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The idea itself is simple…

The classic co-op grocery store, but on steroids...

This roided out co-op, firmly planted in its bio-region, would be engaged in not just producing groceries, but any/all basic human necessities. We find it absolutely unacceptable that it has become so unattainably expensive for so many people to afford things like food that hasn't been doused in poison, a dry/warm place to sleep, water that isn't full of endocrine disruptors or partially treated sewage, energy that doesn't lead to flammable well-water, medical system that doesn’t care more about the absence of disease than true health/well-being, and an education that’s relevant not sorely outdated and even purposefully inaccurate at times. These are some of our core needs and there is absolutely no good reason that in 2020 we can't choose to produce them for and provide them to each other at high quality in a way that restores ecosystem function.

The Earth is abundant and we can pool our resources to create essential goods and services using automation at large enough scale that their price starts to drop. Not only can we make these things much CHEAPER, but I think together we can make BETTER versions than what’s on the menu of this twisted crony capitalist system we’ve ended up with. We can do better than Pepsi vs Coke. And maybe most importantly I think we can actually do all this in a way that REGENERATES our ecosystems.

We can set up our economy so that the more houses we build the greener and healthier the Earth becomes because we teach each other how to be a regenerative keystone species in all of the places we habitate, something many humans have learned over the eons, while many more have not. The only way Corona Enterprises will be able to do any of this is if tens of thousands of local people sign up as members in the co-op…

Our solution is to build a large regional cooperative where we invest in technologies that automate the process of producing high-quality food, water, energy, and housing in ways that regenerate our ecosystems (while buying a stake in those ecosystems, because regenerative processes have an amazing ROI and to better steward nature). So I have decided to convert the LLC I started back in college into a cooperative dedicated to designing, building, and operating these regenerative systems, particularly ones well-suited for automation. The idea would be to increase the supply of high-quality versions of basic human necessities and thus drive the marginal cost of those necessities to near zero. Imagine being able to meet all your basic needs with even just 10% of your income. How would your frame of reference for money change in that world? Imagine if you co-owned your city with your neighbors, like had true equity in its operations and infrastructure. Imagine if your city had the perks of Google (free meals from 5-star chefs, weekly massages, 401k match etc.). And imagine a ring of green expanding out from it with nature just getting more resilient the longer people live there...

But don’t take our word for it that this is possible, listen to this guy, he gets it

 
 

In order to make any of this happen we need to do these next two things well, but if we do we think it could change the world…

#1 We need to embrace automation

 
if workers controlled the factories automation would mean vacations not layoffs 89107102_10216376838316195_2959088263417036800_o.jpg
 

Since we'd all be owners of the cooperative we don't need to fear automation for its job-killing capacity, we benefit by the improvement in efficiency, PARTICULARLY when we automate tasks that are tedious or unfulfilling to the human spirit! We can create an incentive to innovate away our own job!

That would be a game-changer we think. A co-op like this would naturally create consumer products that are upgradeable, easily fixable, be gentler on the Earth (or instead of less bad actually good for the planet), and designed to last a lifetime as opposed to having a planned obsolescence date. Robotics and automation are now cheap enough to be able to produce large enough numbers of just about anything to drive its marginal cost down to near-zero - but monopoly control and the profit motive tip the scales back the other direction. But if we tweak our frame of reference for the profit motive by giving an ownership stake in this new automated means of production to the community, then it becomes profit with a community-building purpose.

Imagine being able to pay for your basic needs of food, water, housing, utilities, healthcare, and education with just 10% of your annual salary

Game changing for your life right?? Ok, what about 1% of your salary? Or what if… you could meet all your basic needs using solely the dividend payment you get as a member of the co-op? We never left the “monetary free-market capitalist system”, but our frame of reference of money and physical capital/means of production would be totally changed. And we would be in the perfect position to finally exit that system for so many of us that don't want to participate in it at all anymore. We are so unbelievably sick of this militarized white supremacist patriarchy, and we bet a lot of you are too. Let's build an economy that is so unequivocally better that everyone leaves the former and starts participating in this one. Let’s build an economy that is just so unequivocally superior that people are like FUCK YES, I’m going to hang out with those people, screw you Amazon and Walmart!

