The Umbrella House -- by Kengo Kuma

As one umbrella is a cheap, portable shelter for a single person, many can become shelter for a group of people, in Kengo Kuma's Casa Umbrella, made of ordinary umbrellas modified with extra flaps and zippers sewn on the edges. The umbrellas are combined to form a Buckminster Fuller dome, with any number of entrances and windows. Kuma's aim, he said in a recent interview, is to "recover the tradition of japanese buildings" and to reinterpret it for the 21st century: see more of his designs in Spacehacking.

This is just one of the 99 things you can do in the city, a 2008 exhibit at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. Other things include fruit-harvesting, trash architecture, guerilla gardening, freegan dumpster-diving, foam & velour suits to challenge urban brutalism, and a Rebel Clown Army.

Urban peace testimony -- Elaine Bishop

This item is excerpted from Vince Zelazny's blog about CYM 2011, Wish you were here.

Elaine Bishop, Co-recording Clerk at CYM sessions, with Dave Grossman of Home Mission and Advancement Committee.

Elaine Bishop's Urban Peace Testimony developed around her neighbourhood and place of work, the North Point Douglas Womens Centre in Winnipeg. I asked Elaine to elaborate on what an urban peace testimony was.  Peace testimony has been a movement to abolish war, and later, grew to incorporate a movement to create or cultivate peace. Elaine credits Meredith Egan with coining the term ‘urban peace testimony’, but found on reflection that it makes sense as a focus of inquiry.


We have a poor understanding of peace in relation to urban life. We understand land poorly in relation to urban areas and land ownership. To cultivate urban peace, people need food, water, adequate housing, safety from domestic and other forms of violence, friendship, spiritual nurture, and a whole host of things.

In Manitoba, there has been a huge influx of aboriginal people into the city of Winnipeg from the northern communities. This movement parallels depopulation of rural areas and rural influx of impoverished people happening in many countries of the global south. There are issues of safety that are emergent and pose a danger to new arrivals in the city, especially young women.

The Point Douglas Neighbourhood was recently in the news due to an unfortunate event where a person set fire to a rooming house in which four people died. This was publicised nationally by nearly all media. What was not reported was that the Womens centre immediately became involved by organizing prayers, memorials,  and smudging ceremonies on the site where the incident took place. A similar thing was done a year earlier at a nearby bus stop where a person had died in a violent attack. Spiritual nurture and healing thus are central elements of an urban peace testimony.  The centre also undertook environmental projects and a walking school bus, in an effort to promote normal, peaceful life.  CFSC collaborated with the Womens Centre to present a level 1 AVP workshop, and a level 2 workshop is also planned.  Step by step, the outlines of an urban peace testimony in north Winnipeg is emerging.

Toronto's Evergreen project restores Don Valley

The Brickworks before and after, from Reading Toronto
Evergreen is a charity dedicated to greening Canadian cities, neighbourhoods, schools and homes. Last weekend there was a Grand Opening of the former Don Valley Brick Works, which has already been restored for use as a farmer's market and a site for environmental education, demonstration gardens and kitchens, conference facilities, youth and children’s camps, community bike space, and family events. See their local and national blogs. In 2010 National Geographic named it one of the world's top geotourism locations.

Reclamation of the valley: Toronto Free for All

By revitalizing and reusing historic buildings, and offering programs for children, heritage and ec0-sustainability, Evergreen is an environmental community centre in the heart of the Toronto ravine system.

Summer camp While parents explore the reclaimed valley, or shop at the farmers' market, their children can join in Nature Nut fun: eco-games, frog and turtle monitoring, snowshoeing, animal tracking, local food harvesting and eating, making vegetable and "wild" gardens. See the native plant database and tips on starting gardens.

Below: a trail walk

Future plans for the site include Evergreen headquarters in the new LEED-Platinum-certified Centre for Green Cities. "It will be a venue where we will explore and address the global issues that we all face, including the green economy, urban ecology, transportation, water, energy, waste management, agriculture and food, building design and land-use planning. The site’s use of a wide range of green technologies will help make it a national hub for urban sustainability."

See also the main page of Evergreen, Greening the Inner City, Worldchanging on cities, Joan Roelofs, The economics of greening cities.

My Green Driveway -- by Franke James

(pronounced Frank-ee) is a Toronto artist who got there via the Maritimes (Mt Allison) and BC (U of Victoria) She has created Fat Cat Canada cartoons, an illustrated book Bothered by My Green Conscience: How an SUV-driving, imported-strawberry-eating urban dweller can go green (2009) , and a thought-provoking video A Green Winter (2007). Woman.ca says, “In a non-preachy and humorous fashion, Franke’s book explains how she made big decisions that were suitable to her lifestyle and in turn significantly reduced her personal contribution to environmental waste and damage. Franke’s advice: “Do the hardest thing first.” The following is an excerpt from her family blog The James Gang.

*****

In the spring of 2007, Franke was told by North York officials that she could only build a driveway out of concrete, asphalt or interlock. She was shocked and pointed out, “But none of those are good for the environment! How can you ask people to do that? The city's website says it wants Toronto to be a green city….” But the officials weren’t budging.

The next day she put her communications skills to work and called up Paul Moloney at the Toronto Star. He responded by writing an article Eco-friendly driveway is rejected by the city. Then Melissa Grelo from City TV read the article, and came over to interview Franke and find out what was really going on. Melissa understood what a contradiction it was and called up the Mayor’s office. She promised, “You’ll be hearing from the Mayor’s office, they said they’ll be looking into it.”

But a couple of days passed and there was no phone call. Action was called for! Armed with the Toronto Star article, the City TV news item, and a Treehugger article, she phoned the Mayor’s office. She politely requested an explanation as to why she was being told by North York officials that she could not install an eco-friendly driveway, when everyone knows that Toronto is aiming to be the greenest city in North America…. For the full scoop and to see the final ‘reveal’ read Franke’s step-by-step articles in her My Green Conscience blog.

building the driveway

Also check out Catherine Porter’s article Driveway Dispute has Green Ending. Below is a short excerpt from it.

