CLI M AT E C HA NGEorSYS TE M C H A N G E?

A Local Futures Action Paper

LOCAL FUTURES

					

				

1

“If we are going to limit warming to the 2-degree Celsius
benchmark, there will need to be a fundamental shift in theeconomy: away from growth-at-any-cost globalization towards
more diversified, localized economies that serve the real needsof people and the planet.”M

any people were understandably
encouraged by the tone of the climate
negotiations in Paris: governments
are finally taking climate change seriously,and even expressing a willingness to takeconcrete steps. Nonetheless, they once again
failed to take the necessary action to prevent
catastrophic climate change. In fact, the mosteffective steps to reduce CO2 emissions were
never discussed in Paris. Instead, delegates
quibbled over piecemeal quasi-solutions whileleaving the systemic root causes of the problem
unchallenged.
If we are going to limit warming to the2-degree Celsius benchmark (much less the 1.5
degree limit demanded by the group of “mostvulnerable” countries), there will need to be afundamental shift in the economy: away fromgrowth-at-any cost globalization – a systemthat is heavily tilted in favor of the biggest

2

				

corporations and financial institutions –towards more diversified, localized economies
that serve the real needs of people and theplanet.
Such a shift would not only substantiallyreduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, itwould bring a range of other benefits too. It
would help to create more jobs; limit the powerof global corporations; reverse the erosionof democracy; and reduce fundamentalism,
ethnic conflict and even terrorism. And thisis its great strength. Here is an opportunity tounite diverse single-issue campaigns acrossthe social and environmental divide: to createa movement powerful enough to bring about afundamental economic shift. (This argument ismore fully fleshed out in Localization: Essential
Steps to an Economics of Happiness, Local Futures2015).

				

LOCAL FUTURES

“Promoting climate change denial is only the most obvious way inwhich corporations have managed and limited the climate debate.”In the media and even among climate
activists, insufficient attention has been
paid to the ways in which multinational
corporations have distorted the climate
debate from the beginning. It’s not just theuse of corporate-friendly scientists to muddy
the waters about the causes – if not the very
existence – of climate change, although thathas certainly happened. Recent headlines,
for example, revealed how Exxon-Mobil
steadfastly denied the reality of global
warming even though internal memos revealthat the company was aware of the problem
in 1981 – seven years before it became a public
issue – and formulated strategies to respondto and even profit from it. Along with otherfossil fuel corporations, Exxon spent millions
funding scientists willing to argue that global
warming is an unproven and “controversial”
theory unsupported by the evidence.
But this represents only the most obvious
way in which the climate debate has been

LOCAL FUTURES					managed and limited. Corporate think tanks,
lobbyists and PR firms have used more subtle
and insidious strategies, many of which remain
deeply ingrained in the public discourse:

Strategy 1

Blame the individual
In use for many years now, this strategy
involves shifting blame for climate change– and thus our responses to it – away fromindustry and onto individuals. A poster that
accompanied Al Gore’s 2006 documentaryfilm, An Inconvenient Truth, listed “things you
can do now” in response to the climate change
threat (see below).
People were told to change their lightbulbs, use less hot water, inflate their tires
properly, etc. – reasonable steps to be sure, buteven in the aggregate hardly enough to make adent in overall greenhouse gas emissions.
				

3

By
implicitly
blaming
individual
consumers for the climate crisis – and handing
them responsibility for fixing it –this framing
deflected attention from its systemic causes
and obscured the role of industrial emitters ofgreenhouse gases.1
There was no mention of the advertisingpressures that turn children into mindlessover-consumers. There was no mention of theway the government focus on GDP encourages
growth through overconsumption, nor the way
our taxes are used to subsidize fossil fuels andglobal trade. And citizens, relegated to the roleof passive consumers, were not encouraged
to do anything that would challenge thecorporate-dominated status quo.

