[This paper isn't due until Monday - I finished it Thursday night. Enjoy!]

Executive Summary: Impediments to Establishing Global Sustainability

Ron Khare

The purpose of this paper is to identify and clearly explain the single largest challenge to the establishment of global sustainability.

Our working definition of “global sustainability” is the perpetuity of natural resources. The definition of “civilization” is ever-increasingly complex urbanization. This is distinctly different from “community,” with which it is often confused.

Summary

The only real factor that prevents global sustainability is civilization, or more specifically, the cities upon which civilization is based. Civilization’s basic structure is exploitative, destructive and unsustainable. The continued rise of civilization is the only true source of the destruction in the natural world. No amount of topical solutions will fix its fundamental need, which is to take, by any means necessary, the resources it cannot provide for itself.

Primary Threat: Civilization Itself

Civilization is marked as the shift of mankind from nature to city. As far as human pursuits are concerned, this may be for the best – higher concentrations of people and access to the benefits from the resulting greater division of labor have led to some amazing advances of arts and sciences.

Cities, by design, have one deadly flaw – they cannot support their dense populations with the resources contained within them. In order to survive, then, resources (like food) must be brought in from their surroundings.

Historically, the resource base for a city was strictly limited to what could be walked in by carts or by beasts of burden. The needs of these cities were fewer and simpler – food, primarily, followed by raw resources to be used by craftsmen.

This may seem innocuous at first, but the system of violence, imperialism and oppression is already firmly established in this model. The city relies entirely upon the ability of farmers to farm significantly more than they themselves need, and then expend the energy necessary to transport those heavy, time-sensitive goods to a city center. What follows is a list of the inherit problems with this system.

Resource Redistribution and Loss

In a sustainable agricultural model, most (if not all) of the nutrients in the soil stay on-site, and are eventually re-incorporated into the soil. The nutrients that cannot be recaptured can be replaced by drawing on established wild areas – leaf litter from forests, for example.

Pushing the lands to their limit for exportation to the city destabilizes the soil. The nutrients leave the farm in the form of produce, only later to be discarded by the city-dwellers in the trash or down a sewer system – never to return to the farm. This one-way flow of nutrients means the farmer becomes increasingly reliant on external fertilization means – the farmer becomes a threat, in turn, to the wild areas as his need to replenish the soil increases.

Soil is just one example of the problem with city consumption – any and all natural resources are subject to this one-way flow. The cities take these natural resources and produce ever-increasingly sophisticated and specialized items for human needs – or may lead to better knowledge, science and art. In any case, the resources themselves are never returned to the land from which they came.

The Rise of Civilization is the Death of Nature

Cities, by their nature, are unsustainable – although it is possible that a small city working with the people who live on the nearby land can last for a very long time. However, a successful city (by the common understanding of success) will become increasingly sophisticated, efficient and, in all likelihood, grow.

The city lifestyle is removed from natural processes, even while understanding of those processes may increase from higher learning and observation. Cities are lit up at night, creating an unnatural daytime effects. Roads and sewers are built to efficiently funnel traffic and sewage to predetermined locations. Soil is covered with stones or concrete. Waterways are straightened, and rainwater is flushed away. Views are obstructed by large buildings and walls. Sounds and smells are all of human origin. Animals are either slaughtered for food, domesticated as pets, or killed as pests. Vegetation, if it is allowed, is contained and cultivated for aesthetic properties. City gardens are typically herb gardens or small supplemental plots. As a city expands and increases in infrastructure and sophistication, it further removes those living therein from the natural world. At the same time, it continues to put increasing demands on the surrounding “wild” resources – and those who gather from or farm them.

Eventually, the needs of the city exceeds the yield limit of the immediate land. While it is possible that the city could take efforts to reduce its population, this is almost never the case. Instead, the answer has always been to reach father out, gathering resources from most distant lands.

It may be that those nearby farmers may have some sort of allegiance to the city based on economic or defensive purposes that could justify the loss of their resources. The farther you travel from the city, however, the harder it is to offer benefits that offset that loss. When the city realizes it must have those resources in order to survive and prosper, all too often the answer has been to take them by force.

There is no logical reason that someone living off of a piece of land should voluntarily create a one-way stream of resources off that land. Either those living on the land must be indoctrinated with an established set of illogical principles that support resource exploitation, or those resources must be taken by force. Either way, those living on the land that has city-valued resources is on the losing end of the deal – true sustainability precludes the perpetual exportation of resources.

Symptoms are Not Causes

Every threat to civilization Lester R. Brown mentions in his book Plan B 4.0 is symptomatic of an underlying planetary disease. The problems with climate change, war, water usage, agriculture, energy generation, transportation, peak oil, over-population, failing states and the like are merely the result of a firmly established “civilized” mindset. Resource extraction has advanced to the stage where many people can no longer live on their land – half of the world’s population have followed the flow of their resources to the cities. (source)

Civilization has had a few thousand years to perfect its justification for existence, downplay or re-word resource extraction, and so far remove people from nature that many people today believe that our only hope for sustainability is in the further development and refinement of civilization itself. One-way resource extraction and the exploitation necessary to continue that flow will abate, people say, if we can advance civilization just a little bit more.

