I just got back from Solfest in Ukiah, the greenest show on earth. Truly a green festival, not perfect but with good intentions and lots of great people involved. I came there with inspiration to share with others and left with more than I arrived with.
I helped Waste Busters, make an attempt at zero waste. We sorted the waste from the festival and diverted around 90% of the waste from the landfill! Working with eRECICLAJE and Felipe Rrague we took some of the trash that would end up in the landfill and turned them into portable landfill devices (PLD). A PLD is a way of diverting non-recyclable and non-compostable waste from the landfill. It’s simple, innovative and awesome. You fill plastic bottles with trash and use them for “bricks” and mortar them into a structure. Once you seal the bottles inside cob or cement they are protected from UV.
So many grass roots movements were represented: transition town, slow food, zero waste, Permaculture, biodynamics, etc., and one I’m really excited about is aquaponics. Max Meyers has got it down, I hope to get him up here one day to set up an aquaponic system at a local school. So many things to implement here, time to get going.
So what will I be doing in the month of October? I’m doing everything I can to acquire the skills needed to help shift our region into living more sustainable. Permaculture is the path I am choosing as it is a design system that looks at all the parts in a system and puts them together appropriately. It is about working with nature rather than against it. In nature there is no waste. In this region there are tremendous amounts of waste. By creating waste and then having to transport it around we are creating even more waste. We are living in a degenerative system. On the contrary regenerative systems see “waste” as a resource. Regenerative systems use the idea of feedback loops to enhance and increase abundance of a system. A simple feedback loop can be seen at many home gardens. You pick your vegetables and eat them, then the leftovers and scraps go to the compost, which eventually ends up in your garden where you pick your vegetables once again, and the cycle continues. This is a very simple feedback loop but we can design very diverse and complex systems that use feedback loops to enhance and increase abundance. We are only limited by our imagination and our understanding of patterns inherent in regenerative systems.
We can apply this knowledge to our homes, businesses, schools, communities and so on. It is up to us to begin to recognize our connection to degenerative and regenerative systems. Once we begin to recognize these systems we can make the choice to support regenerative systems and abandon degenerative systems.
So what am I doing to accelerate this change? I write this article to offer new perspectives. I consult and design for people who want integrative systems. I am creating a demonstration site that will be one of the premier demonstration sites in the region. An education curriculum is being developed for the Love Creek Center for Permaculture. I am also currently working on being able to educate using Socratic dialogue, which engages students into critical thinking. And then I am going to glue it all together by starting a masters program in Integrative Ecosocial Design. I begin my Master’s program on October 7th. I will be returning with my own self-guided project(s) to work on over the next two years, the direction and purpose of my projects will be to
enhance the sustainability of our locale.
I see lots of work to be done and not much of it getting done. There are tremendous amounts of opportunity here and I am going to help people become aware of it. We have the opportunity and ability to make great positive change. Each and every one of us can act to make change. Our actions do matter, because collectively we can have a great impact. If you want to see the impact of your own action having a great impact with others just make a pledge to be part of the global day of action on 10/10/10. You can check 350.org for more information on local actions. We can make a difference and we will make a difference.
