It is very interesting to notice the shift in the news about the economic crisis and climate change. More and more, people are talking about finding ways of adapting to all the changes already happening, instead of talking about preventing these crises, or preventing and fixing them with pipe dream repairs.
This tells me that we are finally accepting that many of our current systems are vulnerable and are failing, that we cannot continue living the same way, that we need to change.
Of course, there are still many people that keep on ignoring this reality and prefer the illusion that everything is all right. Eventually, those people will have to face reality and they may suffer much more, because they will be ill-prepared for it.
The idea of adapting ourselves, our cities, our communities for these imminent changes is nothing else but building our resilience.
Home-grown or community economics provides alternatives to help with building local resilience in small communities. For instance:
1. Local bartering and local currencies. This is not a new idea. Many cities in Switzerland, USA, Britain, Argentina, Brazil have their own local currencies, accepted by banks and businesses. Even in Canada, there are a few examples in BC. Actually, the now famous LETS, Local Employment Trading System, was first developed in the Comox Valley by Michael Linton in early 1983. He designed a simple accounting system whereby account holders could purchase goods and services, in whole or in part, by transferring accounting points from their account into that of the seller. Linton labelled the accounting points "green dollars" after his vision of the environmental and social benefits that would follow general use of the system. More than 3,000 communities around the world are now using LETS.
2. Co-ops. All sort of co-ops have been working with tremendous success for many years around the world and they are now becoming popular at a local level. From car co-ops to food co-ops and farmer markets to housing and more.
3. Micro-financing. People-to-people lending and microfinance projects are booming in many countries. For instance, Women's World Banking, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh, now emulated in many countries, FINCA and ACCION in Latin America. Credit unions in Canada are becoming more proactive by helping poor people, lending to small businesses and social enterprises which meet social needs while making modest profits.
4. Time-banking. Time banking, a brainchild of Edgar Cahn in the USA is now helping local people connect and share services in Japan, Europe and other countries. Economist Hazel Henderson says: “Neighbours contact each other via a local "time banker" to provide meals and help for shut-ins, baby-sit each other's children, watch over property, mow lawns and share appliances. Car-sharing has now spawned many new companies such as Zip Car in the USA and others in Canada and Europe where people can make ride arrangements rapidly on Blackberrys and laptops.”
The majority of these community economics alternatives are not based on a monetary system. The most important goal is to bypass the greedy banking system and find ways to become resilient by ourselves. Henderson again: “In rural areas in Florida, radio stations have call-in programs where farmers can say ‘I have spare time on my tractor to exchange for fertilizer or pepper, melon, eggplant seeds. The farmer gives her phone number and the trades are exchanged off-line.”
The most important thing about the above alternatives is that they are already working in many places. They are not pipe dream fixes, nor they are depending on governments to lead the way. They are community-based solutions; it is confirmed they work, and yes, they will help in building our community resilience.
Next time: building resilience to climate change!
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