CB: Thank you Dan for that fascinating and comprehensive analysis. Now
bringing all of this closer to home, what kinds of preparations have
you personally been making in recent years for Peak Oil, climate
change, and economic chaos? I'm very fortunate. My wife and I live on
three acres with a vernal creek in a semi-rural neighborhood on the
edge of Eugene. Over the last five years, we've worked steadily on the
little things to build more self-reliance into our land, centered on a
very productive, nearly year-around, organic garden and a collection of
fruit trees. With canning, a root cellar, and plans for grain storage
in the winter to come, we're aimed at the possibility of feeding
ourselves through a year, but we are certainly not there yet. Food
self-reliance is a tenuous thing. Alone, as a couple both nearly sixty
years old, my wife and I would struggle through any kind of crisis.
Make no mistake about that! The next level of security is provided by
our relationship with our neighbors. Little by little, a consensus is
building in our small valley neighborhood that when things get tight,
we must work together. This is a work in progress that I apply myself
to on a regular basis. For example, I will be showing What a Way to Go
to a neighborhood gathering this week to prompt discussion and
connection. To me this is an important aspect of facing any crisis,
financial or otherwise; it's more feasible to build a lifeboat out of
the neighborhood I currently live in than trying to move off the grid
to build a lifeboat from the ground up. CB: When our readers visit the
Truth To Power website, they are likely to see a banner ad for your
book, "Prairie Fire", at the top of the site. What is the book about?
What inspired you to write it? What has been the response to the book?
DA: Prairie Fire is essentially a game plan for American family farmers
as they confront Peak Oil and climate change. It's a "what if" story of
an agricultural revolution in the United States told like a Tom Clancy
thriller-in this case, however, global tensions arise from grain
shortages, not from weapons of mass destruction. Imagine if the drought
that took place in Australia this past year and caused wheat prices to
break ten dollars a bushel had occurred in China, the world's largest
grain producer. And what if someone knew there would be a grain
shortage two months before it happened and bought heavily in wheat and
corn futures? This is the backdrop of Prairie Fire, a financial market
pump and dump scheme applied to the commodities market. Two things
inspired the novel. The first was my concern that environmental
non-fiction spoke only to the choir. If you read enough environmental
books, they become repetitive and a little dry. I wanted to write an
environmental book that was dramatically engaging and in that way might
reach an audience that was more than those already aware of
environmental problems. That is, use all the hooks of an ordinary
novel, adventure, romance, and personal conflict, to tell the story of
the American family farmer and the literal and figurative erosion of
America's Heartland. The second source of inspiration was a little book
written in 1995 by Lester R. Brown of the Earth Policy Institute Who
Will Feed China? In his book, Brown suggests that the weakest point in
the world food supply system is China's grain harvest. Near the end of
the book, he hypothesizes that we are but one catastrophic weather
event, one major drought in China away from a worldwide grain crisis.
This is the premise of Prairie Fire. A seemingly harmless warm winter
in South East Asia diminishes the Himalayan snowpack by thirty percent.
A dry spring follows. Water shortages cut China's grain harvest by a
quarter. Grain prices around the world triple. Prairie Fire addresses
what these dynamics could mean to family farmers in the United States
and commodities markets around the world. The response to the book has
been very strong. Because I'm a self-published writer with no source of
advertising other than my website and my website
networking (thank you, Carolyn!), selling the book has been slow. I
sell at book fairs, over the internet, and in two local book stores. I
have heard from about 30 enthusiastic readers, and as the reviews at
Amazon.com.Prairie Fire tells an engaging, relevant, and thought
provoking story. The book does contain some scenes of sex and violence
(I rate it R), and three readers (one of whom was 98 years old and
enjoyed the book) have said it is too racy for a book with an
environmental message. In response to this, I would say that as a
novel, Prairie Fire mirrors life. What we see in life-in all its
diversity, good and bad, beautiful and ugly-should be reflected in a
novel. CB: When you observe what's happening now with incredible
upheaval and transition occurring in our world, what kinds of emotions
are evoked for you? What feels most important-top priority, for you
personally in these daunting times? What kinds of changes within
yourself and your immediate circle of connections have you experienced?
