CLI M AT E C HA NGE

or
SYS TE M C H A N G E?

A Local Futures Action Paper

LOCAL FUTURES 1
 “If we are going to limit warming to the 2-degree Celsius
benchmark, there will need to be a fundamental shift in the
economy: away from growth-at-any-cost globalization towards
more diversified, localized economies that serve the real needs
of people and the planet.”

M
any people were understandably corporations and financial institutions –
encouraged by the tone of the climate towards more diversified, localized economies
negotiations in Paris: governments that serve the real needs of people and the
are finally taking climate change seriously, planet.
and even expressing a willingness to take Such a shift would not only substantially
concrete steps. Nonetheless, they once again reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, it
failed to take the necessary action to prevent would bring a range of other benefits too. It
catastrophic climate change. In fact, the most would help to create more jobs; limit the power
effective steps to reduce CO2 emissions were of global corporations; reverse the erosion
never discussed in Paris. Instead, delegates of democracy; and reduce fundamentalism,
quibbled over piecemeal quasi-solutions while ethnic conflict and even terrorism. And this
leaving the systemic root causes of the problem is its great strength. Here is an opportunity to
unchallenged. unite diverse single-issue campaigns across
If we are going to limit warming to the the social and environmental divide: to create
2-degree Celsius benchmark (much less the 1.5 a movement powerful enough to bring about a
degree limit demanded by the group of “most fundamental economic shift. (This argument is
vulnerable” countries), there will need to be a more fully fleshed out in Localization: Essential
fundamental shift in the economy: away from Steps to an Economics of Happiness, Local Futures
growth-at-any cost globalization – a system 2015).
that is heavily tilted in favor of the biggest

2 LOCAL FUTURES
 “Promoting climate change denial is only the most obvious way in
which corporations have managed and limited the climate debate.”

I
n the media and even among climate managed and limited. Corporate think tanks,
activists, insufficient attention has been lobbyists and PR firms have used more subtle
paid to the ways in which multinational and insidious strategies, many of which remain
corporations have distorted the climate deeply ingrained in the public discourse:
debate from the beginning. It’s not just the
use of corporate-friendly scientists to muddy Strategy 1
the waters about the causes – if not the very
existence – of climate change, although that Blame the individual
has certainly happened. Recent headlines,
for example, revealed how Exxon-Mobil In use for many years now, this strategy
steadfastly denied the reality of global involves shifting blame for climate change
warming even though internal memos reveal – and thus our responses to it – away from
that the company was aware of the problem industry and onto individuals. A poster that
in 1981 – seven years before it became a public accompanied Al Gore’s 2006 documentary
issue – and formulated strategies to respond film, An Inconvenient Truth, listed “things you
to and even profit from it. Along with other can do now” in response to the climate change
fossil fuel corporations, Exxon spent millions threat (see below).
funding scientists willing to argue that global People were told to change their light
warming is an unproven and “controversial” bulbs, use less hot water, inflate their tires
theory unsupported by the evidence. properly, etc. – reasonable steps to be sure, but
But this represents only the most obvious even in the aggregate hardly enough to make a
way in which the climate debate has been dent in overall greenhouse gas emissions.

