustained. Above all, societies' evolved inbred cultural constraints to limit the rate of change: inbuilt change valves that could hold the flow of innovation to a rate at which it could be assimilated. The Petrochemical Flash Our culture and our time are aberrants. It is only in the past 50 or 60 years that·the dim flame of our hard-won fuel supply has flared up bright and dazzling, so much_so that we have used piledrivers to .crack peanuts and lit forest fires to fry eggs; in a wild and childishly •exuberant potlatch of waste. And in these two or three generations all of the native ingenuity, the cai::efully accumulated heritage of skills passed down through the centuries,,has been forgotten in a buzz of silly toys. Who knows now the basic skills of our grandparents-who can milk a cow, dig a neat ditch, lay elegant brickwork? Most of us have forgotten even the primary basics like how to • maintain a small cooking fir~, ho.}V to grow food, to wake without an alarm clock, or beat eggs without a blender. When I ask my neighbor to lend me a saw he emerges with a chainsaw; his children have forgotten how to walk three blocks to our f).eighborhood store and his wife is appalled that I wash my clothes by hand. Astonishingly, we have scrubbed even the language clean of the words we once used. Do you know the meaning of hod, coulter, cooper, to darn, toted I to tup, or:what a sagger-maker's bottom , knocker is? These were common parts of our language even in 1920. We have replaced basic skills with mechanical tools, smallscale with big, and local self-reliance with dependence on the vague and uncontrollable manipulations of a worldwide consumer society. And the whirlpool of our own accelerating technical change sucks us down into places we don't want to be but see no way 01.g of. Now as the American belt starts to cinch up again, we're frantically racing to salvage what little we have left. All over the country we'rie writing Foxfire books, recording the voices of the aged. And what ten years ago seemed a dilettante interest in cataloguing 'the past now has a new urgency. If we really want to deal gracefully with a more labor-intensive future, we can see that we must remember again how to do things for oµrselves with less oil, fewer chemicals and more human care. For the great majority of the world's population, the 6% of us who live in these United States offer a confusing example. We never cease to rub in the irritating message that we are still the richest nation on earth, as we flaunt our affluence before them.. The U.S. is stereotyped a~ immensely wealthy, w.isteful and arrogant. People in the poorer countries (and that's almost all of them) have little firsthand experience of us. They watch our worst TV, read of our worst politics, see our worst tourists. .. ·-- ~ --::: .. fr~mMinka •Together, these create a composite picture ~fa country few of us would recognize: a land of.continuous violence where-'brash insensitives devote their lives to getting richer with an aggressiveness and machismo that would disturb a Mexicali truck driver. Everyone .lives in penthouse apartments connected by 10-laned freeways. They know we all drive 100 mph through the streets of San Francisco {Steve McQueen to blame for that one), that the government buys you everything for free (personal conversation with a- Costa Rican peasant), and that.we throw away everythittg continuously to make way for the new waves of sh~ny fresh goods (hmm . : . that one's not so far off ... ). , • • Despite all the help we gave them, much of the worl~ neyer really took a liking to us. Bite the hand that feeds, lock up our loyal embassy folks ... When we tell them that small is beautiful and that there is no way we can all make it with two cars.and a power boat they get strangely resentful. • How can we expect them to settle for "second rate_" smaller technologies when they see us happily getting bigger and richer all the while? . ( • • Foreign Aid and Cocacolonisation ., . Well, for a little while now we've had an edgy feeling that all is not well out there. We live a life of privilege yet there a,re tho~e disturbing photos of thin kids in Africa or somewhere and we've been sending them help. I mean, the government gives away all that foreign aid; it must go somewhere, right? For a long time the na-
