BEGINNINGS
I am not trying to write a book here , just commit to paper some common ground from which to put together a direction for some ideas. Please add to or delete anything. I believe that We can develop a model here that can be developed anywhere.
This document is about the beginnings of a new approach towards creating a sustainable way of life in the context of a disintegrating societal structure. A general approach towards this beginning might have some of the following ideas.
A. Education This must be the groundwork for developing any kind of cooperative effort that is capable of sustaining direction, cooperation and momentum. In order for a community to be self sustaining and flourish there must be a system of learning what it takes to live and work within the natural and man made world in which we live.
In these villages that opens up the fields of knowledge in Teaching, farming, construction trades, civil, electrical mechanical and chemical engineering. All of these skills need to be understood and taught in the context of how they interrelate in the circles of life’s interdependencies. Of course a community may be limited in it’s ability to train and keep busy any one of these trained individuals so it becomes clear that people need to be cross trained. Also it stands to reason that a cooperative effort to work together as different communities to pool the resources is in everyone’s best interest. So it may be most efficient say to have a school at one community where people are trained in constructing and operating a large wind turbine or another may be in constructing and operating “Living machines”. This does not preclude a person from always learning on the job so to speak it is just that there are resources allocated for an intensive education that are not necessary everywhere.
B. Co-housing Intentional communities and eco-villages. It is imperative that humanity decrease its footprint on this planet as quickly as possible. These types communities allow people to live together in smaller villages that are excellently suited to a distributed generation energy model. They also lend themselves to intensive organic farming with efficient energy systems utilization.
C. “Renewable energies” there are many ways to utilize energy. It is generally understood that there is no new energy, it is only utilized in different ways. For Our useful intent of the word renewable is that any energy utilized is done so In the context of within the natural life cycles that are friendly towards supporting life within which all peoples, animals and plants may flourish . This is done by respecting these life cycles and encouraging proliferation of all conditions that would support this life. Any created energy system should be able to operate a s part of a closed loop recycled activity that mimics nature as closely as possible. Energy in human terms is generally understood as the ability to perform useful work. Empirically that may be framed within the reference of measurement of any force utilized to accomplish a task. For renewable energy though it must be the efficient utilization of natural forces. These are the natural energies that were given to us with this planet. They are of course the solar energies that give us heat, light, wind, photosynthesis, magnetism, oxygen, rain and other weather. It is an understatement to look at solar energy just as a measurement of the PV output of a solar panel or the deliverable BTU’s from a DSHW panel. So lets search for the beginnings of a sustainable community development and use that as a model from which to create other communities that may honor this life We’ve been given.
The basic premise for design of such a community needs to start with an analysis of energy management and conservation. To start with when designing any structure whether it be a home, office, factory, school or garden for that matter, one needs to maximize the solar gain in ways that would best capture the sun’s energy for either heating or cooling or in the case of wind and hydro to perform other useful work. The efficient use of passive solar design with architecture cannot be overstated occurring energy, be it solar or a natural chemical process marshaled to accomplish work that may be used to sustain life. So our goal needs to be to design living systems that need only to use these energies to the minimum extent possible. Meaning that when a building is designed effectively it would be oriented towards effective solar gain, be effectively insulated and maximize use of structural design for convective heating and cooling.
List of potential technologies proposed to be developed on Mohawk lands. (and anywhere else)
Wind turbine- both electrical and mechanical. Can be used to generate electricity, pump water, run air compressors, grind grains etc.
Hydro- can be used for work the same as the wind except can also be used as a carrier of thermal energy for heating and cooling.
Agriculture- organic food and medicinal products production, E-85 methanol, biodigesters for methane, biomass for energy (corn, switch grass, waste wood, etc.)
Waste to energy generation- gasification and burning of wastes from garbage dumps, human, other animal (farm ) and agricultural wastes.
Solar- passive solar, active solar with emphasis first on Domestic solar hot water use for heating space and potable water.
CREATING COMMUNITY FAIR
May 19th,2007
The Intent of the fair is to show practical applications and solutions by which people and communities may be empowered with to transform the way they interact as individuals and communities.
This is designed to be a three day event with the itinerary looking something like the following,
( although this is just preliminary), looks like Friday evening start out with some music, food and maybe a dance, Saturday will be the main focus of renewable and sustainable showcase of theories, practices, technologies and services. In general a showcase of tools available to build a sustainable community upon.
What is intended to make this different from most other renewable energy fairs, is that they normally showcases cutting edge commerce (nice stuff) which by themselves are nothing more than a better mousetrap.This fair is intended to be comprehensive in that it will place an emphasis on how to recreate community in a truly sustainable way.
Now in the Native American Community that means to understand that in the context of seven generations. To understand where we have been for the past three generations, where we are now and where we are going for the next three generations. So to recap we are talking about a comprehensive plan for an objective sociological understanding of community development, along with the development of technologies using Natural Capital resources and complementary monetary systems.
The plan is to have experts give workshops on various other aspects of sustainable community design in everything from; Participative educational systems to green building and land use design to sustainable agriculture and renewable energy cooperatives (Black Oaks-Voyager Energy Cooperative), etc. etc..
A great part of the focus is to include as many intentional communities as possible and to invite people from unintentional communities to investigate sustainable and better ways of life.
Sunday will see a winding down of vendors and their booths and will focus on a recap of workshops and then will breakout into specialty areas on which topics have yet to be decided. We can look into having world wide webcam coverage also so as to include the rest of the world community.
There is a great opportunity for synergy and we can consider sistering with sustainable movements taking place in Africa such as the project at Gorogosa National Park in Mozambique.
We can look into sistering with them to help each other make it a reality and to show the naysayers how to get onboard this train also. Because it will take agreement of the whole world to save us.
