[p2p-research] Fwd: Doors of Perception: November 2009 - In Halifax with Antigonishts

Sun Nov 8 22:11:12 CET 2009

Sam,

you will like the different articles on what's happening in halifax,

a very important issue also of Innovations dedicated to the new energy
infrastructure, and a summary of solar tech

this is the item I would like to see a volunteer blogger for:

A SMART GRID IS A SOCIAL GRID
Echoing van der Zouwen's pointed question about who should best control new
energy systems, a special issue of the Innovations says a "new institutional
structure" is needed if emerging solutions are to be deployed effectively.
Nobel
laureate Thomas Schelling, joint editor of the special issue, proposes the
equivalent of a Marshall Plan for energy to coordinate assistance from
advanced
industrialized countries to developing countries. Another contributor, Bill
Drayton, founder of Ashoka and of Get America Working, writes that "it makes
no sense to subsidize the use of machines by keeping energy prices low while
penalizing the use of labor through payroll taxes". He urges structural
changes
in the economy "to favour people, not things".
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/userimages/ContentEditor/1256325608624/in.pdf

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Doors Report <doors-report at list.doorsofperception.com>
Date: Wed, Nov 4, 2009 at 6:02 PM
Subject: Doors of Perception: November 2009 - In Halifax with Antigonishts
To: Doors Report <doors-report at list.doorsofperception.com>

Doors of Perception Report
November 2009
In Halifax with Antigonishts

This free monthly newsletter announces Doors of Perception events, and
starts
conversations on issues to do with design for resilience. For back issues,
or to
subscribe, visit:  http://www.doorsofperception.com/mailinglist/archives.php

**** **** **** **** ****THIS MONTH'S HIGHLIGHTS Four Days in Halifax - - The
Antigonish Movement - - Citizen Assemblies - - Doomer Trades - - Ecological
Stewardship - - Spacing - - Lifeboat Workshops - - The Hub - -  The Hots - -
Urban Forests - - Power Without Energy -- Smart Grids as Social Grids - -
The
New Economics - - Design and the Green Economy - - Melons We Can Believe In
**** **** **** **** ****

FOUR DAYS IN HALIFAX
I went to Nova Scotia for "Four Days Halifax" - a time-compressed
mini-festival
whose aim was to help the city  get its hands muddy in a green economy. One
quickly felt the influence of Moses Coady, a key figure in the cooperative
movement in Atlantic Canada and founder of the Antigonish Movement during
the
30s and 40s. Coady, who helped small, resource-based communities, was a
pioneer
of what today is called asset-based community development. It's an approach
which advocates the use of skills and resources that are already present
within
the community, rather than relying on help from outside. Until the global
crisis, this philosophy was thought to be most relevant  in developing
countries
- but we are all emerging economies now. Many of Coady's innovations in
 adult
education, co-operatives, and microfinance could surely be dusted off and
re-purposed for Halifax today.
http://coadyextension.stfx.ca/people/leaders/moses-coady/

TIME COMPRESSING SOCIAL INNOVATION
Our starting point in Four Days was that many elements of a resilient
Halifax
already exist in embryonic form - but not all of them are visible in their
own
backyard. The most important preparation work was to identify these local
assets. Peter Wuensch and Rachel Derrah from Breakhouse, a Halifax a design
firm that's headed strongly into social innovation, and Joanne Mackenzie and
Sera Thompson from The Hub Halifax, duly rounded up some inspiring people
and projects.
http://4days.ca/

ONLY CONNECT
Our next step was to figure out what practical steps might help these
projects
improve and multiply. First off, we kick-started five "social innovation
charrette" teams from Nova Scotia College of Art + Design (NSCAD).
Next, we did a Dragon's Lair event in which social enterprise start-ups
pitched
their case for investment to local entrepreneurs; the pitchers included a
car-share start-up, and a chef with a roof-top herb garden. The next
evening,
a local team staged a mini TEDx conference. This was followed by a Four Days
workshop for politicians, officials and business people. Friday night there
was
a Pecha Kucha in which, inter alia, the design student teams reported back.
The final event was a street party where we exchanged stories
about who we'd met and what steps needed to be taken next.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/brianlarter/sets/72157622524944577/

CITIZEN ASSEMBLIES
One of the TEDx speakers was Peter McLeod. Inspired by Canada's first
Citizens'
Assemblies, Peter is out to "reinvent public consultation" and develop a new
provincial-municipal approach to collaborative decision-making. His group is
developing Citizens' Reference Panels whose work can vary from a
weekend-long
learning process that produces new understanding and strategic direction -
to a
year-long process that can reach difficult decisions with popular support
and
produce a clear mandate for public action.
http://www.masslbp.com/people.php

