Tipping Point
WE HAVE NO TIME!
(see response and plan at Arts And Theater - changing how we FEEL about Climate Change)
Guy McPherson has done the research - the message is hard to take in - but, what can we do about it?
Richard Nelson: As inventor of Sola Roof, I am subjective - however, all of you are friends and supporters who also have believed, acted, invested and worked with me. Some of you are new friends and partners, some engaged long ago. Some to whom this message is sent are grieved with my "failures" in the business development of Sola Roof, yet have confidence in the potential of my innovations.
I ask you, in the light of the possibility that our generation is the last before global challenges overwhelm us all, is it not time for action?
Now, we all have a vision of life, of living well and building successful businesses and a better world for our children and grandchildren. But the terrible sins and unforgivable ignorance/greed of our generation has already so damaged our planet that we will be bound to serve out a punishment that is not only on our heads but will be paid by generations to come. But will that future be one of hard work for restoration and recovery of the earth or will it, due to our decisions now, be a living hell that ends, perhaps, with the extinction of life as we know it. Therefore, what will I and what will you do to make the difference?
I know I will spend my days and nights working to give and to share Sola Roof with people everywhere. I will do my best to expand and enhance the Creative Commons and to encourage formation, by grassroots action, the Sola Roof Coop to support families everywhere to build our POD solution for thriving, resilient communities - these POD Growers will regeneratively produce abundant, nutritious food, pure water and clean energy. The POD product is made by the COOP and serves the COOP Members, both the POD Growers and the patrons/subscribers to local food in the community.
This is up to you and me and people everywhere acting in collaboration (for development) and cooperation (for wide replication) - we all can share the message - a strategy for averting the most dire consequences of the consumer/industrial style of life that has come to dominate world culture. Join my initiative the COOP at Facebook - please LIKE, but most importantly SHARE and open and sustain a conversation about the POD and the COOP with your friends and networks. When there is a new hope - when this message goes viral - when a new faith in our human capacity to work with nature is born, when a hope for abundant living is demonstrated in many communities, then people everywhere will be talking about taking direct responsibility for deep and radical change that will make the difference. Nothing is more radical than local, regenerative food/water/energy and do you see something other than Sola Roof to serve as well as an unstoppable catalyst for this change?
with a deep wish that my life and work will help make the difference, I remain at your service, Richard
Dick Hogan:
Dear Friends,
Thank you Richard and Friends,
Please join Richard, myself and the Athens Area regional team next Saturday, Jan.19, at 12:30 ET USA. This Sola Roof~Greenfire team will be meeting for the next potluck lunch and start-up meeting, as we gather to see what Love can do as friends and neighbors in and beyond this watershed community. We will again roll up our sleeves and co-create grounded engagement. Please send any agenda items we all need to consider in advance by the 18th. Prototyping: Sola Roof Pods~integrated growing systems~income/output/value exchange~Podworks~kitting/cost reduction/local materials/mfg/client dev.and Coop design... . Meeting at greenfire village~in proto~formation, as hosting sponsor of Sola Roof in the Ohio River Basin Bioregion. Skype in is possible. Do let us know early if you wish to.
Production systems estimating team meeting early-mid week, 1/14-16. Call
if you can pitch in toward cost/foodproduction/unit area, i/o's..mushrooms, sprouts, aquaponics, veggies, native plants/medicinals ---data sourcing, case studies, etc. send links, an or call in/check-in anytime! 740-664-4028
Blessings and Gratitude, Dick Hogan
www.greenfirefarm.org www.Sola Roof?.org
Permaculture Research Institute The Pachamama Alliance | Transformative Workshops and advocacy
Deanne Bednar:
Dick, Richard, Stefan and all,
I wish the best to you in this meeting and next stages.
Warmly, Deanne --
248 628 1887
ecoartdb@gmail.com
http://www.strawbalestudio.org
Detroit Green Map
The Strawbale Studio & Sustainable Living Program
seeks to joyfully weave people & nature
into a regenerative whole.
re-localize, re-skill, re-connect !
"Reverence for the mystery of being, gratitude for the gift of life, and humility for our human place in nature and the whole." Earth Charter
James Gien Varney-Wong:
Thanks Richard,
Great talk Guy! I'm putting it at the top of my home page!
One thing I've been mulling over a lot since becoming so aware of the pickle we find ourselves in is my own death
After many years of training in Zen and Tibetan Buddhism one thing I both think and not-think a lot about is death and the juxtapostion of the very real possible outcomes of runaway climate change and this awareness training makes me ponder this: what is the intrinsic difference between my own personal death and the death of all life on earth?
