Challenging the corporate world

SUBHEAD: Socially and environmentally conscious entrepreneurs are adopting not-for-profit business model.

By Rajesh Makawana on 13 October 2014 for Sharing.org -
(http://www.sharing.org/information-centre/articles/challenging-corporate-power-not-profit-world)


Image above: Photo of graffiti image of Capitalism on wall by Dr. Mott. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/drmotte/15275326742).

Does changing the way we do business hold the key to creating a world where resources are shared more equitably and consumed within planetary limits? According to Professor Donnie Maclurcan of the Post Growth Institute, the answer is a definitive yes – but only if we can fully embrace a business model that doesn’t require profits to be distributed to shareholders, and works instead to reinvest revenues back into the company.

Increasingly, socially and environmentally conscious entrepreneurs are adopting not-for-profit (NFP) business practices across the whole spectrum of traditionally for-profit sectors. Maclurcan, whose book ‘How on Earth’ co-authored with Jennifer Hinton is due out next year, firmly believes that the NFP model presents an alternative macroeconomic framework with the potential to revolutionise how we produce goods and services, and thereby pave the way for an ‘economics of enough’.

Maclurcan argues that the fundamental flaw inherent in socially-oriented forms of commerce that are not strictly NFP (such as B-corps in the US, or social enterprises and Community Interest Companies in the UK) is that they all potentially allow profits to be given to shareholders as dividends.

Since this is impossible to do within a NFP framework, the company can focus entirely on job creation as well as its positive ecological and social impacts, without the pressure to maximise returns every quarter regardless of any damaging externalities that might result. Maclurcan suggests that this approach enables businesses to adopt a new triple bottom line of ‘people, planet and not-for-profit’.

Speaking at London South Bank University as part of a UK tour to promote his upcoming book, Maclurcan highlighted some of the additional benefits that are inherent to the NFP model. Apart from the statutory advantages afforded by NFP status (such as tax exemptions and the ability to receive donations and employ volunteers), NFP businesses tend to have inherently horizontal operational structures that can enable decision making and revenue to be shared more equitably among stakeholders.

Unencumbered by the profit motive, these businesses can also provide services that are truly tailored to meet social needs, and products that are environmentally sustainable and long lasting – potentially doing away with the need for planned obsolescence.

Given this more enlightened approach to commerce, Maclurcan argues that ‘purpose-driven motivation’ is far more common among those working for NFP organisations than among those in the traditional for-profit sector.

Although the NFP model has its roots in charitable, educational and religious organisations that can be traced back thousands of years, there has been a steep rise in the number of businesses adopting the framework in recent decades – a popularity that has paralleled the steady growth in the number of NGOs, foundations and charities that operate in the third sector.

For example, according to Maclurcan’s research the majority of enterprises in the cooperative sector, which now represent over 1 billion members and employ 20% more people than multinational corporations, are run on a NFP basis. In the US alone, approximately 44% of those who are economically active already use banking services provided by credit unions that are governed by both cooperative and NFP principles.

With every year that passes, an increasing share of new business start-ups are adopting a NFP governance structure, which suggests that the insatiable pursuit of profit might be starting to mellow – at least within small business that are newly established. If these trends continue, Maclurcan estimates that NFP enterprises could outcompete for-profit companies across all sectors by 2050.

Transforming the private sector

In recent years there has been an intense focus among progressives on the need for a great transition in society away from neoliberal capitalism – a debate that even broke through to the mainstream media for a short time in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. The Occupy movement did much to further highlight the need for ‘system change’, particularly through their enduring reference to the trickling-up of wealth from the 99% to the richest 1% of the populace.

More recently, Naomi Klein has powerfully reignited this debate in her latest book, which dissects the stark choice we face between saving capitalism and protecting the planet – options that she rightly argues are wholly incompatible within the current political-economic paradigm.

There can be little doubt that the NFP proposal put forward by Maclurcan aligns closely to many post-capitalist and new economy perspectives that have long been proposed by progressive thinkers and activists. Indeed, the notion that businesses can thrive without making a profit for shareholders clearly challenges a central tenet of modern capitalism: the privatisation of wealth into the hands of a minority.

As Bill Blackwater explains in an insightful essay (pdf), it is widely accepted that re-investing money to make ever-more profit is the core feature of capitalism today. He goes on to highlight how the relentless pursuit of profit is one of the main reasons why capitalist economies are predicated on the need for continual expansion and economic growth – all of which is facilitated by access to cheap credit, energy and natural resources, and inevitably results in the mass production of (mostly unnecessary and highly wasteful) consumer goods.