#2 we need to internalize the ecosystem services provided by nature

This one is a bit abstract and boring, but still incredibly powerful we think. The idea is basically just continuing to tweak incentives by putting natural capital (trees and rivers and insects and stuff) on our organizational balance sheets (lists of assets and liabilities). We really wish we would have done the right thing (stop ecosystem destruction/collapse) for the right reasons (because the tree of life is precious and we haven’t discovered anything remotely like it anywhere else in the entire universe) but at this point, we think we need to put a price tag on nature to make it lucrative to take regenerative actions. We think we need to move with the river's current (capitalism) in order to generate the momentum to either divert the river or get out of the water entirely.

NOTE: For anyone that is happy with the direction the river is going, this idea is not for you :) 

We already put natural capital on the liabilities side of our balance sheets, we need nature on the assets side too, and we need the damage we are causing added to the liabilities side more fully. Imagine for example, a municipality's trees. They pay for insurance, planting, watering, trimming every few years, pest/disease management, and then a big cost for removal+disposal at end of life. We don’t care what the “thing” is, if you've got all those costs literally on your financial statements, you better be putting the value that “thing” provides on the other side to see if it's worth it. And although we can never put a truly accurate price on the wonder of nature in my opinion, if we even account for a fraction of its beauty and utility we think we will see clear as day the incredible ROI that mama Earth provides compared to how much she costs humans in time, energy, resources etc. to regenerate and maintain.

And in contrast, this accounting process would show the relatively smaller value we get from things like fossil fuels, or factory farms in comparison to how much they truly cost. It'll make things like transitioning from conventional to regenerative agriculture an absolute no-brainer, and in alignment with corporate fiduciary duty. We'd naturally be incentivized to create a forestry industry that only takes haircuts off an otherwise regenerative system, as opposed to having to regulate and mandate our way to that sort of industry. We'd bottle water in reusable containers out of currently dry streams that we bring back to life, and where we leave more of the water to nourish the land than we take ourselves. We'd 3D print artistic and unique houses using CO2 we suck out of the air. We’d create lucrative jobs breeding endangered species, releasing them into the wild, and creating epic habitat for them to live in. We’d cover our neighborhoods and cities in edible landscaping so there’s food everywhere you go and we could return some of our farmland to nature, while the farms we do maintain completely change to support more and more forms of life instead of being the dead wastelands they often are now.

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And maybe most importantly, we would address the absolutely heinous social inequities and outright violent crime that we have allowed the system to perpetuate on a huge proportion of our human family. It has gone on too long and we must end it. Now. It is time to give equity to our disenfranchised communities, we need to give people WHAT they need, WHEN they need it. We have the wealth and knowledge to do this for every person on the planet. Humans are an incredible species, and if we align incentives correctly we can eliminate poverty on this planet.

 

As we lift up the least among us and take the yoke of planned obsolescence and artificial scarcity off all our backs (but particularly our Black, Brown, and Indigenous siblings of color who have been oppressed, murdered, and terrorized by a relentless machine of systemic white supremacy for hundreds of years) We think we’ll all be blown away by what we can accomplish together…

Or maybe you’re not for the flowery, visionary pitch. Maybe the brass tacks version will win you over

Forget producing all basic human necessities, that’s the long term goal. Here’s the way to start: an electric co-op. Build the biggest solar farm you can reasonably finance, but it’s gotta be at least a couple MWs to make in-front-of-the-meter interconnection make sense so that a Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) is available for the electricity produced (since PPAs are a well-known contract to banks and fairly leverageable due to stable revenue for the next 20 years and a built-in price growth rate). Use a cheap rapid solar deployment system like 5B’s ‘Maverick’. Put it on cheap land leased for the next 20 years in the Warner Springs basin in NE San Diego County, as close as we reasonably can to the substation and the high capacity lines that connect to it (turns out that is very very close probably, within a few hundred feet potentially). Partner with a sheep/cattle rancher to graze in between the rows of panels.

