RAIN William Appleman Williams on Regional Destiny Scuttling the Law of the Sea The Future is Abundant VOLUME VIII No.lO $1.50 No Advertising
Page 2 RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN: Journal of Appropriate Technology Volume VIII, Number 10 Aug./Sept. 1982 Editor: John Ferrell Contributing Editors: Gail Katz Patrick Mazza Mark Roseland Laura Stuchinsky Graphic Design: Linnea Gilson Intern: Jim Springer Printing: Times-Litho Typesetting: Em Space Cover Photograph: Karen Gottstein RAIN COMMUNITY RESOURCE CENTER Staff: Rob Baird Ann Borquist Bruce Borquist Nancy Cosper Steve Johnson Comptroller: Lee Lancaster Interns: JimRiker Rosalind Riker RAIN Magazine publishes infonnation which can help people lead more simple and satisfying lives, make their communities and regions more economically self- reliant, and build a society that is durable, just, and ecologically sound. RAIN is published 6 fanes a year by the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a non-profit corporation located at 2270 NW Irving, Portland, Oregon 97210, telephone 503/227-5110. Subscriptions are $25/yr. for institutions, $15/yr. for individuals ($9.50 for persons with incomes under $5000 a year). Copyright © 1982 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. Rain Staff: Left to right, Bruce Borquist, Laura Stuchinsky, Rob Baird, Ann Borquist, Jim Riker, Rosalind Riker, John Ferrell, Linnea Gilson, Nancy Cosper, Steve Johnson. Not shown, Lee Lancaster, Jim Springer. In This Issue ... Manifesting Regional Destiny: A New Model for Americans — An Interview with William Appleman Williams...................................... 5 The Future is Abundant — excerpts from Tilth's new book....................11 Eco-Decentralist Design — excerpts from a new Planet Drum "Bundle" 12 Beyond the State: Creating a Continental Commimity by Patrick Mazza...................................................................................... 16 Dead in the Water: Reagan and the Law of the Sea Treaty by Jim Springer ...................................................................... ................20 Access Information Agriculture ................................... 14 Food................................................14 Bioregions ................................... 9 Good Things ................................ 19 Energy............................................ 4 Rush 22 Penny Fearon
Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAINDROPS RAIN Page 3 Rain is in transition again? Not again, exactly; it's a perpetual state with us. But we have been experiencing far more than the usual amount of flux in recent months. My talented co-editors, Mark and Carlotta, have both cleaned out their bulging desks and files (you should have been there!) and departed for new adventures. As is usual with "retired" Rainiacs they'll continue to provide us with quality copy and sage counsel, but their absence from the daily scene leaves us with some large gaps to fill. As we go to press, we're still combing the country for one new editor who embodies the best qualities of the two we have lost — a tall order indeed! In the midst of staff changes, we've also been moving in some new directions with magazine style and content. We've chosen a new easy-on-the-eye typeface, redesigned our staff box and begun to include a table of contents. We've also been moving toward somewhat longer feature articles, matched up with a good many directly-related access items. But all of this has just been a warm-up: with our next issue (October/November) we'll launch into our ninth year with some new features, more pages, and a bimonthly (as opposed to 10 issue) publication schedule. By turning out larger RAIN's fewer times during the year we'll be providing ourselves with some much-needed cost-savings in postage and printing. More pages per issue will also mean a chance for us to pursue important themes in greater detail and to introduce some exciting new features — like the Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report, which will regularly explore trends, events and models for change in our own emerging Ecotopia. That's about all I want to "give away" for now; let's preserve an element of surprise about changes to come. But I do want to note that we've finally agreed, after all these years, to begin accepting a limited amount of paid advertising. Presumably I don't need to describe the realities of non-profit publishing in the 80s which led to that decision — you've heard it all before! We're still working out the details of our advertising policy and we want to make you, our readers, an important part of that process. Please let us know immediately what kinds of ads you would — or definitely would not — like to see in RAIN, and send along your tips on who we might want to approach to run their ads with us. That's the Magazine Transition Report for this issue. It's an exciting, overly-busy, understaffed time for us, but the best part of working at RAIN is association with an extended family of fine people who are always ready to provide the magazine with "good work" at a moment's notice. Lots of folks have fcen helping out but Jim Springer, our editorial intern, and Pat Mazza, one of our contributing editors, deserve special thanks, as do all of the members of the Rain Community Resource Center staff. And it's been an exciting time of transition for the Resource Center, too! Nancy will fill you in on what's been happening under that side of our umbrella. — John Ferrell For those of you who didn't know, there is another Rain besides RAIN Magazine: the Rain Community Resource Center, which has been under the Umbrella since the fall of 1980. RCRC allows us to directly involve ourselves, locally and regionally, in many of the same areas of concern we address in each issue of the magazine. A major project for the RCRC staff has been organizing and cataloguing our massive AT/self-help research library (over 4,000 books and 600 incoming periodicals as well as extensive organization and resource files). Our other projects have included co-management of Oregon's Appropriate Technology Small Grants Program and forums with Bruce Stokes, Mark Satin, Ernest Callenbach and Peter Berg. We have worked with Portland's Futures Project; assisted in a number of conferences including Tilth's "Permaculture in the Northwest," Evergreen State College's "Options Northwest," the Center for Urban Education's "Information and Communication Technology for the Community," and the Portland Alliance for Social Change's "Community Assembly." We have talked about community self-reliance to civic groups, church groups, and high school social studies classes. Currently, while Rain is still involved in technology promotion for the A.T. Small Grants Program recipients, Ann and Bruce are working with a coalition of groups to provide assistance to an Asian refugee agricultural project; Laura and Rob are putting together a regional agricultural conference; and Ann and I are organizing "Solar 82", our region's annual solar and renewable energy conference. Steve J. continues to refine the information system, as he and Bruce enter increasing amounts of data daily on periodicals, directories, databases, and network people into our trusty computer; we are now up to over 1500 entries. None of this would be done without the aid of Roz and Jim Riker, our summer interns (who wandered in looking for something to do only the day after we had lost our latest addition), and of course our volunteers who put in hours of work, bringing through the door with them fresh enthusiasm and ideas, which help to keep things moving. And as you can see, our motion is perpetual! — Nancy Cosper
