Can we weather the energy descent?
“We are entering an unavoidable period of energy descent.” ”“
Genesis Farm
Genesis ”“ the name says it all. This is a place for beginnings, an organic farm that”™s run on solar power and located 10 miles from the Delaware Water Gap in New Jersey.
It is also a center for ecological learning or “earth literacy,” led by Sister Miriam MacGillis, a member of the Dominican Sisters of Caldwell, N.J. With an international reputation, she has been named as one of the planet”™s top 15 “green religious leaders” by Grist magazine. Sister MacGillis”™ insight has made Genesis Farm the focal point of “deep transition.”
More recently Genesis Farm has become a part of the international Transition movement, which seeks to address the growing uncertainties caused by climate change and peak oil. I spent a long weekend at this beautiful place in the company of 25 other individuals of all ages trying to understand what “deep transition” really means and what to do about it.
The Transition movement began in 2005 in a small town in Britain called Totnes. Hopeful signs emanating from this little town can now be seen around the globe that the human species is discovering another way of living on the Earth. It is still a tiny spark, to be sure, but as the negative trends gain momentum this movement will likewise gain steam and a deeper commitment will emerge.
Creating resilient communities
“Deep transition” suggests that the end of the oil age is merely only a chapter in the history of a universe that has been around for billions of years. To be sure, trying to absorb the notion that we are a part of a vast cosmology will probably be difficult for many people having difficulty filling their gas tank.
A powerful theme at Genesis Farm is addressing the need to create resilient communities that can weather the energy descent that is to come. As one writer put it ”“ “We must plan for change and ride its waves, or be caught unprepared and possibly knocked sideways by its force.” (Think Japan confronting a tsunami). Rather than wallowing in gloom and doom, which is all too easy to do, we can begin to pull together to rebuild the communities we live in by developing a local food economy through community gardens and backyard gardens while supporting in every way possible the farms within our food shed.
A bumper sticker on several cars says it all ”“ “No Farms, No Food!” As arable farmland is steadily eaten up by developments at a rate of a million acres annually, 40 percent of the U.S. corn crop burned up in the gas tank, floods, freezes and droughts regularly impacting traditional food baskets, the bumper sticker begins to have the power to hit us right in the stomach. Meals at Genesis Farm, however, were sustainable, entirely vegan. No animals eating seven pounds of grain to make one pound of meat.
Community supported agriculture
The U.S. food economy is heavily dependent on fossil fuels, the heavy use of which is degrading the soil in much of our farmland. As fossil fuels become more expensive, food will become more unaffordable. There are solutions but they involve the public becoming more hands-on to produce food for the table.
Hilltop Hanover Farm located between Ossining and Yorktown, a community supported agriculture (CSA) farm, as is Genesis Farm, sold out all its shares this year. A CSA farm sells shares at the beginning of the season, which helps the farmer buy seeds and supplies to get started. The investors are then supplied with fresh food weekly through the growing season. Hilltop is vigorously supporting multiple re-skilling classes, events that reteach those skills that were part of the culture of all families less than 100 years ago.
Meanwhile globalization is encouraging developing countries to emulate the American lifestyle, a style which is summed up in the words of Joanna Macy, writer and Buddhist scholar: “The economic system is doomed because it measures its success by how fast it uses up the living body of Earth ”“ extracting resources beyond Earth”™s capacity to renew, and spewing out wastes faster than Earth”™s capacity to absorb. It is now in runaway mode devouring itself at an accelerating rate.”
These are jarring words but unfortunately all too true. No resource is boundless and that fact runs in the face of the American belief in endless opportunities to grow incurring no negative consequences. Genesis Farm, with its inspired leader, is endeavoring to teach us how to decrease oil dependency while building resilience in the coming age.
Surviving the Future explores a wide range of subjects to assist businesses in adapting to a new energy age. Maureen Morgan, a transit advocate, is on the board of Federated Conservationists of Westchester. Reach her at maureenmorgan10@verizon.net.