poe 0.frontmatter 5/18/06 4:13 PM Page i TH I S P LAC E ON E A RTH poe 0.frontmatter 5/18/06 4:13 PM Page iii TH I S HOME P LAC E AND THE ON PRACTICE OF E A RT H PERMANENCE ALAN THEIN DURNING q SASQUATCH BOOKS SEATTLE poe 0.frontmatter 5/18/06 4:13 PM Page iv Copyright ©1996 Northwest Environment Watch. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means without the prior written permission of the publisher. Printed in the United States of America. Distributed in Canada by Raincoast Books Ltd. 02 01 00 99 98 97 5 4 3 2 1 Cover design: Karen Schober Cover illustration: Debra A. Hanley Interior design and composition: Kate Basart Map: The map of the Pacific Northwest, on page ix, was created by Cynthia Thomas for Northwest Environment Watch. It appeared in State of the Northwest, NEW Report No. 1, by John C. Ryan, copyright 1994 by Northwest Environment Watch. The map is based partly on Conservation International (CI) and Ecotrust, “Orginal Distribution of Coastal Temperate Rain Forests of North America,” Portland 1991. Revisions for the NEW publication were based on forest data in CI, Ecotrust, and Pacific GIS, “Coastal Temperate Rain Forests of North America,” Portland, 1995. See also David D. McCloskey, “Cascadia,” Cascadia Institute, Seattle, 1988. Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Durning, Alan Thein. This place on earth : home and the practice of permanence /Alan Thein Durning. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 1-57061-040-1 1. Life style—Northwest, Pacific. 2. Simplicity. 3. Home. 4. Environmental responsibility. I. Title. HQ2044.U62N674 1996 306—dc20 96-20592 Sasquatch Books 615 Second Avenue Seattle, Washington 98104 (206)467-4300
[email protected] http://www.sasquatchbooks.com Sasquatch Books publishes high-quality adult nonfiction and children’s books related to the Northwest (San Francisco to Alaska). For information about our books, contact us at the above address, or view our site on the World Wide Web. poe 0.frontmatter 5/18/06 4:13 PM Page v Con t e n t s chapter one Pl ac e / 1 chapter two Pa s t / 23 chapter three Ca rs / 67 chapter four S tu f f / 127 chapter five P e o p l e & P ri c e s / chapter six Po l i t ic s / Debts / 2 9 3 Sources / 2 9 6 Index / 3 1 1 239 185 poe 0.frontmatter 5/18/06 4:13 PM Page vii This Place on Earth is the flagship book of Northwest Environment Watch (NEW), a wholly independent, not-for-profit research center in Seattle, Washington. NEW’s mission is to foster an environmentally sound economy and way of life in the Pacific Northwest—the biological region stretching from southeast Alaska to northern California, and from the Pacific to the crest of the Rockies. NEW is predicated on the belief that if we cannot create an environmentally sound economy here, in the greenest part of history’s richest civilization, it probably cannot be done. If we can, we will set an example for the world. Founded by Alan Durning in 1993, NE