Franke seeding the driveway: Lucas Oleniuk, Toronto Star

While other people shovel or sweep their driveways, Franke James spent yesterday seeding hers. It marks the first lawn driveway in North York -- a model she hopes her neighbours will follow.
"If more people in our neighbourhood did this, it would be a terrific thing for the environment,” said James, who runs an advertising and design business with her husband, Bill. Watching as he laid straw on top of the grass seed to guard it from birds, she added: “This was a small thing we could do to help the environment.”
The truth is, there was nothing small about it. The couple’s project has been gargantuan, starting with a battle at city hall, where arcane regulations forbid homeowners in North York from resurfacing driveways with anything other than brick, asphalt or pavement, despite the city’s greater green agenda.
"This is a perfectly functional driveway," James said. "Fire trucks can park on it." Not that she will test it anytime soon. The couple sold their family car – a Toyota SUV – for more than the $10,500 the project has cost them.

See also her environmental art at frankejames.com

Citizens rag while world elites drag -- WWWViews

Connie Hedegaard, Danish Climate Minister set up WWViews to hold a worldwide citizen survey and discussion forum, on actions that need to be taken at Copenhagen. Their answers put political elites to shame.

4,000 participating citizens from 38 countries were chosen, reflecting the demographic diversity of their respective countries and regions. They were provided with unbiased information about climate change and the COP15 negotiations, and asked to discuss it with their friends.

Across nations, income groups and geographical regions, citizen responses are remarkably consistent:
· Seal the deal at COP15: an obligatory Copenhagen treaty to replace Kyoto
· Keep global warming below 2 degrees C
· Developed (Annex 1 countries) should cut emissions 25-40 % or more by 2020
· Fast-growing economies should also reduce emissions by 2020
· Low-income developing countries should limit emissions
· Establish an international financial mechanism for mitigation aid
· Punish non-complying countries
· Make technology available to everyone [no patent payments, corporate kickbacks, capture and control of export market share]
· strengthen and add to United Nations [not World Bank, giveaways and sales of offsets]

This sharply contradicts the niggling, higgling, and backwardness of national elites in the whole series of Bali-to-Copenhagen negotiations. Download the citizens' WWWViews Policy Report or view the questions and responses online, with further discussions on Facebook

See also the WWViews experts blog, Connie Hedegaard's biography, her June 2009 Greenland Dialogue, and the C40 "green city network" founded by Clinton Climate Initiative.
We do not recommend the WWWviews official video wrap-up, which shows a bundle of boring bureaucrats, among a handful of citizens. Its preparatory info videos are visually exciting but accompanied by numbing "father knows best" commentary.
For real grassroots opinions see Global Voices Online, and our previous posts on youth , online videos, and networking.

If developers ruled the world -- NFB Citizenshift

Cartoon by Anthony Piraino, Greensboro NC - see his blog
click on cartoon for clearer view


Sprawl (13m 42 s, NFB 2009)
by Montreal actress, journalist and videographer Tamar Kozlov
Two views of Montreal: Dr. David Suzuki at a 2009 youth conference held by C-Vert, an environmental program for youths founded by Stephen Bronfman. They speak about urban sprawl, the dangers of meddling with natural systems (e.g. GMOs) and the state of the planet. David Côté and his chef Chris Eschleman launch Crudessence, a raw / living food restaurant, and speak of a younger generation's hopes of greening the city.
*****
See previous post on results of urban sprawl in Duncan BC.
Other Citizenshift videos and podcasts at http://citizenshift.ca/categories/environment
En français http://parolecitoyenne.org/categories/environnement

Single mom brings farms to the Bronx - one of the Changents

Tanya Fields is one of hundreds of young Americans in Changents.com, where her story first appeared.

I am a single mom in the South Bronx who quit her day job to become a full time activist. I am now seeking to create the first Hunt's Point Urban Farm and creating a nonprofit that would create a network of urban farms in the Boogie Down!

I have always been a big mouth and growing up on in the city of New York I had to be resourceful. So it is no wonder that my work in the community now depends on my resourcefulness and big mouth. I am an environmental justice activist, mom of three burgeoning revolutionaries and an upcoming urban farmer.

By day I am the Operations Manager at the Majora Carter Group, the original South Bronx environmental justice trailblazer. By night -- and weekends and holidays to boot -- I am working to create community programs to address food justice and remediate public health issues that I know affect all too many folks of color in the ‘hood.

3 years ago when I realized that I was unhappy in the corporate sector. I worked while raising my family to put myself through school only to find myself in an high demand, unfulfilling job on the lower rungs of the corporate latter and in the evening I myself coming home to a community frauught with [garbage] transfer stations, smells from water treatment facilities and an asthmatic child. I knew there had to be a way to help myself, my children and my community. I started volunteering with a local community group, Mothers on the Move where I excelled as a fearless speaker, a capable leader and an effective organizer and quickly caught the eye of the local press and other activists including Majora Carter.

Suddenly the big mouth that my mother warned would get me in trouble was stirring up trouble, but in the best way possible. I became known to community members and local elected officials as candid (sometimes to a fault), witty, relatable and articulate.

In the three years that I have dedicated myself to environmental work, I have started an organization called The BLK Projek which focuses on food justice particularly as it relates to public and mental health for underserved women of color. It includes using yoga to improve women's health and sex lives with sustainability, organic food and nutrition. My latest challenge has been rallying the cause to place an urban farm on a piece of underdeveloped NYC Parks Dept land...

About 7 years ago, I was a burgeoning spoken-word poet and emcee. My future work includes bringing hip-hop and 'hood culture together with the environmental work that I do. Most of the "isms” our people feel stem from environmental degradation. To change that, we must rise up and fight for the resources that will create a better, greener, healthier 'hood.

