20040428
This message was received today from Jeff Buderer of the oneVillage Foundation. I like Jeff's clear thinking, which will help me to develop more content in the Open Eco Design section of the Wiki. I will add some comments later - but please feel free to note your own thoughts at any point in the message below:
This letter is addressed to Dr. George I. Chan who is associated with the ZERI Foundation and his material that I recieved is titled Integrated Farming & Waste Management Systems - I am not certain what the IBS means - perhaps Integrated Biological Systems?
Dr Chan,
I apologize for not getting back to you sooner. I recieved your the IBS document in the mail. Thank you. I hope you are doing well. I wanted to give a brief draft of my proposal for promoting the IBS system within the oneVillage network as the larger society as a whole.
We do not see any one technology or approach in isolation to the other but rather as interchangeable components in whole system. This comprehensive whole systems approach to sustainable development is articulated well in Gunter’s book Upsizing. It is imperative that we move humanity towards a whole systems approach to development that is locally oriented and is very efficient in terms of energy and resource use. Not all that is considered sustainable operates from an integrated perspective as the IBS does. It is a special way of thinking that you and others such as John Todd and Paolo Soleri have been developing over the years. Rick Nelson offering his unique spin on the above thinking notes that:
- "Living structures" use plants as an integral component of a solar climate control system
- Produce a completely closed ecological life support for the occupants of these buildings.
- All phases of an ecological process are needed - not only the growing of the plants but also the recycling of the organic materials so that energy and nutrients are produced from the "waste".
Sustainable development is not simply an issue of the design and development of sustainable technologies but also of:
- sustainable financial systems that empower the grassroots
- Social networks which give us resources and teaches us the wisdom that we need to work together on a global level and manage the planet’s resources in a benevolent way
- ICT which links the global network together in a seamless global network and give us the software to model, organize and manage sustainable systems.
We at OneVillage Foundation are working on a grant proposal to create the Green Community Network with the Green Century Institute (http://www.greencenturyinstitute.org). The goal of this project is to create a web-based network that aims to not simply highlight sustainability but the need for the effective organization of this type of integrated systems thinking that innovative people like you have spent much of your life developing. However, we see as more than just the development of technologies but the creation of a human social ecology that actually is authentically committed to human beings. We believe that an important way of facilitating that evolutionary process of human development is to organize information relevant to this expansion of human consciousness into a web accessible database. There are two main aspects to this:
- The increasingly complexity of our world mandates better systems to organize information
- An integrated system of managing resources is key to any serious sustainable human system
We are currently working on a proposal to incorporate several projects and technologies into the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) component of our program:
- Social Enterprise Platform: A framework for the realization of this scale community based approach which we call the oneVillage Mandala. The Mandala seeks to address all the components needed to sustain human communities, while respecting the surrounding environment. Part of this involves the development of ICT technologies to complement the sustainable as well as the human development components.
My feeling is that we should be engaging with the Open Source Software development community who already have very capable technology ready to go. They are ready to apply existing (and ongoing improvements) to the purpose of virtual community building and that is what we are doing at the Sola Roof Wiki where the Pm Wiki is a powerful technology for communication and collaboration. The best think we could do to create a stong and broad Open Eco Collaboration is to use the same Open Source standard so that our communities are easily united in these internet wiki webs. I hope to do more with the Pm Wiki application to establish a vast Open Eco Community that are connected by a wiki. This will give expression to the Third Voice and this grass roots movement will have the power to awaken the great majority of people to the need for change and to support their personal (and team) efforts to transform thier Life Style.
- The selection of content from your Integrated Farming and Waste report, Rick Nelson’s Sola Roof System and the integration of these technologies into a compelling digital prototype that people can access on the Internet as both a promotional and educational tool. A longer term goal is to actually work with open source developers to create a simulation tool that could actually test out the operational and economic feasibility of these integrated approaches to sustainable development therefore expediting the funding and replication process.
This is not a long range project - we can use the Wiki way to organize the resources to achieve these results in the near term. The important realization is that the ability already exists and we just need to engage with the individuals that bring these talents to the community. I invite everyone to get active at the Sola Roof Wiki and to keep in touch because these developments may happen sooner then we may think.
- One of the things we are looking at is the process of organizing information through a software program called the Brain (http://www.thebrain.com/). The Brain allows people to better understand the relationships within all types of networks be they human or otherwise. The Brain may be a useful tool in helping to refine and develop the work being done by various groups in our network and incorporating it into a comprehensive program for global social transformation.
thebrain is a great idea but it is a typical tool for problem analysis while the Wiki is more powerful as a self-organizing system of structured knowledge building and it is a proven system for large scale communities to organize and become self-directing and very productive.
- Development of a flash map of the globe that links our “ecopartner’s” projects
All this will eventually go into a practical, hands-on, on the ground training and incubation program that is designed to maximize the replication of sustainable human systems. Making the technical information available for rapid replication is a complementary process to the successful demonstration of real live proof of concepts. This includes facilitating a process that ends up eventually demonstrating the economic feasibility of the Integrated Biomass System in both developing regions as well as developing ones and training people on how to build integrated biomass systems all over the world.
I just feel that we are not talking "eventually" we are supporting the hands-on projects and the Pioneers right now! and we will do better and better as our community is strengthed by a multitude of developers and endusers. This vast network of projects will cover all climates, cultures and situations so that ultimately a "pattern" will exist to cover almost any application - and this will provide for proven and tested systems that can be easily replicated.
Take care
Jeff
Jeff Buderer
oneVillage Foundation
Sustainable Design/Project Development
http://www.onevillagefoundation.org
http://www.onevillage.biz
Cell 417.830.1029
Yahoo IM: jefbuder
http://www.ryze.com/go/Jefbuder