Surviving Collapse

As environmental crises loom, this book makes an argument for radical changes in the ways in which people live in order to stave off a dystopian future. A possible way forward is radical sustainable development, which emphasizes environmental and social justice concerns that are at once transformative, or egalitarian toward total liberation, and regenerative, or restorative to heal the health of people and the planet. Radical sustainability is distinguished from weak sustainability—a critique of the neoliberal, sustainable development project that, in practice, prioritizes economic growth over people and the planet—using theories from ecofeminist, environmental justice, and postcolonial scholars. The prevailing notion of sustainable development has remained ineffective at reducing environmental degradation and social inequalities. To gauge possible solutions to these problems, the book examines two alternative, community-scale, socioecological models of development with small environmental footprints and more egalitarian social practices. Methods employed are qualitative, cross-national, and comparative. The cases are an urban ecovillage in the Pacific Northwest, United States and a Cuban urban farm in Havana. These cases are important reminders that elegant, low-cost solutions already exist for environmental harm mitigation as well as social equity and adaptation. Findings highlight that each case uses community-oriented, low-tech practices and integrates ancestral, Indigenous, and local ecological knowledges. They prioritize social and ecological efficiency and subsume economic rationality towards those ends. While neither is a panacea, both provide examples for how communities can move toward stronger forms of sustainable development and empower readers to imagine, and possibly build, more resilient futures.