Open Source: Regenerative Revolution

The edge of Regenerative Design and Development is surfing the wave of the open source movement:


Phrases like: Power Hacker, Open Source Ecology, and Financial Permaculture show how uncommon synergy can be generated by the combination of ideas usually isolated across barriers of culture. Moving towards a creative commons is a strong thread in the tapestry of sustainability being woven by actionists, social entrepreneurs and the REgeneration.

I am especially excited by the growth of pyrolysis and biomass energy as a viable, decentralized alternative to the grid or diesel generators. Simultaneous with innovations in the combination of pyrolysis technology and Stirling engines is the rapid and agile deployment of open source alternatives to patented technology. Potentially this puts enough carbon negative power at the hands of any community around the globe to have a computing station linked into the global Peer-to-Peer internet and economy. This will blast open the previously locked and guarded doors of the global marketplace, allowing every community to define its terms: trade on the global carbon market for carbon sequestered by the energy system running the computing stations and other basic infrastructure becomes a way for everyone to have access to a currency that has global value that is not manipulated by a small group of (arguable insane) bankers.

Let me explain why it is so important to open source green energy technology, and why that is a strong step towards a sustainable and just future for humans and our mother earth:

As I write this, the "green bubble economy" is being built by the same business people and neoliberal apologists see pic----->

who gave us the three economic bubbles I remember: The Housing and Loan bubble, the .com bubble and the most recent clusterf@#k that ended with the nationalization of the banking system. This kind of economic strategy centralizes power and wealth into the hands of few. Although I disagree with the very idea of a green energy bubble, some of what Friedman is saying makes sense: Garage inventors...what turns this rapid prototyping away from just another bubble economy and into something of global significance as we work towards REAL sustainability and justice, is open source development. Open Source takes us beyond the centralization of knowledge and its use as a tool of control...

This kind of centralization is dangerous in today's world for several reasons:

• It serves to create massive upheaval during which time currency is consolidated into the hands of those who can weather the storm. This phenomena is well documented and has been re-capitulated in cycles over the course of industrialized capitalism. The latest times are the three bubbles of which I am speaking right now.

• Our world is becoming smaller and more turbulent. Climate change and resource depletion serve to create a complex system where feedback loops need to be kept small and manageable. Centralization of currency, and therefore decision making power, into cloistered enclaves on bankers and financiers in the first world serves to dismantle the ability to generate local solutions.

• Agile solutions are needed to address complex environmental, cultural and economic issues. These solutions need to be collaboratively designed by local people to have best fit to the situations. They also need to be woven together with common parameters and communication into a global matrix of sustainability.
  

To address the issues brought up by centralization of economic and political power, grassroots movements like the transition movement are needed. AND we also need to move rapidly towards energy solutions that enable continued global communication and interconnection so that our cultural evolution can meet the swiftly emerging demands for interdependence on a global scale. This means:

P2P economy
Complimentary Currency
Open Source Energy
Sustainable Trade Networks
Slow Food



If we open source energy alternative and educate and empower local groups to choose the correct fit for their environmental and cultural circumstance we take powerful strides away form the culture of consumption that the 1st world has been pursuing, we give the 2nd/3rd world the ability to define terms and participate in an equal way in the material comforts of a post-modern world, and we automatically deconstruct the centralized system that is symbolized by grid power run off of huge coal plants (or windmill farms for that matter).
In this way we can create a global culture of production and conservation: empowering people to raise their voices into the poly vocal mosaic of a globalized knowledge commons where diversity (biological and cultural) are valued more highly than the monotonous homogenization that we are currently marching towards.

Slow Everything

Lately things have been slowing down here at the Ecovillage Training Center where I am living.
And I cant seem to adapt...I am addicted to quickness and check my emails, spin my wheels, and seem to stress myself out just so I can feel the familiar clinch of muscles in my shoulders...
like the hands of a loved one squeezing my shoulders with affection, my tenseness is like a security blanket reminding me I am working hard and doing something right...not lazy...nose to the grind stone...
Well now more than ever I am having a visceral experience of the NEED to slow down...enjoy this quiet time of reflection and contemplation. It is winter and there is no harvest to bring in...only the slow meditative process of planning a new year...
In honor of my need to slow down the universe seems to have sent me (via a friend) a TED talk reminding us of the importance of slow.

What Carl Honore is reporting about is as important of a trend as the P2P, opensource, powerhacking, permacultural revolution that is creeping into the world of international development.
Slow Food, Slow Money and Slow Trade all offer us a glimpse into a healthier world...and it starts with zone zero...

