The Resilient Community

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY: An Exploration of an Emerging Concept, with a Focus on Local Agriculture

Brian Watson Thesis Advisor: Rachel Levin Thesis Readers: Jan Dizard, Joseph Moore 6 May 2013 Submitted to the Department of Environmental Studies of Amherst College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Bachelor of Arts with honors.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 2 Acknowledgements

I would like to express a special thanks to the following people, without whom this thesis would not have been possible: Al Gore, for inspiring my initial interest in the environment; My family, for always showing their love and support; My friends, for dealing with my grumpiness and lack of social involvement for extended periods of time; Professor Rachel Levin, for being my thesis advisor and giving me critical feedback throughout the process; Professors Jan Dizard and Joseph Moore, and the rest of the ENST Faculty, for further developing my interest in the environment and providing me with an excellent education; And finally, ‘Thesis-Nouns,’ which allowed me to use my thesis as an excuse for absolutely anything I wanted (e.g., ‘thesis-late-night-snack-run’).

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 3 Table of Contents

Introduction……………………………………………………………………………..…4

Chapter 1: Sustainability, Resilience, and the ‘Resilient Community’.........……………12

Chapter 2: Resilient Community Agriculture……………………………………………41

Chapter 3: Resilience in Environmental History…………………………………...……67

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………………….86

Bibliography……………………………………………………………………..…......105

Introduction About halfway through the semester of the introductory environmental studies course at Amherst College, a classmate turned to me and asked, “Don’t you find it pretty disheartening to study this kind of stuff?” This had been said right after a discussion on a recent environmental disaster – the 2010 Gulf Oil Spill – and the immense environmental impact that would most likely result. I solemnly agreed with a quick nod of my head, recognizing that, yes, learning about environmental issues can be rather ‘disheartening.’

Aldo Leopold had, half a century earlier, conveyed my feelings when he wrote about how “One of the penalties of an environmental education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”1 So what exactly are the environmental issues we currently face? A look at the websites for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Resource Defense Council, reveals some examples of environmental issues inherently caused by anthropogenic factors: climate change, endangered wildlife and habitat destruction, and pollution (land, water, and air).2 These are only to name a few, as the community-managed list on Wikipedia of environmental problems is much longer, and continuously expanding. The list currently encompasses issues such as genetic engineering, intensive agriculture, and overpopulation.3 While the role of humans in creating environmental problems is generally considered to be a scientific consensus, the media is one of the factors responsible in 1

Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation From Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 197.

2 “Learn the Issues,” EPA, accessed April 16, 2013, http://.epa.gov/learn-issues; “Environmental Issues,” NRDC, accessed April 16, 2013, http://nrdc.org/issues/.

3 “List of Environmental Issues,” Wikipedia, last updated April 15, 2013, accessed April 16, 2013, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_environmental_issues.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 5 downplaying human involvement.4 Boykoff and Boykoff, in analyzing the media’s portrayal of global warming, conclude that while there is clear agreement among the scientific and academic communities, the media wrongly attempts to create a sense of ‘balanced’ reporting: …US prestige press—the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal— has contributed in significant ways to this failed discursive translation through the adherence to journalistic norms, and more specifically to the journalistic norm of balance. In the end, adherence to the norm of balanced reporting leads to informationally biased coverage of global warming. This bias, hidden behind the veil of journalistic balance, creates both discursive and real political space for the US government to shirk responsibility and delay action regarding global warming.5 University of Georgia Professor Whit Gibbons elaborates on this issue by adding another ‘environmental’ problem into the fray. In a list entitled “What are our top 10 environmental problems?,” Gibbons cites ‘apathy’ as the number one environmental issue: “A clear indicator of our foremost problem is that world leaders seldom acknowledge, let alone propose solutions to, environmental problems.”6 This apathy is not just limited to politicians, however: a 2010 Gallup poll surveyed over 1,000 adults nationwide and concluded that Americans were less worried about the natural environment than they had been in the last 20 years. This was thought to be due to an 4

Stephen H. Schneider, Global Warming: Are We Entering the Greenhouse Century? (New York: Vintage Books, 1990), 191-237.

5 Maxwell T. Boykoff and Jules M. Boykoff. “Balance as Bias: Global Warming and the US Prestige Press.” Global Environmental Change 14 (2004): 134.

6 Whit Gibbons, “What are our Top 10 Environmental Problems?,” UGA EcoViews, March 26, 2006, accessed April 15, 2013, http://srel.uga.edu/ecoviews/ecoview060326.htm.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 6 overly optimistic belief in the condition of the environment and a greater concern for economics (which is often seen as a direct competitor of environmental interests).7 Alan Weisman, in The World Without Us, provides a non-fiction thought experiment of the world if humans were to suddenly disappear. The long-lasting effects of human-beings on the planet are truly shocking: Weisman writes about how it will take 100,000 years, or longer, for CO2 levels to return to prehuman levels.8 He concludes his work with a poignant and disquieting reflection concerning our apathy towards the natural environment: “Without us, Earth will abide and endure; without her, however, we could not even be.”9 Taking a historical perspective into account, this severe, modern disconnect from nature has strong roots within the last couple of centuries. In The Trouble with Wilderness: or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature, William Cronon comments on the romantic idealism of the 19th century, exploring how there was a change in man’s perception of the wilderness as something ‘savage’ and ‘desolate,’ to something that was to be romanticized, made sacred, and treated as “the preservation of the world.”10 He writes that, “the time has come to rethink wilderness,” since the popular image of wilderness is, in fact, a social construct. Cronon argues that the inherent problem with such a characterization of nature is the blatant ignorance of reality that it conveys. By ignoring the true interrelations of man and nature, there is a tendency to avoid 7

Jeffrey M. Jones, “In U.S., Many Environmental Issues at 20-Year-Low Concern,” Gallup, March 16, 2010, accessed April 15, 2013, http://gallup.com/poll/126716/environmental-issues-year-lowconcern.aspx.

8 Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (New York: Picador, 2007), 49.

9 Ibid., 369.

10 William Cronon. “The Trouble with Wilderness.” Environmental History 1, no. 1 (1996): 7-9.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 7 accommodating a ‘middle ground’ when trying to provide viable solutions to environmental problems.11 Rochelle Johnson, in Passions for Nature, similarly discusses the rise of an aesthetics-based movement in the 19th century focused on the characterization of nature based in metaphor. She argues that a reliance on the metaphor in a ‘passion’ for nature, but not “attention to the ‘real’ physical world,” ultimately causes an alienation from nature.12 Johnson notes that a socio-cultural alienation from nature can not only be seen in various art and writing, but especially in terms of how the modern ‘ecological crisis’ is construed, in which people fail to realize their true connection to nature, thereby remaining ignorant of the full potential of their actions to either benefit or harm the planet.13 J.R. McNeill examines how this alienation from nature only became worse with the 20th century. This time was a period of history marked by an “enormity of ecological change” caused by exponential increases in – and seeming dissolution of historical constraints to – “population, food production, energy use, and consumption generally.”14 New technologies (such as the train, automobile, plane, refrigeration, etc.) started to ‘flatten out the world.’ The drive for globalization went hand-in-hand with the abstraction of the local, natural environment, as there was no longer any limit to one’s connection and interaction with nature.

11

Ibid., 21.

Rochelle Johnson, Passions for Nature: Nineteenth-Century America's Aesthetics of Alienation(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2009), 7.

13 Ibid., 10-11.

14 J.R. McNeill, Something New Under the Sun: an Environmental History of the Twentieth-Century World (New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2000), 362.

12

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 8 While apathy, denial, and disconnect from anthropogenic causes may exist, there are many individuals seeking to provide solutions to aforementioned environmental problems. However, many of these solutions appear to focus on treating ‘symptoms’ rather than the ‘disease’ itself. By failing to address the true cause of the problem, the problem continues to persist and worsen. In a paper insisting on the use of geoengineering technologies in mediating climate change, Jackson and Salzman develop their argument by using the disease-symptom imagery. They write that previous thought in geoengineering techniques such as sunshades only works to treat the symptoms, while carbon sequestration (the authors’ preferred method) works to treat the disease.15 The authors recognize that the main cause of climate change is atmospheric green house gases, and the use of sunshades would do nothing to address this. Nonetheless, Jackson and Salzman are themselves mistaken, for they are only proposing a solution that treats a symptom. Extending the authors’ scope further, atmospheric degradation is caused by the way in which human-beings live: i.e., our lifestyle is the source of green house gas emissions. To only sequester carbon would fail to address the true source of carbon.

Speaking from personal experience, it is easy for one to become incredibly frustrated when learning about environmental issues. Integrating psychology into environmental studies reveals the dangers of ‘learned helplessness’ that can result from such overwhelming frustration. Maier and Seligman provided the first foundational research on this phenomenon, characterizing it as when an individual comes to ‘learn’ and accept that a negative outcome or reality is unavoidable, even if it there happens to 15

R.B. Jackson and J. Salzman, “Pursuing Geoengineering For Atmospheric Restoration,” Issues in Science and Technology 26, no. 4 (2010): 72.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 9 be something that can be done to avoid it.16 This behavior was seen in rats that had been left to drown in a tank of water, as after several trials of this drowning exercise, the rats would eventually accept their ‘fate’ and passively drown even though an escape platform was always made present nearby.17 In 2010, James Lovelock – the theorist behind the Gaia hypothesis – went on record as saying that it was too late to save the planet (as we have already “pulled the trigger” and we “can’t do it”), and that people should simply “enjoy life while you can.”18 Such alarmism does no good other than cause fear and stagnation in any positive attempts for change; Lovelock did, in 2012, admit to having been an alarmist and having made a “mistake” with his previous declaration.19 It should be recognized that knowledge can be powerful: by recognizing the reality of a situation, we can actively work to combat it, instead of letting it get to a point where we are eventually inundated and truly left unable to do anything. Leopold’s work, in addition to the gloomy quote mentioned at the beginning, contains beautiful, realistic, and inspirational imagery. One such instance is Leopold’s description of his ‘moment of wisdom,’ when he recognized the inherent value of nature and connection among all natural elements, and finally overcame the conventional anthropocentric perspective that he had been raised with: We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes. I realized then, and have known ever since, that there was something new to me in those eyes – 16

Steven F. Maier and Martin E. Seligman, "Learned helplessness: Theory and Evidence,” Journal of Experimental Psychology: General 105, no. 1 (1976).

17 Martin E. Seligman, Robert A. Rosellini, and Michael J. Kozak, “Learned Helplessness in the Rat: Time Course, Immunization, and Reversibility,” Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology 88, no. 2 (1975).

18 “Lovelock: ‘We can’t save the planet,” BBC, March 30, 2010, accessed April 16, 2013, http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8594000/8594561.stm.

19 Ian Johnston, “Gaia’ Scientist James Lovelock: I was ‘Alarmist’ About Climate Change,” NBC, April 23, 2012, accessed April 16, 2013, http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/04/23/11144098gaia-scientist-james-lovelock-i-was-alarmist-about-climate-change.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 10 something known only to her and to the mountain. I was young then, and full of trigger-itch; I thought that because fewer wolves meant more deer, that no wolves would mean hunters’ paradise. But after seeing the green fire die, I sensed that neither the wolf nor the mountain agreed with such a view.20 Leopold asserts this moment as the true moment of change in his life, marking his shift to a pro-environmental mindset.

My thesis grew out of a strong desire to investigate a potential solution to the problems associated with our modern lifestyle. The ‘resilient community’ concept is an emerging ideology that appears to offer such a solution. As this ideology originated in the United States, and I have had experience with the community in the Pioneer Valley, the scope of this paper is often focused within these geographical boundaries.

Chapter one discusses the foundations behind the resilient community concept, touching upon resilience theory, and more specifically, its extensions to social resilience and community resilience. The resilient community is an attempt to create a model of human living that utilizes community resilience, and seemingly emerged out of a post911 fear of inevitable societal collapse and disaster. Although arguably pessimistic, the ideology is strongly centered on taking action. At its core, the resilient community concept is trying to solve a simple question: what if society undergoes collapse and we are forced to live ‘off the grid’ simply because it no longer exists? The resilient community incorporates a multi-dimensional framework, with areas of focus including transportation, energy, water, food production, and waste management.21 Resilience is 20

Leopold, 138-139.

Stephen Coyle, Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), xi.

21

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 11 explored in association with sustainability, a more popularly recognized line of thought in the modern environmental movement.

The next chapter delves into one important area of the resilient community – agriculture. Food production (i.e., agriculture) is not only a tangible concern, but also yields some of the most interesting applications of this concept. Resilient community agriculture is contrasted against the severe problems of the modern conventional food system. The importance of the ‘buy local’ movement is argued for in terms of a resilience mindset.

Chapter three takes a shift from the previous two chapters, offering a preliminary application of resilience to the environmental history of New England. This is intended to demonstrate that, while the ‘resilient community’ concept is technically new, communities were, historically speaking, resilient out of necessity and the existing structure of society (i.e., there was no ‘grid’).

The main body of work therefore attempts to explore, synthesize information about, and validate the resilient community concept. The implications of the resilient community are also discussed in terms of the plausibility of this model being adopted on a large scale, and the potential for resilient community agriculture to feed the world.

Given the severity of the modern environmental issues that our society currently faces, attention must be paid to novel, emerging ideas, regardless of whether or not they purport to be an end-all solution. The ‘solution’ will most likely be a combination of many smaller, varied solutions.

Chapter 1: Sustainability, Resilience, and the ‘Resilient Community’ Sustainability ‘Sustainability’ has become a major focus in environmental activism and education, and an integral part of the search for a solution to the environmental issues associated with how we live. As it has grown in popularity, so has its meaning, and interpretation has been increasingly subject to different connotations and understandings.

Michael Toman calls sustainability an “evocative term,” which resultantly “means many things to different people.”1 He expresses concern over the confusion behind this term, since “Progress on these fronts [in solving environmental problems] is hampered by continued disagreements about basic concepts and terms of reference,” and suggests that “To narrow the gaps, it may be helpful first to identify salient elements of the sustainability concept…”2 The concept of sustainability has been closely tied to the 1987 report issued by the UN Brundtland Commission (also known as the World Commission on Environment and Development). The report takes the concept of sustainability and relegates it to a catchy term, ‘sustainable development,’ which is defined as: …development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. It contains within it two key concepts:  the concept of 'needs', in particular the essential needs of the world's poor, to which overriding priority should be given; and 1 2

Michael A. Toman, “The Difficulty in Defining Sustainability,” Resources 106 (1992): 3.

Ibid., 4.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 13 

the idea of limitations imposed by the state of technology and social organization on the environment's ability to meet present and future needs.3

Clear problems emerge from this definition. While the report offers an ‘official sounding’ tone of authority, the definition is vague and without any genuine guidance as to how sustainability should be achieved. A frequent question that has been raised is concern over what is meant by ‘needs,’ and how such ‘needs’ should be interpreted. One author muses, “Does every household really need [emphasis added] two cars?...A 2000square foot house on a 5000-square foot lot?” 4 Additionally, the Brundtland Commission adopts an anthropocentric view, choosing to focus solely on human concerns (‘development’ is an economic term that focuses on human growth), and ignore environmental concerns. The only mention of the environment is that limitations should be imposed, not for the sake of ecological well-being and concern, but in order to ensure that the environment will be able to meet our needs.

The World Conservation Union in 1991 defined sustainable development as “improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying capacity of supporting ecosystems.”5 This in turn raises the question of how exactly the ‘carrying capacity’ for human beings should be determined, since humans are a uniquely global species transcending across many ecosystems. Stephen Wheeler attempts to define ‘sustainable development’ as “development that improves the long-term health of human ecological systems.” 6 Again, terms such as ‘improve’ and ‘health’ are subjective, 3

Gro Harlem Brundtland, Report of the World Commission on Environment and Development: Our Common Future (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1987), 43.

4 Stephen M. Wheeler, Planning for Sustainability (New York: Routledge, 2004), 23.

5 David A. Munro and Martin W. Holdgate, Caring for the Earth: A Strategy for Sustainable Living (Gland: IUCN, 1991), 14.

6 Wheeler, 24.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 14 therefore only adding to the confusion caused by the plethora of definitions currently existing.

In a paper prepared for the Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development, the authors acknowledge that the concept of sustainable development has done little as it still remained “elusive [in the minds of the public] and implementation has proven difficult” and no “real progress” had been made.7 This acknowledgement came in spite of the conference being organized in support of the Brundtland Report and sustainable development. Weinberg, Pellow, and Schnaiberg make the same conclusion, writing that “sustainable development has been used, misused, and fiercely debated,” and that a study done in 1989 “identified twenty-seven distinct definitions of the term.”8 Therefore, it seems as though the Brundtland report was more effective at yielding hype than it was at yielding productive change.

Economist Herman Daly, in criticizing the concept of sustainable development after the release of the Brundtland Report, characterizes sustainable development as “development without growth…beyond environmental regenerative and absorptive capacity.”9 As established by the Brundtland Report, “sustainable development is a code word for sustainable growth, and that sustainable growth simply cannot exist within ecological limits” because growth is measured in terms of economic growth. 10 Economic growth (as it exists in our society) is constantly put in direct conflict with the 7

John Drexhage and Deborah Murphy, “Sustainable Development: From Brundtland to Rio 2012” (background paper for the High Level Panel on Global Sustainability, United Nations Headquarters, New York, 2010), 2.

8 Adam S. Weinberg, David N. Pellow, and Allan Schnaiberg, Urban Recycling and the Search for Sustainable Community Development (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 4.

9 Herman E. Daly, Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development (Boston: Beacon Press, 1996), 69.

10 Weinberg, Pellow, Schnaiberg, 5.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 15 environment, as “the process generating growth is causing the very problems it is supposed to solve.”11 Herman Daly instead places the focus in sustainability on ‘ecological sustainability,’ and suggests three important criteria for ensuring ecological sustainability: sustainable yield of renewable resources, development of renewable resource substitutes for non-renewable resources, and waste generation that is within bounds of the “assimilative capacity” of the environment.12 Callicott and Mumford suggest that ecological sustainability should be the “guiding conservation concept for those areas that remain humanly inhabited and economically exploited.”13 However, while ecological sustainability is a good framing of the sustainability concept since it removes the anthropocentric spotlight and involves environmental concern with clear goals, the reach of this conceptualization appears limited, as “There are virtually no widespread practices that [currently] meet the first criterion of ecological sustainability.”14 The clearest method of defining sustainability comes from an etymologic understanding of its root word, ‘sustain,’ which when examined in terms of its Latin roots essentially means “to uphold’ or ‘to keep.”15 Thus, when applied in a social-ecological context (‘social-ecological sustainability’), sustainability can be thought of as indefinitely upholding both the environment and human-beings; i.e., keeping the status quo intact so that these systems can continue to operate in as unhindered and healthy a manner as 11

Ibid.

Herman E. Daly, “Toward Some Operational Principles of Sustainable Development,” Ecological Economics 2, no. 1 (1990): 2.

13 J. Baird Callicott and Karen Mumford, “Ecological Sustainability as a Conservation Concept,” Conservation Biology 11, no. 1 (1997): 33.