Maclurcan’s solution is also entirely compatible with his other paradigm-shifting projects that emphasise the need to move beyond economic growth and promote forms of sharing and gifting.

Instead of focusing on the production of goods and services for the sake of endlessly expanding profits, NFPs have the option to focus exclusively on socially and ecologically beneficial goods and services that need not create any profit at all – they only require a robust business model that can ensure the company’s ongoing viability.

Maclurcan also argues that wealth redistribution is inherent to NFP enterprises, and that if such models are scaled up to predominate in the private sector in decades to come, this process of economic sharing within the workplace could help counter the growing divide between rich and poor, which is now widely recognised as a structural consequence of capitalism.

Overall, Maclurcan presents a convincing argument that a combination of socially and environmentally useful commerce alongside the elimination of the profit motive has potentially revolutionary implications for the business world of tomorrow - if it can be widely adopted.

The impact of the NFP model is likely to be even more transformative when combined with forms of peer-to-peer production, collaborative consumption, and the revitalisation of small businesses serving local communities.

Maclurcan’s statistics detailing the ongoing rise of NFPs also points to an encouraging shift in cultural attitudes in a world that has been dominated by the profit and growth paradigm for far too long.

Beyond the profit and growth imperative

Maclurcan’s vision offers great promise for those thinking about how to make the transition to a steady-state economy that operates within ecological boundaries. However, in order for the NFP model to present a comprehensive macroeconomic solution to the whole gamut of social and environmental problems we face, it should also be explored within a much broader political context. For example, the NFP model naturally pertains to the role that the private and charitable sectors can play in an economy, rather than the public realm and government policy. But as citizens in Hong Kong and other countries have bravely highlighted in recent years, democratic governance systems are central to the transformative economic reforms that are urgently needed across the world. This more extensive macroeconomic perspective is particularly important in relation to social justice and environmental stewardship, since the root causes of injustice and ecological degradation are firmly embedded in the policies and institutions that underpin our economies – they are clearly not confined to our business practices alone.

It is also important to note that the failure of policymakers to regulate the drive for profit-at-all-costs is part of a broader neoliberal consensus that goes far beyond individual business ethics and influences policy decisions at the highest levels of government. Moreover, this same political ideology has an enormous influence over global economic policy such as trade rules and international financial arrangements, which then set restrictive parameters on how individual governments can manage their economies – the alarming implications of the ‘TTIP’ free trade agenda being a case in point.

If we want to create lasting progressive change and a sustainable economic model that includes both private and public sectors, we must therefore also consider the potential of NFP companies from the angle of government regulation and public policy. This could mean, for example, pushing for better government incentives for those setting up NFP enterprises. But even if the vast majority of new businesses adopted NFP practices, the positive trend would do little to address one of the most proximal causes of inequality and climate change: the small number of powerful multinational corporations that drive consumerism and encourage unsustainable patterns of extraction and production around the globe.

Loosening the corporate stranglehold

Across all the major fields of commerce such as pharmaceuticals, insurance, agriculture and energy production, our world is already dominated by well-established and financially powerful for-profit businesses - and a mere 10 of these corporations own the vast majority of brands most people are familiar with.

Not only do these companies overshadow the marketplace, but the financial power afforded to them through their pursuit of profit enables them to wield tremendous influence over government policy. This has been a perennial issue for activists and concerned citizens, with ongoing campaigns and petitions to get ‘big money’ out of politics; to institute publicly funded election campaigning; and even to end corporate influence over the United Nations.

The importance of this problem for post-capitalism theorists cannot be underestimated. Given the huge lobbying power of dirty energy companies, for example, it is difficult to see how it will ever be possible to create a truly sustainable world until the illegitimate power of big corporations is held in check.

One way to combat the profit-driven business ethic in established institutions is to wrestle key public services away from corporate control so that they can be managed in the interests of stakeholders instead. An inspiring recent example is the re-municipalisation of energy infrastructure in many parts of Germany, which was kick-started by citizen efforts in Hamburg to facilitate a transition to renewable energy.

As austerity measures and privatisation continue to take their toll on government services, similar initiatives across healthcare, social housing, transport and other traditionally ‘public’ sectors are finally on the rise, but must be urgently scaled up in countries across the world.

The various causes and initiatives highlighted above are among many that are directly linked with the problem of profit maximisation, and therefore warrant consideration among those working towards the creation of a not-for-profit world.

But a macroeconomic model that functions within a post-growth framework must also consider other critical issues that fuel the relentless expansion of capital, all of which demand a sharp reversal of neoliberal government policies. These include, for example, access to cheap credit and natural resources, as well as the culture of consumerism which continues to be given pride of place in society.

