EDA News FALL 2023

September signals the start of the last quarter of the year and virtually all sectors of our economy are busy. We're all back to a routine with more predictable schedules. Although you won’t see another EDA Newsletter until the end of the year, we’ll be working on several new projects, cultivating partnerships, engaging with donors, and preparing for more events. Please mark your calendars for the next two events, and watch for more information coming in the next few weeks.

October 21 – EDA’s 7th Annual Conference
December 14 – Fireside Chat

There are three positions open: Treasurer, Mediation Body Member, and At-Large Trustee. Terms of office are for three years and are staggered so that there are always experienced people on a team to help orient the new members.

Our strength is in our membership and that’s why we value the different life experiences, skills and perspectives that each of you brings to EDA. Elected positions offer members a rewarding experience to work together, learn new things and contribute to the growth of the organization.

All Active Members of EDA are required to vote. We’re proud of the fact that in all our past elections, well over 60% of our members have voted. EDA was created in a way that accentuates our members’ direct involvement in the decisions of our organization. This policy reminds us that as a democratic organization we can elect the people that best represent the goals and values of the organization.

If you're an Active Member, take that step to join our management and help us grow the organization. And if you've been thinking of joining, this would be a great way way to jump in and demonstrate your support.

Our Action Team has developed a series of short Power Points on topics that are integral to EDA’s work. They include Introduction to Economic Democracy Advocates (EDA); Economic and Resource Democracy; Carrying Capacity; Climate Change; Representative and Participatory Democracy; and Civics Education. These are our starting points. We’ll be adding other topics as we go along, depending on what our respective community members are interested in talking about, and your own interests.

We’ll be offering training for those who would like to learn more about this program, where we’ll take you through the entire process of identifying potential groups and organizations in your community. We’ll have materials you can use to make the initial contact, and help you prepare for your talk, and follow up. You don’t have to have any experience in public speaking, only a willingness to get out from behind your computer and engage with people in your community.

There’s power in numbers. Our ultimate goal is to bring about positive change through self-education and advocacy for legislative action. Contact the advocacy team for more information about how you can get involved. We look forward to having you join us in this powerful program.

Transition Network is an international movement of communities coming together to re-imagine and rebuild our world. Now active in 50 countries, the movement began in 2006 in a market town in the UK. People wanted to answer questions about what the world will look like as communities respond to the vast changes happening around them.

Transition Towns seek to make their communities more resilient and more inclusive. Projects begun by Transition groups include starting new enterprises, especially community-owned energy companies and food businesses, setting up buy local campaigns or working with local businesses in some other way. Some are developing local currency projects.

To succeed, local groups need a vision, community involvement, strong networks and partnerships. They also need inspirational, practical projects to initiate and support. Here are a couple of examples.

Respect resource limits and create resilience - Reduce carbon dioxide emissions, and our reliance on fossil fuels so that we make wise use of precious resources

Promote inclusivity and social justice - To increase chances of all groups in society to live well, healthy and sustainable lives

Self-organization and decision making at the appropriate level – Working together with everyone at an appropriate, practical and empowering level

Attention to balance – Creating space for reflection and celebration to balance busy times and develop collaborative trusting relationships

Draw on each other’s experiences and insights - Freely sharing ideas and power, and developing a collaborative culture

Foster positive visioning and creativity – not being against things, but developing and promoting positive possibilities

It’s the way humans experience fear. Brian Lickel, a social psychologist at University of Massachusetts Amherst who researches human response to threats says that humans are not designed to remain in a high state of fear for long.

On a geologic time scale, climate change is happening rapidly, but from a human perspective, changes are happening relatively slowly. We tend to adapt to our stressors. We can either address the situation, or our reaction to the situation, so if we can’t immediately change things, we tend to ignore it. Many of us are in denial, but denial is difficult to do when your home has been washed away in a flood.

Allowing ourselves to feel the real-time effects of climate change is uncomfortable. How each one of us deals with despair is personal. It’s rooted in what kind of childhood and life experiences we’ve had, and the strategies we developed to deal with things.

Filmmaker Josh Appignanesi provides an example of how he handled his emotions around climate change. He turns the camera on himself as he outlines his journey from award-winning film maker who makes car commercials to climate activist. Take a moment and watch the trailer for his documentary.

If we sit back and accept that our world is doomed, we could all sink into despair. Thank heaven for the younger generation because their outrage, determination and activism sets an example and reminds us that acknowledging our feelings can propel us to action.

