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Page 2 RAIN February/March 1982 LETTERS Dear RAIN, January was a particularly good issue. Like Stokes' article/interview. He makes good sense. Which is why I suppose he's not in government! Too bad. Tim Bowser Berkeley, CA Dear Carlotta, In my "air document" which I picked up at the Ppkhara airport on Dec. 24th was your great volume—Knowing Home! What a wonderful glimpse of home and all the precious places. Many Thanks! Now it serves a daily purpose of being my writing desk—it's the biggest smooth surface I have. (!!??) Keep up your good works—I think you could do great work here too—but it makes good sense to stay home to do your work. Best wishes, Prue Kaye Peace Corps Volunteer Nepal Dear Friends, Thank you for your visionary work. Knowing Home. It is very inspirational for those in Austin who share the same vision and see the crisis as an opportunity for change and evolution into a new, nurturing and sustainable society. We are fighting the same battle in Austin as in Portland, although we are under even greater pressure to grow, grow, grow. Thanks for the needed inspiration. Rick Manning Austin, TX Dear RAIN, Just a note to let you know I am still reading and enjoying RAIN. When I began work at the Alternative Energy Corporation in June, I added RAIN to the list of periodicals for our new library. Knowing Home is particularly good and deserves a careful re-reading. I expect to use it as a resource document in designing projects for our community program. Steve Clinehens North Carolina Alternative Energy Corporation Research Triangle Park, NC Dear RAIN, I want to extend the Oregon Historical Society's, as well as my own, congratual- tions to you and all others associated with RAIN for an excellent new publication. Knowing Home. I have read it with much pleasure and interest and am recommending it to others here and in the community with whom I meet. Chet Orloff Development Officer Oregon Historical Society Portland, OR Dear Laura, Thanks for your article on forestry (RAIN V1II:2,12). We can certainly use more of it. As a woodworker, I daily note the differences in wood due to age. Old growth (and old second growth) certainly outshines young trees in almost every respect. However, I very much doubt that "new housing will need to be replaced every generation" (30 yrs. ?). Construction details and maintenance are far more significant. From whence comes this projection? [Ed. note: From Tree Talk, by Ray Raphael, reviewed with the article.] I am told (by my tree planting friend) that reforestation of logged areas is two years behind. Yet unemployed loggers won't touch tree planting and have, on occasion, been extremely obnoxious to employed tree planters. I wonder how it's even possible for those who steward the health of the woods to stand by and allow the forest to be clearcut. Joe Lubischer Bainbridge Is. WA Vol. VIIINo. 5 RAIN February/March 1982 Journal of Appropriate Technology RAIN Magazine publishes information which can lead people to more simple and satisfying lifestyles, help communities and regions become economically self-reliant, and build a society that is durable, just, and ecologically sound. RAIN STAFF: John Ferrell, Mark Roseland, Carlotta Collette, Laura Stuchinsky, Steve Rudman, Nancy Cosper, Steve Johnson, Lisa Conrad, Salena Baker. Linnea Gilson, Graphic Design. 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 © 1982 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. Typesetting: Irish Setter Printing: Times Litho Cover Photograph: Ancil Nance
February/March 1982 RAIN Page 3 4 <■ Dear RAIN, Your publication means so much these days-—a glimmer ol hope in a sea of frustrations. Mike Geringer Seattle, WA Hi, I saw a mention of RAIN in a 1978 copy of Briarpatch and was wondering if you are still in existence and if so why ? D.E. Wahaus Monroe, OR Dear D.E., Yes, we are alive and kicking. As to why, that's a question we sometimes ask ourselves. Dear Friends, How come there are so few female names among your principals and writers? Suggest you get a copy of the “Feminism & Ecology" issue (#13) of Heresies Magazine, published at P.O. Box 766, Canal Street Station, New York City, N.Y. 10013—an unlikely address for a project that bills itself as “Earthkeeping/Earthshaking,'' but there are some mind-shaking insights. I've been defending Earth in a variety of ways, physical and writing, for a good part of my 83 years, latterly (27 years) with a fully organic garden. My Druid Heights home is dedicated to Gaia. Like your poster/flyer. Happy Winter Solstice, Elsa Gidlow Mill Valley, CA Dear Elsa, You must be thinking of a former RAIN staff when you suggest that we are all men. Laura, Nancy, Salena, Lisa, and regular contributors Gail and Tanya all join me in making certain that a woman's presence is maintained here. We're sending along our own "Feminism and Ecology" issue for your perusal. Hope you enjoy it. Happy Vernal Equinox to you! Carlotta Dear RAIN (Carlotta), Belatedly, this is to say thanks for the most intelligent review we've gotten yet for Delores Wolfe's Growing Food in Solar Greenhouses. We're not surprised, of course, that it came from RAIN. But we do want to express our appreciation. You read it! And you got the point! And you liked it! Thanks! Sandra Otto Sunwords Editorial Services, Inc. Hurley, NY CORRECTION In our January issue we ran an article on irrigation development in the Pacific Northwest ("Whither Water: Wet Fields or Water Power?") but didn't tell you about our knowledgeable guest writer. Diane Jones is a member of the Idaho Citizens Coalition and author of the 1981 publication Water, Energy and Land—Public Resources and Irrigation Development in the Pacific Northwest reviewed in that same issue. ACCESS CONSERVATION "What to Look For in Window Insulation," by Jennifer A. Adams, Solar Age, January 1982, $2.50, from: Solar Age Magazine Church Hill Harrisville, NH 03450 This is probably the most succinct consumer's introduction to insulating window coverings around. If you're planning to invest in insulated curtains, shutters or shades, and yet know you'll never read one of the excellent but long books on the subject (see RAIN VI:9,6) at least read this article. It will explain basic heat loss principles, types of insulators, some potential product hazards and leave you with a lot of good shopping savvy. Sadly, the "Window Insulating Directory" also in this issue will test your consumer skepticism. The Directory is an attempt to "put you in touch with the ' manufacturers who have the right products for your building or home." The problem is that they provide little information to help you weigh one product over another. You'll have to do what architects and designers do; send for the manufacturer's product information, and then try to compare from that. Since no manufacturer is likely to tell you that their product is so-so in snugness or durability while another is really better, you'll be stuck back at the beginning, looking for a consumer's guide. Sorry. —CC