Where forests can grow, counties, or better yet, watersheds, could develop their own currency system based on substantial forest lands placed in public trust. The roots of this idea are not mine, but come from the work of Ralph Borsodi, Robert Swann, and Susan Witt.
No matter how intricately we spin illusions about money having value and reality on its own, the intrinsic value of money itself is less than the paper or metal it's printed on. All wealth comes from the Earth, its materials, resources, energy sources, ecological integrity, and, most generally, the orders created and stored by Earth/life systems. Our ability to draw from and work with these integrities and orders is the root of wealth.
Presently the primary source of wealth and the driver of most economic activity on the planet now is oil and other fossil fuel. The dollar is a petrodollar, beyond any other significator of its value, as are all other nation's currencies: petro-francs, petro-yen, petro-pesos, etc. Without enough oil all national and transnational economies quickly implode and their currencies' buying power evaporates. Fossil fuel energy -- everywhere subsidized and grossly underpriced -- enables and supports virtually every vital function of the nations. The production and use of oil is incalculably expensive when the full social and ecological costs of its production and use are factored in, and if those social disruption and pollution costs were factored into the price very few people and nations could afford to use it. In fact, the volume/intensity of its present use cannot be presently afforded by anyone. Future generations, the poorest and most defenseless people, and the Earth's ecosystems take the damages and pay the excess costs now, with the bills mounting exponentially.
Oil wars, vast pollution of the air, water, oceans, land, social and ecological exploitation, total dependence, all resting on a commodity that is rapidly running out. It makes for a very stressed planet, seriously precarious social, economic, and ecologial systems, with the pursuit of the presently dominant petrodollar the reason for it all, sought after like the unholy grail.
It stands to reason that there is a fundamental and inexorable meta-inflation going on all around the world, where the oil/fossil fuel that backs the dollar and empowers virtually all the world's macroeconomic activity is used up frenetically and with massive waste, with the primary goal of all this activity to generate more petrodollars. The evaporation of the oil, along with its toxification of the planet, increasingly leaves those trillions of petrodollars and other petro-currencies floating around with less and less capacity to buy anything of real value. Inflation is an unavoidable element in this system.
Governments and transnational corporations collude in global scams like "Free Trade"/GATT/World Trade Organization to temporarily drive down basic labor and commodity prices through "socializing costs and privatizing profits" (quote from Herman Daly). But when the monopolies succeed in getting the power and control that they want -- as implicit in the intent of the WTO -- labor prices will continue to be driven down as much as possible, but prices for all necessities at the retail level will be escalated at ever increasing rates as competition is crushed and local and national laws are superceded. It is with diminishing cheap oil -- in the context of a diminishing capacity of the Earth's ecosytems to absorb the toxins and wastes caused by oil/fossil fuel use -- that is the prime enabler of all these macroeconomic con games which, taken together, are a vast planetary disease.
I could go on telling the dismal tale of our suicidal petro-warfare on ourselves and the rest of the life on the Garden of Eden that is planet Earth, but enough … I would rather briefly tell the story of a modest, locally based alternative that could enable regions to thrive while all else around them declines.
I propose that wherever possible governments at the level of counties (or their equivalents around the world) acquire large tracts of forest (or plant them) and put them in public trust, designated as perpetual forest reserves. These forests are being actively managed under the techniques of ecological forestry, "taking the least and leaving the best". Trees that are dying, overly crowded, poorly formed, and diseased are sustainably harvested and thinned. The effect of the selection harvest of trees using this method is to both steadily increase the genetic health of the forest while producing a steady stream of wood fiber. As well, herbs, nuts, pollen, mushrooms, seeds etc. can be responsibly and sustainably harvested. The parts of the forest that are most ecologically sensitive, such as stream corridors, rare ecosytem types, or endangered species habitats would not be managed, or managed to protect their integrity.
A county currency would be established using the values inherent in or derived from the trust forest to back the money. These values are multiple, and the wealth that comes from them goes to the county to run its services, care for the inhabitants, both human and non-human, its ecological health, and to strengthen its economy.
Values From The Trust Forest . . .
• The better logs can be milled into lumber of varying grades for sale, trade, or put to use in the public service, for building and maintaining infrastructure. Lumber can also be made into added value wood products, such as furniture, cabinets, toys, etc.• Forest thinnings, tree tops, mill slabs, sawdust, and other fibrous "wastes" become the feedstocks for energy production: 1) gasified and burned for heat to both dry lumber and make electricity at mill sites; 2) processed into alcohol fuels to run engines; 3) burned in power plants for making electricity. Ash and other "wastes" from these processes are high in nutrient and mineral value, and are cycled back into the forest, or used in agricultural applications.
• Firewood.
With the uses above the forest that backs the currency has value both as a building and manufacturing commodity, but even more important as an element in the range of solar/biological energy sources that must be the prime power for the county's economy.
This is the key element missing in all alternative currency intiatives thus far. The ability of a local currency to power a local economy is limited to the extent that it does not represent the energy sources that actually do so. The petrodollar can never be replaced until the energy source behind it is substantially replaced. Alternative currencies will continue to only have a minor role until this issue is addressed. Try to buy any significant percentage of your gasoline, diesel, or heating fuel with your alternative money, and good luck … I'm not trying to discourage any local currency initiatives, because I believe they should be tried and experimented with everywhere. But I do want to give a look at some deeper issues here, and offer a larger vision.
The fossil-fuel-powered petrodollar, which more than anything else represents the kilocaloric value of a given amount of oil, must be replaced by the "forest-dollar" &emdash; FD. Not only is the kilocaloric and building/manufacturing resource value of the locally-produced solar energy embodied in the forest represented in the FD. As well, the incalculable number of other benefits of the forest are here as well: cleaning the air and water, maintaining the hydrologic system, producing soil, cooling the region, serving as the basis for the chain of life that humans ultimately depend on, providing refuge for the human soul and spirit.?All these have incalculable value, something that we are slowly awakening to.
Finally, the forest bank/FD has another leg up on the petrodollar? Even as it pours forth its stream of benefits, wealth, and blessings, under ecological management the forest bank/FD appreciates in value as the forest grows and genetic health of the forest increases. Instead of having an underpinning that both continues to poison, pollute, toxify while inexorably running out and creating inflation, the FD brings health to humans and ecosystems, always appreciates in value on the power of solar energy/photosynthesis, and does not cause inflation.
Not all regions have or can grow forests. But most places grow something well,and the photosynthetic economy and currency systems can be based in what will grow, as part of a mix of solar/biomass and wind or water energy regimes.
In the wider sense, sun dollars is what we are after.
David Haenke, bioregionalist and Neahtwanta Center board member lives in the ozarks where he practices sustainable forestry