By Bill Robinson
BEREA — Tomorrow is the end of the year, some say the end of the decade, but will the world end on Dec. 21, 2012?
According to interpretations of an ancient Mayan prophecy and a prediction by the French mystic Nostradamus, the Earth, or at least civilization, has less than two years left.
No matter what you choose to believe about “the end of days,” a book published nearly three years ago recommends Berea as the place most likely to survive the Apocalypse, whatever form it takes.
This town, founded by utopian abolitionists nearly 155 years ago, has received much praise attention over the years. However, author Lawrence E. Joseph’s assertion about Berea’s durability has piqued some curiosity and gotten a few laughs
The NBC network’s “Today” show was impressed enough to send a film crew to Berea early this month to look the town over and interview some community leaders.
The segment is expected to air at 7:21 a.m. on Friday, said Belle Jackson, who heads Berea’s tourism department.
Joseph, who lives in Beverly Hills and chairs a New Mexico-based plasma physics firm, first visited Berea in the 1990s. His book, “Apocalypse 2012," cites the spiritual and environmental values espoused by Berea College and the sustainability efforts of Berea residents for his belief that the community may survive a world-ending cataclysm.
No other place on Earth “embodies the sacred Mayan values of service to humanity and Mother Earth like the town of Berea, Kentucky,” he writes.
Joseph also praises the college’s Ecovillage and likes the area’s lack of volcanic and seismic activity.
While she discounts Apocalyptic predictions, Jackson said the points Joseph makes help explain why Berea has survived and thrived for more than a century and a half and can look forward to a promising future.
Economic and environmental sustainability are peace and justice issues for today, just as equal educational opportunities for all races and genders was for an earlier age, Jackson said.
“People who have lived their entire lives in Berea as I have may not think about it being so different or special,” Jackson said. “When people from elsewhere say it, however, it prompts us to be more appreciative of what we have here.”
Mark Jeantheau and Donna Wellman were living in suburban Washington, D.C., more than four years ago when they decided to look for a more peaceful and sustainable existence.
After looking about the country, they settled in Berea.
The couple has installed a 10,000-gallon underground cistern to irrigate the food plants they grow on their property on Owlsley Fork creek. They also generate electricity with solar panels.
The cistern got them through he droughts of summer 2007 and fall 2008, Jeantheau said. Their electricity use is about net-neutral over the course of a year.
In general, however, Berea is not much more sustainable or resilient than other communities, he said.
Still, “Berea is a good place to be. But becoming more sustainable will take personal and community efforts. That's where (the community group) Sustainable Berea comes in,” he said. “It’s trying to educate people about the need to be more community-based and self-reliant — and get them involved.”
Richard Olson, who chairs Sustainable Berea and heads Berea College’s department of sustainability and environmental studies, said he sees “nothing precipitous about the year 2012.” However, interest generated by books such as Joseph’s and the movie “2012” are useful in getting people to think about sustainability.
“We have some very well documented economic and environmental challenges facing us” without delving into ancient prophecies, he said.
“The world’s population is growing by a billion people every 12 years," he said. “And, our capacity to pump oil and extract coal from the ground is going to peak in the next 15 to 20 years.”
Whatever the limits of their production, burning fossil fuels is driving global climate change, Olson said.
“We’ve have seen in the past two years just how fragile the world financial is,” the professor said. “We’ve have gotten through this most recent crisis only by printing money, and that is going to cause inflation down the road. We also can’t depend on China for all of our manufactured goods.”
To survive, “We need to design communities, homes and businesses that can get by using half the energy we are using today,” he said, “because that is all that will be available or affordable.
“We also need to produce food and consumer goods locally and teach people the skills to do that.”
Sustainable Berea promotes planting fruit trees and bushes as well as vegetable gardens. It also encourages the use of rain barrels for irrigation and teaches sustainability skills.
Olson does not see himself as a prophet of doom.
“We can exist comfortably in the future if we prepare properly for it,” he said.
“In a future based on enjoying our families, cultivating creativity and useful arts, as well as eating food that we have grow ourselves, we will probably live happier, healthier and more fulfilling lives,” Olson said.
Bill Robinson can be reached at brobinson@richmondregister.com or at 624-6622.
