Less carbon, more community building

America's polluting push for 'more' has left us with less of what really matters.

from the March 28, 2007 edition

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In the 1990s, for instance, despite sterling economic growth, researchers reported a steady rise in "negative life events." In the words of one of the study's authors, "The anticipation would have been that problems would have been down." But money, as a few wise people have pointed out over the years, doesn't buy happiness. Meanwhile, growth during the decade increased carbon emissions by about 10 percent.

Further, economists and sociologists suggest that our dissatisfaction is, in fact, linked to economic growth. What did we spend our new wealth on? Bigger houses, ever farther out in the suburbs. And what was the result? We have far fewer friends nearby; we eat fewer meals with family, friends, and neighbors. Our network of social connections has shrunk. Do the experiment yourself. Would you rather have a new, bigger television or a new friend?

Rebuilding those communities will be hard work – and it will start by rebuilding local economies, so that we actually need our neighbors again. Consider, for instance, food. Farmers' markets are the fastest-growing part of our food economy as people discover the joys of being a "localvore." Some of those joys are culinary – fresh food tastes better, you eat with the flow of the seasons, and so on. But some of those joys are emotional, too. Academics who followed shoppers found that those in farmers' markets had 10 times as many conversations as those in supermarkets.

And here's what's interesting. Local food also uses about 10 times less energy than food shipped around the globe.

If we're going to do anything about that endless flow of carbon that's breaking our planet, we're also going to have to do something about our broken communities. Not just by preaching about neighborliness but by rebuilding the web of economic relationships that grows from farmers' markets or effective public transportation or an energy grid that relies on your rooftop solar panels and my backyard windmill as much as it relies on some central power station.

More and better don't lie in the same direction anymore. And that's good news, at a moment when good news is scarce.

•Bill McKibben is a scholar in residence at Middlebury College and author of "Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future." ©2007 Los Angeles Times Syndicate.

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