LOCAL FUTURES 3
 By implicitly blaming individual This approach not only preserves the power
consumers for the climate crisis – and handing of TNCs, it augments it. Carbon trading, for
them responsibility for fixing it –this framing example, essentially gives industries the right
deflected attention from its systemic causes to pollute, for a price – making the atmosphere
and obscured the role of industrial emitters of on which all life depends a commodity that
greenhouse gases.1 can be sold to the highest bidder, at a time
There was no mention of the advertising when the biggest transnational corporations
pressures that turn children into mindless are wealthier than entire countries.
over-consumers. There was no mention of the Similar market-based approaches have
way the government focus on GDP encourages been suggested for “protecting” the planet’s
growth through overconsumption, nor the way remaining rainforests. But as Brazilian
our taxes are used to subsidize fossil fuels and activist Camila Moreno points out, proposals
global trade. And citizens, relegated to the role like these promote the privatization and
of passive consumers, were not encouraged commodification of what has always been
to do anything that would challenge the common land. She asks, “Is that what we want
corporate-dominated status quo. as an international public policy, that the last
public forests and public lands on earth –
where there is biodiversity, where there are
indigenous people – be from now on connected
to financial markets?”2
Another arena in which market-based
strategies have taken root is in the promotion
of renewable energy. While there’s no question
that renewable energy must replace fossil fuels
as the primary source of global energy needs,
those energy needs must be greatly reduced
in order for that to be feasible. Nonetheless,
renewables are often portrayed as a means to
maintain the current structures of the global
economy – changing little but the fuel that runs
it. Thus, a headline on the website EcoWatch
proclaims, “Renewable energy and economic
growth go hand in hand”.3
Thanks to billions of dollars in
government subsidies, the renewable energy
field has already attracted the interest of large
corporations. For example, the Spanish energy
multinational Iberdrola – the fourth largest
electric power provider in the UK and a major
player in US, South American, and European
Strategy 2 energy markets – is also one of the world’s
biggest wind energy companies; Canadian
Promote market-based natural gas corporation Gaz Metro (co-owned
solutions by tar sands giant Enbridge) also has major
investments in industrial wind projects. The
Corporations have been very successful renewable energy projects that these and
at convincing the public that free-market other global corporations invest in are large-
transactions, rather than global regulation, are scale and centralized, thus keeping the energy
the best means of reducing carbon emissions. supply tightly in corporate hands.

4 LOCAL FUTURES
 In the end, depending on market-based South to alleviate poverty, which is to follow
solutions means relying on a marketplace that the same development path trodden by the
is heavily tilted in favor of the biggest players. North. Not only is it impossible for the planet
to support such a scenario (see below), the
reality is that conventional development
hasn’t meant improved lives for the majority.
The usual yardstick of living standards is
per capita GDP, which rises when resources
are unsustainably extracted and exported,
when freely-provided community and family
activities become monetized, when self-reliant
farmers are pulled into urban slums, and
when a handful of billionaires are created even
as millions of others fall deeper into poverty.
In many parts of the global South, growth and
development have led to a declining quality of
life for the majority even as GDP has risen.
Strategy 3
Use North-South agreements
to block divisions
Past failures to forge climate agreements have
often been blamed on disputes between rich
and poor countries: the wealthy industrialized
countries are largely responsible for the
current excess of atmospheric CO2; the poorer
countries have contributed relatively little to
climate change, and want to continue burning
fossil fuels to fuel their own development.
This framing uses poverty as an excuse to
increase both CO2 emissions and the corporate
exploitation of less industrialized countries.
Thanks to “free trade” treaties, corporations
are now producing where labor is cheapest –
in other words in poor countries. When the
Barbie dolls and barbecue grills sold in the
Wal-Marts of America come from polluting
factories in the global South, who benefits from
allowing those factories to continue polluting?
Giving the poor countries the right to emit
more GHGs is little more than a back-door
ploy to allow global corporations to continue
producing, marketing and profiting from
trade in goods whose manufacture entailed
the burning of massive amounts of fossil fuels.
But what about the poor countries’ need
to develop? Implicit in this question is that
there is only one way for the countries of the

LOCAL FUTURES 5
W
e need to resist the corporate spin huge supermarket chains contract with
and focus on the real driver of commensurately large farms to supply all
rising greenhouse gas emissions: their stores – in the process ignoring the
the corporate-led globalization of the many smaller farms located nearby. This is
economy. Globalization is a process by one reason why Britain, for example, imports
which international trade and investment are and exports 15,000 tons of waffles annually,
deregulated, primarily through a series of and exchanges 20 tons of bottled water with
“free trade” treaties and agreements. These Australia; it’s why supermarkets on the Citrus
agreements give corporations and foreign Coast of Spain carry imported lemons while
investors the freedom to move in and out of local lemons rot on the ground;5 and it’s why
national economies in search of cheap labor Canada simultaneously imports and exports
and resources, low taxes, high subsidies, greenhouse tomatoes.6 Similar examples can
and lax (or non-existent) measures to protect be cited for almost every country.
the environment and workers. Any national In some cases foods are shipped to the
policies that are perceived to be “barriers” to other side of the world just to shave a few
trade or foreign investment – including rules cents off the cost of production or to add a
that limit pollution of air and water – can be few cents to the sales price. The US seafood
struck down under these treaties. company Trident is typical: to save on labor
In the nearly 20 years since the Kyoto costs it ships about 30 million pounds of fish
Protocol was drafted, governments have annually to China for filleting, and then ships
negotiated and ratified more than 400 bi-lateral the fish back to the US for sale.7
and multilateral trade agreements, the prime Trade in manufactured goods is not as
drivers of globalization.4 Globalization, in likely to be redundant as trade in food, but
turn, has not only fueled the growth of global globalization has increased transport distances
corporations, it is also responsible for much of in this sector as well. With industry steadily
the atmospheric CO2 that is destabilizing the migrating to the global South, many products
climate. consumed in Northern countries – from
Here are five ways that globalization leads clothing and toys to pots and pans – are no
to increased greenhouse gas emissions: longer manufactured locally or regionally, but
in the global South. As many Americans have
1. Globalization promotes noticed, almost every manufactured product –
unnecessary transport even those that are branded with the name of a
nominally “American” corporation – has been
In today’s global
economy, trade is no
longer about obtaining
goods that can’t be
produced locally or
regionally, nor is it about
exchanging surpluses.
Instead, a lot of today’s
trade is “redundant”,
with goods sourced
from thousands of miles
away when an identical
product is available next
door. This is particularly
true in the global
food system, where