14 Weinberg, Pellow, Schnaiberg, 6.

12

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 16 possible. This represents the ‘3 Es’ that modern-day sustainability advocates focus on and argue for a harmonious balance between: (1) environment, (2) economy, and (3) social equity (the last two reflect human-beings).16 The NRDC (National Resources Defense Council) puts a strong focus on community-based living since communities have the opportunity of creating “efficiencies that reduce per-person resource consumption and pollution.”17 In defining a ‘sustainable community,’ the NRDC characterizes it as a community “that can continue in a healthy way into an uncertain future. More formally, a sustainable community reflects the interdependence of economic, environmental, and social issues by growing and prospering without diminishing the land, water, air, natural and cultural resources on which communities depend.”18 The community-based assertion of this interpretation of sustainability suggests the importance of recognizing and utilizing preexisting structures of human society.

With discernible uncertainty and confusion over ‘sustainability,’ there naturally follows a need to find a more focused solution that can address these shortcomings.

Resilience theory seems to provide such a solution and – although not as ‘mainstream’ as sustainability – has an ever-growing body of literature and support.

Resilience The idea of ‘resilience’ is nothing new, and is deeply rooted in systems theory. In terms of its interrelation with natural systems, resilience was first applied by ecologist 15

Wheeler, 19.

Wheeler, 53.

17 “Sustainable Communities,” NRDC, last modified February 2, 2012, http://nrdc.org/sustainable-communities.

18 Ibid.

16

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 17 C.S. Holling in his influential paper on ecological resilience published in 1973.19 The resilience of an ecosystem is, according to Holling, marked by several factors: 1. Latitude: the maximum amount a system can be changed before losing its ability to recover (before crossing a threshold which, if breached, makes recovery difficult or impossible).

2. Resistance: the ease or difficulty of changing the system; how “resistant” it is to being changed.

3. Precariousness: how close the current state of the system is to a limit or “threshold.”

4. Panarchy: because of cross-scale interactions, the resilience of a system at a particular focal scale will depend on the influences from states and dynamics at scales above and below. For example, external oppressive politics, invasions, market shifts, or global climate change can trigger local surprises and regime shifts.20 Holling essentially defines resilience as: “the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganize while undergoing change so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity, and feedbacks.”21 It is important to stress that resilience and resistance are not the same concepts, as seen in how resistance is a factor of resilience. The major difference is that a resilient system, while strongly resistant to change, can adapt to change if necessary. This key element, ‘adaptive capacity,’ is defined as the “ability of a system to change, moderate the effects, or cope with a disturbance.”22 19

C.S. Holling, “Resilience and Stability of Ecological Systems,” Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics 4 (1973): 1-23.

20 Brian Walker, C.S. Holling, Stephen R. Carpenter, and Ann Kinzig, “Resilience Adaptability and Transformability in Social-Ecological Systems,” Ecology and Society 9, no. 2 (2004): 5, accessed November 11, 2012, http://ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss2/art5/.

21 Ibid.

22 Susan Cutter et al., “A Place-based Model for Understanding Community Resilience to Natural Disasters,” Global Environmental Change 18, no. 4 (2008): 600.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 18 Psychological resilience helps illustrate this concept, as it is “the ability [of the individual] to bounce back from negative events.”23 Resilient individuals utilize this ‘adaptive capacity’ to benefit from negative experiences as a means of learning and selfimprovement for future encounters, and ultimately have a much faster recovery than nonresilient individuals.24 Psychological resilience (and the concept of resilience in general) can be looked at through the lens of simple metallurgic allegory: “… cast iron is hard, brittle, and breaks easily (not resilient), whereas wrought iron is soft, malleable, and bends without breaking (resilient).”25 Community Resilience Holling was a pioneer of resilience theory, and since the publication of his foundational work, applications of resilience have extended beyond merely looking at ecological systems (one such application, psychological resilience, has already been mentioned). Social resilience is an important branch of resilience theory that emerged soon after when this perspective was applied to human systems.26 W. Neil Adger defines social resilience as the “ability of groups…[of humans] to cope with external stresses and disturbances as a result of social, political and environmental change.”27 He additionally discusses the strong interrelation of social and ecological resilience (simply termed 23

Michele M. Tugade, Barbara L. Fredrickson, and Lisa Feldman Barrett, “Psychological Resilience and Positive Emotional Granularity: Examining the Benefits of Positive Emotions on Coping and Health,” Journal of Personality 72, no. 6 (2004): 1162.

24 Ibid.

25 Michele M. Tugade, and Barbara L. Fredrickson, “Resilient Individuals Use Positive Emotions to Bounce Back From Negative Emotional Experiences,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86, no. 2 (2004): 320.

26 Carl Folke. “Resilience: The Emergence of a Perspective for Social-Ecological Systems Analyses.” Global Environmental Change 16, no. 3 (2006): 253-267.

27 W. Neil Adger, “Social and Ecological Resilience: Are They Related?,” Progress in Human Geography 24, no. 3 (2000): 347.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 19 social-ecological resilience), as humans are inherently dependent upon nature for resource extraction, and nature is greatly impacted by human actions.28 In particular, the community – arguably the building block of human society – became a major focus of social resilience research, and this branch of research became known as community resilience.29 For the purpose of this paper, when social resilience is mentioned, it can be assumed to be focused on the community level. The human element is made salient in the definition of community resilience that Cutter et al. provides: …the ability of a social system to respond and recover from disasters and includes those inherent conditions that allow the system to absorb impacts and cope with an event, as well as post-event, adaptive processes that facilitate the ability of the social system to re-organize, change, and learn in response to a threat.30 In terms of ecological resilience, it is generally considered that a resilient ecosystem will return to its previous state after some period of time. However, this is different in terms of social resilience, as human systems “can never return to their original state after disturbance due to social learning processes and social memory [characteristic of human-beings].”31 Similar to the principles of psychological resilience, the human element of social resilience responds by working to improve human systems so that they can “better cope with, manage or adjust to some changing condition, stress, hazard, risk or opportunity.”32 28 29

Ibid.

Geoff A. Wilson, Community Resilience and Environmental Transitions (New York: Routledge,

2012), 17

30

Cutter et al., 599.

Wilson, 17.

32 Barry Smit and Johanna Wandel, “Adaptation, Adaptive Capacity and Vulnerability,” Global Environmental Change 16, no. 3 (2006): 282.

31

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 20 Resilience is an ‘emergent property,’ since the resilience of a system can only be determined by “looking at changes in a system over time” when that system is exposed to disturbances.33 This implication of retroactive analysis is important, as it suggests that resilience cannot be determined beforehand since it is only possible to know if a system is resilient once it had undergone disturbance. However, resilience theory – when combined with the human element – can allow for anticipatory thought of how a system might fall on the resilience-vulnerability scale (in which these two notions are put at polar ends of a spectrum) when a disturbance arises, given the knowledge of how other systems fared in the past.34 Folke discusses this by characterizing resilience as “an approach, a way of thinking that presents a perspective for [preemptively] guiding and organizing thought.”35 Social resilience can be reactive like ecological resilience, but additionally, as aforementioned, preventative and anticipatory. It is marked by the idea of resilience as a “desirable state” that every human system should focus on reaching.36 Humans should, according to Debra Davidson, explore how “current institutions and connecting structures are likely to respond to disturbance, and how we can prepare for those outcomes.”37 Social resilience, therefore, has very strong potential in disaster preparedness/response.

The ‘likeliness’ of how human systems will respond to disturbance can be theorized by examining the precedents that history has provided time, and time again. Disaster 33

Wilson, 16.

Wilson, 20.

35 Folke, 260.

36 Wilson, 18.

37 Debra J. Davidson, "The Applicability of The Concept of Resilience to Social Systems: Some Sources of Optimism and Nagging Doubts," Society and Natural Resources 23, no. 12 (2010): 1146.

34

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 21 literature has provided many useful case studies for examining how previous systems fared in terms of resilience.

The human element of community resilience has been the focus of much qualitative research, examining how humans react and respond to disturbance. This ‘human resilience’ (i.e., psychological resilience) is at the core of community resilience.

In an anthology titled, “Community Resilience in Natural Disasters,” the editors present a series of essays that give a ‘voice’ to the victims of natural disturbances around the world. It becomes clear that while resilient structures are vital for a resilient community, resilient people are just as important. The editors sum up their narrative research by stating that it is “solidarity” that emerges among members of a community to help the community pull through a crisis.38 This solidarity includes volunteerism, charity, and general goodwill.

One of the most prevalent problems brought up during the interviews of the local people was the ‘top-down’ philosophy undertaken by external organizations in disasterrelief, such as the: …“command and control” approach not dissimilar from governments and armies…[that] tends to focus on the establishment of camps and centralized distribution of supplies and services…we heard that the people did not want to go to the[se] government-run camps, and that they wanted to stay on their land and resume their livelihoods.39 The disruption of the community by outside agencies was seen as insensitive and disruptive, since it failed to let the community rely on the resilience of its members and play a role in its own recovery. By ignoring a significant resilient structure that is already 38

Anouk Ride and Diane Bretherton, Community Resilience in Natural Disasters (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 172.

39 Ibid., 177.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 22 in place – i.e., the already existing relationships that people in the community have with one another – this leads to an unintended increase in community vulnerability in the aftermath of a disaster. A religious leader in Kenya, commenting on the presence of an NGO, shared the community’s unfortunate experience with the outside efforts for help: “They use U.S. dollars, it is difficult to understand [how money is allocated]. They have community representatives who are supposed to be on the board. But rarely do they come to the ground and speak to the local person. To see what they really need.”40 Thus, it is clear that in externally assessing the vulnerability of a community for purposes of disaster, the assessments of the people themselves living within that community should not be overlooked.

Cuba provides an excellent example of reactionary social resilience that developed out of the utmost necessity. By the early 1990s, Cuba was experiencing a severe disturbance as a result of the sudden collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the strengthening of the US trade embargo that had been enacted several decades earlier in 1962. Cuba was left abandoned, without the foreign imports and support upon which it depended. The Soviet Union had been solely responsible for sustaining its communist foothold in the Americas.41 Removed from the world and facing major economic crisis and widespread malnutrition, Cubans found themselves forced to adapt in order to survive. Desperation and the lack of an end in sight to this crisis led to the shrewd incorporation of social-ecological resilience that helped Cuba survive against what many had considered the smallest of odds.

40

Sarah Knoll et al., “Kenya,” in Community Resilience in Natural Disaster, eds. Anouk Ride and Diane Bretherton (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), 135.

41 Christine Buchmann, “Cuban Home Gardens and Their Role in Social–Ecological Resilience,” Human Ecology 37, no. 6 (2009): 706.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 23 A lack of food was, quite simply, the most distressing problem facing Cuba during this crisis. Starvation was widespread as 11 million people were trying to survive off of meager government food rations. A Cuban news reporter writing during this time illustrated just how bleak the situation had become: “You won’t see many cats prowling the twisting, unlit streets… most have fallen victim to a people living on the edge of starvation…Even the tiny allowance of meat in their ration books is rarely available after they queue for hours at state warehouses.”42 Recognizing this crisis, the Cuban government nationalized much of the available land and subsequently handed control to the people, while at the same time initiating agricultural training programs so that the average person could learn to grow food on this newly released land (and any land that they could get a hold of). Food production shifted away from the high-input, intensive agriculture characteristic of the Green Revolution, as there was no longer a steady supply stream for such synthetic inputs. People began focusing on more basic methods of food production, such as the home garden. These small gardens were efficient in maximizing the full potential of the space, and relied on diverse polycultures consisting of edible, multi-purpose crops. They not only helped to feed the individual households, but also helped facilitate the rise of community-based systems of cooperation and giving, helping renew solidarity and sustain morale.43 Techniques such as these helped “play an important role in reducing vulnerability and ensuring food security,” and demonstrated principles of social-ecological resilience.44 42

Phil Davison, “Millions of Cubans Facing Starvation,” Independent, July 2, 1994, accessed November 15, 2012, http://independent.co.uk/news/world/millions-of-cubans-facing-starvation-hungeris-fuelling-an-exodus-of-desperate-refugees-writes-phil-davison-from-havana-1417691.html.

43 Buchmann , 706-708.

44 Ibid., 719.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 24 A more recent disturbance from which resilience literature is already starting to emerge is Hurricane Sandy, which hit the East Coast in October 2012, wreaking much destruction and havoc. Time referred to the storm as a ‘worst case scenario,’ flooding thousands of homes and killing more than 100 people, as well as causing an estimated $25 billion of lost business activity.45 Massive power outages caused problems everywhere, especially in cities where much of the urban style of life is dependent upon continuous power from the electrical grid.

New York was hit hardest in Lower Manhattan, which had, over the last decade, undergone environmentally-minded renovations. However, it had been: “rebuilt to be sustainable, not resilient...The buildings were designed to generate lower environmental impacts, but not to respond to the impacts of the environment’ — for example, by having redundant power systems.” 46 As a result, the area suffered major power outages and flooding. In an opinion piece for the New York Times, David Crane and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. describe the fallacy of continuously rebuilding the city to its previous state after a disaster. Residents of New York have, on many different occasions, suffered “through sustained blackouts, closed roads and schools, long gas lines and disrupted lives, all caused by the destruction of our electric system…we need to ask whether it is really sensible to run the 21st century by using an antiquated and vulnerable system of copper wires and wooden poles.”47 Thus, they argue, it does not make sense to continue 45

Kayla Webley, “Hurricane Sandy by the Numbers: A Superstorm’s Statistics, One Month Later,” Time, November 26, 2012, accessed November 28, 2012, http://nation.time.com/2012/11/26/hurricanesandy-one-month-later.

46 Andrew Zolli, “Learning to Bounce Back,” New York Times, November 2, 2012, accessed November 10, 2012, http://nytimes.com/2012/11/03/opinion/forget-sustainability-its-aboutresilience.html.

47 David Crane and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., “Solar Panels for Every Home,” New York Times, December 12, 2012, accessed December 20, 2012, http://nytimes.com/2012/12/13/opinion/solar-panelsfor-every-home.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 25 to repair the electrical infrastructure time and time again without implementing resilient structures that could stem avoidable problems in the future.

William Hooke, a senior member of the American Meteorological Society, contrasts this “failure to learn from experience” to the successful decrease of flightrelated accidents despite the increasing number of flights: “the NTSB [National Transportation Safety Board] mantra is not ‘the wing fell off this airplane, but we’re going to rebuild it as before,’ but rather ‘What caused this accident? We have to make sure it never happens again.’” Kennedy concludes his point by stating that, through the implementation of solar panels for every household, for example, houses could have a renewable, resilient energy source that helps mediate disaster in the event that the centralized power grid shut down. Besides energy, New York could have benefitted from the application of other resilient structures. Specifically, green infrastructure (green roof gardens, permeated pavement, street gardens, etc.) could have helped manage the stormwater runoff that leads to massive flooding.48 For a good example of preventative resilience being called into action, one can look at the traditional Pacific island communities, which have often resisted the pressures of globalization and ‘modernity,’ and have limitations imposed on their society due to their geographical location. Many of these island nations have come to an inevitable disturbance: rising sea levels due to climate change. The island nation of Palau is already aware that its “coasts are being eroded, its local farmlands tainted by seawater, and its 48

Jeanna Bryner, “Post-Sandy, NYC Will Lead in Climate Change Battle, Mayor Says,” LiveScience, December 6, 2012, accessed December 20, 2012, http://livescience.com/25283-hurricane-sandy-nycclimate.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 26 valuable reefs threatened.”49 Johnson Toribiong, President of Palau, calls the damage he’s witnessing “a slow-moving tsunami.”50 The island of Kiribati has taken action to ensure its people have a place to live in case of flooding and necessary evacuation: the government has been working out a deal with East Timor to have land within their border just in case the need arises.51 Island nations already implement many measures of resilience as a precaution and out of necessity. For instance, food security is a major issue, as these nations are isolated from the grid and direct transport networks. They tend to rely heavily on food storage and preservation techniques, and a multitude of gardens growing a diversity of crops.52 Palau, heavily dependent on fishing for food and income, has traditionally implemented an intense conservation practice known as the ‘bul’ which is “a moratorium on fishing for an explicitly stated amount of time, protecting spawning channels for the fish, which allows them to replenish themselves.”53 The Resilient Community Stephen Flynn, a national security expert writing after 9/11, explains the need for community resilience as a homeland security issue, in order to help protect our communities not only from “terrorist attacks, but to acts of God or human and mechanical error.”54 President Barack Obama, in a presidential proclamation declaring 49

William Brangham, “Paradise Lost?,” PBS, August 10, 2012, accessed November 12, 2012, http://pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/video/video-paradise-lost/14421/.

50 Ibid.

51 “East Timor Could Become Home to Kiribati’s Climate Refugees,” RTCC, September 20, 2012, accessed November 12, 2012, http://rtcc.org/east-timor-could-become-home-to-kiribati.

52 Jon Barnett, “Adapting to Climate Change in Pacific Island Countries: The Problem of Uncertainty,” World Development 29, no. 6 (2001): 977-993.

53 Andrew Zolli and Ann Marie Healy, Resilience: Why Things Bounce Back (New York: Free Press, 2012), 247.

54 Stephen Flynn, America the Vulnerable: How Our Government Is Failing to Protect Us From Terrorism (New York: Harper Collins, 2004), 168.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 27 September 2012 as “National Preparedness Month,” conveys the importance of resilience: As [communities] across our country recover from natural disasters that have spanned historic drought to devastating wildfires and storms, we are reminded of the spirit of resilience that binds us together as one people and as one American family. This month, let us honor that spirit by standing with all those affected by recent severe weather, as well as past disasters, and by taking the steps we can to protect our loved ones and our communities before disaster strikes.55 The Community & Regional Resilience Network (CARRI), in portraying the need for resilient communities, evokes images of recent disturbances and a bold sense of ‘patriotism’: “The events of 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Great Recession, and the BP oil spill, however, have shaken our confidence...We need to return to our resilient American roots if we are to maintain our forefathers’ legacy for our children and grandchildren.”56 The website has started displaying messages about the need for resilience in light of the most recent disaster, Hurricane Sandy, and its impact on New York City and other areas.

In 2008, blogger John Robb, interested in homeland security and the dangers of impending disasters, shared a vision with his readers. He termed his prophetic vision the ‘resilient community’: This conceptual model creates a set of new services that allows the smallest viable subset of social systems, the community, to enjoy the fruits of globalization without being completely vulnerable to its excesses. These services are configured to provide the ability to survive an extended disconnection from the global grid in the following areas (an incomplete list): 55

Barack Obama, “Presidential Proclamation – National Preparedness Month, ” White House Office of the Press, August 31, 2012, accessed November 12, 2012, http://whitehouse.gov/the-pressoffice/2012/08/31/presidential-proclamation-national-preparedness-month-2012.

56 “Community and Regional Resilience Institute.” CARRI, accessed November 11, 2012. http://resilientus.org/.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 28     

Energy.

Food.

Security (both active and passive).

Communications.

