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October 2010 Blog Posts (20)

Ecotech Institute Rolls Out New Programs and Policies to Benefit Active Military and Veterans

Ecotech Institute, the first and only college focused entirely on preparing America’s workforce for careers in renewable energy and sustainable design, today announced new school policies that will give active military, veterans and family members greater access to the school’s green collar job training and development programs.

Ecotech Institute, which is accredited by the Accrediting… Continue

Added by Crystal Thomas on October 28, 2010 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Strategic Goals

To create an ideal world, we should work toward all of the following strategic goals:

Transitioning to entirely renewable energy and reusable materials
Eliminating pollution both at the source and in the environment
Emphasizing service more than attainment of personal power
Re-humanizing our relationships with each other and the rest of Nature

For a healthy, sustainable society, material consumption should be kept to no more than the… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 26, 2010 at 10:30am — No Comments

PART 4: WHAT CONSTITUTES OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA? LACK OF ENOUGH WATER!

By Frosty Wooldridge

Re: Colorado NPR report—“11.5 billion gallon shortage annually predicted” 12/1/09

Ironically, everyone demands cleaner air, but don’t stop growth. Stop gridlock traffic, but don’t touch growth. Stop species extinction, but never end growth. Let’s stop climate change, but leave growth alone. Stop acid rain, but don’t stop growth. Work on alternative energy, but don’t stop growth. We insist on lower energy and water prices, but don’t stop growth and… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on October 21, 2010 at 5:00pm — No Comments

PART 3: WHAT CONSTITUTES OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA? SPECIES EXTINCTION ACCELERATING

By Frosty Wooldridge

As the United accelerates toward adding another 100 million people within 25 years, its citizens neglect growing consequences easily witnessed in other overpopulated countries. Americans assume they can continue unlimited expansion because, “We’ve always considered growth as the mainstay of our prosperity.”

Thus, Americans think ‘endless increase’ as a normal aspect of their daily lives. Their paradigm cannot and will not be tolerated by Mother Nature… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on October 21, 2010 at 4:24pm — No Comments

PART 2: WHAT CONSTITUTES OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA? EXCEEDING CARRYING CAPACITY

By Frosty Wooldridge

Little known and always avoided, the United States faces THE single greatest issue of its existence in the 21 st century. "What is it?" you ask. Top environmental experts respond, "Overpopulation!" We ignore, evade and suppress this issue at every level in America. Innumerates as defined by Dr. Albert Bartlett, ( www.albartlett.org) insist we can grow forever without any consequences. Citizens pursue their daily tasks… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on October 21, 2010 at 4:22pm — No Comments

PART 1: WHAT CONSTITUTES OVERPOPULATION IN AMERICA? SUSTAINABILITY

By Frosty Wooldridge

Little known and always avoided, the United States faces THE single greatest issue of its existence in the 21st century. “What is it?” you ask. Top environmental experts respond, “Overpopulation!” We ignore this issue at every level in America. Citizens pursue their daily tasks without understanding the ramifications of this civilization adding another 100 million people within 25 years, and doubling to 600 million people within 60 to 70 years. (Sources: PEW… Continue

Added by Frosty Wooldridge on October 21, 2010 at 4:20pm — No Comments

Goals in Education

I recently started applying for a part-time job helping high school kids prepare for standardized tests used for entering college. As I worked through the application, I remembered the lessons of the years I spent as an educational consultant, which directly contradict the entire idea of such competition as a valid method in education.

Competition, by itself, is not a bad thing: it's a tool for reaching an objective. Like our economy, the objective is for people to gain more personal… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 20, 2010 at 1:30pm — 1 Comment

Cold frame project

Heilsa, Fellow Transitioners,

I was reading a great article in _Colorado_Gardener_ for thier harvest edition on school gardens which in and of itself is a great transition idea. They had some nice pictures of raised beds with framing, which I assume is used for either plant protection and/or climbing, which were made of pvc (yes, I know,…

Continue

Added by Devin Quince on October 19, 2010 at 6:30pm — 7 Comments

Imagining the Future: Meeting Needs

In an ideal world, everyone would be able to meet their needs without resorting to use of non-renewable resources. The easiest way to do this would be to use the free services of their local ecosystems. When populations can't do this, they have several options: They can find a way to live on less, grow the ecosystem, expand their territory, move, or trade something they don't need for what they need.

Living with less can be done by changing choices of food and materials (to get more… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 18, 2010 at 8:30am — No Comments

Convergence

As I discussed in “Fatal Flaw,” there are two basic approaches to avoiding catastrophe as a result of our accelerated pillaging of the biosphere. One is to fix the way our economies run, and the other is to develop smaller communities that interact in healthy ways with Nature. In reality, both approaches are currently being tried.