Yet, in all the thousands of years that mankind has been developing cities, there has never been a satisfactory way to resolve the fundamental issue: too many people on too little land to support them. There is no guarantee that, if techno-idealist visions of “eco-cities” are realized (making even the largest mega-cities fully self-sufficient) that humanity will abandon the long-entrenched goals and values of civilization itself.

More importantly, even if every symptom of civilization was solved through the application of miraculous new technology, the disease of civilization will only continue to grow. New resources will be found vital to further development, leading once again to extraction, exploitation and scarcity, resulting in more advanced problems in sustainability that we’ve yet to fathom.

It’s been quite a ride.

Before I get into the details, I just want to say for the record: Not only did I fulfill my internship objectives, I ended up doing far more than was originally planned. I believe everyone I worked with can attest to that. Internship success!

Summer breaks are for losers! Non-stop work is where it's at!

We had a Board meeting today, the first one we’ve had since before I started my internship. I feel like it was a really positive meeting – everyone was expressing ideas and getting unified in vision on getting the SLC back on track, fixing up the SEED Center, and so on. My video and correspondence with the Board has been greatly welcomed – I’ve received a lot of positive feedback on my efforts, and I’d like to think that my strong message helped light a fire with the Board members.

Our general agreement was to put the word out that we’re looking for the right kind of people to really take over the SEED Center and, like Brian, transform the place. There was some disagreement on whether we should support this in a top-down and organizational way, or whether we should allow it to develop organically and let the structure come from those efforts. Where those two ideas meet is in simply finding the right people - interns, new SL grads, farmers, micro-business start-ups, and others – and creating and maintaining the SEED Center to support them.

As part of my agenda, I took the suggested idea of a Program Director, expanded it into an Executive Director, and then (with feedback from the Board and others) divided that idea into four different Coordinators: Administrative, Media and Communications, Educational and SEED Center Facilitator. These roles could be more easily filled by younger, less experienced people, and can have a greater degree of malleability – the roles can be molded to fit the people.

This, however, is still a top-down approach. It is entirely possible that we don’t need any real formal job description, provided those who live and/or work at the SEED Center upgrade and maintain the place while providing educational opportunities.  We all seem to be in general agreement that it will still take a few years to build things up, both campus-wise and organizationally speaking, and all these things will change over those years.

Like this shower, which now looks nothing like this.

One thing I did realize recently was that my internship was not thought out – they had not actually planned on any interns this summer, and I gather that the program itself was always somewhat void of oversight and education. If I had a “SLC Primer,” just one or two days sitting down with someone, learning about what the SLC is, how it was founded, what its done, what it is suppose to do, and given all the materials I needed to start, I could have easily bypassed weeks of hard learning and hunting for information.

I have to take some of the blame for that – I tend to be self-sufficient, in that I don’t ask for help unless it’s dire. At first I didn’t realize I needed help, so I continued on my own, and it was only after some time that I started reaching out to other people, and the help that came in response to that was very welcome. My isolationist tendencies don’t help me much when I’m running a networking organization, which is one of the reasons why I realized that I didn’t really want a career like this. It could be rewarding, but I simply don’t have the time or patience to work with people – as working with people means working at other’s people’s pace, and with other people’s objectives (which may not fit my own).

How I viewed the SEED Center changed a lot over the course of the internship, from a place where I just had to work and maintain, to the worst thing to ever happen to the SLC, to now, where I see it as its only real salvation.

It was nice to have it all come together at the end. I have high hopes for the SLC, assuming those vital leaders are found. For my part, I’ve compiled all the information I’ve learned into a “beginner’s packet” which can be given to whoever takes my place. It covers all the passwords for our online stuff, as well as a general rundown of the SLC and who to talk to to find out more.

I actually still have some things to do: Go to a potluck, and make a poster for the event on Saturday, so I’ll probably be working up until I leave town tomorrow, and I’ll probably still be trying to organize things while I’m gone. It’s only once I’m back in school that I’ll really be free from it all…. in other words, it’s only once I start a more-than-full-time job that I can quit this more-than-full-time job. :\

End story: I was moving my computer out of the Barn a few days ago, reflecting on an entire summer working there, when I saw this golden apple lit by the sunset.

Since I received no real payment for the internship, I considered it a gift from the land for all the work I had done that summer. It was nice to think that this apple, no matter how small, was the start of something much bigger.

Now… who’s next?

Hi Ken + Board,

We also don't need these anymore, so we can donate them somewhere.

This Sunday night at the SLC SEED Center: Potluck and Movie Night! We’ll be watching Food Inc – a must-watch for everyone.

Things kick off around 6:30pm!

http://www.foodincmovie.com/

It’s 11:24pm, and I’m wondering about social customs.

It hot climates, it’s traditional to take a “siesta” – that is, a several-hour long “lunch break” during the hottest parts of the day. During this leisure time people will eat, nap, drink – whatever keeps them cool and rested.

It's almost midnight and I'm sweating buckets.

They go back to work when the sun is lower, and things start to cool off.