Transportation.57

Robb’s post is the earliest mention of the resilient community concept on the Internet; the popularity of the post lead him to establish a blog solely devoted to the subject, with strong insistence in urging people to sign up for the email list: “ARE YOU PREPARED? Resilient people don't just survive, they thrive. They do well during good times and bad.”58 CARRI characterizes the objectives of the resilient community: “A resilient community understands itself and its vulnerabilities, takes positive collective actions to limit the effects of those vulnerabilities and thereby recovers rapidly and robustly from disasters of all kinds.”59 The theoretical framework for social resilience can, as mentioned earlier, be utilized in either a reactionary or preventative manner. The concept of the ‘resilient community’ is an extension of previous research done in community resilience, with a preventative focus and collaboratively-developed practical applications. The most vocal proponents of this concept seem to embody paranoia and a strong obsession with the uncertainty of our way of life, namely that societal collapse could happen at any moment.

This concept, having arisen in the United States, is as a result very U.S.-centric.

In understanding this ‘paranoia’ and overwhelming pessimism of societal collapse, it helps to examine popular media sources that convey these concerns. The idea 57

John Robb, “The Resilient Community,” Global Guerillas, last modified January 30, 2008, accessed November 10, 2012, http://globalguerrillas.typepad.com/globalguerrillas/2008/01/the-resilientc.html.

58 John Robb, “Resilient Communities-About,” Resilient Communities, accessed November 10, 2012, http://resilientcommunities.com/about.

59 “Community and Regional Resilience Institute.”

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 29 of a future post-apocalyptic, dystopian world is fairly old. Influential works such as Cormac McCarthy’s The Road portray the struggles to survive in a world that seems to be an eerily plausible representation of our future, leading the reader to wonder about how they would fare in such a reality. Roberto Vacca, an Italian author, depicts his vision of future societal collapse in The Coming Dark Age. Featuring shock value and despair (such as a chapter entitled “Death of the City of New York”), Vacca concludes his book with a ‘manifesto’ that takes much from history, calling for monastic communities that can help preserve our education and knowledge, and bring about a ‘renaissance’ after the coming dark age.60 A popular fictional network series, The Walking Dead, depicts our world in the aftermath of a zombie outbreak. The survivors are forced to reckon with disaster as they find themselves unprepared and struggling to get by on a daily basis. One of the only times in which they were afforded any sort of comfortable living situation was when they came across a farm. The farm was resilient to the outbreak and societal collapse, featuring such resilient structures as food production, well-water, horses for transportation, and a back-up diesel generator.61 Popular television show Archer (an adult-targeted cartoon which depicts the bumbling adventures of an international spy) touched upon the idea of the ‘bug-out bag.’

This is essentially a survival kit assembled in bag and designed to allow for short-term survival (usually around 72 hours) in the event of a forced evacuation due to sudden disaster, and allowing for assistance during the time it take to transition to a safe 60

Roberto Vacca, The Coming Dark Age, translated by J.S. Whale (New York: Doubleday, 1973), 190, 208-210.

61 “Bloodletting,” The Walking Dead, television, season 2, episode 2, originally aired October 23, 2011.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 30 location.62 In the episode – which in itself was centered around marine environment degradation and eco-terrorism – one of the main characters mentioned having a bug-out bag for fear of the society collapsing due to the end of oil (what she termed ‘TEOTWAWKI,’ or ‘The End Of The World As We Know It).63 While the other characters remained skeptical of her concerns, she asserted that it was not a matter of ‘if’ but ‘when.’ The humor, amidst the overwhelming gravity and realness of this episode, came from her inclusion of grain alcohol in her bug-out bag, which was due to her alcoholic tendencies and would most likely not be a staple of such a survival kit.

The idea of societal collapse is found even within children’s shows. Adventure Time, a popular animated series amongst children and adults alike, is a comedy that depicts the adventures of a 14-year old boy and his dog as they explore a colorful postapocalyptic Earth. The show is filled with references to a nuclear war that devastated the world and left the protagonist as the only remaining human being in a world of anthropomorphic characters (although this is done in a subtle enough way that potential young viewers benefit from the superficial humor and lightheartedness without getting too upset).64 One episode of the show explored how incredibly difficult it was for a parental figure to obtain food in the immediate aftermath of the collapse of society; he was struggling to find chicken soup, as he had been used to the modern conveniences of the time and had little ability to gather food on his own.65 62

Eric Rogell, “How to Build Your Own Urban Survival Bug-Out Bag,” Discovery, April 9, 2012, accessed April 10, 2013, http://news.discovery.com/adventure/survival/how-to-build-your-own-urbansurvival-bug-out-bag.htm.

63 “Sea Tunt: Part II,” Archer, television, season 4, episode 13, originally aired April 12, 2013.

64 Zack Smith, “Adventure Time’ Creator Talks ‘80s,” USA Today, November 1, 2012, accessed November 12, 2012, http://www.usatoday.com/story/popcandy/2012/11/01/adventure-time-creatortalks-80s/1672583.

65 “Simon and Marcy,” Adventure Time, television, season 5, episode 14, originally aired March 25, 2013.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 31 However, there is probably no better current example in the media other than the documentary television show, “Doomsday Preppers,” which premiered on National Geographic in early 2012. As described on the official website, the show revolves around “otherwise ordinary Americans who are preparing for the end of the world as we know it.

Unique in their beliefs, motivations, and strategies, ‘preppers’ will go to whatever lengths they can to make sure they are prepared for any of life’s uncertainties.”66 Nuclear war, avian bird flu pandemic, and super-volcano eruption are just a few of the disasters that the featured preppers not only concern themselves with, but also try to passionately persuade others (namely the audience) into considering as real possibilities.

The passion of these individuals could undoubtedly be considered as a mentally unstable obsession, especially considering the extreme nature of the ‘preparedness drills’ that these individuals regularly force upon their families and friends. Nonetheless, the ‘fear’ of uncertainty that they feel is very real. While these individuals may believe themselves as becoming more resilient, they are in fact doing the opposite. Since they are only preparing for a specific disaster, their resilience towards that specific disaster might be increased, but they are increasing their vulnerability to other disasters. For example, it would be foolish for a New Englander to prepare for a ‘Zombie Apocalypse’ when a catastrophic snow storm is more likely; layered clothing for warmth, potentially not thought of in preparation for zombies, could mean the difference between life and death if a very likely snow storm were to hit. Thus, it is important that the resilience framework be implemented in a holistic, all-encompassing manner, and not utilized in a narrowed, misguided way that defeats the point and ultimately leads to increased vulnerability.

66

“Doomsday Preppers,” National Geographic, accessed November 12, 2012, http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/channel/doomsday-preppers/.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 32 The resilient community concept has greatly developed and spread through the use of online social forums, which resemble a community-like structure allowing for communication and collaboration. For example, ‘r/ResilientCommunities’ is a branch (heavily inspired by Robb’s work) of the popular social website Reddit.com.67 At the moment, this online community has around ~2,700 readers who submit articles and selfmoderate the website on a daily basis. Such community-focused websites are, appropriately enough, at the forefront of the resilient community concept. Resilience.org, a program of the Post Carbon Institute (PCI), is similar to Reddit, but different in that it is not run by the community but instead acts like a central hub to connect groups and spread information. Their mission statement makes this clear: Our focus is on building community resilience in a world of multiple emerging challenges: the decline of cheap energy, the depletion of critical resources like water, complex environmental crises like climate change and biodiversity loss, and the social and economic issues which are linked to these. We like to think of the site as a community library with space to read and think, but also as a vibrant café in which to meet people, discuss ideas and projects, and pick up and share tips on how to build the resilience of your community, your household, or yourself.68 The concept of the resilient community has grown to the point where there has been recognition by the global and academic community. Additionally, on a more global scale (especially in terms of the political scene) there has been an extension of resilience to cities, i.e., the “resilient city” concept. May 2010 marked the first annual global forum on cities and adaptation to climate change, known as “Resilient Cities 2010.” The conference was hosted in Bonn, Germany, by the ICLEI (Local Government for 67

“Resilient Communities Reddit,” Reddit, accessed November 13, 2012, http://www.reddit.com/r/resilientcommunities.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 33 Sustainability), an independent organization that has the full backing of the UN and other renowned worldwide organizations.69 500 participants representing 53 different countries participated in the congress to address the issues of urban adaptation in the face of climate change.70 Congress Chair Konrad Otto-Zimmermann describes the need for a focus on resilient cities: There is a growing recognition that urban areas will be profoundly affected by climate change. Whether in coastal areas, inland, or in high-altitude locations, cities concentrate economic activity, population, and critical infrastructures. Therefore, they also concentrate risks associated with climate change. Cities are vulnerable to changes….As urban areas today accommodate half of the global population, and will host two thirds of humans by 2050, there is the need to focus on the adaptation of cities and urban communities to climate change.71 The focus of the forum was strictly on resilient cities, as opposed to the more general concept of resilient communities, which is the focus of this thesis. While a city is technically a community (as a community can refer to a city, town, settlement, etc.), the inverse is not true. It seems odd, therefore, to limit the focus to cities because of the inherent flaws with cities that Otto-Zimmerman himself recognizes in the aforesaid quote: cities “concentrate risks” and “are vulnerable to changes.”

The justification for examining resilience in terms of cities comes from the fact that a large part of the population lives in cities, and that the urban population will only 68

“About Resilience.org,” Resilience, last updated July 16, 2012, accessed November 12, 2012, http://www.resilience.org/about.

69 “Resilient Cities-ICLEI,” Resilient Cities, accessed November 12, 2012, http://resilientcities.iclei.org/.

70 Otto-Zimmermann, Konrad, Resilient Cities: Cities and Adaptation to Climate Change Proceedings of the Global Forum 2010 (London: Spinger, 2011), xxiii.

71 Ibid., 4.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 34 continue to grow in the future. It can also be thought that certain resilient structures may be more efficient in cities, where there is a large population allowing these structures to be implemented on a large scale (e.g., waste removal and transportation). However, this justification falls short, and does not take into consideration the basic issue of whether or not city-living is necessarily an ideal form of resilient community living. The critique here is not of a city versus a small town (the latter of which has its own inefficiencies), but rather of a resilient city versus a small resilient community.

Cities are too massive of a scale to foster structures of social resilience, namely community solidarity (the overall strength of which depends on the connection each community member has to the others). In this instance, a smaller community would likely have a more unified community of individuals due to proximity and less people (considering that Boston, MA has over 600,000 people over roughly 50 square miles, it is hard to imagine Boston as a single community).72 Additionally, many environmental problems result from concentrating such a high number of people within a small amount of space. Murray Bookchin, founder of the social ecology movement, illustrates a number of problems with city living in his book, Our Synthetic Environment: the oversimplification and monotony of the daily work routine, stress and chronic illness due to the incessant continuity of city life and artificial environment, air pollution, and water pollution (just to name a few items that Bookchin heavily critiques).73 There have been a couple of key resilient texts to emerge within the last few years, including Stephen Coyle’s Sustainable and Resilient Communities. Coyle reframes the resilient community concept so that it is more fitting for an academic context, 72

“Boston (city) QuickFacts,� United States Census Bureau, last updated January 10, 2013, accessed April 10, 2013, http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/25/2507000.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 35 removing the underlying foundation of societal collapse, and instead arguing for the environmental, economic, and social benefits that it can provide. He modifies the concept to a “resilient low-carbon community (RLC)” contrasted against a “conventional/highcarbon community (CHC),” capitalizing on popular concern over carbon emissions and carbon ‘footprints,’ but still representing elements of resilience (i.e., flexibility, durability, efficiency, etc.) and similar areas of focus (transportation, energy, water, food production, waste, economic, and the natural environment). 74 However, it should be noted that Coyle intertwines the concepts of resilience and sustainability without providing a strong explanation of the difference between them. From his text, it appears that he considers resilience as a characteristic that can easily fit into sustainability (i.e., a resilient community is sustainable, but a sustainable community is not necessarily resilient).

Sustainability versus Resilience It often becomes confusing and challenging to disentangle the concepts of sustainability and resilience from one another as they are applied to environmental consciousness. This is especially due to the current popularity of these buzzwords and the willingness of people to overuse and misuse the two terms. Sustainability has become extremely greenwashed, especially in advertising campaigns for corporations that are blatantly unsustainable. For instance, ‘sustainability’ has been mentioned in commercials ranging from gas-guzzling, low mileage SUVs, to BP suggesting the reality of ‘sustainable’ fossil fuels.

73

Murray Bookchin, Our Synthetic Environment (New York: Harper & Row, 1974), 66-88.

Stephen Coyle, Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), 18, xi.

74

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 36 TreeHugger contributor Sami Grover writes that we need to think “beyond sustainability. Sure, piping in solar energy from the deserts [an example of sustainability] may help us reach our CO2 reduction goals, but such centralized, distant sources of power should not be our only way to keep the lights on and the hospitals running” in the face of the magnitude of risk and uncertainty we encounter on a daily basis.75 Rob Hopkins, founder of the Transition Movement, reflects on the difference between sustainability and resilience in an interview for an upcoming environmental documentary, Resilient City: I think, for me, in the times we are moving into now the concept of resilience is a much more useful idea than that of sustainability. Sustainability implies that we are trying to design a steady-state system with less inputs and less outputs than we have at the moment, which can carry on indefinitely. Whereas actually what we need to be designing for is the ability to withstand shock. But a lot of the literature about resilience talks about it meaning that a system can take shock, and then reform into its previous state. Whereas increasingly, the way people are starting to look at it, it's about seeing that shock as an opportunity to change.76 Rob asserts that the benefit of resilience over sustainability is that it recognizes the reality of life, in that systems of living are rarely ever stable and unchanging, and it is wrong to assume that there will not be external crises. He also implies that people should focus on using this anticipation of disturbance for positive change and advancement, rather than 75

Sami Grover, “The Difference Between Resilience & Sustainability? A Zombie Apocalypse,” TreeHugger, January 2, 2012, accessed December 20, 2012, http://www.treehugger.com/infrastructure/difference-between-resilience-sustainability-zombieapocalypse.html.

76 Sami Grover, “Why Resilience Beats Sustainability-Rob Hopkins on Transition in the City (Video),” TreeHugger, December 14, 2010, accessed December 20, 2012, http://www.treehugger.com/corporate-responsibility/why-resilience-beats-sustainability-rob-hopkins-ontransition-in-the-city-video.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 37 merely trying to survive a shock and return to a previous state of living (which as mentioned earlier, is fundamentally impossible for a human system).

Zolli and Healy also criticize the unrealistic ideals of sustainability, as its focus on finding “a single equilibrium point runs counter to the way many natural system actually work – the goal ought to be healthy dynamism” that is embodied by resilience.77 They comment on how sustainability offers “few practical prescriptions for contending with disruptions,” either in the present or future, while resilience can provide a “more relevant set of ideas, tools, and approaches.”78 The authors give credit to the modern sustainability movement for recognizing the necessity of “risk mitigation,” but comment that it is the added benefit of “adaptation” in resilience theory that is even more important, as it ensures preparation for the aftermath of disaster.79 In trying to disentangle sustainability and resilience, Tanya Leise, an Amherst College professor of mathematics, suggests that the mathematical meanings of these terms demonstrate clear differences: “Mathematically, sustainability means the system is currently near a stable equilibrium. Resilience goes beyond this to having the system be stable AND far away from any tipping points, so that perturbations to the system (like having CO2 dumped into the atmosphere) may move the system, but not push it over the tipping point.”80 Further following along this perspective, Marten Scheffer writes that a resilient system can not only tolerate a greater magnitude of disturbance before it “shifts 77

Zolli and Healy, 21.

Ibid.

79 Ibid, 22.

80 Tanya Leise, email message to author, February 4, 2013.

78

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 38 to a different state,� but also have a faster degree of recovery if a critical transition to a different state has been made since.81 A simple analogy to help understand these two concepts can potentially resolve the confusion and illustrate the main differences. This analogy is as follows: two groups of human beings – representing resilience and sustainability mindsets – are camped out on the edge of a precipice, overlooking a drop into the terrifying depths below. Both groups recognize the vulnerability that comes with being on the edge: for instance, a strong gust of wind could blow their camps right off the mountain. The sustainability group focuses on sustaining their current way of life, without attempting to make any drastic changes. Their goal is to do everything in their power to keep their camp stable on the point where it is currently set up. The resilience group, on the other hand, takes more extreme measures to decrease potential danger, such as by backing away from the edge.

While both groups are ultimately sustaining their camp, the resilience group is additionally increasing the buffer zone from the brink of disaster.

Also important to this analogy is the key consideration of what happens if disaster occurs, and both groups get blown off the edge of the mountain. The key difference would be in how both groups react post-disturbance. The sustainable group would be left in a state of disorder, as the sole focus was on maintaining the previous way of living up on the edge of the cliff. On the other hand, the resilient group would have not only recognized the possibility of this happening, but also have taken steps to prepare for this event. Therefore, this group would be able to adapt and overcome, eventually reaching a new steady state of existence. While both groups would be experiencing an unfortunate 81

Marten Scheffer, Critical Transitions in Nature and Society (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2009), 104-105.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 39 circumstance of events, only one group – the resilient group – would be able to accept and overcome the change in a way that minimized negativity and hardship in the process.

In an article written for a magazine promoting sustainability, Hopkins gives a great example of how sustainability ‘falls short’: Let’s take a supermarket as an example. It may be possible to increase its sustainability and to reduce its carbon emissions by using less packaging, putting photovoltaics on the roof and installing more energy-efficient fridges.

However, resilience thinking would argue that the closure of local food shops and networks that resulted from the opening of the supermarket, as well as the fact that the store itself only contains two days’ worth of food at any moment – the majority of which has been transported great distances to get there – has massively reduced the resilience of community food security, as well as increasing its oil vulnerability. One extreme, but relevant, example of where sustainability thinking falls short was Tesco’s recent ‘Flights for Lights’ promotion, where people were able to gain air miles when they purchased low-energy light bulbs!82 Hopkins demonstrates that sustainability, while strongly intertwined with resilience, can actually have a detrimental effect, leaving a community more vulnerable to disturbance.

There appears to be a benefit of resilience over sustainability in advocating for a better lifestyle. Both of these concepts have clear overlap, and resilience seems able to not only fit into sustainability, but also enhance this kind of thinking by taking a more realistic approach. Given that political, social, and environmental conditions are everchanging and uncertain, it seems unwise to ignore this reality, which is precisely what advocates of sustainability tend to do. Resilience thinking offers a clear end-goal (to decrease vulnerability versus the ‘goal’ of sustainability which is to persist indefinitely), 82

Rob Hopkins, “Resilience Thinking: An Article for the latest ‘Resurgence’,” Transition Culture, October 21, 2009, accessed December 20, 2012, http://transitionculture.org/2009/10/21/resiliencethinking-an-article-for-the-latest-resurgence.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 40 the ability to better prepare for future disturbance, and the ability to get through that disturbance when it occurs. Simply put, while sustainability is an attempt to sustain us, resilience attempts to sustain us and prepare us for change. Paul McCartney, in the song “Live and Let Die,” sang the lyrics: “But if this ever-changing world in which we live in makes you give in and cry. Say live and let die.”83 Instead of ‘giving in’ and falling susceptible to the constant change, human beings should prepare in order to persevere and live on.

83

McCartney, Paul. “Live and Let Die.” Song.

