I Am Worried--Is Our City Enlightened Enough?

[hearthstone]

I Am Worried--Is Our City Enlightened Enough?
Or--the current crisis is a great opportunity for the community to become more sustainable.

Some say that the current global economic crisis might get even worse and that it might stay with us for a long time. No one really knows for exactly the same reasons that no one saw this crisis coming.

Be it as it might, perhaps we should want to start worrying about getting food for the community's residents. As it is, a lot of them already have to rely on the system to provide them with, either money to buy food with (increasingly less and less food for the same amount of money), or directly with food from the "Food Bank", and from private donations--supplies that both are dwindling due to harder times.

Using common sense, and what one gathers from the news, the system's ability and willingness to subsidize its most needy members might become more and more strained with the progress of time.

The community should seize this crisis as an opportunity to profit in the shorter and the long run: Why not provide food for the ones who need it most (their number might even increase as the time goes on) entirely locally, without the need for using money at all? Most of those who have to rely on the kindness of the system and strangers for their food currently could directly contribute to local production of food with their labor and expertise with there enough being left over to provide for those cannot contribute with either. This certainly would be more meaningful and dignified than waiting for a check and a receiving handouts. It would be substantially more sustainable than what is in force now--no trucking food from afar, less bureaucrats to feed along the way, etc.!

As to where to grow food, for inspiration one could look to Victory gardens (there is enough unused ground to grow stuff on), and to even archaeology--some of the possible ways that would not require much watering and fertilization would be constructing waru-warus and chinampas (Reference 1) on the lagoon that currently might be under environmental protection, but with integrating humans into the environment organically would be enough of a protection needed for the environment--even better than the current environmental protection!

Are there any contingency plans to provide sustenance for those who might/will need it if/when the cash and food supplies might/will be cut off?

Should not there be any planning for hard times that might/will come?

And--even if good times would return to these parts, would not having a truly sustainable local food production (even more sustainable than CSA that still relies on using money) that would be a jewel to be envied by other, less progressive communities?

Disregarding all that is written above--How well is our city prepared for the very possible hard times ahead?



References:

1) Waru-waru, chinampas, and the such like:

Clark Erickson's Homepage (https://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ecerickso/)

Chinampa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa)

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) (https://www.fao.org/sd/giahs/types.asp)

4.1 Raised beds and waru waru cultivation (https://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea59e/ch27.htm)


---
Designing Sustainable Community:
SustainableSebastopol : Designing Sustainable Community Forum. (https://groups.yahoo.com/group/SustainableSebastopol/)

[nicofrog]

An interesting post;
I appreciate your concern, and bringing these issues to light, and consideration. a few of the assumptions in it are interesting.
sustainability being one of my favorites.
My recently deceased Friend Mark Lappe' a member of the concerned scientists and one of the worlds top scientists said"you need to look at what you want to sustain, it may be that we are beyond a sustainable system, and we need to back down to something that is sustainable".Unfortunately, this might mean getting rid of a lot of crap we have considered normal for along time.
You say" No one really knows, for exactly the same reasons that no one saw this crisis coming." well that's relative, just like ""enlightenment"" I know 6 yr olds that are more enlightened on some topics than I am.
And my wake up call came in 1968 at a Buckminster Fuller (He saw it coming)lecture
in Marin, where he said "we have 50 years left at our going rate of development" ( at that time people said"developing nations" like it was a good thing,actually, newscasters still do!) Bucky said basically, if everyone who admires, and wants a car,and everyone who is convinced of it's utility gets a toilet,we will run out of air ,and fresh water in a predictable mathematic curve. That curve ends about 21 yrs from now. He had not factored in Garbage and efluent in the land fills(a bigger problem than oil)and the thawing of the arctic tundra producing huge amounts of methane as it decomposes anearobicaly .or cow-dung.
How many people do you suppose there are in Sebastopol/petaluma/Santa Rosa who would be willing to stop toilet usage this year.I can think of about 15...
If the Oil supply is not cut off by some giant human blunder, or natural catastrophy, I imagine the next BIG symptom, other than this consarned clammy cold weather, will be during big storms,highway 101 to S.F. will
be flooded at Corta Madera, and Mill Valley. not the usual 8" but more like
a foot or two. stopping commuters for up to a week at a time. I'm suprised
Cal Trans has not begun to plan for this if there's a way.
Ay first it would seem no big deal, businesses will move to higher ground
but eventually pontoon bridges may become a way of life.:hmmm:
Compost at home,call all your relatives and have tham compost at home
grow food, even a little is fun.kids love it. sell the big car.and about that toilet,,,,,the daily showers, and washing every item the first day you wear it?
enlightenment?knowledge?or Wisdom?Got a clothsline yet?
We still take tar roofs,roads,tires,heat,for granted. We will be remembered,if theres anyone to remember,as the "tar baby" generation.Then theres Fiberglass,Perlite,and Vermiculite to add to the asbestos heap, and the junk they burn to make Cement, and Power Hawaii.Oh and "ground contact wood",Sacred among even so called "green "Builders.( lawn mowers are gross poluters.)
crush your recycling?? too much trouble?Take the bottle caps OFF (save them for me!)We make art with them.
this could be fun Nico

