RAIN Tom Bender Amory & Hunter Lovins The State of the Movement RAIN VOUMKe oct<3e««. O A T Nof!hwe$t Power Pla^ S RAIN l\»ppet Show in Smi.m Tadhc NT>rthw».wt Btort^ion Rept>ft VVin*^ oi Working VOl.t^MiaX XO.' Sz.oo RAIN WenJell IVrn- on AgriatUxif.i* f Bi’nder on fme .N^Honal S,H'unfv Northwest Biotxgion Ri'port VOl.LMf iX, \0 ! $2.00 ...... IN wmiQ Hirnmn scam 4 e«6HaVTH£AT£«l^ATg pAS eUSVBEESVS, GI^£0¥aEA«Sl«A.t. p,12 - .......................................................-.......I IP—r.........................1--^ Combined Issue: Volume IX, No. 6 / Volume X, No. 1 $2.00
Page 2 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN magazine Special Combined Anniversary Issue: Volume IX, Number 61 Volume X, Number 1 Guest Editor: John Ferrell Staff: Rob Baird Ann Borquist Than James Steve Johnson Alan Locklear Kris Nelson Jeff Strang Contributors: Steven Ames Bruce Borquist Carlotta Collette Dave Deppen Carolyn Hitchcock George Resch Mark Roseland Marie Valleroy Graphic Design: Linnea Gilson Comptroller: Lee Lancaster Special Thanks: To all the former Rainmakers who contributed memories, visions, and insights for this anniversary issue. And our appreciation to typesetter Patti Morris and photographer Ancil Nance, who have helped to make RAIN special since Vol. I, No. 1. Printing: Times Litho Typesetting; Irish Setter Cover Photograph; Ancil Nance RAIN Magazine publishes information 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 times a year by the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a nonprofit 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 $6000 a year). Copyright © 1983 Rain Umbrella, Inc. No part may be reprinted without written permission. ISSN 0739-621X IN THIS ISSUE... Articles The Magazine from Ecotopia: A Look Back at the First RAIN Decade— by John Ferrell.................................................................................................. 5 The State of the Umbrella—by Rob Baird.................................................... 10 The State of the Movement: Energy—by Amory and Hunter Lovins.................................................... 12 Economic Development—by Harriet Barlow........................................... 15 Shelter—by Tom Bender............................................................................. 16 Agriculture—by Mark Musick................................................................... 18 Information/Communications—by Sandy Emerson............................. 19 Recycling—by Judy Roumpf & Jerry Powell............................................ 21 Bioregional Planning—by Michael Helm................................................ 22 Between the Cutting Edge and the Flaky Fringe: An Unorthodox Index to RAIN—compiled by Steve Johnson.................. 24 Remembrance of Themes Past....................................................................... 26 Sharing Smaller Pies—by Tom Bender........................................................ 28 An Open Letter to the Ecological Movement—by Murray Bookchin........ 32 Access Excess: A RAIN Parody..................................................................... 36 Rainmakers: Where Are They Now?—by Ann Borquist........................... 38 Rainmakers Look at the Future—compiled by Jeff Strang......................... 40 Rainmakers' Favorite Books—by John Ferrell............................................ 42 A.T. in Oregon: Conservation Innovation.................................................. 44 Taking Pictures and Taking Souls—by Tom Bender................................... 64 Features Calendar........................................ 59 Letters.......................................... 4 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report.......................48 Raindrops..................................... 3 Rush.............................................. 59 Touch & Go..................................11
RAINDROPS Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 3 Some magazines entering their 10th year of publication might boast of a phenomenal circulation milestone—but not RAIN. Today, there are about as many people reading it as when it began. Not the same readers, of course, and the staff has changed as often as the readership. While in its life, RAIN cannot claim to have altered the course of history, it has, nevertheless, had influence greater than its circulation figures would suggest. It is difficult to document the ways RAIN has influenced people and events. It has always been a subdued force, not proclaiming itself from the mountaintops. When RAIN started, there were only a handful of other communication vehicles attempting to give voice to the many social change movements then emerging. RAIN was able to review most any document published about solar energy, while today we receive an index to solar energy articles each month that is the size of RAINBOOK! RAIN has never stood still for long. As staff and society have changed, so has RAIN. But somehow, we believe, the magazine has kept a certain special quality through the years—something we refer to as "RAIN magic." Whoever has been at RAIN at a particular time has managed to bring forth some new ideas and perspectives, keeping the magazine at the forefront of change. And despite RAIN's generalist quality—something no marketing consultant would encourage—it has survived. At RAIN, we are always looking to the future, always "in transition." But just this once, for this special anniversary issue, we are looking backward and forward at the same time. In these pages, you'll find articles that review our own history and the history of the social change movements we have long followed. You'll also find visions of what is in store for the social change community and for the larger world during the coming decades. We feel that by putting together this special issue we've gained some important perspectives on RAIN's continuing role as a vehicle for change. We think those perspectives will help us to serve you even better in the future—and we look forward to bringing you many more issues of RAIN!—the Rainmakers Read RAIN, but Plant a Tree In nine years, RAIN has used up about 1,694,000 pounds of paper, or 13,552 trees—31 acres worth. Our readers have their work cut out for them, so to speak: to make up for our use of trees, they need to plant about 70 trees each! However, as Nancy Cosper points out, a number of our readers are Hoedad tree planters, and they plant thousands of trees. Taking that into account, RAIN could even take some credit for a silviculture surplus.—SJ
