"If there is an enemy, it’s us: Too many of us."

- oil analyst Jan C. Lundberg

Dear Ms. Secretary and Ms. Clinton:

My expertise is oil price and supply, as Hazel O’Leary can attest. I have used my knowledge of that industry to assist the environmental movement since 1988.

U.S. unemployment levels, whatever they really are, can get a lot worse in a quick spiral, as you must know. It is of grave concern particularly with the looming Y2K episode which might be like a 9 on the Richter Scale. Meanwhile, the economy’s "healthy" consumption is killing the planet ecologically, as well as culturally. Clinging to the status quo has an appropriate time, but that would not be today onward.

A tremendous job-generator is at hand which re-gears the economy toward local self reliance. There are many aspects of self reliance; the concept can also be expressed as "small business combined with neighborhood village economics and responsibility." It also is a matter of sustainability within an ecosystem that would thus become healthier. One reason for that would be the nonimportation of oil, which is not only a prime fossil-fuel polluter; oil takes on awesome proportions in a vulnerable, interdependent economy. This was first made clear on a moderate scale during the oil crises of the 1970s.

Local food security is a must, along with reliable, safe, fresh water supply. The answer to getting clean water is not (or should not be) technology, as opposed to sound watersheds. The answer to food and water security, and generating jobs, includes (1) creating neighborhood gardens via removing pavement, such as narrowing needlessly wide roads by 50%, and (2) maximizing pedal power, such as bicycle-carting. As to water supplies, neighborhood-based rainwater catchment and wells may need to be created, along with distillation requiring renewable non-grid energy sources.

In forests are countless roads that should never have been built, as they allowed for deforestation and net loss of employment. Countless roads need decommissioning in order to lessen erosion. As you must know, the salmon industry in the Pacific Northwest is on its knees due to damaging roads, clearcuts as well as dams.

Just repairing or removing and revegetating roads can employ armies of workers. Consider trying to get money to our citizenry this way, allowing people to relearn that the Earth’s and people’s needs are one. But the Earth’s need is supreme if we are to survive as a part of the larger whole. There are far too many people, even in the United States -- considering our polluting and squandering nonrenewable resources. Birth control, immigration, intercity migration, etc. are going to be hot, hot issues when there are too many mouths to feed -- when the system may break down. This breakdown can be entirely due to tenuous interdependence amongst global corporate and government institutions and systems. Economic collapse can happen with or without a Y2K computer-related crash or panic. Likelihoods and probabilities should not be trifled with; action must be taken on the basis of current Congressional findings regarding Y2K and vulnerability of systems under an emergency, while recognizing and maximizing people’s inherent freedom and rights. However, it is time to face this: What can occur soon is the revisiting of both the Great Depression and oil crises, but combined and much worse. Some environmentalists are overjoyed that CO2 emissions would go way down, but under such a scenario we may see many nuclear "events," as the deadly, mutagenic waste and weapons are severed from the electrical grid which may well go out, and are not cared for by a comfortable, competent priesthood baby-sitting the nukes.

I offer the figure of perhaps over a hundred million jobs being created as a coordinated lurch toward neighborhood/community-based economics and governance, in the event of collapse of multinational corporations’ and government agencies’ service and distribution systems. The problem may be that federal government will never pursue depaving or pedal power for local control. After all, the Big Three motor-vehicle manufacturers only lose under this outlook-unless those people also go with the changing flow. Yet, if we recognize we all must have a home and make a stand at surviving one of the biggest tests of civilization’s history --Y2K -- we will start being real neighbors on our own streets again. Sharing and cooperation could happen by using fewer ovens, cars, computers, etc., while providing each other’s health and child care, home repairs, pulling up cement and asphalt, gardening, obtaining local water and distilling it, distributing goods for miles using human and animal power -- these things get us away from greenhouse gas-emitting practices. Hemp should now be legalized in low-THC strains for industrial uses, and various food and fibre seed-banks established, commensurate with the upcoming potential sudden need. The "100,000,000 jobs" reflects about half the nation’s people capable of working. Picture a neighborhood and its diverse people: half of them could easily take on communal tasks, part-time jobs, etc. Barter can become indispensable. Food security based on distant, unreliable corporations has problems, although it is "today’s economy." But as screwed up as Russia’s economy is, over 50% of the potatoes -- their main protein source -- are eaten by the people who grew them. That supply is safe for them.

I attach my previous proposal making the rounds widely, thanks to my contacts using the worldwide web. "Strategizing for Community" spells out the oil supply threat (to transportation, agriculture and electric generation) as a background to why depaving and pedal power are essential for local economics and maintaining the social fabric. After a draft of the report was reviewed by Y2K experts and activists, it was placed on various websites. The BBC recommends our website, <www.tidepool.com/alliance>

Please have discussions amongst yourselves and the American people about this letter’s points, and kindly respond to me as soon as possible, in a timely fashion. Thanking you in advance, I am

Sincerely yours,

Jan C. Lundberg

President, Fossil Fuels Policy Action Institute

Executive Director, Alliance for a Paving Moratorium

Publisher/Editor, "Auto-Free Times" international magazine