[Hot Compost]

i guess there are 2 inter-related questions - living enlightened globally, and living enlightened locally. also, the relationship of being 'enlightened' to living sustainably.

People use the term "Peak Oil" recognition of the moment in the history of the oil industry when production peaks. the various most-expert geologist are comparing data-points in 2005 and 2007 and scratching their heads wondering which year was the peak, at about 84 million barrels per day.

Fatih Birol, head of the IEA, has recently come out and said they anticipate a 9.1% production decline in 2009. not because of a decline in demand - because, pumping as hard as they can, that's the production they expect.

so, having ackowledged "Peak Oil", i will say that i really don't think our societal problem generally is a shortage of fossil fuels, although the people freezing to death because they can't afford fuel oil need to be factored in.

i think what we have a shortage of is cooperation, more than we have a shortage of fossil fuels.

an example of cooperation would be if cities like Santa Rosa and Sebastapol listened to local wise people like Richard Heinberg. so if he said, we're going to make a number of logical, common sense changes that may seem extremely radical to society at large, people would not just talk about it - they would do it.

he spoke out forcefully about re-allocating resources from the highway 101 widening to other localization projects (local energy sources, re-development of local farming). he was completely ignorred, and now it's much, MUCH harder to get financing for worthwhile projects, the economy being as it is.

until you can walk into the Sonoma County zoning department and say, i'm going to use a composting toilet and save 730 gallons of water a year, and render the castings into high-grade fertilizer using conventional (old-fashioned) soil science techniques, approved by one of the soil scientists that organized the Organic Materials Research Institute, and they say, "OK", instead of "no way" ... until we have widespread changes like that, we are locked into an energy and pollution intensive lifestyle at large.

i think there's a lot of genuinely NICE people in Sonoma County, nice as in indicative of enlightment. but our ability to coalesce and do the things we need to do to live sustainably - we don't practice that ability, as a group.

i think discussions about "enlightenment" are a moot point if we are living in a way where "how many lives per gallon" our cars get is a fair question (a reflection of the human carnage that goes into American procurement of oil).

does enlightenment matter if the US is spreading depleted uranium around the mid-east, and Israel is killing Palestinian civilians en masse, and terrorizing all 1.5 million who live in the Gaza strip ?

i'd rather be 'endarkened' and have those 2 abominations (DU & Israeli apartheid) cease.

of course, the federal government interferes, e.g. USDA & Monsanto raids on small farms in the midwest. there are major impediments at the federal, state, and county level to living sustainably - to being enlightened in our actions.

there are also cultural impediments to living sustainably. even if people had county permission to compost their excretions, most people wouldn't do it because it's too icky, smelly, and gross ... so we are trained.

we do have leaders who provide examples - for example Todd Wetzel and his wife, 2 people living sustainably in Mendocino near the coast.

The Oil Drum: Campfire | A Trip to Todd's (https://campfire.theoildrum.com/node/4979)

they are a retired couple; he has mastered the mechanics of living comfortably, and 90% sustainably, off the grid.

so, to repeat, the 2 inter-related questions - living enlightened globally, and living enlightened locally. also, the relationship of being 'enlightened' to living sustainably.

as a culture, i perceive that we are living enlightened neither globally, nor locally.

i'm not knocking the question, i think it's a great question to ask.

[ecowebportal]

:hello:

I have been working and Living Internationally for many years. I was given the heads up by Dubai two years ago about coming home and helping because we were on our way to a big crisis. So here we are.

