Brittle Power- PARTS 1-3 (+Notes) - Natural Capitalism Solutions

Chapter Seventeen: Achieving Resilience 333an excellent program of high school assemblies dealing with the need for energyefficiency and appropriate renewables. The League of Women Voters hastaken a leadership role in informing public opinion. Chambers of Commerce,environmental groups, physicians, Rotaries, many religious groups, severalkey unions—all are now working, perhaps for different reasons, for a commongoal in energy policy: one that can transform vulnerability into resilience.A danger inherent in any issue of public policy, debated in the national politicalarena, is that people will suppose that answers must come only, or mainly,from governments—forgetting that it is the people who are the government. Toomuch emphasis on what governments can do can sap people’s impulse to do forthemselves. Government programs can help, but above all they must not hinder—logistically,economically, or psychologically. The Fitchburg programwould not have worked if “laid on people” by outsiders from Washington. Itworked because, having cut some crucial pieces of red tape, the Washington initiatorswent home and left the local people to get on with the job. No governmentprogram, even at state level, could have brought to every sizeable town inMontana the depth of information and action that the Local Energy Organizers(LEOs) of the Alternative Energy Resources Organization, a low-budget privategroup, have done—nor commanded the same trust. Nobody but neighborhoodpeople in the Bronx could have made the Frontier Project and the People’sDevelopment Corporation a reality. The personal energies, the ideologicaldiversity, and the sense of self-reliance that have made hundreds of such projectsblossom across the nation are precious resources. They can be nurtured,but they must not be stifled, homogenized, or robbed of their self-respect.The remarkably rapid reorientation of American energy development inthe past few years has taken place not reluctantly through cajoling by federalleadership, but eagerly and despite federal obstruction. It reflects the wisdomof countless individual citizens who are concerned about the cost and insecurityof their own energy supplies: in aggregate, the supplies that fuel thenation. It reveals their ingenuity and commitment in solving that problemwith the means at hand. These assets can be harnessed, and the transition canbe greatly smoothed and speeded by governments at all levels. This willrequire sensitivity to local needs, and a philosophy of encouraging grassrootsinitiatives rather than imposing requirements from afar. It will require observanceof Lao-tse’s remark two and a half millennia ago:Leaders are best when people scarcely know they exist,not so good when people obey and acclaim them,worst when people despise them.Fail to honor people, they fail to honor you.