When Pearl Harbor was attacked in World War II, drawing the U.S. suddenly into the conflict, anthropologist Margaret Mead had a manuscript almost done.  She threw it away, saying, "Everything has changed."  I feel that degree of fluidity in the situation around us on many days, working to connect up the many local efforts to green our communities, and help them establish strategies that will work in a shifting context of regional economics, state policy and national politics that will only get quirkier as the electoral season gains momentum.

Ironically and hopefully, the greatest anchor in all this complexity is the emerging community of practice who are working together on place based solutions.  It's the connection - across trades and professions, counties and watersheds, ideologies and ethnicities - that makes a common language and solidarity possible, and builds up a shared commitment strong enough to do what is needed.

Our business community is discovering natural capital - the dollar value of ecosystem services now provided freely by Nature, and the potential returns from industries that preserve and restore these services. But we have not really begun to understand what it will take to implement these successfully in our region.  When we look at some of the models of eco-industry, they have actually arisen less from technological inquiry than from community necessity.  The eco-industrial park at Kalundborg, Denmark - where one company's waste is another's "food" - arose as an economic survival strategy in the 1940s.  The Dudley Street Neighborhood Initiative in Boston, home of urban land trusts and food businesses and green building models, was born out of households' struggle to protect their neighborhoods against dumping, arson and other abuses of absentee landlords.  There is abundant research on innovation economies -- and on communities that care for their environments.  Their common feature is organization - so much that economists now talk about "social capital" in parallel with natural.  

Here in the Hudson Valley, guilds and networks have been a key to the survival of local industries through the tailspins of the global corporate economy. The arts societies, town Chambers, and regional organizations like the Agroforestry Center and Hudson Valley Agribusiness Development Corporation show the way.  Through networks including the American Institute of Architects, Environmental Business Association of New York State, Northeast Sustainable Energy Association, and U.S. Green Building Council - with support from SHV and many friends - the ingenuity of our home-grown industries is gaining visibility.  As we work together to create a "natural capitalist" economy, it may well be the social capital that gets us there.