Numerous proposals by progressive thinkers and NGOs have outlined additional aspects of what a sustainable macroeconomic model should include, such as public control over money creation, a shorter working week, a green new deal, social protection for all, and an international framework for cooperatively managing natural resources – to name but a few examples. Alongside a transformation of the private sector that Maclurcan advocates for, such public policy measures must play a fundamental role in the creation of a sustainable and equitable future for humanity.

The urgent need for wholesale systemic change presents an unprecedented challenge to concerned citizens and policymakers alike, partly due to the diverse economic, social and political issues that are implicated in the interconnected global crises we face today. Undoubtedly, for-profit business models have played a central role in creating these intractable problems, and a profound transformation within the private sector is therefore long overdue.

As such, there is no doubt that Maclurcan’s upcoming book could play a crucial role in the search for a sustainable alternative to neoliberal capitalism, and it has the potential to inspire a whole generation to embrace a NFP culture. If those working within non-profit organisations also engage politically in the battle to end excessive commercialisation and limit the influence of established corporations, the possibility of achieving an economics of enough could finally become a blessed reality.


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Economy under a new management

SUBHEAD: How cooperatives are leading the way to empowered workers and healthy communities.

By Marjorie Kelly on 19 February 2013 for Yes! Magazine - (http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/how-cooperatives-are-driving-the-new-economy/the-economy-under-new-ownership)


Image above:Employees at Equal Exchange, the oldest and largest fair-trade coffee company in the nation. It is also a worker-owned cooperative. Photo by Paul Dunn. From original article.


Pushing my grocery cart down the aisle, I spot on the fruit counter a dozen plastic bags of bananas labeled “Organic, Equal Exchange.” My heart leaps a little. I’d been thrilled, months earlier, when I found my local grocer carrying bananas—a new product from Equal Exchange—because this employee-owned cooperativeme outside Boston is one of my favorite companies. Its main business remains the fair trade coffee and chocolate the company started with in 1986.

Since then, the company has flourished, and its mission remains supporting small farmer co-ops in developing countries and giving power to employees through ownership. It’s as close to an ideal company as I’ve found. And I’m delighted to see their banana business thriving, since I know it was rocky for a time. (Hence the leaping of my heart.)

I happen to know a bit more than the average shopper about Equal Exchange, because I count myself lucky to be one of its few investors who are not worker-owners. Over more than 20 years, it has paid investors a steady and impressive average of 5 percent annually (these days, a coveted return).

Maneuvering my cart toward the dairy case, I search out butter made by Cabot Creamery, and pick up some Cabot cheddar cheese. I choose Cabot because, like Equal Exchange, it’s a cooperative, owned by dairy farmers since 1919.

At the checkout, I hand over my Visa card from Summit Credit Union, a depositor-owned bank in Madison, Wis., where I lived years ago. Credit unions are another type of cooperative, meaning that members like me are partial owners, so Summit doesn’t charge us the usurious penalty rate of 25 percent or more levied by other banks at the merest breath of a late payment. They’re loyal to me, and I’m loyal to them.

On my way home, I pull up to the drive-through at Beverly Cooperative Bank to make a withdrawal. This bank is yet another kind of cooperative—owned by customers and designed to serve them. Though it’s small—with only $700 million in assets, and just four branches (all of which I could reach on my bike)—its ATM card is recognized everywhere. I’ve used it even in Copenhagen and London.

With this series of transactions on one afternoon, I am weaving my way through a profoundly different and virtually invisible world: the cooperative economy. It’s an economy that aims to serve customers, rather than extract maximum profits from them. It operates through various models, which share the goal of treating suppliers, employees, and investors fairly. The cooperative economy has dwelled alongside the corporate economy for close to two centuries. But it may be an economy whose time has come.

Something is dying in our time. As the nation struggles to recover from unsustainable personal and national debt, stagnant wages, the damages wrought by climate change, and more, a whole way of life is drawing to a close. It began with railroads and steam engines at the dawn of the Industrial Age, and over two centuries has swelled into a corporation-dominated system marked today by vast wealth inequity and bloated carbon emissions. That economy is today proving fundamentally unsustainable. We’re hitting twin limits, ecological and financial. We’re experiencing both ecological and financial overshoot.

If ecological limits are something many of us understand, we’re just beginning to find language to talk about financial limits—that point of diminishing return where the hunt for financial gain actually depletes the tax-and-wage base that sustains us all.

Here’s the problem: The very aim of maximum financial extraction is built into the foundational social architecture of our capitalist economy—that is, the concept of ownership.
If the root of government is sovereignty (the question of who controls the state), the root construct of every economy is property (the question of who controls the infrastructure of wealth creation).

