this is a draft of a visit to corvallis, the year 2035

to return to jan's suburban permaculture website punch here images to jan's 1/4 acre permaculture site, links to culture change essays and 25 minute interview/tour of his place on you tube

cascadia did well to survive the Transition- nearly ten years of social, political and economic turmoil during the 'teens and then recovery under very different circumstances from about 2020 to 2035- the time of the story

the borders of oregon, washington state and vancouver bc had been fortified to keep out millions of desperate refugees about 2012. the valley would have been overwhelmed and quite possibly detroyed. still, there was great population loss in cascadia. as a city, portland became a confederation of neighborhoods, its own population a quarter of its previous,,,,,

there was travel, almost all by hydro/electric train. people stayed close to home/co-op for the most part

there were regional networks and associations, more like a league of simpatico city states based on eco friendly principles and values. there were other settlements scattered around the valley based on a variety of beliefs such as anarchist, christian, and one based on preserving life as it was BT,,,,,,

regional planning did take place- pretty much best case scenario.

the following excerpt begins in eugene and includes visits to thompsons mill- an agricultural new town and then to corvallis and mostly changes at osu. elder jan is the same jan writing the story, does quite well at 83 and has taken misty 19 years old and glen 21 years old as protoges. he is showing them various aspects of life in the valley. glen made a remarkable journey from the ozarks to cascadia- another part of the story. misty is an unusually perceptive and capable young woman. of course they take a liking to each other but that and other adventures manifest later

comments and suggestions welcome please e mail me

thanks

jan

note letter style

bold letters are elder jan making comments to himslef and narrating

italics is elder jan speaking

regular letters are everything else

“So what is this I hear. You, Misty and Glen are taking a lengthy trip together? Exotic destinations?”

“How information flies. I don't recall announcing this to the public. Yes, it's true and the destinations are quite exotic, the new town at Thompson's Mill and Corvallis.”

The dome seemed to have ears in every corner. We called it the "dome effect." If you were up to something and wanted to keep it quiet, you never talked about it in the dome. Maybe it was the acoustics. We've all had the experience of being in a dome and you talk in that space and it seems like a whisper is nearly a shout. Secrets don't stay that way,,,,,,

“Here is the plan. We are going to Corvallis and making a stop at Thompson's Mill along the way. These are two nearby locations that are particulalry important to the region. Corvallis because it is the largest nearby town with OSU and T Mill because it has become one of the most remarkable stories of the rural rennaisance in the past 15 years. We will have some words about Junction City, too.”

“Speaking of. Here is the lovely Misty. How should we think about this threesome taking off out of town like this? Here you are, a trial resident here for less than two months and already attracting so much attention?.”

“Well, maybe that attention has a bit to catch up on.”

We all had a great laugh. It was well known that I had taken a keen interest in these two young people. And these two young people had taken a keen interest in each other. Windmill Co-op had become known to some as Rumormill Co-op. We had seen Misty take on a highly popular roll in her new place while Glen was in demand all around town.

In the days leading up the the Decline and Transition, some of us malcontents theorized about what human potential was about. We were critical of the crass materialism and shallow consumer culture and would write and speak about unrealized human potential, the lost opportunities because of affluence and its popular culture distractions. Along with our criticisms, we confidently described a vision of a culture where people and communities could flourish and all these positive qualities would come to life.

As it turned out, those idealistic visions were not so far off. There had always been exceptional people, even under the most difficult and unlikely circumstances. There were saints and heros who emerged even under dreadful conditions. But those kinds of conditions were more overtly traumatic, conditions of social oppression, economic disequity and turmoil from a to z.

In those pre decline days, we could make high minded proclamations about how life could be from the safety of the historic low point of what could have been but wasn't. We could clearly see tremendous potential in positive human expression slumbering every day. Unlike those acute periods of dreadful conditions, most people in the middle class, in the heyday of the American Empire thought life was great. The bigger houses, the fancier cars, jet trips all over the place, the popular media reinforcing all the excess with its advertising and articles of praise for the affluence that never seemed to be satisfied. Most people, especially those who cashed in on it all, had little idea how manipulated they were and how distant they were from a very different way of life that offered a very different set of benefits.

At the time, little could be done to prove us wrong. We could boast about our assumptions without having to prove them because to prove them took a remarkable set of conditions most people never even considered at the time.

Looking back now, its hard to imagine living like we did at the turn of the century. Many of the assumptions we made did come true and the ideas about what positive human potential made visible would look like turned out to be a pretty good guess. Its not that everyone was in bliss. They weren't but there was a recognizable difference. I could see special potential in my two young compaions. Misty would have attracted attention if she had been herself 30 years earlier.

And Glen.

He came from a radically different background, a very different culture but still had arrived to a similar kind of actualizing who he was. The two backgrounds, Misty and Glen's, were like bringing the Renaissance and the Bronze Age together, yet both individuals had evolved in similar ways. Both were brought up in environments that nurtured the development of their beings that connected them with their inner personal strengths and outer cultural expressions. It was fun to be with them. There was a compelling energy.

“This sounds like so much fun!” Misty was excited. “I have been looking forward to this for weeks! Its not every day a chance like this comes along. I have heard about Thompson's Mill and have only been to Corvallis once and that was years ago. I hardly remember.”

“Good! I'm excited, too. What great company and places to visit. And here comes our third member to the delegation.”

“Good morning! How nice to see you all!” Glenn always had a positive greeting.

We had a group hug and could feel the anticipation of a fun couple of days we had all looked forward to.

The excitement was elevated. Our lives were much closer to home and even a short trip out of town was special and we all enjoyed each others' company.

“OK.” I said. “We are ready to go. Off to the station.”

We rode bikes to the station downtown and loaded them on the train for use on our trip.

“I love the train. Just to sit back and watch the scenery go by. This is one of the best investments made by the state before the 'teens came along. Another couple of years of doing nothing and we would not have the trains. That investment has paid enourmous dividends in the words of a by gone era.

”So how is it that the train system came about? They were a part of the American Experience.”

Perfect. I loved digressing into a bit of history. This is how I pass on usefull information.

The railroad development came just before the 'teens thanks to the "better late than never" efforts the regional governmental organizations.

“Please, Elder Jan, we would be privileged to hear you make a complete, entertaining and educational report.”

Somehow, I have a sense that your enthusiasm to hear this story is just a bit of a frolic. But just to make sure in case you really have this great need to know, here it is.

We can thank the Metropolitan Policy Organizations, or MPOs. The MPOs were originally mandated by the federal government for metro areas of over 50,000 population to plan and coordinate transportation strategies. Further, the MPOs were directed by the federal government to insure that metropolitan areas have a 20 year transportation plan, the 20 year plan involves the public in decision making, the plan was to consider the most appropriate mix of transportation choices and the plan prioritizes the most important transportation projects.

"For most of their history, starting in the early 1970's, MPOs were known as a biased referee for road building interests, favoring and looking after the auto centric transportation system. Moving into the 21st century, however, that characteristic began to shift towards a greater recognition that other modes of transportation deserved greater attention. The cost of gasoline going up over a dollar per galon for 5 years in a row had something to do with it.

Towards the 'teens, some said better late than never, even the Federal Government began to direct the MPOs to put more emphasis on transit and urban redevelopment to reduce auto dependence. As the Federal Government declined in its oversight capacity with the sharp economic downturn around 2010, local and regional associations of MPOs began to take on more autonomy that surprisingly shifted MPO approaches to transportation and planning. In many places, MPOs were the closest civic entity to a regional government. In the Willamette Valley, from Eugene to Portland, the few years before the turbulence of the Transition were remarkably productive for the MPOs. This is when the train networks were brought into being and regional economic planning made surprising progress towards a bio regional economy.

A new electric railroad, constructed on the Interstate Highway south bound lanes, now connects Eugene with Albany, Salem and up to Portland. The train then continues to Seattle. It serves as long as the hydro power generators work and the grid stays up. At first, the idea of building a train directly on the aorta of automobile transportation brought scorn and mocking but it was nervous scorn. The kind of reaction where one had to save some face but at the same time, knew it was a great plan. There were many other ideas that came into being in the past ten years that also fell into that category It only took a few well placed proponents and in a short time, almost all the planners and decision makers were claiming they were among the first to support the idea.

The rate at which support gained favor showed all that was needed for the idea was for someone to break the ice, to just say it. That breaking the ice was a phenomena that applied to many aspects of life before the Transition. Far too many smart people were far too cautious with innovative ideas. In the professional world of planning and economics, BT, many policy makers and senior officials knew where the trends were leading and had accelerated thoughts about what to do about it but remained silent, not wanting to risk careers or reputation. A lot of pain and suffering could have been avoided.

The mainline railroad connects to shorter lines radiating out from the largest towns. The first local trains were actually buses outfitted with lighter weight train wheels put on rails. The train companies had trucks that had train wheels as well, like shifting into 4 wheel drive and that is what are installed on the buses. Some lines are still the original buses. Considering the old automobile engines devoted 95 percent of their energy just to move its own bulk, it was a remarkably poor use of energy. Again, BT, the technology was available for a healthy use of resources but the logic of the economic system was not interested in logic and common sense. Trains are far more efficient.

These adapted trains run on locally produced bio fuel which must be used judiciously but the modest schedule serves the valley well. Interestingly, we will be passing near the location where the small engines and cars are manufactured.

The transportation system continues where rails end. That is usually where the last sizable town is located before hills and slopes become too steep for rail. Local buses begin at this point and make scheduled runs. The schedules are not frequent but people make their plans to fit the schedules. Compared to BT, there is much less hurry as a part of every day life. Plus, people living in rural areas do so aware of a very different energy reality. People who live out of town also work where they live. Commuting into town for work is close to non existent, the need for transportation has been dramatically reduced.

From Eugene, there are small connecting trains to Junction City and the “back way” to Albany. Another line runs to Florence and Coos Bay, another south to Cottage Grove and all the way to Medford. The old passenger line to California is no longer used. Relations with California are still not so friendly. The fighting at the border in the early 'teens is still a bad memory.”

We settled back into our seats. This was a local train using the old tracks to Junction City. We would go as far as Thompsons Mill, stop for a several hour tour and then catch a ride on a local freight train to Albany and then from Albany to Corvallis. We will return to Eugene on the electric main line on the former interstate highway.

We moved out of the Eugene yard, still an expanse of empty tracks and grown over. The years in the past of cleaning trains and herbicide spraying along the tracks has left this area still polluted but we are seeing some improvement.

“Its hard to imagine that these dozens of side tracks, a couple miles in length, were crowded with rail cars loaded with old growth douglas fir and milled wood- the hey day of our own local slash and burn economy. That ended in the 1980's when forest policy changed and the great majority of the big trees had been cut. It was before my time in Eugene.”

Glen pointed out. “Looks like some rail is being salvaged. Maybe another project somehwere. Track recycling. I can't imagine all those trees.”