Page 4 RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 Access Figure 10-1 Ocean currents of the Northern hemisphere circulate like the winds above. Both serve to transfer heat energy from the tropics to cold northern latitudes. From: Weather and Energy Energy Lovins on the Soft Path, 1982, 36 minutes/ color/sound 16 mm film, $550; video, $275; rental (in either format), $75. Distributed by: Bullfrog Films Oley, PA 19547 Amory and Hunter Lovins are in the business of bringing about what Friends of the Earth founder David Brower has called "an energy revolution without fanfare [using information] presented so clearly you wonder why you didn't know it already." Their ludd articulation of the need for a "soft path" energy strategy (improved efficiencies combined with appropriate use of renewables) has drawn serious attention (and often sputtering anger) from the economists, utility executives, and government officials who would take us down the "hard" energy path toward increased fossil fuel and nuclear dependence. In this well-produced film, we follow Amory and Hunter on the lecture circuit, hear their description of our present energy dilemma, and share their vision of an "energy future with a future." The Lovinses center their energy analysis around four crucial questions: "How much energy do we need?" "What kinds of energy?" "Where can we get it?" "Where do we start?" Thanks in large part to Amory and Hunter's books and articles (see for example, "Soft Path Hits Hard Times," RAIN VII:8:18), some of us have already improved our ability to answer those questions. Now, with soaring utility rates, wobbling WPPSS bonds, and sobering memories of Three Mile Island, more and more people are ready for the kinds of answers which only recently might have been characterized as "radical." Lovins on the Soft Path is not only an excellent program choice for renewable energy organizations, but for labor unions, church discussion groups and the Lions Qub. — John Ferrell Heat Pumps: An Efficient Heating & Cooling Alternative, Dermot McGuigan with Amanda McGuigan, 1981,202 pp., $6.95 from: Garden Way Publishing Charlotte, VT 05445 As energy costs increase, heat pumps are becoming a popular solution to heating and cooling houses and offices. Basically, a heat pump is a refrigerator which uses the heating effect rather than the cooling effect for space conditioning. Heat pumps are like amplifiers: they take energy from air or water at moderate temperatures, add mechanical work, and produce hot air or water for space heating. A heat pump produces one-and-a-half to four units of heat energy per unit of work energy put into the system. This introductory book does an excellent job of describing the principles of heat pump operation, available equipment, and possible configurations with a backup system. The book is clear and highly readable, but there are three po- tenhal problems with the systems which are not fuUy addressed. First, heat pumps do not readily lend themselves to night setbacks; a special control system is required to use a night setback without energizing the auxiliary heat source. Second, (as the authors do note) air-to-air heat pumps are very inefficient at low temperatures. (In the Pacific Northwest, where we have a "mild" climate, heat pumps are installed with electric resistance heat as the auxiliary, and when the temperature drops, they run primarily on the resistance heater). Last, but not least, heat pumps may amplify energy, but the energy form is generally electricity. A conventional coal- or gas-fired electric power plant has less than 35% delivered efficiency which offsets the basic beneficial effects of using a heat pump. — Gail Katz Weather and Energy, by Bruce Schwoeg- ler, 1981,230 pages, $22.50 from: McGraw-Hill 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 This is a book for people who look at the physical universe and wonder why it works the way it does. Other alternative energy books may provide specifics on insulation needs, average wind speed and hydro potential of various sites around the country. This book starts with the basic cause and effect of weather and from there proceeds to offer information on alternative energy possibilities suggested by weather patterns. Overall, the portion of the earth near the equator receives more solar energy than it emits back to space, causing a net energy gain and a rise in temperature. Polar areas, on the other hand, are net energy losers. Air masses move across the earth to establish equilibirium between zones of net gain and loss. Add the effects of the earth's rotation, moisture content of the air and topographic features, and the weather becomes understandable. Weather and Energy not only unfolds the mysteries of rain and wind; it does so in a manner that is so easily read and totally engrossing that I devoured the book in a single sitting. — GaU Katz
Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN Page 5 AN INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM APPLEMAN WILLIAMS To understand the present, we must understand the past. The American present, this time of domestic dissolution and international danger, has its roots in a past ofcontinental and global expansion. This imperial road has been well charted by a school of historians that first emerged in the late 1950s, the revisionists. William Appleman Williams might be described as "dean" of the school. In works such as The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, The Roots of the Modem American Empire, America Confronts a Revolutionary World and Empire As a Way of Life, Williams has painstakingly documented the American propensity to avoid dealing with internal conflicts through external expansion. As Williams and others have noted, the era of expansion is aver, leaving us with a difficult backlog of problems to solve here at home. From our history, Williams has drawn the outlines of an answer. He has suggested we look back to the years immediately following the American Revolution, years when the United States had a working, decentralized form of government, a confederation. We should think in terms ofa new confederation, says Williams, a confederation of self-governing North American