We probably have more humidity than “they” did, which means shade and lower sun doesn’t count as much, but this still makes sense. With daytime heat index reaching 117 degrees the last two days, it just makes sense that I shouldn’t be working in a building that has no air conditioning.

I could just move my computer back to my a/c house, and work on digital/management stuff during the day, and only come to the SLC SEED Center during cooler hours. It’s tempting, but I know that I will be less likely to come out here at all – evenings are my leisure hours, when I nap, eat and hang out with friends. If worked both daytime and evening I would rob myself of “me-time” and become overworked, even if I don’t get much done. By keeping my computer here, I ensure my presence at the SEED Center, and thereby a certain level of upkeep occurs – I would not have made that short path in the grass if I hadn’t just decided to do it on the way in to use my computer.

I wouldn’t have a problem switching my hours around – stay up late, get up early, sleep the day away – as there is a strong tradition of it, and it just makes more sense. However, as I’m trying to gain internship credit with Maharishi University of Management, I have to adhere to certain guidelines…..

…. and all of these guidelines I strictly adhere to. The hours I posted at the start of the internship, here on my public blog, are the ones I follow. Right?

I’ve officially started my internship position as Assistant/Manager/Director of the Sustainable Living Coalition here in Fairfield, Iowa.  I’m a bit over my head as far as responsibilities go, but I’m sure I’ll figure it out.

I moved my computer into the SLC SEED Center Building, which means I’m now blogging on Solar and Wind Power!

I’ll be working here most every day, except weekends (for the most part). My office is located on the second floor as the SLC Building, and my office hours are 1:30-4:30 weekdays. Feel free to stop by!

I can also be reached at RonKhare @ gmail.com and 641.455.9707  - My internship is over when school starts again, around the end of August.

Here are the learning objectives:

SLC Internship: Assistant Director of the Sustainable Living Coalition
Ron Khare

Learning Objectives:

The primary objective is to learn how the Sustainable Living Coalition, a non-profit organization, operates. This will be a hands-on learning experience, taking the lead on fund raising, upgrading the campus, and hosting educational events that further the Coalition’s goals of empowerment in the community.

I will be working closely with the Board of Directors to assure that we stay on track and present a unified vision. I will learn about organizing fund raisers, concerts, potlucks, and movie nights, all oriented toward sustainable living. I will learn about the value of networking. I’ll learn about sustainable building approaches and relative costs of different building methods. In effect, I’ll get a chance to understand what being a director of a small non-profit focused on sustainability education and sustainable enterprise development is all about.

For example: I will tour the campus with the Directors and receive a list of vital improvements to be made. Then I will find the the cost estimation of constructing various elements in the campus facilities. Working with the Board members, we will find and connect with various sustainable building experts who can provide information on how to accomplish things most efficiently at the least expense. Once we have a cost estimation, we will plan and execute a large fund-raising event with these goals in mind. Once the funds have been raised, we can contract and have the improvements built.

I’ll also be working with the grant-writer to prepare a folder or packet of info for potential funding sources who may not be in Fairfield or who may not attend the event.

I’ll be available to help line up any workshops or other social events for the summer (eg, concerts, potlucks, films, talks). I can talk to youth groups, such as the Boy Scouts, about potential uses for the land and educational buildings.

I’ll also help on the digital end, by updating and managing the SLC’s website, including uploading new content and maintaining a list of SLC contacts. In addition to that, I will blog regularly about what I am learning, as well as my personal impressions on the whole process. The blog will include text, pictures and video.

Daily Routine:
(subject to change for events)
7:30 – 8:30: Morning Program
8:30 – 9:30: Breakfast
9:30 – 12:00: Work on Projects
12:00 -1:30: Lunch
1:30 – 4:00: Work on Projects
4:00 – 4:30: Meet with Ken
4:30 – 6:45: Evening Program
6:45 – 8:00: Dinner
8:00 – 8:30: Blog
8:30 – 10:00: Free time
10pm: Bed

http://mvccsa.com/ <— This is the local CSA website, where you can sign up and learn more about it.

The Democratic King

How the transfer of power to a new system of accountable monarchies may be the only viable method to create a sustainable civilization.

“Reformers have the idea that change can be achieved by brute sanity.”

- George Bernard Shaw

The Parameters of the Problem / The Need for Change

Complete Worldwide Topsoil Erosion and Infertility in 42 to 84 years.¹

Half of the world’s forests are gone.²

Sixth Major Extinction Event, caused by man-made means, may result in half of all of the world’s species being extinct in less than one hundred years. ³

90% of the major fish species in the world’s oceans have disappeared. ⁴

1.2 billion human beings live on less than $1 a day. Nearly 3 billion human beings live on less than $2 a day.⁵

Almost 1 billion people do not have regular access to clean drinking water.⁶

Oil production may end as soon as 2033. ⁷ It is entirely possible that peak oil production occurred in 2006.⁸

“Mirroring these findings… the United Nations Environmental Programme’s GEO-3 report of 2002 found that a vision of continued economic growth and global development akin to that which is now underway is consonant only with planetary extinction and specifically they conclude that: either great changes are made in our global lifestyle now or irrevocable social and ecological upheavals will grip the world by 2032.” – Richard Kahn, Towards Ecopedagogy (emphasis mine)

These are just a few facts and figures that shine some light on the current disaster afflicting every part of the globe. This problem stems from human beings and its ultimate end, if left unchecked, is wholesale destruction Earth’s biosphere and everything in it, including humanity itself.