6 LOCAL FUTURES
 produced in China, and has traveled halfway forms of pollution, as well as in resource
around the world. depletion. The environment is telling us that
It is not surprising, then, that the those consumption levels must be reduced,
globalization-driven increases in international but the economic models on which the global
trade have led to parallel increases in economy is based require constant growth,
greenhouse gas emissions (see graph below). which means increased consumption even
What’s more, globalization makes it harder in the rich countries. Whenever there is an
for climate negotiators to assign responsibility economic slowdown, in fact, governments
for those emissions. One researcher put it this typically intervene by lowering interest rates,
way: “Consider a ship that is registered in cutting taxes, or taking other steps to “stimulate
Liberia, operated by a Danish shipping line, consumer spending”.
and making a voyage from Shanghai to Los In the “less developed” parts of the
Angeles carrying products made in China by world, it is presumed that economic growth
a European firm for sale in North America. will eventually enable standards of living to
How and to whom should the emissions from approach the levels found in Europe and North
this voyage be allocated, and who should be America. But those countries are already using
assigned responsibility for reducing them? far more than their share of resources, and are
Questions such as these have proven to be over-burdening the planet with wastes like
politically intractable.”8 greenhouse gases: for the rest of the world to
When the stability of the climate is pitted consume and pollute at the same pace would
against international trade, trade usually require almost four additional planets.10
comes out on top: the commitments made by Economic globalization increases
nations under the Kyoto Protocol, for example, consumption in part by imposing a consumer
don’t include emissions from international monoculture – inducing people in diverse
aviation and shipping.9 As a result, the cultures to adopt the same values, preferences,
economic benefits of needless transport flow and buying habits. Every day, people around
to the trading corporations, while its costs are the world are bombarded with media images
shifted to the environment and the climate. that present the modern, Western consumer
lifestyle as the ideal, while implicitly
50
Global Merchandise Trade (% of GDP) Global CO2 Emissions (Billion Metric Tons)

40
denigrating local traditions and landbased
ways of life. The message is that the urban is
45 35
sophisticated and the rural is backward; that
40 30
imports of processed food and manufactured
goods are superior to local products; that
35 25
“imported is good, local is crap,” in the words
30 20 of an advertising executive in China.11
As a result, millions of people are rejecting
25 15
their own culture in an attempt to emulate
20
1965 1975 1985 1995 2005 2015
10 the American dream. They are abandoning
Sources: CO2 emissions data from 2012 BP Statistical Review of World Energy;
traditional local foods for McDonald’s
trade data from World Development Indicators,
World Bank (constant 2000 dollars)
hamburgers and packaged ramen noodles,
and giving up local wool, flax and cotton
for imported designer jeans and polyester.
2. Globalization promotes rampant In the process, the use of energy-intensive
consumerism resources is going up, along with pollution
and greenhouse gas emissions. Even in
the North, cradle-to-grave advertising and
High levels of per capita consumption in the
planned obsolescence enable marketers and
rich countries are a major factor not only in
technological “innovators” to create a never-
greenhouse gas emissions but in many other

