A friend recently pointed out that, "Your lone eco village simply can't isolate itself from the rest of society. If disaster strikes you'll suffer like everybody else."
Point well taken! I never envisioned that there should be only one eco village or one habitable greenhouse, for that matter. First, my idea was to show people that sustainable alternatives exist and to give them a shot at surviving. Second, eco-villages are for people to live sustainably and peacefully and to learn from the mistakes society at large has been making. Third, I think for sustainable communities to be feasible they need to be able to include people from all walks of life.
However, unless the sustainable movement grows substantially and gets around to really networking, all the eco villages, which are around right now, will go down the drain with everybody else, if there's going to be a collapse of society as we know it and of the ecosphere as well.
OBJECTIVE
~ A well-designed and working eco-community is part of the paradigm shift and has the potential to encourage others to start similar communities ~
Ideas, suggestions, feedback, criticism? Please let us know! Yahoo! Groups - Eco Communities Work in progress :)
FIRST STEPS
WHAT'S NEW?
LOCATION REQUIREMENTS
Safe locations and regions likely to undergo changes
Safe locations:
Regions likely to undergo changes:
FOOD SUPPLY
Fruits and vegetables to store during winter:
How and where to store:
HT get organic, non-GM seeds:
OTHER NEEDS - AMENITIES, BUILDINGS, LIVESTOCK, PEOPLE, TRANSPORTATION
Building types:
People:
Animals:
Energy:
Amenities:
Appliances:
Communication - how to stay in touch with each other and sister communities:
Vehicles:
Trade:
LINKS
ADDITIONAL THOUGHTS, QUESTIONS & CONCERNS (in order of relevance)
Investment and/or membership charges
Time frame
Different types of eco comunities?!
Local vs. global economy and trading
Sustainable communities - a cross section of society
Economics: The economics of operating in the present system mean that people are likely to contribute unequal finances for equal shares in the land. Perhaps a system could be incorporated where those who can afford larger plots pay a higher rate for community labor than those with smaller plots. This would encourage people to think more in terms of need rather than desire and to redistribute assets within the community. What about capable and dedicated people without any money?! Of course, the ideal solution is an altruistic "common purse" renunciation of private assets. This, owever, requires a high level of trust that can perhaps not always achieved...
Co-housing, a special case?! Co-housing often seems to be somewhat bourgeois in their planning with architect designed structures and all modern amenities, meaning that the rich get a lot of space, the middle class gets apartments and the poor nothing. Here it might therefore be a good idea for the initial investment to be purely in land and for the construction not outsourced from the community.
'Safe locations'
Protection from severe weather and atmospheric changes, etc.
Building materials
Conservation and preservation issues
Technology
Defense issues
Additional ideas, suggestions, criticism? Please drop me a line!
To establish sustainable and largely self-sufficient eco communities that:
a) Create largely self-reliant sustainable economies (example: Ecovillage Findhorn: Sustainable Economics)
b) Accept barter, IOUs, etc. besides money (example: Ecovillage Findhorn: Complementary Currency & LETS Scheme)
c) Utilize organic and bio-dynamic gardening and farming methods
d) Generate decentralized, clean and sustainable energy (example: Ecovillage Findhorn: Renewable Energy Systems), water supply and treatment
e) Establish people's governments and citizen's juries (example: Ecovillage Findhorn: Inclusive Decision-Making Processes)
a) Find a group of dedicated people
b) Discuss decision making processes
c) Try to get a sense of whether the group members will get along with each other
d) Develop some preliminary or basic plan
e) Find sponsors and financial supporters...
These steps will likely run parallel to some degree
Stephen, 06-21-05: 1940s Country Home in Quebec, Canada and 20 acres around it that can be bought for 100K or less
The Guardian 05-29-05:
Towns on the Great Plains ... offer free land to 'outsiders' to stem long decline!
Carole 04-30-05: the Niho Cattle Company, BC, Canada, sells land that used to be used for cattle grazing, so it's much cheaper than the regular land. Usually there is no electricity, or roads into the land, but sometimes there are old log houses/cabins on them. We can make payments if we could get everyone together on it and see what we can come up with.
