The Bootstrap Method vs. Barefit Method

I had a great 16 mile autumn run today and my "barefit" minimalist running shoes inspired a couple of new perspectives about globalization vs. socioeconomic localization and a world not addicted to fossil fuel or enslaved to dehumanizing work.

Will we "bootstrap" ourselves out of this mess or will we forget the laces and boots all together?

Let me first put it on record that this blog is a question about what our transition town of Cincinnati will look like, not an answer.

I had a "chance encounter" a couple of weeks ago with a fascinating man named Pat Murphy while doing energy audits in Yellow Springs, Ohio (one of the coolest towns in the mid-west). He produced the film titled The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. It's an award winning documentary which tells the story about how when the Soviet Union pulled out of Cuba and the U.S. imposed a trade embargo, oil imports dropped by 50% and food by 80%!! The results effectively pulled the economic rug out from under the Cubans' feet. It was an economic disaster.

Looking back on it, the Cubans themselves call time "The Special Period". The Cuban economy is no longer based on fossil fuel prices made artificially cheap by government subsidies or environmental negligence. It's super-inspirational. But it begs the question-- can the transition happen without economic disaster?

I wonder if we can really expect to bootstrap our way to betterment through greenifying our current consumer habits. Will it look like ever-increasing fuel-economy for our cars? Do we just continue to pimp-out our washers and dryers and help the Chinese do the same? Is bootstrapping the same as an incrementalist approach to evolution? Or will changes be more punctuated, far-reaching, and paradigm-shifting? Will we recognize the new future and interdependence?

There is, in fact, a growing movement of futurists and designers who are devoting themselves to a reactionary approach that is bracing for the worst-- "designing for disaster", as if disaster, on some level, is simply inevitable. They are in Haiti after earthquakes, in Indonesia after tsunamis, in Africa during droughts. They see the current trend of "going green" as an underwhelming, misdirected effort, hi-jacked by advertisers, gadget makers, product lobbyists and politicians.

greenwashed crap

For many unemployed Americans, and others entrenched in the global-economy, disaster isn't such a far stretch of the imagination. It's practically upon us. And for those middle classers who have managed to stay employed, how many of us are happy working as cash register clerks and greeters and big box stores? How many are challenged and rewarded working on factory assembly lines or in cubicle-call centers as debt collectors? How many of us can actually afford organic food that nourishes our bodies and weans us off our over-medicated lives?

Below is a fun/depressing math exercise inspired by one of my heroes, Amory Lovins. It underscores how we drive in order to work and we work in order to drive.

The average American drives about 12,000 miles each year.
The total average cost of car ownership per year is $7,356 according to this cool calculator.
With a minimum wage job, earning $7.25/hr...
And counting "lost of hours of life" spent in the average daily commute to work...
We end up traveling 12,000 miles for a man-hour-cost of about 1200 hours of precious life.

...And don't we know a better way to go 10 miles/hour?


I can think of two ways.




It doesn't have to come down to disaster-based design.