LOCAL FUTURES 7
ending stream of new needs among people c) Globalization is structurally linked to
who already have more “stuff” than the vast agricultural monoculture. Global marketers
majority of the global population. In the need massive amounts of the few globally-
long run, this consumption treadmill goes traded food commodities, and it is far easier
nowhere: studies have shown that once basic to source those foods from one or two giant
needs are met – a condition long ago reached monocultural farms than from hundreds or
in the global North – further increments of thousands of diversified farms. Monocultures
consumption don’t actually leave people any rely heavily on agrochemicals and mechanized
happier.12 equipment – both of which result in significant
Who does benefit from the globalization GHG emissions. They also degrade soil,
of the consumer culture? Global corporations depleting it of its ability to sequester carbon.
and banks, whose own growth imperatives are
met through the excessive consumption – and d) Globalization is leading to dietary changes
consequent pollution – of hundreds of millions that exacerbate GHG emissions. Thanks
of people. to the mimicking of Western patterns of
consumption, global meat consumption is
3. Globalization is making the food expected to double by 2050.15 Most of that
system a major climate-changer meat will be raised on factory farms that
are major contributors to climate change:
Overall, estimates of the food sector’s factory-farmed broiler chickens, for example,
contribution to greenhouse gas emissions produce seven times more GHG emissions
range from 19-29 percent.13 Globalization is than backyard chickens.16 At the same time,
responsible for a large and growing portion of Northern consumers are no longer content to
that total, because: eat food seasonally: supermarkets routinely
carry out-of-season foods grown thousands
a) Globalization leads to redundant trade in of miles away. Many of these perishable foods
food, as described above, with thousands are not only produced on monocultural farms,
of miles of needless transport added to food but require refrigeration and air transport,
miles and GHG emissions. adding to their climate change impact.

b) The global food economy requires far more

processing and packaging than local food
systems: in the US for example, more than one-
third of the energy used by the food system is
used for packaging and processing.14

e) The global food system destroys rainforests

and other wild ecosystems. Many of the planet’s
carbon-sequestering natural ecosystems are
being destroyed to make way for large-scale
monocultural farms producing globally-
traded commodities: Brazil, for example,
is converting large swaths of the Amazon

8 LOCAL FUTURES
 to soybean production, while Indonesia’s As a result, many parents push their children
rainforests are being displaced by palm oil onto computers before they are able to walk.
plantations. As Camila Moreno points out, There is a pervasive myth that computers
“If you really want a mechanism to avoid are a “clean” technology, unlike the steel mills
deforestation, dismantle agribusiness. This is and factories that have been shunted off to
the main driver of deforestation in the entire the global South. But the tens of thousands
South”.17 of data centers on which much of the high-
tech world relies require vast amounts
4. Globalization replaces human labor of energy: a single data center can use as
with energy-intensive technologies much electricity as a medium-sized town;
globally, they use an amount equivalent to
Globalization is both scaling up and speeding the output of 30 nuclear power plants.18 Most
up the economy – two trends that combine of that energy is simply wasted: it is used to
to put a premium on energy-intensive high keep the servers ready in case of a surge in
technology, while devaluing human labor. activity that could slow operations or cause
Supply chains now routinely involve dozens the server to crash. “This is an industry dirty
of countries, and markets are even larger. secret,” said one senior industry executive.
Robots are increasingly relied upon to do “If we were a manufacturing industry, we’d
factory work that was once done by people. be out of business straightaway.” In order to
Banks and other financial institutions deal in avoid a shutdown in the event of power loss,
dozens of currencies and hundreds of stock many internet-based companies, including
and commodity markets all over the world, Google and Facebook, also run banks of diesel
relying on computer algorithms to direct generators at their data centers, earning them
massive flows of money. citations for violating clean air laws.19
The corporate spin on these changes is
that they are all products of efficiencies of
scale. However, energy-intensive technologies
are not more efficient when all the costs are
taken into account. Because the price of energy
doesn’t include its ecological costs – including
greenhouse gas emissions – it becomes
artificially cheap to use more and more of it.
At the same time, governments provide a wide
range of subsidies, many of them hidden, for
both energy and technology. Tax breaks, tax
credits, accelerated depreciation and other
subsidies are provided to companies that
invest in technology; hiring workers, on the
other hand, means paying expensive payroll
taxes that make human labor more expensive.
Many of the subsidies for high-tech are What’s more, toxic e–waste – the residue
hidden. From grade schools to PhD programs, of the constant “innovation” that makes last
for example, educational institutions use year’s smartphone obsolete – is the world’s
public tax money to train young people fastest growing waste stream, expected
for jobs in the high-tech sector. The media, to grow by a third in the next four years.
meanwhile, continually reinforces the notion The US alone produces 10 million tons of
that a “good” job involves sitting in front of e-waste annually, most of it dumped in poor
a computer, while manual work of any kind, communities in the global South.20 In the end,
even artisan work, is primitive and backward. the scaled-up and sped-up global economy

