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Slow goes it


editorial

Published: Wednesday, September 9, 2009 2:41 PM PDT
Healdsburg school children and their parents this week gathered in the town’s Plaza for a Slow Food “Eat-in” and the LandPaths conservation group hosted a similar fresh air lunch at Bayer Farm, while several other “Eat-in” gatherings also were taking place across the county.

The gatherings were part of a nationwide “Eat-in,” sponsored by Slow Food, an international organization that was founded in Italy to protest the invasion of fast food outlets and the resulting change of culture and “quickening” of life in general.

The Slow Food Movement has become more than a campaign about bringing healthy foods to school cafeterias or back to the dinner tables of rushed families used to taking too many unhealthy shortcuts.

Today, in fact, there is even a World Institute of Slowness

https://www.theworldinstituteofslowness.com/


and an international organization called Cittislow which enlists cities as members.

Cittaslow - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

These groups promote “slowness” as a path to a sustainable future where societies engage in more reflective thought, slowing down the pace of everyday life to be more in harmony with their natural and cultural surroundings. They believe “haste makes waste” and that life in the fast lane is not as glamorous as it was advertised.


There may be something to this “do as little as possible” approach of slowing down. It might even work to help solve all kinds of current social problems and national crises including health care reform, our collapsing car industry, global warming, our regional water supply shortage and, even, our international banking, credit and mortgage markets.

Just look, there’s plenty of evidence everywhere that suggests going faster and faster hasn’t been working very well. That approach has mostly spun us into deeper and deeper debt.

The basic principles of Slow Food and the Slow Movement are Good, Clean and Fair. Good stands for quality versus mass-produced and it is meant to celebrate community and caring. Clean is about health, both for people and the planet. Fair is when workers are treated with dignity and receive a just wage. Fair is when all people have access to the basic life needs of health, opportunity and security.

Certainly our current yelling and brawling over national health care reform could use a little more slowness, reflection and togetherness. A good national health care system would be based on patient choice and be community-centered. A clean plan would emphasize prevention, healthy diets and exercise. A fair health care reform plan would support doctors and hospitals with just payments and be available to everyone.

How could the U.S. car industry apply Slow Movement principles? A good industry would not over produce too big, too expensive and too wasteful SUVs. A clean car industry would adapt to a changing world of climate change, foreign oil dependence and the need for more public transportation answers. Workers and stockholders would earn a “just” wage and the added security of being part of a sustainable industry.

A big part of the Slow Movement is about conserving, reuse and not overuse. Here in Sonoma County we have done a great job to employ solar and other energy-saving options and produce greenhouse gas reductions. But we face a future of growing demands for a limited supply of clean water in our Russian River watershed. We need to slow down our collective demands for more and more water. Conservation alone will not be enough. We also need to explore new methods of farm irrigation, urban reuse and changes in our consumer-oriented and energy-intensive lifestyles.

Finally, we deserve a banking and credit system that stops living in the fast lane of greed and instant gratification.

Let’s slow down. It really doesn’t take much effort.

— Rollie Atkinson