Down to the wire : confronting climate collapse / David - Index of

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212 farther horizons
on the Earth. From intrepid social examples such as those in
Kerala, Curitiba, Saul Alinsky’s community organizing in Chicago,
and the Mondragón Cooperative in Spain, we know how to build
locally based economies that use local resources and local talents
to the benefi t of local people (McKibben, 1995). Thanks to great
educators like John Dewey, Maria Montessori, J. Glenn Gray,
Alfred North Whitehead, and Chet Bowers, we have a grasp of
the changes in teaching and mind-set necessary to make the transition.
And from the most prescient among us, like Wendell Berry,
Ivan Illich, and Donella Meadows, we know that fast is sometimes
slow, more is sometimes less, growth is sometimes ruinous, and
altruism is always the highest form of self-interest. This is to say
that we are ready to transform our lives, culture, and prospects, and
the time is now!
What does this mean on Main Street? I will end on a personal
note. I live in a small Midwestern city powered mostly by coal with
a struggling downtown threatened by nearby megamalls. The city
is roughly a microcosm of the United States in terms of income
distribution, ethnicity, and public problems. Run our likely history
fast forward, say, 20 years or more and the town would be
in disrepair and seriously impoverished. To avoid that scenario,
a group of concerned citizens have recently banded together to
create another story. They include the president of Oberlin College,
the city manager, the superintendent of schools, the director
of the municipal utility, the current and former presidents of the
City Council, and many others.
The task before us requires solving four problems. The fi rst
is to create a practical vision of post-carbon prosperity. Can we
make the transition from coal to effi ciency and renewable energy
in a way that lays the foundation for a sustainable economy? The
second challenge is to develop the fi nancial means to pay for the
transition, including the capital costs to implement energy effi -
ciency and to build the new energy system. The third challenge
is that of actually building an alternative energy infrastructure in