Human economics have has been boom and bust. The Mayans, Gengis Kahn, Babylon, King Tut, Zimbabwe. They've all come and gone but what they all share is they all made transitions, either into oblivion, or like many European countries, managing to downsize from empire and continue to exist."Earliest transitions took place before humans and were driven by a dynamic planet, shifts in climate, perhaps a few volcanos and the occasional asteroid. The dinosaurs ruled for millions of years but could not adjust to changing conditions. We marvel at their bones.

When humans came down from the trees, thier ingenuity and innovation entered the equation. Australopithecines, homo habilis and all their descendents created their own role in contributing to transitions. In early human history, transitions were limited in scope and usually the result of natural phenomena. Climate change, volcanoes, epdemic. Changes took eons.

An early transition in North America took place about 10,000 years ago. Archaic North Americans were mostly nomadic and hunted large mammals in the cool and damp climate. As the climate changed and became warmer at the end of the last Ice Age, the mastodons and giant bison became extinct.

There was no choice for the locals but to transition towards a more settled way of life. They began hunting smaller animals and started to cultivate plants. Their more sedentary culture became more complex as they developed ceramics and more elaborate social and cultural practices.

With advancing technology, human activity at times aggravated natural forces combining to cause societal breakdown. The Romans helped turn North Africa into a desert. Natural climate change can take some of the blame for that area becoming a desert but poor agricultural practices played a part as well. Similar patterns occurred earlier in Mesopotmia and Egypt.

During the 20th century, the American West became overpopulated and overreached available water supplies even as many scientists warned of dire consequences as the climate was becoming dryer than its already semi arid condition. As it turned out, the flourish of agriculture and city building took place in a particularly benign period of climate. When conditions changed, the transition was traumatic to both the human economy and the environment. Technology and innovation amplified the consequences of this overextension tremendously. Cascadia was on the reciving end of that trauma 20 years ago as millions of displaced people moved north to seek relief. Its a part of our history few like to think about.

The disaster that befell the American West was only part of a much greater Transition. Unlike previous human experience, this one was global As science and technology grew in ambition and conceit and devoted singleminded to money making application the pay back was dramatic and some wuld say with some satisfaction, poetically just. The hundred or so years leading up to the Transition many of us experienced, exceeded human impact on the planet's well being of all previous history combined by many times.

The oil and natural gas energy that fueled the human global expansion and allowed it to reach such an extreme overshoot began to deplete just as the ecologically destructive consequences of that overshoot were accelerating. Using the remaining energy resources to repair the ecological damage and to redesign the human infrastructure for less resource intensive human needs would have been a smart choice and the idea was articulated but such ideas were of little interest to the global elite and decision makers.

The global enterprise was like pushing a boulder up a hill, the boulder growing larger as the slope steepened. Still, the upward movement painfully continued until it was no longer possible and finally, the boulder reversed direction and rolled back flattening the civilization that had been urging it up slope.

Glen spoke. “Judging by what happened during the 'teens when I was only a child, the boulder in reverse was quite devastating. I was old enough to be aware of the stress on my parents in Arkansas. We lived in a small town, an agricultural area in the flat and humid south eastern part of the state. Life was hard for my parents. Their parents were share croppers and knew all about an economic system set up for the wealthy.”

“Our family struggled even before the 'teens when I was a baby. As the economic downturn deepened, we squatted on unused land, my dad hunted, we collaborated with people who drifted in we could trust and with those good folks, where we lived turned into a small community, a cluster as its known in Cascadia. It was there I learned about what we now call cohesion. We had little money but we replaced much of our need for money with cohesion. We had our own small economy within the community of poor people and even cooperated with other small groups in the area.

“Over time, we attracted a variety of skills and even some white people including a doctor. Some said the 'teens were far more of a struggle than the Great Depression. More people lived in urban areas and more dependent on the energy intensive way of life in the 'teens. Compared to the Depression, I was told, there was a greater loss of social and practical skills useful for simple living and surviving. Few survival skills were learned watching TV and all the other kinds of entertainment.

“We evolved a functional if austere stability. I became bored. One friend and I were adventurous and impulsive in our youth, we left the group, drawn to the Ozarks. We had heard about the wilds and stories of Travelers, special people with unusual powers and responsibilities. I was really drawn to that.”

“Here and now. We are in Junction City already. This is where the train coaches are made. Just down that street, you can see a large building. That place has an interesting history. Before the Transition, when oil was cheap and automobiles were more numerous than people, there was an even larger vehicle called the motor home. It was the most elaborate example of affluence and excess on wheels.”

Long before the motor home, people had traveled by car and early on, started pulling trailers. The first ones were rigged up at home and were developed as a convenient and comfortable way to take along one's accommodation- a place to sleep, cook, the basics. Over the years, those simple trailers evolved into more comfortable and elaborate contraptions.

As the entire economy grew, so did vanity and the appetite grew for comfort and convenience. By the later part of the last century, trailers gave way to vehicles built to be small homes on wheels. And by and by, those small homes on wheels became larger and larger and more opulent. They had full kitchens, bathrooms, plush furnishings, air conditioning, all kinds of music and media systems. That large building we passed by was one of the places those motor homes were fabricated. They built fancy motor homes and employed over a thousand people at its most expansive point. Amazingly, as more and more people were coming to recognize an energy scarce future, the factory was still building the motor homes.

“Moving into the 21st century, some observers questioned the mansions with exhaust. Of course, they used a great deal of gasoline. The immense size and ostentation of the motor home created a level of antipathy towards the culture that had built up around them. It was the time of the second Iraq War, and many correctly saw it as a war for oil. While thousands died in the Iraq War, there was an irony that for many, clearly showed the priorities of the economic system, where personal vanity was more important than lives.

As the cost of fuel increased towards the 'teens, the motor home industry became one of the first large businesses to fall victim to changing economics. It was one of the canaries in the coal mine that caught peoples' attention that times were changing and, as it turned out, many products and behavior were no longer affordable, the motor homes were one of the first to go. It was about that time that American automobile companies also lost great market share to smaller more fuel efficient automobiles, built mostly by the Japanese. Those smaller foreign cars enjoyed their top position for only a few years as they, too, fell victim to increasing energy costs only a few years later.

After the passing of the motor home, and moving into the 'teens, there were a number of years of depression and social fragmentation, the Transition. As the situation began to stabilize towards the twenties, there was a regional reassessment about how to move forward given a very different set of economic and cultural circumstances. Part of that moving forward was to determine what, ethically, ecologically, as a community and bio region, could we afford.

For transportation, this reassessment built upon the several years of work building a railroad network
just before the 'teens. We did manage to put the rail line on the Interstate Highway by great good fortune. The flat Willamette Valley was perfect for this conversion. The highway passed through, or very near to the larger towns of the Valley between Eugene and Portland. Connector lines were built during the 20's to the larger towns not on the interstate such as Corvallis and Sweet Home. Those connectors were, like the Interstate, built on existing roads. The trains were light weight and the calculations showed the roads should support the weight of the trains.”

Following the Transition, we needed to turn to more local sources for the rolling stock to put on those rails and the former motor home factory became a manufacturer of rail cars. Quite a number of the employees of the motor home factory ended up working in the same factory but building a different product. Many of the skills were easy to cross over from the motor home to the trains. As it turned out, the lighter weight construction for the new trains is far more energy effiecient than the older much heavier train cars of the previous century. Given the scarcity of fuel, that was fortunate.”

Misty had some thoughts. “So how did this agricultural rennaisance happen? I am looking out at this landscape. Whats different from BT?”

Good question and this is a wonderful opportunity to see those changes. Agriculture made several fundamental changes after the 'teens. It became much more labor intensive. It went almost completely organic and its products transitioned completely to food, energy and fiber for the regional economy. People who lived in the country who survived the Transition either moved into town or they learned to make a living at home. Many who stayed in the country became part of the Rural Economic Revitalization Program, the RERP.

The program was one of the first regional collaborations AT. The Transition was a great disruption to every aspect of life both personal and community. Fortunately, many civic institutions survived those years and were able to regain their cohesion, often in a new role. MPOs were such an entity.

Eugene's MPO and its connections to its regional counterparts proved to be invaluable. This was another example of an existing public asset- a regional association of Metropolitan Policy Organizations, that shifted its focus from before the transition to a different but related purpose after the Transition. In this case, from mostly planning road construction to collaborating on regional alternatives to the automobile and coordinating much of the regional economic redevelopment.

There were also the remains of the State buerocracy and they helped coordinate and advise the MPOs but the MPOs were best placed to manage regional coordination AT. They served to coordinate not only the new train network but also can take a good deal of credit for the plans to relocate people to work in the country and in particular to match them with people who needed help on their farms. For this more detailed work, the reconstituted city councils of towns all over the valley were partners in this task. This partnership is what made up the RERP.

All over the Valley, some farms were abandoned both before and during the Transition. Recall, many people did not survive and their properties simply languished. Some people even traded homes in town for places in the country. There was an effort to compensate people who wanted to leave the country but that was not difficult because so many people died during the Transition, there were many available homes in town and in the country, too.”

This reworking of the rural landscape was a fascinating part of our post Transition history. It was and continues to be a unique experience in rural agrarian reform and land redistribution. There has never been a land reform circumstance in history such as what we have experienced in the past 20 years.

History is familiar with land reform. The emporer in Japan declared a land redistribution that has populist aspects in the 7th century. Many civil uprisings have been fueled by the need for land reform such as Kenya, Cuba, the Phillipines and many others.

In more recent times, the nature of market capitalism has pushed a global agenda to integrate buying and selling and along with that comes the goods and commodities that are grown for export. Indeed, export markets are nothing new. The American colonies, particularly in the South were all about exports of crops such as rice, cotton and jute. Early central American coffee estates were mostly owned by European descendants, much to the impoverishment of indigenous people. Tea plantations in East Africa, rubber in Southeast Asia, more recently cattle in South America, they all were early examples of an emerging global economy.

Contemporary global capitalism has been a driving force behind industrial agriculture for export, accelerating historical trends from past centuries. In the United States, a shrinking number of giant corporations around the turn of the century controlled a swelling percentage of the commodities, their production, storage, processesing , transportation and distribution. Farmers feeling as if they were losing their autonomy were not limited to the poor countries of the world. Many American farmers became, in all but name, share croppers, dependent on the large corporations to buy and market what they grew or, as in poultry, beef and hogs, what they raised.

When the cost of energy began to rise steeply in the first decade of the 21st century, the primary resource support of the global economy, cheap energy, became unstable. Transportation costs went up steeply and so did the many other inputs for industrial agriculture such as fuel on the farm, pesticides and petrochemicals. Natural gas, the raw ingredient for artificial fertilizer sharply rose in cost as well. As the impact of increased expense of energy spread, so did unemployment all over the world and worst in the most affluent areas.

