Localism

By now, we’re all pretty familiar with the term “locavore.” that is, the idea that it is better to eat foods that are sourced locally.  One reason is that, all things being equal, the nutritional value is better because the food is fresher, and we are more likely to be able to verify what has been used to produce it.  Some like to think that eating what grows in your eco-niche is more likely to acclimate your body and mind to your immediate surroundings.  If you look at it from an economic standpoint, you can say that eating locally means supporting your local economy: sending fewer dollars out of the community.  Environmentally, you are not supporting the long distance transport of goods that uses vital resources and pumps more carbon into the air.  Politically, you are less dependent on the large-scale corporate entities that produce, transport, wholesale, retail and largely determine what ingredients go into the food you buy.  Socially, having production and consumption take place within your community enhances community ties and increases everyone’s security.
 
Locality is a relative term that can be seen as a continuum.  We can’t produce everything we want to eat in our immediate locality.  We can, however, prioritize according to the proximity of the source: the closer the better.  Living where we do, we will never be able to source our oranges and avocados much within a 1000 miles.  Being a person that loves tropical foods, I like to think that not immoderate use of them is not going to tip the scale on our climate.  Part of becoming resilient, though, would be to know that we could be happy with the choices that are available to us right here.  As the first peoples of this area have shown over the last 12,000 years, one can find a complete nutritional complement just eating what is native to this region.

There is more to incorporating locally viable foods in our diet.  We have to know where to find them, how to prepare them, and learn to appreciate them.  To the extent that we are habituated to prepared foods, this can seem a daunting task.  I’ll admit that I will relish a bag of potato chips on occasion, but I know that I could make my own in a pinch.  That may not necessarily be healthy but is still psychic comfort food security!  Learning how to make really good, nutritious food from scratch is very satisfying, saves a lot of money, and is fun too.  

For many of the same reasons, I like to think that we should try to source locally as much as we can of everything else we need:  maybe not cell phones, but certainly building materials, clothing, art, furniture, and simple tools and devices.  As we expand local production of our needs, we will begin to change the way we all live our lives.  Fewer of us will need to commute to jobs where what we do has no immediate relationship to our own lives, much less our aptitudes and interests.  In many cases, we would be giving up the economies of scale and the use of labor saving machinery in favor of more personally wrought items, more meaningful work, more control over what is made, and tight feedback loops for improving what we make.  Mmmmm…..sounds like the Medieval Period!  Well, there certainly are a lot of similarities, and I will have to say that I admire many of the elements of life from that era. We mostly hear about the pestilence, ignorance, and drudgery, and, no doubt, there was much of that, but I think there was an emotional and spiritual integrity, a sense of place, and a peacefulness to life that would make some aspects of the life we lead today look wretched.  We can choose the best elements of today and yesterday.  I realize that I am speaking arch heresy right now with respect to the corporate-technological paradigm in which we live.

Last but not least, people should become local too.   Mobility in our society has come at the cost of losing a “sense of place”.  Nowadays, we can move from Seattle, to Phoenix to Atlanta, to Costa Rica and not really suffer much from displacement.  That is because we no longer live in the natural world of the place we inhabit.  We have a responsibility to the place we live, especially since our kind have probably already despoiled it for our own purposes.  Consider this quote from a book called “Reinhabiting California.” Berg and Dasman:
“Reinhabitation means learning to live in a place that has been disrupted and injured through past exploitation.  It involves becoming native to a place through becoming aware of the particular ecological relationships that operate within and around it. It means understanding activities and evolving social behavior that will enrich the life of that place, restore its life supporting systems, and establish an ecologically and socially sustainable pattern of existence within it.  Simply stated, it means becoming fully alive in and with a place.  It involves applying for membership in a biotic community and ceasing to be its exploiter.”

That, to me, is a tall order, but the basis of a truly meaningful existence.
Comments encouraged:  
terry@vashonloop.com