regions in which we could begin to build a true continental community. Recently, I visited Williams at Oregon State University, where he currently teaches, to discuss empire, confederation and practical steps toward restructuring American government. He gives us a historical-political framework through which we can reach our dreams of a just and ecologically durable society. His words tell me we can change things if we know where we are going and how to get there. — Patrick Mazza RAIN: How would you summarize the American Empire's current condition and prospects? Williams: It is obviously in a state of serious transition, and nobody has figured out what next version of the empire is possible or appropriate or rewarding. It's a serious problem for the managers of the empire. I don't see any precipitous decline in the sense that the British declined after World War I. The empire might blunder into some potentially disastrous mistakes, but I do not see any inherent collapse for the next 10 years or so. RAIN: When you look at a map, how do you see the
Page 6 RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 American Empire? Williams: TTie American Empire is not like a 19th Century empire in the formal sense. You can't color parts of the world American. You have to look at a global map from the point of view of military bases and meaningful treaty structure. You have to look at areas where the United States owns a lot of real estate, whether it's the military or private corporations. You have to look at who owns natural resources. You have to think finally of which nations in one way or another face limits imposed by the United States. They are not satellites in a formal sense, but it is understood that if they do not want trouble with America, certain options are considered off limits. El Salvador is a good example. A map of the empire, to use your imagery, would have a bunch of celluloid overlays showing different things. I think of the empire mostly in terms of the Western Hemisphere, Southeast Asia, Japan, Western Europe and parts of the Mideast. ''The educated working class and the middle class know they are being had most of the time — an awareness they have not had in any serious sense since the mid-1930s." Japan is within our military sphere of influence, and we use a lot of Japanese technology. Most people think of it as an invasion, but actually it allows the United States to use its resources in other ways. The relationship has evolved from one of occupahon and major dependency into kind of an equal one, pretty much like with Western Germany and France. But we still exercise enormous influence in all those countries. RAIN: In your 1969 book. The Roots of the Modem American Empire, you wrote, "It is essential for radicals to devise workable plans and procedures for decentralization that will enable us to realize a richer and more creative conception of freedom. We need models of autonomous yet interacting regional political economies that will function as communities." You have also called for a continental confederation to replace the current centralized federal system. Williams: I use the confederation metaphor because it is part of American history. It actually did exist. It was the first choice of Americans of the revolutionary generation, and had a great deal of support even after the federal constitution was ratified. The old image of the confederation as weak and almost non-functional has been fundamentally revised over the last 25 years. It did, in fact, work. The original proposal of those who opposed the constitution was to give the confederation control of basic economic activities like foreign trade. I think this would have worked. Whether the resulting government would have served as an instrument of imperial expansion across the continent is debatable. It might not have been able to prevent the regionalization of North America. You have to re-think what a modem American confederation would be, because much has changed since then. There has not been much work on this by serious polihcal theorists. There has been more work by economists and sociologists in terms of identifying regions. The left has misplaced a lot of its energy and great intelligence in thinking what an American kind of classic socialism would look like, concentrating on the federal government doing different things rather than on structural alternatives. But highly centralized socialism in the late 20th Century is neither desirable nor necessary because technology and communications could be used to realize more decentralized operation. Centralized economic planning on a continental scale is almost a contradiction. You can do it, but it is inefficient and stultifying. I find it interesting that most successful, big corporations have decentralized their operaHons in the past 15 years. Certain things the federal government is obviously going to have to do. Tm not tall^g about a balkanization of North America. Tm talking about an honest confeder- aton of the United States and, ideally, Canada. RAIN: Decentralization raises fears of abuse of rights by local and regional governments. You were a civil rights worker in the South, so you know firsthand there were some real abuses by local powers. Williams: That's quite tme. Many abuses have been perpetrated by the federal government too. The assumption that the central government, run by White Northern liberals, gave freedom to the Blacks in the South is bullshit. Nothing would have happened if the Blacks had not organized and become militant at the local level. They are the ones who generated the movement that forced the federal government to come to terms with these issues. Local, state and regional militance, self-consciousness and organization generates the demand for general acceptance of values and standards. Such standards should become part of any alternative confederation. Certain rights and responsibilities apply to everybody. RAIN: What about interregional conflicts in a confederation? Williams: The central government would have to be the court of last resort for visceral conflicts that could not be negotiated by the regions. RAIN: Where would you vest that central power? Williams: I think a parliamentary system is much more immediately responsive than a presidential system. A parliamentary system is much more capable of throwing the ruling government out of power, but you would have to develop a more responsible political party tradition. RAIN: The potential for major structural change in the American government in the 1980s is greater than most people realize. Thirty states have called for a new constitutional convention to write a balanced budget amendment. If several more states ratify the call, the constitution requires that a convention be held. Many people believe that it could not legally be held to the balanced budget issue. Do we embrace the concept of a convention or do we consider it a very scary and risky thing?
Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN Page? Williams: It is scary and risky if you do not want to get in there and organize to elect delegates. It doesn't scare me. I think it would shake the country up, and that would be healthy. If it comes to a convention, we should be prepared to drop almost everything else and get in the thick of it. It would be kind of fun. I do not think anybody, including the Supreme Court, could intervene and limit issues raised in a convention. The Supreme Court cannot control a constitutional convention because by definition a convention undertakes to change the instrument of government on which the court's authority is based. RAIN: When thinking about building a more regionalized society, don't we also have to look at transforming our economy? Williams: Sure, or at least at a very tough re-mapping of resources and skills, asking tough questions about whether these resources should be used for different purposes. Sometimes it is probably more rational to stay with the kind of mix between human and natural resources that has developed. In other instances it would be the grossest folly to keep on with the status quo. For example, the South has started growing a particular plant from Africa from which you can make newsprint. It is much better, lasts longer, produces clearer images and has a 150-day growing season. Using that makes more sense than cutting down all the trees. RAIN: The standard idea is that private industry should take the lead on economic change and irmovation. Maybe state governments should be doing some of these things themselves. Williams: Absolutely. The Progressives of the early 20th Century and the Populists of the late 19th Century had lots of proposals for the states to do certain kinds of positive things. RAIN: Have you read Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach? Williams: I read it when it first came out. It created an audience for the subject of regionalism. Prior to that, interest had been limited largely to academics. Certainly Joel Garreau's The Nine Nations of North America has also been consequential. [See access below]. RAIN: \^at do you think of Garreau's regional divisions? Williams: I liked the inclusion of Canada. But the regions are highly debatable, particularly west of the Mississippi. They are a bit oversimplified, based too narrowly on crude economic statistics rather than on a broader mix of social, political and economic criteria. But I welcomed the book because it stimulated a lot of discussion. RAIN: Thinking regionally and continentally, isn't it hard to find a compelling reason for the existence of the United States of America? Williams: There are explanations, but an inherent, a priori justification for it does not exist. Canada has confronted the issue of a reason for being more directly than we have, and it is not just Quebec. The Canadians are having many problems like ours, because like ours, their economics run north-south rather than east-west. British Columbia and the Pacific Northwest are integral parts of one another. Manitoba and Saskatchewan make more sense being part of an economic region including the Dakotas and Montana than they do tied to Toronto. If there is anything approaching secession in Canada, I would not be surprised to see it come out of the western provinces. They have a tradition of being ignored by the central government, and they have a lot of resources to work with. RAIN: Do you see any other such examples of the emergence of regional consciousness in North America? Williams: Certainly the resistance in the High Plains and Rockies to strip mining, the MX missile and that kind of nonsense bespeaks a determination to stand up and say, "Enough is enough." You can talk about emerging regionalism to some extent in the southern part of the old South — the Gulf Coast Reach, Georgia, Alabama. That's a curious kind of self-consciousness, but it exists. They see themselves as different than the rest of what we speak of loosely as the South. Every once in a while, I think we are developing an integrated regional consciousness in the Pacific Northwest, but then it seems to peter out. You get a lot of it periodically when the Californians and the Southwest say they are going to get our water whether we like it or not. But that is a pretty negative basis of unity, and Tm sure the Canadians would stop any such plan because most of it is their water. RAIN: Murray Bookchin has criticized the regionalist approach. He says regions are too big and we should be concentrating on local and municipal levels. Williams: You have to start out with local politics and then state politics. If in the course of that you build a strong power base in local communities and states, you can create regional structures. As regional communities get more confidence and experience, they might devolve some of their responsibilities. But you have to create the region first. It is absurd to think local communities can take on a corporation. But a
state with a social movement of some sizable plurality can take on some of these corporations. At that level you can seriously raise the question, "Whose natural resources are these? For what purpose are they going to be used?" One of the more meaningful criticisms of regional confederation is that it would give the corporations easy pickings. That is a legitimate point. The only answer is that they are getting easy pickings an)^ay. If you do not want to spend time and energy fighting them, then forget all this rhetoric. Minnesota managed to control the Mesabi iron ore range, got a royalty out of every ton Carnegie took out of it, and built a great system of education with the money. There is no reason Oregon or the Pacific Northwest region can't do that with a whole bunch of resources. RAIN: So you think serious electoral efforts should be built at state and local levels? Pages RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 "The primary responsibility of progressive people is to articulate a different image of reality, a