In my “Imagining the Future” posts, I've described my own criteria for an ideal world and speculated about how they might be realized. This generally… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 15, 2010 at 12:41pm — 3 Comments

Fatal Flaw

The artificial ecosystems we call economies developed so we could gain more personal power, without having to give anything back to the rest of the natural world (and, to a growing extent, each other). Knowledge translated into tools (technology) that could enhance this power through access and processing of “raw materials” – the lives and life-blood of the biosphere – to create environments under our direct control. Social manipulation, enhanced by communications technologies, allowed people's… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 13, 2010 at 12:00pm — No Comments

The Little Greenhouse That Could

I’m a spoiled kept woman on top of a mountain. Ever since my husband, Cord, and I built our first sustainable greenhouse out of 90% reclaimed materials on the very peak of our mountain, I have reigned as queen. Thirteen years later it is still rocking out food 365 days a year. We turned materials headed for the landfill into organic, year-round food for our family and friends.

Stored water as thermal mass does all the work. All you need is sun and, boy, do we have it here in the west.… Continue

Added by Denver Botanic Gardens on October 12, 2010 at 3:30pm — No Comments

The Dark Side of Solar Power

[Note: A version of this essay first appeared in the “How do we approach Sustainability?” discussion in the Ecological Society of America group on LinkedIn.com.]

I recently learned of a plea by an ecologist to oppose plans for large scale development of solar power in the deserts of the U.S. which could do great harm to the species that occupy those areas, including many that are already threatened or endangered.

There are two primary drivers for this development: the need… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 12, 2010 at 11:58am — No Comments

Imagining the Future: Social Units

In a simplified model of an ideal world, we would have units of population that could meet my basic criteria:

Everyone can at least meet their basic needs (food, water, clean air, shelter, clothing, health care, safety)
Everyone has basic freedoms (speech, association, mobility, access to accurate information)
No one is contributing to species extinctions, including ours

What might these “social units” look like?…

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Added by Brad Jarvis on October 12, 2010 at 10:43am — No Comments

Added Value

I was recently reminded of Adam Smith's “invisible hand” of the market, which is supposed to enable society to benefit from people acting purely based on their economic self-interest. The point of the comment was that if businesses use the so-called “triple bottom line,” then they can have economic growth that benefits society and the environment.

Traditionally, the value of a business is measured in monetary terms as the difference between what it owns and others owe it (its assets)… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 8, 2010 at 2:23pm — No Comments

Imagining the Future: Enforcement

It's easy to expect that the minimum conditions for my ideal society, stated in “Imagining the Future,” would be enforced by some agent of the society resembling today's governments. I'm not inclined to automatically assume such a thing, especially since centralized control of society (either by governments or by large businesses) has just as poor a record of success as individual autonomy (anarchy). Nor am I willing to assume that the best approach necessarily exists along the continuum… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 6, 2010 at 9:30am — No Comments

Model For New Local Foods System

I found this link to a unique business model that, according to Joel Salatin, could be an example for others to follow in helping to create new local food systems all across the country. This particular business is in Oklahoma. Here is the link:… Continue

Added by David Muhl on October 5, 2010 at 12:08pm — 5 Comments

Moving on

I have moved from Colorado to Honesdale PA to work with the Himalayan Institute on their home campus. The Institute has a number of overseas projects, and is working on reducing it's carbon footprint in PA. The institute also has a garden training program, that runs over the summer months, and combines Yoga, Meditation and gardening. As with other non profit groups our vision is larger that our current resources; anyone interested in learning more can look at the Institute web site, or contact… Continue

Added by Patrick Donlon on October 5, 2010 at 11:00am — No Comments

Imagining the Future

Imagining the future, one persistent vision is my chronicling of humanity's execution of our planet. To some extent I seem to be fulfilling that vision. I know that somehow I need to develop a different vision, a positive one that can both change my attitude and attract others. None of the options I've read about have had that effect; if anything, they make me feel more depressed than I may already be.

I've often stated my most basic criteria for a positive future, but seldom in… Continue

Added by Brad Jarvis on October 4, 2010 at 5:30pm — No Comments

Fermentation Station: Kimchi, Yogurt and Kombucha

Somewhere in the jungles of Indonesia, soybeans wrapped in banana leaves are curing into soft, tart tempeh. In backyards across the Korean peninsula, families faithfully set their spiced seasonal vegetables into kimchi pits underground. In Ethiopia, ground teff grain…

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Added by Denver Botanic Gardens on October 2, 2010 at 2:00pm — No Comments