February/March 1983 RAIN Page 9 ACCESS: Good Reading The Process Report; How It Happened and Energy Future, A Citizen’s PlanforEnergy Self-Reliance Prepared by Resource Transitions, Inc. P.O. Box 3021 Santa Cruz, CA 95063 $25,1982,112 pp. Unless a community is totally self-reliant, it produces a product or service that brings money in from outside the community then spends that money on goods and services that the community cannot produce. One measure of the economic health of a community is how many times each dollar changes hands within that community before it is used to pay for an outside commodity. As more people handle each dollar, the standard of living increases. At the present time, the single largest dollar drain in most American communities is the money spent on energy. Energy Future, a grassroots organization in Santa Cruz County, has come up with a comprehensive plan for that county which seeks to reduce the exit of local resources to pay for energy. The plan combines the goals of energy conservation on all levels and increasing local control of energy sources by conversion to local renewable fuels. Specifically, the plan establishes goals and priorities for energy conservation on a community-wide basis, ranging from curbside recycling and light rail, to residential, commercial and industrial energy conservation. It also addresses such basics as increasing the p>ercentage of locally-grown food and starting energy education programs in the schools. As we move into the second stage of Reaganomics, more communities are making or trying to make basic energy/ economic decisions for increased self- reliance. Davis, California has done it. Franklin County, Massachusetts, has done it. Get a copy of this plan for Santa Cruz and start a movement in your community. — Gail Katz The Human Impact Man’s Role in Environmental Change Andrew Goudie MIT Press 28 Carleton St. Cambridge, MA 02142 $10.00 paper, 1982,316 pp. There is the obvious part of the story. We know—with or without statistics—that we have had a tremendous impact on changing the earth, and that we may be endangering the planet's very ability to sustain the quality and diversity of life. But The Human Impact is subtler than that. As in another earlier and similar work, Man’s Role in Changing the Face of the Earth, Goudie examines the many ways we've changed our planet. Examples range from the eighteentti century lord in Britain who simply removed thirty feet of a hill that was blocking his view, to the devastation of war with its extended impact on the land and its ecology. The Indochinese War alone, displaced 2.6 billion cubic meters of earth by bombings, more than was displaced by one of man's larger engineering feats, the peaceable creation of The Netherlands. There's a sense after reading the book that nature is a very good healer. Raw holes in the earth created by mining, war, and other calamities, over the years turn into lakes undistinguishable from "natural" lakes. Elaborate adaptations occur when new plants and animals are introduced into local areas. But The Human Impact doesn't present a "so everything is all right" p>ersp)ective. By the book's conclusion it is evident that, while many of our mistakes can be corrected by nature, there isn't as much room for error. Types of changes we are able to make now, while perhaps curable, may take centuries of healing, and the demands of population growth just won't allow. -SJ Nothing Can Be Done, Everything is Possible Byron Kennard Brickhouse Publishing Co. 34 Essex St. Andover, MA 01810 $9.95 paper, 1982,180 pp. Byron Kennard's account of community organizing is very personal — not a "1-2-3, this is how we organize to gain equality." No, Kennard's approach could be best described as networldng—if that term weren't so quickly outliving its usefulness . It's the story of one of those relatively invisible social change fanatics, uninterested in serving specific political roles, and yet capable of influencing the direction of pubUc policy by being out there on the edge, translating the fringe ideas back ihto the mainstream. It isn't just a biography. Scattered throughout is helpful advice about organizing, and most important, it can serve as a kind of cheerful outlook on how change takes place. "Have faith," Kennard says, "you probably have more of an effect than you realize" — and he adds as a word of caution, "don't expect to necessarily see the change or get credit for it." The radical program ofyoung William Jennings Bryan was finally implemented by “progressive" Woodrow Wilson. It took twenty years for the ideas to gain legitimacy. Norman Thomas ran for president halfdozen times and his candidacy was derided, but liberal Democrats under Franklin D. Roosevelt ultimately appropriated much of Thomas's program without so much as a thank-you note. -SJ The Energy Saver’s Handbookfor Town and City People The Scientific Staff of the Massachu- ' setts Audubon Society Rodale Press Emmaus, PA 18049 $14.95,1982,322 pp. Most books on energy conservation are written for homeowners who want to reduce their personal energy bills or for engineers and architects who do studies and design work in commercial buildings. Cont. on next page
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