The Symbiosis Project » Blog Archive » The future belongs to those who tell a better story. This is a true story. It all starts one week from today. After reading about it on the internet, a single person in a neighborhood in Portland, OR, decided to start a community beer-brewing co-op. He gathered a group of eight neighbors, and together they bought the equipment to brew 30 gallons of beer for $500. They went up and down 3 blocks, and found 45 people who also wanted to drink and brew beer with them. It turned out that everyone in the community was strapped for cash, so everyone just paid the minimum amount, $30 a month, and even still they collectively raised $1350! During the discussion, one thing that kept coming up is that everyone felt they were paying too much for internet. By the third month, they had raised $1000 from the second month, $1000 from the third, and were now collectively saving $1000 a month on internet. Sharing food and cars and beer (not all at the same time) eventually brought the community close enough to start talking about hard topics.
L'agroécologie par des exemples, de la théorie au terrain Solagro a encadré en 2008 un groupe d'étudiants de l'ENSA Toulouse. Leur mission ? La vulgarisation de l'agroécologie, un concept bien défini dans le monde de la recherche mais peu dans celui de la profession agricole, même si des agriculteurs font de l'agroécologie depuis longtemps, parfois sans le savoir. Focus sur deux systèmes "agroécologiques" L'agroforesterie La polyculture élevage Focus sur deux pratiques "agroécologiques" La rotation des cultures Le semis direct Focus sur quatre exploitations agricoles de Midi-Pyrénées Ferme AbadieFerme DupouyFerme Beziat Ferme Porterie Ce que nous retenons de leur travail ? Nicolas Amalric, Marike Brezillon, Chafin Faïq, Eve Roubinet, Marie Schroeder, Abel Tite se sont engagés avec enthousiasme dans ce projet.
Weekend Series Permaculture Design Course in Columbus, Ohio | relocalize.net Post Carbon Institute promotes the strategy of - building strong local communities to increase resilience. what is relocalization? Relocalization is a strategy to build societies based on the local production of food, energy and goods, and the local development of currency, governance and culture. The main goals of relocalization are to increase community energy security, to strengthen local economies, and to improve environmental conditions and social equity. In 2009 Post Carbon Institute partnered with the international Transition movement to support and inspire community led responses around the relocalization strategy. what is transition? A Transition initiative is a community-led response to the pressures of climate change, fossil fuel depletion and increasingly, economic contraction. Transiton US is a nonprofit organization that provides inspiration, encouragement, support, networking, and training for Transition Initiatives across the United States.
Peer-to-Peer Economy Thrives as Activists Vacate the System Eric BlairActivist Post The Occupy Movement recently celebrated its second anniversary with very little fanfare leaving many to wonder where all the activists went. It seems they, and many anti-establishment activists, are vacating the system rather than occupying it. Progressives may call it the "sharing economy" while Libertarians may refer to it as Agorism - a "society in which all relations between people are voluntary exchanges by means of counter-economics, thus engaging in a manner with aspects of peaceful revolution." Whatever it's called, together, they're opting out of the current socioeconomic matrix and creating a new alternative economy where trading occurs peer-to-peer and increasingly without government-issued currency. It's a space where mutual trade occurs without burdensome taxes, regulations, or licenses. Websites like Ebay and Craigslist first made it possible for individuals to sell things or offer services online. The Economist describes this movement as follows:
Learn About :: World Without Oil ENTER THE ARCHIVE, WEEK 1: Relive the Oil Crisis of 2007. Start at Week 1, then use the WWO Time Machine (at the page top) to jump week to week and to exit the archive. ... “If you want to change the future, play with it first.” STEFANIE OLSEN, C|NET WORLD WITHOUT OIL is a serious game for the public good. ... WORLD WITHOUT OIL simulated the first 32 weeks of a global oil crisis. ... When WWO concluded on June 1, 2007, its detailed vision of a possible future, expressed in 1,500 personal chronicles posted across the Web, had immersed 68,000 viewers (over 110,000 by year end). ... No one today has a clear picture of oil availability or what will happen when demand inevitably outstrips supply. By playing it out ‘for real’, WWO evoked collective intelligence and the wisdom of crowds in advance. ... WWO didn’t only “raise awareness” about oil dependence. ... WWO’s greatest success may be: it was engrossingly, breathtakingly fun. ... ...
Consilience: The Blog - Consilience: The Blog - Deconstruction: Vital side of sustainable development Deconstruction: Vital side of sustainabledevelopment Tuesday, October 27, 2009 at 9:35AM Introduction by Grant: This guest blog is by Toni Renee "TR" Vierra of eco-Organize in Napa, California. She is a green building advisor, educator, radio host and active green building organization leader. Most often we address the construction side of sustainable development but neglect the "deconstruction" side of infill development. Building Green from the Ground Upby eco-organize LLC As we look toward a future with mandatory Green Building Ordinances in California and elsewhere, one critical construction component is often overlooked - - site preparation. Toni Renee Vierra, LEED-AP,is Founder and President of eco-Organize LLC. eco-Organize provides green building and business advice to property owners and the building community.
Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function The poor often behave in less capable ways, which can further perpetuate poverty. We hypothesize that poverty directly impedes cognitive function and present two studies that test this hypothesis. First, we experimentally induced thoughts about finances and found that this reduces cognitive performance among poor but not in well-off participants. Second, we examined the cognitive function of farmers over the planting cycle. Lacking money or time can lead one to make poorer decisions, possibly because poverty imposes a cognitive load that saps attention and reduces effort. Alerte Environnement ou l'information décryptée sur l'environnement et les médias Green at City Scale | GOVERNING Over the past decade, green building has moved out of the fringe and into the mainstream. LEED Gold and Platinum buildings are becoming commonplace in both public and private buildings. Now Portland, Oregon, is going one step further. As part of an evolving "eco-district" policy, city leaders aim to move beyond the design of individual structures to focus on greening entire neighborhoods. The idea is to pool resources among buildings to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and improve energy- and water-use efficiency. "Green buildings are pretty far along, but if you really want green cities, you have to look at whole systems," says Eric Ridenour, an associate with SERA Architects. At first glance, the eco-district framework, outlined in an eight-page city document, reads like a rehash of Sustainability 101: yet another plan to create green jobs, encourage smart growth and catalyze renewable energy development. Portland isn't the only city scaling up its green-building practices.
Human friendship favours cooperation in the Iterated Prisoner's D MyBook is a cheap paperback edition of the original book and will be sold at uniform, low price. Buy this article Price: $30.00+ Tax (if applicable) [In the last decades, many studies have attempted to analyse the factors that may favour the evolution of cooperation. The Living Landscape: How to Read It and Understand It - Patrick Whitefield - Google Books Patrick Whitefield shares a lifetime’s knowledge of the myriad interactions that go to make up the fascinating and varied landscapes we see all around us. He will inspire you to reconnect with the land as a living entity, not a collection of different scenery, and develop an active relationship with nature and the countryside. The Living Landscape opens with a chapter on how to go about reading the landscape. The following chapters then go on to look in detail into landscape formation, from rocks, through soil, to vegetation, and the intricate web of interactions among plants, animals, climate, and people that makes the landscape around us. This book invites you to engage actively with nature and experience it firsthand.