LOCAL FUTURES 9
systematically replaces jobs for people with all this food must then be brought into the cities
subsidized, polluting technologies. This is not on roads purpose-built to accommodate huge
more efficient: it is using taxpayer money to trucks. Similarly, providing water involves
subsidize the destruction of jobs, pollution of enormous dams, man-made reservoirs, and
the environment, and a significant increase in aqueducts stretching into distant hills and
greenhouse gas emissions. mountains. Energy production means huge,
centralized power plants, coal and uranium
5. Globalization promotes energy- mines, and thousands of miles of transmission
lines.
intensive urbanization
In the global South, the current trend
towards rapid urbanization is linked to
The consumer culture that globalization
significant increases in per capita resource use.
promotes is increasingly urban. At first glance
As Vandana Shiva points out, “The moment
high-density urban living might appear to
a person moves into the city, the energy
reduce per capita use of resources. But this is
use shoots up, the water use shoots up. The
only true when compared with life in the grossly
infrastructure to run a city per capita is much
inefficient suburbs, which are themselves a
bigger than the infrastructure to produce a
product of urbanization. Compared to the
high quality of life in a village.”21
genuinely decentralized towns and villages
Statistics that purport to show the
that still exist in the less-industrialized world,
energy-efficiency of urban living are skewed
urbanization is extremely resource-intensive.
in much the same way that nation-by-nation
One reason is that virtually every material
comparisons of GHG emissions are: since
need of highly-urbanized populations must
almost all of the food and resource needs of
be brought in from elsewhere, requiring vast
urban zones come from rural areas, the energy
energy-intensive infrastructures to do so. For
required for their production is tacked on to
example, almost all the food consumed by city
the rural total, even though the end products
dwellers must be grown for them, typically on
are consumed in the cities.
giant, chemical- and energy-intensive farms;

10 LOCAL FUTURES
 B
ecause of the obsessive pursuit of natural gas on federal lands and territorial
global growth, thousands of species are waters.
becoming extinct, and – if climate change
accelerates – the planet may soon be unlivable
for humans as well. Attempts to reduce GHG
emissions while continuing to scale up the
economy are, in the end, an exercise in futility.
The ongoing push to further deregulate
trade is a case in point. Not only does trade
deregulation accelerate climate change by the
mechanisms outlined above, it makes it more
difficult for governments to enact policies that
would reduce GHG emissions. For example,
most ‘free trade’ treaties include investor-
state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions
that allow corporations to challenge local and
national laws that might reduce their profits.
Such cases are heard in unaccountable private
tribunals composed of three trade lawyers.
Corporations have already used ISDS
provisions more than 500 times to challenge
government laws and regulations – including
environmental laws. Citing NAFTA, for
Moving towards the Local
instance, the US company Lone Pine Resources,
To address the climate problem effectively,
Inc. sued Canada for $250 million because the
governments need to stop subsidizing
province of Quebec placed a moratorium on
globalization, and to begin pursuing a
natural gas ‘fracking’;22 the Swedish energy
localization agenda instead. Localization is
giant Vattenfall recently sued Germany for 3.7
a process of economic de-centralization that
billion euros over the German government’s
enables communities, regions, and nations
decision to phase out nuclear power; five
to take more control over their own affairs. It
years earlier, Vattenfall sued Germany for $1.5
does not mean encouraging every community
billion to avoid environmental rules around
to be entirely self-reliant; it simply means
construction of a coal-fired power plant.23 Laws
shortening the distance between producers
designed to reduce GHG emissions would not
and consumers wherever possible, and striking
be exempt from ISDS rules.
a healthier balance between local markets and
Nonetheless, political leaders have been
a monopoly-dominated global market.
pushing for still more trade deals, including
This translates into more community
the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and
gardens, more farmers’ markets, more local
the Trans-Atlantic Trade and Investment
shops, more local finance and investment.
Partnership (TTIP) – even while pontificating
Localization does not mean that people in cold
about the urgent need to curb GHG emissions.
climates are denied oranges or avocados, but
According to a recent report, “the TPP
that their wheat, rice or milk – in short, their
investment chapter gives foreign investors,
basic food needs – do not travel thousands
including some of the world’s largest fossil
of miles when they can be produced within a
fuel corporations, expansive new rights to
fifty-mile radius. Rather than ending all long-
challenge climate protections.” These new
distance trade, steps towards localization
treaties greatly expand the negative impacts
reduce unnecessary transport while
of trade deregulation, in part by extending
strengthening and diversifying economies
ISDS provisions to resources like coal, oil, and