Page 4 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 LETTERS Dear RAIN; Tom Bender's comment on "Is Socialism the Answer" (June/July '83) focuses attention on the unresponsiveness of bigness under any name. Amory and Hunter Lovins' article in the same issue focuses on the vulnerability of bigness. Big size is not the only thing those comments apply to: there's also big speed and big accelerahon. Sudden change can't be responsive change and is always vulnerable to upset. As the saying goes, haste makes waste. Because of how money is invested for growth, economies are generally structured to run and change faster and faster (read: less responsive and more vulnerable) until their "gears" clash or they simply burn themselves out (to then pick up and do it again). While there are many ways to arrange things that would avoid that, the only ones presently in practice are totalitarian socialism and barter. All three—growthism, totalitarianism, and barter—are quite unacceptable for a global economy. Sincerely, Philip F. Henshaw Brooklyn, NY Dear Steve: Just a note to wish all the Rainmakers a happy anniversary. As one of the founding godpersons, I am pleased that you continue to prosper. I cannot say that I would have wagered, a decade ago, that you would still be in existence. Your presence is felt and continues to be necessary. I trust that I will be able to write the same kind of letter in another 10 years. Cordially, John D. Taylor President Northwest Area Foundation Saint Paul, MN Dear John: Congratulations on your 10th year of publishing! RAIN has always been a favorite magazine here at VITA, and we are pleased to see you reach this milestone. Yours, David Jarmul Managing Editor VITA News Volunteers in Technical Assistance Arlington, VA Dear RAIN; Gene Spagnoli, assistant to the commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, is a reader of your publication. He sent us the June/July '83 issue. We were left out [of "Choosing the Future: Social Investing"]. Our mutual fund should have been, we believe, above all the rest. We are the first and only fund for solar and alternative energy and are up 30 percent in less than a year. Yes, we are registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. We are doing well for our investors. However, since we have no regular sales organization or connection with established security firms, most of the world does not know we are here. Please let them know. Thanks, Maurice L. Schoenwald New Alternatives Fund, Inc. Suite 300 295 Northern Boulevard Great Neck, NY 11021 Index to RAIN Volume IX Volume IX Vol. IX, No. 1, October/November 1982 (40pp.) True Security, by Tom Bender, 6 20,000 Kiiotons Under the Sea; Taking Offense at Trident, by Jim Springer, 8 Trying Out the Future: A Look at A.T. Research Centers, by Laura Goldman and Nigel Dudley, 14 Ordinary Excellence on the Farm, a talk by Wendell Berry, 20 The Sound Environment, by Steve Johnson. 24 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report. 32 Voi. IX, No. 2, December 1982/January 1983 (40 pp.) Green Deserts: Planting for Our Very Lives, by David Mulligan, 6 Puppet Show in Sudan, 8 Sustainable Agriculture: A Tradition in West Africa, an interview with David and Mark Freudenberger, 12 Wallowing in Development: The Loss of Ecological Information, by Jim Riker, 20 Water for Food for People, by Rob Baird, 28 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report, 31 Chinese Aquaculture, Fine Tuning A.T., by Christina Rawley and Ron Zweig, 40 Vol. IX, No. 3, February/March 1983 (40pp.) The Bioregional Movement, an interview with Planet Drum, 4 Self-Reliant Cities (excerpts from the book), by David Morris, 8 Thinking the Unthinkable: A Declining Economy, by Warren Johnson, 10 Is There a Pothole in Your Future? by Steven Johnson, 15 Investing in the Community, by Kris Nelson, 18 Appropriate Technology in Oregon: A Solar Sampler, 22 Peacemaking: Alternative Methods of Dispute Resolution, by Steve Johnson, 28 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report, 31 Volume IX, No. 4, April/May 1983 (40 pp.) Special Issue: "The Women's Movement" The Anatomy of Freedom, by Nancy Cosper, 4 The Need for Women in Power, by Margie Hendriksen, 5 Sexism and Militarism; Some Connections, by Ada Sanchez, 8 Development for Whom? Women’s Unrecognized Role, by Rosalind Grigsby Riker, 9 Aprovecho; Approaching a Feminist Vision, by Mary Vogel, 10 Women and Spirituality, by Margaret McCrea, 11 Women Astronomers of the Scientific Revolution, by Margaret Alic, 14 A.T. and AG: One Happy Marriage, 19 What If: Women and Future Technology, by Patricia Logan and Lisa Yost, 23 Some Thoughts About Reading About Technology, by Lane deMoll, 27 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report, 31 Vol. IX, No. 5, June/July 1983 (40 pp.) Real Security, by Amory and Hunter Lovins, 4 The Politics of Weeds, by Diane Cameron, 8 Is Socialism the Answer? by Tom Bender, 12 The Came of Landfill Salvage, by Dan Knapp, 14 Computers, Cooperation, and Making Lots of Money While Avoiding the Dumb Death of the Species as We Know Us, by Anne Herbert, 16 Choosing the Future: Social Investing, an interview with Grace Parker, 18 The Klamath Knot (excerpt from the book), by David Rains Wallace, 20 Water Under the Bridge: Experimenting with Micro-Hydro, 26 Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report, 30
Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 5 The name of the newsletter, Steve noted laconically, would be RAIN. No further explanation of that choice was required in a communication between two lifelong Oregonians. THE MAGAZINE FROM ECOTOPIA: A Look Back at the First RAIN Decade by John Ferrell RAIN is a mythological publication in that it distributes only a few thousand copies per issue, yet it is quoted and used as a basis ofinformation ■■ - by many professional architects, builders, ecologists, government energy planners, and so forth. Its reputation exceeds its circulation much in the same way that I. F. Stone's Weekly did in the early years of its existence.... The people who edit and publish the magazine also have reputations in the Northwest and the nation: they are young economists, architects, cartographers, consultants to state ‘ government in Oregon and California, magazine editors, teachers. Their large, wood-frame house on N.W. Irving Street in Portland is like some kind of massive New Age braintrust data bank. One approaches it with respect. The "mythological publication" that journalist Ray Mungo described in the November 1976 issue of New Age magazine was just launching into its third year, fueled (in Mungo's words) "by avocado salads and organic peanut butter on whole wheat bread." That someone like Mungo was already according RAIN mythological status was gratifying to the founding Rainmakers, but also a bit bewildering. They had begun with much more modest goals. In the summer of 1974, Steve Johnson, a Portland- based freelance writer, sent a note to Bob Benson, a well-known local historian and mapmaker. The two friends had recently co-edited the Chinook Centrex, a kind of Pacific Northwest people's yellow pages. Now Steve was seeking Bob's ideas for a new project he was undertaking at Portland State University's Environmental Education Center. "I'm working here, funded to find ways to increase communication among environmentalists," Steve
