Develop Devolve Sustainable Development

Develop.

Devolve.

Devolution.

Development.

devolve - de=down, volvere=to roll, to pass to another, 

develop - de’=apart, voloper=to wrap, to make fuller, bigger, better, etc., to come into being or activity,

Land is in a state of high evolution. The topsoil is in itself like our skin. It is a living thing that serves a vital function. It teams with interrelating organisms that provide a fertile base from which other living organisms can grow or gather their food. Wetlands filter surface water so it can find its way back into the water systems to support life. Forests and prairies provide vital ecosystems that support more interrelating life. And yet, we say that land such as this is “sitting around doing nothing”. We say we need to develop it even though the land has reached the highest possible state of development. To develop land is to devolve it. To bury the land under homes, shopping malls, business districts is considered by our society to be useful. Now the land is making someone money. It is actually ruined. Even turning a prairie into a producing farm field is also a form of devolution. Ironically, farm land is considered worthy of development. It isn’t making enough money. It’s only feeding people.

As long as the development perspective is kept, we can be assured that our choices of what can be done with our land-base can certainly evolve to a much higher state.

Sustainable Development

There is no such thing. Sustainable development is a term used to market a way of thought. The way of thought which says that someone can continue to profit from the land at the expense of the land and the whole earth, forever.

Land cannot continually be strip mined and clear cut. Homes cannot continually be built. The economy cannot continue to grow. Land is finite. The environment is finite. The world is finite. To think that we can continue to take without putting back and to think that this situation will go on forever, is ludicrous.

We are full of human hubris. We are not special. We are an integral part of what is, no more or less than the tiniest life form. We don’t like to think this because if it is true, we would then have to be accountable for our actions.

Power

Power

Power needs to be shared. And, those in power seldom share it willingly. Those with resources seldom give them up unless forced. Which is how our society came to be - by taking resources by force, violence and deceit. Which is why our culture and society is faced with troubles now. It does not know how to give back as much as it takes. And, it is used to taking what is not given.

It gets what it wants when it wants it.

Our culture and our society is out of kilter. Like a wobbly potter’s wheel or an unbalanced tire of a car, our society is not centered. It has been wobbling severely for some time. This continued vibration causes problems. Eventually shaking something loose and jamming the system or critically breaking it.

There are symptoms of the wobble. Symptoms unique to industrialized cultures and societies with manipulated populations. Cancer, depression, schizophrenia and suicide being the worst. Restlessness, not being able to focus and dissatisfaction are the lower end of symptoms. These are things that come from our environment. An environment we as a culture and society are allowing to happen.

If our society and culture is damaging, then we need to change it. The problem for us is that the existing societally acceptable means of change are set up to not work. The true means of change are not going to be acceptable to the society that needs to change. The transition will be difficult. The only true and lasting way societies and cultures have ever changed is over long periods of time and with difficulty, coupled with a total collapse of the existing system of power. The key to lasting change that will actually benefit the planet is to not go back to a similar system of power.

Scope, Profit & Greed

Scope

Any city, with the right climate, in the vicinity of a farming population can do what Havana and Belo Horizonte did. But the problem comes with distance. With 2.8 million people, Chicago is about the same size. The climate is not tropical but will yield spring, summer, early fall crops and with the right equipment and plants, and some winter crops as well. Farmers would have to traverse Chicago’s suburban sprawl. In order to get to the central city it could take over three hours for some in bad traffic. Chicago has lost its direct access to food. The sprawl has eaten up those very farms that could have supported the city. That’s considered development.

However, much of the land in the suburbs could be made into communal or public gardens that could produce surplus. Large private lawns could be converted to garden space. But, when the suburbs were built the topsoil was stripped and sold to farms. The soil there now would be marginal at best and take years to build up to past levels of fertility. It would be smart to start the process of soil recovery sooner rather than later. Without a crisis it takes the will of the people to make things happen. With a crisis, the government mandates it.

Havana and Belo Horizonte are not typical. They are models for all the worlds urban centers as to what is possible. The situation in Cuba could become a reality for any industrialized country with a sudden cut off of fuel. It shows that if faced with a crisis, industrialized cities and farms can survive without the industry. People can make do with less. People will have less land to grow grass on and more gardens to cultivate. People will drive less and walk more. But, they are fed and they are healthier. Belo Horizonte shows that if the people want to, they can end their own food supply problems before there is a crisis. Belo also shows people that they have rights beyond what the ruling classes say they have. Belo’s model shows that no one should be allowed to take those rights away in order to make a profit.

Profit

Corporate sustainability is rooted in profit. From a corporate point of view to be sustainable is to survive as a corporation. And, the CEO is bound by law to take advantage of any situation that will increase profit for the investors and the share holders. If being green is profitable then the corporation will be green. They don’t become green because it’s the right thing to do, but because it makes them money and gives them power and control. That is the same reason corporate behavior destroys the planet’s ecosystems:

For money, power and control.

Corporate profit is different than independently owned, small business profit. It is different than an independent farmer’s profit. Corporate profit is extra. After all expenses are paid, after payroll is met, After taxes have been paid, after donations to charities have been made, after the buildings have been taken care of, after money has been set aside for business improvements, what is left over is the profit. The extra. The more than necessary. This extra does not go to feed people who need it. It does not go to house people who need housing. It does not go to increase benefits or pay the workers more. It certainly does not go to permanently fix the damage to the environment done by the corporation. It goes into the pockets of the investors. And this amount of profit must stay the same or increase. Nothing may stand in the way of profit.

