In the open space of democracy, we engage the qualities of inquiry, intuition, and love as we become a dynamic citizenry, unafraid to exercise our shared knowledge and power. We can dissent. We can vote. We can step forward in times of terror with a confounding calm that will shatter fear and complacency. . . . [T]he time has come to demand an end to the wholesale dismissal of the sacredness of life in all its variety and forms, as we witness the repeated breaking of laws, the relaxing of laws in the sole name of growth and greed. . . . At what point do we finally lay our bodies down to say this blatant disregard for biology and wild lives is not longer acceptable?
– Terry Tempest Williams, in her essay “Engagement” in The Open Space of Democracy
At no time in the history of humanity has it been more important to transform economic relationships than it is now. This is a subject I’ve put decades of my activist life into. Back in the 1980s, I was one of the first people to integrate the living Earth into what I called Gaian Economics. Since I do not have a degree in economics my way of expressing is different. Rather than focus on policies and theory, I put my energy into how this translates into local and regional strategies, the importance of language, bringing together everyone in a community, and – what set my work apart – within the awareness that we are responsible for listening to and honoring the voices and needs of All Species impacted by what we do and how we do it.
The sticking point with regard to creating an economy for a living planet is the disconnect between each of us living our daily lives in our specific places, and the over-arching, all-encompassing, global, market-based, consumer-oriented, profit-at-all-costs, corporate controlled and dominated economy. We can see what needs to be done. Looking around at where we live, even just in our own homes, we can pick out aspects that are more sustainable, as well as those that contribute to resilience (which isn’t the same as sustainable), from those that aren’t. Same thing with regard to our villages/neighborhoods, towns and cities, and the greater regions in which they exist.
Then . . . there’s behemothic global trade agreements, and interstate trade regulations that enshrine corporate profits over the well-being of people and Earth. Interstate regulations and global free trade agreements specifically forbid citizens in communities (and even nations in the case of global agreements) from enacting laws or regulations that would have a negative impact on corporate profitability. Even when those projects/enterprises have not even broken ground! Current laws hamstring us from preventing future disasters, let alone enabling us to halt current disasters! These are huge road blocks in our path as we work to create living economies where we live.
Here’s a very recent example. In Maine, activists worked tirelessly to get enough signatures for a ballot initiative that would halt construction of a high tension power line being proposed to carry Hydro-Quebec’s industrial, unsustainable, ecologically destructive hydro power through Maine on its way to Massachusetts. Some of the path would be located where Central Maine Power already has a powerline, though more clearing would be needed on both sides. Other places in the north woods have not been cleared, and it’s intact forest – something that is becoming rarer and rarer globally, and which we need to be expanding, not clearing! It’s worth noting that this transmission line was originally planned for NH’s North Woods, but it was, thankfully, rejected! So on to Maine it went.
Activists garnered the needed signatures, and then some. The initiative made it onto the ballot. Then the opposition, well-financed by corporate friends of HQ and CMP, began. Including misinformation and deliberate, outright lies. But Mainers overwhelmingly rejected the power line! Unfortunately, recently (September 2022), Maine’s supreme court ruled that the referendum may have violated CMP/HQ’s “right to build”! So corporations’ right to destroy nature, even when citizens overwhelmingly VOTE to oppose it, takes precedence! On what level does this even make sense? Even when we go through all the hoops, do everything according to the agreed-upon-process – if the end result harms a corporation’s ability to make a profit (in this case “to build”), we are struck down!!!
As I’ve written elsewhere, some of the most important work yet to be done is to establish enforceable Rights of Nature. This is beginning to happen in communities all over the world, and some countries have incorporated “Rights of Nature” into their constitutions. There will be legal challenges for sure. Yet the time is now to get to work – the necessity defense is being used, successfully at times, to defend eco-warriors, and it will also work to uphold Rights of Nature legislation especially as climate chaos gets worse and people’s awareness of it increases.
One of my biggest sources of frustration with regard to “creating an economy for a living Earth” is people’s need to know, in advance, exactly how this is going to “work”. People understand the local, grassroots aspects, and can generally see the potential for community resilience and greater self-reliance. Where vision fails, and it can fail for me as well – I have to say that up front – is coming up against the behemoth of corporate domination. When that conversation emerges, and it always does, it’s overwhelming, leaving people feeling hopeless. I’ve experienced this countless times in my work. We have a choice: we can allow it to deflate our energy and purpose, and derail our work; or we can put that discussion to the side and agree to move forward regardless. To me, the choice is obvious. We create the path as we go. We learn by doing. We reach out and connect with others in other places, we share stories, ideas, what works, what didn’t. We expand. And eventually our circles of influence grow and intersect, and in those intersections we find new energy, new ideas, synchronicities, and possibilities . . . and so it goes . . . and grows.