Energy Saving Decorating, by Judy Lindahl, 1981,128 pp., $5.95 ppd., from: Judy Lindahl 3211 N.E. Siskiyou Portland, OR 97212 I wonder whether very many people, on their way to buy fabric for curtains, would stop at the conservation and energy section of their library first. Not many, Tm sure, and yet that visit could help them create a home that's not only prettier but warmer (or cooler) and less costly to keep that way. So given that decorators and do-it-yourselfers are not necessarily energy scholars, this little book could prove to be more useful and more used than some more academic or Scientific ones. Why? Because you're more likely to find it at fabric stores, and it's anything but intimidating. Judy Lindahl manages to convey just about all the conservation data you'll need and can absorb, without getting bogged down in it, but goes beyond that to discuss the psychological role of color and other elements that make a space feel warmer without any real temperature changes. Then she describes, with designs, directions and excellent material resource lists, several sewable insulators, from curtains to comforters. All in all, this may not be the best book on energy conservation, but if it gets the distribution it deserves, it may end up being one of the most "cost-effective." -;-CC
Page4 RAIN February/March 1982 ENERGY Our Energy: Regaining Control, by Marc H. Ross and Robert H. Williams, 1980, 354 pp., $16.95 from: McGraw-Hill 1221 Avenue of the Americas New York, NY 10020 The title of this book seems to offer the American people control of "our energy." But it may not really be the book we've been waiting for. Our Energy will not help us gain control, it will only reinforce the control already held by government and large-scale industry. Since the Arab oil embargo of 1973, which marked the end of an era of superabundance, Americans have faced a crisis: we must learn to live with less energy instead of using more and more each year. Some of us believe that this crisis offers us an opportunity to restructure our political, economic and social systems. Others, such as Marc Ross and Robert Williams, view energy scarcity as simply a technical challenge for the existing system to meet. Ross and Williams have a scheme to break the pattern of runaway energy growth, using "saved energy as the major resource." Like the Energy Project team at Harvard Business School, Ross and Williams show that by conserving energy we can reduce or eliminate our need for imported oil and new power plants. They point out areas where energy savings are readily available in homes and buildings, transportation, industrial processes, and neighborhood power networks, and they suggest public policy strategies to encourage conservation, primarily by bringing energy prices up to marginal energy costs. A tax on energy would enhance the effect of decontrol on the energy market, they claim, and would stimulate conservation. They fortify their argument with well- documented descriptive and graphic examples. The technical information is useful and easy to understand, and their knowledge of energy-conserving technology is apparent in all of their well-thought-out explanations. But as physicists, Ross and Williams are fascinated with technically innovative gadgets which save energy. Because of this fascination, they tend to ignore simpler solutions to energy problems. They believe that energy needs "can be examined from a technical viewpoint," and so ignore any other perspective. As a result, their suggestions rely on highly technical devices that are likely to be both mysterious and expensive to the average consumer. They propose, for example, a government or industry-sponsored program in which trained professionals with pressurizers, infrared cameras, and calculators analyze energy leaks in houses; any homeowner can do the same thing with a window fan, a roll of tape, a cigarette, and a free instruction pamphlet from Lawrence Berkeley Laboratories (Technical Information Department, Lawrence Berkeley Labs, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720). Ross and Williams conclude their work by "Reinventing America," designing a future that will maintain the lifestyle of the seventies but will use less energy to do so. Reinvented America keeps economic growth as its primary goal, though this growth is powered by saving energy instead of producing it. Their proposal offers no change from the economic inequality of pre-scarcity times. The poor will remain poor in Reinvented America because "effective policies to attack energy problems cannot also be expected to solve age-old distribution problems." In fact, their economic proposal would make matters worse; their energy-saving programs would be paid for in large part by low-income people. Utility loan programs, available mainly to relatively wealthy homeowners but paid for by all classes of ratepayers, benefit the rich at the expense of the poor. And Ross and William's proposed energy tax would hit the poor hardest, both because they spend the largest fraction of their income on energy essentials and because they are the people who can least afford to purchase energy saving devices. Although Ross and Williams assume that people will consume less energy if it costs more, economists studying the phenomenon are not so sure. Many think the effect of energy price on demand varies considerably from one group of energy users to another. The poor, in particular, may be less able to respond to price signals than other groups. Ross and Williams' whole analysis is based on straight "freemarket" economics, but energy behavior may not fall neatly along those principles. Sociology and psychology I may describe energy use patterns as well as or better than economics. For instance, even a rational consumer well aware of the high energy cost of a luxury car may choose the psychplogical and social benefits of prestige instead of the economic benefits of fuel-efficiency. All three disciplines, and in fact many others, must be brought to bear on the issues that surround American energy use. Ross and Williams fail to see the full extent of the problem they consider. American energy, American politics, and American culture are inextricably entangled. We cannot solve our energy problems without considering the social behavior which reinforces them; nor can we make our political system truly effective until everyone's energy needs are met. A "technical viewpoint" is not nearly broad enough. The crisis goes beyond thermodynamics, and it doesn't match up. with neo-classical economic models. What we need, and what Ross and Williams do not provide, is a completely new, interdisciplinary approach to an utterly new situation. —Laura Arnow Laura is a freelance writer and former staffer for Not Man Apart. BUILDING Low-Cost Green Lumber Construction, by Leigh Seddon, 1981,161 pp., $8.95, from: Garden Way Publishing Charlotte, VT 05445 Owner-builders who want to save money by using roughsawn, green, native wood from local sawmills will find this book invaluable. This is a comprehensive guide, with'chapters on selecting and buying the wood, stacking and drying it, construction techniques, and building systems. Instructions for a solar kiln are included in case you want to save money by buying green but don't want to take on the challenge of building green. Seddon explicitly lists disadvantages of building green, as well as uses not suited to green wood (such as window frames). Interviews with people who have built their own green wood houses give other perspectives on building green—costs, comments, mistakes, and praise. —Tanya Kucak