Chapter 2: Resilient Community Agriculture The Global Food System In his book entitled Late Victorian Holocausts, author Mike Davis explores famine in a context that is not blindly contained to ecological factors such as drought or crop failure. Rather, Davis argues that famines (he explores three major famines during the late 19th century) were more so a result of a convoluted food distribution system wrought by global economic, social, and political entanglement due to prevailing ideologies of colonialism. Therefore, colonies suffered at the expense of the ‘Mother country’ as food was exported out of the colony to feed those living outside of it; India suffered even though food production had actually been increasing during the same time that this famine was taking place.1 Davis cites a quote by Amartya Sen: “Famine is a characteristic of some people not having enough food to eat.” 2 This was evident as food was, paradoxically, being shipped out of the country at the same time that people were starving due to a lack of food.

Although colonialism has effectively ended, the global entanglement of the food production and distribution system has only increased, as we live in world that becomes ever more globalized. Geographical distance has become almost meaningless, resulting in a phenomenon that New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman termed and used to title his book, The World is Flat.3 This ‘flattening’ of the world is readily apparent in how one can instantly video chat with others halfway around the world using such services as 1

Mike Davis, Late Victorian Holocausts: El Niño Famines and the Making of the Third World (London: Verso, 2002), 66, 59.

2 Ibid., 20.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 42 Skype, or have a package delivered to another part of the world in a mere matter of days.

The Internet has made collaboration possible on a global scale, allowing for the exchange of information instantaneously. Technological advancements in distribution and shipping have allowed for the rapid exchange of goods. As a result, our lives have transcended the geographic constraints that we were once faced with. We are capable of crossing distances that were once thought of as insurmountable, and should therefore be considered a global entity. And so should our food.

Browsing the aisles at a grocery store such as Whole Foods, it becomes clear that a vast majority of the food featured is by no means locally produced. Produce, in particular, is trucked in from around the country and around the world, through an incredible system of food distribution that allows food to still be ‘fresh’ despite the incredible distances it has traversed. This ensures that we are able to eat food out of season and all year round. Michael Pollan reflects on this in his seminal work, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: My plan had been for a cozy winter dinner, but I couldn’t resist the bundles of fresh asparagus on sale at Whole Foods…that had been grown according to organic rules on a farm six thousand miles (and two seasons) away, picked, packed, and chilled on Monday, flown by jet to Los Angeles on Tuesday, trucked north to a Whole Foods regional distribution center, then put on sale in Berkeley by Thursday, to be steamed, by me, Sunday night…4 The vulnerabilities of the food distribution system that the majority of Americans rely on are, upon examination, hard to ignore. In the aforementioned passage, problems could have arisen at any of the numerous intermediary steps involved in getting the food to the market – e.g., a problem with the air transportation or an issue at the distribution 3

Thomas Freidman, The World is Flat (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2005).

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 43 warehouse. Any interruption at any of the numerous steps involved would have made access to asparagus nonexistent, thus raising concern over the issue of food security (this asparagus analogy illustrating the complicated processes behind just one food item that is not even considered a staple crop). As defined by the World Health Organization (WHO), food security is built around three essential points: Food availability: sufficient quantities of food available on a consistent basis.  Food access: having sufficient resources to obtain appropriate foods for a nutritious diet.  Food use: appropriate use based on knowledge of basic nutrition and care, as well as adequate water and sanitation.5 

Focus shall be placed on the first pillar of food security, ‘food availability,’ as without availability of food the other two pillars are of little concern. Also, issues such as food access and food use transcend the scope of this paper, into matters of social equity and nutrition.

Hurricane Sandy demonstrated just how “complex and vulnerable the networks are that deliver America's food supply,” as the devastating storm kept food destined for grocery stores either on trucks or in distribution warehouses, and started to put strain on restaurants and stores dependent upon consistent deliveries.6 Social behaviors such as hoarding came into play, as one customer shopping during the storm mentioned that the emptiness of the grocery store was “worse than she had ever seen it” and that she was purchasing 3 pounds of ground beef simply because the meat section was looking 4

Michael Pollan, The Omnivore’s Dilemma (New York: Penguin Books, 2006), 175.

5 “Food Security,” World Health Organization, accessed January 20, 2013, http://who.int/trade/glossary/story028/en.

6 Christina Wilkie, Alice Hines, and Janean Chun, “Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Food Distribution, ‘Thousands of Trucks’ in Limbo,” Huffington Post, October 31, 1990, accessed January 20, 2013,

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 44 “depleted.”7 The storm was not lengthy enough for people to feel the full effects of the storm of severe disruption on food distribution, but a continued disturbance would have imaginably left grocery stores empty and people without food.

Outside of natural events, the food distribution system is also prone to man-made error. A grocery store in Edinburgh, Scotland, was left completely devoid of food when an employee accidentally wiped the store from the computer database, putting an end to all restocking shipments to that store.8 Photos of the empty grocery store were proliferated through social media networks (e.g., Twitter), with several people equating the condition of the store to something that would have been found in the ‘Soviet Era.’9 Early 2013 saw European meat producers involved in a widespread scandal involving mislabeled meat. Further investigation revealed that correctly labeled horse meat from Romania had somehow ended up labeled as beef when it reached the meat processing plants in other European countries; it is still unknown as to whether or not this was intentional or accidental human involvement (although the former option is thought to be the most likely), but serves as a clear lesson in the problems of a convoluted food supply chain.10 Issues of Food Security http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/hurricane-sandy-disrupts-fooddistribution_n_2049778.html.

7 Ibid.

8 David O’Leary, “Computer Blunder Leaves Asda at Chesser with Empty Shelves Across Store,” Edinburgh Evening News, January 10, 2013, accessed January 20, 2013, http://www.scotsman.com/edinburgh-evening-news/latest-news/computer-blunder-leaves-asda-atchesser-with-empty-shelves-across-store-1-2730107.

9 Ibid.

10 Luke Harding, Ian Traynor, and Paul Radu, “Horsemeat Scandal: Dutch Meat Trader Could be Central Figure,” Guardian, February 13, 2013, accessed April 14, 2013, http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2013/feb/13/horsemeat-scandal-dutch-connection-romania.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 45 All too often, as the media tends to do, we are presented with panic and fear over a global, or world, food crisis. 2008 marked one of the most severe world food crises, as an article in the New York Times – titled “The World Food Crisis” – detailed a depressing story of the then-current state of affairs in food: cereal crops were at some of their highest prices ever recorded, and there was concern of civil unrest in over 30 nations due to rising food prices.11 One of the causes at the forefront for this crisis (termed an “uncontrollable cause”) was the growth of populations of India and China and their desire to emulate the Western diet (i.e., high animal protein consumption, which is inputintensive and requires a lot of staple crops).12 Also involved in the World Food Crisis of 2008 was the increasing promotion of ethanol via ethanol subsidies in the United States.13 As a result, farmers not only ramped up corn production (since economically speaking it makes sense to grow whichever crop is most profitable), but also diverted a lot of corn and land to ethanol production that could have been used to grow food. This in turn drove up the price of corn and the other crops that farmers had shifted away from growing, as well as the price of animal protein since corn is a big part of animal diets.14 Considering the balance between ethanol and food production, “The grain required to fill a 25-gallon SUV gas tank with ethanol…could feed one person for a year.”15 In a remarkably similar note reminiscent of the Indian famines during the late 19th century, the The Economist observed: 11

“The World Food Crisis,” editorial, New York Times, April 10, 2008, accessed January 20, 2013, http://nytimes.com/2008/04/10/opinion/10thu1.html.

12 Ibid.; “Food Prices: Cheap No More,” briefing, Economist, December 6, 2007, accessed January 20, 2013, http://www.economist.com/node/10250420.

13 “Food Prices: Cheap No More.”

14 Ibid.

15 Lester Brown, “Ethanol Could Leave the World Hungry,” CNN, August 16, 2006, accessed January 22, 2013, http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2006/08/21/8383659/.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 46 Yet what is most remarkable about the present bout of “agflation” is that record prices are being achieved at a time not of scarcity but of abundance. According to the International Grains Council, a trade body based in London, this year's total cereals crop will be 1.66 billion tonnes, the largest on record and 89m tonnes more than last year's harvest, another bumper crop. That the biggest grain harvest the world has ever seen is not enough to forestall scarcity prices tells you that something fundamental is affecting the world's demand for cereals.16 Oxfam is an organization that had its roots in providing aid to poor people in need during World War II, and was officially founded in 1970 to provide support in favor of independence for Bangladesh and help mediate the crisis that was occurring there. Oxfam has grown to become a global organization focused on fighting against “poverty, hunger, and injustice,” and as such has had a large focus on food price issues.17 In October of 2012, Oxfam America published a report titled, “Our Land, Our Lives: Time Out on the Global Land Rush,” that offered a detailed analysis of the effects of the 2008-2009 food price crisis.18 The report centers on the unfortunate land rush that occurred as foreign investors started a frenzy to purchase land in developing countries and turn a large profit by industrially farming the land for biofuels and exporting the crops for the global market (in light of high food prices and ethanol demand).19 Not only were poor people “being kicked off their land, often violently, without consultation or compensation,” but Oxfam 16

“Food Prices: Cheap No More.”

“Who We Are,” Oxfam America, accessed January 22, 2013. http://www.oxfamamerica.org/whoweare.

18 Kate Geary, “Our Land, Our Lives’: Time Out on the Global Land Rush” (paper prepared for Oxfam International, Oxford, UK, 2012).

19 “Land Sold Off in Last Decade Could Grow Enough Food to Feed a Billion People,” press release, Oxfam America, October 3, 2012, accessed January 22, 2013, http://www.oxfamamerica.org/press/pressreleases/land-sold-off-in-last-decade-could-grow-enoughfood-to-feed-a-billion-people-2013-oxfam.

17

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 47 asserts that the combined land “sold off globally in the last decade, [is] enough to grow food for the one billion people who go hungry today.”20 The key player in this ‘land-grabbing scheme’ has been the World Bank, a leader of investment in sustainable development, which has made increasingly large agricultural investments that allow foreign enterprises to exploit land in developing areas.21 This blatantly contradicts the World Bank’s motto of “Working for a World Free of Poverty,” although this is hardly the first time the World Bank has been implicated in working against the best interest of the people it says it works to serve.22 Ngaire Woods comments on how the World Bank, while representative of over 180 countries, is run by the economically powerful countries that fund it, and therefore works in the best interests of these wealthy countries: “The paradox of contemporary arrangements is highlighted by…[how] The wealthy countries have long arrogated to themselves the right to choose the head [of the organization]…For this reason the Bank president is always American…”23 Oxfam concluded its report by recommending that the World Bank freeze its agricultural investments until it can put into place policies and safeguards that actively encourage transparency, land rights, environmental protection, and food security for people in developing nations.24 Such a declaration from a nonprofit, however, has done little to change the behavior of the powerful, global entity.

Late 2012, early 2013, has raised concern over another impending global food crisis. The Oxfam report mentioned this as a possibility since a relapse and continuation 20

Ibid.

Geary, 3-4.

22 “World Bank Group.” World Bank. Accessed January 22, 2013. http://www.worldbank.org.

23 Ngaire Woods, The Globalizers: The IMF, the World Bank, and Their Borrowers (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2007), 199.

24 Geary, 18.

21

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 48 of previous problems seemed likely. This time around, instead of pressure coming from ethanol and other land-intensive uses, extreme weather has been cited as the core cause of concern. Severe weather has been blamed largely on climate change, with extreme weather events such as “Europe suffering from the worst cold snap in a quarter century; to extreme flooding in Australia, Brazil, China…[to] the continental United States, with the warmest spring and 12-month period experienced this year and severe fires and drought.”25 This extreme weather greatly constricted agricultural production in 2012, leading to a sharp decrease in crop yields (grain, corn, soybeans) of nations that have become ‘responsible’ for exporting the food that feeds the rest of the developing world. Nations dependent on these exports for feeding their own populace have seen a rise in both food prices and domestic concern over food shortages. The price increases are still below the 2008 level (the inflation of which many have suggested played a vital role in setting off riots in several developing countries during that time), but only by a small margin.26 Normally, countries keep food reserves to help stifle global food price volatility, but reserve levels are starting to show strain.27 In developing areas such as South Africa, rising food prices only add to an overall problem of inflation as the rand (the South African form of currency) is one of the worst major currencies in the world according to Bloomberg, and preexisting pressure from 25

Kelly Levin, “Timeline: Extreme Weather Events in 2012,” WRI Insights, September 6, 2012, accessed January 23, 2013, http://insights.wri.org/news/2012/09/timeline-extreme-weather-events2012.

26 Ron Nixon, “Global Food Prices on the Rise, U.N. Says,” New York Times, October 4, 2012, accessed January 23, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/05/world/global-food-prices-on-the-riseunited-nations-says.html.

27 John Vidal, Rebecca Smithers, and Shiv Malik, “UN Warns of Rising Food Costs After Year’s Extreme Weather,” Guardian, October 10, 2012, accessed January 23, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/oct/10/un-rising-food-costs-weather.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 49 rising housing, fuel, and transportation costs has only been escalating.28 Also of unfortunate note has been accusation and claims of corporate banks profiting from this food crisis. Christine Haigh of the World Development Movement (WDM) states, “While nearly a billion people go hungry, Goldman Sachs bankers are feeding their own bonuses by betting on the price of food. Financial speculation is fuelling food price spikes and Goldman Sachs is the No. 1 culprit.”29 The ability of banks to profit off of such a global problem is a clear result of the intricate nature of the global food system, and makes painfully evident that the primary goal of the modern food system is neither the food nor feeding the people, but rather economic gain.

In the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report issued in March of 2012, “Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation,” one of the highlighted concerns was that, “Extreme [weather] events will have greater impacts on sectors with closer links to climate, such as water, agriculture and food security…”30 Ties between climate change and food security have been fully recognized, as there is a clear consensus that not only is climate change a reality, but so is its ability to negatively impact food security. Also of note in the report, was the idea that extreme weather events have a cumulative effect that can increase vulnerability to future events by “modifying resilience, coping capacity, and adaptive capacity,” and thereby limiting the ability of communities to prepare and respond to 28

Franz Wild, “South African Inflation Accelerates as Food Prices Climb,” Bloomberg, January 23, 2013, accessed January 25, 2013, http://bloomberg.com/news/2013-01-23/south-african-inflationaccelerates-as-food-prices-climb.html.

29 Tom Bawden, “Goldman Bankers Get Rich Betting on Food Prices as Millions Starve,” Independent, January 20, 2013, accessed January 23, 2012, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/goldman-bankers-get-rich-betting-on-food-pricesas-millions-starve-8459207.html.

30 IPCC, Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 235.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 50 future disasters.31 This point explicitly reflects the idea that society as it exists is not resilient enough to be able to withstand and overcome disaster; if it was, there would be no concern over ‘modifying resilience’ since resilience accounts for change and adaptation.

‘Buy Local’ Examining the intersection of food security and resilience theory reveals the idea of local agriculture. ‘Local’ has grown in opposition to the global complexities of the centralized food system, in which people become dangerously dependent upon an externally-controlled source of food (this is scalable on all levels, such as a country dependent upon food imports or a consumer dependent upon food from a grocery store).

Amy Cotler, in The Locavore Way, defines ‘local’ as meaning “as close to home (or wherever you are) as possible, and the closer the better. Local can mean picking an apple off the tree in your backyard, going down the road to a farmers’ market, or buying food from 50, 100, or 200 miles away.”32 The word ‘locavore’ means “a person whose diet consists only or principally of locally grown or produced food”; the widespread popularity of the word and the movement was evidenced when it was chosen as the “2007 Word of the Year” by the New Oxford American Dictionary association, beating out popular competition such as “tase” (meaning “to stun with a Taser”).33 The term was first coined by California professional chef Jessica Prentice who, in August of 2005, challenged her community to make “an effort to eat only foods grown or 31

Ibid., 6-7.

Amy Cotler, The Locavore Way: Discover and Enjoy the Pleasures of Locally Grown Food (North Adams: Storey Publishing, 2009), 7.

33 Andrew Adam Newman, “How Dictionaries Define Publicity: The Word of the Year,” New York Times, December 10, 2007, accessed January 24, 2013. http://nytimes.com/2007/12/10/business/media/10oxford.html.

32

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 51 harvested within a 100 mile radius of San Francisco for an entire month…[recognizing] that the choices we make about what foods we choose to eat are important politically, environmentally, economically, and healthfully.”34 This idea of a ‘100 mile radius’ for sourcing food was embodied by Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100 Mile Diet, a book written by a couple living in Canada detailing their attempt to be locavores for an entire year, out of a want “to live more lightly in an increasingly crowded and raggedy-assed world.”35 Even before the term ‘locavore’ was coined, Alice Waters and others were long promoting ideas of local eating. Waters is a leading food activist who campaigned for locally grown organic food in the 1970s, and is recognized as the first modern proponent of the ‘buy local’ food mentality.36 There are many different ‘buy local’ food campaigns in the United States, Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture (CISA) being notable for their success in Western Massachusetts, and a quick Google search revealing a geographical concentration of campaigns in the New England States. In 2013 the Institute for Local Resilience (ILSR) published its fifth annual report on independent, locally-owned businesses. Over 2,000 independent businesses were sampled from across the United States, and encompassed all categories of business (50% were retailers). The results of the survey, in addition to the results of the surveys from the previous years, found that businesses located in areas with heavily-marketed ‘buy local’ campaigns versus no such 34

“Locavores.” Last updated December 2, 2010. Accessed January 24, 2013. http://locavores.com.

35 Alisa Smith, and James Bernard MacKinnon, Plenty: Eating Locally on the 100-mile Diet (New York: Clarkson Potter, 2008), 4.

36 “Alice Waters: 40 Years of Sustainable Food,” NPR, August 22, 2011, accessed January 24, 2013, http://www.npr.org/2011/08/22/139707078/alice-waters-40-years-of-sustainable-food.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 52 campaign had better business performance and better ownership satisfaction.37 While the survey focused on local businesses in general and was not limited to the agricultural sector, it provides great support for the efficacy of buy local campaigns.

Woody Tasch writes about ‘local’ possessing “connotations of rapport, relationship, rootedness, and…responsibility.”38 He also comments on the paradox of globalization: “As a result of all of this – this globalization, this creation of a so-called global village – we are enjoying unheralded benefits of being connected. Yet, paradoxically, we are also suffering the consequences of becoming increasingly disconnected.”39 For example, one can ‘talk’ to another individual living halfway across the world, without ever actually getting the experience of meeting that individual and traveling abroad. Michael Pollan details the benefits of supporting local and creating a decentralized food system which is more resilient: So, we have to figure out ways to distribute food in a different way and to re-regionalize the food economy, to shorten the food chain….A decentralized food system is a more resilient food system. We have talked far too long in this country about efficiency. But there is another term that is equally important, and that is resilience. And very often efficient systems like industrial agriculture are very brittle.

We have seen, as we saw last summer, they cannot withstand shocks, price shocks, oil shocks, weather shocks, because they’re not resilient…. a highly centralized food system is [also] exquisitely vulnerable to both deliberate and accidental contamination.40 37

Stacy Mitchell, “2013 Independent Business Survey” (paper prepared for the Institute for Local Self-Reliance, Washington, DC, February 2010), 3-5.