So, stop fretting and start doing. If you’re not a member of EDA – join us. If you’re not volunteering your skills and experience on one of the many EDA teams, you’re missing a chance to be part of the solution and deal with your own eco-anxiety.

Neonics permanently bind to the nerve cells of insects. Bees exposed to these pesticides will have uncontrollable shaking and twitching followed by paralysis before they die. Even a nonlethal dose can weaken critical functions such as their immune system, navigation, stamina, memory and fertility. These deadly pesticides kill indiscriminately. They not only affect “pest” insects, but countless butterflies and other wildlife. They have been linked to loss of birds, the collapse of fisheries and birth defects in white-tailed deer.

Neonics are also used prophylactically, which means they’re used whether they’re needed or not. Most applications covering hundreds of millions of acres are treating pest problems that don’t exist and they and make it even worse by killing off beneficial bugs and soil microbes that promote crop health and production.

What about human health?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention note that half the US population is exposed to at least one type of neonicotinoid on a regular basis. They’re found in the food we eat and the water we drink, and chlorination doesn’t remove these pesticides from our tap water. Residues are found in 86 percent of US honey and many of the fruits that we consume. These toxins cannot be rinsed or peeled off. Other research links neonics to neurological harm in humans such as muscle tremors, lower testosterone levels, altered insulin regulation and change to fat metabolism. Peer-reviewed research has linked exposure to neonics while in the womb to birth defects such as deformations of the heart and brain.

What are we doing about it?

Neonicotinoids have been banned in the UK and Europe since 2018 and in selected areas of Canada. Some states such as Maryland, Maine, New York, New Jersey and California have restricted the use of these pesticides with New Jersey having the strongest and smartest restrictions in the country.

On June 22 of this year, Congressman Earl Blumenauer of Oregon introduced the Save America’s Pollinator’s Act (HR 4277) in the House Congress. The bill was referred to the Committee on Agriculture and also to the Committee on Natural Resources for a period to be determined by the Speaker, in each case for consideration of such provisions. As of September 2023, it remains in committee.

You can help

In August 1921, when the US Congress agreed that a compact be negotiated between the seven states with water rights to the Colorado River, it also stipulated the agreement would not be binding until each of those states ratified it. The Colorado River Compact (CRC), signed by its creators in late November 1922 could not go into effect even though the biggest and most powerful state, California, was more than anxious that a dam be built for flood control. The compact that had taken months to create ended up taking years to enact.

Ratification difficulties began with the three lower basin states – Arizona, California, and Nevada. California put the difficulties into motion by introducing legislation that would authorize immediate construction of a dam, a move that went directly against the CRC which called for ratification prior to building infrastructure on the river. California’s legislature made this move because it assumed Arizona would not ratify in time to implement measures to manage serious flooding.

A six-state ratification plan was then proposed with the idea that Arizona could sign on when it was ready and with six states giving approval, Congress could be encouraged to appropriate the funds for building a dam. Four years later, no funds had come through, Utah had repealed its ratification, California had involved itself in an internal wrangle about whether to cooperate with Arizona’s reticence or use litigation to pressure that state’s signature, and Nevada objected to the six-state plan because hydroelectric power revenue distribution had not been settled. New Mexico and Wyoming favored the six-state plan. Colorado and Utah wanted to stick with the original decision that ratification required all seven states.

It includes costs that are typically “externalized” or ignored, such as the indirect cost of pollution and their effects on human health, so they can be included with other business planning costs.

Here’s an example of how it’s used in the agriculture/food industry. The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) uses a planning process called ‘MARCH’, which is short for ‘Methodology for valuing the Agriculture and the wider food system Related Costs of Health’. MARCH uses a measurement called Wellbeing Valuation (WV), that places a money-based cost on impacts from the food system, such as heart disease, individual healthcare costs, and loss of worker productivity due to health factors. It also puts a money value on factors such as food insecurity and malnutrition.

Our society can benefit from the use of full-cost accounting by industries, particularly the energy industry. It can help weigh the negative effects to our health and society of using fossil fuels, such as community disruptions, negative health effects, resource depletion and destruction, against these fuels’ more obvious benefits (such as a barrel of oil’s very high energy potential). This method could also show the opportunity cost of spending money on developing cleaner, safer renewable energies in place of continuing to build fossil fuel infrastructure for our energy future.