different model of America." Williams: 1 do. There is a fundamental feeling in this country that the government has gotten out of hand. 1 would hope young people would be willing to go into politics in order to articulate an alternative analysis of the system, to make the elementary contribution of spreading the word and building the kind of local and state power that is behind every significant reform movement in this country's history. RAIN: Do you see potentials for coalition-budding with elements regarded as conservative? Williams: In terms of an overall consensus or a true soaal movement, no. But I think it is a mistake not to actively support groups like the Mormons in their opposition to the MX. From my experience, it is counter-productive to come on gung-ho with traditional socialist rhetoric. You would be better off to address sj?ecific issues with specific alternatives. If you talk to people in that idiom, they begin to see it is not just the specific issue but part of a whole system. RAIN: How else can these new political visions be communicated? Williams: Gaining access to mass media is crucial. When I was working in the civil rights movement in 1945-46, we had a hell of a time running regional or even local means of communication. We put out a weekly newspaper with a mimeograph machine. Today, with technological improvements, it is easier to reach people than it used to be. RAIN: Through regional communication networks and alternative media? Williams: Yes. Building those was one of the more enduring achievements of the New Left movement of the 1960s, perhaps its most important achievement. RAIN: You concluded Roots of the Modem American Empire with an admonition "that we be very careful about winning when it requires us to become more like what we find so unacceptable. For those kind of victories can easily change us into small businessmen promoting a marginal product." You wrote that in 1969. It sure sounds like a lot of what has happened since. Williams: That certainly happened with the anti-war movement of the 1960s. l^e movement started with the Port Huron Statement, which put the war in a radical and coherent framework. Then it became single-issue politics remarkably quickly. In fact, the movement largely contributed to ending the war. Great, but the alternatives that are explicit or implicit in the Port Huron Statement got shuffled off into just more of the New Deal. That is now a marginal product. The conservatives know that. Social Security is a good example. Instead of defending the present system, we should push for full social insurance like they have had in Europe for 75 years. The federal government could provide a basic support level, and regions could add to it based on factors that vary from region to region like the cost of heat. There are all kinds of ways you can buUd solutions on regionalism. It is not simpleminded cutting up of America into 15 countries. RAIN: In America Confronts a Revolutionary World, you said the change to a regional society would come with violence. Could you be more specific? Williams: I think you will get the kind of violence you had against the civil rights movement in the South. You might have violence in the High Plains if strip mining is not controlled and regulated by state or federal governments. I would not anticipate the kind of centralized takeover that is the classic model of revolutions. I can foresee, although I would not predict where and when, that if you get a real left-liberal-democratic-socialist power base in this country, there probably will be attempts to use state militia. Tm certainly not advocating military confrontation with the federal government. That's foolish. RAIN: I have this picture of a kind of "normal" American person, not "left" or "progressive" or any of those words. But they don't like the federal government. They don't like the corporations. They know they're getting ripp>ed off. Do you see among these people a potential for a new progressive populism? Williams: Yes. Living in a nonacademic community, I can see that kind of social awareness and anger has increased remarkably in the last five years. The educated working class and the middle class know they are being had most of the time, an awareness they have not had in any serious sense since the mid-1930s. I do not see any reason to anticipate its decline under current circumstances. People are getting angrier and angrier, and more frustrated. They are pa)dng a lot more attention. I am cautiously optimistic. The primary responsibility of progressive people is to articulate a different image of reality, a different model for America. If you do that in terms of a different, strong central government, you're going to turn most people off because they have had enough of strong central government. □□
Access Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN Page 9 5 V t' Bioregions PROUT, Special Issue, Summer 1981,16 pp., 58 cents, from; Proutist Universal 228 S. 46th St. Philadelphia, PA 19139 For the past few years, members of the PROUT movement have been talking with people around the United States to develop an understanding of American regions. The result is a map that reflects the psychic geography of current America as well as any I have seen. Published in a special issue of PROUT, the map "shows the areas we have selected as most desirable for producing populist movements," according to the Proutists. "Each area has some common sentiment around which people may unite." For example, the CaUfomia regions are based on peoples's desires to control their water supplies. The Upper and Lower Rio Grande regions are based on strong Hispanic and Native American influence, the Delta region on a preponderance of African peoples. PROUT (Progressive Utilization Theory) is an integration of decentralism, cooperative economics and spiritual humanism. The F^outists seek to build cooperative regional societies self-sufficient in basic necessities. They call these societies "Samajas." A Samaja should guarantee each member a basic level of