TEDxEQCHCH - Helena Norberg-Hodge - The Economics of Happiness

Transcriber: Annelize Ferreira de Oliveira Reviewer: Denise RQ I am very happy to come after Christie Walk because what I have to say is very similar. As we all know, everything from global warming to the global financial crisis tells us that we need fundamental change in society. And I'm going to argue that for all of us around the world the top priority, the most urgent issue, is a fundamental change in the economy. And from my point of view, the change we need to make is to move from globalization to the localization of economic activity. Localization is a solutions multiplier that offers a systemic and far-reaching alternative to corporate capitalism, as well as communism.

It is a way to drastically reduce CO2 emissions, energy consumption of all types and waste. At the same time, adapting economic activity and localizing economic activity can restore biodiversity and cultural diversity. It is a way to create meaningful and secure jobs for the entire world's population, and perhaps it is the most important of all, because it is about rebuilding the fabric of connection, the fabric of community between people and between people and their local environment: en The

economics

of

happiness

. The first time I opened my eyes to this, I was forced to see this connection between the external economy and our internal well-being, our

happiness

, when I was involved in a situation on the Tibetan plateau, in Ladakh, called Little Tibet, about ago. 35 years.

This area had been isolated from the outside world and was suddenly open to the outside world, to the outside economy. And I saw with my own eyes how subsidized food, arriving on subsidized roads, with subsidized fuel, how that food and other goods brought from thousands of miles away destroyed the local market. And almost overnight, this led to unemployment, which in turn caused friction between people who lived peacefully side by side for generations. After a decade, Buddhists and Muslims in Ladakh were literally killing each other. I also worked in Bhutan between '84 and '89, and I saw exactly the same pattern there.

There were Buddhists and Hindus who killed each other. So I was very motivated to try to bring this message to the rest of the world. I started talking and writing about this and in the process, I came in contact with economists, environmentalists, anthropologists, people from all continents who basically say that the history of our country, of our place, is very similar to the history of Ladakh. What we have seen is that around the world there is a trend towards a division between the government and the interests of its people, and that governments are applying an economic model that is simply obsolete, that has been taken too far.

It is a model that says: more trade, more production for export and more foreign investment. That is the formula to create prosperity. This formula does not work. Why are governments around the world so impoverished that they have to cut, cut, cut to meet our needs while spending billions and trillions on a global infrastructure in transportation, trade and weapons? Why is this happening? From my point of view, it is fundamentally about this distancing, about the globalization of economic activity. It has led to what I call a “drone economy.” You've probably heard of drones, the unmanned aircraft that are now being operated from Las Vegas while bombing people in Afghanistan.

We cannot continue the war without seeing the people we kill, without hearing the screams, without being there risking our lives. This long distance creates blindness, cruelty and, basically, an impossibility in terms of ethics. It's very similar to someone's ability to sit in New York and speculate about the Wheat Valley and not see what's happening to those farmers on the other side of the world. How can we be ethical, how can we be kind and compassionate when we don't even see our impact? It's like our arms have grown so big that we don't even see what our hands are doing.

Whether as a CEO or as a consumer, we really need to open our eyes to what's happening, and when we do, what we will see is that around the world there is a movement towards localization that aims to shorten those distances, and that movement is demonstrating the multiple benefits; The most powerful, inspiring and encouraging of all is the Local Food Movement, which consists of literally thousands, if not millions, of initiatives around the world, from permaculture to edible school gardens, to more urban farms and markets. of farmers. It's about bridging the gap, and you can talk to farmers as I have done - because we have helped stimulate and catalyze these initiatives on many continents - and you can talk to farmers who were previously bankrupt, who were depressed, and how just one A farmer told me in Australia: "I've been a farmer all my life and I felt like a serf; constant pressure to reduce cost and standardize products," and he was producing only two things. "Now," he says, "after we start a farmers market, it's like entering a new galaxy," and he smiles as he says that.

Now he produces about 20 different things and has weekly contact with consumers. This shortening of distances is much, much more fundamental than we realize and is absolutely essential in terms of all our basic needs: the need for food, clothing and shelter. When we realize that in the modern economy this pressure to produce for export, this pressure to encourage foreign investment, when we realize that this means that farmers around the world are being pressured to produce more and more more standard products, bigger and bigger monocultures, long-term distances, you can't say: "Well, you know, today some of my basil is ready to be harvested, but tomorrow I will have a little more and also some black currants, or some apples, and a little milk." of my cows." Impossible.

Monocultures on an increasingly larger scale are not only the same product, but also the same size. The size that fits in the machinery, in the harvesting machinery, in the machinery that washes, in the machinery that the load on supermarket shelves. In the process, tons of food are wasted because they are not the right size. But much worse than that is that in the process we are eradicating not only agricultural biodiversity but also wild biodiversity. As distances shorten, suddenly a market is created in which the farmer and the producer are interested in diversifying. In fact, they can make more money and do better if they start to build a more diversified farm.

