A picture illustrating the pattern
While this pattern language does not include any patterns
larger than Beyond Local,
this pattern is certainly part of a larger, yet-to-be-written
pattern language. Within this greater pattern language, Beyond Local and its smaller
component patterns form only a small, but important, part.
American
civilization is approaching a fork in the road of our
history: one road leads to the collapse of our civilization;
down the other road lies the transformation of our
civilization into something new -- a civilization that feels
familiar, yet is quite different from what we have now.
The civilization known as America has been growing
steadily for well over 200 years, despite a shaky start
in the 18th century, a civil war that scarred generations
of our citizens in the 19th century, and an economic
depression and two world wars in the 20th century. This
growth has been richly rewarding for many citizens.
The prosperity that our country has experienced is not
sustainable. Our country's wealth is based upon expansion
(especially westward) and the unsustainable consumption
of natural resources. Obviously we cannot expand our
borders any further in any direction now. And, we are
beginning to pay the piper for over-consumption of
natural resources.
In short, we've been throwing a national party for two
centuries, charging it to our credit card, and making the
minimum payment each month. Our bill is large enough now
that it is not difficult to envision the day that we
won't be able to make the minimum payment.
We believe that America must change, and change fairly
drastically. If we begin to change gradually for the
better now, perhaps we can prevent an abrupt and catastrophic change for the worse later.
The biggest change must come from individual people.
We must stop being consumers and start being stewards.
Despite more than two decades of popular
environmentalism, five percent of the world's people
(that's us) still consume about 25 percent of the world's
annual resource output. Simple mathematics tells us that
this is not sustainable, especially as more Third World
countries make "progress" toward the example of
excess that we have set for the rest of the world.
Similarly, we are "consuming" our labor pool
in an unsustainable manner. Modern economics tells us
that First World nations will shift more and more of
their industry to so-called "emerging
economies". As these Third World nation wannabes
become more industrialized, they too are supposed to
shift more and more of their industry to less developed
nations. This concept is a global pyramid scheme -- a
house of cards waiting for the nations on the bottom to
sneeze.
We, individually, corporately, and governmentally,
must change.
- Individually
- We must stop convincing ourselves that we
need yet another
consumer product. We need
food, shelter, and love. We want
a whole raft of other things, like two
cars in the driveway, 500 channels of
mass media and merchandising, and green
lawns growing in the desert.
- We must stop expecting to make a profit
based on risk without work. As and
example, the vast majority of Americans
have money invested in the stock market,
usually in the form of mutual funds. The
enormous gains of the stock market over
the last several years are purely
speculative. Most publicly-traded
companies are not worth the value of
their outstanding stock. Despite this
seemingly obvious fact, Americans are
still pouring billions of dollars a year
into the stock market, oblivious to all
of the alarms screaming, "Pyramid
scheme!"
- We must consider how living our lives
will impact future generations.
- Corporately
- American business must stop assuming that
if it tries hard enough, it can get
someone to buy its product, no matter how
unnecessary or poorly made it is.
- America needs to resume producing truly
useful goods and services. We cannot
allow our nation's production to become
dominated by the service and information
industries.
- We must produce our own necessities --
food, clothing, and shelter -- not import
them. We must produce them well, and we
must make their production a priority.
- Business must stop expecting to make a
profit based on risk without work.
Corporate profits acquired through
mergers are not sustainable.
- Corporate America must take the long
view. Is today's profit-taking robbing
the future?
- Governmentally
- We must change our laws to enable individuals and businesses to shift to
sustainability without penalizing them.
Our laws should be written to take
multiple generations of impact into
account. The northeastern Native
Americans used to ask themselves how
their decisions would impact the next
seven generations.
- We must change our economic indicators to
reflect sustainability rather than
growth. Using housing starts, for
example, as a primary indicator of
economic health is like saying that the
more a person weighs, the healthier they
are. More is not necessarily better.
- We must use our global leadership to set
a positive and sustainable example for
the rest of the world, especially the developing nations.
Live more simply, both as individuals and as a
nation: consume fewer resources (both natural and human),
waste virtually nothing, and make sure that consumption is
sustainable. Use the long view when making decisions,
especially major ones. Create more patterns to complete this
pattern.
Many
other patterns will need to be realized in order for Beyond Local to be completed
properly. As individuals and as a group, Our
Community
is our contribution to the completion of this pattern.