Many of the great social struggles in history have come down to the issue of who will control land, water, and the essentials of life. Ownership has been at the center of the most profound changes in civilization—from ending slavery to patenting the genome of life. 

Throughout the Industrial Age, the global economy has increasingly come to be dominated by a single form of ownership: the publicly traded corporation, where shares are bought and sold in stock markets. The systemic crises we face today are deeply entwined with this design, which forms the foundation of what we might call the extractive economy, intent on maximum physical and financial extraction.

The concept of extractive ownership traces its lineage to Anglo-Saxon legal tradition. The 18th century British legal theorist William Blackstone described ownership as the right to “sole and despotic dominion.” This view—the right to control one’s world in order to extract maximum benefit for oneself—is a core legitimating concept for a civilization in which white, property-owning males have claimed dominion over women, other races, laborers, and the earth itself.

In the 20th century, we were schooled to believe there were essentially two economic systems: capitalism (private ownership) and socialism/communism (public ownership). Yet both tended, in practice, to support the concentration of economic power in the hands of the few.


Image above: Four different kind of coops; Consumer, 92% , Producer, 5%, Purchasing, 2%, Worker, 1%. From original article.

Emerging in our time—in largely disconnected experiments across the globe—are the seeds of a different kind of economy. It, too, is built on a foundation of ownership, but of a unique type. The cooperative economy is a large piece of it. But this economy doesn’t rely on a monoculture of design, the way capitalism does. It’s as rich in diversity as a rainforest is in its plethora of species—with commons ownership, municipal ownership, employee ownership, and others. You could even include open-source models like Wikipedia, owned by no one and managed collectively.

These varieties of alternative ownership have yet to be recognized as a single family, in part because they’ve yet to unite under a common name. We might call them generative, for their aim is to generate conditions where our common life can flourish. Generative design isn’t about dominion. It’s about belonging—a sense of belonging to a common whole.

We see this sensibility in a variety of alternatives gaining ground today. New state laws chartering benefit corporations have passed recently in 12 states, and are in the works in 14 more. Benefit corporations—like Patagonia and Seventh Generation—build into their governing documents a commitment to serve not only stockholders but other stakeholders, including employees, the community, and the environment.

Also spreading are social enterprises, which serve a social mission while still functioning as businesses (many of them owned by nonprofits). Employee-owned firms are gaining ground in Spain, Poland, France, Denmark, and Sweden. Still another model is the mission-controlled corporation, exemplified by foundation-owned companies such as Novo Nordisk and Ikea in northern Europe. While publicly traded, these companies safeguard their social purpose by keeping board control in mission-oriented hands.

If there are more kinds of generative ownership than most of us realize, the scale of activity is also larger than we might suppose—particularly in the cooperative economy. In the United States, more than 130 million people are members of a co-op or credit union. More Americans hold membership in a co-op than hold shares in the stock market. Worldwide, cooperatives have close to a billion members. Among the 300 largest cooperative and mutually owned companies worldwide, total revenues approach $2 trillion. If these enterprises were a single nation, its economy would be the 9th largest on earth.



Image above:Ace Hardware is a purchasing cooperative. Here is the Yarn selection at the Lihue, Kauai, Hawaii store. The place has a deep selection of materials for artists, craftpersons and hobbyists. From (http://www.flickr.com/photos/mizunablog/5069412436/in/photostream/).

Often, these entities are profit making, but they’re not profit maximizing. Alongside more traditional nonprofit and government models, they add a category of private ownership for the common good. Their growth across the globe represents a largely unheralded revolution.

What unites generative designs are the living purposes at their core, and the beneficial outcomes they tend to generate. More research remains to be done, but there is evidence that these models create broad benefits and remain resilient in crisis. We’ve seen this, for example, in the success of the state-owned Bank of North Dakota, which remained strong in the 2008 crisis, even as other banks foundered; this led more than a dozen states to pursue similar models. We’ve seen it in the behavior of credit unions, which tended not to create toxic mortgages, and required few bailouts.

We’ve seen it in the fact that workers at firms with employee stock ownership plans enjoy more than double the defined-benefit retirement assets of comparable employees at other firms. And we’ve seen it in the fact that the Basque region of Spain—home to the massive Mondragon cooperative—has seen substantially lower unemployment than the country as a whole.

Together, these various models might one day form the foundation for a generative economy, where the intent is to meet human needs and create conditions in which life can thrive. Generative ownership aims to do what the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker have always done: make a living by serving the community. The profit-maximizing corporation is the real detour in the evolution of ownership, and it’s a relatively recent detour at that.

