The Southern Institute for Sustainable Living (SISL) is a non-profit educational foundation (IRS 501-c-3) organized as a Virginia non-stock corporation. The business office is in historic Old Town Alexandria, Virginia, with our principal permaculture (see note) site in Southwest Virginia. Additional facilities are in Clemson, South Carolina. Our purpose is to promote sustainable living by cultivating and passing on to others the practical arts and skills necessary for self-sufficiency in food, shelter, health, and renewable, non-polluting energy.

Why “Sustainable”? What’s Wrong With the Way We Live Now?

Those who make their living from the land are charter members of the “reality-based community.” This post-modern term was intended to be derisive, yet it captures a truth its purveyors didn’t intend. The farmer and stockman know from experience the reality of nature’s inexorable laws. All their planning and hard work can be nullified in an instant by hail or rain, or over time by blight or drought. No amount of self-delusion or wishful thinking will halt the winds or bring the rains. As the great Southerner Robert E. Lee once observed, “Nature will always assert her rights.” And whether we like it or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, Nature’s rights are basically whatever she chooses. When human action abuses those rights, Nature is resilient and usually pays us back, with compound interest. But man can still do a lot of damage in the meanwhile that may take decades or even centuries to rectify.

In today’s America reality is catching up with us all -- rich or poor, wise or foolish, prudent or improvident. The evidence on every hand is indisputable: we are facing multiple, converging challenges – environmental, social, and economic. Our way of life has changed, is changing, or is likely to change dramatically; and for the worse, if present trends continue unabated. It is simply not sustainable

We are not climatologists, but it appears to us that the globe is undergoing a warming spell. One data point among many to illustrate: almost one quarter of the Artic icecap has disappeared in the past two years. Even if you disregard the claims of the more alarmist environmental scientists, this is a measurable event and rebuts those who claim there is no climate change. Now, whether it’s a result of manmade activity – greenhouse gases, for example -- or from a spike in solar activity or other natural causes, we’re not qualified to judge. But whatever the cause, global warming will dramatically change the way we live.

Converging with climate change is the rapid depletion of the earth’s natural resources. We are not oil geologists nor qualified to assess the validity of the “peak oil” theory. (But for an informed view, see the 2005 Robert Hirsh Report for the U.S. Department of Energy or visit TheOilDrum.Com). However, you don’t have to be a scientist to observe the price of crude oil increasing almost geometrically, up about 50% over 2006. As of this writing, the price of a barrel of crude oil has gone above $100. Since our economy, indeed, our whole way of life is based on cheap, abundant oil, the squeeze in petroleum reserves and steep rise in costs will dramatically change the way we live.

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The world’s water supply is also shrinking, at least in relation to the demands of a growing population. Estimates are that by 2010, half the world’s people will face severe shortages, leading to massive struggles over this indispensable resource. The Southeast where we are located generally has had ample water. Yet today it suffers from a drought of historic magnitude. For example, Lake Lanier, which provides the water for the huge Atlanta metropolis, has subsided to a 60-day level, and the Governor has declared half of Georgia in a state of emergency. The drought, which had been confined mostly to the lower and central South, is making its way north and east, toward the mid-Atlantic region. Lack of water will dramatically change the way we live, if only in the short term.

Thanks to climate change and shortages of fuel and water, food supplies are falling and prices are spiraling. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), global grain reserves have reached their lowest level in three decades for which reporting data exist, and possibly their lowest in a century. There is only about a 45-day global grain reserve, and the National Farmers’ Union of Canada warns that a global food crisis is unfolding. This group is not known for scare-mongering, yet their analysis is alarming. Based on the cited USDA data on world grain supply and demand for the 2007-2008 crop year, the NFU warns “…the world is consistently failing to produce as much grain as it uses. We are in the opening phase of an intensifying food shortage.” That is, a worldwide shortage. In a land of seeming abundance it may seem shocking to assert, but a little research will bear it out: we are only one bad harvest away from famine.