Strategy 2

Promote market-based
solutions
Corporations have been very successfulat convincing the public that free-market
transactions, rather than global regulation, arethe best means of reducing carbon emissions.
4				This approach not only preserves the powerof TNCs, it augments it. Carbon trading, forexample, essentially gives industries the rightto pollute, for a price – making the atmosphereon which all life depends a commodity thatcan be sold to the highest bidder, at a time
when the biggest transnational corporations
are wealthier than entire countries.
Similar market-based approaches havebeen suggested for “protecting” the planet’s
remaining rainforests. But as Brazilian
activist Camila Moreno points out, proposals
like these promote the privatization andcommodification of what has always beencommon land. She asks, “Is that what we wantas an international public policy, that the last
public forests and public lands on earth –where there is biodiversity, where there areindigenous people – be from now on connected
to financial markets?”2
Another arena in which market-based
strategies have taken root is in the promotionof renewable energy. While there’s no questionthat renewable energy must replace fossil fuels
as the primary source of global energy needs,
those energy needs must be greatly reduced
in order for that to be feasible. Nonetheless,renewables are often portrayed as a means tomaintain the current structures of the global
economy – changing little but the fuel that runs
it. Thus, a headline on the website EcoWatch
proclaims, “Renewable energy and economic
growth go hand in hand”.3
Thanks to billions of dollars ingovernment subsidies, the renewable energy
field has already attracted the interest of large
corporations. For example, the Spanish energy
multinational Iberdrola – the fourth largest
electric power provider in the UK and a major
player in US, South American, and European
energy markets – is also one of the world’s
biggest wind energy companies; Canadiannatural gas corporation Gaz Metro (co-ownedby tar sands giant Enbridge) also has major
investments in industrial wind projects. The
renewable energy projects that these andother global corporations invest in are largescale and centralized, thus keeping the energy
supply tightly in corporate hands.

				

LOCAL FUTURESIn the end, depending on market-based
solutions means relying on a marketplace thatis heavily tilted in favor of the biggest players.

Strategy 3South to alleviate poverty, which is to follow
the same development path trodden by theNorth. Not only is it impossible for the planet
to support such a scenario (see below), thereality is that conventional development
hasn’t meant improved lives for the majority.
The usual yardstick of living standards isper capita GDP, which rises when resources
are unsustainably extracted and exported,
when freely-provided community and family
activities become monetized, when self-reliant
farmers are pulled into urban slums, andwhen a handful of billionaires are created evenas millions of others fall deeper into poverty.
In many parts of the global South, growth anddevelopment have led to a declining quality oflife for the majority even as GDP has risen.

UseNorth-South
North-Southagreements
divisionsUse
totoblock
blockagreements
divisions
Past failures to forge climate agreements haveoften been blamed on disputes between richand poor countries: the wealthy industrializedcountries are largely responsible for thecurrent excess of atmospheric CO2; the poorer
countries have contributed relatively little toclimate change, and want to continue burning
fossil fuels to fuel their own development.
This framing uses poverty as an excuse toincrease both CO2 emissions and the corporate
exploitation of less industrialized countries.
Thanks to “free trade” treaties, corporations
are now producing where labor is cheapest –in other words in poor countries. When the
Barbie dolls and barbecue grills sold in the
Wal-Marts of America come from polluting
factories in the global South, who benefits fromallowing those factories to continue polluting?
Giving the poor countries the right to emit
more GHGs is little more than a back-doorploy to allow global corporations to continue
producing, marketing and profiting fromtrade in goods whose manufacture entailed
the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels.
But what about the poor countries’ needto develop? Implicit in this question is that
there is only one way for the countries of the
LOCAL FUTURES

					

				

5

W

e need to resist the corporate spinand focus on the real driver ofrising greenhouse gas emissions:the corporate-led globalization of theeconomy. Globalization is a process bywhich international trade and investment are
deregulated, primarily through a series of“free trade” treaties and agreements. These
agreements give corporations and foreign
investors the freedom to move in and out ofnational economies in search of cheap labor
and resources, low taxes, high subsidies,and lax (or non-existent) measures to protect
the environment and workers. Any national
policies that are perceived to be “barriers” totrade or foreign investment – including rulesthat limit pollution of air and water – can be
struck down under these treaties.
In the nearly 20 years since the Kyoto
Protocol was drafted, governments havenegotiated and ratified more than 400 bi-lateraland multilateral trade agreements, the prime
drivers of globalization.4 Globalization, inturn, has not only fueled the growth of global
corporations, it is also responsible for much of
the atmospheric CO2 that is destabilizing theclimate.
Here are five ways that globalization leads
to increased greenhouse gas emissions:

1. Globalization promotes
unnecessary transporthuge supermarket chains contract withcommensurately large farms to supply all
their stores – in the process ignoring themany smaller farms located nearby. This is
one reason why Britain, for example, imports
and exports 15,000 tons of waffles annually,and exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with
Australia; it’s why supermarkets on the Citrus
Coast of Spain carry imported lemons while
local lemons rot on the ground;5 and it’s why
Canada simultaneously imports and exports
greenhouse tomatoes.6 Similar examples canbe cited for almost every country.
In some cases foods are shipped to theother side of the world just to shave a few
cents off the cost of production or to add a
few cents to the sales price. The US seafood
company Trident is typical: to save on laborcosts it ships about 30 million pounds of fish
annually to China for filleting, and then ships
the fish back to the US for sale.7
Trade in manufactured goods is not as
likely to be redundant as trade in food, but
globalization has increased transport distancesin this sector as well. With industry steadily
migrating to the global South, many products
consumed in Northern countries – fromclothing and toys to pots and pans – are nolonger manufactured locally or regionally, but
in the global South. As many Americans havenoticed, almost every manufactured product –even those that are branded with the name of anominally “American” corporation – has beenIn
today’s
globaleconomy, trade is nolonger about obtaining
goods that can’t be
producedlocallyor
regionally, nor is it about
exchanging
surpluses.
Instead, a lot of today’s
trade is “redundant”,
with goods sourced
from thousands of miles
away when an identicalproduct is available next
door. This is particularly
true in the global
foodsystem,
where
6

				

				

LOCAL FUTURES

produced in China, and has traveled halfway
around the world.
It is not surprising, then, that the
globalization-driven increases in international
trade have led to parallel increases ingreenhouse gas emissions (see graph below).
What’s more, globalization makes it harderfor climate negotiators to assign responsibility
for those emissions. One researcher put it thisway: “Consider a ship that is registered in
Liberia, operated by a Danish shipping line,
and making a voyage from Shanghai to Los
Angeles carrying products made in China by
a European firm for sale in North America.
How and to whom should the emissions fromthis voyage be allocated, and who should be
assigned responsibility for reducing them?
Questions such as these have proven to bepolitically intractable.”8When the stability of the climate is pitted
against international trade, trade usuallycomes out on top: the commitments made bynations under the Kyoto Protocol, for example,
don’t include emissions from international
aviation and shipping.9 As a result, theeconomic benefits of needless transport flow
to the trading corporations, while its costs are
shifted to the environment and the climate.
Global Merchandise Trade (% of GDP)

Global CO2 Emissions (Billion Metric Tons)

50

40

45

35

40

30

35

25

30

20

25

15

20
1965

1975

1985

1995

2005

10
2015

Sources: CO2 emissions data from 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy;
trade data from World Development Indicators,
World Bank (constant 2000 dollars)

2. Globalization promotes rampant
consumerism
High levels of per capita consumption in therich countries are a major factor not only ingreenhouse gas emissions but in many other
LOCAL FUTURES

					

forms of pollution, as well as in resource
depletion. The environment is telling us thatthose consumption levels must be reduced,
but the economic models on which the global
economy is based require constant growth,which means increased consumption evenin the rich countries. Whenever there is an
economic slowdown, in fact, governments
typically intervene by lowering interest rates,
cutting taxes, or taking other steps to “stimulate
consumer spending”.
In the “less developed” parts of theworld, it is presumed that economic growth
will eventually enable standards of living toapproach the levels found in Europe and North
America. But those countries are already using
far more than their share of resources, and areover-burdening the planet with wastes likegreenhouse gases: for the rest of the world toconsume and pollute at the same pace would
require almost four additional planets.10
Economic
globalization
increases
consumption in part by imposing a consumer
monoculture – inducing people in diverse
cultures to adopt the same values, preferences,and buying habits. Every day, people aroundthe world are bombarded with media images
that present the modern, Western consumer
lifestyle as the ideal, while implicitly
denigrating local traditions and landbased
ways of life. The message is that the urban issophisticated and the rural is backward; thatimports of processed food and manufactured
goods are superior to local products; that
“imported is good, local is crap,” in the wordsof an advertising executive in China.11
As a result, millions of people are rejecting
their own culture in an attempt to emulate
the American dream. They are abandoning
traditional local foods for McDonald’s
hamburgers and packaged ramen noodles,
and giving up local wool, flax and cotton
for imported designer jeans and polyester.
In the process, the use of energy-intensive
resources is going up, along with pollution
and greenhouse gas emissions. Even in
the North, cradle-to-grave advertising andplanned obsolescence enable marketers andtechnological “innovators” to create a never				7

ending stream of new needs among people
who already have more “stuff” than the vast
majority of the global population. In thelong run, this consumption treadmill goes
nowhere: studies have shown that once basic
needs are met – a condition long ago reachedin the global North – further increments ofconsumption don’t actually leave people any
happier.12
Who does benefit from the globalizationof the consumer culture? Global corporations
and banks, whose own growth imperatives are
met through the excessive consumption – andconsequent pollution – of hundreds of millions
of people.