The resilience of generative design is a key reason that people have often turned to these models in times of crisis. When the Industrial Revolution was forcing many skilled workers into poverty in the 1840s, weavers and artisans banded together to form the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, the first modern, consumer-owned cooperative, selling food to members who couldn’t otherwise afford it.

During the Great Depression in the United States, the Federal Credit Union Act—ensuring that credit would be available to people of meager means—was intended to help stabilize an imbalanced financial system. Today, credit union assets total more than $700 billion. In the recent financial crisis, their loan delinquency rates were half those of traditional banks. Since the crisis, credit unions have added more than 1.5 million members. In Argentina in 2001, when a financial meltdown created thousands of bankruptcies and saw many business owners flee, workers—with government support—took over more than 200 firms and ran these empresas recuperadas themselves, and they’re still running them.

Last year, with financial and ecological crises mounting worldwide, the U.N. named 2012 the Year of the Cooperative, and cooperative activity, is advancing around the globe. Cooperatives were largely sidelined during the rise of the industrial age. But current trends indicate that conditions may be ripe for a surge in cooperative enterprises. As people lose faith in the stock market, feel mounting anger at banks, and distrust high-earning CEOs, there’s growing distaste for the business-as-usual Wall Street model.

Meanwhile, the Internet has enabled the expansion of informal cooperation on an unprecedented scale—with the Creative Commons, for example, now encompassing more than 450,000 works. As the speculative, mass-production economy hits limits, cooperatives may be uniquely suited to a post-growth world, for they are active in sectors related to fundamental needs (agriculture, insurance, food, finance, and electricity comprise the top five co-op sectors).

If many of us fail to recognize an emerging ownership shift as a sign of progress, it may be because it arises from an unexpected place—not from government action, or protests in the streets, but from within the structure of our economy itself. Not from the leadership of a charismatic individual, but from the longing in many hearts, the genius of many minds, the effort of many hands to build what we know, instinctively, that we need.

This goes much deeper than legal or financial engineering. It’s about a shift in the cultural values that underpin social institutions. History has seen such shifts before—in the values that underlay the monarchy, racism, and sexism. What’s weakening today is a different kind of systemic bias. It’s capital bias: capital-ism—the belief system that maximizing capital matters more than anything else.

Why support the co-ops in your community? The benefits might be further-reaching than you think.

The cooperative economy—and the broader family of generative ownership models—is helping to reawaken an ancient wisdom about living together in community, something largely lost in the spread of capitalism. 

Economic historian Karl Polanyi describes this in his 1944 work, The Great Transformation, tracing the crises of capitalism to the fact that it “disembedded” economic activity from community. 

Throughout history, he noted, economic activity had been part of a larger social order that included religion, government, families, and the natural world. The Industrial Revolution upended this. It turned labor and land into commodities to be “bought and sold, used and destroyed, as if they were simply merchandise,” Polanyi wrote. But these were fictitious commodities. They were none other than human beings and the earth itself.

Generative design decommodifies land and labor, putting them again under the control of the community.

It’s no accident that the deep redesign of our economy isn’t beginning in Washington, D.C. It is rooted in relationships: to the living earth and to one another. The generative economy finds fertile soil for its growth within the human heart. The ownership revolution is part of the “metaphysical reconstruction” that E.F. Schumacher said would be needed to transform our economy.

When economic relations are designed in a generative way, they’re no longer about sole and despotic dominion. Economic activity is no longer about squeezing every penny from something we imagine that we own.

It’s about being interwoven with the world around us. It’s about a shift from dominion to community.

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• Marjorie Kelly wrote this article for How Cooperatives Are Driving the New Economy, the Spring 2013 issue of YES! Magazine. Marjorie is a fellow with the Tellus Institute and is director of ownership strategy with Cutting Edge Capital consulting firm. She is author of the new book, Owning Our Future: The Emerging Ownership Revolution. She was co-founder and for 20 years president of Ethics magazine.

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Will breadfruit solve world hunger?

SUBHEAD: The good news is that many places near people suffering from hunger can grow breadfruit.  

By Matthew Lucas & Diane Ragone in June 2012 in ArcView News - 
(http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer12articles/will-breadfruit-solve-the-world-hunger-crisis.html)

 
Image above: Different varieties of breadfruit are conserved in the world's largest collection of breadfruit at the Breadfruit Institute in Hawaii.

A map can be a powerful visual tool, but can a map help solve world hunger, rejuvenate agricultural soil, and prevent mosquito-borne infections? Can a map help slow global warming and spur sustainable economic development in tropical regions around the world? Perhaps a map alone can't do these things, but a map can help display the real potential of a very special tree, the breadfruit.