From an aetheist perspective, personal death, the extinction of consciousness
is catostrophic and is, in a sense, equivalent to a mass extinction event
for doesn't every living being disappear from consciousness when consciousness itself ceases to exist?
We may argue that these two types of death are fundamentally different because if one person dies (myself) the world still goes on but if the entire human race dies (along with many other species) at the same time that's quite a different story
Our common sense tells us that it is fundametally different but behind this common sense view is an implicit assumption that objects outside of us have an independent existence that is, an existence independent of our awareness of it
It is important to us while we are healthy, conscious living beings but it's importance may wane when we are at the moment of our own personal death and the body begins its age old process of shutting down one life support system after another
Guy tells us in the talk that we must be brave and face our death and that means living in the face of death every single moment
Unfortunately, lot of people may have a problem with that because our entire consumer-based society is in fact designed to help us run away from that
Sure we watch movies of heros facing personal threats to their life all the time and overcoming life-threatening circumstances (usually by taking the very life essence the hero values in him/herself away from the other person) but the consumer society distracts us away from seriously facing our mortality
To awaken the masses to the realities confronting us is terribly painful as it means awakening people from the very system that keeps them tranquilized but ironically, the destruction wrought by the tranquilizing system is going to defeat its own purpose - it's going to force people to wake up and face the reality
I am under no illusion We have scientists on the one hand agreeing with overwhelming consensus and the truth is only confirmed with greater and greater certainty with each passing research study and deceptive, power hungry and science illeterate politicians and business leaders on the other side yet things like Occupy, TED and social media are spreading the message virally and my hope is that we can create a viral campaign that grows exponentially because in all honesty, if we need to act quickly we will need to get the exponential law on our side for a change
Guy is not alone in saying that we are in a unique point in human civilization and extreme times require extreme actions
"Go out and do anything to oppose the industrial economy" Guy says Guy is a spark, as is Richard and probably everyone else here
We need to find means to get the exponential law on our side and deliver a message of what's happening
By this point in time, unfortunately, it cannot help but be interpreted in a fearful way It's not the emotion we want to evoke but the fear response is not within our control It will come out of undeveloped psyche of the masses who have supported the system and have chosen to bury their heads in the sand
What we must do is deliver the message with a strong dose of humanity, compassion, courage and humor much like how Guy is doing it for it is adversity that can bring out the best of us
In this spirit I would like to announce to this group that I have been planning a global staged production which for want of a better term I have simply called "Occupy 2"
The Occupy Movement made the 1% aware of the grievances of the 99% but occupying town halls for months on end was bound to test the patience of municipal leaders So Occupy 1 came to a logical end you cannot make a career out of sitting in a public space These are ordinary people, not highly realized yogis, after all
What Occupy 1 showed me was that we are not alone but there are literally millions if not tens or hundreds of million who are ready to real change The funny thing is that to make the movement we want to occur it's much like a material research scientist trying to evoke a macroscopic behavior
Let's say we want to convert water into steam well, we know how to do that but imagine that we didn't Imagine you are a child and, from a distance, you see an object (a kettle) with a cable that connects to the wall After a while, you see smoke coming out of the spout
The first time you see this, your mind might wonder "Gee, how did that happen?" and you may look for ways to get the smoke to come out You may take the cable and put it against a wall but it does nothing then you might put it on the table, thinking that might do it nothing
You might go on like this for a while before you figure out the causality relationship at work
In the same way, we want to evoke a global mass response of hundreds of millions of people taking their own initiatives to decarbonize Now something on this scale may be the only chance we have Guy says that it may even be too late for this but if we are going to try, we may as well go for the jugular ( I hate that expression but it was the first one that came to mind) Doing anything incremental is pretty much useless at this point like a speaker I saw on a TED talk today said: "there's no point rearranging deckchairs on the titantic"
We have all these people trying all these different things and everyone wants to move in the same direction but what their doing is not catching fire
What we need is something that will spark another Occupy or another Arab Spring an Occupy 2 but this time it's got to be many times larger and it's got to be sustainable and it's got to lead to the beginning of rapid and exponential decarbonization
So we must take this attitude of a scientist looking for the right combination of things that can bring about a viral and exponential behavioral change
Whew! Lots of setup work to do! So the idea I have to share is pretty simple:
We put together an open-source theatrical production The production is the story of how, as a species we got here to this point in time, the challenges and concrete way out We give the production a name that can instantly hook anyone into it: catchy, virally, instantly understandable We make a website to promote it and lay down the guidelines on how to participate We appeal to theatre production companies all around the globe We invite each local production company to work with the themes and story we present and to find poets, speakers, musicians, visual artists, dancers, multi-media artists, etc... to work alongside environmentalists, social activists, scientists, thought leaders - get all the TED speakers to come on board to tell the story We get all the social innovators to come on board and demonstrate everything concrete from growing your own food, producing your own energy to creating your own local economy. It must be concrete so that people can immediately decarbonize and go local instead of global. We cannot fight trans-nationals on their grounds. We lose each and every time. They have the advantage of money and power. We can, however, fight them on our grounds - to get the hearts and minds of citizens - we provide alternatives that work - Solaroof, Living machines for handling waste, permaculture, building using local materials - sand, dirt, straw, etc... we grow industrial hemp, bamboo and harvest and build our own products. We adopt Open Source Ecology, Collaborative manufacturing, 3D printing, and generally all things open-source to use zero or close to zero capital to startup and create our own local economy. We create culture and life in our local communities. All these things will drive people away from the global industrial economy and towards the local, low carbon economy. We show others how to live with frugal energy. We show life beyond iPads. We create education based on the skills required to build, operate and maintain these local circular economies. We tell the story of the life of a human being. We bring each human being on a journey of self discovery to rediscover the infinite potential in themselves, to re-discover the wonder that already surrounds them in each moment of their existence. We lead beings on a journey of re-discovering the sacred in life. It is the separation from the sacred which is the true motivation behind the endless distractions of consumerism. This means showing people how not to fear their own mortality, but accepting it and living with it in each and every moment. The website can serve 2 other purposes: We need a global place that shows where we sit with respect to all the relevant planetary boundaries that are threatened. We need realtime clocks for each one with danger thresholds. Data visualizations that display data from the convergence for realtime datastreams of as many scientific discoveries as possible about all the challenges we face in climate science, the economy, pollution, human culture, food security, water, etc...all the planetary boundaries identified by Johan Rockstrom and the Stockholm Resilience Centre. We need this because we need to know where the danger areas are and that will help us to focus our priorities. A central repository for all things important to building a new circular, local and gift economy including social media tools and database that allows planetary citizens to join and collaborate globally, sharing ideas on how to decarbonize, how to create gift economies, how to sustain oneself outside of the industrial economy and how to build an alternative, sacred economy. This is synced up with the realtime data showing where we stand with respect to planetary boundaries so that change agents have a reference to see the effects of their actions. Each of us is a change agent and we have networks at multiple levels. We belong to many different groups: family, community, school, hobby groups, work, city, state-wide, national, international. Hence, we can have multiple areas of impact. We need to leverage all of these to achieve exponential and viral growth. We can learn and share our knowledge that impacts any and all these realtime clocks. If I find a faster way to decarbonize in one area, I will share that with everyone on the planet so that they may adopt it. Have a database that keeps track of all the citizens who are participating in the new alternate circular, local and gift economy we create. The larger this economy, the more products and services we can offer in this economy, the lower the threshold to join. Especially if we create more and more "jobs" and work in this economy, it will become more and more attractive. I have already contacted a number of people such as Charles Eisenstein of Sacred Economy, Rupert Sheldrake, father of Morphic Resonance, and a number of others. They are waiting for a concrete action plan. I am also part of International Organization of Participatory Society. Noam Chomksy is part of that organization and if we are ready, we can approach them. The arts community in Cape Town want to do it. We are thinking about doing Cape Town, Johannesburg and Durban first. Then making a travelling production that can go to schools and rural townships.
In discussions with the Cape Town artists, we were looking at various public spaces where we can do this. I originally came up with the idea when I remembered a play I saw 30 years ago in Vancouver BC, Canada where I am originally from. It was a play put on in an old warehouse that was decorated. The play was on halloween night and based on the Edgar Allan Poe story "Mask of the Red Death". Set somewhere in Europe during the plague, it's about a town that was under quarintine.
There was an audience of a thousand that went from one room to another. The actors, musicians, dancers, etc... acted out a chapter in each room. It was exciting, memorable, enchanting, participatory and educational. We can do something like this in public spaces, museums, warehouses, etc....
I spoke a few nights ago with the founder of Youth Leader who was introduced to me by Tom Atlee of Co-intelligence.
http://www.youth-leader.org/wave.html http://www.youth-leader.org/
and his movement has access to hundreds of thousands of youth and he's gung ho to do the open source theatrical production. He can influence all the schools in Canada and the US and the movement is growing fast globally.He is waiting for a plan for the theatrical production.