I look forward to discussing the possibilities with You and would appreciate any feedback on the scope of this fair along with potential interest in working together to make it happen. Maybe this is something we can run by the Clinton Foundation for the funding that is needed.
In god we trust all others have to show us!
Thanks,
Jim Bates
renewable@ic.org
VIRTUAL NATURAL CAPITAL
01/24/2005Ecotopia, Brazil.
Posted by jay babcock
The World’s Best Managed City
by Neal R. Peirce
Curitaba, Brazil –It rains a lot in this provincial capital of 2.4 million, 220
miles southwest of San Paulo. There’s a large needy population, swollen each month
by 1,700 peasants flowing in from the countryside. The city’s architecture is unexceptional.
But look across the continents and you’ll not likely find a better managed city.
And not due to some tight, buttoned-down management scheme. But rather because Curitaba,
since urban visionary Jaime Lerner became its mayor in 1971, has pioneered one
Remarkable social or physical innovation after another.
Curitiba’s remarkably fast and efficient bus system accommodates 1.9 million bus
passengers each weekday — more than New York City. Downtown has delightful pedestrian-
Only street. To foster equity, small-scale, low-income dwellings (rather than high-rise
housing ghettoes) have been spotted across the city.
This is a great stab into de-gentrification. The city retains land throughout it’s boundaries and each family or individual has the opportunity to sit down with an Architect and pick one of five small but efficient and comfortable house designs, they are give the opportunity to take a low interest loan and a piece of the publicly owned land and build a personal piece of security. Along with the ability to have the opportunity to plant a garden in publicly owned green spaces. People would be able to exchange city currencies (the rate of exchange of such a currency could be an indicator of the “health” of the individual cities plan)they earned in exchange for picking up trash, recycling or performing any number of community building tasks that help to revitalize the area. This plan needs to be placed before Our city councils (Detroit or Chicago first) in the U.S. (modified of course).
An extensive new park and lake system covers 18 percent of the city’s land area,
doubling as a much-needed flood protection scheme (so that the ducks, it’s quipped,
just float a meter higher after rains). Over 1,100 tax-relieved private woodlands
allow rain to soak in where it falls. Volunteer citizens, since the 70s, have planted
over 1.5 million trees along streets and avenues.
Curitiba invented “Lighthouses of Knowledge.” Fifty of them, brightly colored, glassy
lighthouse-shaped towers, are spotted through the neighborhoods, providing thousands
of books and now Internet connections for citizens aged 3 to 80.(Why not here?) Another
innovation:
“Citizenship Streets” — two-storied pedestrian malls, located beside the heavily-used
bus terminals, offering clusters of city services from job training to day care,
gyms to small claims courts.
Lerner, now governor of Parana, Curitiba’s state, and potential Brazilian presidential
candidate, reminds a visitor that Curitiba has the problems of all Latin American
cities, tough slums included. The apparent difference: the fundamental
respect for all citizens, the poorest included, that he and his team of architect-
planner associates have sought to build over three decades.
Citizens who are shown respect with health clinics, good buses, decent schools,
insists Lerner, accept “co-responsibility.” They’re willing to build their own simple
housing, especially with a little architectural counsel and utility connections.
They volunteer for environmental projects. They start cottage industries. Civic
society flourishes.
Most families and firms now presort their trash, and 70 percent is recycled or composted.
In the slums, or favelas, where refuse vehicles can’t negotiate unpaved alleys,
small trucks fan out in a massive “Green Exchange.” For bags of sorted trash, tens
of thousands of the city’s poorest receive bags of rice, beans, eggs, bananas, carrots
that the city buys inexpensively from the area’s surplus production. The result’s
both better public health (less litter, rats, disease) and better nutrition.
Green Exchange exemplifies Curitiba’s penchant for solutions that are “simple, fast,
fun and cheap,” write Paul Hawken, Amore and Hunger Lovins in their new book, Natural
Capitalism. The city is thus benefiting from a flow of interconnected, interactive,
evolving solutions.
Lerner explains his distaste for “creativity killers” — a type of person “you can
smell in meetings,” who insists on having all the answers before any project can
start. That’s wrong, he insists: “Creativity means certain risks. It’s important
to start, then make changes. The ideal can easily be the enemy of the possible.”
Lerner and Curitiba’s present mayor, Cassio Taniguch, split their days. Mornings
are a jungle-like retreats on the edge of parks, talking big ideas that might change
many lives.?? In the afternoon, by contrast, they’re in their official offices meeting
constitutions. “You need a daily balance,” says Lerner.
But where do all the ideas come from, and how do they get coordinated. The answer’s
“IPPUC” — the city’s research and urban planning institute, now 35 years old. It’s
a rare phenomenon among world cities — an official city institute that’s intellectual
on one side, management-focused on the other. The mayor, department heads and staff
involved in currently hot issues meet there ever Thursday for a frank exchange on
how to keep multiple city projects moving.
So does it matter if a city has imaginative leadership over years. One shred of
evidence — surveys show 99 percent of Curitibans (as opposed, for example, to 60
percent of New Yorkers) wouldn’t want to live elsewhere.
Lerner recounts a 90s meetings with Renault officials at his jungle office. Parana
wasn’t even on their list for a Brazilian expansion site.?? Suddenly, a hummingbird
flew in and alighted on the table. “We had no contract with that bird,” says Lerner.
But clearly Curitiba’s quality of life, its spirit and imagination, was key in drawing
Renault, and then equally coveted Chrysler and Volkswagen/Audi plants, to the province.
But the auto plants have been located outward, with the stated goal of sharing
Curitiba’s prosperity with its entire province. Expanding its focus to regional
Collaboration — the first great challenge for 21st century cities.
No comments:
Post a Comment