Certainly the world has undergone worse changes of climate and extinction events. The Snowball Earth event, in which “Global temperature fell so low that the equator was as cold as modern-day Antarctica,” may have occurred 650 million years ago.⁹ The Permian-Triassic Extinction Event killed 90% of all sea life and 70% of all terrestrial life some 250 million years ago. ¹⁰ The Earth, by itself, can continue life, in whatever form it can, by any means it can.

Our argument here is not one of protecting life on this planet. Nor am I concerned about the survivability of the human species – our ability to think about scales, times and distances will allow some small groups to survive anything short of a Snowball Earth. What I am concerned about is the survival of civilization itself, containing the total of our shared knowledge, experiences and resources. Civilization obviously cannot survive without people, but the survival of people without civilization is, to me, an unacceptable outcome, and one we must avoid at all costs.

Now, by all accounts we still have enough resources to skate by for another generation – however, at the end of that coasting, we’ll have pushed the world over the brink. No rectifying efforts will be able to recapture the ecological habitats and weather cycles already being fundamentally altered or destroyed. Moreover, without the fundamental changes to the structures of our current power structures, we will be unable to mobilize the massive effort to stop or reverse these changes – we need our cars (and therefore oil), we need our coal for heat and electricity, we need our leaders – leaders who will not undertake the necessary measures to prevent any more damage from occurring.

Without strong leadership, coupled by a massive social movement, civilization may be doomed.

What Can We Do About It?

Education, while vital to the long-term survival of civilization, cannot be a solution to our current crisis, as it places the responsibility of action on the next generation, or even worse, on rationality overriding previously entrenched emotional beliefs in a vast majority of people.

By the same token, grassroots efforts and the sustainability movement’s bias towards personal responsibility will take too long, with vastly too much effort, to achieve the vital ends of societal transformation – if it can at all. ¹¹

All this leads me to the inescapable conclusion that humanity, all seven billion people have two clear choices at this immediate moment:

Option A: Full Scale Revolution of All Current Power Structures that are not Sustainable. (Saving the world at the expense of the community.)

Option B: Small-Scale Revolutions that Reinvent Civilization on a Local Level. (Saving the community at the expense of the world.)

I define my terms as such:

Sustainability: the ability of human beings to be able to live in a safe, healthy and perpetual manner regardless of any predictable internal (human-based) or external (environmental) changes.

Power Structures: Any mental construct that people agree to, regarding the division of labor and leadership.

Civilization: The means by which humans can lift themselves from a feral state of living to living in a manner in which they can increase the quality of their lives and the lives of those around them.

Revolution: The abandonment of a current power structure in favor of either a specific replacement, or a general “anything else but this.”

In actuality, there is only one choice: Adaption. Death is inescapable if we do not adapt, so I do not count it as an option – it is the result of inaction. The purpose of this paper is to propose an alternative power structure that we, as Americans, are loathe to consider – and yet may hold the greatest promise of salvation.

The Case for Revolution, Again.

“… That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. …. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.” – The Declaration of Independence

The fundamental premise of America is “power to the people,” holding high the government Abraham Lincoln once described as “of the people, by the people, and for the people.” Our history began when citizens finally understood the extent by which the old system of monarchies could abuse their power. We fought, bloodied and to the ragged bones, for freedom from a tyrant. The result? Nearly every nation in the world since then have shrugged off their traditional rulers and adopted some form of democratic rule. The people, in theory, now hold the power to direct their own collective destinies.

The various shortcomings of democratic rule are beyond the scope of this paper. For my purposes, however I have to summarize one idea: the people may not be able to determine their best collective destiny. In fact, by adopting non-sustainable policies and societal developments, our collective rule has failed us. By continuing to persist with their directions long after their damage and irresponsibly have been proven, our collective self-rule has become an abuse of power – by continuing with our current power structures, we are abusing our own power against ourselves.

The common approach to the ecological devastation listed earlier, promoted by the more prominent voices and appearing as a collective bias in the sustainability movement, is to change individual habits and actions. Whatever tiny changes one person can enact, if applied broadly across a population, will yield world-saving results.

Derrick Jensen, in his article “Forget Shorter Showers,” has a more pragmatic view of this individual-first bias:

“… Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. “An Inconvenient Truth” [the famous Al Gore movie on Climate Change] helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.”¹²

Clearly, we need better solutions than a grassroots educational campaign to get people to change the type of light bulbs they use, or promoting “bicycle instead of drive” as a healthy way to save the environment.

Joel Kovel, in his book “The Enemy of Nature,”¹³ puts it in an even more direct manner:

“Though the Second Contradiction [the degradation of the conditions of production] may be offset in individual circumstances by recycling, pollution control, the trading of credits and the like, the imperative to expand continually erodes the edges of ecologies along an ever-lengthening perimeter, overwhelming or displacing recuperative efforts, and accelerating a cascade of destabilization.”