Markets and supplies, both energy dependent and dependent on each other, declined in tandem. Areas of the world highly dependent on imported food suffered badly and that was almost everywhere. The Willamette Valley fared better than most places. There was a pre existing culture that contained a considerable degree of pre adaptation. Water was still plentiful, the geographical arrangement of towns, existing infrastructure, rivers, flat areas, hills and mountains were kind to a new beginning.

Still, making that transition in rural areas took a great deal of effort. The new post Transition realities were dramatically different. This was a unique experience in nearly all aspects of rural land use.

In the past, efforts at land redistribution and agrarian reform took many forms. One must also distinguish between redistribution and reform. Redistribution was more simply taking land from larger owners and making it available to more people. It usually included an element of equity- the landless, the disenfranchised and poor gaining secure access to land to make a living. The new landed persons were, or the most part on their own.

Agrarian reform included redistribution but also included broader policy and support mechanisms to improve the likelihood of success on the land. There were many variations of land reform given social, historical, political, economic and geographic factors.

New democracies, fresh from colonial rule made land redistribution a priority. Countries under the oppressive control of elites and oligarchs saw land reform as a rallying cry from the poor for change if not revolution. Changes in political realities were another avenue to rural land use change such as the collapse of the Soviet Union and its Eastern European vassals. Some governments engaged in land redistribution and reform as a proactive strategy to sidestep and diffuse rural unrest.

Goals of land redistribution varied from idealistic to pragmatic, even manipulative for political gain. Success of the efforts depended upon stability in the country making the changes, financial support for compensating the former land owners and financial support and services for the new occupants. The destination of the land's product, subsistence, local markets or global markets, played an important role in how the new occupant would manage the new farm as did cost of energy.

The Willamette Valley experienced unique combinations of circumstance for rural repopulation. Something like 30 percent of the rural population had died. There was, over a period of ten years a dramatic change in energy availability, gasoline and diesel in copious amounts had to be replaced by muscle power both human and animal along with a very modest amount of localy produced bio fuels. Related to that was a near total loss of artificial fertilizers.

Local and regional economics were in shock. Markets and transportation were severely upset. There was need for urgent transition in types of crops from industrial to food over a few short years. Management and ownership of many farms had to start over. There were few farms that didn't have to make unprecedented changes in how they operated.

And there were great assets. Many farmers and residents of the region were well aware of the trends that lead to the Transition and many had made at least some preparation for that and were able to mentor neighbors who were not so prepared. Oregon State University had been discretely researching strategies for conditions like the Transition for several years in partnership with local farmers who had regional contacts. The soil is very good and there was already a considerable organic component to regional agriculture.

There were many arrangements for people to move to rural areas and the RERP accomplished a remarkable task, directing the local MPOs to take an inventory of farms, assets, people and crop transitions. One unprecedented aspect of the agrarian repopulation was compensation. Previous land reform that involved change in ownership sometimes compensated the owner of the land at fair market value. After the Transition, there was no longer a market in terms used before the Transition. There was no fair market value. The emerging economic system had to redefine itself in a radically different way because the circumstances were new. The profit motive was a relic and working with Nature was a priority.

Some land owners left their properties and were compensated in non money ways, perhaps with an available home in town which would be part of a residential co-op. Some stayed on the land in trade for their property, some of the elderly who did not want to move made arrangements to join and be taken care of by the incoming new people.

Some rural property owners who once communted to town, took up farming, some inviting friends from town to join them in a cooperative undertaking. Some larger farms were broken up into smaller farms and sometimes, those smaller farms formed a collaboration with other smaller farms.

It was a huge undertaking with the RERP helping to coordinate. Papers were full of ads like the old personals BT, farms looking for people, people looking for farms. Farms described themselves in glowing terms, people looking for farms doing the same. The first few years were considerably disorganized. There were misrepresentations from both directions and after several years, a system was created that standardized the process and the shift proceeded much more smoothly. By the late twenties, much of the rural resettlement and land repopulation had been accomplished. The next phase was to establish rural agricultural centers, mostly in existing towns but also several strategically located new towns such as Thompson's Mill.

On our return to Eugene from Corvallis, we will make our final stop at a farm that was one of the first to model this new urban-rural collaboration and actually engaged in rural repopulation five years before the Transition even began.

The RERP also coordinated redevelopment of new rural industries, the Three Fs- Food, Fiber and Fuel. The intention was to supply the needs of the region from local sources. At the outset, no one assumed matching the affluence of BT to be the goal. Everyone who survived to this point was glad just to be breathing and to have shelter and food to eat. There was little interest in excess.

Along with the regional inventory of farms, crops and soils; manufacturing and transportation priorities were assessed based on the needs of the region's population at a modest standard of living. Also from the outset, there was very little animal agriculture for food. Changes in diet, much less animal raising for food, delivered many benefits to public health and the environment. Still, a limited amount of meat will be available, the use of draft animals is anticipated to increase and as these animals die of natural causes, they will become available for food.

Poultry and hogs are also included in the farm strategy at modest levels as they are able to turn food scraps and by products into food. Their manure is also an important part of maintaining soil fertility.

Learning from the past, social and ecological boundaries were used to define the extent of the economy and Cascaidia's way of life in general. This meant that choices in technology, energy, environmental and social impact were incorporated in planning from the beginning. Establishing these boundaries was greatly facilitated by broad and popular civic discussions. Again, the upheaval of the 'teens became a unifying element in future planning.

The practical application of the RERP inventories was to locate important manufacturing and processing centers as near to train tracks as possible. Each transit located development would act as a center for that area. The Willamette Valley essentially became a corridor with larger towns becoming hubs for branches to the main corrridor. Several new places were planned such as Thompson's Mill because thaey had pre exisiting assets and they were well placed geographiclly. These hubs served as collectors for their respective “watersheads.” The secondary rail lines serve industsry, agriculture and passengers. The system has worked out very well so far.

Back in Junction City, recall, the factory that made homes on wheels is now building rail cars. In that same facility is a diverse range of manufacturing and production. There is a pasta making factory as well as different kinds of food oils, there is a bakery for Junction City, jam and jelly, canning and much more. Most of the workers for those businesses live across the street in co-ops as we have in Eugene. The surrounding fields are sites for co-op gardens as well as for larger production crops. Central to our new economy is to minimize the need for energy use, transportation and environmental impact.

Locations on the coast or the foothills are the source of useful products particular to those locations. Considering the geographic variety in Cascadia, we can provide a remarkable diversity of important agricultural, forest and coastal products. We will have a look at those forest and coastal locations in the next few weeks. Did I mention we will take another trip to Florence next month?

We will arrive to Thompsons Mill shortly. The Mill is a new transit located agricultural center. It is next to the railroad and includes a grain mill, green houses, food storage, cannery and other kinds of production and processing. It is the flagship of the RERP's South Valley redevelopment. We will see shortly.

“Many of these fields you see here were planted for grass seed 40 to 50 years ago and most of that grass seed was exported. There was little benefit to local communities. The field burning in the summertime was known to damage public health but with powerful agricultural interests burning continued in spite of public health concerns and widespread public opposition. As conditions changed around the turn of the century, a growing awareness came in to being that the region had better begin to redesign many of the ways it took care of its needs. Crop transition was an important part of that redesign.

In the Eugene area a key strategy to transition crops was put together by the local and publically owned utility company. The company provided both electricity and water to Eugene and Springfield and parts of the surrounding area. The water quality department of the utility came up with an idea to combine crop transition with improving water quality.

Well before the 'teens, the department collaborated with a green oriented consulting group and came up with an easy to use information system to help farmers determine what crops they could transition towards given their soil and water requirements.The consulting group also helped pre locate places to sell the new crops. Improving water quality was the third part of this strategy.

The system worked well and the model was duplicated all over the Valley. What you see as we pass by this agricultural area is the result. You see many kinds of crops for local food, fiber and fuel.”

“This reminds me of what I read about the Great Depression in the Ozarks.” Glenn was a real history buff. “From what I read, during the Depression, the government helped set up community canneries and offered education about raising crops. Interestingly, the government recommended movement away from subsistence and towards the a local market.”

“Hmm. What we have done here is a bit more complex but an odd parallel. The movement here has been towards the local instead of for export. The cheap energy and the logic of the market-global economic system lead for a time in a direction that exploited the cheapest source for the most expensive component in the economic system and that was labor. The cheap energy was used as an essential subsidy. It permitted the movement of components and commodities to where the cheapest labor was and then to its eventual destinations, frequently thousands of miles away. When one area of cheap labor went upscale and wasn't so cheap, the factories moved some where else. It was immensely short sighted, cruel, damaging to practiclly everything but the factory owners and did not include anything near an adequete feed back mechanism to correct its mistakes. We are now living the results.”

“Look there. See those white towers? We are arriving to Thompson's Mill and here comes the station. Gee, looks different. I haven't been here for a couple years. There's lots of new buildings. So, we will have a tour. A friend will meet us and show us around.”

Thompson's Mill

“Here we are. Good, and here comes Betz. Hi Betz, so nice to see you!”

“Elder Jan, what a treat to have you visit!”

Hugs all around.

“And please meet Misty and Glen.”

“Aha, Misty and Glen. We have heard about you both! We welcome you to Thompson's mill!”

“Maybe we should have planned to be here for a week or so! There is so much going on here!”

“Thanks so much for having us Betz.” It was Misty.

Glenn added. “Same here. We're excited to see Thompson's Mill! This is my first visit out of town since my arrival. Elder Jan has been telling us all about the area since we left Eugene. He's a great tour guide.”

Betz. “Elder Jan knows his history and has been a part of creating it. Its a privilege for you all to be here. I have heard of your adventures, Glenn. You've been much further away form Cascadia than anyone I know and I hope at some point to hear some of your stories!

Glenn, “I bet that can happen. But the story right now is Thompson's Mill and there looks to be a lot going on here.”

Betz. “Its true. We've been very productive and very pleased with the new town! There's a great deal of activity. TM has become one of the most vigorous new settlements. We supply many products to both Eugene, Corvallis, Albany and many other towns in the south part of the Valley. We can leave your gear here at the station and can start off with a bike ride.”

“First, you can see the mill in the distance. Ten years ago, thats about all there was. The RERP has a rating system and this location came up with a high priority. We have a train line. We are in the midst of agriculture, we have the pre-existing Mill and the Mill has an electrical generator.”

“The town is populated with an amazing variety of people. There is a strong delegation from OSU. This has become the testing area for many innovative agricultural techniques, and yes, we do have a close review of the techniques so they don't overstep technological modesty.”

“We have all kinds of people into solar, bio gas, food processing, construction, new products from old crops. We are part production and processing, part research and very much education. Much of the construction you see here is salvage from elsewhere in the area and relocated here. We know transportation is a critical factor and being by the rail line between Eugene and Corvallis/Albany makes this a very desirable location. There is talk of a short rail connection to the main line on the interstate, only five miles east of here.”