The key to Communities surviving is Sustainability. Green Technology is the key to ending poverty. It's no longer some fad, it's a necessity. Actually the steps to creating individual and community Sustanability are not complicated and are for the most part easy to implement. Mostly, its a matter of getting community on the same mental page. Having grown up in abject poverty myself, I will tell you it's possible to come together as a community and, even though times are tough, have really great times! Lot's of smiles.

The activity of creating Sustainable Communities can be really fun and good heartfelt joy. I've been creating sustainble solutions for towns, villages and countries for over 25 years all over the world. And you know where I first came across Green Technology, right here in North Cali and Oregon when I was 15 years old. What was taught to me here, partially by the Native Americans, was used to save many lives over the years!

We have the solutions, resources and capability right under our noses and always have. Now we just have to do it all the way, not just half way!

I'm using the Sustainability Conference here in Guerneville in March to bring together the best sustainability solvers I can find. Everyone is welcome, perhaps it can be used to push harder for this solution. It also provides very very low cost information to those who need it most.

The new administration is in agreement with this, so pushing our local government shouldn't be as difficult as in the past. True, they are out of money too, but it can be done even when the dollar hits it's lowest point.

Connectivity is the key word to create resources from nothing and little capital. Growing food is a vital necessity, as you pointed out. But it's funny, if the mind changes, everything else seems to fall into place.

Food is the most basic thing we as a community can help other humans with. You don't withhold food from humans because you think their lazy. That's not the values of America or at least I hope not.

Remember too, that there are many people in our community that have been working on this solution for quite some time. It's not over till it's over....

Peace and Happiness for you all, Teri Adaju Carter




I Am Worried--Is Our City Enlightened Enough?
Or--the current crisis is a great opportunity for the community to become more sustainable.

Some say that the current global economic crisis might get even worse and that it might stay with us for a long time. No one really knows for exactly the same reasons that no one saw this crisis coming.

Be it as it might, perhaps we should want to start worrying about getting food for the community's residents. As it is, a lot of them already have to rely on the system to provide them with, either money to buy food with (increasingly less and less food for the same amount of money), or directly with food from the "Food Bank", and from private donations--supplies that both are dwindling due to harder times.

Using common sense, and what one gathers from the news, the system's ability and willingness to subsidize its most needy members might become more and more strained with the progress of time.

The community should seize this crisis as an opportunity to profit in the shorter and the long run: Why not provide food for the ones who need it most (their number might even increase as the time goes on) entirely locally, without the need for using money at all? Most of those who have to rely on the kindness of the system and strangers for their food currently could directly contribute to local production of food with their labor and expertise with there enough being left over to provide for those cannot contribute with either. This certainly would be more meaningful and dignified than waiting for a check and a receiving handouts. It would be substantially more sustainable than what is in force now--no trucking food from afar, less bureaucrats to feed along the way, etc.!

As to where to grow food, for inspiration one could look to Victory gardens (there is enough unused ground to grow stuff on), and to even archaeology--some of the possible ways that would not require much watering and fertilization would be constructing waru-warus and chinampas (Reference 1) on the lagoon that currently might be under environmental protection, but with integrating humans into the environment organically would be enough of a protection needed for the environment--even better than the current environmental protection!

Are there any contingency plans to provide sustenance for those who might/will need it if/when the cash and food supplies might/will be cut off?

Should not there be any planning for hard times that might/will come?

And--even if good times would return to these parts, would not having a truly sustainable local food production (even more sustainable than CSA that still relies on using money) that would be a jewel to be envied by other, less progressive communities?

Disregarding all that is written above--How well is our city prepared for the very possible hard times ahead?



References:

1) Waru-waru, chinampas, and the such like:

Clark Erickson's Homepage (https://www.sas.upenn.edu/%7Ecerickso/)

Chinampa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinampa)

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) (https://www.fao.org/sd/giahs/types.asp)

4.1 Raised beds and waru waru cultivation (https://www.oas.org/dsd/publications/Unit/oea59e/ch27.htm)


---
Designing Sustainable Community:
SustainableSebastopol : Designing Sustainable Community Forum. (https://groups.yahoo.com/group/SustainableSebastopol/)

[DevaKai]

Could I get more info. on the Sustainability Conference here in Guerneville in March?

Thanks :)

*D