Ecotopia or BUST

On Sunday I had the singular pleasure of getting to have a nice long phone conversation with Ernest Callenbach, author of Ecotopia, Ecotopia Emerging, and other books centered around ecology and creating sustainable human culture. Our conversation took us from the despair of the day, to the hope of tomorrow, and back again
The book, Ecotopia, was one of the books pivotal in giving me hope and allowing me to feel safe dreaming big.
Callenbach started writing the book as an exercise in designing individual elements of a sustainable society. Soon the project took a life of its own and became a description of a possible future that was just, sustainable and inclusive....built on interdependence and cooperation.

Ecotopia takes its place among the pantheon of inspired science fiction such as Island by Aldous Huxley, Brave new World By George Orwell, Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson, and The Dispossessed by Ursula Le Guin. The genera of science fiction offers us an art form that is simultaneously a critique of how we live today, and a glimpse of how might live tomorrow...provoking thought and sometimes action. The prevalence of the ideas elucidated in Ecotopia among Generations X and Y and the sustainability movement in general (Open Source, Culture of Collaboration, Zero Waste, Radical Democracy, Sustainable Forestry, Social Justice and more) seems like strong evidence of the power of art to clarify the shape of social change.

As Callenbach said (and I paraphrase) Art is not the catalyst of social change, it is the clarification of the ideas and needs that are causing change...a step in the process.

Ecotopia seems like quite a step indeed by giving us a vision of how we could be if we choose to be...

Some of the interesting ideas that spun out of the interview were signs of hope, and and sense of gratitude for poor souls like George Bush who make it clear that things must change.

One of our most interesting discussion points what whether or not humans need to be shaken up in order to change...and our sad consensus was was...although its the small slow movement toward change that allows that shake up to turn into something productive. (In Japanese this process is called Nemawashi)

Signs of hope we are on our way:
Co-housing
Ecovillage Movement
Bioregionalism
Gatherings like Burningman, Waterwoman, and Ecotopia.
as well as the groundswell in green design, and green business.

All of these little threads weave together to form a rich tapaestry and move us further towards the shift into sustainability. Much like Callenbach's second Novel, Ecotopia Emerging, a thousand small threads and individual people and groups are working together in startling synchronicity to push towards change.

Many of these signs are being tracked and empowered by me and other people in our co-creative journey towards: Gaia Emerging.

Open Source Ecology

Open Source RE:EVOLUTION


This is the bright iridescent future of a global sustainable village, un-tethered by the soul sucking vacuum of neoliberal globalization. Combining ecology and open source ideas, the folks at Open Source Ecology seem to have hit the nail on the head...a well articulated vision for enabling communities all over the planet to partake in global trade of information goods and services, but not be forced into the prisoner's delima of globalized corporate capitalism.
This is a template that combines with energy decent programs like the Transition Movement, policy governance paradigms like bioregionalism, and regenerative land use like permaculture design (although to do justice to both permaculture and bioregionlism it is hardly fair to classify either as anything short of radical earth-centric philosophies) This kind of open source technology and innovation is why the internet is our greatest hope for catalyzing a global transformation to a regenerative culture...and I am happy to see opensource's rich creative potential being applied to meet tangible everyday human needs.

These folks have my mind spinning off in all sorts of wonderful directions..fairly giddy and awash in potential I wonder what the next steps are. Technorati Tags: open source, bioregionalism, engineering, ecology

OH NO>>>ATACK OF THE WOO WOO

Recently read an article by a fellow permie Graham Strouts.
Yikes!

The article is mostly focused on Haranguing 'woo woo new agey hippie dippy types"

I shudder to think where the sustainability movement is going is we fall for the same divide and conquer path of alienation and infighting that has disabled the environmental movement, the left and so many other progressive attempts to change culture towards a more just ideal.

His thesis is that it is airy fairy beliefs that stands in our way form changing things for the better to avert global catastrophe.

I guess I would say the inverse...it is our beliefs that will allow us to create a regenerative culture.
And each individual and group is free to form whatever beliefs that allow them to have joy in their heart and hope in their eyes...
we've all got to work together whether we are scientists or theologians, hippies or yuppies...this is an undertaking of global significance...and attacking each other for our belief systems wont do a lick of good...I am not trying to say there aren't some serious things we need to discuss and come into shared resonance about...and powerful bids like Grahams help create the conversation...but the kind of attacking energy he is wielding to make his point will only alienate and separate people who could be allies.

I am not sure why I am using my time to write about this...perhaps to help clear a bit of the emotional energy built up in my chest after reading his blog...quite disconcerting after such a powerful and hopeful weekend to run smack up against someone who teaches permaculture that is perpetuating the kind of alienating pattern that has already caused so much damage to our society and environment.

whew...so there it is, and here I am...
If you are interested enough to link through, check out our conversation : http://zone5.org/2008/04/27/woo-woo-everywhere/

Dancing in the Streets

An Evolutionary Revolution in the rural southLike bamboo we are sprouting fast and reaching for the sky, held together by rhizomes and bending and dancing with the breeze

This weekend in the sweltering small town of Hoenwald Tennessee (nestled in the hills and hollows of the Cumberland Highland Rim) people from around the bioregion gathered for the second annual Sonnenschien Green Power Festival. Perhaps its my over-exaggerated sense of synchronicity and optimism...or my overactive visionary mind trying to weave the threads of our ecosocial tapestry into something amazing a home worthy of writing home about...
But I have the distinct feeling...a deep intuition...that the happenings of this last weekend marked a turning point...a momentous sea change for Middle Tennessee, the Cumberland Green Bioregion, The North American Continent and her peoples, and the entire globe...

The evidence of change:

Hippies dancing in the street to "Play that Funky Music White Boy" in a town that not two years ago had a law baning dancing int he streets.

This singular piece of evidence alone is worthy of some serious consideration...but when combined with the plethora of other signs of change the evidence for evolution...revolution is overwhelming..
Indeed as my friends the Natty Bees sing: "The peaceful revolution's started yeah its already here"
and dancing in the streets is the first sing of the deep sea change on our planet and in our hearts.

So what does that mean? What does dancing in the streets in a small southern town have to do with creating a just and sustainable world?

Stay tuned for: Living well in the age of global weirding and I will try to explain my hopelessly hopeful outlook on gaia emerging with a little more detail and a little less---pure unadulterated exuberance.