ture of"Aid" was comfortingly vague, but in the '60s it got clearer that military assistance helped mainly us, not them, and that what they really needed was food. Then the "help-the poor to help themselves" gang took over (Green Revolution and The Pill), and most recently we've seen our mission as being to help them technologically. The bulk of technological aid has concentrated on creating dependencies on the multinationals, the rich countries and the U.S. Partly this was intentional in the name of expanding overseas markets·, partly unintentional in that we naively tried to help the only way we knew how, showing them how we do it here. We were told in Guatemala in 1975 that in the whole country, with all its monoculture-based insect pests, that there were no free-lance entomologists. Every last bug e~pert worked directly for the chemical companies' agricultural pestifide divisions.· Much of the aid we gave primed pumps which kept on pumping in imports long after our people had gone back home. Following the 1976 earthquake~, Guatema_lans were handed out, for free or at a subsidy, huge qu~ntities of corrugated steel roofing, imported from the U.S. A country of traditional thatch-and tiles throws up a tin . roof landscape overnight. Ostensibly this was a boon. Lightweight steel roofing isn't so likely to kill anyone in later earthquakes and lighter roof structures mean less drain on scarce forest reserves. On .closer examination we see a clear chain of consequence. Look carefully: (1) disbandment of the local tilefodustry, which had used only local resources; (2) built-in obsolescence (steel lasts 10 to 25 years, tiles are good for several centuries); (3) repeat orders in a generation's time from people who have by then forgotten how to make tiles; (4) emulation of earthquake-styled houses by folks in unaffected areas ("they came from the U.S. so this is how Americans roof their homes . . ."J; (5) a new balance of trade which demands further exports from a country with few naturM resourc~s except labor;-and (6) depression of the national labor market, keeping wages down1md tying workers to employm~nt in export-based industries. • • • ' The social consequences of each rapid technical change are far reaching and one can extrapolate whole webs of disturbance caused in a traditi_onal society by this kind of example. We are left in a situation where traditional tile makers with .no demand for their skills must pick cottonfar from home on the steamy lowlands for $1.25 a day. Foreign corporations control.the land use, the crop, th,e export • _faciliti~s and the price. July 1980 . RAIN Page 9 Gringo as Superbeing Native ingenuity has solved problems well for a long time. Local people are usually adept at dealing creatively with their extreme shortage of resources. Yet a sinister effect of our influence is t~e undermining of native peoples' self-confide.nee in their own abilities to be creative. They come to expect that our ways are somehow better than theirs, that we have answers to their problems (many of which were caused by u~ in the first place) and worse still that they _should tackle problem-solving in the way we do. We reinforce the illusion that we know and they don't by sending missionaries (who know the real God), military advisers (to help them hate each other), technical salesmen ("these gooks don't know how to farm"), and technical volunteers ("I wanted ·to go to New Guinea to teach them org~nic gardening"). <:::onsistently in poorer countries you will hear local products and· methods put down in favor of ours: "oh, that's just an old bike I .made into a knife sharpener-; don'r even look at it; I'm.sure you have more modern tools in the U.S.'' ''We have to apologize for the bathing facilities; they're very simple (an ingenious rock bathtub cut into a tropical flower glade) but we're just poor p·eople and we • can't afford anything better" (my italics)~both,real quotes from Central America. Let's Sum It Up Living in Guatemala in 1975-7:il, we constantly found ourselves discussing the seeming hopelessness of the situation. Basically what we came up with was: • • 1. There are more of them than us. 2. We're changing as stuff runs -out. 3. We're smarter than we look to them. 4. They're a lot smarter than they look to us. 5. We undermine their self:-confidence by teaching our stuff. : • 6. They know stuff we've forgotten. 7. ·we'd like to know some of that stuff because.we're going to need it and it's a good time to take some of it home and spread it around if they'll only teach us so we'd better ask them politely cause there're·an awful lot of them and they're real hungry yet they need to be needed like us all so maybe they'll say yes thep • perhaps we can show them some of us are less ugly than others.O foreign access , "Mechanization is Progress? For Whom?" fromMinka, Vol. I, No. 2, $8 (U.S.)/yr., from: Apartad.o 222 Huancayo, Peru Minka is a Spanish language popular tech- . nology magazine published by a Peruvian organization called Talpuy. In this, their, second issue, they describe the effects on a small agricultural town when the local cooperative buys a tractor. . Two centuries ago, everybody in the world either used-plows with draft animals .. . or where the land did not permit plowing, it was worked with pickaxes, sticks, shovels, or chaquitaclla [a-traditional Peruvian implement, see i{lustration]. Ei-. ther way was entirely controlled by the peasant .. . He was able to plow the fields not according to a uniformly excellen't cont.