Page 6 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 wrote. “One of the major undertakings is to do a monthly newsletter being kind of like the Centrex and kind of like Earthwatch [an Oregon environmental magazine] and kind of like my old Scribe [a Portland alternative newspaper] column." The name of the newsletter, Steve noted laconically, would be RAIN. No further explanahon of that name choice was required in a communication between two lifelong Oregonians. The new RAIN newsletter was an outgrowth of a much larger project called Eco-Net that was funded by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare and by the Hill FantLly Foundation (later called Northwest Area Foundation). Administered by Environmental Education Center director Dr. Don Stotler, Eco-Net was meant to serve as a communicahons network for people in the Pacific Northwest involved in a variety of energy and ecological concerns. Besides RAIN, Eco-Net supported a community access video project, an energy information facility, and a community resource center. Although it existed officially for only a few years, Eco- Net proved to be a remarkable seedbed for projects and ideas that continue to shape Pacific Northwest attitudes about energy, ecology, and communication. In September 1974, Steve Johnson and fellow Eco-Net employees Anita Helle and Mary Wells completed the first issue of RAIN and sent it free to a 3000-name mailing list. The 24-page publication was an eclectic catalogue of books, magazines, and organizations falling under such diverse headings as Air, Architecture, Art, Computers, Consciousness, Energy, Games, Land Use, Networks, Recycling, Water, and Whole Systems. In addition to the access sections, there was a news report on Eco-Net activities, a calendar of upcoming events, and a brief article by Bob Benson on "where to get maps." Readers found the following introduchon, written by Steve Johnson, on page two: RAIN is a monthly bulletin board. As stuff comes our way by phone, mail, feet, hands, and mouth, we make entries, abstracts, paragraphs. We emphasize environmentalIeducation related and communications kinds of information; and we are interested in the evolutionary possibilities of interdisciplinary connections. Our geographic emphasis is the Pacific Northwest, though our prejudice will be Oregon, and more specifically Portland. You can correct our bias by your feedback.... Reader response was immediate and dramatic. Letters and requests for the new publication began pouring into RAIN'S office at the Environmental Education Center from around the Northwest and from other parts of the country. Many of the new RAIN fans were active participants in various facets of the emerging appropriate technology movement: solar architecture, wind energy, sustainable agriculture, alternative transportation, and commuruty communicahon networks. These people were hungry for news of each other's projects and for leads to the often-obscure books and magazines being published in their areas of interest. RAIN filled their information gap and filled it well. As Rhoda Epstein, an early reader (and later a RAIN staffer), explained, "[The Rainmakers] were putting out my primary source of information about the things I was working with. I was living in a city [Washington, D.C.] where information is the biggest local industry and the newest information I got was from RAIN magazine." Soon after the first issue was mailed out, another Eco- Net employee joined RAIN'S small staff. Lee Johnson had been building windmills, solar systems, and alternative housing for several years, and he shared Steve's passion for information. The two Johnsons (no relation) decided to combine their massive collections of file cards, news clippings, organizational brochures, and networking miscellanea in the RAIN office. As they went about their pleasant work, they discovered another reason why, for information junkies, working with a magazine can seem like a perpetual Christmas morning: the RAIN mailbox began to fill with hefty packages sent by various publishers. Free review books! It was the beginning of the present-day 4,500-volume Rain Community Resource Center library collection. As RAIN'S press run continued to grow rapidly through late 1974 and early 1975, so did the optimism of its staff; it seemed more and more likely that the magazine could spin off from Eco-Net and survive on a paid subscription base. John Taylor of the Northwest Area Foundation agreed to ease the transifion to self-reliance with a one-year $14,090 grant. In June 1975 the last free issue of RAIN went out to approximately 8000 individuals and organizations. Steve and Lee Johnson, together with RAIN's business manager Anne McLaughlin, began to search for new office space. As has so frequently happened in the life of RAIN, serendipity promptly asserted itself. Two RAIN friends, Tom Bender and Lane deMoll, had recently left jobs with the Oregon Office of Energy Research and Planning, which, under Governor Tom McCall, was performing some of the most innovative net energy analyses in the country. Bender and deMoll were seeking a home for Full Circle, their newly incorporated community resource center. The RAIN and Full Circle staffs sensed a strong potential for synergy and decided to live and work together in a large, turreted Victorian house in northwest Portland. A few hundred dollars worth of fresh paint later, the Rainhouse was bom. RAIN and Full Circle saw the new location as a place to put some of their ideas about local self-reliance into practice. "We were planning to do a lot of things like neighborhood gardens...," Lane deMoll later told a reporter, "but getting the magazine on its feet independent of the grant money took all of our energy." Nevertheless, a "Random RAIN 10-Week Log" published in the July 1976 issue of the magazine indicates how little time elapsed before Rainhouse inhabitants were plunging into an amazing array of local and national conferences, energy workshops, consulting contracts, and educational fomms. The "10-Week Log" also notes in passing that the RAIN/Full Circle division had already vanished with the formation of the Rain Umbrella, Inc., a nonprofit educational organization. The 1975-76 transition to a paid subscription base was not a smooth one. Then, as now, there was always too little time and too little money for the staff to keep up with the usual kinds of magazine promotion. And then, as now, RAIN was the kind of magazine that passed through many hands in offices, libraries, and communal houses. It became abundantly clear that the magazine's readership vastly outstripped its paid circulation figures.
Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 7 Steven Ames, }oan Meitl (crouching), Linda Sawaya, Lane deMoll, Lee Johnson (1978). RAIN'S regional and national reputation grew apace with the burgeoning a. t. movement. Still, subscription numbers continued to inch upward, and RAIN staffers managed to find enough outside work to maintain both the magazine and their own "living lightly" lifestyles. As Steve Johnson had noted in the first issue of RAIN, the magazine's geographic emphasis was expected to shift in response to reader feedback. During its first two years, RAIN continued to pay particular attention to Pacific Northwest projects, publications, and events, but its editorial scope, like its readership, grew increasingly national. There was also an evolution in format as catalogue-type entries grew more polished and feature articles became more prominent. Many of the early articles were penned by RAIN staffers, but such appropriate technology luminaries as E. F. Schumacher and Amory Lovins also put in appearances. RAIN'S regional and national influence continued to grow apace with the burgeoning a.t. movement. The magazine became a recognized bicentiennial project during 1976, and that same year, Rainhouse visitors included such well-known figures as California Governor Jerry Brown and California State Architect Sim Van der Ryn. RAIN staffers participated in the planning of a new National Center for Appropriate Technology (now located in Butte, Montana) and consulted with the recently established California Office of Appropriate Technology. In 1977 the publication of RAINBOOK (a compilation of the best from the early RAINs, together with a good deal of new material) was greeted with praise by reviewers for many periodicals, including The Atlantic Monthly and The New York Times. But such widespread recognition raised new questions for the RAIN staff and for the rest of the appropriate technology movement. "We're finding that the field of a.t. and alternative energy is really taWng off," noted Lane deMoll in a 1977 Raindrops column. "When it's legitimized at the presidential level, you know things have changed—we're no longer the crackpots we were five years ago. But so much is happening that we're finding it hard to keep up with.... What's the next step beyond a.t.? How do we keep a fine grassroots movement from being co-opted and ruined by government and big business? It's odd after all these years of pushing to find so many barriers falling rapidly away." If publication of RAINBOOK and emerging questions about the state of the a.t. movement made 1977 seem something of a watershed year for RAIN, the sense of transition was also evident in other, more personal events. RAIN founder Steve Johnson departed on a "sabbatical" that would ultimately stretch into three years. Tom Bender and Lane deMoll began to divide their time between Rainhouse duties and their home- building project on the Oregon Coast. Tom, Lane, and Lee Johnson were all feeling the need (as Lane expressed it in a Raindrops column) "to go back to some real-life hands-on stuff for awhile." Sadly, Tom and Lane were soon faced with a "hands- on" task they never dreamed of. On February 8,1978, their new home burned down—the morning after they completed it. Most of the monetary loss was covered by insurance and the emotional loss was eased by the love and support of many friends, but there was still the prospect of more months of shuttling back and forth between Portland and the Coast to re-complete a once- completed project. In the meantime, RAIN was being infused with the talents and energy of several new staffers. These second-generation Rainmakers (Linda Sawaya, Steven Ames, and Phil Conti among others) were largely responsible for keeping the quality of the magazine high during the period in 1978 and early 1979 when the remaining oldtimers were gradually pulling away from
Ancil Nance Pages RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 RAINIRCRC STAFFERS: (L to R) Mark Roseland, Tanya Kucak, Laura Stuchinsky, Carlotta Collette, Steve Johnson, Steve Rudman, Nancy Cosper, John Ferrell (1981). primary involvement. They also played heroic roles in the massive spring '79 promotional campaign that saved RAIN from looming financial disaster and provided a welcome nest egg for future needs. Other heroes in that drama were the many faithful RAIN readers who supplied promotional advice and free mailing lists. But by the following summer it was clear that still another era in the life of RAIN was drawing to a close. Lee Johnson had left some months earlier to accept a position with the Western Solar Utilization Network. Most of the second-generation staffers had either recently departed or were on the verge of moving on to new pursuits. And Tom and Lane, by now firmly settled into their rebuilt home at the coast, announced their official departure from the staff in the August/September 1979 issue of RAIN: ... We have been with RAIN for four years, helping share new patterns that are emerging and becoming real around us. It has been an exciting time, and one whi^ has been successful far beyond what most people could then conceive. Many things, only dreams four years ago, have become commonplace and accepted realities—not complete, but fully alive and healthfully taking form now on their own strength. ... Projects and information and ideas once part ofRAIN now appear in Better Homes and Gardens, Sunset, and The New York Times.. .. Special journals now track the burgeoning areas ofpassive solar design, alternative sewage, health care, urban agriculture, simpler lifestyles, and community economics. Much remains to be done, and much that we and RAIN will help with in our own ways. But the time has come when [we] must become the last of the "old timers" to leave RAIN—to make room for new people and new visions and to make new use of what the last four years have taught us. By the end of 1979, the staff transition was nearly completed. Carlotta Collette had arrived in October from Minnesota, where she had long been active weath- erizing attics, building solar greenhouses, and working with neighborhood groups on food and energy policy issues. She was soon joined by Mark Roseland, who had, until recently, taught social ecology at Wesleyan University in Connecticut and volunteered with a number of a.t. and community groups in New England. Carlotta and Mark were both excited about being at RAIN, but perplexed about the myriad boxes of books and files that