physical support so people can pursue spiritual development, according to PROUT. Proutists look to the results of past revolutions and conclude that spiritual growth beyond the craving for pwwer is necessary to create a truly free and fulfilling society. PROUT, which appears to have its roots in India, signifies an interesting merger of various political and philosophical currents. While some of its proposals seem needlessly technocratic ("maximum use of natural resources," "progressively increasing standard of living,") the overall approach of integrating spiritual growth with regional decentralizaton offers a valuable contribution to the movement for a new world. — Patrick Mazza People of the Earth c/o Friends of the Earth 1045 Sansome Street San Francisco, CA 94111 Violation of the land rights, sovereignty and cultural integrity of traditional peoples is a worldwide concern. Both the Sami of northern Norway and the Kalinga SAMAJAS OF THE UNITED STATES VAUET cH£5AP£Ake L6WER NEW £NC>UINh UDSON VAUEY 50UTH£I?N FlDRlDA
Page 10 RAIN Aug.-Sept. 1982 and Bontoc tribes in the Philippines find their way of life threatened by dam projects. Both Australian aborigines and native Americans face loss of land and loss of health from uranium mining. While a growing network of native and nonnative people is fighting to protect indigenous cultures, organizations too frequently operate in isolation from one another, unaware of the potential for cooperative efforts. ITie People of the Earth project, sponsored by Friends of the Earth Foundation, is compiling a comprehensive international directory of non-violent, service-oriented groups active in the struggle to strengthen the sovereignty and land rights of native peoples. The project's go^ is to help organizations and individuals with a concern in this area to find each other, strengthen bonds of cooperation, and build a global movement with a much greater impact. To learn more about the project, or to offer information or other assistance, contact Randy Hayes at the address above. —John Ferrell ThatAwesome Space, edited by E. Richard Hart, 1981,147 pp., $8.95 from: Westwater Press P.O.Box 6394 Salt Lake City, UT 84106 The American West... the phrase evokes images of John Wayne in the saddle, of desert mesas and jagged mountain ranges, of a heroic history, of a present that is power plants, strip mines and big cities. The West and its myth are deep in the collective psyche of Americans, but what, really, is the West? The Institute of the American West at Sun Valley, Idaho took 10 weeks in 1980 to make an intensive examination of that question. This book is a product of that effort, a series of 26 cogent, well-written essays whose topics range from the history of fire to Mormon views of the MX missile to the impact of the Western landscape on art and science. For anyone interested in exploring the regional identity of the West, That Awesome Space is an invaluable tool packed with insightful perspectives guaranteed to provoke thought. The "awesome space," a description that accurately captures the Western vastness, is defined as the region between the Continental Divide on the Rockies to the crest of the West Coast Ranges, the Cascades and Sierras. If one thing comes clear from this book, it is that this space has accommodated many "Wests"; regional identity is a fluid and evolving thing. Was the essential West lost with the closing of the frontier? In "Western Time and Western History," Stephen J. Pyne says no: "The West was not completely assimilated; it has retained its separate regional identity. Western time did not cease, but merged into a brave new imiverse of atoms and quasars . . . that awesome space in time did not vanish with the passing of the frontier; it is only being recycled." the West is undergoing vast changes, this book makes clear, shifting from an agrarian culture to one based on technology and industry. Says Alvin M. Josephy, Jr. in his essay, "Colonialism in Today's West," "The West is still a colony. Decisions affecting most parts of the area .. . are stiU being made in board rooms... all over the world by people who have never been out here and don't know what the West is aU about ... In short, we must recognize that history is still beng made in the West." For aU the development, there is stiU power in the land that brings forth "the truth of inmost being, that surging and resurgent current of life in us to which the world around us is tributary, pouring forth its influences tike water out of a living rock, so long as we keep the source and the stream from defilement and depletion," writes Brewster Ghiselin in his essay, "The Altered Landscape." The book gives no final answer to the question, "What is the West?" and suggests there is no final answer. We each create our own West. In the creation of that understanding, in the development of an individual vision of that awesome space, this book is a tool, a guide and downright enjoyable reading. — Patrick Mazza The Nine Nations ofNorth America, by Joel Garreau, 1981,427 pp., $14.95 from: Houghton Mifflin 2 Park St. Boston, Mass. 02107 This book is based on a fascinating concept, that North America is reaUy nine nations, each with its own identity. Their existence endlessly confuses the affairs of "fictional"nations like the U.S.A., Canada and Mexico. Garreau has an entertaining, anecdotal style and a good eye for images and vignettes, but he displays real failures of vision. I read Garreau this way: yoimgish, liberal, Washington, D.C. journalist who has bought into many of the misguided notions of dominance, power and exploitation that pervade the U.S. capital. For instance, he defines three of the nine "nations" by their prevailing economies: mining and energy production in the unfortunately nam^ "Empty Quarter" (the Rockies and Arctic), grain growing in "The Breadbasket" (the Great Plains), heavy industry in "TTie Foundry" (the Eastern Seaboard and Great Lakes regions). In doing this, Garreau obscures real cultural distinctions such as those between the conservative