“The M ill has been quite a magnet. Its origins go back to pioneer days, about 1860. The level of sophistication of its design and use of water power is nothing short of remarkable given the first settlers had been here only five years when construction began. It's been enlarged a number of times since then, the dynamo installed in the 1970's. By good fortune, the state bought the property in 1995 and did a wonderful job of reconstruction. The dynamo is used when the mill doesn't need the water so we have a seasonal availability of electricity which works out quite well. Milling takes place more in the summer and the electricity is more valued in winter, also the period for greater water availability.”

“Let's have a look in the green houses.”

We stepped in and the scene was like a different planet. Warm and earthy with cucumbers, melons, tomatoes all climbing lines up towards the ceiling. The walls and ceiling were glass and there were a dozen or so workers and what looked like a tour group at the far end.

“This is a great example of expanding the growing season. Our produce stays in the South Valley.
Early in the Transition, no one knew what we were in for. Part of our Regional Plan is that we place a limit on how far we transport what we grow. There are other agricultural new towns in the northern part of the valley as well. We stay in touch with them and in essence, that is their “turf.”

“There is also an educational element to Thompsons Mill. We are a destination in the South Valley for learning about all manner of agriculture, canning, milling, bamboo, hemp, drying food, making fabrics and bio fuels both liquid and gas. We also are in the early stages of producing strand blocks- a thick woven straw rope covered with an earthen plaster. I'll show you a bit later. There is a constant influx of visitors.”

We were outside again and heading to another structure.

“This is one of the most impressive bio gas installations in Cascadia. We put into the digesters all organic waste including what comes from the mill, food processing and any other kind of compostables along with human waste. The gas supplies the cannery and the highly fertile by-product goes right back into the greenhouses. The design for all of Thompson's Mill is for one area's waste to be another area's supply. We have arranged the buildings for this flow of materials.”

“Over there is the hemp building. As one might expect, people who work there are the target of all kinds of jokes. We are developing fabric, oil and food products from different parts of the plant.

“Sharing the hemp building is where we are improving the process for making blocks out of wheat straw. We have developing a device to braid the straw in 6 inch thick cables and then we cut the cables and coat them with a kind of plaster. The process had its start a research facility in south Oregon 40 years ago. The blocks are very strong and used in construction much the way cinderblocks were used but this product is far less energy intensive. OSU has also been working on this and we are one of several locations to develop improved techniques in production.”

“We also have a wonderful evolving bamboo nursery. Again, we are an OSU outpost, helping to put their research into practice for bamboo. We are finding bamboo shoots to be very nutritious. Split bamboo can be woven into mats and other crafts. Bamboo charcoal is a very effective for water filters and the charcoal process has by products such as bamboo vinegar which can be used as a fertilizer and a preservation medium. Bamboo is well known as a construction material both as raw bamboo canes and when cut into strips and made into panels for multiple uses.”

“Over beyond those trees is where we have the draft oxen and horses. We have a school both to teach humans how to manage draft animals and to teach horses and oxen to be draft animals. There are several other draft animal schools in the valley.”

“And over there, we will be building the meadow foam refinery. Meadow foam oil makes a wonderful skin cream and can also be used as a lubricant on machinery. There are a number of growers within a few miles of here.”

"This is all a far cry from agriculture BT. Leading up to the Transition, the agricultural-industsrial complex manifested its greatest folly. It is a striking contrast to the difference between now and then."

"As oil became vastly more expensive, all manner of efforts were conceived to maintain life as it was known at the time, highly dependent on automobiles, oil companies and expensive infrastructure."

"Auto fuel made from corn, bio ethanol or alcohol, was seen as the best alternative to gasoline and the government poured billions into subsidies to produce the corn for the fuel. Voices calling for sensible changes in urban design and transportation to reduce automobile dependence were drowned out by economic interest already heavily invested in automobiles with much to loose by thoughtful solutions such as public transportation and redisigning our urban areas to reduce auto dependence."
.
"Ironically, the oil industry was at odds with the new bio ethanol industry because it was poaching on its shrinking turf. More and more corn was diverted to fuel as oil became more expensive and the consequences included riots and extreme political instability in Mexico."

"US farm policy heavily subsidized certain commodity crops with price guarantees so when corn, for example, was sold to Mexico, it was cheaper than Mexican corn. This drove many Mexican farmers out of business. They could not compete."

"When corn for fuel demand went up steeply in the US, it drove up the cost of corn in Mexico, at this point, highly dependent on US corn. Tortillas made from corn are a staple of the Mexican diet and when the cost of torillas went up steeply, many could not afford them and so came the widespread riots."

The Mexican government subsidized the corn heavily for a few years but as its own oil production went into decline, it became less able to afford the subsidies. Mexico's economy was heavily dependent on oil exports to support its government's budget. As oil income declined, Mexico's entire economy suffered badly. So the riots and rural decline became worse and even more tens of thousands of Mexicans tried to make their way into the United States. The border, already far more fortified became militarized to keep them out. It was very ugly.”

“So here in Cascadia, the food or fuel debate has brought us to an agreement that fuel from crops would be for very limited use. On the farm and in town, for emergency vehicles, some of the local trains. The promises back at the turn of the century, that bio fuels would merely replace oil did not hold up long at all. In fact, the enthusiasm for bio fuels perpetuated auto dependency and Transition became even worse as many policy makers and their corporate sponsors continued to promote so called bio fuels.

"Much time was wasted on plans for alternative fuels for automobiles, most of them heavily subsidized schemes that benefited large corporations more than anything else. A great deal of money was wasted on bio fuels. Its a sad statement of economic values that corn was sold to those who could pay the most and tragically, people with automobiles could pay more than people who were hungry.”

On the positive side, all of that narrow thinking has brought us, a few decades later, to Thompson's Mill, and a much wiser approach to taking care of our needs, at considerable cost, with a far diminished population”

“Pause for a minute, look around and you will sense there is a vibrancy here. People feel like they are on a mission, you can feel the excitement. People feel like they are involved with creating a vision they believe in. Those who predate the Transition nearly all say now they feel liberated to follow their real instincts and intuitions.”

Glenn posed a question. “This all looks great, there is nothing even remotely comparable in the Ozarks. I feel like a time traveler and it makes me feel dizzy, even having been in Eugene for foiur months now. How are these people paid or who supports all this?”

“Thats a good question. All of these people belong to co-ops. Some are on leave and some have come to live here permanently. Those here temporarily are supported by their co-op. There is a good deal of prestige involved with working here. Try as we do to discourage the idea of status, being a part of the new town here carries a good deal of cache. This is the most ambitious new agricultural town in the South Valley and is the subject of much interest and attention.

“The co-ops back home in Corvallis, Albany, Eugene and elsewhere who support those here all have that prestige rub off. The entire Valley benefits from this work so even other co-ops that do not have a personal connection here help support co-ops that do have members here. Little of this support is in money, it is far more help in the daily needs of the co-ops. Co-ops are supporting co-ops.”

“You recall our visit to the sector on Community Cohesion. What you see here is cohesion at work on a regional level. People are aware of what is happening here, there is a great deal of support and understanding of why Thompsons Mill is so important. Another aspect of this project is that TM is a regional effort. It is the most ambitions new intiative in the South Willamette Valley. There are many observers from Portland, Salem and even Seattle here to learn from this experience and to lend expertise.”

“Next stop is the cannery. Much of the produce coming to TM is canned and we use solar energy for most of the process. The jars are returned and reused. At one time, canning was frowned upon for being so energy intensive. Using the summer sun to boil water is very efficient. We are still improving our techniques but this entire approach is new. No one was doing solar canning BT. The process we come up with here will be duplicated elsewhere. We want to keep as much of our economy decentralized as possible. Already a half dozen small scale solar canneries are up and running.

“We can beans, tomatoes, corn and much more. We also do a great deal of solar drying. Dried veggies weigh only a small fraction of the fresh produce and overall are much less energy intensive. We tend to dry or can veggies depending on which process retains the most nutrition for the particular vegetable.”

We were overwhelmed by Thompsons Mill. I had visited this place 30 years earlier and to see how it has become a focal point of a very different approach to agriculture was truly amazing. The social and cultural aspects of the place were no less fascinating.

“Along with all the agricultural development going on here, the intention is for this place to be a wonderful place for people to live. The arrangement has many elements of the Kibbutz. There is a sense of mission and high level of cohesion. Most of the work will be rotated so after a time, most people will learn multiple skills. This is also becoming an education center so there will be ongoing visitors staying for various lengths of time.”

“The eventual population could reach five hundred people. There will be a central green and play area for children. Dining is already communal, for the most part, in a central location. Communal dining connects people and saves a great deal of time and energy in food preparation. Its also ok to take a break and cook at home as well. There will be a school for kids living here and medical care along with various cultural amenities such as coffee house, library, indoor and outdoor recreation areas and residential gardens. Individual residences will be in clusters with shared kitchen. Everything will be walkable. The only vehicles will be some farm tucks run on the fuel made here and several small electric vehicles.”

“Most of the daily needs will be available on site and the train between Eugene and Albany comes by several times a day. There is already a waiting list for eager settlers and what you see is the project about midway through its construction. Smaller versions of Thompson's Mill are planned or under development in a half dozen other locations in the South Valley. The entire idea is to create new agricultural centers that have a large degree of day to day self containment located on rail corridors in optimal locations to serve the region. They will all combine aspects of production, processing and education.”

“So, finally the mill.” The Callopooya River, more like a large creek here on the Valley floor, has been re routed to this site, the same hydrology as 150 years ago when the Mill was first built. The head is 18 feet and the falling water turns several turbines that power the entire mill. All the functions of the mill are water powered as well as modests amounts of electricity for the community.

“This small lake is for the mill and incidentally, we cultivate trout in the lake. You see the gates to the left with the mill building above. Let's go inside.”

“You will notice the large wooden structural beams and the drive belts powered by the falling water. The different belt systems power a variety of elevators that carry the grain up to various holding bins. From the these bins, the grain can be carried up even further to the top of the structure where it is shunted to various chutes and pours down by gravity to the desired mill. Its really quite simple but there are literally dozens of bins, chutes, belt systems and five different mills. Its a remarkable set up and to think most of this complex was designed and built 175 years ago, you have to be impressed.”

“The place was restored by 2010, just in time for the Transition. The mill came through those difficult years in good condition. It was milling local grain again by 2016, even before the end of the Transition. This wonderful mill is a primary reason why the new town is being constructed here.”

“The grain supplied to the mill is all from surrounding farms. The various product of the different mills include several different kinds of flour, oat meal and poultry feed.”
When the mills are not in use, electricity is generated to power other machinery here at TM. We have weekly meetings to coordinate different uses and needs so everything is syncronized.”

“This is Donna, she's one of the mill managers. Donna, please meet Elder Jan, Misty and Glenn. They came up from Eugene to visit the new town. Tell them a bit about yourself.”

“Welcome. You have a great guide in Betz. I 've been here for two years and plan to be a permanent resident. Before TM, I was living in Albany. As a kid, we were just moving into the teen's and like everyone, our family struggled to survive. We had a big shared garden with friends and I fell in love with agriculture. I was given the task to hand grind the flour so its not surprising, when I found out about the mill, I applied to come here. It been wonderful.”

