I was asked to give a presentation to a group called Leadership Mendocino. Every year about 30 people in our County, usually from a mix of businesses, government agencies, and non-profits, meet monthly for a full day and intensively study a particular topic. Nov. 14th 2008 was their Ag day, and my presentation followed the Ag Commissioner’s, who reviewed the County’s history and present. I didn’t want to talk about the future as if I knew what was going to happen, but I did want to highlight the vulnerabilities and tensions I saw building and suggest some alternatives to our predicament. Hence I created a storyline in which I was now the County Historian in 2020 giving a talk to the group about the past decade of change.

While the details are specific to where I live, the general lessons apply to the whole world.

A video version of my presentation (which adds more details to the discussion presented here) is available here.

Click on any image to see a higher resolution version.

For Mendocino County the key date was December 12, 2009. The trucks didn’t show up that day.