(I should note that I am grouping both our government (with all its affiliated nodes) and our economy – their source of power, and their right to continuing operation, comes directly from the will of the people.)

It should be obvious by now that an individual, doing everything they can within the sphere of their normal, daily influence, will have an negligible impact on changing the current direction of these “monsters” – and even if every individual adopts the most extreme measures of conversation, recycling and such, so long as these fundamental premises exist – those forces that brought us to this point – and are allowed to continue, we still face wholesale ecological destruction.

Therefore, nothing short of a complete revolution will bring this machine to a stop.

But why bother? As I said before, I believe the crisis is fully realized, and that it will not stop no matter what we do. I advocate revolution not for it’s preventive properties (I only bring those up in an effort to sway those who still believe there is time for prevention), rather, I advocate revolution because the current power structures will not allow for new civilizations to take root without it.

As the world constantly changes, our government has a moral obligation and ethical duty to promote and nurture new forms of government. That is to say, if a government acts for the benefit of its citizens, it acts to provide the alternatives that will eventually make itself obsolete.

Treason, in this sense, is not committed by people betraying the government in pursuit of new power structures. Treason is committed and perpetuated by the government against the sovereignty of individuals by outlawing new ideas from attaining the power necessary to test and implement themselves, and by either directly contributing, or indirectly allowing, the continued destruction of the biosphere, upon which all life depends.

We cannot act, either to save the planet from continued destruction or by adapting our society to meet the coming destruction, so long as we, individually and collectively, continue to invest our power in our current government.

Fortunately, thanks to our ever-increasing body of knowledge and experience, we know the true mechanics of power – that is, it is mental in nature, and being so, revolution only takes place in the minds of people.¹⁴ Since this is the case, no revolution need to bloody itself or fall victim to the ignorant idea of killing people to achieve its ends. It is civilization we’re trying to save, after all, and nothing is more uncivilized than killing people.

If we are going to revolt, it might be a good idea to have a new system to take place of the old – as much fun as forging a new society out of chaos and anarchy might be, it runs counter to my stated purpose of saving civilization. What we need is a new society, a new way of doing things, and in a manner that promotes civilization and allows it to flourish.

The Restoration of the American Monarchies (R.A.M.)

I am suggesting that, given our extreme need to affect massive social changes in a very short amount of time, our best bet is to centralize power in a network of elective, constitutional monarchies serving small kingdoms throughout America.

In order to be effective, this idea rules out continued allegiance to the current governmental structure, at least on the state and federal levels.

America is a hard place to talk about monarchy; there is no place more resistant to the idea of – and no place more in need of – a radical shift of power to a single individual (or, as I’ll explain later, an ecosystem of individual kingdoms).

Thomas Paine’s fundamental arguments in his famous paper Common Sense (1776) revolve around the idea of an ideally constructed government. His assertion that government is produced “by our wickedness” and acts as a restraining hand on the vices of mankind. Being the voice of reason in the American Revolution, he obviously had some things to say about Monarchy:

“Absolute governments, (tho’ the disgrace of human nature) have this advantage with them, they are simple; if the people suffer, they know the head from which their suffering springs; know likewise the remedy; and are not bewildered by a variety of causes and cures.”

His following deconstruction of the English Constitution and Monarchy can be easily read in the light of the tyrannical oligarchy we Americans find ourselves in today.¹⁵

Common Sense, while perfectly framing the reasons behind the eventual failings and dissolution of nearly every monarchy on the planet, can only now be used in a cautionary manner. By learning the lessons of the past, we damn ourselves to progress. The creation and refinement of a new system of monarchy may, in time, create a system not unlike that which we, as America, first freed ourselves of. However, given that today’s America behaves in a manner more like the old English Monarchy than the accountable representative democracy first envisioned, we are obligated to repeat the cycles of the past – revolution, in the sense of overthrowing an abusive government, and in the sense of turning around again, we face a viable solution in the form of our old enemy – monarchy.

Reading Common Sense and the Declaration of Independence as texts against our current government had led me to the inescapable conclusion that America’s revolution against a monarchy was incidental. What America was truly revolting against was the abuse of power and the subjection of its citizens.

Modern Americas react violently against the concept of a monarch from this historical context, immediately throwing the idea in the bin of absolute dictatorships that run amok today. A clearer view of our revolutionary legacy, however, shows this to be mistaken – any form of government can abuse its invested power and subjugate its citizens. Our current form of government has done so, with the list of offenses arguably equal or greater to those weighted against the English King.

In that revolution, our Founding Fathers took the risks to form a new government, one unlike anything the world had seen in thousands of years. Therefore, in the pursuit of finding a new system of government, it is not backwards or improper that we should look to various models of the past as a basis for a radical new structure of power. The purpose of this paper is to consider the idea of monarchies as a potential, sustainable replacement for our current forms of government.

A Vision of a Kingdom

As a lot of the changes we need to undertake are fundamental to our way of life, it may be easier to describe what this changed society would look like, in terms of actually being there. So let’s take an imaginary journey to the Kingdom of Spearhead, just south of Fairfield, Iowa.