February/March 1982 RAIN Page 5 by Fred Heutte On January 22,1982, two large nuclear projects in Washington State were cancelled (“terminated," in the bloodless jargon of the electric power industry) by WPPSS, the Washington Public Power Supply System, which actually consists of over 100 publicly-owned utilities in Washington, Oregon, northern California, Idaho and Montana. These plants have long been considered the bellweather of nuclear power's future, and were involved in years of behind-the- scenes struggle that ended in cancellation. But curiously, no environmental or anti-nuclear group ever mounted a legal challenge to these plants. They were dragged down solely by the ominous, inevitable financial burden that underlies every nuclear plant. And the bell is now ringing for the decline and eventual disappearance of nuclear power. Like all technologies, environmental, economic and social costs of energy production increase according to the distance from human scale. In other words, we need to pay attention to the scale of economies, not just the economies of scale. It's no surprise that subatomic energy release—the smallest of physical interactions—requires the containment and regulation of the largest and most complex machine, a nuclear power plant. The social commitment needed to assemble the vast resources for a nuclear plant requires a corresponding mass mystical belief in the necessity of the concept. Few true believers in our society can match the fervor of the nuclear advocate. On a broader level, the organization of a vast, money-based economy requires a similar sort of devotion, especially at its switches. And at the center sits the bond market, a mechanism for allocating capital to direct the future development of society. When the bond dealers and the nuclear managers get together, the results are spectacular and disastrous. Bonds are basically fixed-interest loans, like a car or home loan but several magnitudes larger. Interest rates are fixed by a consummately rational, quantified process balancing risk (as judged by the ardently pro-nuclear rating agencies, Moody's and Standard & Poor) and yield. The riskier the investment, theoretically, the greater the yield. But with nuclear power, the bond market has lived for ten years with a suspension of rational judgement, since all their information has come from the nuclear managers themselves. And here, on the Wall Street municipal bond market, the energy and economic imperatives of megacorporate civilization meet their absurd, devastating conclusion. WPPSS has already borrowed $2.25 billion for plants 4 and 5, and another $7 billion for plants 1, 2 and 3 begun earlier in the 1970s, making it the largest municipal debtor in the nation. Yet this total—nearly $10 billion—is less than half of the current total cost for the five reactors of $24 billion. The plants were originally estimated to cost "only" $4.1 billion just six years ago. As with car and home loans, the basic principle for bond loans is the same: the biggest bite comes from interest payments. The total repayment obligation of WPP55 (principal plus interest) for plants 4 and 5 is $9 billion, and for plants 1, 2 and 3—still under lull construction—nearly $25 billion. Over $35 billion will flow out of the Pacific Northwest in the next 30 years, a consequence of the folly of equating energy production and economic growth. This amounts to about six months of current Gross Regional Product. These tremendous increases have been caused by perfectly obvious problems which affect all nuclear construction projects, much less five simultaneous ones: delays, cost overruns, labor disputes, NRC regulation changes and, most importantly, WPP55 mismanagement. Yet, through the tricks of the rarefied world of high finance, the ratepayers in the region have been sheltered from the real cost of the plants. Instead of paying the interest due on the delayed plants through electric rate increases, WPPSS simply borrowed more money! Half of recent bond issues have been devoted to interest payments rather than construction costs, further jacking up the long-term regional hemorrhage of capital. And still none of the five plants may ever produce a single kilowatt-hour of power. The bonds will be paid back, though, "come hell or high water." This is a technical phrase used on Wall Street to illustrate that the lenders—corporate capitalists who use these tax-free bonds to shelter their other income—hold long-term bonds in great reverence. In effect, they are the most secure contracts in our legal/financial system. No matter who runs the Northwest's electric utilities, the rates will be raised and the bonds repaid. A default on these bonds would wreck the bond market, the central clock of the American economy. But the outflow of $1 billion annually from the Northwest, even if it can be sustained fiscally, is a grave blow to an economy already sickened by the collapse of the timber industry. The only way to underwrite the economy of the region, the only way to maintain jobs, the only way to assure adequate and affordable energy, and incidentally the only way to repay the WPPSS bonds, is to embark on a crash program of energy conservation and renewable energy development. Fortunately, we will always have power, since most of our electricity is already renewable, derived from the famed Columbia River hydrosystem which includes the Bonneville, Grand Coulee and two dozen other dams (of course, at again another cost, the life of the river). And the energy conservation industry in the Northwest is employing as many people today as WPPSS did at its height, while delivering conservation and safe energy now, at lower cost and minimal environmental damage. No one talks about acre-wide solar flat plate collectors, because these approaches work best at or near human scale. Consequently, the prospects are good for enhancement of an energy-efficient, distributive economy. If we succeed, the cost of WPPSS in our electric rates will be a constant pocketbook reminder of the road almost taken. The alternative is permanent regional depression. The decision is in the hands of the bond dealers now, and it's in their best interest to lend us long-term, cheap capital—Energy Savings Bonds if you will—to save us from the economic destruction caused by nuclear power. □□ Fred Heutte is statewide coordinator of the Solar Oregon Lobby (SOL) and Executive Director of Oregon Solar Energy Industries Association (OSEIA).