38 Woody Tasch, Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), 11.

39 Ibid., 168.

40 “Michael Pollan: Decentralizing Food,” Mother Nature Network, accessed January 24, 2013, http://mnn.com/food/videos/michael-pollan-decentralizing-food.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 53 Nigeria provides a great example of a country taking steps to decentralize its modern food system, which is overwhelmingly reliant on staple crop imports from countries such as the United States (Nigeria spends $4 billion annually on wheat imports, and even more impressively, around $6 million dollars per day on rice imports).41 With rising global food prices has come rising concern over food riots and famine that may result. The Nigerian government has therefore made efforts to encourage the local production and consumption of cassava, considered an alternate staple crop to wheat, as well as greatly ramp-up the production of rice.42 Some agricultural analysts theorize that Nigeria may be capable of becoming self-sufficient if these agricultural programs and policies continue and expand, possibly reaching a point where the country could export food crops.43 However, questions arise as to the extent that the country will be able to overcome problems such as poor infrastructure and changing climate patterns that would greatly impact agricultural output. Nonetheless, it is safe to say that local production would at least increase the buffer from the unpredictability of the global food market, thus increasing food security.

The concept of ‘food miles’ is one that can be applied to help support and better formulate a conceptualization of local. As defined by the National Resource Defense Council (NRDC), food miles “are the distance food travels from where it is grown to where it is ultimately purchased or consumed. Food miles – and the resulting pollution – increase substantially when we consider produce and goods imported from halfway 41

Dave Gilbert, “How Severe Weather Impacts Global Food Supply,” CNN, December 5, 2012, accessed January 24, 2013, http://cnn.com/2012/12/04/world/asia/food-price-impact/index.html.

42 Monica Mark, “Nigeria’s Cassava Conundrum,” Guardian, December 19, 2011, accessed January 24, 2013, http://guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/dec/19/nigeriacassava-conundrum.

43 Gilbert.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 54 around the world.”44 As suggested by this definition, the food miles concept arose exclusively out of concern for pollution. An article in Time detailed how colleges were increasingly sourcing locally grown produce in support of the growing green movement; the article mentioned how food travels an average of “1,500 miles,” and cited examples such as “Posters around the University of Portland campus proclaimed that BUYING LOCAL FOOD IS ONE WAY YOU CAN HELP STOP GLOBAL WARMING ... AIR AND WATER POLLUTION.”45 Interestingly, there has been much criticism to emerge concerning food miles, and especially the “1,500 miles” statistic that appeared in the Time article and in other popular literature. The main argument is that the food miles concept overwhelmingly simplifies the issue at hand (the ‘1,500 miles’ statistic being merely a media tool that has no real scientific basis), and fails to take into account the energy inputs and negative environmental outputs of food production from a holistic point of view.46 By only examining the cost of transportation, the cost of production is ignored: relying on the food miles concept alone might lead one to believe that industrially produced meat (maximizing output at the sake of waste and heavy inputs) that travels 50 miles is more environmentally friendly than organic/low-input meat that travels 60 miles.

In a critical study on food miles conducted at Lincoln University in New Zealand, researchers found “that in the case of dairy and sheep meat production, New Zealand is by far more energy efficient even including the transport cost than the United Kingdom, 44

“Health Facts: Food Miles,” NRDC, November 2007, accessed January 24, 2013, https://foodhub.org/files/resources/Food%20Miles.pdf, 2.

45 Margot Roosevelt, “Food: What’s Cooking on Campus,” Time, November 7, 2005, accessed January 24, 2013, http://time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1126709-2,00.html.

46 Jane Black, “What’s In a Number?,” Slate, September 17, 2008, accessed January 24, 2013, http://slate.com/articles/life/food/2008/09/whats_in_a_number.2.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 55 twice as efficient in the case of dairy, and four times as efficient in case of sheep meat.”47 Taking all energy costs into account (not just those of transportation), it was less polluting and less wasteful for someone in London to import lamb from New Zealand rather than buy locally produced lamb in England.48 Pollution is therefore not the best argument for buying local. Instead of blindly focusing on pollution, Amy Cotler provides a plethora of reasons to eat locally grown food, including the preservation of our cultural and farm heritage, and fostering and maintaining a sense of community.49 The concept of food miles and its involvement of local should instead be reformulated to take food security and resilience into account. While the Time article made mention of the Community Food Security Coalition (CFSC) – an organization devoted to establishing community food security – the article surprisingly failed to address food security. The CFSC lists “local agriculture” as one of the six core tenets to establishing community food security: “A stable local agricultural base is key to a community responsive food system.”50 As abovementioned early on in this chapter, ‘food availability’ can be considered the key component of food security. Simply put, local food is more readily available than food grown at a distance.

It can be thought that the larger a distance that food has to travel to reach a consumer, the more possibility there is for some sort of interruption or disturbance (whether it be small such as a storm or large such as societal grid collapse), or the greater potential that exists for a disturbance to have a more severe impact. It is safe to say that 47

Caroline Saunders, Andrew Barber, and Greg Taylor, “Food Miles-Comparative Energy/Emissions Performance of New Zealand's Agriculture Industry,” Lincoln University Agribusiness and Economics Research Unit, Research Report No. 285 (2006): 93.

48 Black.

49 Cotler, 10.

50 http://foodsecurity.org/what-is-community-food-security/

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 56 there is less chance of something interfering with a consumer driving 10 miles to the nearest farm for fresh produce, than for that produce to be grown halfway around the world and journey through the complex global food system. With more steps, the latter route has more chance of failure; increased chance of failure in this case means increased vulnerability to food availability. Resilience theory therefore favors local agriculture, which is simpler and less reliant on inputs, and overall leaves less ‘room for disaster.’

A community that has the ability to grow the majority of its own food is fairly self-sufficient and capable of surviving in the event of being cut off from the outside. It is very important to note that this is not to say that ‘local’ is confined to the geographical limitations of the community. The idea of regional food security is important as well: if something occurs to the food producing capabilities of the immediate community, it would be important to have a connection to other local communities to ensure that food security can be maintained. It would be unrealistic to presume that a community could or should be 100% self-sufficient, especially considering benefits of trade and differential growing conditions of areas favoring certain crops over others.

It is also important to recognize fundamental geographical challenges to sourcing food within some areas that are unable to keep to the ‘100 mile’ locavore diet. Rebecca Rupp humorously mentions this important consideration: “local eating calls for more ingenuity and self-sacrifice in some places than in others. Where we live in northern Vermont, for example, local eating in February means last summer’s canned tomatoes and the hope that maybe the cat will catch a squirrel.”51 Rupp then makes passing mention of a consideration to local eating that is frequently overlooked, which is that “the 51

Rebecca Rupp, How Carrots Won the Trojan War: Curious (but True) Stories of Common Vegetables (North Adams: Storey Publishing, 2011), 27.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 57 most environmentally friendly local eating undeniably comes from one’s own backyard.”52 In the rush for discovering local sources of food, people tend to ignore the potential of their own backyard and instead focus on proximity to local farms, when in fact it does not get any more ‘local’ than growing food on one’s own property.

The ‘Food Commons’ model embodies the idea of a regional food network. It was proposed by Jim Cochran and Larry Yee in 2010 to provide an alternative to the everincreasing globalization of our industrial food system, by creating “a more localized option for producing, processing, distributing, marketing, and accessing quality food,” thereby “providing economic, environmental, and community benefits.”53 The three components of this proposal are as follows: 1) Food Commons Trust Independent, small, sustainable and social-justice oriented entrepreneurs need access to land, facilities, and infrastructure….

2) Food Commons Financing Arm The nascent local food economy will require specialized financial institutions that understand the small-scale food businesses and the special needs of their communities…Not-for-profit, communityoriented Food Commons Financing Organizations would serve that specialized need….

3) Regional Food Hub A coordinating entity is needed to facilitate the complex logistics of aggregation and distribution between all the moving parts of the system, and to create new small food businesses and help them achieve economies of scale in their administrative, marketing, and human resources and other business functions. Regional Food Hubs will provide these services, as well as technical assistance, specialized vocational training, and other functions as needed in specific regions.54 52

Ibid.

“Food Commons,” Roots of Change, July 2, 2010, accessed January 26, 2013, http://www.rootsofchange.org/content/activities-2/food-commons.; “The Vision of a Common Food System,” The Food Commons, 2011, accessed January 26, 2013, http://thefoodcommons.org/vision.html.

54 “The Vision of a Common Food System.”

53

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 58 While there may be debate over how realistic this model is in terms of implementation, the third component of this model is highly relevant to building a resilient community food system. The idea of interconnected ‘regional hubs’ conveys the idea of creating a decentralized yet regional food system that is both stable and extremely adaptable. With these hubs providing services that extend beyond merely food production and distribution – such as technical knowledge and assistance – this model further addresses the necessity of involving and fostering a sense of community (discussed in Chapter 1 as a key element of community resilience), which is neglected by the current food system.

CISA, in a report titled “Scaling Up Local Food,” also came to a consensus about the importance of such regional food hubs (classified in the report as ‘infrastructure’) in local agriculture.55 They cite the inefficiency of local farmers often having to send their food products out-of-state to centralized processing and distribution warehouses. By having the “appropriate infrastructure” of a network of local and regional hubs, CISA argues that farmers would be able to more directly “get their products from their [local] farms to our [local] tables.”56 Slow Money by Tasch established the ‘slow money movement,’ which focuses on local investment and ties local agriculture to economics by encouraging people to invest in local farms and food systems. Tasch considers investment outside of a local context to be an act of economic ‘surrender,’ as “Every dollar we send into ‘the [global] 55

Margaret Christie, “Scaling Up Local Food: Investing in Farm & Food Systems Infrastructure in the Pioneer Valley” (paper prepared for Community Involved in Sustaining Agriculture, South Deerfield, Massachusetts, 2012).

56 Christie, 5.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 59 market’…[disconnects] us from one another, from our communities, from the land…”57 He sees the modern state of agricultural investment as very negative to the social relationships that strengthen a sense of community, “By prioritizing markets …the modern economy does violence to the relationships that underpin health and that give life-sustaining meaning…Such relationships are attenuated, or, in the extreme, deracinated, by the modern, global economy.”58 His notion of ‘restorative economics,’ is that it can help us see the intersection of philanthropy and investment, and examine the competition between these two broad ideas in more specific contexts (e.g., ecology vs. economy, nurture vs. exploitation, and local community vs. global market).59 Although Tasch is mainly concerned with investors and donors, his ideology is relatable to the average consumer, as people are all in a sense ‘investors’ making a vote with every dollar they spend.

Related to the slow money movement has been the creation and avocation of alternative currencies that encourage a local economy. “BerkShares,” also known as “Berkshire Bucks,” are an alternative, local currency in the Berkshire region of Massachusetts. The website describes BerkShares as such: “Dubbed a ‘great economic experiment’ by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities.”60 The BerkShares program has been met with much approval and adoption, as more than 400 businesses in the area (including farms) have agreed to accept the alternative currency, and over 2.7 million BerkShares have circulated since the 57

Tasch, 141.

Ibid., 45.

59 Ibid., 7.

58

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 60 program began in 2006.61 A fitting quote by Wendell Berry is included on the website: “A good community insures itself by trust, by good faith and good will, by mutual help.

A good community, in other words, is a good local economy.”62 The BerkShares program helps foster local production and consumption, creating a more resilient community by strengthening social bonds and local reliance.

Applications of Local Agriculture: Garden Pool Permaculture Permaculture Just as the idea of the local food system is in contrast to the global food system, ‘permaculture’ is in contrast to industrial agriculture. Permaculture is an ecological design methodology of ethics and principles that was established by Bill Mollison and David Holmgren in 1970s Australia; the term came from the combination of “permanent agriculture” and “permanent culture.”63 This design methodology has found a place at the forefront of grassroots supporters of resilience theory. Holmgren describes the main vision of permaculture: “Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber and energy for provision of local needs.”64 Holmgren additionally asserts that permaculture goes ‘beyond sustainability,’ and his mention of human society needing to adapt to ‘continuous change’ invokes the idea of resilience (even if it is not directly mentioned): 60

“What are BerkShares?,” BerkShares, Inc, accessed January 25, 2013, http://BerkShares.org/whatareBerkShares.htm.

61 Ibid.

62 “BerkShares-About,” BerkShares, Inc, accessed January 25, 2013, http://BerkShares.org/about/index.htm.

63 Michael Tortorello, “The Permaculture Movement Grows From Underground,” New York Times, July 27, 2011, accessed January 25, 2013, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/28/garden/permaculture-emerges-from-the-underground.html.

64 David Holmgren, Essence of Permaculture, PDF, accessed January 25, 2013, http://permacultureprinciples.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Essence_of_Pc_EN.pdf, xix.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 61 For any human culture to be considered sustainable it must have the capacity (proven only with historical hindsight) to reproduce itself down he generations while providing human material needs without cataclysmic and long-term breakdown. If it is energetically impossible for high energy society to be anything more than a pulse in the long run of human history, then it cannot, by this definition, be sustainable…we need to get over our naïve and simplistic notions of sustainability as a likely reality for ourselves or even our grandchildren and instead accept that our task is to use our familiarity with continuous change to adapt…65 There are three ethical tenets to permaculture that Holmgren and Mollison formulated based on their examination of natural systems and community-based ethics: earth care, people care, and fair share (i.e., sharing abundance with others, and recognizing appropriate limits in consumption and reproduction).66 The 12 principles of permaculture are varied, and include such pointers as “creatively use and respond to change,” “observe and interact,” “integrate rather than segregate,” and “use small and slow solutions.”67 The idea is that, by using these ethics and principles as a sort of ‘toolbox,’ one can design a system (such as an agricultural system, e.g., a garden) that is not only sustainable, but also regenerative and therefore resilient.

One of the main concerns and areas of focus in permaculture is biodiversity. In terms of permaculture gardens, this means growing many different species of crops within the same area of cultivation (and thus permaculture gardens are often applauded for producing such an incredible variety of food crops in a comparatively small space).

Biodiversity is also a major criticism and cause for worry in the modern industrial food system. A report put out by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in 2011 65

Holmgren, xxx.

“Permaculture Ethics,” PermaculturePrinciples.com, accessed January 25, 2013, http://permacultureprinciples.com/ethics/.

66

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 62 titled, “Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: Contributing to food security and sustainability in a changing world,” expressed strong concern over the ever-increasing push for monocultures by large-scale farmers.68The lack of biodiversity in monoculture crop production is attributed to increased susceptibility to crop failure, less efficiency (due to increased need for synthetic agrochemicals, such as pesticides and fertilizers), and less output (research has found wheat mixtures to have a “yield advantage of 19% over [wheat] monocultures”).69 A classic example of the dangers of monocultures often cited in environmental and history textbooks is the Irish Potato Famine of the late 1840s, which resulted in the death of approximately 12% of the Irish population via starvation, and was caused by a water mold, Phytophthora infestans.70 Commonly overlooked is the fact that Ireland was not the only area suffering a potato famine, as potato crops were failing worldwide.71 Michael Pollan dedicates an entire chapter of his book, The Botany of Desire, to the potato, and writes about the Irish Potato Famine: The potato blight visited all of Europe, but only in Ireland did it produce a catastrophe. Elsewhere, people could turn to other staple foods when a crop failed, but Ireland’s poor, subsisting on potatoes…had no alternative. As is often the case in times of starvation, the problem was not quite so simple as a shortage of food.72 67

“Design Principles,” PermaculturePrinciples.com, accessed January 25, 2013, http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles.

68 FAO, Biodiversity for Food and Agriculture: Contributing to Food Security and Sustainability in a Changing World (Rome: UN Publishing, 2011), 21.

69 Ibid., 26, 30; J. J. Burdon and A. M. Jarosz, “Disease in Mixed Cultivars, Composites, and Natural Plant Populations: Some Epidemiological and Evolutionary Consequences,” in Plant Population Genetics, Breeding, and Genetic Resources, eds. A. H. D. Brown et al. (Sunderland: Sinauer Associates Inc., 1990).

70 “Monoculture and the Irish Potato Famine: Cases of Missing Genetic Variation,” UC Berkley, accessed January 25, 2013, http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture_02.

71 Rupp, 259.

72 Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire (New York: Random House, 2002), 229.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 63 Pollan goes on to discuss how at the height of this famine, Ireland’s docks “were heaped with sacks of corn,” however, this corn was meant for export to England and as a global commodity was too expensive for the poor Irish to purchase back.73 This reflects Davis’ idea (discussed at the start of this chapter) of the stark contradiction of ‘famine’ when there is technically an availability of food.

Tim Coogan, in The Famine Plot: England’s Role in Ireland’s Greatest Tragedy, equates Britain’s role in exporting food out of Ireland, and unwillingness to provide assistance, to ‘genocide.’74It becomes easy to see how human influence was largely responsible for the vulnerability to this disaster: lack of biodiversity, over-reliance on a single crop, no network of support systems, and most importantly, connection to a convoluted, parasitic food distribution system. Despite such a powerful example from history, history does unfortunately tend to be ignored: a more recent example of major monoculture failures was the US corn blight in 1970.75 Garden Pool Permaculture A very exciting application of permaculture is ‘garden pool permaculture,’ a concept exclusively coined and originally implemented by Dennis McClung of Mesa, Arizona. He converted an old, run-down backyard swimming pool into a “closed-loop food-producing urban greenhouse.”76 The process cost $1,500 (the cost for simple construction materials) and took roughly 2 days to complete, as he essentially constructed 73

Ibid., 230.

Tim Pat Coogan, The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012).

75 “Monocultures and the Irish Potato Famine.”

76 “Garden Pool,” GardenPool.org, 2012, accessed January 26, 2013, http://gardenpool.org.

74

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 64 a greenhouse on top of the swimming pool.77 The system involves a biofiltration process in which hydroponics, chicken coop fertilizer, pond algae and duckweed, and tilapia, all function to create an efficient, closed-loop system with minimal inputs and waste, and maximum outputs.78 The pool supplies herbs, vegetables, fruits, chicken eggs and meat, tilapia, and goat milk.

In 2012, Dennis claimed that the garden pool reached self-sufficiency, and that he was now able to feed his family of four solely from the former swimming pool.79 This system fully embodies permaculture, as it is sustainable, it rejuvenated the once run-down swimming pool, and it is a resilient structure for food production. Dennis believes that his concept is at least scalable in the immediate Phoenix area, as there are many abandoned swimming pools, however it seems limited when areas with other types of climate are considered (he mentions speculating that it would be possible, but does not provide advice or knowhow on making this a reality in New England and other climates).80 A concern that emerged from looking into the garden pool was whether it required the use of a cooling system during the hot summer months. This would necessitate the use of electricity (an external input) and therefore diminish the success of the concept. However, upon email inquiry, McClung replied, “We do not run a cooling system in the summer. We use a covering that allows light to get through for the plants 77

Matt Hickman, “Swimming in Self-Sufficiency: The Garden Pool,” Mother Nature Network, August 19, 2010, accessed January 26, 2013, http://mnn.com/your-home/at-home/blogs/swimming-inself-sufficiency-the-garden-pool.

78 “Garden Pool Facts,” GardenPool.org, 2012, accessed January 26, 2013, http://gardenpool.org/facts.

79 Hickman.

80 “Garden Pool Facts.”