It’s early on a warm summer morning as you and your guide crest the gentle hill. In the growing brightness, down in the valley below, you see the low brick walls that surround the… town? City? It’s hard to tell how many people live there. You can see faint smoke rising from a few chimneys, the small wind turbines reflecting the light of the rising sun. You’re impressed by how quiet this morning is.

As you walk down the hill you notice that the high patches of vegetation surrounding the town are actually gardens, densely packed with foliage. Interspersed with these thick gardens are plots of land that look wild, like prairie, although some have trees. As you walk, your guide points out that the trees now lining the road and reaching back into the wilderness you’ve been traveling are, in fact, fruit trees – she says that the forest of fruit extends several miles back in both directions. You can see the mulberries lying on the road, and the growing buds of apples, pears and plums. The sweet, sticky smell of fruit is everywhere as you walk under the cool, dark leaves – the sun is rising higher, and you know it’s going to be a hot day.

The path turns from the road, and you see a large iron gate, fully open, nestled in the warm brick walls. As you approach you ask your guide, and she explains – the entire settlement was designed to last a thousand years. Even though we live in an age of peace, no one can say for certain that will always be the case; it was constructed to not only promote a unity among citizens, but provide a strong defense, should the need arise. You pass through the gate. In the meantime, she says, the walls prevent wildlife from wreaking havoc on the town’s gardens and chickens.

As soon as “chickens” escapes her lips, a nearby rooster belts out its call from somewhere on your right, startling you. A few more roosters let their loud calls, and suddenly you’re aware of the sounds – the most interesting of which is the growing sound of people talking and moving about. Looking around, you can see the earthen houses, small and packed together, some rising high, three or four stories tall. They have the look of adobe or polished stone, smooth angles and corners everywhere, painted a stunning variety of colors. A light clay, locally sourced, seems to be the primary building material – even the winding road you’re on is made of it, small plants like dandelions and camomile poking out between the blocks.

It was the first thing you saw as you walked through the gate, but you really pay attention to it as you walk further in – a giant statue, like a Buddha, sits on a pedestal in the center of the main road, shining in the dull brown of bronze. Someone has placed a garland of flowers around his neck, and the eyes are mostly closed, face ever-so-slightly bemused. Around the pedestal, a fountain gurgles softly. You pause and look at it – there are drinking fixtures attached to every side. Seeing your look, your guide nods and says it’s good water. You didn’t realize how thirsty you were, and as you drink the cold water you can feel the growing warmth from the sun on your back.

The sounds of people have grown considerably louder, and you hurry to the center of the town – the market is in full swing. It’s still morning, and you’re impressed by the sheer number of people – you didn’t realize just how many lived here. Your guide estimates about four thousand or so, but the town is only a little more than half a mile across.
Although it’s hard to see the exact layout of the town’s center through the throng, a few things stick out. The first, and most obvious, is the relatively large building on the opposite side, shining bright in the sunlight. That, she says, is the Royal Hall, where the King holds court and administers the nation. It also serves as the central bank, as well as a number of other municipal functions. Between you and it is the central park.

At first the park seems disorganized, but a sudden symmetry hits you – the paths twist and wind their way around, lined on both sides by small kiosks, tents and market stalls. The majority of the goods sold are foods of all kinds, but you can also see clothing, cookware, and all manner of other goods being sold. In the exact center of the park is what your guide calls the “Brahmasthan” – the holy, sacred center of the entire Kingdom. It appears as a small, one-room temple surrounded by pillars, with ornate doors, one on each side. The one facing you is open, and you can almost see inside as the sunlight keeps rising – soon the door will be closed, to keep it quiet and calm inside.

You press your way through the market, impressed by the variety of foods available. Some of the stalls have refrigerators and freezers – some sell ice cream, and you can hear the buzz of juicers and blenders from nearby vendors. Looking up, you can see the lights strung from vendor stall to stall.

You stop at one of these stalls for a light breakfast – an omelet with veggies, and a berry milkshake. You sit at a small table next to the stall with your guide, and as you get your food (served on a wooden plate and dainty ceramic cup) you grill the owner about his business. He says his daughter collects the fruits from the nearby forest daily – the eggs come from his neighbor, in exchange for free omelets. The veggies come from a few places: his small personal garden, the community garden, and sometimes he just buys them from the other stalls. The milk comes from the local dairy, which he has to buy.

You get into even more detail. Yes, he keeps his stock in a chest refrigerator – you can see it in the back of his stall. Electricity is free, so there are no bills. He maintains his juicer and blender, taking it to the tinkerer if there are problems. If something breaks (and they do), the town over has a rail, and thereby access to either the part needed for repair, or if it’s really gone, a new one. A new juicer is crazy-expensive, though, and the currency-barter systems isn’t as clear as he’d like it to be – sometimes the Kings draw up lists of things the communities need from each other and work out a system of exchange, sometimes the people themselves handle it. He shrugs and gets back to the stall – people are waiting.