If I can be one of many successful architects of that -- and raise and inspire future architects -- then I will have been both an effective environmental leader and mother...

*****

Changents is a US social network started by Deron Triff and Alex Hoffman, now going worldwide with Earthkeepers; it is sponsored by Timberland clothing, and seeks more partners.

Malaysia bloggers campaign for trams

Last spring, bloggers and webmasters in Penang, western Malaysia launched a Penangites for Trams campaign. Some tracks still exist from prewar days. A spirited exchange between advocates of trams, bus, LRT and mixed public transit ensued. Supporters admit that trams work best as part of an integrated public transport system, fed by an efficient and extensive network of buses -- certainly a better solution than the current polluting gridlock of private vehicles.

Kek Lok Si Buddhist temple, Penang: UK Daily Telegraph

"Trams are not just a thing of the past but of the future," claims local historian Khoo Salma Nasution, who wrote Penang Trams, Trolleybuses & Railways: Municipal Transport History 1880s-1963. She called the the tramcar "iconic identity for Penang" that could "revitalise the heritage of the inner city." Referring to a rival LRT proposal, Citizens for Public Transport (CEPAT) coordinator Dr Choong Sim Poey said, "There are many alternatives besides the intrusive overhead monorail system that are cheaper, more sustainable and suitable for Penang with its heritage city and tree-lined roads." He cited as a model the O-Bahn bus and rail links of Adelaide, Australia, and many German cities. The campaigners cite benefits of trams from the City of Edinburgh website .
- Trams don’t take up a lot of road space but they do carry a lot of people. As Edinburgh continues to grow, trams will be the most efficient way for people to travel about our city.
Downtown Penang; courtesy travelblog.org
- Trams show a city is a modern and well- connected place to do business which can lead to more investment, new jobs, regeneration and more prosperity for us all.
- an attractive option for motorists... 20% of peak hour and 50% of weekend tram passengers in the UK previously travelled by car.
- enhance the urban environment and generate civic pride.
- Trams will encourage shoppers to travel to the city centre which can lead to more investment by businesses and regeneration. Dublin saw a rise of between 20% - 50% in pedestrian footfall figures on Grafton Street, the city’s main shopping thoroughfare. Some retailers reported a 25% increase in trade.
Penang mosque, UK Daily Telegraph
- Residential and commercial properties may see prices increase beside tram routes. In some cities with trams, house prices have risen by up to 15% and rental prices by up to 7%
- no emissions from the vehicles.
- Trams will be accessible to everyone, with benefits of low level boardings at every stop and other easy-to-use features which particularly help the disabled and less mobile.
- safe to use as, in addition to a driver, every tram will have a passenger attendant on board to check tickets, answer passenger queries and ensure no anti-social behaviour occurs.
- offer concessionary fares.
- To which the Penangites add: electric trams, or light rail transit as they are known in many countries, do not require a licence from the federal government to operate but can be undertaken by the local council."

-- Thanks to bloggers Anil Netto, Sean Ang, and Southeast Asia e-Community for this story.

Hometown security - a review of Pat Murphy's Plan C

Megan Quinn of The Community Solution speaks of her visit to Cuba, Peak Oil, the opportunity to create the communities we want, warning we must move to a low-energy lifestyle, that biofuels will not save us.


Pat Murphy, Plan C: Community Survival Strategies for Peak Oil and Climate Change (Gabriola Island B.C., New Society Publishers, 2008).

Civilization as we know it is coming to an end – a good thing, Gandhi might say. Personal recycling will never solve the climate crisis. Even if Americans reduced garbage to zero, they could not achieve the reduction of CO2 by 80% by 2050 needed to stop disastrous global warming (see Bill McKibben's 350.org).

Plan A is business as usual, the quickest route to ecosystem collapse. Plan B is the dream of a green technological fix without giving up infinite growth and consumerism. Plan C is for “curtailment and community" (radically deep cuts in consumption, and a cooperative, convivial post-carbon way of life). Plan D is die-off, nature's answer to any species that exceeds the earth's carrying capacity. Murphy takes this possibility seriously, but his is not a World Without Us exultation about Gaia's revenge on sinful humanity. Pat Murphy is a former computer whiz in aerospace and energy, builder of energy efficient homes, co-writer and producer of the documentary Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil. As director of CommunitySolution.org since 2003 he has been urging Americans to deal with peak oil and climate change. Plan C is also a manifesto of the rapidly growing (re)localization movement, aka permaculture, post-carbon, food security (CSA), transition towns, eco-villages.

Not an easy read, his book crunches the numbers from recent scientific studies. It is superbly indexed, for those who need access to the statistics. For instance, world per capita CO2 emission is about 4 tonnes/year, which must be reduced to less than one tonne by 2050. But the average American produces 19.61 tonnes and our level is rising fast! Data in chapters 5 and 6 demolish the consumerist illusions of tech fixes. Mechanized agriculture needs 10 boe (barrel of oil equivalents) to produce 1 calorie; a generation ago it used 1/5 boe per calorie. New green buildings? “too big, very expensive, one-of-a-kind, architect designed,” needed are retrofits and radical cuts beyond mere conservation. He tells the sad story of the Energy Star thermostat – energy-efficient it was not. The private car? A dodo. The fuel cell (flex, hybrid, electric, hydrogen) has been “10 years away for 35 years” -- a mirage. Biofuels, solar, wind, hydrogen-electric, nuclear, cannot solve the coming energy shortage, nor the oxymorons of sustainable development, Zero Energy buildings (50% not 0%), clean coal, and CSS which he calls “carbon bequestration”.

Consider writing this clause into your will: to my darling children. I, being of unsound mind, leave to you my personal legacy of 3,000,000 pounds of CO2 and a few hundred thousand pounds of plastic, glass and miscellaneous toxins; guard them well. And I also leave you a few hundred pounds of plutonium. Be particularly careful with the plutonium. Think of me and remember I loved you even though it may not look that way.