threatened to engulf the Rainhouse. "Only an archivist could straighten out this mess," murmured Mark one day. Almost immediately, RAIN serendipity came to the fore: John Ferrell, local solar activist—and former staff member with the National Archives— dropped by to see if there might be anything he could do. Carlotta, Mark, and John were to form the core staff of RAIN magazine for the next two and a half years. Despite a wide range of experience and wonderfully complementary skills, the new Rainmakers were faced with one inescapable dilemma: none of them had ever actually published a magazine before! "Learn by doing" and "community self-reliance" were much in evidence around the Rainhouse for the next few issues, but things gradually settled into a more subdued level of day-to- day frenzy. Fortunately for the newcomers, two members of the old staff—circulation manager Pauline Dep- pen and graphic artist Jill Stapleton—stayed on part- time for a few months, providing invaluable continuity. And the new Rainmakers took care to impart a sense of continuity to the pages of the magazine. Articles and reviews from former staffers appeared frequently, and RAIN continued to explore emerging trends in its traditional range of subjects: renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, alternative shelter, recycling, community economics, bioregionalism, and more. Certain themes did move into the foreground in response to changing times: women and ecology, the threat of government/ corporate exploitation of Native American lands, and urban self-reliance strategies in the face of Reagan-era cutbacks. The a.t./social change movement had continued to grow rapidly since 1977, when Lane deMoll had commented on RAIN'S difficulties in keeping up with so many new developments. By the early eighties, RAIN staffers sought to review only the best of the hundreds of movement-oriented books being published each year, and they saw RAIN's principle role as a "maker of connections" between the themes and ideas now being addressed in a host of more-specialized movement magazines—exploring how a particular energy policy might fit into a bioregional perspective, for example, or how a particular energy or ecological problem could be approached with community self-reliance strategies. The early eighties also saw an evolution in RAIN's relationship to self-reliance efforts in its own community. While the magazine continued its national focus, the Rainmakers were increasingly drawn back to the early RAIN goal of putting principle into practice locally. There was staff participation in local solar energy associ-
ations and other dtizen groups, and there was continued involvement with Responsible Urban Neighborhood Technology, the Portland integral urban house project that previous RAIN staffers had helped to start in 1978. Most important, there was the transformation of the Rainhouse into a community resource center. The resource center idea began to take shape as the RAIN library took shape in the early months of 1980. By that time, most staffers no longer lived in the Rainhouse, and reorganized living/working arrangements meant extra space for information resources. As John Ferrell and a succession of interns proceeded to organize RAIN'S thousands of books, periodicals, and files, the magazine's role as a local information provider (which actually stretched back to Eco-Net days) grew increasingly prominent. During office hours, the Rainmakers alternated between performing editorial functions and assisting a stream of visitors in search of good information on alcohol fuels, solar greenhouses, raised-bed gardens, or decentralist politics. Re-enter Steve Johnson. Since leaving RAIN in 1977, Steve had undertaken a number of local information projects, including compilation of The Portland Book, a comprehensive community resource directory. Now, together with Steve Rudman (formerly of the Grants- manship Center in Washington, D.C.) and Nancy Cos- per (formerly of the Cascadian Regional Library in Eugene, Ore.), Steve was co-administering a new organization called the Portland Community Resource Center (PCRC). RAIN and PCRC clearly had much in common: each had extensive information resources, considerable staff skills, and a strong desire to assist in the building of community self-reliance in Portland and the Northwest. In late 1980, in an odd twist of RAIN serendipity, the two organizations agreed to merge—much as RAIN and the Full Circle Community Resource Center had agreed to merge some years earlier. Certainly Steve Johnson reflected on the Full Circle analogy as he found his own life circling back into the life of RAIN. The expanded Rain Umbrella, Inc., had a full-time staff of seven and a formidable combined collection of information resources—all crowded into the Rainhouse. Carlotta Collette, Mark Roseland, and John Ferrell— together with Laura Stuchinsky, who had first joined RAIN'S staff as an intern in early 1980—continued to have primary responsibility for the magazine. Steve Johnson, Steve Rudman, and Nancy Cosper had primary responsibility for the new Rain Community Resource Center (RCRC). But there was immediate staff crossfertilization as everyone set about meeting the ambitious goals of a one-and-a-half-year Community Self-Reliance Project, funded in part by RAIN's original benefactor, the Northwest Area Foundation. (For details on the current activities of the Resource Center, see Rob Baird's "State of the Umbrella" article elsewhere in this issue.) Staff cross-fertilization reached its creative peak with the publication of Knowing Home: Studies for a Possible Portland in the fall of 1981. Plans for a 16-page pamphlet on "community self-reliance in Portland" had grown into plans for a full-scale book that traced a wide range of questions relating to community values, economics, ecology, and sense of place. Knowing Home received much favorable attention both locally and nationally. It also did much to establish RAIN in its own city as a voice worthy of attention. But the magazine was now on the verge of another of its "transition" years. During the course of 1982, Carlotta, Mark, and Laura each moved on to new adventures. Finally, late in the year, John left, and the magazine's third-generation staff was completely gone. RAIN's first editor, Steve Johnson, resumed his old role, and was assisted by the entire Rain Community Resource Center staff. The fourth-generation Rainmakers continued to refine some recent changes in RAIN's features and format. With the October/November 1982 issue, the magazine had moved to a bimonthly (as opposed to a 10-issue-per-year) schedule. It had also adopted an expanded 40-page format, added some new features (the "Pacific Northwest Bioregion Report" and an advertising section), and revived an old feature (the "Touch & Go" humor column that had last appeared in RAIN in 1976). To these changes, the new magazine staff added regular review sections for organizations and periodicals, a "Calendar" section, and a redesigned "Rush" page. Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 9 The early eighties saw an evolution in RAIN's relationship to self-reliance efforts in its own community. By 1983, as RAIN approached its 10th year, it could look back upon hundreds of articles and thousands of reviews on almost every conceivable subject. It could also look back upon three separate subtitles: Monthly Newsletter of Eco-Net," "A Monthly Bulletin Board," and "Journal of Appropriate Technology." But in an important sense, RAIN was still what it had always been: a magazine deeply concerned with information— the kind of information that could help its readers to "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." On a more personal level, RAIN had evolved into a rich bond of common experience for dozens of former editors, office managers, graphic artists, interns, contributors, and stringers. Each of these people, whether mentioned by name in this brief history or not, left something of value at RAIN: an enduring idea, a confin- uing feature title, a graphic style, an improved office procedure—or a mysterious box in the Rainhouse basement. To all of the former Rainmakers, we dedicate this history and extend our thanks. □ □
Nancy Cosper Page 10 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 The State of the Umbrella by Rob Baird To say that the Rain Umbrella, Inc., is in "a state of transition" has become something of a cliche. It often seems to be a permanent transition! Part of our continuing change is staff turnover, and there has been an unusual amount of that during the past year-and-a-half. Even more significant is the change that has been taking place in the goals and activities of the organization. The Umbrella is made up of two separate, but closely interconnected parts. RAIN magazine consfitutes one half. The other half is the Rain Community Resource Center, which was formed in early 1981 by the merger of the magazine with the Portland Community Resource Center, a citizen involvement organization. (For details on that merger, see John Ferrell's "Magazine from Ecotopia" article elsewhere in this issue.) The goal of the new Rain Community Resource Center was to foster and support community self-reliance activities in Portland and the Pacific Northwest. Put another way, the Resource Center helped the Rainmakers to implement their original goal of doing locally and regionally what they were writing about in the magazine. The Resource Center started off with an ambitious one-and-a-half-year Community Self-Reliance (C.S.R.) Project funded by the Northwest Area Foundation, RAIN TODAY: (L to R) Steoe Johnson, Rob Baird, Kris Nelson, John Ferrell, Ann Borcjuist, Jeff Strang. Mervyns/Dayton Hudson Foundation, Collins Foundation, Yarg Foundation, Templeton Foundation, Oregon Community Foundation, and the Rose E. Tucker Charitable Trust. As part of the C.S.R. Project, the Resource Center (together with the RAIN magazine staff) published Knowing Home: S tudies for a Possible Portland. A wide range of information services and a number of community education programs were also implemented through the C.S.R. Project. Today, the Resource Center continues to provide a similar range of community services. The Rain Library, which is open to the public three days a week, has over 4,500 books and receives 600 periodicals from around the world. Library topics include renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, bioregionalism, community self-reliance, community computer applications, and much more. Our responses to information requests from individuals and organizations range from simple referrals to detailed research reports. Forums, workshops, and conferences on a variety of community self-reliance topics are another continuing concern of Resource Center staff, and Rain also seeks to foster self-reliance through participation in community projects and organizational coalitions in the Portland area. Recent examples of Rain Community Resource Center activities include: • coordination of a conference on "The Future of Agriculture in the Northwest"; • presentation of a forum (in cooperation with Portland State University) that featured "soft energy" advocate Amory Lovins; • organization (in cooperation with the Eliot Energy House) of a farmers market in a low-income Portland neighborhood; • computer system design assistance to community groups, including development of an arts resources database and a neighborhood needs and resources database; • assistance in setting up community gardens and a small truck farm for local Southeast Asian refugees; • co-administration (with Oregon Appropriate Technology in Eugene) of the U.S. Department of Energy's Appropriate Technology Small Grants Program for Oregon. The initial Community Self-Reliance Project funding ran out in August 1982, and since then, the Resource Center operation has been funded by grants and contracts for specific projects. (RAIN magazine is self- supporting through subscriptions and advertising but
Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 11 does require some staff assistance from the Resource Center.) The perennial problem for Rain (as well as for other nonprofit organizations) is that grants come and go and don't cover basic overhead costs. The starting point for the Resource Center's present transition is the recognition of the need for a self-sustaining funding base. Going along with that is a recognition that a community project can only survive if it is supported by the community it serves. A big step that we have recently taken is to institute a more formal Rain Umbrella Board of Directors made up of local community leaders. The Board members provide both increased contacts in our own community and some of the long-range vision that is often difficult to muster among harried staffers. One way we hope to generate self-sufficient funding is through paid information services. More and more, people are coming to recognize the value of the many kinds