After eating, your guide asks if you’d like to meet the King. You say yes, and you’re back into the crowd. By now the sun has gotten outright hot, and you pause occasionally in the shade of a tree or one of the roofs that extend over seats filled with eating, drinking and talking people. The people seem lively – there’s talk of not getting much done during the day, and what they can do until it cools off in the evening.

You finally reach the Court, with it’s large doors opened wide as small groups enter and leave. As you enter you’re struck by how nice it is – pillars that look like large trees rise up, supporting the roof – as they extend back into the hall, it gives the impression of being in a forest. To your right, through another pair of doors, you can see the bank, with a few people exchanging paper money, making deposits or withdraws, and so on.

At the end of the hall is the Throne, which you are honestly not impressed with. You move closer, and you can see it only rises about three feet from the ground, tastefully carved but not the opulence you were expecting. It has a few desks and chairs in front of it – this is where the King listens to the problems people have and, if necessary, weighs in.

You hear a voice, and turn around to see the King waving at your guide. They shake hands, and she introduces you. The King shakes your hand enthusiastically, and apologizes, saying he has not yet eaten today, but that you are more than welcome to join him as he hits the market before it gets too hot.

As you walk together, you can’t help but notice his crown, like his Throne, is simple, carved and wooden. It does not rise high on his head – it’s more like a band than crown. You might miss it if you didn’t know what you were looking for, but a closer look reveals an extreme degree of carving and design. You decide you like it.

I have to stop the story here. I would love to take you further on this trip – the conversations you have with the King, the way he and the citizens interact, the way his Kingdom and the others nearby interact, a cool evening’s tour of the rest of the town and surrounding land, the night life when the community and arts really come alive, and so on. I have to cover a lot more ground than that, however, so I must leave it for another time.

If you liked this story, there is one point I would like to make: We have, right now, the vision, technology, science, economic models, social-political structures, historical examples (both successes and failures) – in short, we have everything we need to lay the foundations and begin construction of this world.

What is stopping us, then? For all the outward appearances a traveler may see, there are deeper forces at work. These forces are the foundation of our current power structures – our currency and economy, our political structures, what values our society holds dear – in short, to establish a world like this requires a complete departure from the norm, which, at this point, is illegal, and may enrage a significant number of people. That is to say, to establish a world like this, we really need a revolution.

The Microcosmic Human Body / The Ecology of Civilization

In the Immunity chapter of his book “Blessed Unrest,” Paul Hawken likens the current sustainability movement’s incredibly diverse network of organizations in terms of the immune system – that is, a network of the body’s immune cells, acting independently and without a person’s awareness (or even permission), work in a disorganized yet highly effect manner to prevent infections and diseases.

The Gaia Theory¹⁶ holds a similar idea – the Earth itself adapts to changing conditions, much like a living organism. All the various forms of life contained within the Earth, then, can be seen as cells regulating the planetary body.

Gregory Bateson, in Steps to an Ecology of Mind puts it this way:

“…. a healthy ecology of human civilization would be defined somewhat as follows:

A single system of environment combined with high human civilization in which the flexibility of the civilization shall match that of the environment to create an ongoing complex system, open-ended for slow change of even basic (hard-programmed) characteristics.”

These comparisons are telling: the body’s strength comes from billions of individual cells working in harmony, and the health and well-being depends not on the strength of just one type of cell, but on all of them working both for their own success AND the success of the body as a whole.

Our current nation-system of the world (according to the United Nations) contains 195 countries serving seven billion people. Imagine if the body only had 195 cells! If only a few became sick, it would quickly spell death for such a simple and inflexible system. Increasing the number of cells in the body would quickly produce a stronger and healthier system.

But, just as with the body, the success of those individual cells depends completely on a higher structure, one by which those cells transfer resources and facilitate communication, working without bias and for the benefit of all. These higher structures are known as the heart, the brain, and so on.

My solution, then, is to mimic the natural biological systems by creating “cells” of mostly self-sufficient kingdoms, enclaves, towns, and so on. Each settlement would retain political and cultural sovereignty while working together to achieve solidarity – the rulers of these independent places, as a matter of course, seek cooperation with their neighbors to increase the health of their “cell,” and thereby increase the health of humanity as a whole.

If this is an argument for monarchy, then, it is also an argument for every other type of political, economic and social available. The difference between this and the current state of the world is that all these ideas have simply been scaled down to a level that is manageable and accountable to a community or group of communities.

Why not just promote this idea, and mention monarchy equally among all the other alternatives? Simply that I believe monarchy, structurally speaking, is the best option to create the vital changes necessary to create a sustainable civilization in the fastest and most efficient manner.

In this paper I’ve presented a view of the world as it is today, and I’ve provided, both by theory and story, an alternative to our modern-day world. The ecological destruction taking place has not abated, despite the outcry of scientists, politicians and citizens of every nation in the world. Nor can it stop, unless people agree to radically change the very base assumption of their lives – their “stories,” as Christopher Uhl puts it.¹⁷

But its hard for people to treat a slow, generational problem as an acute crisis. Too much emphasis is given to educational solutions, grassroots efforts, or the hope that a sudden technological breakthrough will relieve us of the unthinkable reality of severe social, political and economic changes. Changes, the cited experts agree, are inevitable – either we do them today, or they will occur on their own in about forty years.