Page 10 RAIN July 1980 foreign access cont. Cb -=ts-.; ._ , standard, but according to the condition of his own land. . . . This labor corresponded with the need to,conserve the fertility of.his soi/, thinking of the future of his children and grandchildren . ... Each peasant has developed-from an empirical understanding and his ancestral heritage an approach which is adapted to his own condition, his - own land, and to the surrounding,environ- • ment. As a result there still exist thousands of individual solutions to very specific problems.. 1 The tractor put an end to a passing era in order to increase the productivity of North . American agribusiness, whic.h must satisfy with little manual labor the increasing needs of the new city. Since produc,tion has to be uniform, co.ntinuing; and of high volume, the tractor comes to be associated with chemical fertilizer, insectirides, herbicides, and other poisons which remain in . the soil, penetrate the plants, and through his food, reaches man. Talpuy is a group working in the Peruvian Sierras tp explore existing "popular technologies" and to help facilitate local people's resistance to Americanization in terms of ne"Y technologies which do not serve the people and culture. "Popular technology" is defined by them as "a position and process which respects the relationship between technique, ktt0wledge, and creative skills for the majority of the J population and which fires progress in the creativity of the people." Thanks to Dayle Stratton for translating Minka and Talpuy's brochure for us. -CC \ The Centre Report, $50/yr. to int'l. organizations, or'nat'l. organizations in developed countries; $25/yr. to nat'l. organizations in developing countries, from: Environment Liaison Centre P.O. Box 72461 Nairobi, Kenya Tel. 24770 We were quite impressed upon our recent receipt of a copy of The Centre Report. Ii looks·like an excellent publication for any-, one interested in appropriate technolqgy in developing nations, particularly African, from an indigenous perspective. Tl),e Environment Liaison Centre was set up in Nairobi in 1974 by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) concerned with environment, development and human settlements. Its purpose is to serve as a liaison with the United Nations Environment Programme '(UNEP) and the U,.N. Centre_for Human Settlements (both headquartered in Nairobi) on behalf of NGOs around the world, and to work with NGOs in developing countries. They publish The Centre • Report periodically throughout the year to advise NGOs on positions being taken by • the UN agencies, and to act1as a "community meeting place".where NGOs around the world can share information and strategies. Included are articles on soft energy paths, OPEC; Chinese biogas, education, U.S. energy gluttony and bicycles, plus reviews of publications and periodicals. -MR Earth Garden, $2.25/,issue ppd., from: P.O. Box378 Epping,NSW Australia 2121 Curious about A. T. Down Under? Earth Garden, a magazine for Australians interested in self-sufficiency, ·is back in print after a year's rest. "We have·survived for' - eight years as possibly the only 'little' journal 'in Australia which does not get a grant, has no well-heeled sponsor and runs no advertisements." Sound familiar? Articles on agriculture, owner-builders, energy, land use and recycling, with lots.of access. •Sort of an: Australian.cross between RAIN and Mother Earth News. • -MR The Poor Man's Wisdom: Technology and the Very Poor, by Adrian Moyes; 197.9, 70 pence from: 1 Oxfam 274 Banbury Road Oxford, England 0X2 7DZ ·This brief though well-written pamphlet is an abbreviated version of a report, published under the title of Good Servant; ~ad Master, m~d_e at the United Nations . . Conference on Science and Technology for • Development in August '79. Moyes examines the impact 9f "modern technology," both politically and·socially, on the Third World. His paper includes an introduction to-the concept of "local technology," outlines the political opposition to the transfer of technology to the Third World, and discusses the current problems in communication. Each chapter is illus·- trated with examples of appropriate technology projects in developing countries: a water mill in,Malawai, fish farming in Zaire, and the Bengla Loo (a sewage disposal system) in Banglade·sh. Unfortunately, none of the examples include projects done by or for women in developing countries. ' While exhibiting somewhat of a patronizing tone, the pamphlet does present a COIT\pelling ar_gument for how, why and where Britain and other Euro-American countries can assist in technology transfer. Jhe goal, says Moyes, is to help "the very poor to develop the technology that they possess already, and to 'transform' the new technology they need." A good introduction to a variety of the issues and projects in the field. -LS Mozambique and Tanzania: Asking the Big Questions, by Frances Moore Lappe and Adele Beccar-Varela, 1980, $4.75 from: • 'Institute for Food and Development Policy 2~88 Mission Street San Fran isco, CA 94110 "This·project reflects our-belief that a • prime test of the effectiveness of any eco-. nomic and _political system is whether or not the people ijre achieving food security.'· ·with this statement Frances Moore Lappe and Adele Beccar-_Varela begin their study of two newly independent African countries: Mozambique (1967) and Tanzania (1961). Using first-hand observations and interviews with village leaders and agricultural officials, they examine the differing "socialist" paths of developmennaken by the two countries. The book begins wi~ a 'profile of ea<::h country: its history, re-\ sources and geography. The authors compare each in terms of leadership, citizen participat.ion, and foreign a,ssistance in or.! der to clarify the.conceptions of development held by each nation's leaders. The analysis is a penetrating though sensitive in,terpretation of the problems, perspectives and accomplishments of both nations. The questions posed, both to the reader and to the leaders, are particularly insightful. . Lappe and Beccar-Varela have thoughtfully incl.uded a bibliography of recommended further readings. The only criticism I have is one of structure rather than content. The chapter-by-chapter comparison makes for co~fus-ing reading; histori_es, projects and ' problems begin to blur o,ne into the other. This is disappointing, for so much of what is fascinating about this study centers around the distinctive characteristics of Mozambique and Tanzania. Perhaps focusing more on each country individually, at , the beginning of the book, would strengthen and clarify the comparisons made later on. Mozambique and Tanzania launches a new project for the Institute: "Food Secu- . , ' rity-Alternative Strategies." The purpose is to examine and report on 'the efforts of people in different countries to attain food security. This first : t4dy offers valuable insight into the struggle of all people to create a society based on principles of equality, participation and cooperation. It is an excellent first step in an exciting and worthwhile project. -LS