We must also abandon our addiction to fossil fuels, the religion of economic growth, consumerism and rising inequity at home and abroad. The American way of life and Peak Empire have brought us war, hatred, free trade as a rationale for controlling weaker nations, a fortress mentality, recurring world financial and energy crises. Plans A and B guarantee they will continue.

What then must we do? Chapter 13 on "food health and survival" can be summed up in Michael Pollan's advice: don't eat too much, avoid processed foods, eat organic and mostly plants. More to the point, it shows in detail how our habits of production, transportation, cooking and nutrition must be transformed. And in the coming mindshift, community must replace consumerism. Learn from Cuba and Kerala, which provide high education levels, food security and free healthcare.

Values of novelty, comfort, convenience, ease, fashion, indulgence, luxury and competition... must give way to different values such as cooperation, temperance, prudence, moderation, conviviality and charity... those who desire to make the transition successfully with minimal risk must start now to toughen and strengthen themselves physically and psychologically for difficult times to come such people would be more compared to live in a future that is poorer in material goods but richer in spiritual, psychological and community benefits.

Kick the media habit, urges Chapter 15, pointing out how our entertainment teaches consumption, competition and violence, dumbs us down, protects us from reality, and nourishes our illusions:

• America's military superiority is a source of pride....
• Our suffering is most important...
• Patriots are willing to fight... shame on any who disagree.
• Might makes right (if we can take it, it's ours).

Housing (currently responsible for 39% of US CO2): cut heat loss and wasteful appliances, insulate, share space, and retrofit. Chapter 10 has a whole panoply of suggestions. Chapter 11 on transportation argues that mass transit and bicycles, though desirable, cannot meet the challenge of US sprawl; it proposes computerized rideshares, a “smart jitney” which already exists in several parts of the world (for instance, zipcar.com). It would not have scheduled routes, but operate anywhere anytime and anyplace, and allow persons to input preferences, e.g. women could request rides with other women. Murphy meets concerns about security, safety and privacy. What must change is the car culture of power, speed, force – and road rage.

Chapters 16-17 suggest steps toward hometown and neighborhood security: by localizing food, power generation, manufacturing, investment and banking. Quality of life must replace quantity. What are the characteristics of this new low-energy lifestyle?

- community...assumes friendliness
- a feeling of belonging, being at home
- gardening, studies, the arts
- unity and cohesion: people assume they will be cared for if they are in need of help
- mutual concern and mutual assistance: as the fossil economy wanes, a large non-cash sector will emerge
- civic responsibility, joint ownership, shared tasks and bees
- celebrations, traditions and rituals

Though Plan C quotes recent studies by policy wonks, this closing vision is reminiscent of Marge Peircy's novel Woman on the Edge of Time (1976).

Other classics of the localization movement:
EF Schumacher Small Is Beautiful (1973), Wendell Berry The Unsettling of America (1977) and "The idea of a local economy" (online, 2001), Bill Mollison Designer's Manual (1988), Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel Looking Forward (1991), John Kortzman Building Cities from the Inside Out (1997), Richard Douthwaite Short Circuit (1998), Colin Hines Localization (2000), Michael Shuman Going Local (2000), Christopher and Dolores Nyerges Extreme Simplicity (2002), Jim Merkel Radical Simplicity (2003), Daniel Holmgren Permaculture (2003 or online), Bill McKibben Deep Economy (2004), this Richard Heinberg Powerdown (2005), James Kunstler The Long Emergency (2005) and his novel World Made by Hand (2008), Michael Pollan The Omnivore' s Dilemma (2006), Vandana Shiva, Earth Democracy (2006), Alisa Smith and JB MacKinnon The 100 Mile Diet (2007), Rob Hopkins The Transition Handbook (2008 or on wiki), Chris Carlsson Nowtopia (2008), Andrew Simms From the Ashes of the Crash (2008), Lyle Estill Small Is Possible (2008), Lisa M. Hamilton Deeply Rooted (forthcoming). Orion magazine articles. See also "bioregionalism" by Great River, Wikipedia, and resources at ecofeminism.net, ibiblio.org and worldchanging.com

Urban Agriculture in Mexico City / Sembradores Urbanos para Lily Foster, Carolina Lukac & Gabriela Vargas

Sembradores Urbanos se dedica a promover la agricultura urbana en la Ciudad de México. Sabemos que cultivar tus propios alimentos – hortaliza orgánica, hierbas medicinales y flores comestibles – es posible, aun viviendo en uno de los centros urbanos más grandes del mundo. Ahora consideramos que nuestra misión es difundir técnicas de agricultura urbana y apoyar a las personas interesadas en sembrar alimentos sanos.

Nuestra propuesta de trabajo incluye una variedad de actividades – desde talleres de capacitación, instalaciones de huertos urbanos, diseño y difusión de material didáctico, pláticas y programas en escuelas, entre otros.

Te invitamos a explorar esta página y a sembrar semillas de conciencia y vida en la ciudad.

We are three young women dedicated to promoting urban agriculture in Mexico City, working under the name Sembradores Urbanos (“Urban Cultivators” in English). In August 2007, we inaugurated the first urban agriculture demonstration center in the country, believing that people need to see real examples of how to grow food in the city. The Romita Urban Garden has become our “show garden” – an office, edible garden, education center, workshop site, and a gardening supply store, all on less than 80 square meters of concrete.”

Mexico City is one of the urban centers that generate the most garbage in the world, with over 20 million inhabitants producing an average of 1.35 kilos every day. This translates into a massive 12,000 tons of garbage per day and serious environmental imbalances. However, this garbage is actually a valuable resource, especially in the language and application of urban agriculture.

Our garden mantra has become “transforming ‘waste’ into fertile soil, clean food, and family incomes”. We are rethinking the life cycle of materials and applying the “waste equals food” parallel to regenerate soil, feed ourselves, and create sustainable markets from 12,000 tons of “waste”.