3. Globalization is making the foodsystem a major climate-changer
Overall, estimates of the food sector’s
contribution to greenhouse gas emissions
range from 19-29 percent.13 Globalization is
responsible for a large and growing portion ofthat total, because:a) Globalization leads to redundant trade infood, as described above, with thousandsof miles of needless transport added to foodmiles and GHG emissions.

c) Globalization is structurally linked toagricultural monoculture. Global marketersneed massive amounts of the few globallytraded food commodities, and it is far easier
to source those foods from one or two giant
monocultural farms than from hundreds or
thousands of diversified farms. Monocultures
rely heavily on agrochemicals and mechanizedequipment – both of which result in significant
GHG emissions. They also degrade soil,
depleting it of its ability to sequester carbon.
d) Globalization is leading to dietary changes
that exacerbate GHG emissions. Thanks
to the mimicking of Western patterns ofconsumption, global meat consumption is
expected to double by 2050.15 Most of thatmeat will be raised on factory farms thatare major contributors to climate change:
factory-farmed broiler chickens, for example,
produce seven times more GHG emissions
than backyard chickens.16 At the same time,
Northern consumers are no longer content toeat food seasonally: supermarkets routinely
carry out-of-season foods grown thousandsof miles away. Many of these perishable foods
are not only produced on monocultural farms,
but require refrigeration and air transport,
adding to their climate change impact.

b) The global food economy requires far more
processing and packaging than local foodsystems: in the US for example, more than onethird of the energy used by the food system isused for packaging and processing.14e) The global food system destroys rainforestsand other wild ecosystems. Many of the planet’s
carbon-sequestering natural ecosystems arebeing destroyed to make way for large-scalemonocultural farms producing globallytraded commodities: Brazil, for example,
is converting large swaths of the Amazon
8

				

				

LOCAL FUTURESto soybean production, while Indonesia’s
rainforests are being displaced by palm oil
plantations. As Camila Moreno points out,
“If you really want a mechanism to avoid
deforestation, dismantle agribusiness. This is
the main driver of deforestation in the entire
South”.17

4. Globalization replaces human laborwith energy-intensive technologies
Globalization is both scaling up and speedingup the economy – two trends that combine
to put a premium on energy-intensive hightechnology, while devaluing human labor.
Supply chains now routinely involve dozens
of countries, and markets are even larger.
Robots are increasingly relied upon to do
factory work that was once done by people.
Banks and other financial institutions deal indozens of currencies and hundreds of stockand commodity markets all over the world,
relying on computer algorithms to direct
massive flows of money.
The corporate spin on these changes isthat they are all products of efficiencies ofscale. However, energy-intensive technologies
are not more efficient when all the costs aretaken into account. Because the price of energy
doesn’t include its ecological costs – including
greenhouse gas emissions – it becomes
artificially cheap to use more and more of it.
At the same time, governments provide a wide
range of subsidies, many of them hidden, forboth energy and technology. Tax breaks, tax
credits, accelerated depreciation and othersubsidies are provided to companies thatinvest in technology; hiring workers, on theother hand, means paying expensive payroll
taxes that make human labor more expensive.
Many of the subsidies for high-tech are
hidden. From grade schools to PhD programs,
for example, educational institutions use
public tax money to train young people
for jobs in the high-tech sector. The media,
meanwhile, continually reinforces the notionthat a “good” job involves sitting in front of
a computer, while manual work of any kind,even artisan work, is primitive and backward.
LOCAL FUTURES					