In order to drive down the cost of adding storage, and to significantly increase the value of the electricity produced, attempt to assemble in-house a bank of lead-carbon-base (as opposed to lead-lead-acid) batteries using old lead acid batteries that you get for cheap and refurbish/upgrade. The parts are all commonly available, with a bit of expertise it seems reasonable to cut out the manufacturer and distributor overhead to assemble at least a 250 kWh battery bank on let’s say a 2.5 MW project? That should be big enough storage to upgrade the terms of the PPA or sell stored power on the open market for a premium.

From there with a leverageable contract and revenue flowing in consistently, begin building a second solar farm (or expanding the current farm) and purchase or license a 3D house printing robot. Begin printing affordable yet exotic and unique houses. If that goes well move toward land acquisition and developing whole communities instead of individual buildings. Consider gathering up trash in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and spraying it with CO2 absorbing bacteria and a Ca source to create a calcium carbonate land mass to build additional housing developments on. Leverage this real estate to expand into other forms of production (consumer products, food & water infrastructure, fuels, equipment/tools etc.). You could also put PV panels on these real estate developments and use something like SolShare to create a democratic Peer2Peer electric system, which could also be aggregated as a community as a virtual “power plant” and maybe yield additional PPAs.

**Note Each of these forays into new industry sectors would likely be a separate legal entity and investible security since we know most "standard" investors won't be interested in the big overarching idea here**

The goal is to get to a point where the average member of the co-op can meet their basic needs (food, water, energy, housing, healthcare, education etc.), with just the dividend that they receive for being a member.

Similar in some ways to a Government-issued Universal Basic Income but arrived at in a very different way. I’m all for a Gov. UBI too, but we gotta say this way of getting at something similar is a lot more exciting to us.

We don’t know about you, but we are tired. Tired of working alone. Tired of having minimal social and environmental impact. And tired of not being able to muster the startup capital to gain an equity stake in the technologies and trends that we know are going to drastically impact the future, particularly those that we believe could help reduce suffering and regenerate the environment.

 

In 2010, Cody Harrison started an LLC with the goal of regenerating our planet's ecosystems and providing for the basic needs of all humans on this planet. Since incorporating the business, Corona Enterprises has worked with inspiring organizations such as Open Source Ecology, CalTech, and Golden Coast Mead, we have tried to create a positive impact, but in the 10 years since the company was started Corona has not been able to create any significant change. And that’s why we are writing to you today. We believe there is strength in numbers and we need your help.

 

According to a 2017 report from McKinsey 400 million to 800 million jobs worldwide could be automated by 2030. This could either decimate the 99.9% or finally set us free from the artificial scarcity imposed by the .1%. Star Trek or Mad Max, which future do you want? FYI, to be in the top 1% worldwide in terms of wealth you need about $770k in net worth. As far as we can tell we are decidedly not heading toward an egalitarian Star Trek-like future where we are all effectively millionaires, Mad Max seems much more likely at this point but we still have a chance to turn things around.

 

So, with all that in mind, we would like to humbly invite you to join this new cooperative and join us in attempting to save the world.

We’ll need a significant portion of a given region to join to make the manufacturing and production part of this work, which is probably the crux of the entire plan, will you be one of those thousands? This whole idea is a long shot, but we say it's worth a try, and that San Diego is as good a place to try it as any (actually better, see the strategic plan). Even if you aren’t located here I’d still love to have you join from afar. Or if you aren’t interested in joining maybe you’d like to be on our board of advisors or act as an ambassador?

If you’re still not convinced and want to learn more about the specifics of this big messy idea I’ve included some additional links below, and we’re happy to chat about any of this at your convenience to go over any questions or ideas you might have.