At Romita we have set up a variety of urban agriculture techniques which include: a container composting area, worm bins and a worm bench, a vertical garden, a sheet mulching garden bed, a wall-hugging hydroponic installation, raised and ground level gardening beds, and an organoponic garden installation.

“Organoponics” is the perfect expression of our mantra – it is an urban agriculture technique that reuses organic and inorganic materials to grow clean, healthy food in limited space. We use old tires and buckets as containers, leaf litter as bedding material, kitchen wastes in the form of compost, and urine as an organic liquid fertilizer. Instead of taking rich soil out of the few forests that surround Mexico City, we use leaf litter as the main substrate in which we transplant seedlings and rely upon liquid fertilizers to add nutrients to the plants. After a year long season of urban gardening, we are we not only harvesting vegetables, herbs, and flowers – we are also harvesting the decomposed leaf litter that has turned into nutrient rich soil. So in addition to growing healthy food, we are showing how it is possible to produce fertile soil in the city.

In a landscape where information and experiences in urban agriculture are very limited, Sembradores Urbanos is establishing itself as a local resource center. In addition to hosting workshops in urban agriculture, the Romita Urban Garden site has also hosted screenings of environmental documentaries, storytelling events for neighbors, yoga in the garden, a green architecture conference, and hosts a weekly garden club for kids in the neighborhood. We sell handbooks on gardening techniques in Spanish (compiled and designed by us), organic seeds from a seed cooperative in the state of Veracruz, and our own compost and worms, among other urban garden accessories.

We have no doubt that we are participating in a blossoming moment for urban agriculture in Mexico City. As government secretariats are finally taking initiatives to fund urban agriculture pilot projects, we celebrate our own process of teaching the urban population about the magic of transforming “waste” into soil and food.

See also Michael Levenson's City Farmer News with stories from many countries.

A Quaker "Worship-storming" about Earthcare

The following ideas come from a session at the Quaker Earthcare Witness meeting in Chicago 26 Apr 2008. The query to which Friends were responding was, "If QEW had access to unlimited funds, what work or projects might you envision?"

Readers inside or outside QEW are welcome to add comments, or email me ideas (see how to do so, under the Towards a Moral Economy title) to add to this list. The principle of a brainstorm is that we refrain from criticizing each others' ideas or questioning how they can be put into practice.

- a QEW retreat center with cohousing, land, community garden and trees (we appreciate the beauty and convenience of the Cenacle Retreat)
- Bill Gates becomes a Quaker and builds Quaker eco-villages
- Quaker environmental youth pilgrimage to visit/build eco-villages
- gray heads at QEW are replaced by young Friends eager to create a new world
- a Quaker youth corps restoring parks locally, nationally, internationally
- every piece of open land preserved forever
- Quaker home-owner insurance, rates reduced by voluntary or community green jobs, like the Amish
- all trips under 10 miles by bicycle, by those with physical ability
- immediate voluntary commitments, like giving up cars
- using free Skype phone via computer for meetings instead of flying in carbon-spewing planes
- long distance rapid trains across the country
- family planning and health services provided for all who need/want them
- subsidies for alternative renewable energies, rather than pernicious subsidies for fossil and nuclear
- a giant QEW fund to subsidize Quaker renewable energy projects
- buy TV time (ad-busters) to advertize against the market
- houses of worship as centers and examples of urban agriculture
- a Quaker LEED certification program with rewards for compliance
- a campaign to destigmatize abortion
- every Meeting to adopt a voluntary one-child policy
- USA to adopt and support a one-child policy
- the top 5 issues in US presidential election reframed to show how they are all connected to the environment
- reverse the damage done by perverse US agricultural subsidies
- a worldwide Quaker earthcare statement, a spiritual grounding for earthcare
- collect the stories of Quakers and others of all faiths, to show what they are already doing to green their lives, sharing the knowledge worldwide
- food for the hungry here and in other countries
- green homes for the homeless
- prepare a welcome/relief for (inevitable) environmental refugees
- start city planning for coastal cities facing (inevitable) sea level rise
- practical support & information exchange for Quakers around the world to adapt to (inevitable) climate destabilization, finding local solutions
- international action to mitigate environmental damage (reducing greenhouse gases, saving species and habitat)
- experience the oneness with the Spirit, unity of creation, collectively know what we are to do where we live

from Robert Howell in New Zealand:
- my vision is that Quakers worldwide plan to
a) recognise the threats of climate change and related environmental degradation;
b) make the connection between the conditions and systems of ecology, economics and international governance;
c) assist 75% of Yearly Meetings by the end of 2009 to have in place steps they need to take to help Quakers in their region to mitigate and adapt to a deteriorating world (assume a 2 degrees C increase by 2030).
- contact key individuals and organisations internationally and in North America, South America, Europe, Asia/Pacific, and Africa who have similar concerns to explore their interest in mutual action and collaboration.
By the end of April 2009
- have an agreement with key individuals and organisations on an action plan that
a) identifies what are the essential changes needed to mitigate and adapt to the threats of climate change and related environmental degradation, including changes to the international economy and governance systems;
b) what needs to be done to achieve the plan;
c) how the plan is to be achieved.