Inflation, unemployment and the energy "crisis" have affected all of us, but certain parts of the country have been particularly hard hit. Detroit, capital of the auto industry, is one such place. The unemployment rate there has been conservatively quoted at 18-19% and is rising; unemployment lines are filled with all types of workers as the entire city feels the pinch. In October of 1979, inspired by the National Day of Protest Against the Oil Industry, a coalition of workers, religious leaders 1 and community organizers formed the People's Energy Committee (PEC). Their ultimate goal is a "people's takeover of the oil industry." Their immediate goal is to place that idea before the people for a popular vote. PEC organized a drive to gain support of its petition: We, the citizens of Detroit, believe that the oil should belong to the people and not to the private oil companies which make enormous profits while we pay enormous prices for energy. The undersigned are joining efforts with a nationwide petition drive calling for this issue to be put before the entire country for a vote. We are duly petitioning the City of Detroit to place this issue before the people of this city for a popular vote in the August 5th, 1980, primary election. More than 15 cities around the country are participating in this campaign. While most are focusing on the national elections in November, Detroit's ballot laws may enable it to vote on the question in its local primary elections. This March, after four months of petitioning and a virtual media blackout on the issue, PEC submitted 11,300 signatures to the Detroit City Clerk. On March 26th the City Council made the petition official for the Detroit primary. When the petition was transposed into legal language by the City Research Department, however, the meaning of the draft was altered from a "people's takeover" to a "government takeover." PEC objected, and so the proposal was rewritten. Another Council meeting was held where both the original and the second, altered copy were submitted for a vote. This time the vote was split with several previous supporters now voting against both versions of the proposal. Curious about this change of heart, PEC did some investigating. They found that each Council member had received three to five calls from the American Petroleum Institute discouraging their support of the petition. In May a third proposal was submitted to the council. A public hearing on the issue was suggested by a supportive Council member, Kenneth Cockrell. Public support for the petition was strong, yet when the Council reconvened for a vote it only drew a tie, effectively defeating the measure. PEC plans to continue efforts to put the petition on the August ballot through an alternate route. In essence, they are challenging the City Clerk to "show cause": why aren't the people being allowed to vote on the question? Working toward a national focus, PEC will join groups around the country in an effort to get the President and Congress to put this issue on the ballot for the November elections. While getting the measure on the ballot would be a considerable achievement in itself, the actual impact of the ballot may be less so. July 1980 RAIN Page 11 The petition is an attempt to bring the idea of a "people's takeover" of the oil industry to an eventual national vote. The actual structure of this takeover has been left purposely vague so as to allow for the development of an appropriate plan. A number of organizations and individuals are supporting the petition and the idea of a "takeover," including the American Federatjon of State, County and Municipal Employees, Locals #243-5 and #457; Garland Jaggers, Office for Black Catholic Affairs; Detroit chapter of People United to Save Humanity (PUSH); Joe Martic, president of Local #698, International Association of Machinists; Pete Goldstein, national representative of Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Union; and Concerned Citizens for Equal Justice. A few local radio stations, th~ Detroit Free Press, and channel 62, Detroit's black TV station, have been publicizing PEC's activities. Certain other political groups·, such as the Detroit Alliance for a Rational Economy (DARE), have chosen to support the petition indirectly, preferring to focus instead on other issues. A number of questions come to the surface as this campaign gets underway: how much impact will this measure have, how far will it be able to go, how effective is its approach? Whatever the answers, the fact remains that PEC has created an active and broad-based coalition of people determined to make changes. This campaign and its effects will be worth watching, for what they can accomplish both directly and indirectly. If you are interested in getting involved, there follows a list of cities and contact people. If a contact person is not listed for your city or if you would like to begin organizing in your community, contact the Detroit PEC at 229 Gratiot, 3rd floor, Detroit, MI 48226, 313/962-4979. -LS "Oil Belongs to the People Campaign" 1. People United for Justice-Phil, Alan or Laurie F., 234 7th Ave., New York, NY 10011, 212/255-0352. 2. People's Energy Committee-Lydia Bayanetta, 656 S. Avenue, Rochester, NY 14620, 716/442-1290. 3. People's Energy Committee-Debbie, 359 Niagara, Buffalo, NY 14201,716/855-3055. 4. People's Energy Campaign-Diane Methiowitz, 1257 Glenwood Avenue S.E., Atlanta, GA 30J16, 404/627-3093. 5. People's Energy Committee-Dick, 419 Boylston St., Rm. 204, Boston, MA 02116, 617/247-1778. 6. People's Energy Committee-Julius Corpus, P. 0. Box 6504, . Austin, TX 78762. Other cities participating in the campaign but for which information on contact persons was not available as we went to press: Chicago, Illinois Cleveland, Ohio Milwaukee, Wisconsin Tucson, Arizona Washington, D.C. Greeley, Colorado 0
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