Southern Plains and the more progressive Northern Plains, between high rolling Coloradans ancj the traditionalist Mormons of the Deseret Kingdom (the Mormons would have called Utah "Deseret" if the U.S. government had let them), and between the intensity of the Middle Atlantic regions and the more stolid approach of Great Lakes dwellers. A nation is more than a crop or industry. It is a shared set of values, perceptions and cultural patterns. Garreau does not appear to hiUy recognize this. Perhaps nine nations are easier to comprehend than the 20, 30, 50 or more that actually exist in North America. The author also fails to ask the hard questions about the exploitative relationships that imderlie many of his "nations." A glaring example of this is the scanty attention he gives to the desp>erate poverty of "The Islands" (South Florida plus islands of the Caribbean). Garreau is more interested in telling tales of gunrunners and drug smugglers. In a similar vein, he includes the native peoples of the Arctic in the "Empty Quarter," even though they have their own culture and languages and have asked for recognition as a separate nation known as Nunuvik. Garreau seems to display the standard American attitude toward traditional peoples — if they don't have a developed, modem economy and an impressive capital city, they are not a nation. The book is also somewhat weak on abuse of the land. The soil erosion and groundwater depletion that could make much of the Great Plains into a "Used- to-be-Breadbasket" in our lifetimes gets no ink. Yet despite these gaps Garreau shows himself to be a perceptive observer about some things. For example, in his report on Ecotopia, the West Coast nation, he accurately describes the region's cultural contradiction between ecological consciousness and the proliferation of high technology defense industries and bases. (We're working on that.) In the chapter on MexAmerica (northern Mexico plus parts of the American Southwest where Hispanics are a large portion of the population), the author makes a fascinating reference to a Hispanic belief that this land ■will one day be a place of peace and justice called Aztlan. May it soon come to pass. The Nine Nations of North America helps build an understanding of this continent as one of distinct regions, not a monoculture. But it is oversimplified and does not address many of the most important issues facng the continent. The Nine Nations is a good try at forming an important concept, but the book that really tells us how North America works is stiU to be written. — Patrick Mazza
Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAffsI Page 11 The Future is Abundant, edited by Lany Kom, Barbara Snyder and Mark Musick, 1982, 192 pp., $11.95 plus $1.00 p & h (Washington residents add $.70 for sales tax) from: Tilth 13217 Mattson Rd. Arlington, WA 98223 In the midst of the present agricultural crisis, unmatched since the Dust Bowl years, the notion of an abundant farming future may seem nciive. What could our friends at Tilth be thinking of to stride so far into tomorrow? They are thinking of restoration and resiliency on land overworked and out of balance. Of hedgerow habitats and bat, bee and butterfly sheltering. Perennial grains and urban forests and tomorrow's yields entrusted to us today. When we've finally begun to understand this goal of sustainability; of keeping all of the parts working together because they are connected and it matters, where can we turn for the specifics? We need to know which plants, and where, and why. What grains are indeed perennial? How do we interplant to cut down on costly maintenance? The Future is Abundant is the most carefully detailed and timely guide to sustainable agriculture available. While it is designed for the Pacific Northwest bioregion, it is filled with information of equal value to other bioregions. If you're a land lover, you'll love this book. You'll love the lists and the indices, the people described and their reverence for their work. The Future is Abundant is a practical catalogue filled with hope. — Carlotta Collette THE FUTURE IS ABUNDANT The resiliency of any given city to a food/fuel crisis in the 1980s will depend largely upon its capacity to meet at least some of its awn basic food and fuel needs. While this idea may seem novel or even preposterous to some, thefact remains that through thefirst halfof this century, most urban areas around the world produced a significant amount of food and other items required by local residents. Production was not limited to the urban fringe but included substantial yields in home gardens and market gardens within the cities themselves. The best beescapes are composed ofa mixture of farmland, meadows and open woodlands which contain an abundance of legumes, herbs, wildflowers, fruits and berries. People who have studied the economics ofbeescaping say that it is not economically sound to plant farmland to plants whose sole purpose is bee forage. Many of the best bee plants, however, also have value for other purposes. For example, fruit and berry producing plants are excellent sources of nectar and pollen. Black locust trees are heavy nectar producers and are potentially valuable sources of hardwood. Many culinary and medicinal herbs . . . are favored by bees. The use ofdense, semi-permeable hedges ofshrubs and trees in rows surrounding and sometimes interspersed within an orchard has several important bmefits, including diversion ofwinds to reduce evaporation, blossom damage, fruit fall, and winterfreeze damage. Frost control can be facilitated by blocking and diversionary windbreaks. Hedges can provide feeding and refuge sites for beneficial insects and wildlife, create privacy, provide wood products during thinning, and, in time, can become effective fences. They will moderate heating loads around buildings, control drifting snow and erosion, and protect livestock. Or- chardists might well consider interplanting nitrogen producing trees and shrubs in the orchard to provide on-site nitrogen production.