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 65 and fish, but also gives it the perfect amount of protection from our intense Arizona sun in the summer.”81 Applications of Local Agriculture: Open Source Ecology Whereas permaculture is a rejection of modern industrial agriculture practices, the Open Source Ecology (OSE) project attempts to provide a medium between local and industrial agriculture. OSE was founded by Marcin Jakubowski, who describes the project as consisting of a “network of farmers, engineers, and supporters” working to build “The Global Village Construction Set (GVCS)…a modular, DIY, low-cost, highperformance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes to build [and if necessary, rebuild] a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.”82 His ideas received much attention after he gave a TED talk in 2011.83 This “civilization starter kit” is designed to consist of open-source blueprints for machines that are low cost, modular, user serviceable, flexible, and closed-loop manufacturing.84 Both the ideology and the machines themselves incorporate resilience: the idea of being able to build society with the GCVS in developing areas, or rebuild in case of a major disaster, with machines that are themselves capable of withstanding change and being adaptable to change.

These machines are, at their essence, scaled-back replications of the modern machines found in industrial agriculture. So instead of completely repudiating the current system as it is, Jakubowski is seeking to simplify it on a smaller scale. An issue with OSE is that while Jakubowski asserts he is trying to create an off-grid system of living, his 81

Dennis McClung, email message to author, March 29, 2013.

“Open Source Ecology,” OSE, accessed January 26, 2013, http://opensourceecology.org.

83 “Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization,” TED, March 2011, accessed January 27, http://ted.com/talks/marcin_jakubowski.html.

82

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 66 machines require inputs from the grid itself (rubber, metal, batteries, etc.).85 And while he bills the GVCS as a ‘civilization starter kit,’ it only works if there is a civilization and corresponding infrastructure in place to provide the necessary external inputs. This is not to mention that the proliferation of these ideas and blueprints have been on the Internet and require complex modeling software. It seems evident that in the event of a true disaster – as in a doomsday prepper’s dream – OSE would fail and be incapable of accomplishing its main directive. Thus, while OSE can be thought of as incorporating resilience theory, it would be naïve to say that it embodies resilience.

Regardless of the utility of OSE, the concept, in addition to garden pool permaculture, help illustrate the imaginative potential for developing local, resilient community agriculture. Communities should place a focus on local agriculture in order to boost resilience and food security, and yield the benefits of strengthened social and economic ties.

84

“Open Source Ecology.”

Ashlee Vance, “The Post-Apocalypse Survival Machine Nerd Farm,” Business Week, November 1, 2012, accessed January 26, 2013, http://businessweek.com/articles/2012-11-01/the-post-apocalypsesurvival-machine-nerd-farm.

85

Chapter 3: Resilience in Environmental History The previous chapter focused on the idea of ‘local’ as inherently important to resilient community agriculture. Modern-day enthusiasts of resilient agriculture stress the uniqueness of these ideas, and, considering the last half-century of agricultural history, such a claim has strong validity. Local, resilient agriculture is in marked contrast to the current food system. However, a rudimentary investigation of pre-industrial food systems suggests that the concept of resilient community agriculture is far from novel. While ‘doomsday preppers’ and other resilient community advocates stress the need for resilient structures due to the dangers of societal grid collapse, food systems were historically both resilient and local not out of choice, but instead out of necessity and the manner in which society was structured.

Although a historically-grounded understanding is missing from the resilient community movement, agricultural history – when viewed through a resilience perspective – can provide fundamental evidence of the concept’s success. A quote attributed to historian Stephen Ambrose poetically speaks upon the aforementioned idea: “The past is a source of knowledge, and the future is a source of hope. Love of the past implies faith in the future.”1 This chapter attempts to demonstrate how a modern resilience perspective can be used to examine preexisting literature on the agriculture history of New England, and bolster support for resilient community agriculture.

16th-18th Century: Pre-Colonial/Colonial New England 1

“Stephen Ambrose,” National Geographic. accessed March 20, 2013, http://nationalgeographic.com/explorers/bios/stephen-ambrose.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 68 In Changes in the Land, William Cronon explores the ecological transformation of New England in the 1600s, as European colonists gained dominance over the indigenous Indians who had previously been living on the land for generations. New England was an area of ‘plenty’, with great diversity and abundance of resources. These resources included fish (Cape Cod was named after the abundance of Cod off the shore), waterfowl, beavers (which would play a major role in the fur trade, becoming a commodity of exchange and almost becoming extinct as a result), and wood (which was a shock to colonists who were used to the scarcity of wood back home).2 The land was a ‘patchwork’ of different environments, enabling individuals to use the land for varied purposes, seen most clearly in the difference between the locals and the colonists.3 Indian communities were characteristic of strong social bonds (through kinship), as well as mobility since these communities shifted geographically according to season.

During the winter they moved to inland settlements and kept population densities reflective of the available food sources; during the summer they moved back out to their coastal settlements and benefited from a plethora of food.4 This mobility (moving to/from semi-permanent settlements) allowed them to take advantage of the diverse environments the region had to offer. Although they heavily worked the land, mobility limited their impact on a single area and ensured that they would not deplete much needed resources.5 Their innate understanding of agriculture strongly resembled modern-day permaculture principles to obtain a high yield and keep the soil healthy: they avoided monocultures and superficial cleanliness/order, and utilized symbiotic relationships among the crops they 2

William Cronon, Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists, and the Ecology of New England (New York: Hill and Wang, 1983), 22-24, 99.

3 Ibid., 33.

4 Ibid., 37-39, 41.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 69 grew (e. g, cornstalks served as beanpoles, and beans served to fix nitrogen for the corn).6 These agricultural endeavors husbanded soils along with plants and animals, creating a system that worked to ‘renew’ itself, and never “needed to be fed with fresh land.”7 Europeans, on the other hand, proved to be the antithesis to the Indians’ way of living. They focused on building permanent settlements, and rejected ‘usufruct right’ (the concept of ‘common goods,’ which benefited Indians in developing social ties, and by having shared access to land and resources), instead opting for private settlements and treating the land and its resources as commodities meant for profit and control.8 The colonists thus took an inherently deficit-based view of the land, viewing the environment only as consisting of depleting commodities; the Indians had, conversely, taken an assetbased approach, seeing the land as a sum of renewable resources.

Land-clearing became a means for earning a quick profit, as the timber could either be sold, burnt and sold as potash (fertilizer made from the nutrient rich ashes), or burnt on the land in order to increase its fertility and thereby its monetary value for resale as farmland.9 Cronon condemns this deforestation as one of the “most sweeping transformations wrought by European settlement in New England,” leading to problems such as decreased soil water retention, flooding, soil erosion, temperature fluctuation, and severe habitat loss for edge-dwelling animals.10 Agricultural policies were also opposite to the sustainable (and resilient) policies employed by Indians. Europeans heavily plowed the same land year-after-year, reducing soil cover and soil fertility; the soil was further 5

Ibid., 54-55.

Ibid., 44.

7 Steven Stoll, Larding the Lean Earth (New York: Hill and Wang, 2002), 6.

8 Cronon, 53, 74.

9 Ibid., 118.

10 Ibid, 125-126.

6

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 70 drained by the over-reliance on maize as a staple crop and monoculture-like planting schemes (with high yield came great demands on the soil, as maize is an ‘exhausting crop’).11 Steven Stoll offers this commentary on the European “greed and waste”: Europeans arrived tens of thousands of years after the ancestors of the American Indians and went about dividing the land, cutting trees, damming rivers, shooting buffalo, ripping up mountains for minerals, killing off whales, and skimming fertility over and over again in every new place.

The free-for-all continued until a few people [in the 19th century] warned that game animals and timber supplies would not recover without human intervention.12 Thomas Morton, an English colonist writing in the early 17th century, published an account of his life and observations while living in New England, entitled The New England Canaan. He had spent much time observing the natives, as well as environmental changes initiated by European colonists. These early environmental critiques have lead to his work being considered by many as a great example of early environmental writing. He posed a simple, thought-provoking question to his readers: “If Indians lived richly by wanting little, then might it not be possible that Europeans lived poorly by wanting much?”13 In the 18th century, there continued to be a European focus on individual land plots for farming, which in itself had become a major part of life. In rural areas, people owned large plots of land on which they could farm, separated by a considerable distance – ‘shouting distance’ – from their neighbors.14 Whereas originally these settlements had been more dense and concentrated to provide for safety against dangers of Indian raids 11

Ibid., 147, 150.

Stoll, 6.

13 Michael P. Branch, Reading the Roots: American Nature Writing Before Walden (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2004), 63.

12

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 71 and attacks, this conflict had reached a peak and then declined as Indians were slowly pushed off of their lands; farming villages became unsurprisingly more spread out as this danger dissipated. Although carriages and roads became a more common feature in settlements during the end of the century, farmstead doorways still remained pointed towards the fields/barn rather than the road, suggesting the value of privacy and the farm over outsiders.15 As colonial families grew and reproduced, villages became more kin-oriented and home to “thick concentrations of extended families,” creating and strengthening a social network among neighbors, in which people “changed work,” and mutually exchanged tools, livestock, and labor.16 In this manner, colonial villages paradoxically began to resemble the socially resilient structures of the Indian villages they had supplanted.

Politically, many farmers were against ‘big government’ and strongly favored local autonomy, having been relatively independent and self-supporting, and therefore seeing limited need for external control on their community.17 19th Century: The Impact of the Industrial Revolution Before the Effects of the Industrial Revolution Arthur Rugg writes that, prior to the Industrial Revolution, farming was “purely an art, not a science” and that problems had been solved through trial-and-error, as “every farm in New England was an experiment station, where [problems] were being worked 14

J.M. Opal, Beyond the Farm: National Ambitions in Rural New England (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2008), 20.

15 Opal, 23.

16 Ibid., 31-32.

17 Ibid., 42.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 72 out slowly, painfully, but surely.”18 He stresses that New England farmers were able to strongly benefit from domestic/local manufactures, helping them become more “independent and self-supporting.”19 The ‘sense’ of community was bolstered by the plethora of community-centric celebrations that used to occur, at which “rum and hard cider played an important part.”20 He concludes his work in a similar manner to the aforementioned Ambrose quote, writing that the modern, 19th century farmer – as well as the general public – should love and adorn such ancestral farming roots.

James Pemberton Morris, living in the early 19th century, ran a farm that embodied many modern day principles of permaculture and resilience. As described by Rugg, it was through such trial-and-error with different planting arrangements and techniques that Morris was able to achieve success. He chose to plant many different species and create an “interlocking relationship” to maximize his yield and diversity, thereby achieving “remarkable cash flows” and going beyond mere subsistence farming.21 He let his barnyard animals roam the land, grazing and providing manure to his fields, and was an early advocate of agricultural education, sharing his findings with other enthusiasts.22 As discussed earlier, colonial farming settlements were initially clustered and densely compacted to protect against possible invasion and attack by natives. However, as time went on and European dominance came to be asserted, villages became more spread out, generally in a line rather than in centered cluster. Nonetheless, romantics of 18

Arthur P. Rugg, “Farm Life in Colonial New England” (paper read before the Worcester Society of Antiquity, Worcester, Massachusetts, March 7, 1893), 3-4.

19 Ibid., 11.

20 Ibid., 18.

21 Stoll, 80, 83.

22 Ibid., 85.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 73 the time tended to falsely portray New England villages as ‘dense, nucleated settlements,’ an idea that many still hold today.23 An understanding of the ‘true’ New England village is important as social relationships are a vital element to community resilience.

The New England village in the 19th century, although rarely compact, took on a strong sense of community that was independent from form. Joseph Wood describes in The New England Village as such: “most houses…were smaller, had fewer stories and less ornamentation, and were more dispersed about the settled landscape than we have commonly believed.”24 Most villages had community-sanctioned individual lots for farming, and not communal farming land as occasionally depicted in lessons on the ‘tragedy of the commons.’25 Any communal, or “open fields” tended to have clear divisions among the individual farmers sharing the field; the closest New England farmers tended to come to sharing communal lands often involved woodlots and grazing pastures, but these were still regulated based on individual owning rights (the small, close-knit community provided the mutually-enforced coercion that Hardin discusses as a ‘needed’ solution).26 Community bonds were enhanced by the sense of values and common social purpose shared by village members, as well as frequent interpersonal interaction in village common spaces generally located in the town center.27 The village functioned as “an interdependent, rural society carrying on family-oriented agriculture…[thereby providing] economic security for its inhabitants” as whole.28 23

1997), 2.

Joseph S. Wood, The New England Village (Baltimore: The John Hopkins University Press,

24

Ibid., 5.

Ibid., 52, 26 Ibid., 14; Garrett Hardin, “The Tragedy of the Commons,” Science 162, no. 3859 (1968): 124325

1248.

27 28

Wood, 53.

Ibid., 64.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 74 ‘Localism’ was at the center of creating this community cohesion, and was seen as a “value to be cherished.”29 New England farmers were not completely self-sufficient and self-supporting, and consequently participated in local trade within their town (and nearby towns) to supplement what they were lacking. The economy of a New England village was therefore “fundamentally local, and trade was dominated by local society...production and exchange remained largely dispersed within each town’s geographic realm,” and was a point of pride among villagers who were often willingly entangled in a web of “credit relationships” with one another based on strong trust.30 The War of 1812 saw the shut off of imports from British textiles by embargo; Americans responded by making their own textiles, and a strong local town/regional industry emerged.31 Unfortunately, after the end of the war, the burgeoning American textile industry suffered great losses when British textiles were again available (at an often cheaper price), representing an early example of the potentially negative consequences of globalization.

Town centers had always been a key element to the New England Village, providing needed central places to gather and fostering strong social connection and cohesion between the residents, despite the geographically scattered state of their homesteads and farms. Although villages did, for the most part, remain scattered, the Industrial Revolution brought a noticeable shift to the structure of these settlements.

‘Center-villages’ (named for the clustering in settlements at the village center) started to emerge in the aftermath of the Industrial Revolution. Wood writes: 29

Ibid., 64, 53, 66.

Ibid., 98.

31 Stoll, 111-115.

30

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 75 Increased trade, transportation, and communication facilitated growth and development of an interwoven and commercialized settlement landscape of which town centers became hubs of activity. New Englanders built substantial dwellings in the countryside and about meetinghouse lots at these town centers, forming center villages with new shops, stores, schools, churches, and town buildings….Rebuilt roads and turnpikes intersected at town centers-cum-center villages, reinforcing the comparative situation locally and solidifying the morphology, as now stately homes dressed the main thoroughfares framing the town common and leading from the center village.32 This explained the misguided romantic notions of the 19th century New England village: as romantics tended to pass through these elaborate town centers, they generalized the nature of the village simply from what they had immediately seen from their carriage. Town centers became hubs in a regional network of trade and commerce of agricultural and manufactured goods, allowing for town specialization and supplementation from neighboring towns, and reminiscent of the modern-day ‘Food Commons’ model discussed in the previous chapter.

The Impact of the Industrial Revolution J. M. Opal identifies the transforming force of the 19th century as being the rise of ‘ambition,’ which came about from the Industrial Revolution. This ambition for success became defined through industry and profit from manufacturing, and failure became something to be looked at as a ‘temporary setback’ and necessary for eventual success.33 Children’s books such as the ‘rags-to-riches’ stories by Horatio Alger embodied this new mentality of achieving success in the cities among the working class.34 32

Wood, 168-169.

Opal, 175.

34 Horatio Alger Jr., Ragged Dick (New York: Penguin Books, 1985).

33

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 76 During the second half of 19th century, there was a major shift in population from farms to cities. Rural areas still exhibited growth, but at a much slower rate than the predicted natural increase, meaning that overall there was a net out-migration: from 1860-1910, rural population fell from 80% to ~50% of the total population, as the population of major cities increased by almost 700%.35 This migration was prompted by the growing societal view that ‘people of high caliber’ (socially, intellectually, culturally, financially) naturally left the farms – areas of ‘stagnation’ – for the cities in order to make the most of their lives and improve their future.36 Although the Revolution created a large cultural/societal shift towards manufacturing and progress through industrialization, farmers and other agricultural laborers actually increased during this time to represent 80% of the workforce by 1820.37 Professor of Geology and 3rd President of Amherst College, Edward Hitchcock (1793-1864), grew up in Western Massachusetts and had little desire for farming as a teenager: It cannot be doubted that such a father would do all he could for the education of his children…[But due to economic constraints] nothing was before me but a life of manual labor…Farming was the only resort…I was treated very leniently by my father and brother, who probably did not know what to do with me, but saw plainly that I should not become distinguished as a farmer.38 Hitchcock’s early disdain for farming resembled a clear distinction that had arisen during the Industrial Revolution: one in which intellectual and academic pursuits came to be 35

Hal S. Barron, Those Who Stayed Behind: Rural Society in Nineteenth-Century New England (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1984), 30, 11.

36 Ibid., 39.

37 Opal, 67.

38 Edward Hitchcock, Reminiscences of Amherst College (Northampton: Bridgman & Childs, 1863), 281-282.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 77 looked upon with higher status than those of physical tasks. Hal Barron, in Those Who Stayed Behind, examines the socio-cultural split that occurred in the 19th century as a result of the Industrial Revolution. “City and country diverged” into industrial cities and rural farms, and although there was an increasing focus on industrial life and attitudes, rural farming attitudes continued to have an impact and influence on America.39 Barron argues that while much literature has focused on the rapid progress and change that occurred in urban industrial development, this has ignored the change that agriculture and rural villages went through as well.40 The growing focus on standardized and modernized public schooling in urbanized areas was seen as contrasting greatly to the traditional, ‘outdated’ schooling (often homeschooling) practices of “sleepy farm towns.”41 As a result, young people were the largest demographic to move away from farms, since opportunities on the farm were not attractive enough to either stem departure or encourage younger generations to move to the farms. The mass departure of young people meant the depopulation of townships and the end of family farms that had been in the family for generations. Generational conflict became severe during this time, as Barron explains, “knowledge that their departed sons and daughters were fueling growth of the national economy would have probably come as little consolation.”42 The population shift aroused anxiety and alarm in rural farming villages, as well as outside supporters of agriculture. New England agriculturalists worked a ‘fear campaign’ in farming villages and cities alike against industrial progress, pointing out 39

Barron, xi.

Barron, 1.

41 Opal, 101-102.

42 Barron, 67-68.

40

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 78 moral violations (equated to “wrongheadedness” and abandonment of community) and the financial failings of those who left for the cities.43 Proponents of agricultural reform tried to improve the financial success of local agriculture to provide an economic incentive to stay, establishing many nonprofit and non-governmental agricultural societies (on a local, county, regional, state level). The main goal of these organizations was to hold annual exhibitions to disseminate information, build ties within the agricultural community, and promote modern advances and successes in agriculture.44 A decrease in community and social resilience was not the only problem that depopulated farming towns faced: “roads deteriorated, property values depreciated, and local institutions fell into disuses and disrepair.…problems of the rural church were one focal point of this concern…The president of Bowdoin College sounded an alarming note the following year with an article entitled ‘Impending Paganism in New England.’”45 Farming towns also fell into conflict with impending facets of modernization. Turnpikes were viewed with strong mistrust, as they required the clearing of large patches of land, and separated communities (geographically, and in turn socially).46 Many saw these turnpikes as unnecessarily imposing on their communal independence, as they already had a rudimentary regional road network in place. ‘Shunpiking’ became a common form of protest, as people used these alternative roads at all costs to avoid paying for such “illegitimate contrivances.”47 19th Century Environmentalism 43

Ibid., 33-34.

Ibid., 33.