LOCAL FUTURES 11
at the community as well as national level. social, environmental and economic problems
Ultimately, the degree of diversification, the we face. As a result, a global-to-local strategy
goods produced, and the amount of trade will can unite a wide range of existing campaigns
naturally vary from region to region. and enable people to link hands across many
divides – North and South, left and right,
economic and environmental, urban and rural.
A Solution Multiplier
A much stronger movement would emerge –
By encouraging more local and regional
strong enough, even, to overthrow the de facto
production of basic needs, localization reduces
government of corporations and banks.
transport, packaging and processing, and
Fortunately, there are already moves
eliminates redundant trade – all of which
afoot in this direction. Naomi Klein’s book This
translates into a smaller carbon footprint. By
Changes Everything makes the link between
shrinking the scale of the economy, localization
neoliberal economic policies an climate chaos,
also reduces the power of global corporations
and many NGOs and activists – particularly
and banks, helping to halt the erosion of
those in the new economy movement – have
democracy and reducing the pressures for
moved beyond single-issue campaigning
economic growth that result in needless and
towards a more holistic view of the problems
wasteful consumption.
we face. Most encouraging is the emergence of
Localization also leads to improved
a worldwide localization movement, which –
living conditions in the global South. Poverty
especially in the area of local food – has grown
in those countries is the product of centuries
exponentially in recent years. The seeds for
of colonialism, development, debt, and the
change have been planted at the grassroots. If
dismantling of local economies in favor of
governments can be persuaded to re-regulate
production for export.
global trade and finance, those seeds can grow,
Improved conditions for the majority
flourish and spread.
will not be achieved by continuing down
Around the world, the pressure on
this path, but from greater self-reliance, food
policymakers is building. The task may
sovereignty, and the right to protect resources
seem monumental, but it’s not impossible.
from predation by global corporations. Nor
Globalization is actively promoted by less
will the majority benefit from attempts to
than 1 % of the world’s population – the free
mimic the energy path taken by the economies
marketeers. The remaining 99% are ready for
of the global North. Because the energy
change.
infrastructure in the global South is not as
This is not only about the climate, it
developed as in the North, it would be cheaper
is about our livelihoods, our health, our
and more ecologically sensible in those
children’s future.
countries to build up a decentralized
renewable energy infrastructure instead.
As for greenhouse gas emissions, it
does no favor to the people of the South
to allow global corporations operating in
those countries to profit from the pollution
of local environments while adding to the
problem of climate change.

Linking Hands for Change

A shift in direction from global to
local is not only the most effective
response to climate change, it would
simultaneously address the many other

12 LOCAL FUTURES
 GLOBALIZATION LOCALIZATION

◦ Separates producers and ◦ Shortens distance between

consumers, so almost all goods producers and consumers, so
TRANSPORT travel further less transport needed
◦ Promotes redundant trade

◦ Reduces consumption by
◦ Requires endless growth,
answering real psychological
fueled by endless consumption
and spiritual needs for
◦ Pulls people away from self- community and connection
CONSUMERISM reliance
◦ Reduces artificial needs,
◦ Creates new “needs” and advertising, and corporate
planned obsolescence influence

◦ Requires monocultural ◦ Encourages agro-ecological,

production, which is chemical diversified production, which
and energy-intensive is less energy- and chemical-
◦ Increases GHG footprint dependent, and provides
through factory animal farms carbon sinks
◦ Promotes redundant trade, ◦ Integrates livestock in a
multiplies food miles, and productive and sustainable way
FOOD AND increases need for processing, ◦ Reduces need for packaging,
FARMING packaging and refrigeration refrigeration, and transport
◦ Encourages dietary changes ◦ Encourages diets that are
in global South, including new locally-adapted and seasonal,
emphasis on meat making use of what grows best
◦Encourages expectation of in particular ecosystems and
out-of-season foods year-round microclimates
in rich countries