DA: As stated earlier, I became aware of global warming 37 years ago.
At that time, it seemed like science fiction, and I wondered if I would
live long enough to see the climate actually change. I have, and in a
much more rapid manner than I could ever have guessed in 1971. Throw in
Peak Oil and the manipulation of the financial markets, and I'm
overcome with sadness and a disappointment for who and what we are. Why
must we humans, with all our knowledge, technology, and potential for
good, be so incapable of managing our planet home? Why must our
capacity for greed so dominate our capacity for intelligence and
altruism? I feel as though we are a sadly flawed species living out a
Greek tragedy, the unfinished parable of planet earth. In a sense, the
human species has always lived on the edge. As H.G. Wells once wrote,
"history is a race between education and catastrophe." Whether the
fascist war machine of Adolph Hitler, the threat of nuclear holocaust
during the Cold War, or the vast and complex implications of climate
change, humans seem bent on courting crisis. What's different about
today's situation is the speed at which the drama now takes place and
the size of the crisis we face. We've been accelerated through time and
space by the power of our technology, a critical piece of which is the
worldwide web you are using now. The threat of collapse or mass
destruction has not really changed in any basic way as a human tension;
it has simply become sharper and more visible with each passing day
because we have more ways to measure and chart it. In effect, the same
choices that have always existed for humans confront us now but with
more on the line. We either learn to live together or we live amid
deepening crisis. We either live as an implicate part in the entire web
of life on this planet, or we try to continue to live in denial of this
overwhelming truth. One way is sustainable; one is not. It's my sense
that it's as difficult to anticipate and fully prepare for catastrophic
change as it is to prepare for one's death. Abstract intellectual
ratiocination and common sense material preparation for the end is
never more than a dress rehearsal-until that moment when the store
shelves are empty or the hurricane has leveled your home. That said as
a qualifier, I still believe all begins with self awareness. My top
priority is to keep my mind open. And not to lose my sense of humor-in
the grand sense. Our number one responsibility, I believe, is to come
to grips with our psychological self, to take a good long look inside
and find out who we really are, learn how to rid ourselves of greed,
learn to how bridle ego and petty desire, learn how to share and to
give and to live with less and more simply. At bottom, we must learn
how to cooperate. To be member of a group or a team with no motivation
other than enabling the whole. This is good advice regardless of the
global situation. Should the economy collapse or a catastrophic weather
event decimate the region where you live, the coming out of it will
occur through
the spontaneous forming of community, either as an emergency enterprise
or a long-term way of living. And this is best done when an individual
has given up selfishness, shed vain materialism, and embraced the
interconnectedness of all life and each other. I work on my attitude
and humor more than anything else because it is my being and my mental
health that will make me the most helpful to others if conditions are
reduced to basic survival. In this, I am no better than a work in
progress. The most important change in my life is that I have become
active in the Eugene community. I am not fond of speaking in public. I
have never been an activist except during my time in college. I am not
outgoing at all. But I am out there now. And though real relocalization
at the city-wide level often seems unlikely or impossible without the
impetus of immediate emergency, personal action is empowering. Among my
friends, even those engaged in community action, with some exceptions,
I still see either unchanged cynicism, denial, or a paralysis caused by
the day to day squirrel cage demands of a stressful and pressure filled
life. I am not sure how to answer to this. I write to help inform. CB:
What is your vision of the kind of world we might create before,
during, and after the collapse of empire? In general, I see many
possible scenarios for the future. Some are bad, some are difficult. In
any case, culture change is inevitable. For me, with the single caveat
that global warming) has the potential to make everything else moot;
the most likely short-term scenario is a steady and heavy crush upon
the poor and the middle class of this nation. The rising price of
petroleum alone virtually guarantees some kind of extended economic
recession or depression. As most of this interview suggests, I believe
a relocalized society and economy is a pragmatic way to prepare for, to
survive from, or to rebuild after whatever comes down. Relocalization
is not religion. It's a management plan designed to counteract the
rising price of energy and to help diminish carbon emissions. It will
not stop what is already unfolding, but it may alleviate the worst of
it-again with the caveat that climate change could be full of unwelcome
and unanswerable surprises. I am part of what I will tentatively call a
sustainable development think tank here in Eugene. We are working on
what we call "a blueprint for a sustainable south Willamette Valley."