We can bring all of these organizations on board:
Stockholm Resilience Centre UN Union of Concerned Scientists 350.org Transition Movement Post Carbon Institute WWF Sierra Club Beyond Coal Occupy IOPS New Economics Institute Public Bank Institute Lester Brown and the Earth Policy Institute Postdam Climate Centre The Club of Rome James Hansen and NASA Various Permaculture and Organic Food organizations George Monbiot thousands of TED speakers from around the world Open-source groups Consumerism groups - Story of Stuff low tech and appropriate tech organizations and technology companies Local economy experts scientists and sustainability experts of every field Gunter Pauli of Blue Economy Cradle-to-cradle and cicular economy experts We can get funding from sustainable banks maybe partner with TED
We cannot just scare people and leave them. We must provide concrete pathways, broken up into various categories that allow people to actually start taking action to leave the industrial/consumptive economy. and we must provide support networks and infrastructure. We must all commit to leaving this lifestyle behind. Once we gain enough momentum, the big corporates, big fossil fuel companies, wall street, etc... will notice and they will have to react because if we can deinvest exponentially, they will read the writing on the wall.
Kindest Gien
Richard and Guy,
Very grateful to Guy for the insights. We have had some good family discussions as a result of Guy's talk as well as our recent viewing of The 11th Hour. Apart from our solar panels and support of Salaroof we have been having family discussions on many of the other things we can personally do to address climate change. I must admit I was rather taken aback when looking for further facts on Global Warming and Climate Change when I came across the following site. http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/11/20/myths-and-facts-about-global-warming/ Do these people live on the same planet?
Dave
David A. Smith
http://ca.linkedin.com/in/davidasmith57 Follow me on twitter @David A Smith 57?
Forwarded message ----------
From: Guy Mc Pherson? Date: Mon, Jan 14, 2013 at 7:53 AM Subject: Re: Now that we have past the tipping point, how much time do we have? To: David Smith
I'm sorry I have little personal advice. I'm a big fan of resistance, and Deep Green Resistance points the way (it's a movement and a book).
Protect what you love. For me, that means the area I occupy and the native species there, as well as the river.
All best wishes, Guy
On Sun, Jan 13, 2013 at 9:23 PM, David Smith <davidasmith1957@gmail.com> wrote: Hello Guy,
Thanks for the personal reply. I would welcome further dialogue however at this point I feel I am only now entering into the dialogue. For what it's worth, as one who does not have adequate training to intelligently interpret scientific data, and having as of yet not examined any primary sources, I find Mr. Watts position devoid of reality and yours rather fatalistic.
As a father of nine independent thinking children (most were homeschooled and introduced into the system in high school), and coming from a Christian world and life view (focusing on responsible stewardship and not dominating and exploiting nature as is often characterized), I am seeking guidance on how to direct my family to proactively embrace this challenge and be part of the solution.
Guy, thanks for being that prophet in the wilderness, and voice of reason.
Dave Smith
Dear Gien and All,
Its a long email but worth going through!
I really do like and appreciate the time you spend on this.
My feeling is that while its very ambitious, its reaching for a model of working and operating that we need to set our sights for if we want to have the desired impact.
I think the key element in moving this forward is a sense of what kind of organization we want to move this forward under.
A early step would be to come up with the Mission Vision and Goals. Will it be a membership owned organization (coop) and how it will be organized? As a coop? If so how will the coop be organized to transition us from the current management/ownership structure?
Also I suggest a in depth and detailed report of the technology and how it is has been applied and deployed. This should include and understanding of what the limiting factors were that kept it being deployed further and/or reaching a critical mass of development through these projects so we can understand how to address them through this project.
Understanding the specifics of the technology or technologies and how they will be deployed is very important to the success of this endeavor.
A visioning process could help get a sense of the shared vision of how we would want this project to develop and have an impact both regionally and for the larger bioshelter greenhouse movement globally.
Partnership development is also important not just for dissemination of the technologies and approaches but also to help us get support from early adopters whose work we may want to learn from and incorporate into this effort. How could this effort in Athens tie in or gain from local and regional efforts that it has some alignment with such as Rainfresh Harvests in Columbus, Growing Power in Milwaukee and Bioshelters in PA?
Jeff Buderer
Mucho Gracias, senor! Tashi Delek Om Merci Beacoup Howa (Haida Gwai language) Um Goi (Cantonese)
See my response below:
On Tue, Jan 15, 2013 at 6:56 AM, Jeff Buderer wrote: Dear Gien and All,
Its a long email but worth going through!
I really do like and appreciate the time you spend on this.
My feeling is that while its very ambitious, its reaching for a model of working and operating that we need to set our sights for if we want to have the desired impact.
I think the key element in moving this forward is a sense of what kind of organization we want to move this forward under.
A early step would be to come up with the Mission Vision and Goals. Will it be a membership owned organization (coop) and how it will be organized? As a coop? If so how will the coop be organized to transition us from the current management/ownership structure?
http://www.nexusyouthsummit.org/
Also I suggest a in depth and detailed report of the technology and how it is has been applied and deployed. This should include and understanding of what the limiting factors were that kept it being deployed further and/or reaching a critical mass of development through these projects so we can understand how to address them through this project.
