Indigenous Power: A New Energy Economy
The U.S. is the wealthiest and most dominant country in the world, yet it can’t keep the lights on in New York City, nor can it provide power in “liberated” Baghdad. Centralized power production based on fossil fuel and nuclear resources has served to centralize political power, to disconnect communities from responsibility and control over energy, and to create a vast wasteful system. We need to recover democracy. And one key element is democratizing power production.
Let’s face it, we are energy junkies. The U.S. is the largest energy market in the world, and we consume one third of the world’s energy resources with five percent of the population. We are undeniably addicted—our economy is based on the burning of dinosaurs and on wasteful production systems. In other words, oil. Ninety-seven percent of the total world oil consumption has been in the past 70 years.
Gentrification, the wrenching process of neighborhood change, was first named in the 1960s. The name, however did not acknowledge the permanent erasure that takes place when a community loses its memory. Gentrification, or urban blight were policy terms that carried social and racial values, as well as a political and economic agenda. The layered meanings of the language of redevelopment has been understood by many communities that have fought to remain intact. In San Francisco, those communities and their fights for survival are whispered anthems to community struggle; International Hotel, Yerba Buena, Fillmore.