COMMUNITY COLLEGE DELIVERS DOOMER TRADES
Peak-oil doomers are fond of publishing lists of the skills that will have
value
when industrial civilization has collapsed: blacksmithing, hat-making,
baby-delivering, that kind of thing. The effect of such lists is to increase
the
anxiety of those - such as this writer - who are stronger, to put it mildly,
on
theory than on practice. So I was thrilled by our visit in Halifax to Nova
Scotia Community College [NSCC]. This remarkable organization trains 25,000
students a year in a wide array of life-critical skills: cooking, energy
sustainability engineering, ecotourism, truck repair, refrigeration, funeral
directing. NSCC offers 'journeyman diplomas'  to those who successfully
complete
an extensive combination of technical training, essential skills education,
and
practical experience in a designated trade. But the most inspiring thing of
all
about NSCC is its guiding ethos. NSCC's President, Joan McArthur-Blair, told
us
that a commitment to ecological stewardship is "not an option, but an
obligation, for every student, teacher and business partner that works with
NSCC". This is remarkable. NSCC is a major teaching and training
institution,
heavily linked to industry - and yet sustaining, regenerating, and
preserving
the earth's ecosystems are the institution's non-negotiable bedrock.

GREEN TECH TEST-BED
McArthur-Blair took us on a tour of NSCC's new building, the Centre for the
Built Environment. Opening in 2010, this $26m building is unlike unlike any
other trades and technology building I've seen. [My first job was as a
publisher's rep visiting 50 technical colleges a year all over the UK and
Ireland]. The NSCC facility is a live test-bed for green technologies - and
for
the skills needed to deploy them. The facility pays equal attention to
ecological remediation and restoration, land conservation, and biomimicry,
as
models for energy- and eco-efficiency. The building has been designed so
that
five different rooftop photovoltaic panels systems at any one time can be
compared in real-time. Other features include planted rooftops and two huge
interior biowalls, planted from floor-to-ceiling with plants that act as
natural
air filters. 50,000 cubic yards (38,000 cubic metres) of industrial debris
have
been re-used to create vegetated berms, a bio swale, a retention pond,
a one million litre rock-lined sedimentation pond, landscaped areas,
and gathering spaces.
http://www.nscc.ca/sites/CBE/

SPACING IN
Spacing is an excellent new-paradigm magazine and multi-city blog (Toronto,
Montreal, Ottawa, Atlantic (including Halifax). The blogs feature daily
dispatches from the streets of these places; they with architecture, urban
planning, public transit, transportation infrastructure - just about
anything
that involves the public realm of our cities.
http://spacingatlantic.ca/

LIFEBOAT WORKSHOPS
On a visit to Halifax's fabulous farmers market, I met a permarculture
pioneer
and teacher called Alex de Nicola. Alex has just launched a programme of
'Lifeboat Workshops' which focus on natural building. Participants build a
cob
oven & wall and, in Alex's words, "apply a lot of earth plaster". Among
other
workshops are making veggie ferments and growing great garlic.
http://www.novascotiapermaculture.net/?page_id=128

HAPPY ABOUT THE HUB
The Hub Halifax proved a fabulous base from which to run Four Days. The
availability of a well-located space supported by expert and welcoming hosts
brings a region's social ecology literally to life: our residency coincided
with
an International Herb Symposium and a B2B Expo, at the World Trade Centre,
which had a particular focus on sustainable business practices.
http://thehubhalifax.ca/

PERPLEXED BY THE HOTS
Something in the Nova Scotia air causes weird buzzwords to breed like crazy.
When I expressed an interest in facilitation skills and training, I soon
received information about groups with names like "Emergent Futures",
"Courage
Group", "Genuine Contact"  "Integral Visions", someone (or something) called
"Marquis Bureau"..... and my favourite, "Holistic Organizational
Tranformation
Inc" which I have nicknamed The Hots.