Page 6 RAIN February/March 1982 Ecotopia Emerging, by Ernest Callen- bach, 1981, 326 pp., $7.95, published by Banyan Tree Books, available from: Bookpeople 2940 Seventh St. Berkeley, CA 94710 "Ecotopia is an imaginary place, yet it is all around us, in the process of becoming. Eco- topians enjoy a way of living that respects the natural order instead of seeking ever new ways to exploit it. They care about trees, grasses, solar and geothermal power as replacements for dwindling petrochemical resources. They favor small-scale industry and strong neighborhoods. They preserve wilderness, and they also plant trees in cities, turn parking lots into parks, and prefer walking or bicycling—good for their health, good for the biosphere—to driving. . . . People work only twenty hours per week and accept a lower consumption of material goods in order to free more time for play, creativity, love, friendship. —Ernest Callenbach The novel Ecotopia is the story of the secession of Northern California, Oregon and Washington from the United States to form an ecologically responsible country. Combining appropriate technologies with sane values and good fiction, Callenbach described the adventures in 1999 of William Weston, the first U.S. journalist to visit the new nation since Independence some years earlier. The story was promptly rejected by more than 20 major publishers. With only slightly wavering determination Callenbach organized Banyan Tree Books and, in essence, published the novel himself in 1975. Ecotopia became an underground classic among ecofreaks everywhere, and in the Pacific Northwest it fanned the flames of regional imagination in living rooms, cafes, and meeting places. College teachers used the book for discussion and debate. After its fourth printing Bantam Books purchased mass paperback rights. To date, more than 200,000 copies are in print in Germany, France, Italy, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, Spain, French Canada and Great Britain. (Bantam is coming out with a cheaper edition of the new book this spring, but if it looks like the last one, you'll be happier spending the extra money for the Banyan Tree edition. Besides, you won't have to wait!) Full of quirky details on Ecotopian lifestyles and relationships, organic agriculture, worker ownership, biodegradable plastics chemistry, ritual (rather than real) war games, and a host of other intricacies, Ecotopia only vaguely alluded to how the Pacific Northwest of today became the Ecotopian nation of the late 1980s. A lot of people were wondering. Hence, this "prequel" to the original novel. Ecotopia Emerging has elements of good strategy. Perfect? Of course not. But fun, readable, and stimulating. Dotted with familiar characters, such as Indian activist Ramona Dukane (any resemblance to RAIN contributor Winona LaDuke is "entirely coincidental"), the story is inspiring and encouraging. Callenbach has a marvelous knack for linking events, trends and phenomena. Looking backward from his crystal ball lends cohesion and credibility to today's chaos and confusion. Ecotopia makes our long-term goals seem possible, our daily struggles worthwhile. Read Ecotopia Emerging, give it to a friend, talk about it, criticize it, debate it, act on it. Ecotopia is becoming real. Let's speed up the process of becoming. —MR ECOTOPIA EMERGING by Ernest Callenbach Ecotopia Emerging is twice as long as the original novel, with four times as many characters, plots, sub-plots, and so on. The following excerpts, reprinted with permission, only give a taste of the book's flavor. The underlying concern of the emerging Ecotopian movement is the biological survival of the region and its inhabitants, "that the species should learn to survive on earth in harmony with the rest of the biosphere." We follow the Survivalist Party from its inception in California state senator Vera Allwen's living room to the Ecotopian "constitutional convention" about 10 years later. Along the way we witness the education of a political process. —MR The organizers of the Survivalist Party knew the dangers of preaching only to the converted. Instead, they concentrated on ways to turn the converted into preachers too. And so Survivalist ideas about education gave a new sense of possibilities to enterprising teachers. Survivalist worker-ownership ideas found a startlingly wide and deep response among people who worked in factories, stores, warehouses, offices. And the Survivalists reached out also to
February/March 1982 RAIN Page 7 religious groups, seeking to mobilize their sense of concern for the human condition, to dramatize the plight and the possibilities that faced society after a hundred years of heedless and irresponsible industrial exploitation. Sometimes they did this with standard doctrinal appeals to Christian stewardship, but sometimes also with a new sense of poetry. There were even Survivalists who spoke with the fervor of evangelists. Their meetings gradually acquired a name: Vision Bringing, from the ancient idea that vyhere there is no vision, the people perish. "Now, O my sisters and brothers, let us speak of Original Sin. "There are many sins we commit today; we know what they are. But let us think far back, beyond our ancestors, to the time of Adam and Eve. Let us not take that story too literally—insulting as it is, to both women and men, to imagine that man was created first, and then woman created as an afterthought. But let us return in our minds to the Garden of Eden, the original paradise. The place in which, at first, no human beings were, but instead creatures something like us, creatures with infinite slowness growing bigger brains, more useful thumbs, creatures finally learning to speak, to sing, to be human!" ("Hallelujah!" came the audience's response.) "The Garden, then, the place in which the new human beings needed to wear no clothes, for the tropical air was balmy. The place where ripe sweet fruit dropped from the trees, where fish and shellfish were abundant in the warm rivers and seas. The place where all beings lived in a terrible and beautiful harmony, each one eating and being eaten in turn, to the glory of life!" (Amen, sister!' ) "For it was not the eating that was the Original Sin. ^11 creatures were