“This system of pulleys and belts, verticle, horizontal, the grain elevators, the aroma of the place, the huge wooden beams. Did you seen the person elevator? Its right here. This runs on a counter weight system. You just step inside and pull the rope and up you go!”

And up she went. I had seen the same elevator 30 years earlier. I could not imagine I would see the elevator again under these circumstances. The new town was flourishing and so were the people who came here to be a part of the project.

“Thank you so much Betz. This has been a wonderful visit. We need to head back to the station. I hope my own companions here are not lured away from our own co-op to be a part of this impressive project.”

Misty added a few words. “I can't agree more. So many people coming together for a project that will benefit the entire region! The idea of a regional culture of cohesion takes real shape after seeing all of this.”

“You're all very welcome. All of us here feel its a privilege to be part of the TM new town. Keep in mind that this is a regional project, there are many people who are part of this who will never even set foot at TM. The strands of involvement and support for TM are many and lengthy. Please come back for an update!”

“Goodbye Betz, see you again.”

“Good timing. What a great visit! How come it took a disaster for this kind of social and economic change to happen?”

Good question. Virtually the entire thrust of the old and departed economic system was to minimize its costs and maximize its profits. It had to follow its own logic. Three primary elements of that economic system were cost of labor, cost of materials and cost of energy. Energy was the linchpin to the entire arrangement. Because, for decades, oil was abundant and cheap. That cheap oil asset combined with the logic of market capitalism essentially predetermined the globalized economic system where more and more of local production was lost to be relocated to places that cost less to produce the product.

Many observers saw a problem with this at an early point but as long as energy was cheap, the system worked. Raw materials were transported easily and cheaply to factories and processing where labor costs were lowest The added cost of transportation was easily covered by the decreased cost of labor and materials. Under this arrangement, it all made sense. As long as energy was cheap.

break

At that time, developing Thompsons Mill made no sense. Flour, vegetables, grains were all cheaper from a larger factory with economy of scale along with cheap labor some place else. You would be amazed to see the products of the past. When the mill was built, it served the region well. As economic conditions changed, the perfectly good mill languished because it did not fit into the cheap energy set up. The cheap energy set up went away and fortunately, the mill is still here to use once again. The mill hasn't changed but we have seen a remarkable full circle- the Mill as a vital part of the local economy, then it became a relic and museum and now, its the cornerstone of a whole new way of life and rural revitalization.

Other kinds of manufacturing saw a similar pattern. In our own country, manufacturing was centered in the Northeast and Midwest in the 19th century. Much of it was water powered. Along came steam, coal and later oil and the sites of manufacturing became much more flexible in location. As cars and trucks came to dominate and water was no longer the most convenient source of power, manufacturing left the old industrial cities and moved to cheaper land on the periphery.

Then, with more roads, more trucks, more cheap oil combined with new technology such as air conditioning, much of our nation's manufacturing moved to the less industrialized and steamy south, where there was cheaper land and labor. This north to south movement went on through the middle of the past century but along comes globalization- cheap energy allows for business to take advantage of lower costs of business and manufacturing all over the world. There were numerous countries that became the next destination of manufacturing. When they became too expensive, the factories would move on to cheaper locations. There was minimal loyalty to a country, community or individual worker.

“Many good paying jobs went elsewhere. Instead of a lengthy career with one company, many workers were forced to adjust to different jobs, often at lower pay than before. There were many examples of a parent employed for life at good pay with a single company but when son or daughter tried to do the same, the company's way of doing businiss was different. Job security, benefits, the lengthy career became a relic of the past.

Fewer of those jobs were in manufacturing, most were in so called services. The essentials of life, food, clothes, shoes, much of what was used in every day life came from distant sources, oftentimes from distant countries.”

The prevailing economic system had little place for local production for local markets. Thompsons Mill would not have fit in and neither would many other sensible and responsible ways to take care of local needs from local sources. There were many efforts in the 20 or so years leading up to the Transition by public spirited people to encourage buying local but the fact was, at the pinnacle of globalization, it would have taken an unusual person to buy local when the globalized equivalent cost a third or a fifth as much. The global market and its cheap products were seductive but like a quick romance, it was a real let down in the longer term.

“This area we are passing through now was largely grass seed and now, as you can see, it is a variety of crops. Corn, wheat, hemp, meadow foam, bamboo, beans, fruit trees, plant nurseries and more. You can see clusters of buildings, many of those are co-ops. There are some draft animals. Looks like a food drying operation over there.”

The train was well used. People still needed to go to town. There were cargo spaces so people could do errands and pickups in town and have a place to transport them back to the farm. There were bike spaces and even places for small livestock. Train stations had bikes and trailers for borrow so people could do their errands easily. It was a point of pride that a town had a well maintained fleet of bikes and trailers at the station for use by visitors.

Misty spoke. “Having been involved in salvage and rebuilding, I'm impressed with how TM moved some sizable buildings. We no longer have the capability to make some of those large structural girders in Cascadia. Its like we were left with all these assets and its up to us to move them around to best fit our needs. Life must have been really different when there was so much cheap oil. Its like moving into someone else's home and rearranging all the furniture.”

Glenn. “Think how it looks to me. I often regret leaving eastern Arkansas, I never went back after I left and don't know what became of friends and family. The trek to come up here gave me a good sense of how many other parts of the country fared. Not so well and possibly the same for back home. Those locations in Wyoming did remarkably well and it was because they had an energy source and managed to move some salvage around just like TM. They had a much more sophisticated economy than the Ozarks.”

What is it that creates more sophisticated economies? What drives innovation? How come people are not satisfied with what they have? How come I risked my life to come up here based on a mere rumor that life in Cascadia was more highly evolved?”

Good question. I think untold people have had those thoughts all through history. My bet is it has a lot to do with culture, geography and just random luck, good or bad.

“Why was it the Europeans who ran into North America instead of indigenous Americans running into Europe. Why did a certain Chinese emporer forbid further oceanic exploration just as the Chinese were roaming as far as Africa hundreds of years before the great European Age of Exploration? Or how is it that the Greeks landed on Sicily's eastern shores and took up residence along the coast over 2000 years ago with their superior technology and ran the locals off to the hills?

Innovation would seem to be a cultural value in some places while not in others. Is there a metaphysical element? Could it be that the level of technology and innovation is not even a useful criteria to guage the success of a civilization or society's success? Indeed, we have just seen in the past 30 years, a level of global trauma algorithmically greater than anything before seen on this planet. And its is beyond question that it has the fingerprints of technology and innovation all over it.

Have there been cultures that conciously limited technology or is it that some just didn't connect with innovation. The Incas had a highly successful empire with well built roads, a ruling elite, cities full of specialization and art, remarkable suspension bridges across rugged chasms but no wheel. Did their wise people take a look at the wheel, think about its implications and decide it was too much of a risk or they just never thought of it?

In my own life I didn't believe it when a friend in high school told me the end was near for non stereo vinyl records. That was only the beginning. Stereo vinyl went soon after, then the 8 track tape, the much smaller cassette became virtually obsolete, then cds, dvds, mini disks, all kinds of personal entertainment devices. I never was much into all the gadgets but they were all around and every few months some kind of new technological break through would come on the market to create a whole new set of needs. I asked a fellow I met who had been a reporter of for the Seattle newspaper and covered computer issues whether he thought innonvation was fueled by any kind of need or was just about preserving market share. In a moment, he responded it was about market share.

The rate of technological innovation was steepest just at its climax. But for litterally hundreds of thousands of years before the modern era, little changed in technology. Archaeologists determined that the first tools were made 2 million years ago, something like a hand axe and shards of stone for scraping. Fire was not under control for another million and a half years, clothing and shelter took another hundred thousand years. The wheel is said to date back to 4000 BC.

During that same period of time for most of human history, the vast majority of people saw little if any innovation at all, for generations, no visible innovation or technological change would have been recognizable.

Have humans discovered or invented more needs? Where has this innovation come from? It seems people have a natural curiosity. How that curiosity, the mother of invention, plays out is influenced tremendously by the social and ecomonic context of the curiosity. The capitalist economic system and the culture it creates channels curiosity and innovation into money making, not public service, human uplift or wisdom for modest needs. So here we are with the results, a virtual global free for all where the only limit on consuming is how much you can pay for with hundreds of billions spent on advertising egging people on to buy more.

“The entire purpose, it seems of innovation was to make life a bit easier and safer. That changed into more convenience and that changed into flat out indulgence and that changed into extreme indulgence. And then it was worse than that. The profit motive economy drove this all. No doubt, humans have a weakness for accumulation and excess. Conspicuous consumption goes way back. A horse will eat about as much as you will give it even though it knows its getting sick. Even my cat will quit eating when she's had enough. Is the level of human judgement somewhere between a horse and a cat?”

“So what does the excess and eventual crash say about the values of the recent past? On a society wide level, it was like the horse, it could not say enough. The economy wrote its own epitaph and many watched like it was a movie and they knew the script. In order to function, it had to expand and grow and that meant people had to buy and use, discard, upsize and come back for more. I painted an impressionistic mural long ago in a pizza place in Houston, the front of a Parisian restaurant set in the late 1800's. It was rather humorous if you looked closely, all kinds of unlikely details. At the front door, where the menu would be was a sign that said 'Oggi, Chi Puo Dire Basta.” In Italian, that translates as; today, who can say enough”

So why did the Luddites ransack a bunch of wool and cotton mills in 18 13 and why did the Amish say no thanks to elevated technology and why did many of us BT have dreams of a simpler way of life that was much less mechanistic.

Maybe there was a common denominator. Its not only what the technology did, its also what it prevented. Its easy to agree that a culture driven by economics and technological innovation wreaked havoc on the environment and created an enormously fragile global trading system that was not built to last.

At the personal level, it caused a number of human capabilities to become dis functional.

I heard an interview years ago on the radio and it really struck me, I remember it well. A man wrote a book about people who had been blind all their lives and a very few who, thanks to advanced medical technology, chose a risky operation that might enable them to see again.

The author interviewed a 50 year old man who had lived a remarkably productive life as an academic, a writer, a sportsman, an authority on international economic issues who chose to risk the operation to restore his sight, more as a challenge and a test of his own character and less than to actually see.

His sight was restored in one eye. He saw his wife, recognized colors right from the satrt and was confused by above the street highway signs. The change was not all joy and wonder. Even after several years of restored sight, he could not read print and this was a tremendous frustration. He knew the letters, he could see the word but it seems he could not assign a meaning to the word. It was equivalent to seeing words in a different language with a different alphabet. You knew it was a word but had no idea what it was.

At the time, there was technology that allowed scientists to actually identify nueral activity in tiny parts of the brain. And scientists knew what kinds of activities took place and stimulated those small parts of the brain. In the area that dealt with reading, when this man with new vision looked at printed words, that part of the brain showed no reaction. He may as well have been asleep. That part of the brain was active given other stimulation. Trying to read did not do it.