of information the Resource Center is capable of providing, and we are attempting to work out new ways to market what we do best. In 1975, former RAIN magazine editor Lee Johnson wrote an essay entitled "A Future Story I Like." The essay described what the Rain organization might look like in the spring of 1984: an energy/environment center, located next to a neighborhood office, that is attempting to empower local citizens by assisting in such projects as the conversion of older homes to solar heating and the establishment of community cable TV channels, recycling centers, community gardens, and food co-ops. Today the Rain Community Resource Center embodies many of the values and goals of Lee's vision. Hopefully, the end point of our current transition will be a community-based, financially sound Resource Center that can expand its present efforts to build a more just and durable society. With the support of RAIN magazine readers and our local community, we just might make it to that goal not too long after the spring of 1984. □ □ TOUCH AND GO "Touch & Go" has been a RAINfeature, offand on, since 1975. Below are some of the best of the early "Touch & Go" entries. Going Cuckoo in the Salem Meat Locker (Dec. '75) Jack Nicholson was living in Salem, Oregon, getting up before dawn every morning and plodding off to the hospital where "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" was being filmed. Tim Cahil, in a Rolling Stone article, describes Salem: "Winter in Salem, Oregon, can add several hundred pounds of bad psychic baggage to the soul of a Southern Californian like Jack Nicholson. There is a constant chill fog, and the sun, at high noon, could possibly be that faint glimmer behind the brightest cloud bank. It is like living inside an Edgar Allan Poe poem, minus 20 degrees centigrade.. .. Have I yet suggested that the effect of a winter's day in Salem can best be experienced by wrapping oneself in 30 pounds of wet blankets and standing inside a meat locker for 24 hours?" Fourteen-Ton Birdbath (Feb. /Mar. '76) Rubella is an evolving castle compound in the San Gabriel Valley (California) that has a windmill irrigating a small vegetable garden and running an old washing machine. Another machine, a 14-ton, single-cycle gas engine, operates a birdbath. A similar four-ton engine turns a barbecue. You enter the compound through a 4,500-pound gate topped off with menacing metal letters that spell "Rubella." Inside, a road of railroad ties leads under a water tower that holds a 2,000-gallon storage tank. To the right is a garage containing a fleet of 18 old cars, trucks, and tractors that Rubel (Lord of Rubella) says will be ready for a local bicentennial parade. Motor Cola (Oct. '75) Captain Jack is building a spacecraft in the hills of southwest Portland, Oregon, and calling it his home. "I was born on Saturn," says Jack, "but our family got kicked off the planet because my dad was fired from his job. We went off to Mars, but it was horrible there, so bushy and no social life. One night I was out with my chick and we ran out of gas. The gravitational pull brought me down to earth, and ever since I've been trying to figure out how to get back." Instead of food. Captain Jack says, he drinks what he calls "motor cola," and needs only one bottle of this a day to sustain himself. Famous Last Words (Dec. '75) "Stand away, fellow, from my diagram"—Archimedes "Moose, Indian"—Henry David Thoreau
Page 12 RAIN Oct./Nov. 1983 The State of the Movement RAIN has always been a generalist magazine, concerned (as was stated in Volume I, No. 1) with "the evolutionary possibilities of interdisciplinary connections.” Still, it is easy to pick out certain broad concerns of the appropriate technologyIsocial change movement that have also been RAlN's principal concerns since the very beginning: sustainable agriculture, bioregional planning, community economics, renewable energy, information Icommunications, recycling, and alternative shelter. For this special anniversary issue, we asked people with well-recognized knowledge and experience in each of these areas of the a. t. Isocial change movement to share their views of the movement's successes and failures over the past 10 years and their visions of what awaits the movement during the second RAIN decade.—JF Drawingsfrom Diane Schatz's Ecotopia posters Energy © by Amory and Hunter Lovins At least two-thirds ofAmericans now realize that "energy conservation" means insulating your roof, not freezing in the dark. People who suggested that energy be used efficiently and that a larger share of it (eventually most or all of it) come from appropriate renewable sources were considered kooky primitivists a decade ago and utopian dreamers five years ago. Now they're painfully respectable. They cite such sources as the Harvard Business School and the new-product reports of the Fortune 500; opposition to their thesis is confined to the uninformed. The transition from the barricades to the boardrooms is difficult for some to make. The transition, though, is toughest of all for the energy supply industries. Planners are awash in unexpected gluts of oil, gas, coal, uranium, and electricity (at least in countries like our own—not in the nations where roughly two billion people still scrounge for wood and dung to cook their food). The energy supply industries, believing their own inflated projections, tooled up to sell far more energy than anyone wanted to buy. As a result, once-mighty utilities can't finance their way out of a paper bag; they may have to write off $100-200 billion in the next two decades. Some major oil companies may go belly-up, victims of imprudent investment strategies and the illusion that people wanted to buy barrels of sticky black goo (rather than mobility, comfort, etc.). However, those of us who saw all this coming, at least in outline, should restrain the impulse to say we told them so; while it's fun to be right, nobody likes to be around you when you are. We need instead to practice aikido politics—to talk to people where they are, not where we are, and to honor them and their beliefs even when we know, by divine inspiration, how misguided they are. Everyone's forecasts have been wrong, in varying degrees and for various reasons; nobody deserves a monopoly on humility. The speed of the energy transition caught everyone