Latin Americans Make the Path by Walking

Based on articles by (1) freelance writer Clifton Ross in Oakland CA Race Poverty and Environment, (2) Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone, in DollarsandSense.org

Potosi, Bolivia: photo Gerd Breitenbach
Cerro Rico, known to the Spanish conquistadores as the world's richest mine, was sacred to indigeneous Quechua as Sumaj Orko, the Majestic Mountain; it is said to have financed the growth of the Spanish empire, the building of the British Navy, the conquests of Napoleon, and the first two World Wars. It is also known as 'the mountain that eats men' where eight million natives and uncounted African slaves died. Today, the mountain is on the verge of collapsing because of the warren of mines crisscrossing its center, and every rainfall causes rivulets of toxic effluent to flow down its surface, endangering the health of the local population—over 75 percent of whom are considered poor and 45 percent, “extremely poor"... despite this atmosphere of poverty and oppression, many are turning to “green” and “cooperative” business as models for their future economies. Locals see this process as a recuperation of ancient ways. (1)

La Paz, Bolivia
Mama Naturaleza
photo © Clifton Ross
Consider, for example, Mama Naturaleza, a "green" cafe in the tourist district of Bolivia's capital. Manager Gabriela Gemio believes that with this family-run enterprise, she can restrain, if not reverse, the cycle of exploitation and environmental destruction. The furniture in the café is all made of regional pine wood, the interior is lit with low-energy light bulbs, and most of the food is organically grown on the Gemio farm, in the hills above La Paz. Lettuce and spinach are grown in greenhouses (called “walipinis”) covered with clear plastic, which maintain a relatively warm temperature even during the cold nights at 12,000 feet above sea level. To protect the plants from the intense mid-day sun, Hector has improvised a screen made up of a thin layer of dirt laid over the plastic, which is easily rinsed off when needed. Crops requiring higher temperatures are grown in underground greenhouses, called “sayari.” Hector learned agriculture from his elders growing up in Los Yungas, a semi-tropical region east of La Paz populated by the descendents of escaped African slaves from Potosi. In Los Yungas he learned to make insecticides from tobacco and llama manure...Running a truly green business in a Third World country is not easy, admits Gabriela. She cannot afford cardboard containers for packaging food which have to be imported at a cost that Gemio cannot afford. There is also the local custom of serving drinks with plastic straws. “I hate to use plastic,” admits Gemio, but she feels she has no other choice. (1)

Green jobs in Venezuela
In Venezuela, President Hugo Chavez wants to revive Bolivar's dream of a united and independent Latin America, based on the “bioeconomics” and "endogenous development" ideas of Chilean economist Osvaldo Sunkel's Development from Within. Chavez says he is moving from the “capitalism of Judas,” towards the “socialism of Jesus.” A key component of his Bolivarian revolution is the formation of green co-ops. In the last decade, over 120,000 have been funded from oil revenues.

La Matoma neighbourhood co-op repairs streets in Caracas

Chavez regularly calls on the cooperatives to share their profits with the most needy in their communities, but such calls to altruism have never really worked in any other context to effectively eliminate poverty and are unlikely to produce results even in Venezuela. Still, cooperatives based on sustainable development and an economic orientation that works with, rather than against, nature can only be seen as an improvement over what existed before. (1)

Bottom-up development by NUDES
Under Núcleos de Desarrollo Endógeno (NUDES), which translates as "nuclei of endogenous development", communities develop their own proposals. Both the leadership and the decisions come from within the community... Secondary cooperatives grow up around the primary nucleus. Campesinos in the corn-growing state of Guárico organized to share equipment and knowledge, built a mill and produced “arepas,” thick Venezuelan corn cakes. agricultural cooperative. In this "green" system of bottom-up development, a crop is grown, processed, sold, and consumed locally. Any surplus is sold to bring in cash for other necessities. (1)

Aguilas Blancas Learns to Fly
The Cooperativa Cinco Aguilas Blancas (Five White Eagles Cooperative) is named for the five snow-covered mountain peaks that surround Merida. 15 women started this cooperative internet cafe, open seven days a week with two shifts of workers per day. (Each member gets one day off per week.) They learned skills in Vuelvan Caras, the Bolivarian government's job-training program, then got a loan from Banmujer, the Venezuelan women's bank. Profits from the café have been low, and the president of the co-op, admits that most of their income comes from the Internet center. Each woman makes under $10 U.S. per day. It is difficult to imagine 15 working class Venezuelan women being able to put together the roughly $30,000 U.S. dollars they needed to start the cafe. The “easy credit” provided at low or no interest has meant that each of the women had only to invest an initial (largely symbolic) amount of 10,000 bolivares, or about $5.00 U.S. (1)

Vuelvan caras: turn your faces
Surrounded by Spaniards in the war of independence, a rebel general ordered his troops to "vuelven caras"... stop being the victim, turn and attack the enemy. The new enemy is unemployment. Zaida Rosas, a grandmother of 15, works in the newly constructed textile co-op Venezuela Avanza, employing 209 barrio women. Most were formerly jobless. Their homes on the surrounding steep hillsides in west Caracas were almost all self-built. Zaida works seven hours a day, five days a week, for $117 a month, much less than the state minimum wage of $188. The cooperativistas voted this policy "so we can pay back our [government start-up] loan," she explained regretfully. As in most producer co-ops, they are not paid a salary, but an advance on profits. "We hope our working conditions will improve with time," she said. The Ministry of Popular Economy (MINEP, now renamed MINEC) had given them small scholarships to train in cooperativism, production, and accounting. Says Zaida proudly, "My family is a lot happier—I've learned to write and have my 3rd grade certificate." Her factory is is now also part of a larger local web: two producer co-ops, both built by a local bricklayers' cooperative, that, along with a clinic, a supermarket co-op, a school, and a community center, make up a so-called "nucleus of endogenous development." (2)

Venezuela Avanza cooperative: from MR Dec 2005

Criticism of the bioeconomic model
Green coops are a strategic response to the dependent and unsustainable model of resource exploitation... critics contend that they lack managerial skills, are oil-financed, with plans imposed from above. Still, by any measure, the remaining co-ops have to be considered a stunning success because they most affect those long neglected sectors of Venezuelan society: women, minorities, and the poor.

Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, who has done field research in Venezuela, reports that up to 30 percent of the MINEP co-ops may not be economically viable. Traditional cooperatives protest that the Chavez scheme is "irresponsible and opportunistic... creates cooperatives with members who don't share the proper values and corrupts them by providing easy credit and too much paternalistic aid”. the NUDES are being "used for political agendas".