The explanation was, that his brain basically never had a reason to make a place for reading print so it never developed that capacity and after time, it could not relearn that capacity because that part of the brain became taken up by something else. No other part of the brain was able to take up the reading cause.

Could it be, that technology did the same thing? It took up parts of the brain that could have been used for something else and did this on a societal scale, perhaps not with everyone, but with large segments of the population. Maybe those areas that were involved with simple joys and pleasures were occupied by crass stimulations like TV or drugs. And after a while, millions of people no longer could connect to simple pleasures and joy so they had little interest in the kinds of social circumstance or sensitivities that lead to simple pleasures and joys, just the kinds of sensitivities that would cause one to care about Nature or the well being of the neighborhood or community . Could an entire society lose certain capabilities on a broad scale that might be of great value during historic changes such as the Transition?

One writer at the turn of the century came up with a term he called “Nature Deficit Disorder.” Basically, the term described a condition when kids who do not have contact with Nature- bugs, dirt, trees, creeks, the outdoors. At the time, there had been no systematic study of the proposed disorder but there was plenty of anecdotal evidence.

There was an assumption that when kids don't have contact with Nature, it leads to impaired social or behavioural problems. There was a great deal of research about kids who were over active and anti social. There was a steep increse in this kind of conditions with terms such as hyperactivity but there were no studies that specifically tied those conditions to lack of contact with Nature.

At the same time, there were many examples of disruptive children who became far more calm in a natural and green environment or were provided physical contract with a puppy or cat.

At the turn of the century, few denied a connection between indoor sedentary activity such as TV and computer games with being overweight and even obese. No one disputed exercise was essential for being healthy no matter what the age. At the time, much of the food available to children was called junk food and for good reason. It was high in sugar and fats and so called empty calories, perfect for weight gain, especially without exercise. Many people asserted that the junk food was related to behaviour problems.

These changes in childhood health came on quickly, seeming to be partners to the onset of a cultural and life style shifts. Products and pastimes brought about by technology, particularly electronics, came about at a very rapid rate in the last 30 to 40 years of the 20th century. Along with that was an increasing urbanization, intensified marketing of products to children and increased concern for children's safety because of greater media attention to predatory adults.

The sum of these conditions was that there was a dramatic decrease in the amount of time kids were out doors in unstructured play. By the turn of the century, kids spent more time watching tv, playing video games and at the computer than they did in school. People who were in a position to observe, noticed fewer children in parks, riding bikes, going fishing, hiking or just playing outside in unstructured ways.

The increase in childhood behavior disorders was remarkable leading up to the 'teens. Behavior modifying drugs became so common, they were no longer unusual or an embarrassment to those who took them. Still, at the same time, it was commonly agreed, being out in nature reduced the symptoms of childhood behavior problems even meriting a designation as a therapy- Nature Therapy as if this was some kind of a novel approach to bringing about improved health.

So the term nature deficit disorder was never clinically assesed. Studies did begin in 2008 but the time needed for such studies was longer than what turned out to be available. Many of the kids who would have been part of those studies did not survive the 'teens. There were few academic studies at that time.

Some have suggested the lack of contact with Nature led to a phenomena similar to the man who was blind and regained his sight but was unable to learn to read text. It seems the lack of contact with Nature resulted in a kind of blindness of its own, a blindness to the natural world and a damage or short circuit in the brain where the part that should be active in relation to Nature. Little wonder in its closing years, there was such a disinterest in preserving the environment by a majority of people even as the alarms were going off, even in the mainstream media. A significant number of people had little interest in Nature and its protection. They couldn't relate to it so they didn't care about it. Even the majority who spoke out did little different. They kept driving and consuming like most of the rest. Right up to the end.

Other aspects of disfunctional social behavior were common. Few political, religious or even environemntal leaders questioned the direction this entire consumption driven way of life was headed even when there was overwhelming evidence about climate change, species extinction and worrisome public health trends. The evidence was speaking one language but most of the population were unable to understand it, just like the man who regained his sight but could not read the words. Millions of people could not even act in thier own self interest.

“Wow.” It was Glen. “Thats painful to hear. Our poor but cohesive extended family life sounds a lot better than the poverty of affluence. I have never known that affluence and from what I've heard of it, it sounds like punishment and that people did not even enjoy what they worked so hard for that was supposed to make them happy.”

It was something like that. I was brought up at the apex of affluence. It was not evenly distributed but even the tens of millions in the middle like us lived more comfortably than the wealthy few of only 50 years before. Even in my counter culture adult years, life was a frolic. Lengthy trips out of the country, a car, a house. No real worries. I kept my life's expenses low and managed my resources well, plus maybe a bit of good luck, too. But all around was hurry, stress, fret, the advertising everwhere, the ugly urban landscapes. Many times I considered leaving the country to be away from all of that. But this is what happened instead.

Here we are in Albany. This area we are passing through, you can see what were streets and dozens of concrete slabs. This was a suburban neighborhood. The houses have been salvaged to build much more dense residential areas closer to the center of town.

Albany has become a center of the mid Wilammette Valley for food production and processesing. Wood products are important here as well. Our local train connects with the interstate train and the train to Covallis and to Newport on the coast.

Corvallis is just a 20 minute ride through some of the most productive farm land in Cascadia. Much of this area was grass seed and now a much greater agricultureal diversity with hundreds of acres restored to a more seasonal wetlands and habitat.

Misty had an adventure question for Glen. “Glen, you left your cluster in eastern Arkansas and travelled to the Ozarks. How did you connect with a Traveler?”

“That seems so long ago. My friend and I travelled on the old Interstate Highway going west from Little Rock. At that time, Little Rock had passed its peak of turmoil. Tens of thousands had died and places with any kind of merchandise had been ransacked years before. We did meet some people and learned there were essentially self formed clusters looking after each other but very little city wide coordination.

The place seemed dangerous, still with a good deal more activity than what we found several years later during our trip to Cascadia. By that time, cities were essentially empty. We did pass by a nuclear power plant along the Arkansas River. From a distance, nothing looked suspicious. I suspect as everything else unravelled, they had a plan to put it into as safe a deactivation as possible. But I know the waste is toxic for thousands of years. Glad we don't have any of those in Cascadia.

We took old State Hiway 21 north from the Arkansas River Valley. Its a winding and curving road gaining the better part of a thousand feet in elevation from valley up to the hills. The road was not in good condition. Others had used it but it was basically a path of broken and vegetation covered pavement. You could see the asphalt but only where the soil and roots and plants were scraped away. We later spoke with people living in the area about how the roads became reclaimed by the forest."

"In the warm and moist climate, without automobiles or upkeep, vines and weeds encroach on the edges of the road in only a couple years. Without any automobile use, the middle of a two lane highway begins to support plant life in only three or four years in a climate like the Ozarks. In ten years, the road is no longer visible, its only an area where the trees are not as tall. There is complete ground cover and several inches of debris and soil on the road surface."

"We left our bikes behind. There was no way to use them. No one was expecting us, we just hiked up hiway 21 towards the Buffalo River. It was our understanding that these tribes were centered on the larger creek and river valleys. Using maps and what we learned from people we knew who had been in the Ozarks, we supposed that where hiway 21 crossed over the Buffalo River would be a prime location for a tribal core area. There is an extensive valley floor of perhaps a couple square miles with numerous creeks entering into the valley. Uhh, Elder Jan. Did I say something?”

You could say that. You know. We never have talked about this particular adventure of yours and its something I had always wanted to find out about. I used to live up one of those creeks that lead into what was known as Boxely Valley, where hiway 21 crosses the Buffalo River. Thats where our mail box was. Where Hiway 21 crosses the River, we lived up what was called Cave Mountain Road! You intered Boxely Valley. That was below where we lived!

There was a stunned silence. Glen's first destination in the Ozarks was where I used to live.

“Should I continue? It gets better.”

“Yes, please do, this is a great story!”

“We took over a week to hike to Boxely Valley. The road was recognizable the entire way but its amazing what Nature can do. We did have several uncertainties to contend with where different roads came together. The old map we had was helpful and I guess we made some lucky choices, too.

We did encounter people a couple times and it was a bit uncomfortable. We gained our first impressions of what this tribal circumstance was. We never felt life threatened but it was awkward. One group of three women we ran into on the road, or trail, invited us to their place. We were uncertain if we should accept their invitation but we were also hungry and very curious. They looked quite exotic with their hand made clothes and natural ornaments in the hair. I had seen old issues of the National Geographic and they would have fit in just fine for some anthropology article of some distant jungle.”

We came to a path with the women that lead from the main “road” and hiked another couple miles to a clearing and barn. We continued further to a very intersting house. It overlooked a valley below. We were offered a place to wash up and were invited into the house. It had beautiful stone work with a wooden spiral stair case up to the second floor. Also interesting was a sunken bathtub in a sunny area with lush plants all around. I sensed a feminine spirituality. We began to feel very at ease.

No way.

We were told the place dated back over 40 years. We mentioned our destination was Boxely Valley.
They were very kind and offered us a wonderful meal which was greatly appreciated. They told us a bit about themselves. Some had lived there since before the economic collapse and saw the path we walked on up to their place transition from what they called a driveway for cars to a path wide enough only for a horse or narrow trailer.

We talked about the Ozarks and before long the discussion turned to travelers. They asked how we had heard about these people. We found out the Travellers were highly revered and something like regional shaman. I think I touched on this a few months ago for story night. So we learned this was not a myth or some non sense story. We talked about dreams and our own stories and they were very interested in life in eastern Arkansas. It was time to go but before we left, one of the women gave us what turned out to be some very useful information and a small metal bracelet. She said if we came into a difficult situation with people we met, to show them the bracelet and say it came from Diana and that she would like for us to be treated well.

It was a bit spooky but we felt very at ease and safe. We left the same way we arrived. This is what happened. It turned out this place had been on land only for women years earlier. Still there were no men living nearby.”

Too much. You won't belive me. I have been to that place. A dear friend of mine who lived with us near Boxely later moved to that place. What a coincidence, or something else?

So this is how it was with Glen. Its like he knew where I had been and he went to those places. First to Diana's, then on to Boxely Valley, and then all the way up to Cascadia. There was some kind of something going on. Magic, mystical. Too strange to be coincidence. Some kind of purpose or reason to this. This put me a deep reflective state.

“Elder Jan, are you there? Wake up! We're in Corvallis.”

Here we are. Ok. Thanks. Just went into a bit of a tunnel mode. Glen's story has put me in an odd frame of mind. But I have returned. Let's see if we can find Gena. There she is! Great! This will be a fascinating visit.

We were out of the train and onto the platform.

Hi Gena! So good to see you. Please meet Misty and Glen.