45 Ibid., 38.

46 Opal, 56.

47 Ibid., 63.

44

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 79 Larding the Lean Earth, by Steven Stoll, tells of the development of general environmental concern and fears over land degradation that emerged in the United States in the early 19th century, but then unfortunately fell apart in the middle of the century. He remarks on the notably different definitions of ‘improvement,’ as related to the land and agriculture, which arose during this time. There was a semantic conflict of improvement, as it was seen as either improving the land for the sake of the environment, or “enabling the land to be cultivated in the most prosperous way over the longest possible time.”48 The latter view was not only anthropocentric, but also, in terms of ideology, closely resembles the inherent issue with the modern sustainability movement.

In his 1818 address to the Agricultural Society in Virginia, former President James Madison commented on the errors of agriculture at the time: Any system, therefore, or want of system, which tends to make a rich farm poor, or does not tend to make a poor farm rich, cannot be good for the owner; whatever it may be for the tenant or superintendant, who has transient interest only in it. The profit, where there is any, will not balance the loss of intrinsic value sustained by the land.49 Madison called for improvements to agriculture for the benefit of the land, which would in turn benefit the farmer. 1819 marked the first great depression for the United States, and focused much attention on the agricultural sector as farmers “carried the majority of the nation’s private debt.”50 Questions arose concerning the profitability of farming, and how to best improve farm output.

In order to improve output, many farmers and agricultural supporters started recognizing that it was necessary to improve the land, as current farming methods started 48

Stoll, 21.

James Madison, Letters and Other Writings of James Madison, Volume 3 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Company, 1865), 78 49

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 80 to be seen as inefficient since they effectively involved “landwash and squander,” which hurt the future productive capabilities of the land.51 One of the first ‘tools’ for improving land fertility was the realization that the application of animal manure (namely cow dung) to the land greatly increased soil fertility.52 However, the benefit of keeping animals directly on the farm (as the Indians had done, as well as innovative farmers such as Morris) was not discovered by all; many complained of the heavy work it took to transport the manure from the barns to the field.53 Stoll commends the incredible awareness of farmers and agricultural supporters in the 1820s-1850s about environmental problems such as land degradation (“long before the science of ecology”), and the concern that emerged over how best to balance land use with economic gain.54 At this 19th century height of environmental concern, agriculturists “articulated an ideal of progress with geographical expansion, wealth without waste, that balanced ecological production with decomposition.”55 Land neglect had turned into a ‘land ethic,’ and a mutualistic relationship in which both the environment and human beings could benefit.

However, this changed around the 1850s, with two major developments that helped establish the foundations for modern-day agriculture that was chemically dependent and land intensive: (1) the establishment of the Guano market, a natural, nitrogen rich fertilizer that became a major commodity, and (2) the increasing popularity of the McCormick reaper (now having gone several revisions, and finally ‘usable’), 50

Stoll, 41.

Ibid., 45.

52 Ibid., 51.

53 Ibid., 53.

54 Ibid., 168.

55 Ibid., 169.

51

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 81 representing the industrialization of farming as this machine could magnify labor and allow for larger areas of land to be worked.56 Both of these developments did nothing to actually improve the land itself; ‘caring for the land’ was no longer needed, as external inputs could now boost (superficially) the productivity of the farm. An aesthetics-based ‘conservation ethic’ began to emerge in line with 19th century romanticism, and farms became removed from everyday life in exchange for well manicured lawns and landscapes that served no purpose other than aesthetic appeal.57 The end of the 19th century saw the foundations for the modern, 20th century farm (i.e., ‘progressive farming’), with a shift away from local, resilient agriculture. Farming no longer “looped nutrients,” instead relying on external inputs, and became focused on large-scale operations that were wholly dependent on science and technology to solve any problems that could (and would) arise.58 20th Century: Increasing Agricultural ‘Modernization’ and Impact of World Wars With the Industrial Revolution came a shift in agricultural output, as many farms became industrialized and commercialized to accommodate the demand of urban markets.59 However, it is important to note that these farms were still very different from modern-day factory-farming (in terms of scale and organization), as the majority of farms were still small family farms.60 Farms were still family-oriented, horses still outnumbered the self-powered tractor, specialization was limited, most crops were still picked and processed (e.g., corn) by hand, and agricultural work still composed the largest segment 56

Ibid., 187, 189, 191-192.

Ibid., 197.

58 Ibid., 209.

59 Barron, 3-4.

60 Ibid., 8.

57

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 82 of the labor force (although this was down to 25%).61 Most farming was still for subsistence, as farmers generally got the food and fuel they needed from the land they farmed.62 Within 50 years, this would all change.

After the end of WWI farm prices collapsed due to the end of the war-time demand for food surpluses (for troops abroad and war-ravaged countries counting on food imports). Farmers became upset over what they now perceived as ‘unfair prices,’ reflecting price anchoring, and the high profits that they had gotten used to during the war. Farmers expressed anger over not being able to cover their cost of production; many farmers started increasingly buying food products rather than producing them, simply because it had – for the first time ever – become more economical to do so.63 This was a major step in the growing dependence on non-local food, as well as government involvement in agriculture: whereas as colonial farmers had protested against government involvement, farmers were now pleading for support.

The Great Depression in 1929 made problems worse, and saw President Hoover sign the Agricultural Marketing Act (carried out by the newly created Farm Board) into power. Although far from the first act by the government to provide support for farmers and help stabilize prices, it was an ambitious piece of legislation that marked the first time that the federal government directly intervened in the market to guarantee minimum payments (subsidies) for certain crops.64 The Farm Board over-expanded, facing bankruptcy within only its first year; 4 years later, the Farm Board was replaced by the 61

Paul K. Conkin, A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008), 3-4, 16.

62 Ibid., 49.

63 Ibid., 32, 50.

64 Ibid., 30.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 83 Agricultural Adjustment Administration, which had its first year marked by “confusion and controversy.”65 Conkin, in A Revolution Down on the Farm, follows the foundations of modernday agriculture as they were laid down in the 20th century. He portrays the 1930s as having a monumental impact on agriculture, as the impact of political reform measures made during this time “have endured until the present…The human costs of this transition were enormous.”66 President Roosevelt, just like Hoover, had a strong desire to support farmers and agriculture, and worked to expand the programs established as precedent.67 After the end of WWII, during which war propaganda had called for ‘victory gardens’ and ‘home sustenance,’ food prices started to fall as production again surpassed demand (similar to what happened in the aftermath of WWI) and people started turning to the supermarket for goods rather than their farm. Electrification and advancements in food preservation (the “advent of frozen foods”) meant that people could now buy/consume vegetables from their grocery store at low prices all year round.68 As small farms either failed to maintain a profit or backed out of farming due to modern convenience and ease, farm consolidation increased rapidly as larger farms and businessmen bought up the ‘smaller folk.’69 While food supply in the United States was at (and often beyond) adequate levels, there was a growing fear in the 1950s/1960s that a ‘population explosion’ would surpass the abilities of the food production system. In 1968, Paul Ehrlich published The 65

Ibid., 57, 63, 66.

Ibid., 51.

67 Ibid., 52.

68 Ibid., 85,-86.

66

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 84 Population Bomb, expressing concern over the growing population and related starvation, and that “The battle to feed humanity is over.”70 Ehrlich was wrong, however, as from the 1940s to the 1970s, a series of advancements in “machinery, electrification, chemical inputs, and plant and animal breeding,” known popularly as the ‘Green Revolution,’ was the second Agricultural Revolution to greatly affect human beings and their means of agriculture.71 New, high-powered efficient farm machinery allowed for a single farmer to plant increasingly large areas of land; electrification provided the energy for new farm equipment that dramatically increased the output of dairy and meat; synthetic ammonia and chemical pesticides (many synthesized from the war chemical industry) lead to full control over the soil and its inhabitants, destroying any natural soil fertility; increased understanding of genetics allowed for artificial selection to ‘form’ animals and plants to better suit our needs, and provided a basis for genetically-modified crops and corporate control over breeds/strains.72 The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA), founded in 1962, incessantly worked to carry out its agenda of increasing agricultural production, regardless of whether “technological change would affect farm families or the environment.”73 The shift to the modern food system was therefore complete. Society became invested in a non-resilient model of food production and consumption, as non-local, cheap produce was the new norm. This was all at the cost of farms and farmers who were only kept profitable by federal government hand-outs and at the cost of severe land 69

Ibid., 87.

Paul R. Ehrlich, The Population Bomb (New York: Ballantine, 1968).

71 Conkin, 99.

72 Conkin, 100-122.

70

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 85 degradation. The benefits of social resilience from community farming ties and food disappeared as family connections to the land were severed.74 21st Century: Present-Day It is incredibly informative to examine changes in agriculture and resilience within a historical context. There was a clear shift from the local, resilient ways of community-based settlements and local food production of the 19th century, to the increasingly non-local, low resilient ways of the 20th century and on. There are now billions of people depending on a convoluted system of food production and distribution, that currently ‘works’ at a heavy social/economic/environmental cost, and is vulnerable to disturbance.

History has already provided a clear example of the problems that come with neglecting resilient agriculture. Fortunately, as discussed in the previous chapter, society appears to be headed for another shift, i.e., back to ‘local,’ in a full-circle kind of manner.

There continues to be a rise in ‘buy local’ movements as people are recognizing the benefits of local, resilient community agriculture. Considering the historical analysis of this chapter, the ‘local’ movement should be even further encouraged and validated by the historically-seen benefits of community closeness, food security, and lessened impact on the environment.

73 74

Stoll, 212.

Paul Roberts, The End of Food (New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 2008), 43.

Conclusion This thesis has provided a preliminary exploration of how the concepts of resilience and community resilience can be applied to better understand the modern ‘resilient community’ movement. At its core, resilience theory focuses on the ability of a system to withstand, and recover from, potential disturbance. Community resilience adds people into the equation, thereby incorporating the ability of a human system to prepare for potential disturbance and become stronger through social ties. While the term ‘resilience’ – especially in this human context – has often been used interchangeably with ‘sustainability,’ there is an arguable and significant difference. ‘Sustainability’ advocates seek to maintain our way of life in a manner that has less of an environmental impact; ‘resilience’ advocates work to improve and prepare a system for any change that might occur. While a resilient system is also a sustainable one, the converse does not always hold true.

The ‘resilient community’ is an emerging ideological concept that is focused on how to establish and ensure that a community is resilient. Geographical focus has been generally limited to the United States, as this concept was first circulated across the blogs and websites of American thinkers. While there have been communities which demonstrate resilience, ‘resilient communities’ in this thesis refer specifically to the ideas of the resilient community movement. In the previous chapters I have focused solely on one area of resilient communities: food. Food is a topic that is easy to appreciate, as it is one of the three most vital needs for human survival (next to water and oxygen).

However, the resilient community concept is a multidimensional framework that consists of several separate, yet highly interrelated areas that are often difficult to disentangle,

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 87 including: energy, transportation, waste, security, and economy. Therefore, to better illuminate the entire resilient community concept, it is valuable to briefly consider two other dimensions – transportation and energy – besides the clearly important food component.

Resilient Community Transportation The standard for transportation is the personal automobile, the wastefulness of which is incredibly apparent. Low fuel efficiency and single-rider trips (i.e., a sole rider, the driver, in a 5-person vehicle) are the major sources of waste. Despite rising gas prices, a 2012 Gallup poll indicated that (a) the price of gas is not high enough to induce a change in driving habits, and (b) increases in gas prices are seen as temporary rather than permanent.1 Public transportation offers a more environmentally-friendly alternative, but still incurs a reliance on fossil fuels and is therefore not ideal. The oil industry is an incredibly convoluted system that always appears to be unsteady, for a plethora of reasons concerning politics, geographical location, financial situation, etc.

Bicycling offers a more resilient and green method of transportation. The League of American Bicyclists is an organization that was founded in Rhode Island in 1880 to promote better conditions for cyclists.2 The organization runs the nation-wide “Bicycle Friendly America Program,” encouraging communities to actively support cyclists, and rewarding communities with different certification levels based on assessments of bicycle accessibility and cyclist support.3 Massachusetts and Maine are in the top ten states in 1

Frank Newport, “In U.S., $5.30 Gas Would Force Major Life Changes,” Gallup, March 8, 2012, accessed April 8, 2013, http://www.gallup.com/poll/153176/gas-force-major-life-changes.aspx.

2 Barbara Sturges, “The History of the League of American Bicyclists,” League of American Bicyclists, accessed April 11, 2013, http://www.bikeleague.org/about/history.php.

3 “Bicycle Friendly America Program,” League of American Bicyclists, accessed April 8, 2013, http://www.bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/index_about.php.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 88 terms of bicycle-friendliness, although no New England community has yet received a ‘Platinum’ certification, which is the highest possible level of certification (similar to the rating system for LEED certification of energy-efficient buildings).4 In 2011, Boston, MA, launched the Hubway bike-share program (in partnership with New Balance), enabling Boston residents to pay to temporarily rent bicycles from convenient bike hubs located around the city.5 There is a flexible pricing model, ranging from a 24hr pass to annual membership, as users rent a bike from a hub that can be conveniently returned to any other hub. The program has seen incredible adoption by the citizens, as Boston saw a 31% increase in cycling from 2010-2012, which has been attributed to the program.6 The program, currently seasonal and limited to the city, is looking to expand its network to surrounding areas and potentially go year-round; there has also been great interest in this program from other Massachusetts towns, as well as other states.7 Bicycles do, however, break down and require maintenance and repair, involving non-local commodities such as rubber tires. There is thus no better resilient transportation method than walking. Walking is solely dependent upon one’s self (other than energy requirements and being in a healthy condition). In terms of the geographical confines of a resilient community, geographical distances are implied to be small enough to be capable of being traversed by foot (and at most, by bike). ‘Walkability’ – i.e., “how conducive the 4

“Current Bicycle Friendly Communities 2012,” League of American Bicyclists, PDF, accessed April 11, 2013, http://bikeleague.org/programs/bicyclefriendlyamerica/communities/pdfs/bfc_master_fall2012.pdf 5 “Hubway-How It Works,” Hubway, accessed April 8, 2013, http://thehubway.com/how-itworks.

6 Eric Moskowitz, “As Hubway Closes for Winter, Officials Look to Expand,” Boston Globe, December 1, 2012, accessed April 8, 2013, http://boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2012/12/02/hubway-eclipses-rides-closes-forwinter/m6wN00i7CxEqF7lzhhnLxJ/story.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 89 built environment is to walking,” or, how ‘walk able’ an area is– is a growing focus in environmental psychology and has yielded great insights on walking behavior and resilience.8 Research has shown that the more conducive an area is to walking, the more likely pedestrians are to walk, and the more likely they are to use public transportation (which is an additional alternative to personal automobile use).9 Rogers et al. (2010) studied the social benefits of walkability through an examination of social capital, defined as “a measure of an individual’s or group’s networks, personal connections, and involvement.” The study found that high walkability was directly correlated with high social capital, which in turn had implications for improving social resilience as well as psychological resilience for the individual (by fostering social interactions and increasing such interpersonal traits such as trust, diversity, and friendships).10 Walking behavior, in combination with exposure to nature, has demonstrated the benefits of ‘nature as a restorative,’ in which psychological well-being is reinforced.11 Resilient community transportation intrinsically values walking above all other forms of transportation, followed closely by bicycling, and then finally public transportation. Although public transportation is not ideal, it is still more resilient than a reliance on single-rider automobiles, and is a necessity considering the structure of 7

Ibid.

Ko Ko Lwin and Yuji Murayama, “Modeling of Urban Green Space Walkability: Eco-friendly Walk Score Calculator,” Computers, Environment, and Urban Systems 35, (2011): 408-420.

9 Carol M. Werner, Barbara B. Brown, and Jonathan Gallimore, “Light Rail Use is More Likely on ‘Walkable’ Blocks: Further Support for Using Micro-Level Environmental Audit Measures,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 30, no. 2 (2010): 206-214.

10 Shannon H. Rogers et al., “Examining Walkability and Social Capital as Indicators of Quality of Life at the Municipal and Neighborhood Scales,” Applied Research in Quality of Life 6, no. 2 (2011): 201213.

11 Richard M. Ryan et al., “Vitalizing Effects of Being Outdoors and in Nature,” Journal of Environmental Psychology 30, no. 2 (2010): 159-168.

8

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 90 modern-day human settlements. By incorporating walkability into the community layout through an allowance for easily accessible paths to walking and biking, communities can yield benefits of community resilience and resilient transportation.

Transition Towns and Energy Resilience It must be noted that the resilient community is not the only movement rooted in community resilience. Rob Hopkins developed the ‘Transition towns’ concept (also known as the Transition movement) around 2006, and gained notable attention when he published The Transition Handbook in 2008 through his UK-based nonprofit organization.12 The book was given immediate notice by the government, as the energy and climate secretary of the UK publicly declared the movement as “absolutely essential,” and the book “came fifth in MPs' list of summer reading.”13 The crux of Hopkins’ argument is that the inevitable downsides of peak oil and climate change cannot be ignored, and we must, as a unified society with bottom-up regulation, transition away from oil.14 Hopkins suggests that to facilitate a transition away from oil, we must also change our high-energy state of living. For example, he raises the query of how, “hydrogen offers the illusion that we can keep motoring into the distant future, but where will the electricity required to create hydrogen come from?”15 Under Hopkins’ guidance, Totnes, 12

“About Transition Network,” Transition Network, accessed April 9, 2013. http://transitionnetwork.org/about.

13 Madeleine Bunting, “Beyond Westminster’s Bankrupted Practices, a New Idealism is Emerging,” Guardian, May 31, 2009, accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/may/31/reform-transition-a-new-politics.

14 Rob Hopkins, The Transition Handbook (White River Junction: Chelsea Green Publishing, 2008), 17-43.

15 Ibid., 72.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 91 England, became the first Transition Town.16 Many practical applications of the Transition movement evolved in Totnes including Oil Vulnerability Auditing (a riskassessment tool), structured workshops, a local food directory, an alternative local currency (inspired partly by the ‘BerkShares’ in Massachusetts, mentioned in chapter 2), and an elementary story-telling outreach initiative.17 Interestingly, while Transition Town Totnes was founded to focus on energy, the group surpassed their original goals, and redefined energy into other categories (such as food and transportation) and specialized projects.18 The Transition movement has spread across the UK, and even into the United States (e.g., there is an official Transition Amherst group).19 The Transition movement clearly embodies the ‘energy’ aspect of the resilient community, with overlap extending to other dimensions. However, this movement differs from the resilient community movement in one important way: Hopkins writes that environmental awareness and activism should strive “to generate this sense of elation, rather than the guilt, anger and horror that most campaigning invokes.”20 This differs sharply from the apprehension of dystopian dread that is embodied by many resilient community advocates. The Transition movement also seems to have more direction and guidance, although that is most likely the result of this movement having emerged from a central source with an identifiable founder. By contrast, the resilient community movement is vastly spread out across the Internet, and across many different 16

“Welcome to Transition Town Totnes,” Transition Town Totnes, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org.

17 Hopkins, 194-201.

18 “Energy-Transition Town Totnes,” Transition Town Totnes, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.transitiontowntotnes.org/groups/energy.

19 “Transition Amherst-About.” Transition Amherst. Accessed April 9, 2013. http://www.transitionamherst.org/blog.

