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March 2009 Blog Posts (33)

Mother Nature Down for the COUNT: PART 3—Dismantling Nature's Infrastructure

By Frosty Wooldridge

This book rivets readers via the fact that you can ‘see’ it in action today all over the planet. For example: all the news and talk shows for the past week spent hours on the tragic collapse of the I-35 bridge in Minneapolis.

As a prophetic reminder, in 1950 Eleanor Roosevelt said, “We must stop running around trying to save ourselves after a tragedy has already occurred. Unfortunately, history clearly shows that we arrive at catastrophe by failing to… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 31, 2009 at 4:46pm — No Comments

Mother Nature Down for the Count: Part 2--Global Dashboard Glowing Red with Danger

By Frosty Wooldridge

A reader commented on the first part of this book review on “Wecskaop: What Every Citizen Should Know About Our Planet”: “So you’re starting to grasp exponential mathematics! I posted where people talk about the destruction of the earth with great sorrow in their hearts.

”All I can tell them is the truth that this is the money men's world, and the money men aren't going to stop anytime soon. The human race is not going to stop its destruction of the… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 31, 2009 at 4:43pm — No Comments

Mother Nature Down for the Count: Part 1--Adding a Billion People

By Frosty Wooldridge

While driving your car, what if you noticed the oil light flashing? Within seconds, what if your temperature gauge glowed bright red? Moments later, what if the wipers failed to operate in a sudden downfall?

What would you do? Quick answer: stop the car!

If you didn’t, you would blow the engine. You might suffer a severe accident by not being able to see out the windshield. You would investigate what caused the warning lights to blink. You… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 31, 2009 at 4:30pm — No Comments

The Shadow of Money and the Transition Movement

THE SHADOW OF MONEY AND THE TRANSITION MOVEMENT

The main insights on getting unstuck and developing a clear relationship to money both as individuals and within organizations come from Vicki Robin and Joe Dominquez in their landmark 1999 book --Your Money or Your Life. This book has been translated into Chinese and French and is now impacting the world.

Vicki and several colleagues set out as young adults to empower their… Continue

Added by forrest craver on March 31, 2009 at 6:30am — No Comments

Dynamics of Movement Building

FOUR KEY DYNAMICS TO BUILDING THE MOVEMENT

The Context: Hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent over many decades by marketing consultants and nonprofit fund raising consultants, university development and endowment departments and charitable trade associations to glean the four indisputable truths of reaching the customer, the donor or the joiner of a movement and deepening that person’s commitment. The same four dynamical truths apply across retail sales, fundraising and… Continue

Added by forrest craver on March 28, 2009 at 10:24pm — No Comments

GOT MONEY?

GOT MONEY? WHERE IS THE LOW-HANGING FRUIT?

As your local transition movement builds, you will need money to rent space, produce large quantities of those recycled paper, soy bean ink flyers, give honorariums to highly skilled teachers from other regions of the country, etc.

The fastest, quickest money to raise money is not from corporations or corporate, family, private, or community foundations. Where you can go to pick the low hanging fruit is with the… Continue

Added by forrest craver on March 28, 2009 at 10:06pm — No Comments

Pueblo Chieftain article about SB80

Further details about this bills progress and what it addresses:

Friday, March 27, 2009

Rainwater collection bill clears House

Qualifying rural residents would be allowed to collect water from up to 3,000 square feet of roof.

By CHARLES ASHBY

CHIEFTAIN DENVER BUREAU

March 27, 2009 12:00 am

DENVER - Rural residents of the state could use a limited amount of water collected from their rooftops under a bill that won preliminary approval in the Colorado… Continue

Added by Dave & Betty on March 27, 2009 at 4:56pm — 1 Comment

Rainwater "harvesting" update in Colorado-

IT JUST PASSED!!!!!!!!!! –

Bill Summary - SB09-080

Authorizes the collection of precipitation from up to 3,000 square feet of a roof of a building that is primarily used as a residence and is not connected to a domestic water system serving more than 3 single-family dwellings, if the water thus collected is used for:

Fire protection; The watering of poultry, domestic animals, and livestock on farms and ranches; The irrigation of not over one acre of gardens and lawns;… Continue

Added by Dana Miller on March 27, 2009 at 9:39am — 6 Comments

Re Obama Flinches of Immigration, N.Y. Times 3/24/09:

Re Obama Flinches of Immigration, N.Y. Times 3/24/09: Popes, despots, and apparently the N. Y. Times believe in “the more the merrier” population theory. More believers, more soldiers, and more readers make the empire grow stronger.