Does generous government funding of cooperatives help or hinder the consolidation of worker-ownership? If financing comes too easily, if the struggle to construct the cooperative is won in a day of paperwork, is there a danger that the members might devalue the organization and not give themselves entirely to the struggle to build a worker-owned and controlled business? Anyone who has ever worked in a cooperative recognizes the crucial importance of “worker buy-in”... Otto Fernandez, an organizer and facilitator from Chiguará, talks about the need for Venezuelans to break with a paternalistic culture developed over many years. “We're used to a Daddy government stepping in to do things for us, but we need to learn to take the initiative ourselves.” Another Venezuelan put it more bluntly: “You can't expect to build an enduring cooperative movement by throwing money at it. A moth has to struggle to get out of its cocoon… if you help it, it will die... I think the same thing is true for those of us working in the [Venezuelan] cooperatives.”Ana, from Cooperativa Cinco Aguilas Blancas, disagrees with the moth analogy. They have enough of a struggle to keep their doors open each day, and “without the loans from the government and Banmujer, we wouldn't be here.” (1)

See also Camila Piñeiro Harnecker, The New Cooperative Movement in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Process Dec 2005; Venezuela and the Hackers' Revolution blog 4 Nov 04 on open-source training; the poem Caminante no hay camino / se hace camino al andar by Spanish poet Antonio Machado; Wikipedia on Venezuela's Bolivarian Revolution and Bolivia's Evo Morales; Benjamin Dangl's book The Price of Fire.

Eating Locally in Kingston, Ontario

by Nathalie Sorensen.
Like most of us in the decades since the second world war which saw the rapid transformation of agriculture from small family farms to huge industrial agribusinesses, I was feeding my family less and less from food produced locally and more and more from food brought to us from thousands of miles away. Today it is hard to find any Canadian food in the large supermarket where I shop, let alone anything local.

Though the displays of a great variety of food from all over the world is certainly enticing (who of us can resist trying some exotic new fruit ?) eating produce which has spent days in travel is neither healthy nor appetizing. And trucking it to our town releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere which we all know must be drastically reduced as soon possible.

I recently read Barbara Kingsolver’s Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life (Harper Collins, 2007) , and was inspired to eat locally as much as possible. I grow a large vegetable garden every summer and freeze much of what I grow, but in Ontario, with our long winters, a vegetable plot is not enough.

Kingston is a medium sized university city with historical roots reaching to the early French regime in Canada. It has some fine limestone Georgian style architecture from the 1840’s. One of these is the City Hall and behind the City Hall in a newly refurbished square is the local farmer’s market, which has existed for nearly two hundred years. This colourful market provides local food all spring, summer and fall as well as local arts and crafts. Often musicians entertain the shoppers and visual artists have long documented the lively scene. But even this wonderful source of local food cannot fill all our needs.

Fortunately a local group Food Down the Road was started by National Farmers Union Local 316, to bring farmers and consumers together. On November 2, 2007, it held a Summit attended by over three hundred people. Thomas Homer-Dixon spoke on “Local Food Systems and Social Resilience”. All day there were workshops on food topics. If you are looking for local honey, for instance, the website will show the apiaries in the local area and where they sell their honey. Such networks, growing fast throughout North America, are called CSAs: Community Supported Agriculture.

Several articulate and well informed local farmers spoke at the food summit. They told how difficult it is to make a decent living on a small family farm these days. What I found remarkable and very moving was their passion for farming and their determination to make it work despite the odds against them. Establishing a viable local food system is a big step toward rewarding farmers fairly.

There is more. CSAs encourage organic farming, reduce use of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, conserve soil quality, reduce transport costs and greenhouse gas emissions. Due to corporate control, most food you buy in supermarkets is trucked 1,500-1,800 miles from chain-owned sources thousands of miles away, even when local produce is available. CSA reduces that carbon footprint 100 times!

They also encourage discussion of the 100-mile diet. But that will be another story.

Food for thought 

CRAFT Kingston (Collaborative Regional Alliance for Farmer Training in Ontario)

Emily Dowling's blog Root Radical Rows, Howe Island CSA
Br. David Andrews, Eating is a Moral Act 2002
Peter Singer and Jim Mason, The Ethics of What We Eat 2006
NFU Canada The Farm Crisis 2005, on corporate control
The Nation 11 Sep 06 issue on food summary
Foodnews.ca
Greater Toronto Local Food CSA
Local Food Plus see: principles, why local, certification
Foodforethought.net
Mark Lattanzi's Be a Local Hero CISA in western Massachusetts, other states, USDA info on CSAs
cartoon video The Meatrix y el mismo video en español

Timing and good process in community development

examples from food security: by David Stott, Food Security Coordinator, Capital Families Association, Victoria BC. email: davidcstott@gmail.com

What follows are thoughts on introducing social and economic innovations in a community -- not intended as a “how to” manual, but as personal suggestions about what may, or may not work. It is based on 30 years as a community developer but especially the last 2-3 years in Victoria BC.

Timing in the introduction of innovations is perhaps much more of an art than a science. As I have found, there are as many ways, perhaps many more, of missing the mark than hitting it. No matter how important an issue or concern may appear to the change agent, or to an organization that wishes to introduce change into a region, if the community that you are dealing with is not interested in taking part in it, it will probably be a failure, or at best, a mixed success. The most common error that I have seen is for agencies, or individuals, to decide that something needs to be done and then, because they “know best” what to do (after all, they're being paid to do it , aren't they?), go ahead and try to do it. This is understandable from an accountability context—agency X sets targets and then seeks to meet them. If they are not met, they risk losing their funding.

How then to satisfy our economic or organizational masters while meeting the needs and concerns of the community today? The wise community development practitioner will first of all, ask a few questions such as:

- Is this an “idea whose time has come” or just an idea that I/we think should be accepted? Are there any public concerns being expressed about this concern in the media, in conversations with local people, etc?
- Is this just another of many local issues and concerns? If so, how can we best present it? - Do people feel powerless to act on this concern or are they prepared to do something about it, either in their private lives or publicly?
- Which people express an interest in doing something and which either deny, ignore or complain about it but are not prepared to act on it?
- Who are seen as the local “movers and shakers” and opinion setters? How might they be involved with the process?
- Is there a need to raise public awareness and concern before people prepared to act?