Understanding the specifics of the technology or technologies and how they will be deployed is very important to the success of this endeavor.
A visioning process could help get a sense of the shared vision of how we would want this project to develop and have an impact both regionally and for the larger bioshelter greenhouse movement globally.
Partnership development is also important not just for dissemination of the technologies and approaches but also to help us get support from early adopters whose work we may want to learn from and incorporate into this effort. How could this effort in Athens tie in or gain from local and regional efforts that it has some alignment with such as Rainfresh Harvests in Columbus, Growing Power in Milwaukee and Bioshelters in PA?
Kindest Gien
Hi Dave, Gien, everyone
I have had a chance to talk with Hanson and a couple other lead scientists and we need to understand that none of these scientists would have "wanted" to discover the trends that emerged as long range forecasts were running on each new generation of super-computers and the emerging climate instability was discovered - which became known as global warming, which was troubling but "not the end of the world". Then there was more unexpected developments: observed climatic data did not agree with the models. The changes forecast for end of the century were happening to soon, like now, much sooner than predicted and when the models were adjusted to fit the actual data, the projections show (because of "positive feedback") that global warming is accelerating. Even now some of the these feedbacks are not all factored into the climate models and therefore, the formal process of scientific consensus is now lagging far behind the lead researchers. Reactions vary from denial to fear to overwhelming feelings of helplessness in the face of the magnitude of the problems we face - especially when the conversation needs to change - to generate awareness that leads to engagement and action is the only hope we can have to avoid the likely scenarios of "climate chaos" or "runaway global heating", which means the end of life as we know it.
We certainly cannot, with good conscience, be fatalistic about the future. But we cannot underestimate the magnitude of the challenge - there is a chance for a future of abundance for all if realistic solutions can be mobilized by grassroots action on solutions that are accessible (Open Source?), affordable (no economic barrier) and adaptable (to all climates and cultures). Sola Roof is such a solution - and we need simple, powerful answers to overcome the loss of hope - to demonstrate that collective action can radically impact the trends. I agree with Gien; we must dream big and move fast. Sola Roof Coop can be a catalyst that lights the spirit of humanity for a new and much better life for all. I don't think that there is anything much bigger than the diffusion to everyone, everywhere the know how for closed cycle ecological life support that provides regenerative food/water/energy with such simplicity that everyone can do it and build prosperous communities. (LIKE and SHARE - if everyone gets involved we now reach over 30,000 and that number can grow exponentially)
Therefore, without delay, please mobilize your networks to open this conversation - talk with your friends, family and co-workers - bring this discussion to your community - and help us to build the Sola Roof Coop and be a POD Pioneer. This is a work in progress - participation = ownership - this is for your security and safety, for your family - we can make it happen if we openly collaborate and cooperate - contribute, help and share alike, and Pay It Forward?.
Love and peace to all, Richard
Hi Richard and everyone,
Agreed with Richard on all points.
I think it's time to expand this network a bit. I've added some new friends and great human beings to this conversation thread. All are doing wonderful things in the world and are amazing change agents in their own rights. We are creating a snowball rolling down a hill, building up the momentum through all this networking. We are all concerned about the same important issues and by joining forces, we create a whole greater than the sum of its parts. I'm beginning to sound like a broken record now! :D
Eric
http://www.youth-leader.org/ http://www.youth-leader.org/wave.html
Tom Atlee
http://www.co-intelligence.org/
Piet Bosman & Dr. Tiaan Osthuizen (see attached documents - I did not include Tiaan's email as that is his academic email and needs to remain fairly uncluttered)
Piet and Tiaan and I are pioneering an eco-community development pilot project in the town that Piet's family lives in. It's a farming community called Kokstad just outside of Durban in South Africa. Some of you like Franz, Richard and Richard know Piet and Tiaan but others don't.
Tiaan is head of Manufacturing Research Centre at University of Johannesburg and Piet, Tiaan and I are principals of the Building Blocks Institute, developing community scale open-source, collaborative manufacturing as the production basis for building local circular economies.
A group of spatial planners called City Think Space has come up with a bold plan for converting Kokstad into a sustainable community based upon Johan Rockstrom's Planetary Boundary model:
http://citythinkspace.com/kokstad-franklin-integrated-sustainable-development-plan/
Piet, Tiaan and I are working with this model for sustainable development. We are going to try this out and study it to see if we can develop this model for sustainable, decentralized circular economy. If it works, we want to share this with everyone so that the important element of professional production/manufacturing can be seen as a feasible way to create a local economy. This will be critical if we are going to inform the public that there is a viable alternative.
