FEASTA Quarterly Bulletin, Spring 2002

Contents

1. Introduction
2. Is everything all right? By Richard Douthwaite
3. The Feasta Conference
4. Convergence 2002
5. Members Forum and AGM
6. The Feasta Review
7. The Energy Conference
8. International Workshop on Oil Depletion
9. Sustainable Indicators
10. Short Circuit
11. Books Available from the Feasta Office
12. Feasta Membership
13. WSSD Preparation

(1) Introduction

Welcome to the spring issue of the Feasta E-bulletin. The Foundation, although having no full time staff, has been busy since we last contacted you. David Fleming, author of the forthcoming 'Lean Economy,' gave the Feasta lecture last year and recently a two part radio interview with him was broadcast on RTE's Open Mind programme. A full day event was held in Thurles with the Tipperary Institute titled, 'Strengthening the role of the Irish Higher Education community in support of sustainable development'. This was a very successful attracting educators from institutions all over Ireland. Feasta sub groups have been working on a number of issues including interest free banking, sustainable indicators, education, and energy.

Many of you will have noticed that our web-site has been inactive recently. The site will be re-launching soon and will develop into Ireland's premier resource for sustainable economics. Log on for details of past and future Feasta events, the text of Richard Douthwaite's Short Circuit, and much more. www.feasta.org

The Feasta e-mail discussion list allows us to share information and discuss new ideas. You can subscribe to this list by sending an e-mail to ... feasta-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

Feasta has so many things in the planning stage these days that members of the Executive Committee are beginning to complain. Not about the level of activity, you understand, but of the lack of time at the meetings for broader discussions and tossing around ideas.

The committee have decided that, after every meeting in future, we will hold a discussion somewhere, possibly in a pub's private room. All members will be welcome to attend the discussion, which will be led off by someone who has thought about the issue we've chosen for the night.

The first of these sessions, on Thursday April 25th, will be on sustainability, Europe and the Nice Treaty. Richard Douthwaite and (possibly) Andy Storey from AFRI will make the opening contributions. If you'd like to attend, contact the office for details.

Enjoy this newsletter and we hope to see you at our forthcoming conference at the Convergence festival.

(2) Is everything all right? By Richard Douthwaite

Is everything all right, then? Is the US economy recovering strongly enough to pull the rest of the world out of recession? Wall Street seems to think so. As I write, the Dow Jones Index is well above the level it was on September 11th and very close to the levels it held in Spring last year before the downturn began.

I think the recovery is a fake. So do a handful of US economists who talk of a 'double-dip' recession, with the second dip starting sometime soon. The reason? The basic instability - and hence unsustainability - of the present economic system. So that's right in Feasta territory.

We all know that economies become depressed if the rate of new investment falls and that governments consequently do everything in their power to keep investors happy. Every politician everywhere is desperate to ensure that unemployment does not rise and tax revenues fall during their term of office.

The best way to keep up the rate of investment this year is to ensure that last year's investments turn out to have been necessary. This means ensuring economic growth because if growth is weak and excess capacity begins to appear, no company in its right mind will invest to increase its capacity even more. (It might, of course, invest to cut its costs but as that would probably involve its reducing its work force, that's not what a government wants).

The US is not going to recover because there's excess capacity in every productive segment of the world economy at present, with one exception - armaments manufacture, which, post September 11th, is booming. All other markets are glutted. Take cars, for example. Plants like Fords at Dagenham in England are closing because there's at least 25% overcapacity around the world.

This means that there's no scope for profitable new investment in making things that people actually want. Although projects on which work has started are generally being completed, no new ones are in the planning stage. Unemployment will soar as current work is finished off. In January, Japanese orders for new machinery plunged to a 15-year low.

So why are most Americans so bullish about their country's economic prospects? The answer is - they have to be. The US is currently importing goods and services worth a billion dollars a day more than it is exporting and it is financing its trade gap by getting the rest of the world to invest in the US stock market or to buy US bonds. Half of the world's savings are invested in America, which is $2.5 trillion in debt.

Americans have to talk their economy up because the moment investors think it is weak in comparison with, say, the EU, they will want to switch their money to Europe before other investors try to switch too and cause the dollar's exchange value to collapse. A panic is almost inevitable in which markets crash as foreigners dump US bonds and shares for whatever price they can get and the dollar loses perhaps a third of its value. If this happens, much of the world's financial capital will be written off. Private pension funds around the world will be forced to slash their payouts and many will go bust. A long, deep depression will begin.

So what's the answer? Well, it's too late to avert some sort of crisis now. All we can do is to prevent too many people being hurt by introducing novel money systems to replace the dollar-based one which is breaking down..