It serves us well, then, to envision a new way of living like the story I provided. But even if this story were to light up the soul and inspire people to gather the resources, knowledge and power to create such a life, paradoxically, it is illegal to do so. Breaking the law, particularly when you adopt a new currency and no longer pay taxes or recognize governmental authority, will be dismantled as quickly as it is put together, and any resistance to this will be met by a quick and violent force – breaking the law is not tolerated. Nor should it!

This is the sticking point, and the place where our hearts feel the greatest pinch – we are denied the means necessary to save ourselves. The effort to regain the power of our own destinies is called revolution, and while peaceful revolutions have occurred, and in some places are occurring right now, the general American population, so far, has no pressing need to do so. By the time things get bad enough to inspire the average American to risk his or her life in defiance of the status quo and reach for this new vision, it may well be too late.

I am compelled to do everything I can, in my sphere of power, to further this new vision and make it a reality.

My action steps are clear – continued education into the mechanics of power and the various structures that can be adapted to sustainable ends. Using this knowledge, I will be able to construct a clear and irresistible vision for the future and the present, one which can be immediately adopted. If the vision is true, and the people’s passion real, then the revolution will occur by the sheer force of evolution. This may be met with resistance, or it may be openly adopted, I do not know. However, I cannot let potential problems stop me from pursuing this end, as the entire “human world” is at stake.

What can the reader can do? Understanding the ecological and social problems that we currently face is only a small portion of the larger picture: That these problems, left unchecked, will destroy civilization as we know it. Our real problem, then, is finding a new story: a new, sustainable world. We can adopt it just as soon as it is imagined – immediately! Let us spend our time constructing this new world in our consciousness, and from there… well, I guess we’ll see!

Works Cited

Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago, 2000. Print.

Blake, William. The Works of William Blake: with an Introduction and Bibliography. Ware: Wordsworth, 1994. Print.

Edwards, Andres R. The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift. Philadelphia, Pa: New Society, 2006. Print.

“Forget Shorter Showers | Derrick Jensen | Orion Magazine.” Orion Magazine – Nature / Culture / Place. Web. 04 May 2011. <http://www.orionmagazine.org/index.php/articles/article/4801/>.

Global Country of World Peace. Web. 04 May 2011. <http://globalcountryofworldpeace.org/citizen/index.html>.

Hawken, Paul. Blessed Unrest: How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, and Why No One Saw It Coming. New York: Viking, 2007. Print.

Jeavons, John. How to Grow More Vegetables: and Fruits, Nuts, Berries, Grains, and Other Crops than You Ever Thought Possible on Less Land than You Can Imagine : a Primer on the Life-giving Grow Biointensive Method of Sustainable Horticulture. Berkeley, CA: Ten Speed, 2006. Print.

Kahn, Richard. Towards Ecopedagogy. Print.

Khare, Ronald S. The Sharp Knife of Forced Simplicity, Volume 1: The Numinous Rebellion. Fairfield: 1st World, 2009. Print.

Kovel, Joel. The Enemy of Nature: the End of Capitalism or the End of the World? London: Zed, 2007. Print.

Leopold, Aldo, and Charles Walsh. Schwartz. A Sand County Almanac, and Sketches Here and There. New York: Oxford UP, 1987. Print.

Maharishi Vedic City. Web. 04 May 2011. <http://www.maharishivediccity-iowa.gov/capital/>.

Mahesh, Yogi. Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Defence: Sovereignty in Invincibility. India,: Age of Enlightenment Publications, 1996. Print.

Mahesh, Yogi. Maharishi’s Absolute Theory of Government: Automation in Administration. India: Maharishi Prakshan, 1995. Print.

Mander, Jerry. Technologies of Globalization. Print.

More, Thomas, and Clarence H. Miller. Utopia. New Haven, CT: Yale UP, 2001. Print.

Plato, and Francis Macdonald. Cornford. The Republic of Plato. London: Oxford UP, 2009. Print.

Uhl, Christopher. Developing Ecological Consciousness: Path to a Sustainable World. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. Print.

Part One: The Beginning of Time to the First Settlers

Part Two: The First Settlers to Today

It took me significantly longer than I anticipated to write these things. First, I put considerably more effort into writing them – I don’t think I put that level of research into any academic paper I’ve had. Second, I kept getting sidetracked by interesting stories and information that didn’t make it into (or had almost nothing to do with) the article.

For instance, upon reading how Central Park (the Square) was considered to be the center of the county (although it was off by a mile or so), I stopped reading, found a map, and traced from the original survey to the actual center spot. THEN I read that the county borders expanded at some point, throwing my original spot off… some hours later, by finally going off the current county borders, I found the place. …but so what? I guess I did use it for a picture, but I could have easily used a photo of the Square – learning where the center of the count was for my benefit, because I wanted to know.

It was a good project, on the whole, and I think people have been enjoying the fruits of that effort. I certainly feel enriched, being able to bust out facts and “did-you-knows” about relevant historical events during conversations with friends. Check ‘em out, maybe you’ll enjoy them too!