Breadfruit (Artocarpus altilis) is a tropical tree originally from Papua New Guinea with a rich and storied history. This starchy staple crop has been grown in the Pacific for close to 3,000 years and was first introduced to other tropical regions more than 200 years ago. The trees are easy to grow and thrive under a wide range of ecological conditions, producing abundant, nutritious food for decades without the labor, fertilizer, and chemicals used to grow field crops.

These multipurpose trees improve soil conditions and protect watersheds while providing food, timber, and animal feed. All parts of the tree are used—even the male flowers, which are dried and burned to repel mosquitoes. Because of its multiple uses and long, productive, low-maintenance life, breadfruit was spread throughout the tropical Pacific by intrepid voyagers. Hawaii is one of the many island chains where breadfruit, or ulu in Hawaiian, was cultivated as a major staple. It is fitting that now Hawaii is home to the headquarters of an organization devoted to promoting the conservation and use of breadfruit for food and reforestation around the world.

The Breadfruit Institute, within the nonprofit National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), is a major center for the tree's conservation and research of more than 120 varieties from throughout the Pacific, making it the world's largest repository of breadfruit. As a result of this work, the institute has received requests from numerous countries seeking quality breadfruit varieties for tree-planting projects. To address this need, the Breadfruit Institute has developed innovative propagation methods, making it possible to produce and ship thousands, or even millions, of breadfruit plants anywhere in the world.

These breadfruit tree-planting projects can help alleviate hunger and support sustainable agriculture, agroforestry, and income generation. Most of the world's one billion hungry people live in the tropics—the same region where breadfruit can be grown. However, as Dr. Diane Ragone, author and director of the Breadfruit Institute, has learned, stating these facts and illustrating them are two very different things. A strong realization is made when a person sees the data from the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization global map on world hunger coupled with a map showing areas suitable for growing breadfruit.

It was originally this type of powerful visual aid Ragone wanted when she began working with NTBG's GIS coordinator and coauthor Matthew Lucas. To create such a map, Lucas began by constructing a model within ArcGIS using WorldClim 30-second resolution global raster datasets of interpolated climate conditions compiled from the past 50 years (Hijmans et al. 2005). With the GIS, monthly rainfall and temperature data was condensed into total annual rainfall, mean annual temperature, and minimum and maximum annual temperature. Then, the annual climate data was reclassified.

 
Image above: Map of world showing zones of "best" and "suitable" growing conditions for breadfruit as well as Hunger map is based on the 2011 Global Hunger Index score displayed per country. From (http://ntbg.org/breadfruit/resources/#1160).

"Suitable" and "best" ranges of rainfall and temperature were identified after referring to the breadfruit profile written by Ragone for Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands (Elevitch 2006). The best ranges in mean temperature and rainfall were given a value of 2, whereas suitable conditions were given a value of 1; conditions that were deemed too low or high were given a value of -10. ArcGIS was used to combine all the reclassified climate datasets.

The final output resulted in a global dataset that now displayed areas deemed unsuitable for growing breadfruit as < 0, areas assumed suitable with a value of < 4 and > 0, and best areas with a value of 4. This data was displayed in combination with 2011 Global Hunger Index scores entered into a vector dataset of countries. The resultant map helps the viewer see the real potential breadfruit development could have for tropical regions.

With this new visual aid completed, Ragone and Josh Schneider, cofounder of Cultivaris/Global Breadfruit, a horticultural partner that propagates breadfruit trees for global distribution, attended the World Food Prize symposium in October 2011. The breadfruit suitability map was shared with Calestous Juma, professor of the practice of international development and director of the Science, Technology, and Globalization Project at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the Harvard Kennedy School. Juma has extensive experience and contacts in Africa.

The map was also shared with the former president of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo. It was at Obasanjo's invitation that Schneider visited Nigeria and met with government officials and researchers to discuss breadfruit planting projects. Due to the relatively fine scale (1 km) of the original datasets, a more detailed map of Nigeria showing areas suitable for growing breadfruit, along with roads and cities, was an invaluable tool during discussions.

The World Food Prize meeting also spurred other similar country-specific maps that have been created and shared with organizations and individuals working in Haiti, Ghana, Jamaica, Central America, and China. The maps provide government officials, foundations, and potential donors with clear information about the potential of breadfruit in specific areas. The maps have spurred the question, What other countries are best suited for growing breadfruit? ArcGIS was used to combine the breadfruit suitability data with a vector layer of country borders. This not only resulted in a list of countries that could possibly grow breadfruit but also made it easy to identify and rank the amount of area each country has that is suitable and best for growing breadfruit.