Nothing.

Greed

Everyone can get paid well and have benefits if a business is non-profit or not for profit. So why do we have for profit hospitals now? Why do we have for profit food businesses? Why do we have for profit anything when all can be provided if businesses were run as non or not for profits? Because the investors would not make money. And, it’s the investors who put up the money to start new businesses so they can make more money and control more businesses.

What if the money came from somewhere else?

In a highly evolved society, profit cannot even be a factor. Food needs to be made available to all people regardless, with no strings attached. All the food necessary to maintain a complete, healthy human being connected to the food and the Earth. Basic needs such as healthy whole food, clean and safe water, clean air, whole body healthcare and healing services, safe and healthy housing, education systems that nourish and develop the whole person, these things need to be available to all people. If profit is eliminated from the equation then the above becomes possible.

A non-profit hospital? A non-profit grocery store? Free water from municipalities? Non-profit housing? Free heat? People’s basic and fundamental needs should not be for profit. No one should be exploiting another human’s need to feel secure and safe and healthy. No one should be exploiting someone’s need to eat and feed their family. No one should stand in the way of someone being able to be educated to a point where they can reach their personal full potential. No one should be allowed to exploit and profit from the destruction of the Earth, its environment or ecosystem. No one. These exploitations in industrial society have lead us, as a planet, to a pivotal and critical time. These exploitations need to end

now.

Brazil

Apologies for the late posting.

The following chapter covers another example of urban successes dealing with food and sustainability of cities. Brazil has implemented nation policies to reallocate distribution of food so as to end hunger, giving impoverished city people access to quality, locally grown food at a price even they can afford. What started as a local undertaking in the city of Belo Horizonte, has become national policy. And this happened without a crisis. What would need to happen in the US to implement such policies here?

A change in our society. A change in our perception of how our society works. And most of all, a change within ourselves.

Brazil

Belo Horizonte, a city of 2.5 million people has ended hunger without a major crisis to spur its government into action. The government did it on its own.

In 1993, a new mayor, Patrus Ananias, declared food as a right of the citizenship. His administration went further and said that if you, the citizen, are too poor to buy food in the market you are no less a citizen and that they, the government officials, are still accountable to you. Where in our culture and country do public officials say these things or make such pronouncements and then actually act on them?

Belo’s population already participated directly in government by being part of a “participatory budgeting” process. By directly overseeing how the officials spent the city’s money, the involved populace was a check and balance that made the new food policies possible. Within the first six years Belo’s food-as-a-right policies were enacted, more than 31,000 people began participating in the budgeting process. A doubling from before the policies were enacted. People were interested.

Under the new policies, farmers gained choice spots within the city to sell their produce directly to the population. The farmers were not exploited by a for-profit system of food distribution.  The producers of the city’s food benefited directly from their labor.

The new city policies created ABC markets. ABC is a Portuguese acronym for “food at low prices”. The market owners could set up shop in the best spots in the city and sell produce at market prices, but they had to sell about twenty healthy items at only two thirds the going rate. Another thing the government had the market owners do to give back to the community from which they made their profits, was to drive produce trucks every weekend to poorer areas of the city which did not get the benefit of affordable markets.

The mayor’s policies also benefited the children in the schools. Federal money that was once used to buy corporate, processed food went to buy local, whole food for school lunches. The policies created extensive community and school gardens. The policies also created three large and several small restaurants called “Restaurante Popular” or, “People’s Restaurants”. They serve mostly locally grown food at around fifty cents per meal. Eighty five percent of the People’s Restaurant’s patrons are low income but no one has to prove they are poor to eat there. There are no strings attached. People have retained their dignity.

Another way that the government is working for the people is to have transparent pricing in the marketplace. In cooperation with a local university a price survey of forty five basic foods and household items is done at dozens of shops. This survey is posted online, at bus stops, on television, on radio shows and in newspapers. In this way the market is kept honest and people know where the cheapest prices are for the things they need most.

Belo Horizonte’s hunger ending initiatives cost the city two percent of its budget. The government in Belo fought to show that the state is not a terrible and incompetent administrator. They are showing that the state does not have to provide everything, only to facilitate. Now, the initiatives of the Patrus Ananias administration have evolved into a federal program that is helping to end hunger in Brazil as a whole. Given time, this may succeed.

In the U.S. watchdog groups uncover price fixing and manipulation. Watchdog groups uncover questionable food practices and ingredient use.  These watchdog groups are an outgrowth from a system that refuses to be held accountable to the general public it is supposed to serve. What if Belo Horizonte’s system was adopted for ingredient sourcing? For farm practices? What if mandatory labeling of GMO, GEO, irradiated, cloned, nano-modified or enhanced food and products existed? Corporations say changing their labels is too expensive. However, label changes are routine. A new look, a new ingredient added, a special run of a product during a holiday, are types of changes that occur throughout the year. Not being able to place some kind of a designation on their labels due to expense is a flimsy excuse at best, but an excuse that was considered good enough to stifle resistance. We need to not be so accepting of excuses.

To end hunger in our cities is easy. It takes the will of the governed as well as the government. It takes time. It takes knowledge and work. But it does not take as much money as people think. Relative to the cost of a military weapons system

it takes very little money

indeed.