20 Hopkins, 15,

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 92 organizations. The resilient community also has a more explicit multi-dimensional focus that extends beyond simply energy concerns. An integration of the Transition Towns model into the resilient community concept could prove very beneficial for the success of the latter.

Implications for Food Security The most immediate question that emerges from a study of resilient community agriculture is simple: can the world feed itself by relying on local food production? This question, while readily apparent, is also an obviously difficult one to answer.

Methodologically speaking, it makes sense to first analyze the potential for food selfsufficiency on a community level.

Northampton, MA Case Study In April of 2010, the Northampton Food Security Group (an ad hoc collaborative of several food-conscious groups based in Northampton, MA) commissioned the Conway School of Landscape Design to create a report on the potential for the city to shift to a completely local food system. The report, titled “Feed Northampton: First Steps Toward a Local Food System,” mimicked concerns previously discussed, including resilience, environmental degradation, and the complexity of the current global food system. The authors of the report expressed worry about “the future of Northampton’s food supply in the face of diminishing oil availability, climate change, and loss of farmland,” and described this as the impetus for developing “a comprehensive vision for local food that promotes food security, sustainable practices, small-scale farming ventures, and increased vitality in the local economy.”21 21

Abrah Dresdale et al., “Feed Northampton: First Steps Toward a Local Food System” (paper prepared for the Northampton Food Security Group, Northampton, Massachusetts, 2010), 1.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 93 A brief historical analysis asserted that while the economy of the city was traditionally based in agriculture for much of its existence, the end of World War II saw a decline in local farming that was prevalent across the state, due to competition from larger, industrial farming operations.22 The authors stress that the unfortunate change in the city’s function as it went from an “agriculturally based economy to a service economy that produces very little of its own food,” and declare that there should be a return to local consumption (i.e., ‘re-localization’) given the supportive and progressive climate of the area.23 The 80+ page report is incredibly ambitious and one of the most detailed reports to be released concerning local agriculture in the Pioneer Valley. It incorporates multilayer GIS modeling, with a focus on land characteristics such as topography, population density, transportation structures, soil quality and composition, and hydrology. By analyzing these layers on both a separate and unified level, the authors claim that this reveals the potential for land that might not – on a purely superficial level – be recognized for its agricultural capabilities.24 Northampton was classified into 4 major ‘districts’ based on population and land use (urban, suburban, rural, agriculture). These districts were analyzed separately in order to provide specifically tailored analyses and recommendations (based on agricultural-use case studies, and modern alternative agricultural techniques such as permaculture) for maximizing agricultural potential in realistic ways.25 22

Ibid., 12.

Ibid., 12, 6.

24 Ibid., 11.

25 Ibid., 24.

23

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 94 The final analysis is based on several important, yet slightly ambiguous, assumptions: all possible farm land is farmed (lawns, rooftops, etc.) to the point where ½ of the land in Northampton is agriculturally productive (forests are cited for ‘livestock browsing and nut crops,’ and deforestation is not mentioned); both conventional and alternative agricultural techniques are utilized “where appropriate” (‘appropriate’ is not specified); and lower-than-average agricultural output land will be balanced by higherthan-average output land.26 Additionally, the necessity of inter-connected “system-wide hubs” for food storage, processing, and distribution, is stated as being vital.27 However, the potential for regional networks and hub connectivity is completely avoided, as the focus of this study is completely localized to the confines of the city (this is understandable, but hinders food resilience).

Based on popularly-cited food calculations determined by Christian Peters (of the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Cornell University), the team found that Northampton could theoretically meet 111% of its food needs on a typical vegetarian diet; on the average U.S. meat diet, this dropped dramatically to 47%.28 A readily apparent and not unsurprising conclusion (given the considerable literature on the topic) is that a meat-based diet is incredibly intensive and detrimental to maximizing food productivity and, thus, inhibits complete reliance on local food production.

The report ends with a vision of Northampton by 2015 that includes a remarkably ambitious timeline and unashamedly capitalizes on picturesque and optimistic imagery: Each year, more and more food is cultivated by Northampton residents. Food production is occurring in the rich alluvial and the thin, rocky soils alike, yielding 26

Ibid., 54.

Ibid., 56.

28 Ibid., 55.

27

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 95 nutrient-dense, delicious products. Northamptonites [the colloquial term for a Northampton resident] are enjoying breakfast provided by their local food system. They are enjoying apple butter from apples grown and processed in the western hills; they are frying up salty bacon strips from the pigs running free in the orchards; and they are making scrambled eggs from their neighbors’ chickens, home fries from potatoes grown in the Meadows, and a fresh salad from their rooftop garden....It’s 2015, and communities all over New England have caught wind of the success of Northampton’s vibrant local food system, and its positive impact on Northampton’s food security and town-wide sense of pride and self-sufficiency....In a new era of expensive and scarce fossil fuels, Northampton is prepared to provide food for its citizens, along with the additional benefits of boosting its local economy, strengthening its social fabric, and fortifying its residents’ ability to live more sustainably.29 In February of 2011, a local newspaper made mention of the report as having inspired the community to successfully oppose development plans to build an extensive convention center on prime agricultural land. Lisa DePiano, a farmer and one of the individuals who commissioned the report, expressed her belief in the long-term potential for this document: “I usually am a little wary of reports…I think of them as things that get written and then sit on a shelf collecting dust. I see this as a living document, though.”30 Three years after the report, the effects of its findings and assertions appear limited to the establishment and bolstering of local activist groups in the area. There has been modest mention of the report, other than a February 2013 Boston Globe article that praised Northampton for its ‘green ideas.’31 29

Ibid., 61.

Mark Roessler, “Feed Northampton’: Origins and Future,” Valley Advocate, February 17, 2011, accessed April 8, 2013, http://valleyadvocate.com/article.cfm?aid=13159.

31 Victoria Hughes, “Six Green Ideas from Northampton,” Boston Globe, February 24, 2013, accessed April 8, 2013, http://bostonglobe.com/magazine/2013/02/24/six-green-ideas-fromnorthampton/5ta0L5sMj7y51JfJ0euIYJ/story.html.

30

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 96 The results of this Northampton case study could, presumably, be expanded to other towns in the Pioneer Valley such as Amherst and Hadley, which are already home to many farms and a strong ‘buy local’ presence. Additionally, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, founded as a land-grant institution with extension services, would help provide the educational resources necessary for farming the region. Although additional research would have to be done, the Pioneer Valley seems to have high potential in embodying the resilient community agriculture model and reaching a high percentage of local and regional food self-sufficiency.

New England New England, as recognized by the EPA, is relatively progressive in terms of local agriculture and attitudes towards local, with a plethora of local farms and farmers’ markets. 32 The “New England Good Food Vision 2060” is a working-document (i.e., ‘dynamic draft’) penned by several academic scholars throughout the course of two annual New England Food Summits, all organized by a non-profit, Food Solutions New England.33 The document presents a “broad vision” of how local agriculture in New England could look in the future given certain assumptions, such as modest population growth, expansion of farmland, restoration efforts for marine environments, change in diet (less red meat and empty calories), and public support of local agriculture. After using basic statistical food calculations, the authors ultimately conclude that: It appears we could reasonably grow at least one-half of our food (measured by acreage required) within the region to help maintain a very rich, diverse, and healthy diet. In the event of more dire scarcity …by developing a thriving 32

“Region 1: EPA New England,” EPA, accessed April 8, 2013, http://epa.gov/region1/agriculture/index.html.

33 “About Us,” Food Solutions New England, accessed April 9, 2013, http://foodsolutionsne.org/content/about.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 97 regional food system we would have the capacity to produce even more of our food—perhaps as much as 80%—by adopting diets with even less animal protein… it is unlikely that New England could – or would even want to – produce all of its own food. 34 The team behind the document also stress that a ‘local’ food system would still accept global inputs: “substantial imports of grain, vegetable oil, peanuts, sugar, tropical fruit”).35 They portray this acceptance of global inputs as a “good” characteristic, since it creates a “global as well as a regional food culture” and motivates “our responsibility to connect to and support sustainable agriculture in other places.”36 The positive spin of these claims seems misguided, however, since global inputs only support inherent vulnerability in a local food system. Products such as ‘tropical fruit’ are luxuries and should not be considered necessary foods that would have to be imported. A food culture is fundamentally based on local/regional/national differences in global food, not on its integration with global food; a ‘local’ food culture could be just as vibrant as a global one. The document website stated that the goal was to publish a finalized version of the document by February 2013. However, as of April 2013, there have been no updates to the document since April 2012, and no posted messages since August of that same year.

The assumptions that are made in formulating this ‘vision’ are highly idealistic, and probably not realistic unless there was a major external force to elicit them.

The World?

On the topic of whether or not local alternative means of agriculture can feed the world, Steven Stoll writes: 34

Brian Donahue et al., “The New England Good Food Vision 2060: Healthy Food and Sustainable Farming” (paper prepared for Food Solutions New England, Durham, New Hampshire, 2012).

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 98 …[industrial agriculture] inputs are going to be less plentiful and more costly in the twenty-first century, which should favor some of the more traditional methods pushed by alternative farming organizations. But such methods must be efficient, which in most cases will require that farming remain mechanized, scientifically informed, and chemically supported. Only such an agriculture will be able to feed 9 billion people by 2050.37 Stoll’s opinion appears to be the majority, as most environmental thinkers recognize that a small farm, local model of agriculture would be unable to feed the world.38 Some studies have potentially suggested that organic can feed the world, but organic and local are far from being the same thing ( ‘organic’ in this sense is the modern, ‘industrial organic’ that has emerged through agribusiness schemes).39 Organic agriculture might either supplement or supplant conventional agriculture, but it will still utilize a vulnerable, global food system of production and distribution.40 Proponents of a local agriculture model feeding the world frequently declare that the “global food shortage is a myth…the problem is more one of equity and distribution than shortage,” and that the agricultural land base would not need to be increased given this fact of over-production, even if local/resilient models of agriculture produces less output than conventional agriculture.41 However, even if this were to be true, the fact that distribution is a problem still remains. The reason why the current system is so successful 37

Paul K. Conkin, A Revolution Down on the Farm: The Transformation of American Agriculture since 1929 (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2008), 199.

38 Robert Paarlberg, “Attention Whole Foods Shoppers,” Foreign Policy, May/June 2010, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/04/26/attention_whole_foods_shoppers.

39 Barry Estabrook, “Organic Can Feed the World,” Atlantic, December 5, 2011, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2011/12/organic-can-feed-the-world/249348/.

40 David Biello, “Will Organic Food Fail to Feed the World?,” Scientific American, April 25, 2012, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=organic-farming-yields-andfeeding-the-world-under-climate-change.

41 David Suzuki, “Small Farms May be Better for Food Security and Biodiversity,” Huffington Post Canada, June 16, 2011, accessed April 9, 2013, http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/david-suzuki/foodsecurity_b_877130.html.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 99 in producing such a large abundance of food is that industrially produced agriculture can be distributed to people far away from large, standardized, efficiently-run factory farms.

The problem with a small/resilient farms model is that some areas are more capable of growing food than others for a variety of different reasons (e.g., Western Massachusetts versus inner-city Boston), and even with a regional network in place for food distribution, there would be differential food resilience.42 While there are optimistic stories about families – or even small communities – becoming self-sufficient using local agriculture, there is no realistic precedent for larger scale success, and the stories of smaller scale success remain anecdotal and specialized to that community at best.43 So if ‘no’…How? To use simple reasoning, our population and society is dependent upon this industrial system because our population was only able to surpass our ‘carrying capacity’ because this system was in place. The fears and dangers of the ‘population bomb’ were ultimately avoided due to the industrial advances in food production and conventional agriculture. Global society has, for the last half century, been built upon a model of global, conventional, industrial agriculture. It has become fully dependent upon and supported by this system, in a vicious cycle that is impossible to escape without negative consequence. Considering the already prevalent difficulties with encouraging and increasing local food production and consumption, resilient community agriculture does not seem like a plausible model for feeding the world (yet alone New England) unless there is a two-fold change: (1) a reduction in population, and (2) a change in diet.

42

Shannon Hayes, “Instead of Trying to Feed the World, Let’s Help It Feed Itself,” Yes!, February 20, 2013, accessed April 9, 2013, http://yesmagazine.org/blogs/shannon-hayes/instead-trying-feedworld-lets-help-it-feed-itself.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 100 A smaller population is more resilient because it allows for the formation of a small, close-knit community that can promote social contact and networking (which, as previously discussed, is important for social resilience). Less people also, theoretically, means more potential resource allocation per person, creating systems of redundancy and abundance. A change in diet is necessary since the current level of meat consumption requires intensive inputs and high land use, which is an incredibly inefficient use of land and resources. Both of these necessary conditions are obviously unlikely to happen out of choice, as they would require a major cultural shift. Alan Weisman, doubtful that “One day, perhaps, we will learn to control our appetites, or our duplication rates,” eerily proposes that a policy of ‘one child per mother’ (similar in concept to China’s birth policy) would be the “intelligent solution”: …[such a policy] would require the courage and the wisdom to put our knowledge to the test. It would be poignant and distressing, but not fatal….Today we indulge in more only at our peril. At such far-more-manageable numbers, however, we would have the benefit of all our progress plus the wisdom to keep our presence under control. That wisdom would come partly from losses and extinctions too late to reverse, but also from the growing joy of watching the world daily become more beautiful.44 As poetic as Weisman’s resolve may seem, issues such as population reduction raise extreme concerns such as infanticide, eugenics, and limitations to human rights, and therefore are unlikely to ever happen on a global scale.

Future Directions Potential Implications for an Environmental Studies Education 43

Adele Peters, “How to Feed a Town: The Incredible Edible Project,” GOOD, March 5, 2013, accessed April 15, 2013, http://good.is/posts/how-to-feed-a-town-the-incredible-edible-project.

44 Alan Weisman, The World Without Us (New York: Picador, 2007), 344, 349-350.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 101 The importance of environmental education initiatives is unchallenged: they raise awareness and increase pro-environmental support. If people are educated enough to recognize environmental issues as infringing upon their own wellbeing, they will generally adopt a pro-environmental disposition (which fuels the motivation and power behind environmental policy and advocacy groups, such as Environment America)45.

With the increasing recognition of environmental issues by the public and the academic world, institutions of higher education have been increasingly adopting and bolstering their programs in environmental studies and science (e.g., Amherst College established an Environmental Studies major in 2007). Most of this education is focused on sustainability; this is seen, for instance, in land-grant institutions such as the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, which was historically founded in the late 19th century to provide and promote an agricultural education.

As discussed in Chapter 1, sustainability is not only encompassed by resilience theory, but also falls short of resilience in failing to provide a true direction and ultimate goal for change (i.e., how does one ‘sustain’ something indefinitely, versus seeking to actively improve and strengthen a system’s defenses). Resilience is sustainable, but also more realistic of the uncertainty of the world. This uncertainty and concern over the future of the environment is a fundamental tenet of an environmental education.

Aldo Leopold conveyed such an inevitable outcome when he wrote about how “One of the penalties of an environmental education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.”46 Such a quote only bolsters the reasoning for spreading environmental 45

“About Environment America.” Environment America. Accessed April 14, 2013. http://environmentamerica.org/page/ame/about-environment-america.

46 Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac with Essays on Conservation From Round River (New York: Ballantine Books, 1966), 197.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 102 education and awareness. Research by Borden and Schettino, as well as other foundational studies in environmental psychology, has suggested that environmental education is the best way to get people committed to pro-environment action and internalize pro-environment attitudes.47 Therefore, it would make sense for an environmental education to include a focus, at least partially, on resilience. It can be easily integrated into a sustainability-focused curriculum, as seen with the frequent overlap and substitution of these words, demonstrating their closeness. Additionally, in terms of goal-based learning, resilience theory offers practical goals and tangible actions. As a Teaching Assistant for a class entitled “Introduction to Sustainable Living,” one of the most frequent questions that I get from students is: ‘How do I be more sustainable, and how do I know if an action is sustainable?’ Quite simply, if an action increases the resilience of a community (or other system) by decreasing vulnerability to external factors, it is inherently sustainable. A commonly-referenced ‘sustainable’ action is the avoidance of disposable plastic water bottles. Not using a disposable plastic water bottle is sustainable; it is resilient as well, since plastic water bottles come from a complex privatized chain of production with high external energy inputs, and create pollution which harms and increases the vulnerability of the natural environment.

An environmental studies education, especially at a traditional liberal arts institution, places focus primarily on the theoretical and abstract, rather than the practical.

History is thus a large part of the program. Chapter 3 attempted to take this modern sociological lens of resilience and resilient communities, and overlay it onto the existing 47

Richard J. Borden and Andrew P. Schettino, “Determinants of Environmentally Responsible Behavior,” The Journal of Environmental Education 10, no. 4 (1979): 35-39.

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 103 environmental history narrative. Although simple, it does suggest that resilience theory can be applied to environmental history and used to help enhance an understanding of the roots of environmental issues.

Future Research and Final Conclusions Future research should continue to examine the resilient community concept, especially in regard to practicality and implementation. While the theoretical underpinnings of the concept have been established, there appears to be a lack of consensus about what exactly ‘resilient structures’ consist of, as well the degree of plausibility in implementing such structures in modern society. As resilience gains a stronger foothold in environmental awareness, it will be interesting to see what directions it takes. Sociological methods should be utilized to interview and examine these communities, especially in terms of social and psychological resilience. Importantly, as many ‘success stories’ consist of anecdotal evidence, sound quantitative research could shed light on the true resilience of a community, and demonstrate – for example – the ability of a resilient community to be self-sufficient and resilient in food in quantifiable terms. Scientific research and academic thought could greatly supplement the resilient community movement, which, at the moment, seems too disorganized for such grounded endeavors.

Most likely, resilient communities will continue to present an ‘alternative lifestyle,’ separate from mainstream society. Stephen Coyle, in trying to provide a “comprehensive action plan” for creating sustainable and resilient communities, recognizes that future success is heavily dependent upon involving the public and

THE RESILIENT COMMUNITY 104 garnering their full support.48 Even though the resilient community concept does not seem likely at a national level (or beyond), there does appear to be potential for regional resilience such as in the Pioneer Valley. Additionally, the more communities that adopt a resilience framework, the more resilient society becomes as a whole and the less environmental impact it will have. Advocates should continue to make a push for local agriculture (i.e., encouraging local farms, farmers, ‘buy local’ campaigns, nonprofits, etc.), as the movement is gaining momentum is already well-known by the public, and ‘local’ is vital to community resilience.

This research started out of a desire to find a solution to the environmental problems associated with our lifestyle. The resilient community concept represents an answer, through a paradigm shift in essentially all aspects of the modern lifestyle; paradigm shifts are generally slow-going. Only if a major disturbance (e.g., societal collapse or disconnect, such as with Cuba) were to occur would resilient communities quickly find themselves at the forefront of society, rather than the background.

Nonetheless, considering the uncertainties of climate change and other source of apprehension, it seems likely that resilient community structures (such as local agriculture and/or walkability, if not the full resilient community concept) will start to become adopted on an increasing scale as decision makers everywhere recognize the need for anticipatory safe measures.

48

Stephen Coyle, Sustainable and Resilient Communities: A Comprehensive Action Plan for Towns, Cities, and Regions (Hoboken: John Wiley & Sons, 2011), xi-xii.

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