Background on Eco-Village

At their root, the issues of climate disruption, energy prices and the present economic doldrums all have the same cause. Human activity has grown to touch the limits of our planet. Until recently, the Earth offered vast new frontiers into which humanity could grow to acquire more natural resources and to absorb our waste. Today, practically the entire planet is being tapped to serve humans. For anyone familiar with the problems of natural resource supplies and waste disposal, it's hard to imagine human activity doubling in the next 25 years. Nevertheless, after hundreds of years of regular doubling, nearly every government in the world follows policies aimed at doubling again during the next generation. (3% growth, considered minimal for economic health, results in a doubling every 24 years.)

With new resources being accessed from Central Eurasia, in Africa and under the melting northern ice cap, there is some chance that another doubling could be accomplished, but many of those new resources would be needed just to access and service those hard-to-reach places. After that, to double again, to reach a size four times that of the present global economy, is more problematic, and after that? Clearly, at some point, the human family has to acknowledge that we are grown up, bid goodbye to our childhood growth phase and take responsibility for the impacts of our actions on this wonderful, though finite, planet. Developing a mature culture will take time. We would like to get started on our contribution.

Planning for Seven Generations

"Meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" is how the United Nations defines sustainability. It speaks of long-term planning. Lanark County is working on a Sustainability Plan starting from this premise.

Our 7th Generation Initiative (3) started 40 years ago as the Institute for the Study of Cultural Evolution. In 1974 our first research project concluded with a definition of sustainability that provides more specific guidelines for what needs to be done (4). Since then we have produced numerous educational materials to explain this outline (5) and I have addressed hundreds of audiences (6). Our next project is to build a small community based on these guidelines. We are asking for our township's cooperation in satisfying all the concerns that might arise around pioneering the construction and management of a domestic ecosystem for a small community.

Since before the term "Eco-Village" was coined, along with our educational work, I frequently discussed the possibility of building a community based on sustainability principles. Many of the people I've come to know agree that it is time to take tools in hand and to build what we have long talked about. A substantial network has developed over the years and more connections are coming forward as we introduce the idea to a broader audience. This network provides a unique ability to muster the knowledge and resources to demonstrate a working model of how our communities might sustain themselves in seven generation's time.

Lanark County could become known for pioneering work on a post-carbon, self-provisioning economy. In a few years, we could be training significant numbers of people who could settle in the area and create a new economic vibrancy.

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Solutions proposed

This proposal is concerned with:

- Carbon fuels,
- Food security,
- Waste accumulation,
- Local employment, and
- Retirement options.
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Carbon Fuels

While we have all noticed the rising price of gas, the cause is less well known. Speculation and greed do play their parts, but the underlying reason is long-term supply. The International Energy Agency says that we reached Peak Oil in 2006 (7). They are not alone in their assessment: United States Joint Military Command (8), Deutsche Bank (9). Peak Oil is the point where we cannot pump conventional oil out of the ground as fast as we want to use it. The result is prices that will rise as high as people can pay to get what they need (10). The huge expenses and dangers of deep ocean and Arctic drilling, wrestling oil out of tar sand and other non-conventional sources are thought necessary as conventional sources continue their decline. With that decline projected to be around 4% per year, we can expect energy prices to continue rising and, rising with them, interest in locally produced products and living situations that require a minimum of transportation.

Energy conservation is a consideration in every decision we make. Buildings will be very well insulated and designed to avoid the Sun in Summer and to capture it in the colder seasons. By providing as many of life's necessities as possible through local businesses, we would further reduce our energy footprint while increasing employment.
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Food Security

In cold climates, a home built without a heating system is considered incomplete. As transport fuels become expensive in the years ahead, a home built without a food system will be considered incomplete. Domestic ecosystems, that provide their own heating and food necessities, can be built for individual homes, for villages, towns and perhaps even cities. All would benefit from a secure food supply provided by people working locally.

Key to a domestic ecosystem is "full cycle nutrient management." When humans learned to grow food in one place, eat it in another and then run the nutrients down the river, we reversed the age-old norm whereby soils tended to increase in fertility. We have lost such vast amounts of soil nutrients that much of the world's agriculture now depends on importing potassium and phosphorus (11) from finite reserves in distant places and on the energy intensive manufacture of nitrogen fertilizer from natural gas. From the 7th generation's perspective, it is critical that we learn how to re-integrate human beings with natural nutrient cycles. To close the nutrient cycles, we intend to use soil toilets for managing human waste rather than putting it into water where it is often lost and can easily become a problem (12).

Organic practices, greenhouses, season-extenders and the full range of natural agricultural processes will be the foundation of our nutritional program. Another byproduct of such agricultural practices is the improved health that a home-grown diet (and the exercise of producing it) can provide with the resulting decrease in demand for health care services.
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Waste Accumulation

As much as possible, we aim to use local resources in ways that allow them to be returned harmlessly to where they came from when they are no longer needed.

Our intent will be to capture as many of our energy needs as possible from renewable sources, to build with local materials and to seek satisfaction from what we can do with our lives rather than from the accumulation, consumption and disposal of material products (13).

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle are now familiar tactics for managing material products. We will focus as much as possible on reducing material throughput by making things durable and reactivating the value that was traditionally given to durable goods. (It was not that long ago that one's most prized possession was a tool or piece of clothing that belonged to a grandparent.) Recycling follows as a final option.
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Local Employment

A Generative Economy is one where much of what people need is generated from local resources with local labour. Food, shelter, energy, furniture, clothing and many of the tools and utensils we need can be produced locally. Any such productivity can provide the people doing the work with income to trade for other locally-produced items. All such production reduces the problems of long-distance transport in this age of rising fuel costs.

A secondary advantage of a local economy is that because people will tend to get to know those who buy their products and those from whom they buy, participants will feel an increased sense of belonging. A secure sense of belonging is another determinant of health (14) that can increase well-being and reduce health care costs.

The objective is not to stop trading with the world. We seek only the ability to secure locally the essentials of healthy life. Trading with the rest of the world because it provides interesting opportunities is different from trading because we cannot survive without products from far away.
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Retirement Options

As described in Where Will the Grandchildren Live; An Alternative View of Retirement(15) security in old age may be better served by investing today in soil fertility and food production, energy-efficient solar buildings and the various enterprises to provide for local needs through local business, rather than by investing in funds that require the perpetual expansion of economic activity, or the expansion of precarious financial markets.

Similar to participating in a local economy, people investing in such a "retirement plan" would reap the psychological and health benefits of belonging. In some ways this reflects the sense of community that has existed in these rural areas for generations.

In Conclusion

In the interest of the generations following, we hope you find this proposal interesting and that you will cooperate with us to build resilience into our communities.

We welcome any questions or concerns that you might have.

Looking forward,

Yours, Mike Nickerson

References

1 - The Challenge and the Goal

2 - Domestic Ecosystems

3 - The 7th Generation Initiative

4 - Eight point outline of sustainability

5 - Materials available from the Sustainability Project

6 - List of tour events since 2006

7 - International Energy Agency on Peak Oil

8 - United States Joint Military Command on Peak Oil