Oct./Nov. 1983 RAIN Page 13 off guard, including us. Today's highest forecasts of U.S. energy needs in the year 2000 are well below the lowest unofficial forecasts made a decade ago, and they're still plummeting. But even more profound is the change in attitudes. As recently as 1974, ex cathedra pronouncements from such places as the Chase Manhattan Bank held that aside from curtailing holiday driving or television viewing, there was no scope for saving energy in the American economy: energy and GNP must spiral steeply upwards in a frenehc embrace. Today, however, it takes a fifth less energy than it did then to make the National Product a dollar grosser. The ratio continues to free-fall by several percentage points each year, with no end in sight. Indeed, it's now clear that the U.S., and the world, have barely scratched the surface of how much energy efficiency is available and worth buying. New ways to save energy emerge at a dizzying pace, each lasting perhaps six or eight months before being outdated by a better one. Energy efficiency and renewables are now among the fastest-growing sectors of the national and world economies. Their annual sales total tens of billions of dollars, and their markets are the target of international competition that is making the car business look tame. In 1976-77, the concept of a soft energy path based on efficiency and appropriate renewables was greeted by howls of derision: the technologies didn't, couldn't, exist. Within a year, the technologies were acknowledged to exist but were claimed to be uneconomic. After two years' further debate about costs, most crihcs conceded the technologies were indeed economic (given careful shopping); the problem, they said, was that people wouldn't buy them. But that question has been settled empirically by a national experiment conducted since 1979, when the Iranian revolution brought to many sectors the first real price rises (and new motives of independence, security, and sticking it to the Ayatollah). Since 1979, Americans have gotten more than a hundred times as much new energy from savings as from all expansions of energy put together, even though energy supply got six Hmes as much investment and 10-20 times as much government subsidy. Moreover, of those supply expansions, more new energy came from renewable sources than from any or all of the nonrenewables. Renewable sources, which were supposed to be unable to do anything much in this century, now provide nearly 8 percent of this country's total primary energy, and the fastest-growing part. We're getting about twice as much delivered energy from wood as from nuclear power (which had a 30-year, $40-billion head start); and since 1979, more new generating capacity has been ordered from small hydro and windpower than from coal or nuclear plants or both, without even counting their cancellations. Indeed, no central power plant of any kind has been ordered in the U.S. since 1981. The revolution has already happened unnoticed, through a quiet reallocation of priorities and capital. Just in 1980, Americans spent some $15 billion on efficiency and renewables—a fifth of all energy investment. But you ain't seen nothin' yet. The more people learn, the faster they'll buy. Or will they? Now the debate is moving to a new. more theological level: the critics say that although efficiency and renewables have swept the market so far, they will falter as easy opportunities give way to tough choices. In this view, the world will turn back to technologies now dying of an incurable attack of market forces (fission, synfuels) because nothing else will work long enough, big enough, universally enough. Well, maybe. But few of the skeptics are putting their own money where their mouths are. In recent weeks we have been approached by some of the world's largest builders of power stations, acknowledging that nobody wants to buy their product and asking what to make instead. There lies one of the challenges: How can institutions and people used to a few big products recycle themselves into making lots of much smaller ones? How can engineers enamored of gigantic, fancy, exotic technologies with brass knobs all over get excited about elegantly simple little things? How can construction managers used to multi-billion-dollar products settle for insulating innumerable roofs? Will financiers who get seven-figure commissions from giant projects see a future in zillions of home improvement loans? There are no easy answers. If the movement doesn't try to help, in a spirit of genuine sympathy, it will come to be seen as a gloating enemy by technologists suffering from the personal pain of revamping their skills and the disorientation of a jangled world view. Such a switch is never easy, and we owe it to skilled people, who in good faith devoted their careers to failed technologies, to make their transition easier. As the hard energy path has crumbled into a litter of failed megaprojects, the soft path has started growing up through the cracks. The initiative has come largely from individuals and community groups. They kept faith and worked hard. 'Their good ideas—and, equally importantly, their mistakes—spread with phenomenal speed via informal networks and grapevines. Astonishingly, many technical innovations came from people without technical training or institutional backup. (We got a note from a very smart man, with a rudimentary formal education, who had invented various energy devices to help him live in the Alaskan bush. His solar- tempered biogas plant balked at digesting paper, so he looked around his biome, noticed a moose eating a willow tree, recycled the moose, seeded his digester with moose-gut, and wrote us to report that his digester would now happily digest paper and even sizeable chunks of wood. He discovered something important, at least a cellulase enzyme and maybe a lignase, but he's not Exxon.) Spurred by the most powerful thing in the known universe—four billion minds wrapping around a problem—the pace of technical change has been impossibly swift. We've all needed loose-leaf minds. Remember the mid-seventies, when such unimpeachable sources as the Department of Energy said that passive solar heating, if it worked at all, could only be applied to specially designed new buildings? Hundreds of thousands of people who didn't know that now recline each February in their retrofit greenhouses, munching fresh tomatoes and reflecting on the infirmities of government. Or remember the ASHRAE 90-75 model building code, the fruit of endless deliberations by eminent energy-in-buildings engineers? It inadvertently out-
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