op ed no longer accessible via register guard

below is the text of an op ed in the eugene register guard, Monday, Oct 13, 2008

We Are No Longer in Oz

Dorothy, Lion, Scarecrow and Tin Man were shocked when Toto pulled back the curtain in the Emerald City to reveal the Great Oz to be a modest, slightly apologetic small man at the controls of a huge special effects machine.

We are discovering much of the economic dazzle and flash we have grown up with has been created by special effects, just like Oz.

There is plenty of blame to spread around but the fact is, the vast majority of Americans have participated and benefited in many ways from this game show economy. Easy money with minimal accountability has trickled if not flooded in many directions creating tens of millions of every day jobs. It is coming to an end.

Credit is drying up. Money at home and in business requires far more careful management, property values are falling, retirements funds are contracting, many familiar products are not selling and many jobs that fabricate, retail and service those products will go away.

And that's only the beginning.

Our economy has been on jet fuel for decades and easy money is only part of the story. Abundant cheap oil, relatively tranquil global relations, an unusually benign climate and healthy ecosystems have combined to allow a remarkable explosion of human activity during most of our lifetimes. All that is changing.

Converging global trends will likely make the immediate financial crisis look like only the first act. Oversized homes, a globalized economy, the basic supports for suburbia – cars, roads and cheap mobility; tomatoes in December and a lot more we take for granted, are not sustainable.

Our affluence and way of life has been built on sand, not bedrock. We are close to peak oil - as global demand overtakes global supply, expect unprecedented disruption at home and abroad. Updated studies on climate change consistently disclaim previous studies as greatly underestimating the gravity of the problem. The environment- air, fresh water, habitat, oceans, soil, forests are overall in steep decline world wide.

The stability of our social and economic systems depends on infinite growth of producing, buying and consuming. Given the emerging realities, those expectations cannot be met. An economy in irreversible contraction will lead to unprecedented social upheaval unless we have a popular, realistic and effective alternative.

We will need courage, wisdom and heart to choose the most benign science, culture and technology we know and leave behind a familiar but sinking ship along with its immense cargo of unhealthy products, shallow distractions and grade school mythologies that have betrayed us. They cannot serve us well in a very different future.

If we choose, the financial crisis can be a benefit. It can be embraced as a wake up call . What better opportunity to redefine personal, family and community priorities – a new set of goals, ideals and action plans are called for that are healthy, timely, challenge our positive potentials and uplift our spirits. A holistic response to the challenges of our time means all those challenges are mediated simultaneously.

Eugene has a wide range of impressive assets to help us meet a changing world. We are rich in diverse non profits, faith community, food resources, service groups, education, city and other governmental organizations, neighborhood associations, business and more.

The sum of these groups working together can be far greater than the parts alone. Productive collaborations between some of these organizations have already occurred. The new task is to create more and diverse collaborations to broaden the variety of needs and services we can localize such as finance and investment, product replacement, local manufacture, refurbishing/recycling, regional food, education for a localized way of life, preventative health care, changes in land use to name only a few.

Communities of faith and neighborhood associations should be taking a leadership role. Both have cohesion, important civic values, communication infrastructure and both have a presence in all parts of town.

A civic structure is needed to facilitate learning the skills and managing the process of adapting to a far more downsized and localized way of taking care of our needs. Think of a Eugene “peace corps” with decentralized “green teams”, based on existing neighborhood associations.

The green teams would include representation from the neigborhoods, business, non profits, public health, faith, education, the city to name a few. They would be charged with the nuts and bolts of implementing the goals and vision of both the particular neighborhood and the broader community. Horizontal communications between green teams and central coordination would insure best use of Eugene's diverse civic assets.

Our world is rapidly changing and we will not successfully adapt using the same thinking as before. Unsettled times also present new opportunities that can bring out the best in us as individuals and as a community. We are becoming part hospice and part mid wife. We are no longer in Oz.

Jan Spencer (www.suburbanpermaculture.org) writes and speaks throughout the Northwest on ecological culture change.