The Tipping Point

You can tell a lot about a person by the filters they see the world through. It's kind of a variation on 'when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a nail.'

I was talking to a friend about some of the challenges he was facing in getting his message listened to, and my thoughts turned, as they do, to sales and Marketing. This friend (Michael) and I first met when he was a student in my Sales Training class, so it's a hat I tend to put on when I'm around him, usually subconciously.

The conclusion I drew, from our conversation, was that the reason his message, and indeed the whole message of the peak oil/conservation set, was failing to resonate; was because it had failed to articulate a benefit to the individual that was as compelling, and as comfortable as that of the consumption machine.

Then I started to get really depressed. Because really, how would any kind of message about reducing, living within our means, and consuming less gain any kind of traction without appealing to one's sense of the greater good? A sense fewer and fewer people seem to have.

Then the conversation at home turned to a blog post by Rebecca Solnit over at Tom Dispatch, where she writes about the 'tipping point' of things like the Arab revolutions, or even the storming of the Bastille.

Her hypothesis is that tipping points for sweeping societal change, are a) the result of a long period of things steadily getting worse for most people, and b) stubbornly impossible to predict.

In Hamilton, it has been argued well (by a number of people for a long time) that for the average Hamiltonian family, things have been on the decline for a long, long time.

Real wages have been steadily dropping, income security has all but vanished, and the middle class has been carved up, with a tiny group joining the top 1%, and the much larger majority sinking closer to the margins. Things are not looking good.

Indeed, one could argue, that with the flight of good jobs overseas, the squeezing of workers by foreign ownership, and a ridiculous balancing upside-down pyramid of a civic tax base, that Hamilton was ripe for a catalyst.

Do I mean to suggest that a wholesale shift to a more sustainable lifestyle - to shopping locally, to growing your own veggies, and to supporting one another in community - could happen here, more completely and suddenly than it has elsewhere to date?

Why not? All of the triggers are there: A community with grave structural problems, that prides itself on a long tradition of collective action and support. An increasingly economically disenfranchised group, living in strongly connected neighborhoods. A palpable sense that things are going to get worse before they get better, and a long tradition of (at least from a union point of view) 'taking matters into our own hands.'

There has been quite a bit of commentary since I started writing for Raise the Hammer just over a year ago, about how things will never improve in Hamilton because people are apathetic and self absorbed. I challenge that notion.

Were the people of Hamilton apathetic when they blockaded Stelco in 1946?

Were they self absorbed, when reeling from the horrors of a cholera outbreak, the dreamed of one of the greatest civil engineering projects in Canada of the day?

Were they lacking in vision, when they created the electric city, and transformed the nature of manufacturing in Canada?

I would argue, that what they had is a catalyst. What we need, is a catalyst. But as Solnit points out - these can usually only be seen in hindsight.

The key, then, for those of us working towards change is to continue beating the drum. To continue to put forward ideas, and to see those ideas challenged, and to rise to those challenges. To continue to grow our veggies, and buy the ones we don't grow at the farmer's market, and to support local shops, and to get to know our neighbors and strengthen our communities.

And to wait. To wait patiently for the catalyst. The one that stubbornly refuses to be predicted with any kind of accuracy.

100 Mile Shopping

It has been suggested in this blog, on more than a few occasions, that the key to Hamilton’s prosperity in the long term, is the revitalization of local ‘production’, whether that be food, textiles, hard goods, or what have you.

Originally, I was prepared to vent at length at Hamilton Economic Development and their lack of obvious support for local manufacturers who were either starting up, or looking to make the leap from the garage to a larger facility.

This was certainly Robert Land’s experience, and while he was in Guelph, the “this will never fly” initial assessment of his business was typical of the reaction many small producers face, in many jurisdictions.

The reason? The fact that Canadian made goods are often priced out of the range of what most Canadian consumers are willing to pay.

I may have mentioned before my experience working in a men’s clothing shop in Calgary, where customers would regularly rail against the lack of Canadian made goods, until they were ushered to the back of the store where the Cline Behar shirts were waiting. Made in Guelph, they were priced 2 – 3 times that of comparable looking shirts from overseas. The zealous customers would then inevitably mutter excuses, and slink back to the discount table at the front.

For many Canadians, purchasing only locally-made, Canadian-sourced goods would be not only prohibitively expensive; but unless one plans to wear only hemp clothing, pretty much impossible. Canada produces next to nothing in the way of wool, and even less cotton. The bottom line is that if you’re going to dress for the winter we've just experienced, you’re going to be buying something for which at least the supply chain started somewhere far, far away.

That’s why the recent article in The Tyee struck such a chord. It mentions the efforts of the B.C. Public Sector Union who are proposing that everyone purchase 10% of what they buy from either local stores, or ensure that those goods are made or sourced in Canada.

Many sustainability advocates encourage a wholesale shift to buying locally sourced/manufactured/sold goods, but this can be tricky. Close examination of my kids’ can of Roberstons’s Apple Juice shows that it is ‘processed’ in Canada – but common knowledge is that most apples sourced for this kind of thing are brought in from China and the far East. There, low labour costs result in much better margins, even after the cost of shipping the apples 1000’s of kms across the ocean. Emails to their Public Communications department as to the origin of their apples have so far resulted in a chorus of crickets, however my only other option at this point is fresh pressed cider from the Farmer’s market. I’m still working with the taste buds of a picky 6 year old on that one…

Looking at other commonly used items around my house, it becomes clear that a switch to buying all, or even a majority of items that were locally made or sourced, would result in a dramatic shift in how I live, from ‘low-impact’ to full blown asceticism. It’s a leap that should not be entered into lightly, especially when the only tangible personal pay-off for the sidelong glances on the playground and whispered remarks at the office is likely to be a not-very-lucrative book contract.

Granted, the ‘big-picture’ pay-offs are enormous, but time and time again, history has proven that humans are unwilling to experience short-term personal pain, in return for long-term societal gain. While such a sacrifice may be palatable to the hard-core, the lack of tangible personal benefit combined with probable ostracization is a serious barrier to entry for the majority of the population who desperately need to become engaged on this issue. Any solution that doesn’t address this problem head-on is simply doomed to fail.

The nice thing about the 10% rule is that it’s easy to calculate (This is my 10th trip to the hardware store in three weekends – don’t ask – so I’m going to go to Arruda’s instead of Home Depot), and it’s not going to drive most people into an ascetic lifestyle of denial of everyday comforts. That and the benefits to the local economy could be substantial, with up to 20% more of every dollar spent at a local store/on a local product staying right here in Hamilton.

Now there are some who would enthusiastically argue that an ascetic denial of everyday comforts is the only chance we have of fending off ‘something very bad’, but at this point it pays to remember both messages contained in Dr. Seuss’s classic book “The Lorax.”

The first, and most obvious message is that reckless depletion of natural resources leads to disaster. The other, and probably unintended message, is that shrill denouncement of the situation leads to the message being largely ignored until it’s too late.

Perhaps a “10% Local Shopping Diet” might be just the thing to reinvigorate local production in Hamilton, and help set us firmly on the road...or the rails/bike lane... to making the best of things; without the kinds of potential lifestyle shocks that usually lead otherwise well-intentioned people to sit on their hands in frustration.