“Hi Elder Jan, Misty and Glen. Welcome to Corvallis, the Heart of the Valley. We are very pleased to see you. There's lots to catch up on. And we have heard of your travels, Glen. Perhaps later you might tell us a bit of that story. And Misty, Elder Jan has spoken highly of you. You have your bikes? We have some places to visit.”

We were on our bikes and headed down a narrow street under a green canopy. The sides of the street were lush with food forest plants, then a sidewalk and then more food forest up to the houses. There were a good number of other cyclists with two bike lanes going in each direction.

This street looks familiar Gena. Then, its looks unfamiliar.

“There is an explanation. It is the same street you have been on before. Except, we have taken out much of the street. Without cars, streets are much narrower. No need for so much concrete. I know many streets in Eugene are the same way.”

Very nice. Looks much better now. Imagine, where there were many cars, there is now cool green and food growing along with small wildlife.

“So you made a stop at Thompson's Mill?”

Misty. “We did and it's an impressive place. Hard to see all of the projects going on there with more to come.”

Gena. “I'm heading over next week. Its quite the buzz. Lets head over to the University.”

“There is a fair amount of traffic between Corvallis and TM. So much so that there is a new plan to repair the railroad track from Junction City to Monroe that continues on to Corvallis and also to construct a new track from Thompson's Mill not only east to the Intersate but also west to the Junction City-Monroe-Corvallis line.”

Glen. “That explains the track being removed in the old yard in Eugene. Must be that track is headed to the new additions.”

Misty. “What are we seeing here? Looks like an urban plantation.”

Gena. “We're on the edge of campus and you can imagine these areas were once expansive lawns between the buildings, typical of universities. Like UO, the university was a perfect place to convert into a new town. Many people who survived the Transition in Covallis moved on campus. Most of the dorms were redone and became permanent residences. Lets go this way so we can meet a friend who has been well positioned to follow these trends. She's the one who conducted the dollar per gallon study.”

We continued on. People were out in the gardens and walking. There was roof top greenery above, attatched greenhouses on practically every south facing wall, clusters of people who looked like they were in classes. It was very idyllic. An elderly woman, spry and trim approached. Gena lead us to her.

Elder Terra, here we are. Wonderful timing. Elder Terra, please meet our friends from Eugene, Elder Jan, Misty and Glen.”

“Welcome Jan and welcome Misty and Glen. Its an honor for you all to be here. There is much to see and talk about.”

We are familiar with your dollar per gallon study. Actually, many of us in Eugene were aware of that thirty years ago. It raised laughs and shivers at the same time. It turned out to be very accurate.

Thank you Jan. I started out doing it as a joke but it looked less and less that way as time went on.
Glen, we have heard about your adventures. I do hope your have a journal and share with us your impressions.

I am doing just that Elder Terra and will keep you posted.

“Lets take a look around.”

I could tell Terra was very capable and accustomed to being in a leadership position. Our tour began.

“The University has changed tremendously in many ways. One is that the number of people working, teaching and researching is much smaller now. The research that goes on remains topically similar as before but the scale of application and purpose is far different. We no longer research and design for what was called industrial scale. Like everything else, we orient towards the local and regional

"Many staff and scientists did not physically survive the 'teens and many who did survive could not adapt their careers to this new downscaled orientation. Further, teaching and research no longer require formal degrees. We do have an application and review process but times have changed, we need good ideas no matter where they come from. The campus is full of life and morale is high.You can tell just by walking around campus. Many colleagues tell me they have never been happier as the Transition fades into the past."

"As you see all around us, many of the buildings are converted to residential, there is some manufacturing, particularly related to topics touched by University research. There is a lively and diverse culture here. Many people no longer wanted to live in suburbia. With this new living arrangement, nearly everyone is close to work, school, where they need to go. Bikes and walking take care of nearly all of our daily transportation needs. "

How about decentralized urban villages?

“Yes. Corvallis was never a large town but even a town of 30 thousand was too large an area to walk or bike conveniently before the changes. So even modest sized Corvallis evolved several dispersed urban villages where most of one's needs could be met outside of the co-op and cluster. We still have our traditional downtown but it is more the municiple and cultural center. There are occasional trams taking people downtown although its only 5 or 6 minutes by bike.”

Terra continued. “Its been fascinating to see how the campus has changed. Enrollment crashed in the early 'teens. Upkeep languished. Salaries went unpaid. Still, the grid was surprisingly dependable in Corvallis and amazingly, classes continued, but the curriculum evolved into a far different form.

"Corvallis had a strong eco logical conciousness before the 'teens that served us well as economic disruption mounted. We had our food co-op, environmental center and co housing project, neigborhood organizations. Cohesion and communications skills made these organizations effective and served us well both during the 'teens and afterwards. Each small group dedicated to various aspects of ecological living became a community treasure going into the 'teens. Most of them were little known before the 'teens, but as conditions changed, these early pioneers of eco logical culture change became community heroes. They were filling class rooms and conducted on site workshops all over town sharing what they knew about food production, permaculture, communication skills, practical crafts, solar reconstruction, home economics and much more."

"One of the most influential organizations in Corvallis BT was the food council. It raised the town's awareness about local food production and can take credit for hundreds of acres of crop transition from grass to food by local farmers even before the 'teens. It was nowhere enough to feed Corvallis but by making the topic and the issue far more public, efforts by the food council greatly reduced the time for making those transitions when the need became more visibly urgent just a few years later."

"Still,even people who had a keen awareness of the deep changes we were entering were slow to respond In my study, people who identified themselves as “concerned” made few lifestyle changes even with gasoline up to 5 to 6 dollars per gallon. As we all learned, the consequences of the increasing energy costs was not linear. They became steeper faster than the rise in cost. We also learned that personal motivation for life style change was based more on convenience and seldom on idealism given the trends. In other words, people responded more as they would like to respond and less as conditions deserved."

"Fortuntely, there was a handful in the vanguard who did act. During that time, it was common to make dark humor jokes about how each gain of a dollar per gallon in the cost of gasoline brought about a corresponding increased in conciousness and change in behavior. This pattern was similar all over what was the United States."

Terra, we have heard about your study of the increasing cost of gasoline. We read about it in Eugene, it was widely distributed among certain groups of people. Can you explain that to Misty and Glen. They both are aware and have great interest in life, economics and culture BT. We have talked about all those topics at length.

Certainly, Jan. It remains one of my favorite bits of research. I am quite fond of it.

"I am a sociologist with a background in survey and statistics which I learned in school and with a strong sense of historical perspective and dark humor which I didn't. The study was conducted from 2000 to 2012. It was actually quite rigorous and scholarly. It showed with text and graphs how each increase of a dollar per gallon of gasoline over that period affected the way people lived. The study charted a number of people, over time."

"In my research on the cost of gasoline, I noticed a phenomena that others have observed in different settings. That has to do with alarm and anxiety. Several questions were asked in my surveys that lead to these conclusions. People react with alarm to acute circumstances like a ten cent increase per gallon of gas in a day. Especially if this is happening on a perceived frequent basis. If that increase slows or comes to a plateau, its loses its alarming effect and then shifts into anxiety over a longer period of time. And after a while, that anxiety even begins to fade into a sort of normalcy. What had been short term alarming, medium term becomes anxiety becomes long term normal."

"The actual causes and conditions don't go away, people adjust to them. This capacity to adapt is one of the most vexing in the realm of human psychology and sociology. The human created environment- psychological, social, economic and built – in essence much of the culture was constantly moving in a direction, some would say at an accelerating rate, that had as its combined and enlarging product, unhappy people."

"Most of that unhappiness became suppressed on the concious level but not at the unconcious level. Amazingly, people came to believe there was nothing unusual about feeling in a hurry and anxious much of the time. As many have observed, leading up to the Transition, the number of people taking mood altering drugs to relieve the stress as part of their daily routine, should have been a cause for much greater public concern. Instead, most people just accepted the anxiety, the drugs and way of life that caused it with little complaint."

"Related research has explored how the concious self had adapted to anxiety becoming normal, while the un concious self remains troubled with chronic anxiety with its very real negative consequences to both physical and mental health."

"This perspective considers a wide variety of self destructive and anti social behavior to be driven by subconcious social, cultural and environemntal anxiety. Such problems included eating disorders such as obesity and bulimia, what was called road rage- highway agression, attention deficit disorder and hyoperactivity which was common in children and many other examples of unhealthy behavior, some quite visible and others low level but reducing a person's positive potentials over the long term. In hindsight, these personal and society wide problems greatly reduced thoughtfull responses to mitigate or remove the causes and sources of the global collapse we call the Transition."

"In sum, what was alarming at one point became tolerable and then normal after a while and a whole new level of intrusion and upset was needed to provoke a new alarming response. Meanwhile the subconcious becomes a dumping ground for stress that adds more to the individual and collective disfunction. So the entire society moved ever closer to a breakdown and became even less able to respond in a rational and self interested way. So here we are. Easily ninety percent of our population of 20 years ago dead and the remainder living drastically different from what most would have expected."

"Back to the gasoline study, in the early stages of my study, at about 4 to 5 dollars per gallon, [DPG] many were making lifestyle changes such as easy home conservation, cutting back on driving and buying local when convenient.
Gardens started going in. Elective purchases became less frequent like dining out, buying new clothes, updrading home electronics to name a few. Many people were concerned but few were alarmed."

"The next stage of change, at six to seven DPG included turning the front yard into garden and driving even less. Longer vacations became more local if at all. Riding a bike to the local market, carpooling for out of town trips became common, some back yard fences started coming down to facilitate cooperation between sympathetic neighbors. More people started having time for making changes as they lost their jobs so the curve of response became steeper not only in numbers of people responding but also in the more elevated “level” of personal response. Many elective purchases were delayed or put off entirely. The greater the disruption, the greater the increase in “seriousness” of response. More people were making more eco logical changes."

"At eight to ten DPG, about 2010, many people started to share residential space and survival strategies. Vacant areas were cultivated all over. Many cars parked on the street were gathering dust. The weather seals around windows on the north side of the cars were growing moss. Most people by this time had joined mutual support initiatives as widespread unemployment lead to far more people with time on their hands. At this point, social safety nets were visibly frayed. Many businesses were no longer in business. Many people working in non essential goods and services were unemployed. Few cared about the Super Bowl. In fact, early in the 'teens, professional sports were out of business."

"The study contained a far more extensive description of changes people were making at each DPG increase but this serves to give you an idea. At first, people were amused with the study but later few made jokes about it, especially when they lost their jobs."

"Meanwhile, many employees of the University, moved on campus. There was a sense of community and cohesion on campus previous to the economic downturn but each dollar per gallon increase in the cost of gasoline had a longer term benefit in cohesion building that only later became more tangible.. Co-ops and mutual asistance groups formed around academic interests and familiarity. Many people just wanted to live differently than before and nearly everyone had no choice. Suburbia had lost its appeal for many. It was not well suited for the new realities."

"From what I have seen in Eugene, Corvallis has gravitated more towards the density of the University and a couple other urban village locations. OSU's impact on Corvallis's land use has been greater than UO on Eugene just because Eugene was a larger town and the University was not as large of a presence in comparative terms. More suburbia was remodeled in Eugene."

