Hi Everyone,
I sometimes think of our journey into the future as one of trying to sail a ship on a foggy sea where our view is limited. I spend a lot of time looking for the reefs where our collective ship might run aground. That old Lizard brain looking for dangers and trying to avoid them. But the more recent mammalian nurturing brain also has a view on the future. And that is the view of the lovely calm bays, estuaries, and large open waters where our collective sail boat would love to linger. The places we want to go.
So in the interest of stretching those "What If" muscles I propose the idea of imagining what it would be like in 10 years if some specific and really good thing happened? What would that thing be? What would it be like? What would be nice about it?
Here are a couple of dreams / wishes / visions that have come to me recently:
What if our Minnesota forest industry started to make the materials needed to super insulate houses? And it became required that all houses were super insulated in Minnesota? And low interest loans were given to upgrade existing buildings and homes?
Millions of dollars of investment would shift out of the hands of the oil and natural gas companies and would be redirected to our small northern towns and industries. Thousands of new carpenter, window installer, and air sealer jobs would be created. People in rural Minnesota, who suffer such high energy costs, would have warm and snug houses they could afford to heat. And our rural and urban connections would deepen and strengthen.
What if we took $2 billion of our Minnesota budget surplus, used it for 20% down on some loans, and built $10 billion worth of renewable energy wind and solar in Minnesota? We covered every school? And supplied all the small towns? And connected them on the grid to reach our cities?
Then our energy $ would flow to rural communities across Minnesota instead of leaving the state to drill more fracked gas wells or coal shipments? Jobs would be created across Minnesota? What if whole new companies in these counties were setup to build these renewable energy systems? We would have rural county constituencies who would want to see the energy transition continue.
What if our local coops banded together to standardize the size and strength of glass jars and bottles? Instead of recycling glass we reused it! Reusing glass can be powered by solar hot water for washing instead of high temperature industrial heat for remelting the glass and down cycling it. The coops all installed commercial dishwashing equipment to clean and sanitize the bottles people returned. Local food makers could pick up these jars and reuse them for a very low cost. The local food business booms with very cheap containers. The one time through food industry (spaghetti sauce anyone?) ends up subsidizing our local food system!
What if all food and food containers were compostable and non-toxic? All inks, labels, stickers, wrappers and twist ties were also compostable and non-toxic? And we created a true natural cycle of soil to plant to raw food to prepared food to compost to soil? And instead of building up toxins in that cycle, we created a soil building cycle like nature has created? And tons of new organic matter was created that could be used for soil amendments?
Our little collective sailing ship is in a rough patch of sea right now. There are some nasty looking reefs on our current course and some fruit cakes are staging a mutiny to control the tiller we cannot let happen. But not far are some lovely green blue seas with sun! Lovely bays and beaches where we will want to stop and drink in the views.
Cheers!
-Jon