Page 12 RAEsl Aug.-Sept. 1982 Eco-Decentralist Design, 3 volume set, including Figures ofRegulation: GuidesforRe-Balancing Society with the Biosphere, by Peter Beig; Toward a Bioregional Modei: Clearing Groundfor Watershed Planning, by George Tukel; and Reinhabiting Cities and Towns: Designing for Sustainability, by John Todd with George Tukel. Entire set $10.00 ppd.; free with a $15.00 annual Planet Drum Foundation membership which also includes a subscription to the tri-annual publication Raise the Stakes, from: Planet Drum Foundation P.O.Box 31251 San Francisco, CA 94131 Planet Drum publications have appeared in a variety offorms over the years: a special issue of the Berkeley Barb on reinhabitation; a planning document for the California Solar Business Office called Renewable Energy and Bioregions: A New Context for Public Policy; a couple of issues of Co-Evolution Quarterly; and their excellent periodical, Raise The Stakes. One of the Drum's favorite mediums of publication has been the bundle, packages ofmaterials from networks of bioregional correspondents, including the writings ofpoet Gary Snyder. So here is a new bundle of material from Planet Drum, artful and wise as always, an introduction to the ideas ofbioregional planning. Reinhabiting Qties and Tovms is mostly John Todd’s writing, with ideas that may be familiar to followers of New Alchemy experiments, such as bioshelters, set in the context of bio-regional planning and community-wide/region-wide strategies. Part I deals with the ecological and biological basis fen design of hurrmn services and Part II describes, with New York City as a primary example, the biogeography and history ofa region as a perspective for appropriate habitation of the land. The third section deals with specific strategies for development of local life support systems: water, housing, food production, transportation and energy. Toward a Bioregional Model, by George Tukel, provides the groundwork for development of bioregional planning models. It is a good introduction, defining such terms as "energetics" and "carrying capacity.” It also makes evident that we need more detailed real watershed and bioregional plans that comefrom inhabitants in different areas of the country with real data, real problems. Peter Berg takes on the single most difficult, and perhaps the most powerful idm in the series in Figures of Regulation: Guides for Re-Balancing Society with the Biosphere. Figures ofregulation is a term derived from anthropology to describe the common sense rules, rituals and traditions used fy native cultures to regulate their re- lationshps with their immediate natural environment. In Figures of Regulation and throughout the bundle it is clear that Planet Drum is not just attempting to define a type of environmental management; bioregional planning may start from a firm sense of the environment but it also takes into account the present state of, and possible futures for, cities and towns. And there is probably no more critical issuefacing us today than bridging the gaps between city, town, suburb, country and wilderness. If we continue to conceptually isolate our forms of inhabitation all the singular wise goals ofenvironmental management, sustainable agriculture and community economic development may be for naught. The Planet Drum package presents us with some beginning working tools to repair the broken fabric. — Steve Johnson mii 0 DESIGNING FOR Figures of regulation is a workable phrase for the new equivalents to customs that we need to learn. Late Industrial society with its misplaced faith in technological solutions (to problems caused by unlimited applications of technology in the first place) is out of control. Our social organism is like an embryo that is suffering damage but there are no internal checks on our activities to re-establish a balance with the capacities of natural systems. The point of figures of regulation is that they would incorporate the concept that individual requirements and those of society are tied to the life processes of a bioregion. A bioregional model can identify balance points in our interactions with natural systems, and figures of regulation can operate to direct or limit activities to achieve balance. , The idea of a figure as a series of movements in a dance is useful for understanding the mulh-layered nature of figures of regulation. The performance of a dance follows a distinct sense of rightness that would otherwise exist only as an idea, and it suggests connectedness with many other activities and ideas. It is a process that makes the invisible visible. As a dance unfolds it implies further action that is self-referenced by what has gone before. i Figures of regulation are assemblages of values and ideas ^ that can siniilarly become ingrained in patterns of ac-
Aug.-Sept. 1982 RAIN Page 13 ^ According to the classical model, production and prices are determined by the economic choices of consumers and producers who inevitably act in accord with some timeless human nature: to maximize utility and profit, respectively. This description of consistent economic behavior enables theorists to justify their conclusion and prescription; that “social benefit" is maximized by the natural outcome of simplistic economic choices, notwithstanding any irreparable damage to the biosphere. This rapid translation from "what is" to "what should be" says more about the premises of industrial society (that is, maximizing consumption and profit) than it does about the reality of humankind's diverse ways of interacting within equally diverse societies and ecosystems. Exploring or rediscovering these myriad pathways of endeavor means, first of all, abandoning the "value-free" description of the human species as "rational economic animal." As a map, rather than a blueprint, a bioregional model, while retaining the devices of the scientific method, looks past its "impartial observer" status to maintaining the health and diversity of the life-place. The result is confirmation of our membership in the wider life-conununity. This new cultural identity as reinhabitants also mitigates against the exploitation and destruction of natural life-forms and processes wrought by their objectification. 59 from Toward a Bioregional Model SUSTAINABILITY tivity. . . . An abundance of natural life in an unscarred environment is a consequence of restoring and maintaining a bioregion, and will provide evidence that figures of regulation are working. Social success or progress would also be measured by increased quality of life such as providing diverse work opportunities for individuals to interact with natural systems. Rather than feeling alienated from society and the life-community as many do currently, people would be able to view themselves as belonging to both. Individuals, society and the bioregion would be interconnected rather than existing as separate entities. A political manifestation of this connectedness could be in the establishment of small-scale bioregional governments with watershed-bounded units. Smaller, more naturally defined political entities would present many more opportunities for participation in the political process than currently exist, and decisions resulting from direct democracy would be more prevalent. The spirit of these governments could be mutualistic and nonhier- archical as a reflection of the operation of the biosphere itself. 5 5 — from Figures ofRegulation • • For 99.9 percent or several million years of (our) history. Homo sapiens lived in the wild, often very well. This association with the wild, both secular and sacred, has left its mark on our psyches and on our behavior. Vestiges linger in hunting, fishing, birdwatching, nature photography and gardening. Caged in skyscrapers and in box architecture we sense a loss, yet we Imow not what. My thesis is that the loss we feel is the loss of balance between culture and the living world. No western culture has achieved this balance in historic times. But it yet may happen, through the mysterious workings of science and technologies, that for the first time in millenia, the polar opposites of culture and wilderness can now be fused. It is time for nature again to enter culture and become part of the fabric of our lives. It is more than a metaphor to think of a future city block built in the image of the forest. Such a block or neighborhood could have architectural forms, structural relationships and support elements designed after the forest and could be a beautiful, healing and inviting place to live. 9 9 from Reinhabiting Cities and Towns
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