I know a straw man when I see one. “If he (Obama) is ever going to win the battle to put 12 million illegal immigrants on the path to citizenship, he will have to confront and dismantle the core restrictionist argument: that being an illegal immigrant is and… Continue

Added by robert easton on March 26, 2009 at 1:04pm — No Comments

Developing Demonstration Projects

I just read Forrest Craver's blog posts on transition and wanted to share my thoughts along those lines. We are seeing a great deal of interest in transition and it is important to capture that interest by developing ways that the interested can get hands on involvement. I hope the Boulder Homeless Shelter Garden can be one of those ways. (See the event this Saturday March 28)

The garden is a joint project of Nice-World.org and my company, Organic Landscape Design. The land is owned… Continue

Added by David Braden on March 25, 2009 at 11:25am — 9 Comments

Local, Urban Food a Success in Brazil

Belo Horizonte, Brazil is a city that re-localized food production and reduced their infant mortality rate by more than half and benefited more than 40 percent of the city's 2.5 million population. They replaced processed, imported food in school lunches with locally grown food.

This is an excellent example of how re-localizing food production can be a tremendous success and actually does increase resilience and food security.

Check out the full article on… Continue

Added by Margaret Emerson on March 25, 2009 at 11:00am — No Comments

Six Stages of Awareness - Which One Are You In?

The moment we first heard about peak oil and climate change, we began to go through the "Six Stages of Awareness". These are similar to the stages of grief. You may go through the list and recognize yourself in one of the stages, or recognize your friends and loved ones.

The point is to recognize that you're not alone in how you feel, nor are your feelings arbitrary. These things come in stages, and what you want in a time like this is to see that the last stage is acceptance, and… Continue

Added by Margaret Emerson on March 20, 2009 at 12:37pm — 2 Comments

The Fruit tree Planting Foundation

I support the Fruit Tree Planting Foundation:
http://www.ftpf.org/index.php

Added by Jim Richardson on March 19, 2009 at 8:21pm — No Comments

U.S. Needs National Population Policy for Survival in 21st Century

By Frosty Wooldridge

The citizens of the United States face a daunting dilemma in the 21st century: too many people, too little resources and running out of water.

In a compelling essay, Boyd Wilcox, www.nationaloptimumpopulationcommission.com, authored: “National Population Policy; Justified.”

“Although its establishment may be a difficult and complicated process,” Wilcox said, “the basic concept and reasons for existence are so simple, one might easily… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 19, 2009 at 4:07pm — 1 Comment

Our Troubled Country: For Lack of Water, I'm SO Dry, I Can't Spit

By Frosty Wooldridge

“Water is essential for all dimensions of life. Over the past few decades, use of water has increased, and in many places water availability is falling to crisis levels. More than eighty countries, with forty percent of the world’s population, are already facing water shortages, while in this century the world’s population will double. The costs of water infrastructure have risen dramatically. The quality of water in rivers and underground has deteriorated,… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 19, 2009 at 4:03pm — No Comments

The Raging Monster Upon the Land: Hyper-population Growth

By Frosty Wooldridge

While Colorado and other western states stumble into the early years of the 21st century without a clue or plan—many futurists understand our greatest dilemma: hyper-population growth.

Nonetheless, it remains the most avoided, ducked, evaded and shunned topic by the media and national leaders. Yet, no matter how much we ignore it, overpopulation grows as the ‘raging monster across the American landscape.”

E.O. Wilson, famed Harvard… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 18, 2009 at 8:07am — 1 Comment

America on the Brink: Bow of the Titanic

"But because they are blind to population growth, there's one obstacle they haven't considered: the finiteness of space available on earth. The very act of using space more efficiently creates a problem for which there is no solution: it inevitably begins to drive down per capita consumption and, consequently, per capita employment, leading to rising unemployment and poverty."

Pete Murphy

Author, "Five Short Blasts"

“Captain Edward John Smith steamed the Titanic into… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 18, 2009 at 8:04am — No Comments

HOT, FLAT, AND EMPTY

When Tom Friedman speaks, people listen.

We've been listening, too.

A few weeks ago, the popular New York Times columnist came to Boulder for a public appearance at the massive Mackey Auditorium. The event was sold out weeks in advance, which was okay with me because I had no interest in attending.

However, I noticed that a number of people had been recommending that I read Friedman's new book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded. My usual response, based… Continue

Added by Michael Brownlee on March 17, 2009 at 9:50am — 2 Comments

The Transition Denver Group is now 100 members!

Yippeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!

Added by Dana Miller on March 14, 2009 at 1:01pm — No Comments

America on the Brink: Consequences of a Human Katrina

SECTION I: OVERVIEW

CHAPTER 1: CONSEQUENCES OF A HUMAN KATRINA

“The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct. To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic.”

Harvard scholar and biologist E.O. Wilson

According to Katie Couric, Brian Williams and Charles Gibson, the United States… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on March 14, 2009 at 11:15am — No Comments