In the U.S., corn prices and the cost of all foods associated with corn have shot up as farmers reallocate much of their harvest for ethanol production. This is an example of a short-term, ad hoc approach to problem solving, in which addressing one problem tends to aggravate another. The production of ethanol reduces dependence on dwindling crude oil, a welcome development. But in diverting grain from the food supply, it increases one shortage while reducing the other.

Many Americans, already reduced to living from paycheck to paycheck, are increasingly unable to stretch their dollars to the next payday as they juggle rising food and energy bills. “Too much month left at the end of the money” is beginning to affect middle-income working families as well as the poor. Food pantries, which distribute foodstuffs to the needy, are reporting severe shortages and reduced government funding at the very time they are encountering a surge of new people seeking their help.

And what about the quality of the food we purchase? News accounts of polluted and sometimes deadly food imported from China and other foreign countries are a daily occurrence. And frankly, a lot of the food produced in the U.S. by the huge industrial “confined feeding operations” isn’t much better. Much of the animal protein we consume is laden with toxins, chemical additives, and powerful hormones which wreak havoc over the long term with the human organism. Recently the USDA recalled 143 million (million!) pounds of ground beef from a slaughtering operation in California, not only the biggest food recall in history but also one of the biggest recalls in history, period.  What could better illustrate the dangers of remote industrial-government food production and the folly of Americans' relying on such a system for safe, wholesome food?  Contrary to Federal law, good sense, and a decent regard for consumers, employees of the company were picking up diseased, fallen cows off the ground with fork lifts and shoving them into the abbatoir.  Who knows what dangers they introduced, possibly including mad cow disease (which has a long incubation period in humans and may not show up for years). 

Even is safe, much of our produce is shipped over long distances and kept “fresh” in nitrogen coolers. This not only consumes precious oil, but also drains the food of its nutrition in the process. Since much of what we consume has been emptied of nutrients and filled with toxins, it’s no wonder we have an epidemic of diabetes, obesity, and chronic degenerative disease, which in turn heavily impacts a burdened health care system. Medical treatment is now one of the greatest expenses Americans face, potential or actual; and consequently one of the most divisive political issues in the country. Yet politicians and health experts seldom discuss the relation between the health crisis and poor nutrition. The global food shortage, rising prices, and lack of pure, wholesome food that has come to dominate the American diet, hold the potential to dramatically change the way we live.

Sorry, but there’s more bad news from the RBC (Reality-Based Community). The average retail price of electricity shot up 10 % last year, the largest jump in 25 years. The growing cost of electric power highlights how dependent we are on this indispensable source of energy. Imagine, for example, if there were a blackout in your area. How long could you survive without electric power? How long before your community would plunge into chaos?

It hardly needs stating that the national power grids are the lynchpins of our society’s infrastructure. Any interruption for more than a week or two could precipitate a societal collapse; too much of our daily life support depends on electricity from the grid. Even the supply of piped natural gas is dependent on grid power, since it is used to run the compressors that pressurize gas pipelines. Yet the three national grids are cumbersome and antiquated, with too many complex interdependent parts for the system to right itself when something goes wrong, even in normal circumstances, as we have already seen in major regional blackouts. But electricity distribution and power generation plants are now facing unusual new circumstances. Increasing threats from computer hackers and cyber-terrorists could cause major disruptions and economic chaos, according to the Government Accountability Office, which reports that control systems at such critical facilities are more vulnerable today to cyber-attacks than at any time in the past.

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Again, we’re sorry, but there’s more. The industrialized West is facing a meltdown in credit and equity markets. The response of the Federal Reserve is to pour even more liquidity – more “fiat” money – into the system, which weakens the dollar globally, while the U.S. Government continues to spend money we don’t have with reckless abandon. The trouble is, fiat currencies backed by nothing except public confidence are losing value, and they buy less and less. The once mighty U.S. dollar has fallen to a record low against the euro. "The gap between future U.S. receipts and future U.S. government obligations now totals $65.9 trillion, a sum that is impossible for the U.S. to reconcile, which means the U.S. is now technically bankrupt," said the St. Louis Federal Reserve Review (July/August 2006). The banking system is ever more vulnerable to runs, and hyper-inflation flickers ominously on the monetary horizon.