created as eaters. Even the lowliest worms and grasses in the Garden, each had its own food—organisms and substances proper and ready for each to eat. As day followed day and moon followed moon, the insects fed upon the flowers, the birds fed upon the insects, animals fed upon birds' eggs, and the rich decayed remains of dead birds and animals went back into the soil to fertilize the growth of new plants and flowers. All this was the great circle of life, my beloved friends—fearful and strange, but it was the law of the Garden. "And human beings too lived within this holy circle. They wandered about gathering fruits by day, but when night fell they cowered in their caves until the tigers came, and sometimes their young were devoured as they played in the sun. Disease microbes thrived in their stagnant waterpots, and sometimes the parasites would grow in their bellies until they died. And lo, their average age at death was 25 years. So their populations of small bands stretched thinly over the land, only eatirig what the Garden made ready to be eaten. They upset the great natural order of the Garden no more than a leopard or a snail. "And so things went, O sisters and brothers, for more generations than the people could count. They hunted and gathered and fished in the ways their parents handed down, and the great earth in its majesty ceaselessly circled the warming sun, which gave light, made the plants to surge up from the earth, caused water to evaporate and then return as blessed rain." ("Hallelujah!") "Thus things stood in the Garden for two million years after human beings first appeared. And all those thousands of generations came and went, and things remained the same. Those, O sisters and brothers, were the generations before the Fall, when all creatures and beings lived together upon the earth in equality. For some were strong in one way, but weak in another. Each had suitable gifts, of strength or guile or agility, fitting it to eat some other creatures, and each was eaten when its time came. The cycle endlessly turned. If we were there we would have thought that things would go on thus forever without cease—and without sin." ("Amen! ) "But then, O sisters and brothers, a great and terrible thing happened. We do not know exactly how it happened, or who did it. But instead of wandering about in the Garden, gathering food where they could find it, perhaps occasionally planting a little patch of yams but then moving on, humans discovered that they could plant and cultivate fields year after year. This sounds innocent enough, does it not? Who could blame them, who could call this quiet, industrious, cautious, productive change the Original Sin? But verily I say unto you, this was the root of Evil, this was truly the Devil's work. For consider what happened next. The people began to study the seeds of plants to select the best ones, so that next year's crop might be larger and stronger. They improved the soil so that it could produce more grain, and they began to regard land as private property, valuable and to be kept from others. Moreover, this productive land could grow more grain than they could use, so they could trade it to other people—for salt, or shells, or furs. "Some believe that it was women, caring for their babies in settled campsites, who thus invented agriculture, and that understanding crop plants constituted the Tree of Knowledge, and that when Eve in the Bible story offered Adam the apple, she was entrapping him into agricultural society, the life of exploiting the Garden. At any rate, when men stopped hunting and gathering, and began settled agriculture, they soon developed Sin! They learned clubs, and then armies, to defend their fields and the market cities that grew up among the fields. They learned government, to tax the fields and support bigger armies, police, roads, temples and priesthoods. They learned fortifications, and metals and poisons. They also learned dietary and public health precautions. And lo, their numbers increased. They invented gods who told them to go forth and multiply, and subdue all the creatures among whom they had once lived "A suicidal national government, a government that seems bent on devouring its people rather than nurturing them, forfeits our allegiance. We did not choose this situation. But we must recognize realities. My friends, dear friends- we are on our own!" in peace. They domesticated animals for power and developed machines like windmills to harness the forces of nature; they turned the Garden into a Factory. Their numbers rose unto the fifth and tenth powers over those of the tiny tribelets that had inhabited the Garden, and their cities and the filth they produced overran the rivers and the atmosphere. Until by our times, O my people, no square foot of earth anywhere, no matter how remote, was left unpolluted by our plutonium, our chemicals. And our interference in the circle of being had no limits. We killed off the wolves so we could graze sheep unhindered, then wondered why coyotes came to take their place. We chopped down the forests, then complained of floods and erosion. We developed chemical poisons for insects, then could not see why these chemicals also poisoned us—or why the fast-breeding insects soon developed resistance to them, while we did not. "Now you may ask, O sisters and brothers, can we escape this blind pattern of Sin? Can we go back to the days before the Fall, the days in the Garden, and live again in peace and harmony with all beings? No, I must in sorrow say to you that we cannot. We have learned too much that we cannot forget. We have crossed over the fateful line from innocence. And also we have forgotten all those things that people knew when they still lived in the Garden; the herbs that could ease pain or cure disease; the ways that beings talk together in the terrible but holy encounters of eating and being eaten. We are like blind people now, and it will take us many years and much close attention to learn again how to see, how to accept the circle of being. And because we have destroyed so much of it, ^