It became clear that this map, the data, and the ArcGIS methodology used to construct it provided not only a powerful visual aid but also a useful research tool. Armed with these maps and the information they convey, Lucas and Ragone are continuing to pair what has been learned about breadfruit cultivation with ArcGIS to help understand and display future breadfruit potential. They are currently working on a climate change analysis that uses predicted climate datasets of various future climate models and scenarios in an attempt to quantify areas that would have the highest likelihood of sustainable breadfruit development. They are also working on publishing an online map displaying global breadfruit growing potential. Finally, it is the hope of the Breadfruit Institute and NTBG that future breadfruit development will be expanded and that ArcGIS will help guide potential breadfruit-growing countries in planning and implementing planting projects of this very special tree.
 
About the Authors
 Matthew Lucas is the GIS coordinator for the Conservation Department at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. As a graduate of the University of Hawaii, Hilo, Department of Geography, Lucas hails from a conservation background where he uses models and maps to guide more efficient decision making and problem solving.

Diane Ragone, PhD, is director of the Breadfruit Institute at the National Tropical Botanical Garden. She is an authority on the conservation and use of breadfruit and has conducted horticultural and ethnobotanical studies in more than 50 islands in Micronesia, Polynesia, and Melanesia.
For more information about the Breadfruit Institute and NTBG, visit www.ntbg.org/breadfruit.

To help support the work of the institute and breadfruit tree-planting projects, visit ntbg.org/breadfruit/donate/plantatree.php. For more information on Global Breadfruit and how you can help, visit www.globalbreadfruit.com.

Citations

Hijmans, R. J., S. E. Cameron, J. L. Parra, P. G. Jones, and A. Jarvis (2005). "Very High Resolution Interpolated Climate Surfaces for Global Land Areas." International Journal of Climatology 25:1965–1978.
Ragone, D. (2006). "Artocarpus altilis (breadfruit)." In Traditional Trees of Pacific Islands. Elevitch, C. R. (ed). Holualoa, HI: Permanent Agroforestry Resources, 85–100. Available at www.traditionaltree.org.
Von Grebmer, K., M. Torero, T. Olofinbiyi, et al. (2011). "2011 Global Hunger Index: The Challenge of Hunger: Taming Price Spikes and Excessive Food Price Volatility." International Food Policy Research Institute, Bonn. Available at www.ifpri.org/sites/default/files/publications/ghi11.pdf [PDF].
See also: Ea O Ka Aina: Trees that Feed 4/25/12 Ea O Ka Aina: Plant a Breadfruit Tree 3/31/10 Ea O Ka Aina: Breadfruit Recipe Experiments 11/15/09 Ea O Ka Aina: Get out your `ulu! 7/14/09 Island Breath: Ulu - The Breadfruit Tree 12/31/06
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Sierra Club's failed vision

SUBHEAD: The Sierra Club is the quintessential “Liberals in Volvos with bumper stickers” imagining that reforming the system will fix inconvenient crises.


 
Image above: Detail of ad for Neuton battery powered lawn mowers, a current advertiser in Sierra Magazine. All that plastic, battery chemistry, and power grid wattage to keep the suburban lawn looking like a putting green. From (http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/advertisers)

By Jan Lundberg on 13 April 2010 in Culture Change - 
(http://www.culturechange.org/cms/content/view/640/1/)

[IB Editor's note: This article was reorganized for publication on IslandBreath. It begins with the April 1st press release by the Sierra Club concerning the recently adopted federal fuel economy standards.]

"The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of Transportation today finalized important new combined global warming emissions and fuel economy standards for autos for the years 2012-2016. The new standards will bring fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced to 250 grams per mile. The efficiency gains in the autos sold under these standards will save 1.8 billion barrels of oil. This is the first time the Clean Air Act has been used to directly tackle global warming emissions and is also the first significant increase in fuel economy standards since the original 1975 CAFE standards.

These standards are a grand slam: billions of dollars in consumer savings at the pump, a huge reduction in oil use, significant cuts in pollution, and they will help a more sustainable domestic auto industry thrive. Sierra Club pushed hard to pass the California law that set the stage for these standards, our members pushed for the California standards to be adopted in more than a dozen other states across the country, and we defended them all the way to the Supreme Court. The ambitious standards being finalized today were made possible by these years of hard work and we are delighted to see them become the law of the land.

"Today's new national standards are the result of state leadership and the leadership of President Obama and his cabinet, including EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. Driving vehicle standards forward to 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016 is a result of President Obama's work to bring together automakers, state leaders, environmentalists, and labor unions to secure a win for the nation.