Climate change and Food Security Manifesto

I just read the Manifesto on climate change and the future of food security

It is an amazing document that addresses many of the issues facing our world as climate destabilizes and globalized food networks are threatened by drought, soil loss and social injustice. It is a great step forward in creating the potential for localized resilient food systems that put people and planet before profit...and being a good Gaian Anarchist I have some critiques to add into the mix:
Before giving it any endorsement and an individual or organization I would offer the following critique:

In several places it gave problem statements with no solution (when solutions exist). For instance, it railed against industrial agrofuels. I think we could all agree that industrialized agriculture has a fatal flaw.....but apparently no one on the committee researched permafuels as a solution. So, this kind of simplistic documentation leads people to shy away from considering biochar, ethanol and biodiesel produced as a co-product of a diverse multi-yield system that maintains diversity and builds soil...
without talking about a solution a problem just becomes a psychic burden on those who read it.

The document would become much better with the small addition of a SOLUTION to energy that is different from industrial biofuels....just one little section on localized production of biofuels as a co-product of the working ecological farm would have done the trick. The policy shift away from agrofuels is also a little scary because it potentially disallows start up and research funds for solutions...I agree that most of that money will get dumped down the dead end of big business "solutions", however it is nearly impossible to bootstrap energy and food alternatives without funding from centralized sources (e.g. subsidies). We wont get very far without some serious funding at our backs...(currency is energy and attention)...and without either solutions are doomed to fail.

I think If we have access to some of the editorial committee for the Manifesto (I Know Vandana Shiva is on the editorial board and Gaia U's Advisory Board) it would be worth putting together a Gaian group to make some suggestions because this document falls short as a manifesto of regenerative action on climate change and food security. But, luckily if we step up to our responsibility as citizens of Earth and raise our concerns while honoring the hard work, good intention and expertise that went into this document, we can help make it better and increase its chances to have positive change.


So in an effort to take my own advice:
Problem: The Manifesto on Climate Change and Food Security outlined the problem of industrial agrofuels without outlining a solution.
Solution: Outline the possibilities of decentralized biofuels as a co-product of diverse, resilient multi yield permaculture systems and send that to members of the editorial committee of the document.

I am up for working on that if anyone else is....

Permi revolution dressed in a suit and tie

The end of the Financial Permaculture course in Hohenwald, TN last week was quite an event.

It is not often that you see the convergence of Finance and Permaculture
in an intentionally designed forum. More often than not the two are
butting heads and pointing fingers.

It is also not often that Permaculture enters the mainstream, dressed in a suit and tie (in the US at least), and designs are presented to State Senators, representatives from the USDA and prominent business people. Less often still is an event co-designed by a group of powerful local women who call in a group of international supporters to help pull things off (who happen to be, for the most part male). And rarest of all is a permaculture design that is lauded by those city and state officials
in attendance as a "well articulated vision for where we need to be
going". This was quite an event indeed.

Panelists in attendance included:
Sen. Doug Jackson, Tennessee State Senator
Rep. Joey Hensley, State Representative
Robbie Moore, Bank of Lewis County
Tracy Lomax, South Community Bank
Becky Newbold, Lewis County Herold
Kyle Holmberg, Dept of Agriculture
Faye Rodgers, USDA Rural Development

and a host of other local and regional leaders.

The panelists saw and heard presentations on four business plans that
focused on meeting the needs of the local community in a sustainable
and social responsible manner. Those businesses were: Green Business
Incubation, Sonnenschein Energy Farm, Community Kitchen, and a
Cooperative Building Supply store.
The business plans for all of the proposed businesses are available on the financial permaculture wiki

And now Financial Permaculture is enjoying quite the revival as it spins and echos around the Internet. Following its trail I ran across such amazing and regenerative ideas as Peer 2 Peer computing and economics, a recently won Bucky Fuller Award. These echos are really strong, independent and vibrant bids for planetary regeneration, and the overlap and interconnection shows that the world is getting smaller and even six degrees might not separate Kevin Bacon from a permaculturist for long, and small towns like Hohenwald Tennessee and Totnes England are bounding out ahead to show us a path towards grassroots solutions to our most deeply rooted environmental and social issues

ahum...well stirring (and confusing) prose aside...as one of the organizers, I am very happy with the way things turned out during our financial permaculture course. There will be re-evaluation and re-design to be sure...but what a stunning and bold success!

Kudos to the Financial Permaculture Steering Committee and all the folks involved in making it a success.

Re-published at the Financial Permaculture Blog