Moreover, if you make things for a living – cars, textiles, electronics – your job is in jeopardy; that is, if it hasn’t already disappeared overseas to China or India. Even the so-called knowledge jobs of the New Economy that were supposed to replace old-fashioned manufacturing are being outsourced abroad. Americans are finding to their dismay that diligent, disciplined, full-time work no longer assures financial security for middle- and working-class families. Growing financial pressures have already changed the way millions of us live.

In sum, it’s not just peak oil we face, but peak food, peak water, peak climate, peak resources, peak energy, peak money, peak wisdom. Our urban and suburban, corporate-governed, cheap-oil-dependent, Just-In-Time-delivered, consumer-oriented, money-driven lifestyle can no longer sustain itself. Our abundance has peaked. Our prosperity has peaked. We have exceeded America’s capacity to support our population at our current mode of living. That is, the natural and economic resources required to maintain ever-increasing consumption by an ever-expanding population are simply not available; nor is the capacity of our habitat sufficient to assimilate the ever-increasing amounts of waste disgorged by our ever-expanding population.

What Does It Mean to Live Sustainably?

Sustainable living is an approach to social and economic, indeed, all activities, for all societies, rich and poor, which is compatible with the preservation of the environment. It is based on a philosophy of interdependence, of respect for life as well as non-living parts of Nature, and of responsibility for future generations. (From The Bruntland Commission on Sustainability, 2005)

The future we have outlined may seem bleak, but it’s based on a sober analysis of widely available information – available for anyone who cares to look, that is. Unless you are sunk deep in denial, as many Americans unfortunately are, it is impossible to dispute that we’re facing multiple, converging crises.

These problems are largely beyond our individual control. But partial remedies, at least, are within our grasp. Our individual futures need not be utterly bleak; they can once again be full of promise and fulfillment, but only if we re-orient ourselves away from dependence on remote systems that require huge amounts of diminishing resources to maintain. We can take responsibility for our own necessities. We can learn and practice skills that will meet some if not all our most pressing physical needs -- food, water, and energy. With discernment and courage, we can make the changes necessary in our lifestyles, habits, and expectations.

We must first recognize that the systems we rely on for our very survival are highly centralized and industrial in nature. The electric power generation and distribution system is the classic example. Food production, mostly via big corporate agriculture’s “factories in the field” concentrated in the hands of a tiny few, is another. Banking, credit, and the international system of payments also fit the paradigm. But we need not rely on distant, unaccountable corporate monoliths for all our basic needs. Once we realize this we can begin to transition from living according to the industrial economic model and toward a household economy model.

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Practically, this means to decentralize, to downsize, to think locally and act locally; for example, producing safe, healthy food and buying it in our own community. This is the first requisite to living sustainably – to understand our world and its problems, and then to cultivate a mindset that leads to self-sufficiency and independence from remote, centralized, industrial, impersonal institutions. The household economy, as opposed to the industrial economy, is an economy on a human scale and thus is more efficient. It is also better serves human satisfaction, quality of life, and personal relations. The modern industrial economy, on the other hand, is poisoning itself and exhausting itself. It has reached the point of diminishing returns.

Sustainable living follows naturally from this understanding. It satisfies our legitimate needs without depleting the environment and resources needed in the process of fulfilling those needs. It preserves and replenishes eco-systems, thus acting responsibly on behalf of our continued existence and our posterity. It goes hand-in-glove with breaking free of today’s “negative return” corporate-industrial economic system (which in our view also depletes man emotionally and spiritually, as well as the depleting the environment he depends on to sustain life).

Sustainable living seeks to master the art and science of designing man’s place in the environment by mirroring the healthy patterns found in nature. This approach allows us to build productive, sustainable, and even profitable cultivated eco-systems that have the same stability, diversity, and resilience as natural eco-systems.