◦ Replaces human labor with ◦ Makes more use of human

ENERGY energy-intensive technology, labor and knowledge, with
thereby adding to both less need for energy-intensive
unemployment and pollution technology

◦ Promotes the growth of ◦ Promotes more decentralized

megacities and suburban living patterns
sprawl
◦ Brings people closer to
◦ Requires huge energy- the sources of their basic
intensive infrastructures needs, so less need for huge
URBANIZATION ◦ Centralizes production and infrastructures
job opportunities, encouraging ◦ Decentralizes production and
rural populations to abandon job opportunities, revitalizing
low-impact lifestyles villages, towns and smaller
cities, where energy needs and
consumption pressures are
lower

LOCAL FUTURES 13
Making it Happen
What can we do at a practical level to begin � Resistance. Add your voice in whatever
the move from global to local? Above all, ways you can to the growing chorus of
we need to see the benefit in joined-up opposition to economic globalization. In
thinking and action: forming alliances across particular, sign petitions, write letters to
conventional boundaries – both in our heads the media, and harangue your political
and in our activism – to form grand coalitions. representatives about the international trade
The underlying root cause behind all of our treaties. Demand an end to further corporate
social and ecological problems is the global de-regulation, and insist that corporations
economy. Whether our primary concern is be place-based: in other words, subject to the
climate change, or animal welfare, or nuclear laws and taxes of individual nation states.
weapons, or poverty and unemployment, the
central issue is the same: who is in charge, and
whose interests are being served? And what
� Renewal. Join with others to set up initiatives
in service of community and the Earth, with
about Nature? Who stands up for her?
a particular emphasis on the role of food:
The conventional economy measures, in
farmers’ markets, local food cooperatives,
Bobby Kennedy’s words, “everything except
community gardens. Establish tool repair
that which is worthwhile”. We need to cultivate
workshops and seed-sharing projects. Support
a very different kind of economy: one based
community energy and finance schemes.
not on endless growth and the enrichment of a
Put pressure on the local administration to
tiny minority, but on the sustainable wellbeing
build up public transport, cycleways and
of people (all people) and the planet.
pedestrianized zones.

� Education as activism. There’s a natural

� International Alliance for Localization.
tendency to want to get on with hands-on
Become a member of our new alliance: a cross-
activism right now. But let’s take a deep breath
cultural network of thinkers, activists and
first. We are talking about movement-building,
NGOs dedicated to exploring radically new
and that requires a critical mass of people who
visions of development and progress.
are on the same page. We all need to educate
www.localfutures.org/internationalalliance-
ourselves more fully both about what’s going
for-localization-member-sign-up
on in the name of economics-as-usual and
about the alternatives. Share books, websites,
Together we can make a difference!
articles and films, set up study circles with
friends and neighbors, and “cross-pollinate”
with people who have different primary
concerns.

Local Futures is a non-profit organization dedicated to

the revitalization of cultural and biological diversity,
and the strengthening of local communities and
economies worldwide. Our emphasis is on education
for action: moving beyond single issues to look at the
more fundamental influences that shape our lives.

www.localfutures.org [email protected]

