Vernon Molloy, from Ivanhoe, a philosopher by inclination and training, spends time pondering the problems facing the world and the increasing number of poor people. He has created a fascinating, thought-provoking website Backlander. In addition to writing about philosophy, he puts forward concrete ideas of what we can do faced with what he says may be the biggest destruction of life since a comet eliminated the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. He says “whether one is a global warming, resource-depletion alarmist or a secular moralist, we all agree that well-being depends upon improved conduct.”
He argues for decentralization saying if 25 per cent of our ordinary wants and needs should be produced within a one-hundred-mile circle we would be more secure from outsourcing and down sizing. He calls for consumer unions focused on making savings and getting the concerns of consumers for example about the environment heard. He wants to reboot local economics by pooling skills and resources of under and unemployed people. He calls for investments in local “means of production, which would renew interest in value-adding skills: welding, carpentry, auto mechanics, animal husbandry, market gardening.”
In addition to coming up with ideas about how we can work together in Hastings County to build our local economy and a better future, Molloy runs a small tree farm and plays host to one of the Community Development Council of Quinte’s community gardens.