And what happens to corporate domination while we’re creating? For a while it keeps chugging along; for how long will depend on politics, when (or if) those most impacted rise up, and, of course, the real “bottom line” – Earth. Meanwhile we’re building right alongside. When roadblocks appear we shift, we go around, we ask for help, we create something new. . . One thing I know: our current economy is on the way out. It’s not happening fast enough for my impatience, or for the health of all living beings for sure. Yet it is failing and it will continue to fail despite efforts to prop it up. Our systems cannot keep up with the pace of change and destruction. Climate chaos is actually helping the current paradigm fail! And the chaotic energy of climate is being mirrored by all of our human-created systems. Not just our economies and polities, but our physical infrastructure (roads, bridges, the electric grid, the internet), how we educate (or don’t) our children, the medical system, agriculture . . . Everything is crumbling around us, or being propped up with bluster and bandaids. While the old crumbles, we build what Robert Swann (E. F. Schumacher Society) called the life boats that will be necessary as more people find themselves swimming for their lives. I remember many years ago, Bob talking about these “life boats” – things like community land trusts, community-based revolving loan funds, community currencies, worker-owned business, flexible manufacturing networks, co-housing and other housing/community alternatives. At the time he said he felt it was a toss up which would fail first: the economy or ecosystems. It seemed to vacillate between those two options in those days. Now we are facing the failure of both at the same time.
As many have discovered, changing the old system is hard and thankless work. And its effectiveness is questionable given the pace of climate chaos, its dependence on the vagaries of politics, the increasing violence here and globally (the war in Ukraine added to the mix), the rise of fascism and intolerance. I have always supported people committed to working within the system to change it. Yet experience shows that too frequently these well-meaning people often leave, disillusioned or burned out, or they become co-opted or marginalized.
When I first started my work in ecological economics, whenever I mentioned that I am not an economist, at first people were a bit taken aback. Because in our culture the letters after one’s name, especially in fields like economics, are seen as essential. Fortunately when I started my work, a whole new movement was emerging. People from all over the world were coming together to rethink economics, money, community development, business structures, and more. It was an exciting, fertile time and I was on the ground floor. I was a young woman who communicated with trees, who knew since I was a girl that I had a specific purpose in life, and who through luck and daring found myself propelled towards, and inspired and supported by many influential leaders and mentors in the emerging field of alternative/community-based/ecological economics. For me it was all about Earth. I was compelled to be a voice for Earth in the realm of economics, to dare to stand in front of investors, professors, and policy makers, and share my ideas. To my surprise, I was taken seriously right from the beginning, and encouraged to continue to write and speak out. So . . . I decided to believe them and follow my path as it unfolded. And I trusted myself to learn what I needed to learn.
When I left Vermont in the late 1990s for family reasons, for the most part I also left Gaian Economics behind as the main focus of my work. I followed it for a while, but didn’t keep up with my colleagues or most of the organizations I had worked with. I was called to grow a garden, to dig in the soil, to plant seeds, to learn the ways of wild plants and healing herbs, and to transform them into healing products for our bodies and senses. When I moved from Maine to NY not long ago, I was faced with going through files, boxes, and all my many books, sorting through decades of “stuff” from my past life as an activist. Many of the books and hard copies of journals, articles, etc. were donated or recycled. The rest were packed in boxes and are currently living in a storage unit. I never expected to be revisiting “economics” again.
But . . . everything is connected, and even in conversations that seem totally removed from the economy, the topic still manages to come up. And it comes up in exactly the same ways it did back in the 1980s and 1990s and 2000s: frustration, inertia, feeling disempowered and hopeless. The life boats we worked on building all those years ago. . . they still exist – the old ones and newer ones too. Indigenous values, something only a few of us seemed aware of back then, are gaining traction and indigenous people are finally getting some of the long-overdue recognition and respect they deserve. There are conversations being had, organizations re-invigorated or newly started, a much greater awareness of ecological values and the importance of incorporating Earth’s reality into our lives and systems. Concepts and ways of perceiving human/Earth relationships – such as regenerative, resilience, participatory – are gaining traction. Finally! But in truth, I don’t see much that feels truly new or different. This is especially true with regard to undermining the dominant paradigm, bringing down the corporate beast. This is not a problem. What is problematic to me is that despite having so many proven tools at our disposal, people continue to seek and articulate (or so it seems to me) a system or paradigm that answers all the concerns, all at once and it simply is not possible.