In terms of ideas I've been bantering about for this Open-Source Theatrical Production - These are some of the objectives I think we need to incorporate:
1. Create highly effective and compelling viral communications. We need to get a global message out there that the citizens and communities are the real change agents and this is where the biggest change will come from, not big government. If we wait for them, we are doomed. The message must truly make citizens feel empowered and inspired to make signficant change.
Eric has access to the youth market through his media magazine. Tom just seems to know a lot of cool people in his network. Both Eric and Tom have quite extensive networks, actually.
2. Create a decentralized circular socio-economic paradigm which has compelling functional economics for people to mass migrate to - we need to quickly evolve a parallel circular economy in which both short term needs (economics) and long term needs (ecological) are met and migrate away from the existing paradigm in which short term needs are met (poorly and mostly only for a few) but long term needs are not (ecology is being decimated). Richard's solaroof will be a part of this but there are so many other technologies, systems and processes as well. We need to make a list - not just a list but an interconnected database showing these technologies. We need to bring localist economist Michael Shuman, the New Economics Foundation etc onboard so that we can begin to create the alternative local circular economy.
We need to have a phased, but very short-time-path migration plan to migrate people over from the industrial economy to this other one. We need to establish a constitution of what it means to be a part of this economy. For this, we can tap into the IOPS,
which has between 7,000 and 10,000 members right now and are working on a constitution. I belong to the Johannesburg chapter but haven't done much active work yet. Yet they are a force of great people already experienced in alternative governance and trying to evolve a global system of peer governance to run in parallel to the industrial economy. They are therefore natural to align with.
This morning, I had thoughts that we could join forces with the Transition movement. They are all about a return to local. They may, in fact, be the logical umbrella concept for this whole project. Transition or migration away from the industrial economy and towards the local circular economy. We can join forces and bring the idea of a global event to their energy. I am also working with others to form a Transition Johannesburg so we will be exploring this locally.
The acid test of such a framework, which we would present at the event is that people begin to buy into it and start building a local economy in their neighbourhood. If this happens, there will be a natural migration of wealth away from the industrial economic system and towards the sustainable, local, circular economy.
The Transition Movement is important to network with because they are already moving in this direction. If you look at their interactive map, you can see the growing number of transitioning communities:
http://ingienous.com/?page_id=8913
What is missing, however, and it's a really, really important element, is METRICS to measure how well we are doing. Without metrics that measure:
targets how far we are from targets time required to reach those targets
how can we actually succeed? At this critical juncture in human civilization, the difference between reaching those targets 1 year from now and 5 years from now can spell the difference between the healthy, sustainable future we all envision for future generations of living beings co-habiting on this planet AND mass extinction.
That's one thing important milestone we want to create out of this project: a website resource that allows ALL these movements to plug into which has ALL the relevant metrics of:
planetary boundaries targets we need to hit best measurements of where we actually are By giving global citizens access to this, we can empower change agents in a systematic, consistent and measurable way. We can then see where the priority focus areas are and prioritize allocation of precious change agent resources. Through an open-source portal that includes all movement members, whether they are other groups doing very specific things or are individuals or are communities, municipalities or cities, it gives everyone a space to share great ideas to nonlinearly accelerate change. Our vision should be for each of us to help each other become more and more economically autonomous within this emerging local economy. You see, local economy doesn't need to mean we aren't global in nature. It means that there is a scaled distribution of production.
Most production, carbon intensification and technology should be concentrated in each community: say 85% then maybe 10% carbon intensification should be for inter-community: ie transport of people or goods then finally 5% of carbon intensification should be for global: ie. internet, international travel instead of the other way around
We should also be thinking about migrating and repurposing objects for the new economy. If we are going to have most of the activity happening at local community level, then our transportation system should reflect that.
If most of our needs can be met by local producers, this eliminates carbon from transport. We can create a bike system for local commuting and small sustainable vehicles run on true renewables which have carbon footprint from cradle to cradle- low Life Cycle Analysis.
We have more sophisticated infrastructure for transport of goods and especially between communities. However, we would want a model that minimizes exporting and importing. Exporting is a form of robbery to communities that are importing, robbing local citizens of an opportunity to produce for themselves. Exporting should therefore only be seen as a last resort, and a temporary one at best. Expertise should be provided to build up the importing communities skill base so that they can produce for themselves.
In cities, there is huge opportunities to provide systems and technologies to transform old, carbon intensive infrastructure to negative carbon infrastructure. This would be a huge job growth area. Studies have shown that it is far more effective to retrofit existing infrastructure than to tear it down and build new structures. The amount of energy used to excavate raw materials, process it and transport it to site dwarfs any efficiency savings from modern sustainable techniques.