As a result, many parents push their children
onto computers before they are able to walk.
There is a pervasive myth that computers
are a “clean” technology, unlike the steel mills
and factories that have been shunted off to
the global South. But the tens of thousandsof data centers on which much of the hightech world relies require vast amountsof energy: a single data center can use as
much electricity as a medium-sized town;
globally, they use an amount equivalent to
the output of 30 nuclear power plants.18 Mostof that energy is simply wasted: it is used tokeep the servers ready in case of a surge inactivity that could slow operations or cause
the server to crash. “This is an industry dirty
secret,” said one senior industry executive.
“If we were a manufacturing industry, we’dbe out of business straightaway.” In order toavoid a shutdown in the event of power loss,
many internet-based companies, including
Google and Facebook, also run banks of diesel
generators at their data centers, earning themcitations for violating clean air laws.19

What’s more, toxic e–waste – the residueof the constant “innovation” that makes lastyear’s smartphone obsolete – is the world’s
fastest growing waste stream, expected
to grow by a third in the next four years.
The US alone produces 10 million tons ofe-waste annually, most of it dumped in poor
communities in the global South.20 In the end,
the scaled-up and sped-up global economy
				9systematically replaces jobs for people withsubsidized, polluting technologies. This is not
more efficient: it is using taxpayer money tosubsidize the destruction of jobs, pollution of
the environment, and a significant increase ingreenhouse gas emissions.

5. Globalization promotes energyintensive urbanization
The consumer culture that globalization
promotes is increasingly urban. At first glancehigh-density urban living might appear to
reduce per capita use of resources. But this is
only true when compared with life in the grossly
inefficient suburbs, which are themselves a
product of urbanization. Compared to thegenuinely decentralized towns and villages
that still exist in the less-industrialized world,
urbanization is extremely resource-intensive.
One reason is that virtually every material
need of highly-urbanized populations mustbe brought in from elsewhere, requiring vastenergy-intensive infrastructures to do so. For
example, almost all the food consumed by citydwellers must be grown for them, typically on
giant, chemical- and energy-intensive farms;

10

				

all this food must then be brought into the cities
on roads purpose-built to accommodate hugetrucks. Similarly, providing water involves
enormous dams, man-made reservoirs, andaqueducts stretching into distant hills andmountains. Energy production means huge,
centralized power plants, coal and uranium
mines, and thousands of miles of transmission
lines.
In the global South, the current trend
towards rapid urbanization is linked tosignificant increases in per capita resource use.
As Vandana Shiva points out, “The momenta person moves into the city, the energy
use shoots up, the water use shoots up. The
infrastructure to run a city per capita is muchbigger than the infrastructure to produce ahigh quality of life in a village.”21
Statistics that purport to show theenergy-efficiency of urban living are skewed
in much the same way that nation-by-nationcomparisons of GHG emissions are: sincealmost all of the food and resource needs ofurban zones come from rural areas, the energy
required for their production is tacked on to
the rural total, even though the end products
are consumed in the cities.

				

LOCAL FUTURES

B

ecause of the obsessive pursuit ofglobal growth, thousands of species are
becoming extinct, and – if climate change
accelerates – the planet may soon be unlivablefor humans as well. Attempts to reduce GHG
emissions while continuing to scale up the
economy are, in the end, an exercise in futility.
The ongoing push to further deregulate
trade is a case in point. Not only does tradederegulation accelerate climate change by themechanisms outlined above, it makes it moredifficult for governments to enact policies thatwould reduce GHG emissions. For example,
most ‘free trade’ treaties include investorstate dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions
that allow corporations to challenge local andnational laws that might reduce their profits.
Such cases are heard in unaccountable private
tribunals composed of three trade lawyers.
Corporations have already used ISDS
provisions more than 500 times to challenge
government laws and regulations – including
environmental laws. Citing NAFTA, forinstance, the US company Lone Pine Resources,
Inc. sued Canada for $250 million because theprovince of Quebec placed a moratorium onnatural gas ‘fracking’;22 the Swedish energy
giant Vattenfall recently sued Germany for 3.7
billion euros over the German government’s
decision to phase out nuclear power; five
years earlier, Vattenfall sued Germany for $1.5
billion to avoid environmental rules aroundconstruction of a coal-fired power plant.23 Laws
designed to reduce GHG emissions would not
be exempt from ISDS rules.
Nonetheless, political leaders have beenpushing for still more trade deals, including
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) andthe Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment
Partnership (TTIP) – even while pontificating
about the urgent need to curb GHG emissions.
According to a recent report, “the TPP
investment chapter gives foreign investors,
including some of the world’s largest fossil
fuel corporations, expansive new rights tochallenge climate protections.” These newtreaties greatly expand the negative impactsof trade deregulation, in part by extending
ISDS provisions to resources like coal, oil, and

LOCAL FUTURES

					

natural gas on federal lands and territorial
waters.