At last however – and this is encouraging – more people are finally understanding who and what are behind the curtain of smoke and mirrors of what Hazel Henderson (who recently passed) called our “casino economy”. Unfortunately, many who should know better appear to be falling for a glamour being spun by wealthy billionaires. People with much to gain from the pseudo-green programs/policies/products they are promoting. Green washing is nothing new, and in these chaotic and perilous times it is insidious, and the gullibility of so many is alarming.
When I think of Gaian Economics I think of way more than what is generally included under the subject of “economics”. I think of life, old growth forests, individual ancient trees I have relationships with. I think of “my” river, the Saco, skimming over the surface in a canoe, the water so crystal clear I can see all the pebbles and rocks, and waving grasses under the surface. I think of fighting Nestle/Poland Spring (now owned by Blue Triton) in my hometown of Fryeburg, working to counter their corporate lies and deliberate obfuscation of the facts of hydrology, aquifers, the relationship between groundwater and surface water. I think of the bees in my garden and how, year after year, their numbers decreased. I remember the bats. I think of children hanging upside down on jungle gyms and sitting around a campfire cooking hot dogs on sticks. I think of my artistic friends, and even myself – natural perfumer and maker of herbal goodies – offering alternatives to factory goods, struggling to find customers and pay the bills while sellers of wasteful crap become rich. I think of a diversity of fields and forests providing all the delicious food we need – close to home, using regenerative practices that feed and nurture Earth as well as humans. I see and hear and smell the aliveness of biodiversity growing, expanding, evolving. This is what it means to be living within a living Being – which is the reality of our lives! We don’t need new theories, we need to get out of our heads and into our hearts, spirits, and bodies and listen.
I have a Facebook page called Creating an Economy for the Living Earth. And that, more than the term Gaian Economics, says it all. Create is a verb and action is what is needed. Whatever action is taken, it is taken where we live, in the context of what is needed, what can be done given the reality of the place, what the people decide to get behind and DO. Every place, even within a similar bioregion, is different. There is no ONE strategy that will work everywhere. And totally new relationships will be discovered as we create, stimulating more changes and growth. It’s a living process as Earth is a living Being. We are not static. We are not even solid! We are vibrating particles, cells brought together through allurement that vibrate within the permeable boundary of our flesh.
In my first book, Economics as if the Earth Really Mattered, I wrote: “As we look carefully at the web of life around us, as we begin to trace its strands and the process of connection, we find values essential to Gaia. They lead to principles that can guide us in our attempt to create a Gaian Economy”. As I sat by a man-made pond that had, over time, seamlessly integrated into that place, I saw respect – for each living being and the role it plays in the life of the whole – leading to cooperation. I saw that every being was in constant relationship with everyone else – shifting, responding to changes – which is what creates, over time, the uniqueness of place. I saw that the more diversity in a place, the more resilience is possible when changes occur. Thus diversity is a key element of self-reliance, which is essential for healthy communities. I felt harmony and a sense of balance among all the living beings, and the dance they participated in. At the level of human decision-making this translates into appropriate scale. Certainly my observations are simply human perceptions. They are not proven theories, they are more poetic than “practical” and “logical”. But when we take the time to observe healthy ecosystems, and watch how they behave, how over time they manage to heal even after devastating impacts, it becomes obvious that Nature is the best teacher. The key is translating Nature’s processes and ways of relating into our human language and constructs. And we’ve many mistakes, so we already know what not to do.
Coming together at the community level is where the real change begins. While this may seem difficult or even impossible in these times of polarity and distrust, we don’t have to agree on everything to find common ground. The point is to come together for the purpose of strengthening local resilience and building trust. Back in the 1990s, the Rocky Mountain Institute had a program called the Economic Renewal Project, directed by Michael Kinsley.(Today RMI focuses on energy, climate, and policy). I still have the workbooks packed away in boxes in the storage unit, and the information can still be found online. The process consisted of a series of well-facilitated town meetings. Citizens come together to share, to vision, to plan, and strategize. Topics include: What are the community values, quality of life (ecological and economic), redefining “development” (“getting better rather than getting bigger”), adopting a long-term perspective of stewardship, a commitment to democratic decision-making, diversity, and resilience.
