Can we live the future now?

by Chris Taylor

The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) just published this graph. Now I get that some people love a graph and others don’t. So, let me paint you a picture of what I see in it. The dotted line is the natural abundance of our world – everything it has to offer, everything it gives up freely to humankind. The shaded area is what we take, plus the pollution we give back.

Since 1970 we have been in “overshoot” – taking more from the world than it can easily restore. We see the consequences of this all around us – climate change, the mass extinction of species, deforestation, over-fishing. You name it.

Now look at the extreme right of the graph. The top of the grey area, our carbon emissions, drops suddenly. This is the estimated impact of COVID19 – its silver lining. As we locked down the world economy our ecological footprint shrank radically. We all saw the impact of that too– clean air, wild animals on city streets, rivers running clear again.

I have seen one estimate suggesting it would need ten years of this kind of lock down to allow the Earth to regenerate. Let’s just consider this for a moment. Could you do it? Could WE do it? Not the social distancing, that wouldn’t be necessary. But what about working from home? Wasn’t it great to not have to commute for a while? And what about growing your own food, baking your own bread? And not buying so much stuff? This wouldn’t be so hard, right?

I live on a communal organic farm. We recently had a PhD student come and assess our environmental impact. She weighed our food and our waste, she read electricity metres, measured water use and tracked everything we bought. The result? Our impact is 1/3 less than the UK average. That’s pretty good. But not good enough. The UK average footprint is around 2.5 times what is needed to be sustainable (it’s nearer 5 times in the US). We still need to lose a quarter of our current impact.

There are two main problems for us as a community: transport and consumer purchases. Because we live in a rural area, many of us commute to work. As a result, our car usage is about 20% higher than normal. COVID19 solved this at a stroke. Many of us are now working from home much more than before. Our use of cars from our car pool fell by three quarters during lock down. This brings our footprint comfortably below half the UK average – well within touching distance of sustainable. If we can reduce our purchases of non-food items by just a third, we’d be there. Bingo.

In fact, we think we can go one better. By carefully changing the way we farm we think we can improve soil health and increase bio-diversity – especially birds and bugs and maybe small mammals. We could reach a stage where we’re having a positive impact upon the local environment, while still producing the majority of our own food.

And the best thing about it? Well, it’s actually a great life. We spend plenty of time outdoors, getting fresh air and exercise. We have loads of social time and group activities (albeit at social distance for the time being). The kids run free in a safe and nourishing environment. We have animals to look after and to provide comfort and company. There’s fresh organic produce all year round, clean un-chlorinated water and renewable energy. Plus of course, loads of great neighbours to chat with, work with and thanks to well established process and systems, we make decisions by consensus with everyone’s voice having equal weight. There really are no “leaders” and very few dominant egos at play. We each play to our strengths, contributing what we can for the common good.

Maybe it sounds idyllic or idealistic. I’m here to tell you it’s both possible and in many ways more resilient, more positive and more healthy than mainstream society. Many people are beginning to realise this. We’ve had a three-fold increase in inquiries for prospective membership.

Through a project supported by the Oasis Foundation I’ve also been looking at how similar outcomes can be achieved in an inner-city context. Working with local community activists in the heart of Middlesbrough we’ve launched an array of food-growing initiatives, organised several hundred street-level social activities and started to explore how to link neighbourhoods into intentional-living communities.

There’s a saying in perma-culture that change happens at the margins. But it’s when it takes hold amongst the majority that we reach a tipping point. There’s never been a better time to join an intentional community, to set one up or to work with neighbours to green your streets. There’s a whole different way of life out there for us all. It’s more natural, healthier and more equitable. Plus, it might just save the planet from extinction. Why not give it a try? Live the future now.

For more information on Re-imagining the Future see HERE