Maybe these are strange times. Or perhaps things are the same as they ever were. Those of us attempting to escort North Carolina into a low-carbon future are curiosities. We are both loved and despised.

Take Greenbridge, for example. In the midst of the worst economic downturn any of us have ever experienced, it is rising from the earth. Yet tongues are wagging.

Greenbridge might be a new model for how the human animal could forge a sustainable existence on this garden planet.

Or it might be a bust.

Lots of people are curious. Lots of people are cheering for it. And others are throwing rocks its way. Some of the rocks are figurative, coming from academics who get paid whether the local economy lives or dies. And some of the rocks are literal, from vandals who destroy property because they have nothing better to do as our jobless rate rises.

Piedmont Biofuels is the same way. We innocently set out to change the world and we accidentally created enemies along the way. We are almost a decade into our social experiment and we too find our project "rising from the earth." Our membership is growing, more volunteers than ever before are showing up to help, and it seems that more and more people want to connect with people, and renewable energy in a meaningful way.

At the same time we build enemies.

Winston Churchill suggested that if you have enemies, that is good, because it means "you've stood up for something sometime in your life."

My friend Bob sums it up nicely when he talks about "people who live in an echo chamber of hatred in which Muslims should be shot like dogs, and torture is allowed as long as it saves a single American life."

Part of our community is indifferent. They commute. They work. They collapse. And they repeat tomorrow.

And part of our community is springing to life, growing, and investing in vitality. I'm glad to see that someone is taking a risk over at Greenbridge.

Those immersed in hatred tend to oppose change of any kind. In traditional economic terms they are "rational actors." That is, they only look out for their best interests. They are the "keep your hands off my wallet" crowd that works hard to ensure the status quo.

In Pittsboro, these folks have been so busy preserving their hard-earned cash that they have been unable to upgrade their waste water treatment plant since the 1950s. The good news is that our taxes are low. The bad news is that we endure fines every time it rains, and we have a "building moratorium" in place that keeps us from developing our properties and generating new wealth.

A few columns ago I suggested that we should get a bus on the road from Pittsboro to Chapel Hill. It appears that will finally come to pass.

Naysayers suggested "Oh good, now we get to see our taxes go up so Estill's kid can ride the bus."

Roger on that.

The same people who object to my suggestions of change are the ones who buy SUVs when the price of gasoline goes down. I'm not sure of the term for that. I don't want to call them "idiots," because that is the term they use for me.

There are problems with the notion of the "rational actor." If all we do is act in our own best interest, why do we tend to be overweight, or smoke cigarettes, or drink too much, or cheat on the ones who love us?

Perhaps the "rational actor" has it wrong. Perhaps our status quo needs to change. Dare I say that "everyday low prices" might be the reason that sea levels are rising, pandemics are emerging, and that America's largest export is now debt?

I think it often makes sense to pay more for a locally produced carrot, or to take the bus, or to use the local currency. It is often in my best interest to dine at the restaurant that serves local foods, and in my best interest to drink the locally made beer.

I could celebrate my savings by dining on commodity chain food calories. But that would just make me fat, unhappy, and irritable, like a lot of America today.

Instead I think I will stick to the new course I have charted, and like a good pioneer, I'll simply endure the arrows in the back.

Lyle Estill lives in Chatham County. Write to him at lyle@blast.com