"The new tailpipe standards, promulgated under the Clean Air Act, demonstrate the Act's power to spur innovation, fuel economic growth, protect our air, make America more energy independent, and fight global warming. Instead of using this and other important tools in the Clean Air Act to accelerate our transition to a clean energy future, some in Congress want to slam on the brakes and actually shift the country into reverse by gutting the Clean Air Act. We cannot allow this happen. It would be bad for the environment, bad for the economy, and bad for America. The only people it would be good for are Big Oil, big polluters, and America's enemies overseas who continue to profit from our dangerous dependence on oil."

Sierra Club press release by Exec Director Michael Brune (http://action.sierraclub.org/site/MessageViewer?em_id=168541.0)

It is a testimony to the failure of the environmental movement that it offers, as an alternative to ecocide, the continued support of the automobile industry and "clean cars."

This pseudo-environmental stance is almost identical to the Obama administration's myopia about continuing industrial pollution at full tilt for the sake of "jobs" and stability for its friends on Wall Street. However, the state of affairs -- driving off the ecological cliff for maximum petrocollapse -- is also the failure of grassroots activism and the pro-bicycle/pro walking movements.

It's not fair to criticize all of them, when some have made honesty and sacrifice part of their daily work to spread the word -- via conferences, magazines, websites, and direct action such as Critical Mass Bike Rides. Yet if there is something more we can do for greater effectiveness to combat car domination and the paving over (or tarmacking) the arable land, we need to get down to it.

Advocating that we publicly boycott petroleum and never buy a new car will help. The pace of climate change tells us there's no time to wait for some techno-solution or a better President. Reading the pro-car cheerleading of Michael Brune, Sierra Club Executive Director, I can't help but be reminded of his predecessor Carl Pope: pied by grassroots environmental activists disappointed about his compromises regarding ancient forests.

Who else did the Biotic Baking Brigade pie? Milton Friedman, Bill Gates, and Charles Hurwitz (Maxxam Corp.), getting just and tasty deserts. I don't know if I've ever seen a more pathetic pseudo-environmental pose: statements by Brune -- "help a more sustainable domestic auto industry thrive" and "fuel economic growth" -- show that ecological ignorance and disassociation from reality are alive and well.

The Sierra Club has thus firmly established itself as a dangerous factor in environmental politics, if it hadn't done so lately. Incrementalism on behalf of a broken system is irresponsible and unacknowledged by the reformist-participant because of the urge to accomplish something, anything.

Seizing some middle ground, however, is a disservice to Mother Earth. The Sierra Club thus pretends that human and animal slaughter on the roads from vehicle impacts don't exist, and that minor exhaust reductions at a time of out-of-control global warming are the right approach. Peak oil?

The Club evidently never heard of it, or chooses to not understand its basics. Did the Club get the message from us on their current campaign? Yes, the propagandist originally reaching thousands of members from the Membership Services dept, Ann Mesnikoff heard from a few of us on the Global Warming Crisis Council Listserve. She did not respond, but in a bureaucracy, that's to be expected. After her shock she must have dutifully passed along the strange reactions of non-car-loving activists!

The Sierra Club is the quintessential “Liberals in Volvos with bumper stickers” imagining that reforming the system will fix inconvenient crises. I don’t mean to minimize good work, especially by Sierra Club chapters. But all through the 1990s the Club would not join our Alliance for a Paving Moratorium because they thought that their anti-sprawl campaign could somehow be effective when more roads were allowed to be built or widened!

And if the Club ever opposed a road project, the “solution” was to have the roadway plan relocated so as not to damage a sensitive ecosystem quite so much (as if a nearby ecosystem could be sacrificed instead). What can you expect from an organization that publishes Sierra, a magazine that has had, for decades, full page ads from Honda and Toyota? That’s money in the pockets of nonprofit staffers who probably have cars too (and refrigerators, TVs, computers, etc., all of which trash the Earth when an overpopulated society is participating in consumerism).

We probably waste our time with these inquiries. In my experience the response is polite and gently defensive, as if the good an organization does makes any deficiencies insignificant. The idea of 200,000,000 cars replaced in this country by slightly more efficient technology is the height of hypocritical idiocy, both on ecological grounds and from a peak oil standpoint.

And as for the 1,000,000 animals smashed to death on U.S. roads every day by clunker and Prius alike — John Muir would not approve for one minute. David Brower did not either, which is one indication of why he was previously sacked as too aggressive for defending Mother Earth.

 
Image above: From the homepage of www.SierraClub.org, an offer to win a jet trip to Hawaii for pledging money and becoming an Eco Hero. From (http://www.sierraclub.org/earthday/sweepstakes/) .