Page 8 RAIN February/March 1982 we must also learn to help reconstruct the Garden itself. We must learn to farm without destroying the soil. We must learn to deliberately rebuild ecosystems that can with help from nature evolve again into the exquisite harmony of a climax forest or a savannah grassland—natural communities such as this continent once knew, which supported humans then and could support us again if we give them the right kind of chance." ("Hallelujah!") "But first we must mourn, and accept our Sin, and know it for what it was and is, and repent, and resolve to go and sin no more. And let us always keep in our hearts, O sisters and brothers, the dream of the Garden, and of how life went on there before the Fall, so that we have a standard, a measure for our actions now, a holy ground on which to stand. Amen." In the mid-1980s the Survivalists, after successfully persuading the state legislatures in Oregon and Washington to enact a heavy gasoline tax, will introduce “a new measure which would tax cars themselves and assign the resulting revenue to improve bus, streetcar, taxi and train services." A suit filed by an auto dealer named Madera will go all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where the special tax on cars will be voted unconstitutional. In late 1987, the people wil he angry. After the public disorders caused by the Madera decision, Vera Allwen's television speeches became more urgent. "My friends, we must consider the possibility that the federal government has become quite irrational in its decisions about fundamental energy problems. What else can we think of a government that refuses to move seriously against the automobile oil costs which are draining the economy dry? A government that puts its research and development money almost entirely into nuclear power when we already have sufficient electrical generating capacity for reasonable uses? A government that tries to force the reopening of a nuclear plant situated on an active, dangerous earthquake fault? A government that refuses to help the poor people in cold areas to insulate their houses and thus cut oil imports? A government that strikes down, through its Supreme Court, our attempts to save ourselves from such disastrous policies? "Who is crazy here—we who are attempting to take care of ourselves, or the national government which seems bent on economic and social suicide? "The answer, I suspect, lies in the fact that in the past decade we who live here on the Northern Pacific coast have become a new and different people. We have learned to think differently—more realistically and over a longer time frame—than the people in Washington, who can think ahead only four years at the most. "We did not seek this. Our history has given it to us. Through a million different experiences in the lives of millions of us, we have come to hold different values from those prevalent in the rest of the country. We conserve and preserve; they waste and spend. We treasure our natural resources; they despoil them. "Our part of the continent is relatively uncontaminated. Its forests and seashores and mountains provide a timeless uplift for our spirits when we go camping or hiking. Thus we have learned more rapidly than people elsewhere to respect the lives of our fellow species—the mammals our nearest kin, the trees whose lumber shelters us, the tiniest fish, the very grasses that give soft cover to our hillsides. And so, as fellow travelers on the planet, in this region we have enacted many environmental protections. We have expanded our parks, and fought for the preservation of our coastline public spaces. We have recovered rich farmland from suburban sprawl. We are defending the relative purity of our air and water. "Here on the Pacific shores, we are also healthier people. We live outdoor lives and are accustomed to getting around on our own two feet. We have learned again to enjoy walking—whether on solitary forest trails or on our lively streets that we have been making safe again for pedestrians, by night and by day. We have understood, earlier and more clearly than people elsewhere, the need to curb the imperial power of the car—which not only threatens to destroy our economy, but also disrupts our neighborhoods, pollutes our air, and involves us in the danger of a nuclear war over oil. We have refused to let our cars be held hostages to the OPEC countries. Instead, we have developed minibuses and streetcars and trains and new kinds of efficient taxis—alternatives which make it easier to live well without cars. And we are working to reorganize our cities so people need to move around less in their daily lives. "We have been doing all these sane things right here, in our lucky little green strip along the Pacific. We have been tending to our business here, despite interference from outside, while the national government was daydreaming and flexing its military muscles to intimidate people all over the world. 1 ask you, my friends, what can we do when we are confronted with this kind of madness? It sucks away our tax money and pours it down the armaments drain. It risks our lives in conflicts we did not choose. Its actions oppress the poor, the old, the weak, and shower favors on the already rich and powerful. Is there not some point at which we must say that we cannot participate any longer in this? When we will decide that we must have a society toward which we can feel loyalty? "From this date forward the Town of Bolinas is hereby declared an independent territory in which the laws of the county of Marin, the state of California, and the United States ofAmerica no longer have legal force whenever they run counter to duly instituted ordinances of the Bolinas Town Council." "A free people must have a government that embodies the ideals of that people. We are a people who want to feel at home here on the earth, serene in the knowledge that we are living in harmony with the other beings on the planet. If the federal government is hostile to these values, we must find our own ways to survive together, taking our proper places in the great circle of being, joining our hands and our hearts. A suicidal national government, a government that seems bent on devouring its people rather than nurturing them, forfeits our allegiance. We did not choose this situation. But we must recognize realities. My friends, dear friends—we are on our own."