Moving towards the Local
To address the climate problem effectively,
governments need to stop subsidizing
globalization, and to begin pursuing a
localization agenda instead. Localization isa process of economic de-centralization thatenables communities, regions, and nations
to take more control over their own affairs. It
does not mean encouraging every community
to be entirely self-reliant; it simply means
shortening the distance between producers
and consumers wherever possible, and striking
a healthier balance between local markets anda monopoly-dominated global market.
This translates into more community
gardens, more farmers’ markets, more local
shops, more local finance and investment.
Localization does not mean that people in cold
climates are denied oranges or avocados, butthat their wheat, rice or milk – in short, theirbasic food needs – do not travel thousandsof miles when they can be produced within afifty-mile radius. Rather than ending all longdistance trade, steps towards localization
reduceunnecessarytransport
whilestrengthening and diversifying economies
				

11

at the community as well as national level.
Ultimately, the degree of diversification, thegoods produced, and the amount of trade will
naturally vary from region to region.

A Solution Multiplier

By encouraging more local and regional
production of basic needs, localization reducestransport, packaging and processing, andeliminates redundant trade – all of whichtranslates into a smaller carbon footprint. By
shrinking the scale of the economy, localization
also reduces the power of global corporations
and banks, helping to halt the erosion of
democracy and reducing the pressures for
economic growth that result in needless andwasteful consumption.
Localization also leads to improved
living conditions in the global South. Poverty
in those countries is the product of centuries
of colonialism, development, debt, and thedismantling of local economies in favor of
production for export.
Improved conditions for the majority
will not be achieved by continuing down
this path, but from greater self-reliance, foodsovereignty, and the right to protect resourcesfrom predation by global corporations. Nor
will the majority benefit from attempts tomimic the energy path taken by the economiesof the global North. Because the energy
infrastructure in the global South is not as
developed as in the North, it would be cheaperand more ecologically sensible in thosecountries to build up a decentralized
renewable energy infrastructure instead.
As for greenhouse gas emissions, itdoes no favor to the people of the Southto allow global corporations operating in
those countries to profit from the pollutionof local environments while adding to the
problem of climate change.

social, environmental and economic problems
we face. As a result, a global-to-local strategy
can unite a wide range of existing campaigns
and enable people to link hands across many
divides – North and South, left and right,
economic and environmental, urban and rural.
A much stronger movement would emerge –strong enough, even, to overthrow the de facto
government of corporations and banks.
Fortunately, there are already moves
afoot in this direction. Naomi Klein’s book This
Changes Everything makes the link between
neoliberal economic policies an climate chaos,and many NGOs and activists – particularly
those in the new economy movement – have
moved beyond single-issue campaigning
towards a more holistic view of the problems
we face. Most encouraging is the emergence ofa worldwide localization movement, which –especially in the area of local food – has grownexponentially in recent years. The seeds forchange have been planted at the grassroots. If
governments can be persuaded to re-regulate
global trade and finance, those seeds can grow,flourish and spread.
Around the world, the pressure on
policymakers is building. The task may
seem monumental, but it’s not impossible.
Globalization is actively promoted by lessthan 1 % of the world’s population – the freemarketeers. The remaining 99% are ready forchange.
This is not only about the climate, it
is about our livelihoods, our health, ourchildren’s future.

Linking Hands for Change

A shift in direction from global tolocal is not only the most effective
response to climate change, it would
simultaneously address the many other
12

				

				

LOCAL FUTURESGLOBALIZATIONLOCALIZATION

TRANSPORT◦ Separates producers andconsumers, so almost all goods
travel further◦ Promotes redundant trade

CONSUMERISM◦ Requires endless growth,fueled by endless consumption◦ Pulls people away from selfreliance◦ Creates new “needs” andplanned obsolescence