By developing communities by using planetary boundaries, as we are doing in Kokstad, we are syncing up local development metrics with global ones. Everything has to be measurable or else we are going about it blind.
This has to be extremely well thought out. Most people now live in cities. So how would such a migration happen in the city? Do we expect people to physically migrate away from cities? I don't think so. There may be a percentage that do if we begin to create attractive negative carbon eco-communities.
In cities, what we will have to do is
3. Create an education campaign that ties fundamental humanism to awaken, spark and ignite human potential - This is crucial. Human beings have been led by mass media and a herd mentality into destructive behavior. There is a lot of confusion and entanglement between the need to live and enjoy life and its shadow sides - focusing only on my own survival at the expense of everyone else and self-indulgence at the expense of other beings and the ecosystem.
Unless we present a clear methodology for people to take the journey of self-discovery, they will continue on a road of destructive behavior. While usually a lifetime is needed for hard lessons to be learned, we don't have time on our side. Therefore, we must have a very well designed program of self-guided and socially networked mentored discovery of the sacredness of life. We cannot tell people that the things they enjoy are actually harmful because that only leads ego to become defensive. Rather, we provide a self-guided journey in which they discover this for themselves.
We must present the same awareness of sacredness that is usually found in the sphere of religion but in a non-religious and purely humanistic context. Why? - because we need to reach every human being from every culture and religion. We cannot solve this problem by excluding any group.
Death is a major subject to consider on this journey of self discovery. The repression and fear of our own mortality keeps the consideration of our own death from ever surfacing. However, a healthy and open attitude towards this is of the greatest importance for deriving authentic meaning of our lives. Hence we discuss death openly so that we may find the right priorities in life.
Humanism is the common denominator of all religions and spiritual paths; each religion is an idiosycratic framework defined by culture, icons, language, history and whose main teaching is to make us all better human beings.
It is through the ignorance of the sacredness of simply being that we have trashed the planet. Without this recognition, consumerism has a ripe environment to grow and fester. With this recognition, we can penetrate through the illusion that consumerism will satisfy our deepest needs. This journey of self-discovery exposes the root reasons that motivate our desire to consume. We mistaken consumerism as having the ability to provide us with the sustenance of the soul that every human being seeks. Being aware of death helps us to contextualize this because it reveals to our awareness what it is that we are truly seeking.
Bottom line: a well designed program of self-guided learning that is based upon observations that all humans can make and which leads to a revelation of the sacred nature of life is needed to open the channels of creativity, compassion and wisdom.
We want to create a program that will guide people to authentically discover the limitless, hidden potential within themselves and that all they have ever searched for is already within themselves. There's no need for anything else outside of themselves to be happy. When people authentically discover their own power and feel it is real, this will trigger the birth of the authentic loving, caring, creative, energetic being who can become an unstoppable force for change. If we succeed at this, we can create as many Gandhi's, Nelson Mandela's, Desmond Tutu's, Einsteins, Nikola Tesla's, Mother Teresa's, Aung San Suu Kyi's, etc...in the world as there are beings. This is a nonlinearity, a singularity that no climate model or projections can ever predict.
These are some of my thoughts from this morning.
Kindest Gien
Addendum
4. Economic Education Eric shared with me yesterday a fellow he knows working in Africa teaching about economics using games he invented. This is perfect! I thought about the same idea as well so obviously there's a meme floating out there that we are all tuning into.
Economic education will be very important because people need to know that they needn't be enslaved to the industrial economy. Then can see beyond these paper bills and see what they actually represent: natural capital - which in many cases they are surrounded with. If they truly understand the simplicity of economics, that will empower them to create their own wealth.
Then we can provide the toolsets to do this. We break down all the possible ways to create this wealth and how to use the least resources to do so. We can show how the intelligent way to create wealth is to work in partnership with nature.
This means nurturing nature to build the building products we need to build our communities...things like industrial hemp, bamboo that can create countless products and can be the foundation of an entire building economy. Or working with just the materials in your environment and transforming them efficiently.
The Transition Network 2012 conference was an amazing event...wish I were there:
On the last day, they had a 1 day workshop in which all the particpants streamed into the main building and built a Transition Town Anywhere
For many people, the highlight of the 2012 Transition Network conference was the ‘Transition Town Anywhere’ activity, where a resilience local economy was built, lived in, celebrated and then taken down again over the space of one morning. Ruth Ben-Tovim, one of the event’s organisers, tells us how the event came about, how it worked, and how you could do a version in your community. She started by asking “how many people does it take to build a town?”