February/March 1982 RAIN Page 9 Meanwhile, in the small California town of Bolinas our heroine, high school science whiz kid and terrific teenager Lou Swift, has developed a simple, inexpensive, do-it-yourself solar-electric photovoltaic cell. Many of her neighbors are experimenting with it with considerable success, disconnecting their houses from the power company wires. As Lou's father Roger had expected, the utilities, backed by the county, are not pleased. Negotiations between the Bolinas town council and the county had dragged on for weeks. As often happens in times of crisis, procedural issues soon eclipsed the original dispute over electrical disconnections. The county found ways to put pressure on the town, the town found ways to evade or neutralize county power. After protracted talks, however, the situation finally stabilized beyond further discussion. The county was going to come in and bulldoze any houses that remained nonconforming after ten days. The dispute had welded the Bolinesians together into a solid community in which personal feuds and disagreements were forgotten. With a sense of unanimous fury, the town council appointed a drafting committee which would prepare a declaration of secession from the county. As somebody said, “By God, we'll give 'em real disconnection!" If San Francisco could be both a city and a county, why couldn't Bolinas? Roger was made a member of the drafting committee, whose members secluded themselves in a backyard cottage for ten hours nonstop. That evening they took to the council meeting a document they titled, without mincing words, THE BOLINAS DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE “We are American people. But we are human beings before we are Americans, and we would still be human beings if we ceased being American citizens. Governments are created to serve people, not the other way around. And so, when institutions have become bureaucratized and rigid, when the laws and applications of the laws no longer protect the people but have instead become a burden and a danger to them, then the people have the right, and indeed the duty, to take the management of their health, their welfare, and their happiness back into their own hands. “At such times old institutions become null and void. The people no longer pay attention to them. They do not pay taxes; they do not obey officials and the regulations they issue; they deny the power of the police, which must come from the consent of the people or it is mere armed tyranny. "In recent months we have seen the development of an intolerable situation in many parts of the territories which have become known as Ecotopia. Citizens despairing at the ineffectuality of government measures to protect them against the abuses and dangers of the chemical and nuclear industries have been forced to take direct action in self-defense. The citizens' just demands for healthy conditions of life, such as contaminant-free food and water supplies, air to breathe which does not contain dangerous levels of pollutants, freedom from the threat of nuclear plant accidents, and a reduction of the influx of carcinogenic substances into the biosphere, have been ignored or even derided—in government documents which call upon us to sacrifice human life upon the altar of profit. The attempts of our state governments to protect their citizens against the economic and health dangers of the automobile have been overturned by federal court order. Arrogant county bureaucracies and criminals employed by corporations have obstructed citizen attempts to achieve independent, renewable-source energy systems. In a time when experimentation and novelty are essential to our very survival, citizens have been forced into lock-step with outmoded standards. "Our petitions for redress of these grievances have been met with silence or outright refusal. Now, therefore, we the elected offcials of the Town of Bolinas proclaim that a state of civil emergency exists. The people must take the power over their destiny back into their own hands and form new institutions to defend their welfare. "From this date forward the Town of Bolinas is hereby declared an independent territory in which the laws of the county of Marin, the state of California, and the United States of America no longer have legal force whenever they run counter to duly instituted ordinances of the Bolinas Town Council. A Bolinas Militia responsible only to the Town Council will be constituted immediately to provide for the maintenance of order and for the defense of the Town if need should arise. A Bolinas Court will be established, with a judge to be elected immediately from the citizenry. A new tax structure, controlled by the town, will be implemented, and citizens should immediately, wherever possible, cease paying sales taxes to the state, real estate taxes to the county, and income taxes to the state or federal governments. “We take these steps with heavy hearts, for all citizens have a stake in the continuity of institutions, to which we develop a natural and healthy attachment. But our highest loyalty must be to ourselves and to our survival, and to the survival of our children and our childrens's children. At some point we must say to the state: This far and no farther! We draw that line today at the boundaries of our town. And we say to the world that we will defend ourselves and our future with our strength, our determination, and our honor." Proud words, indeed. Sure enough, Bolinas is soon given an opportunity to stand behind them. The crisis came at Bolinas because the citizens had decided their Festival of Indepence should include the traditional fireworks. They had experimented with Dimmy's holiday ideas from Friday night onward, and there had been a great round of partying. Lou's brother Mike and a couple of other people had made an expedition to San Francisco's Chinatown where they tracked down a supply of out-ofseason skyrockets and roman candles to be set off Sunday evening. The afternoon turned out to be unseasonably warm and almost windless. Virtually the whole population of the town, many of them rather hung over, gathered on the beach downtown. Lou wandered about happily, talking to people she hadn't seen for months because of her cell work; she took off her shoes and ran around barefoot on the sand. From about five o'clock on, the small children began asking when the fireworks would start. But people had brought food along, and wine and beer, and they were having fun talking over the growing regional crisis as well as their own exasperating negotiation with the county. They speculated about whether the little guard post they had established on the approach road would deter the bulldozers when they came. Moods ranged wildly from the fatalistic to the defiant. There was talk of lying down in front of the machines, and other talk of shooting at the operators. When it came right down to it, nobody knew what was going to happen. Finally it was dark enough for the fireworks. The roman candles spewed their colored fire. Rockets zoomed unpre- dictably upward, some fizzling into a mass of gunpowder smoke, others spraying into the night sky a vast globe of glowing rays of light. Whether it was because some of the rockets exploded over homes on the Stinson Beach spit across the inlet and alarmed the owners, or simply because the celebration had attracted police attention, shortly after the fireworks began a county sheriff's car approached the checkpoint on the Bolinas road. A little uncertainly, Dimmy (who was taking a turn at guard duty at the time) held up his hand to the approaching car. "Entry permit?" he asked. The sheriff's deputy got out of his car. "What's your name?" he asked.