The Bruntland Commission, named for former Norwegian Prime Minister Gro Harlem Bruntland, defined sustainable development as meeting “the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The Bruntland definition thus argues for the rights of future generations’ access to raw materials and vital ecosystems to be taken into account in global decision making (see notes) An old Southern folk expression captures it better: “Don’t eat the seed corn.”

Recovering the Agrarian Life

At SISL we believe “sustainability” has its roots in the ageless values and practices once called “agrarian.” We are dedicated to recovering the agrarian life, by which we mean:

• Reconnecting individuals directly with the production of their basic physical needs; specifically, cultivating and perfecting the arts, skills, and social structures needed to live in harmony with each other and with Nature, respecting her means and her limits.




• Passing on this knowledge to others and teaching them to take responsibility for creating their food, fiber, energy, and shelter.




• Nourishing man’s social and spiritual as well as physical needs though proximity to Nature and though fellowship in a humane community.




• Preserving the longevity of natural eco-systems and reserves of natural resources for future generations.

An important distinction needs to be made. By “agrarian,” we are not speaking of farming per se. The Monsanto-ConAgra-Cargill-ADM model may be considered farming; but it is not agrarian, it is industrial.

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Sustainable Living Is Non-Governmental, Non-Sectarian, and Non-Partisan

The term sustainability is sometimes associated with progressives, greens, environmentalists, or other political activists. But sustainable living is not the private preserve of any wing of the political spectrum. Left and Right no longer have meaning at the most basic human level where the problems catalogued above must be confronted. As the Old Books says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust. It falls on liberal and conservative, on black and white, on Asian and Hispanic.

SISL is non-governmental, non-sectarian, non-partisan, and non-political (unless eschewing traditional politics altogether is in itself a political statement). It follows we are self-consciously non-utopian. We believe all human beings should strive to be good stewards of the environment and address the concerns enumerated here that cut across party lines and regions. As all people of good will should do, we seek to foster a cooperative culture of community, synergy, and harmony between individuals and their surroundings. We take responsibility for our own welfare insofar as our resources and individual circumstances permit. Traditional politics has shown itself unwilling or unable (or both) to address the crises that are bearing down on us. In such a situation, taking care of our own needs and reducing our burden on society’s fraying infrastructure and diminishing resources are a supreme act of social responsibility.

The Role of SISL

Unlike many other sustainability foundations, the SISL is not a paper- or Internet-based entity or mere think tank, but a real place with real practitioners. What makes us distinctive are three main characteristics:

• First, our sustainability efforts take into account the reality ofbio-regions. Ours happens to be Southern Appalachia. We recognize that challenges to sustainable living vary from place to place, climate and terrain, to name the principal two. The challenges confronting the desert Southwest, for example, differ widely from those we face in Southwest Virginia. One size does not fit all. While we are open to dialogue and training (and learning from) residents of other bio-regions, our approach is realistic in acknowledging first and foremost that we must act in accord with the demands of our own locale.




• Second, we have an actual physical site in the heart of the Virginia Blue Ridge appropriate to support the mission. The site is a working farm that provides an ideal venue for mastering the arts of self-sufficiency and passing them on to others. We have 88 acres of rich riparian pasture (“bottom land”), meadow, and wooded hill slope, with access to an additional eight to ten acres of arable land via lease. There are abundant sources of water for human use, crop irrigation, and micro-hydroelectric power; and wood and stone for construction.




• Third, we will create a continuous feedback loop by remaining in close touch with our interns, students, and consultants who apply the practices on exhibit at SISL. This continuing dialogue allows us to refine and perfect the arts and skills which are our mission to perpetuate. By virtue of our location and standing in the local community, we are able to tap into the folk memory of the Appalachian people who have a long tradition of self-sufficiency. We are also developing links for synergy with other compatible Southern enterprises like Polyface Farms in Swoope, VA; Turtle Island Preserve, home of the legendary Eustace Conway near Boone, NC; and the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, NC.

Developing Skill-Sets

Our principal focus will be cultivating the following arts and skills to serve as a knowledge base from which we can teach others:

• Growing a variety of vegetables, berries, fruits, and staples (e.g., corn and potatoes) without recourse to chemicals or undue dependence on heavy machinery.