"So Corvallis contracted more than Eugene as dorms were occupied for permanent residency and other spaces were modified for new uses. Staff, instructors, employees came to know each other in completely new ways even though many knew each other professionally for decades. Professors and occupants of endowed chairs were just as likely to be digging together in the garden as debating controversial theories."

"Lawns and open areas were turned into gardens. The student union building became, in a sense, the downtown with goods and services available along with coffee shops-minus the coffee- and music. It was a remarkable transition into a walkable community and the university's compact design was easily adapted to a mixed use community."

"Many researchers were finally free to work on projects and ideas they couldn't before and most of that R and D became directly relevent to adressing the needs of the community and bio region. OSU had an impressive and fortuitous roster of skills and talents relating to dozens of disciplines that under the new circumstances came to have tremendous use and relevence."

"Food, diet, ecology, water, marine and coastal concerns, forestry, soil, public health, conservation, agriculture, atmosphere were all realms of knowledge and expertise that were leading areas of research before the Transition. But many would observe in earlier years the scope and direction of much of the research was compromised significantly. Commercial sources and expected outcomes of funding limited academic creativity - what has been called the psychology of previous investment- research followed a familiar direction because it had always been that way."

"In essence, much of the research BT was irrelevent AT. Innovation and technical breakthroughs notwithstanding, research and development BT almost always related to money making and as many scientists came to realize, that was tremendously limiting. Some compared it to being nearsighted."

"It also assumed a continuation of the entire affluent society and economy that could afford to implement the findings of the research. The research was a fit for the logic of capitalism and techno culture but not for life after the Transition. In hindsight, much of engineering, chemistry, forestry and agriculture research BT contributed to the problems they were trying to solve by thier inability to identify the entire logic of humans dominating Nature as the problem. The prevailing belief BT was that humans dominating Nature was the goal."

"A related shock to many researchers came as 20 20 hindsight, discovering how much of their academic work BT was about damage control. No wonder the forest, soils, marine systems and water needed research to repair them, they were under constant abuse by the industrial-corporate-capitalist economy. Degrading the environment and public health was only a normal part of business. To find out one was heavily invested in such a scheme of externalizing costs for narrow economic gain was tough to accept and more than a few scientists had a hard time coming to terms with what many had invested and devoted their lives to."

"The economic collapse of the 'teens shook up many researchers like nothing before. For many, the change lead to welcome renewal of their ideals. Many long hours of redirected work made up for lost time and contributed enormously to restoring health to Cascadia's soil, waters, environemnt and human populations. Research and development in the public interest was a benefit to the new ethic of Cascadia.

"Fifteen years into the recovery and the source of all that abuse long gone; soils, water, the atmosphere forests and marine systems are all far healthier and much of that credit going to Nature's own self healing. Science AT became more about assisting that healing rather than engineering it and often times the best approach was knowing when to get out of of Nature's way."

"Thats right! Still, there remain many needs to assist natural processes. Much of the damage to natural systems was by way of man made pollution that Nature was not designed to handle. For example, we are learning about bio remediation, using bacteria and fungi to nuetralize toxic waste. Your rail yard in Eugene is already seeing great progress in clean up working with nature."

"Livestock are far less numerous today than 30 years ago. As a source of food, it is far too resource costly. Simply not having cows trampling creeks and streams allows Nature to heal with little need for human input. When the streams become shady, cool and clean again, fish and wildlife begin to return on their own. Again, discontinuing the causes of environmental degradation has been the clear result of the Transition and an enourmous benefit. In retrospect , researching and developing exotic remedies to repair damage caused by the dictates of an ill fated economic system resulted in uncountable years of lost academic opportunity.

"Since the 'teens, public health has been like stream recovery. The removal of the causes of the problems by passed the needs for complicated and expensive repair. In the absence of junk food, increased exercise, much cleaner air and water, stress reduction and healtier social relationships, many public health problems have simply gone away. Scientists and planners knew the causes of many public health problems BT but the logic of the economic system made simple and obvious common sense solutions difficult to bring about. Removing the causes of the diseases has been far more effective than treating the sympthoms."

"One study under way has collected demographic information regarding height, weight, age and various aspects of health and compared this information with the same information BT and what we find is not surprising but that does not diminish the startling conclusions. We are far less overweight and incidence of diabetes and heart diseases are far lower than 30 years ago. Without the causes of these problems, many of the problems have gone away."

"Mental health followed a similar path. Stress was caused by many different factors, basically people trying to do too much in too short a time. This huge cultural shift has simply left many of those stress related diseases behind. We all found entire sectors of the previous economy were nothing more than expensive damage control. That damage was created by other huge sectors of the economy and the prosperity of the world's wealthiest nation depended heavily upon degrading public health and the environemnt."

"New challenges did emerge relating to sanitation, water treatment, air quality. Public health BT benefited immensely from science, technology and cheap energy. OSU has been vital in creating low tech and human scale solutions such as composting human waste, using gray water and improving distributed energy systems. That knowledge has been vital in our recovery. Untold people died from simple causes when water, sanitation and food safety systems failed during the 'teens.

"Further, as we all know, our climate has changed visibly in the past fifty years with more change sure to follow. There are many kinds of research at OSU and UO that are needed to inform our region how to prepare and anticipate how a changing climate will affect agriculture, forestry, disease vectors, food storage, energy sources, weather and urban design. This is a bit like trying to hit a moving target."

"Meanwhile, we have abandoned a fair number of the old research areas such as genetic engineering, nuclear, micro electrics and nano technology. Research related to developing processes for distant markets is gone. Research assuming cheap fossil energy is gone."

"Instead, new areas are opening up. What had been called Permaculture is now a fundamental set of principles that apply to many realms. Working with Nature and coming up with thoughtful design can apply to forestry, urban design, agriculture and public health."

"We continue to make use of forest and marine resources but now that the industrial export incentive is gone, the extraction systems that were so damaging to the environement are also gone. There is no longer industrial logging and industrial fishing as we once knew. Nature is remarkably resilient and knows best how to regenerate. Human health is much the same way. Its not so much that humans, forests, water and air have been made healthier in the past 15 years, its more that we no longer create problems that damage their health."

"A whole new area of agricultural research is for urban use. This is much smaller scale agriculture. We are building practical models of integrated small scale systems. For example, trading grass for garden, rain water catchment for small scale irrigation and drinking. Designing habitats into small garden spaces, food hedges, soil enhancement, micro climates, extending the growing season, plants that store well at ambient temperatures, these and many other areas are rich in research opportunities with practical application."

"Starting even before the 'teens, several researchers began developing protocols for turning golf courses into urban farms. During the teen's over 25 golf courses in the Valley underwent this transition. Innovations similar to toxic waste cleanup are being developed to speed up decontamination of the golf courses due to the heavy herbicide and pesticide use."

"We also have greatly expanded on our extension services and demonstration models. Who would have thought a university would devote time and effort into the realm of micro gardening. We have research specific for container and roof top gardening. For ten years now we have been evolving a systematic way for home scale and neighborhood scale gardeners to share their discoveries and new techniques. We are improving how we create, gather and make use of new techniques in food production. Our network of research has expanded tremendously down to the home and co-op level."

"Research is not only for academics. We are creating information sharing networks not only in agriculture but also in mechanics, habitat restoration, water quality, energy production, food preservation, forestry and much more. We provide basic training, more towards information management- how to share properly gathered information with others and less how to generate the information- thats what we want others to come up with."

"Some of the best discoveries have been made at home with minimal outside influence and mimimal formal expertise. We would like to find out about usefull new ways we can take care of our needs without damaging the environment or human health and brings out our innate creativity for the public good.. OSU sees its regional role as facilitating the sharing of practical information in many important civic realms. This is as important as research here in Corvallis."

Misty had a question. “How are the researchers supported? They aren't growing tomatoes in the lab.”
Good question. Almost no one does research full time. They all take part in the usual co-o activitiesAll the researchers belong to larger co-ops so there is that network of assistence.

Each sector of regional interest has networks such as agriculture, forestry, building materials, public health, water quality for example and those networks conncect with each other at different places as well. Problems are identified by members of the networks such as a new insect pest or XXXXX . Through the various planned meetings, those problems are discussed and prioritized.

The most important problems are chosen and a description of need is put together and applications are sent out with that description of need. Researchers apply for the grant to adress the need and a committee choses the best application.

The grant is support for the research team to do its work. Basically, it is a slight food subsidy to the co-op the researcher belongs to. Since other needs are already taken care of, the somewhat reduced time dedicated to personal needs is compensated from the community food reserve. Usually, co-op members and the community at large take pride in helping to support research.

That's all very fascinating, Terra. How do you feel about all these changes?

“When I was working on the dollars per gallon study, I could easily have fit the profile of someone sensing and intellectualizing what was happening yet not doing much about it. I spent more time analyzing it than making changes in my own life”.

“My own modesty of lifestyle made the Transition surviveable, plus my friends were essential and I would have to say I lent a hand to many of my friends. I joined a mutual suppport network at seven dollars a gallon, a slight bit earlier than most people.

Like everyone, I was apprehensive, off balance, adjusting and readjusting. No one knew where we would level off and stableize. I lost friends and colleagues, two committed suicide. The closing of the border was a trauma beyond words. We knew what that meant. Does the ends justify the means?

Can I say it was all worth it. Like many, I feel pride in what we have accomplished. We did well with opportunities presented us. I don't imagine anyone would have wanted the United States to come to an end along with all the mayhem. But one can also say, that entire way of life had a great deal of karma to deal with.

Here we are, where we started. I will join you all for dinner at Gena's this evening and I expect not to do much talking. I plan to bring along an anthropologist friend so I don't want to disappoint him, he is studying the renewal of social organization and culture after the Transition and wants to hear about the Ozarks. Tom has a short wave radio and has been in touch with people in many parts of the world with similar interests and has some stories of his own.”

Thanks Terra. That sounds like a plan and an agenda. We will see you later.

“Bye for now.”

Terra strode off down the sidewalk and into the dappled shade.

Misty commented. “Very intersting. I can't imagine what all those kinds of research were years ago. Sounded like a foreign language. So you were aware of this dollars per gallon study?”

Gena moved us along. “Let's talk as we head over to my place. But first let's stop by our garden space to pick up some veggies for tonight.”

I responded to Misty. First comment. Yes, it was a kind of foreign language and nearly every academic discipline had its own dialect. At the time, there was money to support all manner of research. Some of it had useful application but most of that within the affluent context of the time. The entire culture BT was caught up in technology and innovation. We couldn't see it then, it was all we knew, but it would have qualified as a full blown psychiatric condition under the general category of obsession.

Comment two, yes, the study was quite captivating. It was like new episodes with each jump in the cost of gasoline. At 4 dollars a gallon people were still making jokes but the mood began to fade as the upward spiral continued.