Page 10 RAIN February/March 1982 “What's yours? " said Dimmy. But then, not wishing to cause trouble, he added, "You guys know we don't want you in here, so what's up?" The officer noticed that Dimmy had a .38 revolver in a holster on his hip, and a green jacket like a National Park ranger's with a green patch reading “Bolinas Militia." "Fireworks," the officer said. "No permit from the county." Dimmy said nothing. "In my duty as a peace officer I'm obliged to check out these fireworks. Interfering with my duty is a criminal offense." "It might be, on your side of that line there. But on our side of the line, letting you in would be dereliction of my duty." Then Dimmy added, "Look, why make trouble? Those fireworks'll be over any time now. A little party, you know? It isn't hurting anybody. Why don't you just radio in that everything's under control. No hassle." The officer noticed that Dimmy had a .38 revolver in a holster on his hip, and a green jacket like a National Park ranger's with a green patch reading "Bolinas Militia." The deputy considered. Then he got into his cruiser, backed off a few yards, and talked to headquarters. Dimmy couldn't hear what was being said, but from the way the deputy looked around as he talked, Dimmy suspected he was planning something. Then he got out again. "Listen, we're giving you one more chance. Raise that damned bar or you're gonna be sorry." Dimmy stood with his hand on his revolver handle. "No way," he said. "We've seceded, brother. Just leave us alone." "We'll see about this secession shit," said the officer. He drove off in a hurry. Dimmy picked up a walkie-talkie in the guard booth. "We've had a little visit from the sheriff," he said. "Just one guy. But he checked with headquarters and I have a feeling they're coming back." About 45 minutes later, a heavy four-wheel drive pickup and two county cruisers assembled at the highway and headed in on the Bolinas road. They stopped 50 feet back from the guard box, their headlights pointed at the little structure, and hailed Dimmy on their loudspeaker. "This is assistant sheriff Dawson speaking. We are here on county business to investigate a complaint. Please raise that bar across the road." Dimmy stepped out. "Sorry," he said. "We've had no complaint. And this is no longer part of the county." "Put your hands up!" said the loudspeaker. "You're under arrest!" Dimmy ducked behind the guard box and from there scooted into the underbrush nearby. After a moment the pickup, which had a heavy pushbar mounted on the front, revved up speed and crashed through the wooden bar, followed by the two cruisers. From the cover of the trees, Dimmy could see that there were three helmeted men in each vehicle, shotguns at the ready. They roared ahead about a hundred yards, but then the lead driver braked to a sudden stop: a heavy log lay across the road. Just as he stopped, there was a rifle shot, followed by another. Two tires on the pickup sagged to the ground. The officers got out, cautiously now, whispering; it was dead silent except for a faint sighing of wind in the trees, and there was no moon. Heavy brush lay to their right, trees and hedges and the lagoon to their left. Not a happy situation—in fact, a goddamned ambush! There was a click, as of something being done to a weapon's safety catch, off in the bushes somewhere. The officers whirled in that direction, guns at the ready, but could see nothing. Dawson considered. There might be two snipers hidden out there, or a dozen. Some of these Bolinas people were harmless hippies, but others were Vietnam vets, and some of them lived in the country and hunted and knew guns. It was best not to take chances. They'd see about it in the daylight. If it got to be a real show of strength thing, they could use the helicopter. He gave orders, in a whisper. The men abandoned the pickup, piled into the two cars, and slowly backed up beyond the guard box. Then they turned around and drove away. □□ KNOWING HOME; The Pacific Northwest The Northwest Experience,!, Edited by Lane Morgan, 1981,192 pp., $4.95 from: Madrona Publishers, Inc. 2116 Western Avenue Seattle, WA 98121 Northwest Perspectives: Essays on the Culture of the Pacific Northwest, Compiled and Edited by Edwin R. Bingham and Glen A. Love, 1981,247 pp., $7.95 from: University of Washington Press Seattle, WA 98105 These books give proof that, while still in its formative stages, Ecotopia exists—now. The Northwest Experience is the second and latest in a series of anthologies designed to "provide a forum for Northwest voices." (See review of the first volume in RAIN VII: 3:19). Among the selections are excerpts from the 1879 diary of James G. Swan, the Henry Thoreau of the Northwest coast; an analysis of Seattle's "Energy 1990" decision in 1976 not to buy into two proposed nuclear plants (the beginning of the end, we can see now with hindsight, of the WPPSS debacle); a wonderful retelling of the Coyote myths of the Chinook Indians; a semi-biographical article about Oregon's favorite former governor, Tom McCall; and an outrageous excerpt from the infamous FBI "Gamscam" transcripts—the Northwest's own little version of "Abscam." (Washington officials, of course, not Oregonians.) Other essays in this volume examine the condition of the wild salmon of the Olympic Peninsula, analyze the development of Columbia River hydropower, and explore different approaches to sustaining a healthy
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