• Animal husbandry and small pastured livestock.




• Food preservation (canning, drying, root cellaring).




• Seed stock maintenance and heirloom seed recycling.




• Water systems: including proper use of wells, streams, and springs; home water catchment; filtration and storage of potable water, gray-water cleansing and recycling, waste-water disposal, and conservation (e.g., use of composting vice flushing toilets).




• Renewable energy (solar and micro-hydroelectric).




• Ethanol production for internal combustion engines (i.e., light farm equipment).




• Homestead fiber and fabrics (wool, cotton, flax/linen; spinning and weaving).




• Woodlot maintenance and replenishment.




• Cooking with wood fuel and solar energy.




• Farmstead construction, small buildings, and maintenance.




• Beekeeping (for assured pollination as well as for honey).




• Botanicals – natural edible and therapeutic plants.




• Use of appropriate technology (low-tech, low cost, low maintenance, and low energy consumption).




• Community-Supported Agriculture (converting agricultural surplus into cash income) via effective marketing and direct sales (“buying clubs” and co-ops).




• Other community-supported human enrichment: music, local drama, storytelling, and folk arts.

Outreach Programs

The Institute’s mission is first to understand sustainability and how to apply its principles and practices; then to cultivate the related arts and skills; and finally, to pass those arts and skills on to others by a variety of means. Our approach is think, act, teach.

Man Cannot Live By Bread Alone…

Man must earn his daily bread, but he cannot live by bread alone. We believe the principles and practices of sustainable living, close to and in harmony with Nature and in community with others, sustain our spirits as well as our bodies, without which we may as well not exist. But to sustain our existence, we humans must learn to stop fouling our own nest and remember we are guests on planet Earth, neighbors of other creatures, and fellow members of the community of life. We must come to understand the centralized, chemical-and-energy-dependent approach to meeting human needs is failing. It’s a product of the hubris, narcissism, and disregard of reality that are poisoning America and the wider world around us. These traits are fatal to a healthy culture and in the end lead to actual physical extinction. Today, the utter disregard for a scale of human activity consistent with the planet’s ability to replenish itself is destroying our worldly home, and thus our hope.

SISL came into being to offer hope – and more. Much of what we seek to accomplish flows from an attitude of reverence toward the natural world and its wonders as well as toward our fellow man, and toward the Creator who made them. That attitude can be summed up in a simple, non-technical word – love.

“People want change but feel powerless, alone. They do not want to be the blade of grass that sticks up above the others and is cut down. They wait for a sign from someone else who will make the first move, or the second. And at certain times in history there are intrepid people who take the risk that if they make the first move others will follow quickly enough to prevent their being cut down. If we understand this, we might make that first move. …And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand Utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.”

– Howard Zinn

* “Permaculture” and “sustainability” are related terms, even overlapping to a degree, but not synonymous. Permaculture is a design system for sustainable living and land use that was born from an awareness of resource limits, especially during the energy crises of the 1970s. The best-known name associated with the concept is Australian Bill Mollison, co-author (with David Holmgren, his then research assistant) of the foundation text Permaculture One, published in 1978. The premise was to re-incorporate sound ecological principles in agriculture. Then the idea began to extend to re-looking at society as a whole using those same principles. Mollison followed in 1988 with Designer’s Manual. More recently, David Holmgren’s Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability, has become the authoritative text, taking the earlier ideas to a broader frame of reference, away from land management and practical agricultural issues toward dealing with the fundamental underlying principles of permaculture and its relationship to the reality of resource limits, especially peak energy. Permaculture has spread globally as a grassroots movement of activists and designers, teachers, land managers, gardeners and farmers; and is connected to a broad range of applications in sustainable building, alternative currency, eco-villages, and other diverse areas.

** While this quote from the Bruntland Commission is a propos to this manifesto, we are also mindful that the Commission’s mandate was primarily to justify sustainable growth and development. We are not so convinced, however, that continued growth is sustainable, nor an appropriate goal of a community-based ecological approach.