In this context, I cannot overemphasize the importance of having a good understanding, appreciation and respect for the community they are working in. Get to know it—join local groups, attend meetings or gatherings of people you may be working with or whose opinions are important to the process. If you are from the community but know only part of it, involve yourself in other parts of the community, or work with people who are from those sectors. If you do not speak their language, whatever that language is, (and there are as many ways of speaking as there are communities) learn it and use it in your speaking and writing.
.
Yes, it takes time and effort, but if you don't you will not earn people's respect or co-operation. Your job should be to introduce or support the issue in a way that people can understand and relate to. I have found, for instance that initiatives I was involved with were able to raise the public profile, and with it community credibility and interest on two different concerns –- housing and food -- by holding an affordable housing fair at a shopping mall in 1997 and then by having a Homegrown Food Festival with displays, information and a pilot farmers market at a fall fair in 2006.
.
You should also support the community's choice of tactics as long as they are legal and stand a reasonable chance of being successful. Your job is not to play the expert or authority but to help where needed. Do not fall prey to your own expectations or targets.
.
One of the most common techniques used, and I have done it myself, is to do a survey to determine public interest on the topic/issue. Another is the focus group. Both can be useful and have their place, in my opinion, but can be much more effective if they are done in a way that empowers people rather than simply using them as sources of information. This means inviting people to not only express their interest, but also asking them to take part in doing it -- both as contributors to and beneficiaries of the initiative, including decision-making. Thus, for instance, with a survey we did with people at our food bank in 2006, we not only asked their opinion of what their food issues, concerns and needs were, we then invited them to contribute their own suggestions on good food sources and recipes for others.
.
Also, the survey should only ask for relevant information in a manner that is short, to the point, with appropriate language for the target audience, and above all, is respectful of them as informants. Finally, a survey can give you an indication of the potential “timeliness” of a proposed initiative in terms of the opinions of potential participants. It is more difficult, however, to determine people's preparedness to act on something based on a survey. There can be many reasons why people say they are in favour of something but then will fail to act on it—wanting to say the “right thing”, not having the time or interest to actively support it, or feeling disempowered to do anything about it. It may, however, be easier to determine this through so-called focus or sectoral groups.
.
Unfortunately most “focus groups” ask people only for information, not involvement. then not involved with the process later. This is a waste of resources and community potential. Thus our present food sustainability initiative for the Western Communities will be inviting different sectoral groups of the food chain—farmers, gardeners, marketers, consumers, municipal officials-- to meet sectorally to consider what each sector can do to increase local food production/ sales/consumption. Each will be asked to consider what it's sector needs to do to make this happen, and what support it will need from other sectors to do so. Then, together, these sectoral groups will meet, work on a joint plan, set realistic targets and work to implement them.
.
If you get a good response in terms of numbers of people offering to get involved, you know that you have a real issue. The wise community development practitioner will ask who these people are, what segments of the population they represent, and how best to involve them in the process. In a community-wide initiative you canl then work to bring these segments of the population together. If the groups or individuals are not well suited to work together or do not wish to work together you can serve as a conduit of information between them. In an initiative with a community-wide focus, however, it is wise to involve as many sectors of the population as possible in the process. In my experience, there are talkers and doers, idea people and action people—involve all of them if you can in ways that complement each other.
.
Do not attempt to “bring the whole community together” on an concern/issue, at least not at this point in time—you will find that either the response will involve only “the converted” or, if it is a hot issue, that the range of ideas, concerns and opinions will be too broad to give birth to a doable program -- subsequents meeting will draw fewer and fewer participants.
.
Finally, to get back to one of the concerns raised at the beginning: how to reconcile the initial ambiguity of “responding to community interests” with the need for “accountability” or meeting deliverables set out by funders or your sponsoring organization. I have found that, while you may need to set targets—e.g. X number of people taking part in this activity, or initiative Y achieving X amount of support or response by date Z. Nevertheless, this can be done with the proviso that the community will be invited to take part in this and should they choose not to do so, that target will not be included. With one proposal recently I got funding for up to 6 proposed initiatives that our surveys indicated people were interested in. It turned out that we were able to set and complete three targets successfully. The funders were very pleased with the results -- and later funded our proposal for further targets.
.
That's it in a nutshell. I hope this has been useful and I welcome anyone's comments or additions to it. I am thankful to the many people who have helped me in either developing or implementing what is described here, particularly Dr. Phil Bartle, InnovativeCommunities.org´s John Mitchell and Bernice Levitz Packford, but also, most especially the truly wonderful people I have had the pleasure to work with in the Western Communities over the past two years.

Green-collar heroes

"We fight both poverty and pollution at the same time," says Van Jones. The founder of Green for All, of the LA-based Ella Baker Center for Human Rights is creating “green collar” jobs in US cities. GFA aims at raising one billion dollars by 2012 to create “green pathways out of poverty” for 250,000 people. In a 5 Oct 07 interview on Living for Earth, Jones gave an example: “There's a wonderful program, which I just can't stop bragging on, called 'Solar Richment,' where they got a modest amount of money, got 20 guys—you know, low-income African American, Latino, Phillipino, one African-American woman. For nine weeks these guys got up, this young woman got up, every morning. They had to be there at nine o'clock. They had to learn these skills. Nine weeks later they did their first installation. There were local TV cameras there, solar employers were there saying, 'hey, we need workers.' And you know, the look on these young people's faces. Often these are the young men who are always seen as the villains and yet here they are, nine weeks later, African American, Latino, with the baggy pants, the hair or whatever, but they've got their work boots on, they've got their orange jerseys on, and they're doing this work. And they are the ecological heroes.”
See Green for All, article in AmericanCity.org, Van Jones video., UNEP study Green Jobs (published Sep 2008).