One of the members of the group, Ravi Logan, is the Associate Director
of the Global PROUT Institute Network. PROUT or the Progressive
Utilization Theory is post-capitalist economic paradigm, created by the
now deceased Indian Philosopher P. R. Sarkar, based on a
cooperative-based, decentralized socio-economic model, a kind of
relocalized, bottom up alternative to the systems of capitalism and
communism. Ravi Logan was invited to the Russian province of
Khabarovski Krai in 1992, in the aftermath of the Soviet Union's
collapse, to teach and assist in the implementation of the PROUT
economic model as a substitute for the communist command economy and an
alternative to market capitalism and the incursion of economic
globalism. Though this effort was eventually undermined, Ravi Logan is
a wise and intelligent man who has first-hand experience in
post-collapse rebuilding. While I am not a PROUTist, the PROUT model is
a useful one, and I have had many long and rich conversations with Ravi
about what we might anticipate in a collapse and what we might create
out of it. A significant part of our discussion has been the role
played by cooperatives in rebuilding. When we are left with the shell
of a society, we can not rebuild alone. We will have to come together
to form and create all the basic elements of society again, beginning
with food, water, and energy systems. Essential to doing this is
learning how to work together and share the results. This is the basic
premise of a cooperative. If I were to envision something to replace
the capitalist megalith, it would begin with a decentralized economy with
many parallels to the PROUT economic system. It would be a localized
society that emphasized balance, diversity, and the interconnectedness
of all life. The basic working element would not be corporations or
other large profit motivated entities; it would be a mix of small
entrepreneurial businesses to stimulate creativity and non-government
owned, cooperatives to ensure social stability, all guided by the
principles of sustainability, equality, and individual
self-realization. CB: What suggestions would you give our readers
regarding relocalization and collapse preparation? First, know who you
are. Know your strengths, know your weakness. Verify your real needs
and adjust your mind and your emotions to embrace change. If peak oil
or financial crisis will do anything good, it will be teaching
Americans to live with less and to waste nothing. Learn to welcome this
like a drink of cool spring water. Then take a good long look at where
you live. Does the bioregion you live in have the capacity to feed
itself? Does it have a secure water system? Is there a high potential
for drought? What will it look like if civil order is lost? These are
basics. Figure them out. If you are satisfied with where you live, work
on personal and community self-reliance. If there is a crash of any
kind and you have three months worth of food and water, you will not
have to take part in the first stages of crisis and the violence of
cleaning out food stores shelves. Know your neighbors. Be prepared to
rebuild with the people that live around you. Prepare to work
cooperatively. Even plan large cooperative neighborhood meals to
practice working together. Should the global economy collapse and
business as usual come to stop, the hard shell of infrastructure will
remain. In a way, much like William H. Kötke describes in his article
The Revolution that is Arising from the Earth, workers from closed
manufacturing plants can return without management and form a work
cooperative to get the up plant producing again. This is what we'll
need once the smoke has cleared: cooperation. CB: Please add anything
else you'd like to talk about, expound upon, or any rants that occur to
you. Feel free to put yourself in the shoes of our readers and just let
your thoughts and feelings flow. Life, it seems, is at least
psychological. We have consciousness and we have the abstract tools to
understand that consciousness. Awareness for our psychological being is
where everything starts. Be here now, as Richard Alpert, aka Ram Dass,
might say. This is sound advice. Be fully mindful of the moment. The
realization of community on this planet, either as a whole or in
localized parts, begins with clear-seeing individuals. DAN ARMSTRONG is
the editor and owner of Mud City Press, a small publishing company and
online magazine operating out of Eugene, Oregon. He has written
extensively in both fiction and non-fiction. For access to his books
and short stories, political commentary, humor, and environmental
studies CLICK HERE. To order his novel "Prairie Fire", click on the
banner at the top of this site.