FOOD ANDFARMING

ENERGYURBANIZATIONLOCAL FUTURES◦ Shortens distance between
producers and consumers, soless transport needed◦ Reduces consumption byanswering real psychologicaland spiritual needs forcommunity and connection◦ Reduces artificial needs,
advertising, and corporate
influence◦ Requires monocultural
production, which is chemicaland energy-intensive◦ Increases GHG footprint
through factory animal farms◦ Promotes redundant trade,
multiplies food miles, andincreases need for processing,packaging and refrigeration◦ Encourages dietary changes
in global South, including newemphasis on meat
◦Encourages expectation ofout-of-season foods year-roundin rich countries◦ Encourages agro-ecological,
diversified production, whichis less energy- and chemicaldependent, and provides
carbon sinks◦ Integrates livestock in a
productive and sustainable way◦ Reduces need for packaging,refrigeration, and transport◦ Encourages diets that are
locally-adapted and seasonal,
making use of what grows bestin particular ecosystems andmicroclimates◦ Replaces human labor withenergy-intensive technology,
thereby adding to bothunemployment and pollution◦ Makes more use of humanlabor and knowledge, withless need for energy-intensive
technology◦ Promotes the growth of
megacities and suburban
sprawl◦ Requires huge energyintensive infrastructures◦ Centralizes production andjob opportunities, encouraging
rural populations to abandon
low-impact lifestyles◦ Promotes more decentralized
living patterns◦ Brings people closer tothe sources of their basic
needs, so less need for hugeinfrastructures◦ Decentralizes production andjob opportunities, revitalizing
villages, towns and smaller
cities, where energy needs andconsumption pressures are
lower

					

				

13

Making it Happen

What can we do at a practical level to begin
the move from global to local? Above all,we need to see the benefit in joined-up
thinking and action: forming alliances acrossconventional boundaries – both in our heads
and in our activism – to form grand coalitions.
The underlying root cause behind all of oursocial and ecological problems is the global
economy. Whether our primary concern is
climate change, or animal welfare, or nuclear
weapons, or poverty and unemployment, thecentral issue is the same: who is in charge, andwhose interests are being served? And what
about Nature? Who stands up for her?
The conventional economy measures, inBobby Kennedy’s words, “everything exceptthat which is worthwhile”. We need to cultivatea very different kind of economy: one based
not on endless growth and the enrichment of atiny minority, but on the sustainable wellbeingof people (all people) and the planet.

� Education as activism. There’s a naturaltendency to want to get on with hands-on
activism right now. But let’s take a deep breathfirst. We are talking about movement-building,and that requires a critical mass of people who
are on the same page. We all need to educate
ourselves more fully both about what’s goingon in the name of economics-as-usual andabout the alternatives. Share books, websites,
articles and films, set up study circles withfriends and neighbors, and “cross-pollinate”
with people who have different primaryconcerns.

� Resistance. Add your voice in whateverways you can to the growing chorus of
opposition to economic globalization. In
particular, sign petitions, write letters to
the media, and harangue your politicalrepresentatives about the international tradetreaties. Demand an end to further corporate
de-regulation, and insist that corporations
be place-based: in other words, subject to thelaws and taxes of individual nation states.

� Renewal. Join with others to set up initiatives

in service of community and the Earth, witha particular emphasis on the role of food:
farmers’ markets, local food cooperatives,
community gardens. Establish tool repair
workshops and seed-sharing projects. Support
community energy and finance schemes.
Put pressure on the local administration tobuild up public transport, cycleways andpedestrianized zones.

� International Alliance for Localization.

Become a member of our new alliance: a crosscultural network of thinkers, activists andNGOs dedicated to exploring radically new
visions of development and progress.
www.localfutures.org/internationalalliancefor-localization-member-sign-up
Together we can make a difference!

Local Futures is a non-profit organization dedicated to
the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity,and the strengthening of local communities andeconomies worldwide. Our emphasis is on education
for action: moving beyond single issues to look at themore fundamental influences that shape our lives.
www.localfutures.org
14

				