The tool that moves this process from the head into the real world, with concrete ideas for action, is the community inventory. What is here? What do we export? What do we import? How can we plug the leaks? This inventory includes every aspect of living in the community. The human “resources” (gifts we offer each other): teachers, elders, people others listen to who may or may not be recognized as “town leaders”, farmers/food processing, business people including lawyers, doctors, etc. Natural “resources” (gifts of Earth): forests, rivers, ponds, lakes, wetlands, aquifers, agricultural lands, open spaces, species diversity, etc. Infrastructure/services: roads, bridges, health care, police/security, water systems, sewer systems, energy systems/generation, community gardens, library/town resources, community center/gathering places. History and culture. Who lived here before the settlers arrived? How did they live? How has the land changed over the years? Where I lived in Fryeburg, for example, the Saco River was straightened decades ago to change flood patterns. This gets into mapping, so we know the natural lay of the land, where rivers flow, where wetlands need to be preserved, where the vernal pools show up in spring, where rare flora and fauna live still so they can be honored and protected, etc. And, of course, are there corporate developments and/or extractive industries impacting the community.
This kind of detailed inventory helps us know our community in a totally different way. And in the process, we also get to know our fellow citizens. Then: what do we import? Energy? Fuel? What foods? What goods/service? Are there adequate activities and opportunities for the children locally? A lot of this process involves brainstorming. And some of the ideas will be great, others blatantly impossible, at least at first. But everything goes in this early stage. No judgements. No wet blanket on possibility. The key is having excellent facilitation, note keepers, lots of dry erase boards to write things down as people speak.
No “outsider” knows a community better than the people who live there. And no corporation or group of wealthy individuals should have more decision making power than the people who live there either. I think today there is a fear that if we allow people to make their own decisions, whether as individuals/families, or as communities, we will somehow blow it. We will revert to our worst common denominator rather than rise to our higher selves. It’s understandable that we should feel this way given how politics has successfully divided us, isolated us from others, inculcated fear into virtually every aspect of our daily lives. Yet, I have to believe that in our hearts there are certain qualities and values we can all agree on, and those are what we build on. Which is why the process I briefly described earlier is such a great tool. Yes it’s scary and intimidating. Yet what I find more scary and intimidating is the direction we seem to be headed. We have to wrap our minds and hearts around the fact that we are not in control. Earth is in control. We can resist the trajectory by continuing to do the old way harder, all the while further endangering our lives and the future of all Life, or we can realize it’s time (past time) to STOP. Just stop and take a breath and look around. Wherever we happen to be – in a rural area like me, in the woods, in the middle of a megacity, in a war zone, in the aftermath of the latest climate chaos disaster – that is where we have to start.
Here are some of the most essential movements happening right now to create an economy for a living Earth – in my opinion anyway.
* Rights for Nature,
* Permaculture and regenerative agriculture,
* Energy resilience: I’m using this term to encompass the growing awareness of off-grid living, energy conservation (the “low hanging fruit”), community/regionally-based energy development, appropriate – this word is key – scale energy “alternatives” like solar, hydro, geothermal,
* Wild life corridors including planning for ecological diversity by planting diverse species from other zones as our climate zones shift and species (flora and fauna) become extirpated from their traditional territories,
*Eco-villages: And here I’m also including various types of building/construction currently being used in different climates using locally available materials, reclaimed materials, earth, hay, hemp . . . the creativity is amazing and some of the results are not only energy efficient but also absolutely beautiful,
* Eco-warriors; water defenders; bodies on the line fighting pipe lines, high tension energy corridors, water mining, destruction of Ancient Forests and Old Growth . . .
* Earth-based education that gets kids – and adults – out of the classroom and into Nature,
* Honoring and elevating art and creativity, encouraging play,
* Awakening our senses. This may seem strange to include in a piece on economics, but our senses are how we feel, how we participate with all life. The more enlivened and acute our senses, the more we perceive, the more we understand and communicate – not only with our human companions, but with all the species in our places and bioregions.