Upsetting the Offset - Transnational Institute

Upsetting the Offset
on our current path for another ten years this choice will be lost and we will
have committed ourselves, our species and our planet to catastrophic climate
change. Indeed, the latest research is increasingly clear: stopping all fossil fuel
use is not enough. We need to actively draw CO2 back out of the atmosphere
and lock it up again. 8 The good news is that we can begin this process right now!
LID can contribute to this new development paradigm. In order to do this on
the scale required LID will need to shift from the fringes of modern
development to the mainstream. LID has much to offer mainstream
development if it is to become truly sustainable.
Harnessing People Power
LID has sprung literally from the ground up, rooted in practical projects which
have drawn upon permaculture, traditional knowledge, appropriate technology
and the creativity of LIDers themselves. As we transform society to address the
twin challenges of climate change and peak oil it is essential that we harness the
ingenuity, energy and local knowledge of people everywhere.
LID can help turn current social trends into powerful, practical forces for
change. Since 2005, for example, the UK has seen an exponential rise in interest
in local, seasonal, organic and home grown food, green lifestyles and global
ethics, with seed sales going through the roof and allotment waiting lists
bulging.
Programmes such as Channel Four’s ‘Grand Designs’ show the growing
interest in self-build eco-housing, with LIDs consistently winning best design
awards. 9 Mainstreaming LID will allow us to unlock this potential. This is
particularly important as the world faces the impending peak everything-fuelled
economic recession. House building is slowing down throughout the Western
world as mainstream builders struggle to make a profit. LID offers one way of
ensuring a continuing supply of sustainable, affordable housing as it is not
motivated by the need to make a profit, but people’s desire to create beautiful,
efficient homes for themselves. Whilst LID need not necessarily be self-built, it
harnesses the skill and energy people are willing to invest into their own lives.
LID simultaneously offers empowerment, employment and re-skilling.
LID can be remarkably adaptable and flexible, from a bender produced for
nothing from entirely reclaimed materials through a £500 simple straw bale
house such as the one built at Coed Hills, 10 to ‘luxury’ designer homes costing
up to £40,000 such as that built by Ben Law and featured on Channel Four’s
‘Grand Designs’.
LID has been a seed bed for experimentation and discovery over the last
fifteen years. Indeed, in a recent UK appeal decision, planning inspector
Woolnough found ‘there to be considerable ecological, educational and cultural
benefits in further exploring permaculture’ due to ‘the development of and
experimentation with sustainable technologies and agricultural practices which
that way of life facilitates’. Ideas and approaches which are starting to appear in
the mainstream such as compost toilets, reed beds, solar water panels, turf roofs
and passive solar heat gain have all been tried and tested in LIDs. As these ideas
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