TORONTO'S URBAN FOREST
As the effects of climate change and urban heat island continue to escalate,
urban forests can provide essential cooling, shading, pollution
sequestration,
and protection from droughts and floods. The city of Toronto has set itself
a
target of 35% canopy coverage the City by 2050, but coverage in Toronto
currently stands at 17%, and it has been estimated that it will actually
decline
to 10% over the next several years as aging trees deteriorate and die. So
the
need to plant trees has never been more urgent.  An organisation called
GreenHere GreenHere works with community stakeholders on a fascinating array
of  tree stewardship and urban forestation projects. I specially like the
sound
of their tree stewardship workshops where citizens can learn about
everything
from mulching, the planting bean-yielding climbing vines, to making seed
bombs
for 'guerilla gardening' of abandoned spaces. GreenHere also trains
trainers.
http://www.greenhere.ca/GREENHERE/Reforestation_projects.html

GOOD WORK
I was much impressed by GoodWork ,"Canada's green job site". It connects
passionate, green-minded people with opportunities to contribute and be
employed. Facing reality head-on, the site advises, "rather than compete for
existing, or non-existent, jobs, why not create your own?" There's a ton of
useful information on conservation jobs, stewardship jobs, volunteers,
barter,
work exchange and other ways to do good work without having a job.
http://www.GoodWorkCanada.ca/ <http://www.goodworkcanada.ca/>

] OTHER STORIES

PLENTY OF POWER BUT NO ENERGY
Tessa van der Zouwen asks this pertinent question: "Of the total energy
usage in
the US in 2007, seven per cent was renewable energy of which just one per
cent
came from solar power. Compare this to the fact that in one hour, the sun
provides more than enough energy to supply the earth's energy needs for one
year; and in one day, it provides more energy than the world's population
could
consume in 27 years. So if we have a plentiful, universal source of energy –
why
aren't we totally solar powered?" Writing in Material Connexion's
newsletter,
van der Zouwen says one explanation is "our, to-date, clumsy and inefficient
(compared to nature at least) methods for harnessing that power". Solar
cells
have taken many years to improve their efficiency range from a mere six per
cent
in 1954 to 30 per cent by 2007. The article goes on to describe innovations
in
the shape of new materials and device structures that are "putting the means
for
energy generation in the hands of consumers rather than 'big energy'".
http://www.materialconnexion.com/Home/Matter/MATTERMagazine/TheInfinitePoweroftheSun/tabid/702/Default.aspx

A SMART GRID IS A SOCIAL GRID
Echoing van der Zouwen's pointed question about who should best control new
energy systems, a special issue of the Innovations says a "new institutional
structure" is needed if emerging solutions are to be deployed effectively.
Nobel
laureate Thomas Schelling, joint editor of the special issue, proposes the
equivalent of a Marshall Plan for energy to coordinate assistance from
advanced
industrialized countries to developing countries. Another contributor, Bill
Drayton, founder of Ashoka and of Get America Working, writes that "it makes
no sense to subsidize the use of machines by keeping energy prices low while
penalizing the use of labor through payroll taxes". He urges structural
changes
in the economy "to favour people, not things".
http://www.mitpressjournals.org/userimages/ContentEditor/1256325608624/in.pdf

THE NEW ECONOMICS
Measuring success solely in terms of money blinds us to those aspects of
wealth
that are not measurable in that way. And the way money is created, bearing
interest - so that debts have to be paid back in a way that demands
unsupportable infinite growth - is a built in driver of unsustainability in
the
economic system. What are we to do about an economic system that destroys
the biosphere for economic reasons? What would a politics based on wellbeing
be
like? David Boyle and Andrew Simms, authors of an excellent new book, The
New
Economics, propose a new approachthat turns our assumptions about wealth and
poverty upside down: Real wealth, they explain, can be measured by increased
well-being and environmental sustainability rather than just having and
consuming more things. The book is entertaining, eye-opening and very
clearly
written: do read it.
http://www.earthscan.co.uk/?tabid=74731

NOMADIC OBSERVATORY
As urban or peri-rural agriculture becomes more important for our food
security,
the fate of un-built urban spaces becomes important. The Stalker Group,
based in
Rome, continuously monitors areas around the city's margins and forgotten
urban
spaces. Two weeks back they staged an "urban action" to defend left over
agricultural spaces, 'agro romano', not yet been subsumed by speculative
housing development.
http://primaveraromana.wordpress.com/

DESIGN AND THE GREEN ECONOMY: 3.0, TOKYO
Simon Johnson, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund
(IMF),
told the US Congress last week that Japan's debt path was out of control.
Simon
warned of "a real risk that Japan could end up in a major default". This
febrile
situation added energy to the International Design Symposium held to mark
Musashino Art University's 80th anniversary. I gave a new version of my
ever-evolving talk about design and the green economy:
http://www.doorsofperception.com/archives/2009/11/high_entropy_mo.php

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