“About 240 in the case of the 2012 Transition Conference. Over five hours, the very large Grand Hall at Battersea Arts Centre was filled with a self–built, living breathing Transition Town Centre Anywhere. Many of you who were there and many who weren’t have asked for more details about this activity, so as promised, here it is. Also in response to several requests, at the end of this post there are details about how you could bring the Transition Town Centre Anywhere group activity to your Town if you would like to.
How many people did it take to design the process?
It took about 5/6 people to design the activity over a period of four months, and at least six to run it on the day. So here is the story of the creation of the Town blueprint as well as the making of the Town itself. We’ll start the story at a Transition Conference planning meeting about two months before the conference itself. Until this point the idea had been to do a ‘Cook Up’ social enterprise event, which was becoming increasingly complicated and unweildy. The conversation (between Rob Hopkins, Jo Hardy, Chrissie Godfrey and myself) went something like this:
This is the kind of interactivity that I am envisioning our event to have. In fact, it should be completely interactive in all it's presentation...much like that play I saw 30 years ago...Mask of the Red Death, by Edgar Allan Poe on that Halloween Eve. Where dancers, poets, actors, musicians all told the story.
I have not yet envisioned how long this event would go on. It could go on over an entire week and different journeys each day. It could be a mix of live and webcasted interviews and talks, interactive events like the Transition Town Anywhere, demonstrations,etc...
then after the event, there can be satellite events for workshops on how to:
1. build your own solaroof 2. etc…
Gien, thank you for providing such leadership and brilliant ideas. You certainly have my full support The engagement of music and arts and the idea of a "play" and "dramatization" of the personal responses to such a mighty challenge is no doubt a very good way to reach the majority of people and to manifest a global cultural response to the shared issues that confront people everywhere.
I am happy to see the list of participants in this conversation growing - with the quality of the knowledge and wisdom represented being quite remarkable. The contributions made to this discussion is most encouraging and makes me hopeful that action will be taken to pioneer the needed breakthroughs; that our discussion will move into an action phase that will inspire everyone who is a witness. That leads me to raise another issue, which is, if this discussion thread was a public record it would attract a following and many more conversations would be stimulated. This open sharing and the concept of Working Openly? is significant and while we are comfortable with email it is a "closed" way and as such will not stimulate the oral resonse that we seek. . This is why for many years now I have worked to establish the Sola Roof.org/wiki and at that wiki I have encouraged the co-creation of a Wiki Group? called the Open Eco Community. As wiki should be, in principle open for all, you all are welcome to our "Open Eco Wiki?" that is hosted by Sola Roof.
I would like to ask if anyone might object to the posting of our discussion - perhaps breaking up the thread of this discussion to a couple Wiki Pages?. And anyone can help with this work of sharing our vision with the world, since you are invited to participate (the password for log-in: moonroof) you may consider registering as a member by creating yourself a Profiles Page? - you just create the page by making a URL like this: www.solaroof.org/wiki/Your Name but using your actual name (First Last?), for example my Profile Page? is www.solaroof.org/wiki/Richard Nelson
Each of our Wiki Groups? at Sola Roof Wiki? have a calendar based Blog that we can further refine - but which is also a quick way to gather together our thoughts and to keep a conversation evolving on the web in an open to all discussion. This is challenging but it is also very exciting and dynamic and can start with a small learning curve. It is only slightly more complicated than email. Something to think about, perhaps try out?
Best to everyone, Richard
Responses:
Gien: sounds like a good idea.
Guy Mc Pherson?: With thanks to all of you, I have no objections
Hi Richard, Gien, I dont mind but i (for my case) wont engage in discussions on other platforms.
for ME - not another platform with extra tabs, log ins etc - and following long texts - with little action happening
it's just beyond my time. sincerely, eric
Eric has said that he cannot participate at another community site with yet more log-in and things to learn about participation - that is understandable. We can continue the discussion by email and whoever has the time and energy can bring our discussion to the Sola Roof Wiki?, so that people we don't even know can "listen-in". This effort is to share with others and not to ask more of you all who have already much on your plate to do. Also, the action can be sustained and we can follow through using collaboration tools at the Wiki, but this kind of conversation (by email) tends to wind-up in due time. I have removed a couple of people from the list by request (because of lack of time, not lack of interest), and some individuals have been added. Please, if any on the email list wish to opt out just let us know and you can check in to catch up on the discussion at the Open Eco Community Wiki Group, as we move relevant content over there.
Richard Nelson (Sola Roof Guy)
Eric*YL response: i am totally fine.
twenty people agreeing is a bunch haha.
good job! eric
i am in touchw ith the theatre thing with gien. the stuff i can contribute / promote the piece i can through that. thats my role :)
rock on, eric