In the longer term, only a radical reform of the way economies operate will prevent further crises. That means building a system that doesn't have to grow if it is not to collapse. And Feasta knows a lot about how to do that. Richard Douthwaite 21/3/02

(3) The Feasta Conference

Re-Building Local Economies
Wednesday 10th April 10.00 ­ 17.30

Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Price: €50 & €25 Feasta Members - Includes a light lunch and coffee.

With Alastair McIntosh of Edinburgh's Centre for Human Ecology, Richard Douthwaite of Feasta and Helena Norberg-Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC)

As part of the Convergence Festival co-ordinated by the Sustainable Ireland Co-operative, Feasta are organising a full-day conference. This event will explore ways in which communities can preserve and enhance their local cultures and make themselves less exposed to the vagaries of the international markets and government policies by meeting more of their needs themselves.

The day will be opened by Richard Douthwaite of Feasta who will look at the forces causing communities to decline and the economic tools that are available to revitalise them. Alastair McIntosh of Edinburgh's Centre for Human Ecology (www.che.ac.uk) will describe how community empowerment brought the Isle of Eigg into community ownership, how this has led to full employment on the island, and why the new Scottish Parliament has made land reform its flagship legislative programme.

Three presentations will follow the mid-morning break. In the first, Michael Donnelly from the Sustainable Northern Ireland Programme who has been using the New Economics Foundation's 'Plugging the Leaks' methodology in Northern Ireland will outline how successful it has been in enabling communities to identify the most effective ways of keeping purchasing power in their areas. Then Liam Egerton from f3 - the Foundation for Local Food Initiatives will talk about the rapid spread of farmers' markets in Britain and their importance in the development of sustainable local food economies. And finally Joe Kelly the chief executive of IRD Kiltimagh Ltd a company formed by the local community will discuss the success the IRD has had in organising 'Shop Local' projects in Irish towns.

After lunch, those attending will have to choose between the workshops offered by each of these three speakers. Each workshop is intended to equip those attending with the practical information they require to carry out projects in their own communities.

The day will end with a keynote address on the need to achieve a balance between the global and the local by Helena Norberg Hodge of the International Society for Ecology and Culture. Helena, the author of Ancient Futures - Learning from Ladakh, helped communities in Britain and Ladakh to protect and maintain their local economies.

Helena Norberg-Hodge is founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (ISEC), which runs programs on four continents aimed at strengthening ecological diversity and community, with a particular emphasis on local food and farming. She also directs the Ladakh Project, renowned for its groundbreaking work in sustainable development on the Tibetan plateau. She is the author of numerous works, including the inspirational classic, Ancient Futures: Learning from Ladakh, which-together with an award-winning film of the same title-has been translated into more than 30 languages. She is co-founder of the International Forum on Globalisation and the Global Eco-village Network, and a recipient of the Right Livelihood Award, or "Alternative Nobel Prize".

(4) Convergence Festival

Feasta are involved again in this exciting event. Now in its third year the Convergence festival brings together the diversity of exciting ideas that define a healthy, just and ecologically sustainable culture.

Convergence Festival - Exploring Culture for a Better World
Project - 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar - Dublin
April 6th - 14th 2002

This festival, organised by the Sustainable Ireland Co-operative, takes place as Ireland prepares to attend the World Summit on Sustainable Development later this year in Johannesburg. Over 60 events including theatre, conferences, workshops, panel discussions, exhibits, video screenings and lectures will all take place throughout the week.

Booking Line: Project, +353 (0)1 8819613, +353 (0)1 8819614
Festival Information: Sustainable Ireland, +353 (0)1 4912327
For a full programme e-mail sustainable.ireland@anu.ie

Some highlights of the festival that will interest Feasta members...

The Sustainability Forum: Defining and Measuring Sustainability
Date: Tuesday 9th April, 14:00 -16:30
Venue: Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Price: €12 & €10
This forum will explore what we mean by sustainability and will try to agree on what statistics could be gathered to show whether Ireland is becoming more sustainable or not. Presentations and panel discussion with Helena Norberg ­ Hodge (ISEC), Richard Douthwaite (Feasta), Patrice Crawley (EPA), Anne Behan (Community Consultant), Sue Scott (ESRI) and Michael Donnelly (Sustainable Northern Ireland). Chaired by David McWilliams (TV3 Agenda).

In Conversation with Helena Norberg ­ Hodge and John Quinn RTE.
Date: Tuesday 9th April, 19.30 ­ 21.30
Venue: Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Price: €12 & €10
Lecture by Helena Norberg ­ Hodge, founder and director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (which runs programs on four continents aimed at strengthening ecological diversity and community, with a particular emphasis on local food and farming) followed by a public interview with John Quinn.

