Behind the scenes of sustainable living at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage

This is the second of two articles I wrote on sustainable economy at DR about 2 years ago.  Some of the information may be a little outdated, such as the electrical grid references.  We are now hooked up to the power grid (and feeding power back into it), though we are still not on the water or heating grid.  Most information is still relevant though.  If you haven’t read the previous article, look here.  Just a disclaimer–these articles are my thoughts and opinions and do not represent the views of everyone at DR.   My goal is to get people thinking about these things.

While nibbling on some organic crackers recently, I noticed a note on the box stating that the manufacturer buys renewable energy credits. My first thought was “I wonder why they don’t fit their entire production facility to run on renewable energy instead of just buying credits?” Wouldn’t that be a bigger step towards making their business sustainable? Going through the process of planning a sustainable land-based business at DR I’ve been learning the answer to this question.

Nearly every step of every process of production in the global economy is destructive to the planet, and it’s not surprising. The market values profit over sustainability. In our economy, it’s a rare forest that is worth more quietly growing in its ecosystem than cut up into lumber or paved over with a housing development. And often the easiest, most profitable business practices are the most destructive to the environment.

At Dancing Rabbit we follow our covenants and guidelines to reduce our everyday impact on the planet, yet many of us depend on the unsustainable economy outside DR for our income and many of our basic needs. As well, the global economy provides us sustainable technologies that we cannot manufacture ourselves, like solar power systems. Living a sustainable lifestyle as individuals is one step in creating a sustainable society, but building an economy where sustainability comes before profit is vital to our goal of saving the planet. A lot of rabbits, me included, feel that building a sustainable economy means producing our basic necessities locally and if possible within DR. This way we can be certain that the products or goods we are using at least meet our covenants for sustainability. As well, with locally made products the environmental impacts of transportation are eliminated. We can imagine a village much like in the old days with a baker, a cheesemaker, a shoemaker, etc, with our staples produced and traded here. This doesn’t mean we would isolate ourselves from any part of the economy outside our community or that we have to be building our own solar panels, but until the wider economy becomes more sustainable, we should contribute to it as little as possible, unless our contribution is in offering sustainable alternatives.

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