what are you doing about climate change? how secure is your food supply? what about water? these are dauntingto think about, aren't they? what can any of us do on our own? we can become activists,convince government to make changes, we can act ourselves,drive less, eat organic, recycle. and we need to to do all those things,but i want to talk about community. i think that's where change happens best.
my belief is this: we need to re-localizeas much as possible: local businesses, local food,local banks, local power grids. to start, we need to spreada diy sensibility or do-it-yourself, but more within smaller communitieslike do it together. i believe that as we re-localizeand do these things together, we can take back. i'm lucky to come from a diy family. my grandmother taught usto bake bread when we were little,
and my mother taught us to sew clothes. my father taught usto grow food in the desert. that's me at age 2. they were also really cautious of waste:we line-dried our clothes and our food scraps wentto the compost or the chickens which gave us food in return. my father used to say he hated flowers because he believed that every drop of water investedin the ground should provide food.
my father is from the west bankin occupied palestine where ancient grovesof olive trees are passed down from generation to generation. there's a picture of usin the olive groves when we were little. my grandmother made bread for my father - so he grew up with that as well -in the outdoor stove, we also took sustainable transportation. my dad's traditions translatedreally well to new mexico, which has a remarkably similar climate,
so that's what i grew up with as well. but it wasn't until one summer in collegethat i was visiting my grandmother again, that i really was confrontedwith scarcity. water for palestinians is rationed; it can be turned off at any timeand without warning. so i learned to beextremely efficient with water including washing with less than a gallonand even saving that water for the garden. most of the water my grandmother hadwent to her garden where she had an almond tree,fruit trees, vegetables, herbs, grapes.
she didn't need any help,she was self-reliant, most of her food she made herself. in the us, we value independence, and yet, we are dependent onevery system to keep us going. we depend on others to growour food and make our clothes. we exploit others in the process. we also depend on governments to pump clean water to us,drain away, and truck away our waste. we also depend on our paychecksto keep these things going.
each of these is a disaster awayfrom collapse, even our paychecks. most of us are a finite numberof them away from poverty. so how do we break away from this?how do we re-localize? i think the diy movement is a great start. the do-it-yourself: there are tv showsabout it, and there's pinterest. i think it's really exciting, i think the idea of it is more excitingthan the actual practice of it. i think the practice is catching up,but it is growing as well. people are wanting to get back,back to their roots, perhaps,
to relearn their families'cultural traditions, back to the land before we usedpesticides and herbicides in our soil, trying to restore the soil and back to a time when we just knewhow to do more things for ourselves. i believe we can look back to the pastwithout going backwards and take the best of what we've lostto bring into the future. at the old school we have classes in composting, and gardening, preserving food, identifyingedible weeds and medicinal herbs,
building with adobe, and water harvesting. it's really empowering to learnthese skills, we're having a lot fun too. people take classes to save money, some do it to avoid allergens and others are just tryingto impress their friends with homegrown lettuce. but whatever the reason, it is a growing movement,and it is really exciting. the best part is to see the friendshipsthat start, and the sharing that happens.
my grandmother in palestine, like i said, didn't need any help in her garden,but she definitely used it. while i was visiting,it was almond season, and several of her neighbours came by to help her pick and shellthe almonds for drying. she did the same in return for them,and then they shared in all these things. that's just part of the culture there. i think we need to bringa little of that here, or a lot of it. so, what can this look like here?
i can help you install rain barrels,maybe you can help me fix my computer. maybe our neighbours haveapricot trees or chickens with eggs, and we can share in those things as well. maybe our library can have not only books but seeds, and sewing machines, and tools that we all need,but don't need that often. maybe our local bankhelps finance solar panels, and we all get themand help each other install them. as a community,
we have different strengthsand different resources, so together,we can be strong and resilient. so imagine this in your neighbourhood. what can you contribute? maybe you don't havea yard, and that's ok, but everyone has somethingto offer their community. i challenge you to try two things: one - learn to make something new, take a class, ask someone to teach you,
even see an on-line video, and two - give something away whether it be an item,or food, or your time. give it to a neighbor. that's how these things start;is with giving. the status quo is to remain dependenton these huge systems and governments to keep us going while maintainingthis mirage of independence. the diy movement is helping usbreak away from that, but my hope is that as we become moreself-reliant, we don't remain isolated.
imagine how much better it can beand how much more we can do if we do it together. (applause)
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