The Sustainability Lecture:
"Soil and Soul" by Alastair McIntosh
The Place of Spiritual Activism in Community Empowerment
Date: Thursday 11th April, 19.30 ­ 21.30
Venue: Project Arts Centre, 39 East Essex Street, Temple Bar, Dublin 2
Price: €12 & €10
In his introduction to Alastair McIntosh's new book, 'Soil and Soul: People versus Corporate Power', the English campaigning journalist, George Monbiot, concludes: 'Do not claim to know the world unless you have read this book.' In this session, Alastair will use passages from the book to demonstrate how understanding the spiritual basis of community can not only help to know the world, but also, lead to empowerment. In the Celtic traditions of Scotland and Ireland, community has three faces ­ relationship with one another, relationship with nature, and inner relationship with ourselves. He will show how this opens up mythic dimensions of social activism, illustrating their successful application in the campaign to stop the proposed Isle of Harris super quarry.

(5) Members Forum & AGM

June 28th & 29th 2002.
On Friday 28th and Saturday 29th of June Feasta will be holding a two day members' forum and AGM. We are working on what we hope will be an informative and stimulating agenda that leaves time to renew old acquaintances and make new ones in an informal atmosphere.

The venue will be the newly refurbished Glencree Reconciliation Centre located in the beautiful Wicklow hills.

The cost will be €38 (per person sharing). This covers one night's accommodation, dinner, breakfast and lunch. We plan to keep the formalities to a minimum so we can learn from each other and share a vision of how the World will be with a truly sustainable economic order.

The forum will start at 15.30 on Friday 28th June and finish after lunch on Saturday 29th June. Feasta will be providing a free bus service from Dublin city centre to Glencree.

A detailed agenda will be announced in early May. It should cover an alternative view of the Celtic Tiger, Ireland's transition to renewable energy and the indicators (other than economic growth) of our progress as a society. It will also be an opportunity for Feasta's members to exchange ideas, plan for the future and have some fun.

E-mail or write to Feasta for full details and booking.

(6) The FEASTA Review

"Many many thanks for the Feasta Review. I have read it with great pleasure, excitement and interest," Marc Luyckx, a Belgian member of the Club of Rome and a former senior official in the European Commission's Forward Studies Unit wrote to Feasta recently.

Similar comments have come from elsewhere in Europe. "Very interesting and good quality printing!" university lecturer Folke Gunther e-mailed from Sweden. "Superb. One of the best books I've read for a long time on our sort of subject" Edward Goldsmith, the founder of The Ecologist magazine wrote when placing a standing order for future issues. (The next is due this time next year).

Several readers have said that, in bringing together lecture-texts, articles and book reviews on some of the subjects that Feasta has concerned itself with since its foundation in 1998, the Review has welded them into a powerful whole, something greater than the sum of the parts. "You really feel that a wide-ranging yet coherent approach to sustainability is beginning to emerge" one said. "Put the Feasta Review together with James Bruges' Little Earth Book and you've got the subject mapped out."

Besides helping Feasta members to understand their own position better, the Review has become an excellent calling card for them, opening doors to individuals and other organisations with similar interests around the world. Marc Luyckx, for example, expressed the hope that Feasta would be able to collaborate with Vision 2020, a new organisation he is helping to set up which he describes as "the only think tank on the new paradigm in Brussels. We are gradually assembling a group of businesses, NGOs and thinkers who are working on alternatives for EU policies."

Sales of the Review are going well. "We've distributed almost half of our print-run of 1,500 copies", says Richard Douthwaite, the co-editor of the Review with John Jopling. "But I'm not going to be happy until the rest of them have gone and are out there, informing people's opinions" he adds.

The Review contains three articles by Herman Daly, the world's leading ecological economist, including the text of 'Uneconomic Growth', the Feasta Lecture he gave in Dublin in 1999. The text of David Korten's 2000 Feasta Lecture, 'The Civilising of Global Society' is also printed, together with two of his best articles 'Life after Capitalism' and 'Rights of money versus rights of living persons'.

Several essays in the Review discuss energy policy in the light of Colin Campbell's paper 'The imminent peak of global oil production' which predicts that world oil output will begin to decline within the next 5-10 years. A particularly important paper 'Making Western Agriculture more Sustainable' looks at the profound effects that fuel scarcity will have on rural life. There are also thirty pages of reviews of books related to sustainability, including a review by John Bruton.

Copies of the 204-page Review are available for 19 euro, postpaid, to members of the public and for 13 euro to Feasta members. Send 25 euro if you would like to join Feasta and get a copy of the Review. Add 10 euro extra for a copy of The Little Earth Book.

(Back to Top)

Continue to Page 2 of Newsletter