14 LOCAL FUTURES
 References
1 Nearly two-thirds of all the carbon emitted into the atmosphere during the industrial era is the product
of just 90 corporations and state-owned companies and industries. Carbon Majors, “New Study Traces
Two-Thirds of Industrial Emissions to Just 90 Institutions”, November 21, 2013, http://carbonmajors.org/
carbon-majors-press-release. Accessed October 18, 2014.
2 Moreno, Camila, interviewed on Democracy Now, December 18, 2009, “Environmental and Indigenous
Activists Criticize Proposed Deal to Save Rainforests”, http://www.democracynow.org/2009/12/18/envi-
ronmental_and_indigenous_activists_criticize_proposed. Accessed November 4, 2015
3 Batistelli, Paul, “Renewable Energy and Economic Growth Go Hand in Hand in Massachusetts”, EcoW-
atch, Sept. 20, 2013, http://ecowatch.com/2013/09/20/renewableenergy-economic-growth-massachusetts/.
Accessed November 10, 2015.
4 World Trade Organization, “Regional Trade Agreements: Facts and Figures”, https://www.wto.org/
english/tratop_e/region_e/regfac_e.htm. Accessed October 27, 2015.
5 “The Problem with Redundant Trade”, Deconstructing Dinner, October 9, 2013, http://deconstructing-
dinner.ichannel.ca/the-problem-with-redundant-trade-2/. Accessed November 13, 2015.
6 Ibid.
7 Yeoung, Choy Leng, “NW salmon sent to China before reaching U.S. tables”, The Seattle Times, July
16 2005, http://www.seattletimes.com/business/nw-salmon-sent-to-china-beforereaching-us-tables/. Ac-
cessed November 10, 2015.
8 Vaishnav, Parth and Iddo K. Wernick, “Greenhouse Gas Emissions from International Transport”, Is-
sues in Science and Technology, Vol. XXX, issue 2, winter 2014, http://issues.org/30-2/parth/. Accessed
November 20, 2015.
9 United Nations Pan-European Programme (PEP), http://www.thepep.org/chwebsite/chviewer.
aspx?cat=d10. Accessed November 13, 2015.
10 Global Footprint Network, “Living Planet Report 2014 Facts”, http://www.footprintnetwork.org/en/
index.php/GFN/page/living_planet_report_2014_facts/. Accessed 23 September 2015.
11 “Where the Admen Are”, Newsweek, March 14, 1994, p. 34.
12 Simms, Andrew, Victoria Johnson and Peter Chowda, “Growth isn’t possible: Why we need a new
economic direction”, Schumacher College and New Economics Foundation, 2010, http://www.neweco-
nomics.org/publications/entry/growth-isnt-possible. Accessed November 23, 2015.
13 Vermeulen, Sonja J. et al, “Climate Change and Food Systems”, Annual Review of Environment and
Resources, Vol. 37: 195-222, November 2012, http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-
environ-020411-130608. Accessed November 23, 2015.
14 Pimentel, David. August 2006. Impacts of Organic Farming on the Efficiency of Energy Use in Agricul-
ture. An Organic Center State of Science Review, http:www.organiccenter.org/reportfiles/ENERGY_SSR.
pdf.
15 GRAIN, “Trade Deals – Boosting Climate Change: the Food Factor”, October 2015, https://www.grain.
org/article/entries/5317-trade-deals-boosting-climate-change-the-foodfactor. Accessed Nov 1, 2015.
16 ibid.
17 Moreno, Camila, op. cit.
18 Glanz, James, “Power, Pollution, and the Internet”, New York Times, Sept. 22, 2012, http://www.
nytimes.com/2012/09/23/technology/data-centers-waste-vast-amounts-ofenergy-belying-industry-image.
html?_r=0. Accessed November 20, 2015.
19 Ibid.

LOCAL FUTURES 15
20 Vidal, John, “Toxic ‘e-Waste’ dumped in poor nations, says United Nations”, The Guardian, Dec. 14,
2013. http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/dec/14/toxic-ewasteillegal-dumping-devel-
oping-countries. Accessed Nov. 20, 2015.
21 Shiva, Vandana, interviewed in The Economics of Happiness, Local Futures/ISEC 2011.
22 Corporate Europe Observatory/ Council of Canadians/ Transnational Institute (2013) The right to say
no. EU- Canada trade agreement threatens fracking bans,http://corporateeurope.org/publications/right-
say-no-eu-canada-trade- agreementthreatens-fracking-bans . Accessed May15, 2013.
23 Solomon, Ilana, and Ben Beach, Sierra Club, A Dirty Deal: How the Trans-Pacific Partnership Threat-
ens our Climate, December 2015.

Photo Credits

p1 Billy Wilson
p2 Alice Perna
p3 popularresistance.org
p5 Katie Fehrenbacher (Google solar panels), Antonella Sinopoli (Slum Kibera- Nairobi - Kenya-2008)
p6 International Business Alliance
p8 Jerry Burke (Peligro), Farm Sanctuary (Broiler chickens raised for slaughter)
p9 UNEP
p11 Donkey Hotey
p12 Audrey Woon

16 LOCAL FUTURES