This week we are presenting the book “Life Rules. Why so much is going wrong everywhere at once and how Life teaches us to fix it” by Ellen LaConte.

According to David Braden, Ellen discusses 9 aspects of “Life’s /Eco/nomic Survival Protocol” that continuously puts life into upward spiral in spite of the geologic history of crises that life has faced. Her analysis is insightful and fascinating.

Last monday we presented a short interview with the authorLast monday we presented a short interview with the author. In this opportunity we present you some summaries of the Life Rules by it’s author:

Life’s Economic Survival Protocol

The shortest version of the Life Rules:

“Life’s successful (long-lasting and sustainable) economies waste nothing and produce no waste they cannot consume or sequester.

They run directly or indirectly on inexhaustible forms of energy, the foremost of which is solar.

Life’s successful economies are relatively equitable, common good economies.

Life’s basic units of economic activity are locally self-reliant, interdependent, mixed-species communities.

Locally self-reliant natural communities organize, regulate and govern themselves within limits set by their environments and by the needs of the larger communities of which they are a part.

They exchange information and pool intelligence in real time.

They distribute leadership according to task.

In hard times, Life’s successful—long-term sustainable— communities cut back.

Natural communities operate in ways that are inherently—organically—democratic.”

Elements of a Lifelike Economic Survival Protocol

“The basic units of sustainable human economic activity are locally and bioregionally self-reliant, interdependent, fully inclusive com-munities.

Truly sustainable, Lifelike communities are communities of place, partnership and purpose like the natural communities in which they are located.

Truly sustainable communities organize, regulate and govern themselves democratically within limits set by their environments and by the needs of the larger economic commons and natural communities of which they are a part. Regional economic coalitions and networks are politically subsidiary to local and bioregional communities except when the activities of any of those communities threaten the well-being or sustainability of the coalitions and networks of which they are a part. Regional economic coalitions and networks are co-operated by participating communities.

Long-term sustainable communities are biocentric: They are embedded in and harmonized with the ecosystems of which they are a part, and partners with or sponsors of natural communities with which they share those ecosystems.

Their economies are resource-based rather than primarily monetary. Their size, scope, content and cycles of production are de-termined a) by the kinds and quantity of resources that are available to them in their bioregion or that can be made available without causing harm to surrounding natural communities and regional ecosystems, and b) by the kind and quality of regional ecosystem services that are available or can be encouraged without damaging those ecosystems.

Truly sustainable communities export only what they have or can produce in abundance without compromising their future well-being or the well-being of the natural communities and ecosystems in which they participate and on which they are aware they depend. To the extent possible, they import what they cannot provide for themselves only from economic communities that export according to the same rules.

They waste nothing (or as little as possible) and produce no waste they cannot find a use for or safely sequester.

Their economies are, to the extent possible, pollution-free, relatively equitable, subsistence, common-good, full-employment economies.

Truly sustainable communities prioritize energy efficiency and run primarily on inexhaustible and renewable sources of energy that are managed locally and regionally and synchronized, to the extent possible, with surrounding energy systems.

They exchange survival information and pool intelligence, particularly economic and ecological intelligence, in real time.”

What We Can Do Based on the Life Rules

Six D-grees of Separation from the Global Economy: Triggers for Thinking and Acting Locally

“1)Drop out or drop back, money-wise. We can pull a good deal of our financial and political support from present ineffective systems. We can also create community associations that localize and regionalize food, fiber, energy and jobs production, and education and transportation systems, for example. How? By creating alternative currencies and regional monetary systems that operate as complements to existing systems. Examples abound of communities that have begun this process.

2)Downsize. Natural economies are locally and regionally self-reliant. They are community based. If we consolidated the 100,000 years of modern humans into a 24-hour day, we’ve depended on the global economy for just the last minute of that day. Surely we can learn how not to depend on it, how to bring the scale of our economic activities into harmony with the scale of Life’s economies.

3)Diversify. Investment counselors tell us to do this with our money. We should be doing it with our economies, too. The kinds of things we make and consume need to be as unique and diverse as the places in which those economies are located and the resources available in each place.

4)De-carbonize. Life is a carbon-based energy economy, but the carbons it’s based on are renewable. Renewable energies include solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, human and animal muscle. We can increase efficiency and conservation, create systems that use less energy, and prioritize the use of the last fossil fuels so we don’t have to go cold turkey without heat, electricity, plastics and medicines, for example. De-carbonizing would tend to detoxify most of what we produce, too.

5)De-materialize: Use less of everything. We need to recycle, reuse, and/or repurpose as much as we can. We also need to produce fewer goods that can’t be eaten or used for the good of humans or some other living thing or process. If we take fossil fuels out of the equation, we won’t be making a lot of stuff that isn’t good for us and other living things. Rely on renewables and things that can be restored in biologic time.

6)Democratize: Life built relationships, behaviors, and shapes and methods of organization that are more democratic then we’ve yet imagined into its operating system because they permitted species to live—together—within Earth’s means. Democracy in natural economies is not an option and it’s not about having a higher quantity of material goods; it’s organic and it’s about practicing a higher quality of common good. Democracy in natural communities is a first-order survival technique.”