				

info@localfutures.org
LOCAL FUTURES

References
1 Nearly two-thirds of all the carbon emitted into the atmosphere during the industrial era is the productof just 90 corporations and state-owned companies and industries. Carbon Majors, “New Study Traces
Two-Thirds of Industrial Emissions to Just 90 Institutions”, November 21, 2013, http://carbonmajors.org/
carbon-majors-press-release. Accessed October 18, 2014.
2 Moreno, Camila, interviewed on Democracy Now, December 18, 2009, “Environmental and Indigenous
Activists Criticize Proposed Deal to Save Rainforests”, http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/environmental_and_indigenous_activists_criticize_proposed. Accessed November 4, 2015
3 Batistelli, Paul, “Renewable Energy and Economic Growth Go Hand in Hand in Massachusetts”, EcoWatch, Sept. 20, 2013, http://ecowatch.com/2013/09/20/renewableenergy-economic-growth-massachusetts/.
Accessed November 10, 2015.
4 World Trade Organization, “Regional Trade Agreements: Facts and Figures”, https://www.wto.org/
english/tratop_e/region_e/regfac_e.htm. Accessed October 27, 2015.
5 “The Problem with Redundant Trade”, Deconstructing Dinner, October 9, 2013, http://deconstructingdinner.ichannel.ca/the-problem-with-redundant-trade-2/. Accessed November 13, 2015.
6 Ibid.
7 Yeoung, Choy Leng, “NW salmon sent to China before reaching U.S. tables”, The Seattle Times, July
16 2005, http://www.seattletimes.com/business/nw-salmon-sent-to-china-beforereaching-us-tables/. Accessed November 10, 2015.
8 Vaishnav, Parth and Iddo K. Wernick, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from International Transport”, Issues in Science and Technology, Vol. XXX, issue 2, winter 2014, http://issues.org/30-2/parth/. Accessed
November 20, 2015.
9 United Nations Pan-European Programme (PEP), http://www.thepep.org/chwebsite/chviewer.
aspx?cat=d10. Accessed November 13, 2015.
10 Global Footprint Network, “Living Planet Report 2014 Facts”, http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/
index.php/GFN/page/living_planet_report_2014_facts/. Accessed 23 September 2015.
11 “Where the Admen Are”, Newsweek, March 14, 1994, p. 34.
12 Simms, Andrew, Victoria Johnson and Peter Chowda, “Growth isn’t possible: Why we need a new
economic direction”, Schumacher College and New Economics Foundation, 2010, http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/entry/growth-isnt-possible. Accessed November 23, 2015.
13 Vermeulen, Sonja J. et al, “Climate Change and Food Systems”, Annual Review of Environment andResources, Vol. 37: 195-222, November 2012, http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurevenviron-020411-130608. Accessed November 23, 2015.
14 Pimentel, David. August 2006. Impacts of Organic Farming on the Efficiency of Energy Use in Agriculture. An Organic Center State of Science Review, http:www.organiccenter.org/reportfiles/ENERGY_SSR.
pdf.
15 GRAIN, “Trade Deals – Boosting Climate Change: the Food Factor”, October 2015, https://www.grain.
org/article/entries/5317-trade-deals-boosting-climate-change-the-foodfactor. Accessed Nov 1, 2015.
16 ibid.
17 Moreno, Camila, op. cit.
18 Glanz, James, “Power, Pollution, and the Internet”, New York Times, Sept. 22, 2012, http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-ofenergy-belying-industry-image.
html?_r=0. Accessed November 20, 2015.
19 Ibid.

LOCAL FUTURES

					

				

15

20 Vidal, John, “Toxic ‘e-Waste’ dumped in poor nations, says United Nations”, The Guardian, Dec. 14,
2013. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/14/toxic-ewasteillegal-dumping-developing-countries. Accessed Nov. 20, 2015.
21 Shiva, Vandana, interviewed in The Economics of Happiness, Local Futures/ISEC 2011.
22 Corporate Europe Observatory/ Council of Canadians/ Transnational Institute (2013) The right to say
no. EU- Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans,http://corporateeurope.org/publications/rightsay-no-eu-canada-trade- agreementthreatens-fracking-bans . Accessed May15, 2013.
23 Solomon, Ilana, and Ben Beach, Sierra Club, A Dirty Deal: How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Threatens our Climate, December 2015.

Photo Credits
p1 Billy Wilson
p2 Alice Pernap3 popularresistance.org
p5 Katie Fehrenbacher (Google solar panels), Antonella Sinopoli (Slum Kibera- Nairobi - Kenya-2008)
p6 International Business Alliance
p8 Jerry Burke (Peligro), Farm Sanctuary (Broiler chickens raised for slaughter)p9 UNEP
p11 Donkey Hotey
p12 Audrey Woon

16

				

				

LOCAL FUTURES