This is what is happening. As a consequence of diversification, what we can see is that more food can be produced per unit of land. Perhaps this is the most important thing when it comes to understanding that if we want to make changes in the economy. , if we want to make changes in the world today, we have to start looking at food production, the interface with the natural world that is our real economy, and I fear that most economists are simply ecologically illiterate. They do not distinguish between growing potatoes and apples and creating rubber balls or plastic toys.

There is a certain economy of scale when producing standard petrochemical industrial products, but when it comes to the natural world, adapting to diversity, encouraging diversity is the way we can get more out of each unit of land. Many studies show that ten times more food from small, diversified farms creates many jobs. We can see this in traditional systems, and we can see it in the new movement of farmers, of young people, many of whom have studied architecture, law, medicine, and who are actually deciding that they prefer agriculture. As part of the local food movement, they have access to a local market, they earn a very good salary because when you shorten the distances, we eliminate all that waste of energy, packaging, refrigeration, irradiation, advertising, and above all, those preservatives and waste from making food look fresh when it is not.

When you eliminate all that so-called "value-added activity," what you find is an economic system, a free market, where the farmer earns much more and the consumer pays less for fresh, healthy food. In the longer economy and supermarkets, generally speaking, the farmer receives 10% of what we pay or less. At the farmers market they get 100%. At the local food co-op, at the local store, they can get 50 or 60%; 40% significantly more. This is like a magic wand. We are talking here about increasing productivity and at the same time reducing the ecological footprint because as you restore diversity, you begin to reduce dependence on imported, expensive and toxic chemicals, and you also begin to create more space for life wild.

So, it is magical that we can increase productivity and increase profits simultaneously for the farmer. What I am saying here applies to fishing, it applies to forestry, it applies to the production of our basic primary needs of food, clothing and shelter. When we adapt to the local climate, to the local area, we are actually going to increase prosperity and at the same time reduce our ecological impact. As far as I'm concerned, this is the real elephant in the room: that the long-distance global economy is responsible for poverty, for a widening gap between rich and poor in each country.

You won't be able to find me in a single country, including my home country of Sweden, where the gap between rich and poor is not widening unacceptably. You won't find a single country in the world where people are not increasingly frustrated with their governments, swinging from left to right and beginning to realize that left and right are not the problem; the question is global versus local. I want to make it very clear that localization, economic localization, implies a change of direction, particularly from primary production and basic needs. It's not about ending international trade, it's not about some kind of isolationism, where we don't care about what happens on the other side of the world.

Otherwise; Today, because of our global problems, we need global collaboration more than ever. In reality, localization will happen on a large scale, once we look up and see the bigger picture and link up internationally to collaborate and achieve this transition. It's starting to happen. There is a global movement that is not just about food, but also about business and banking. In the United States, in the last 18 months, 7,600 credit unions have surpassed large banks. In the United States, in 130 cities, there are 30,000 small businesses that have joined together in business alliances, local business alliances. but many of them are becoming part of a network, such as the BALLE network, the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies.

Farmers markets and the localization movement are also starting to get some money for research, because research has been so successful. One of the things that stands out is that in local economies we are seeing community revitalization, reconnection between people. For example, studies show that when you shop at the farmers market, compared to the supermarket, you have ten times more conversations with people. These are demonstrations of the fact that the path forward is small, slow and local, and for this structurally fundamental is the shortening of distances. It might seem like a very difficult thing to do, taking on the big captains of industry, but just remember that in terms of globalization, the real initiative to further deregulate global finance and trade, these initiatives have been taken by less than 1% of the world population.

One percent is 60 million people. Well, having studied this process for 30 years, I would estimate that probably fewer than 10,000 people have been actively promoting globalization. The rest, more than 99% of us, who do not benefit, have not observed this process, have not been aware of how fundamental it has been in the increase of energy consumption, the collapse of the community, the collapse of democracy real. Thus, the 99% are marginalized and the middle classes around the world do not benefit. We are not going to get richer with this. Look at our bank accounts, look at our debt; our national debt, our personal debt.

It is time we realized this. So, we have a situation where the 99% are being marginalized and even the 1%, in my view, are not doing it out of ill will. There's no small unpleasant group of people you meet in dark boardrooms. It's not about good and bad. It's about structures, it's about blindness. The drone economy does not allow us to see what is happening. Shortening distances can. And this location, this shortening of distances is not an abstract ideal, it is not some kind of chimera. It's actually happening. Countless thousands of initiatives around the world are actually demonstratingThey are demonstrating the benefits, showing us that it is possible to increase productivity and diversity while reducing energy consumption and waste, increasing, perhaps most important of all, deep connections between people at the local level; increasing those connections and increasing our deeper connection to the natural world.

This is the economy of happiness. Thank you. (Applause)