Clean energy
Tom Bearden 01-19-2005: Once research and development is completed, we are in direct position to scale-up and design MEG (Motionless Electromagnetic Generator) units at a variety of power levels, etc. and go into production engineering for producing real MEG power systems and marketing them widely.
a) Sufficiently high above sea level (rising sea levels due to melting glaciers and polar ice)
b) In a seismically quiet zone
c) Near a body of water such as a lake, a river, etc. or groundwater (provided it replenishes itself)
d) Probably in a mountainous region for some protection against storms and hurricanes, and quarrying stone for building construction
e) In an area with enough wind and/or sunshine year-round for energy generation (barring ZPE and other O/U devices)
e) With nearby grassy areas for farm animals such as sheep, cows, horses, etc. and arable soil for growing produce
f) Near a forest for building materials
Coastal areas likely to get inundated by rising sea levels
Example: the Majuro Atoll in the Pacific Marshall Islands - if sea level rises 20 inches then 80% of the Majuro Atol will be under water!
Note: I extensively googled for a list of low-lying ares worldwide and a map of coastal areas affected by rising sea levels - nothing. If anybody has info on these issues please let me know.
Carole: the center of BC, Canada is supposed to be the safest place once the coast drops off of LA to San Diego according to Gordon Scallion.
a) The United Kingdom and Europe: this article in Whitley Strieber's Unknown Country Scientists Confirm Unexpected Gulf Stream Slowing warns that the UK and Europe may get much colder within the next few years.
b) ...
I'll add more info as I get it.
HT grow organic produce:
a) Contact the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA) for info and advice
b) Consult the Biodynamic Farming & Compost Preparation site
c) Additional info: Ecovillage Findhorn: Organic Food Production
Fruits, vegetables, grain, rice are very nutritional but only nutritional when fresh or stored appropriately!
a) Apples, pumpkins, winter squash, gourds*, potatoes, grain, fruit compotes, ...
* Harvesting and Storing Pumpkins, Winter Squash, and Gourds, Storing Vegetables and Fruits at Home (PDF file)
a) In dry cellars on shelves/pallets stuff can be kept for months
b) Outside, if we're in an area with cold winter climate
c) In freezers
a) For example contact the National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service (ATTRA)
b) Contact bio-dynamic orgs/associations such as:
Biodynamic Agricultural Association UK
Biological Farmers of Australia
Bio Dynamic Farming and Gardening Association in NZ
Society for Bio-Dynamic Farming and Gardening in Ontario
b) Perhaps also try Northland to obtain non-GM seeds
Building design and types:
Building design:
a) Contact green architects and consultants such as:
Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects
Lynn N. Simon
Noel F. Cross
Simon & Associates
William McDonough
also: Network For a New Culture (NFNC), European Ecovillage Network, Ecovillage Findhorn
a) Earth buildings like in LOTR II (Lord of the Rings II)?!
a) Green architects, stone masons, plumbers, joiners & cabinet makers, painters, etc.
b) Farmers, gardeners, mechanics, engineers
c) Accountants (a world not devised on money - how would it work?), admin folks?
d) Teachers, scientists such as biologists, chemists, physicists, mathematicians, etc.
e) Shoemakers, tailors, electricians, electronics specialists (I don't really want to go back to the "Stone Age") ...
f) Nurses, doctors, homeopaths, "faith healers"?
g) ...
a) Draft animals: horses, oxen
b) Dairy products: cows, goats
c) Meat, fish and eggs: fowl, pigs, fish
d) Wool and hide: sheep
d) Pets: cats, dogs, hamsters, rabbits
a) Solar cells for roofs and/or walls to power lighting, heating, household appliances
b) Water wheels and wind turbines
c) Solar towers
d) Fuel cells
e) ZPE generators like Tom Bearden's motionless electromagnetic generator (MEG): Fueling the Future with ZPE, by Mark Goldes, 2004
a) Inter-generational housing (many kids!!), community center/city hall
b) Waldorf or Montessori-type school & kindergarten, college, community music center
c) 'Mom and pop stores', community laundromats, ...
d) A dairy center where the farmers deliver their organic milk, butter, eggs, etc. and people can by them bringing their own
containers (milk doesn't need to get homogenized, a lot of packaging gets eliminated)
e) Pharmacy, small anthroposophic hospital (models could be Filderklinik or Krankenhaus Witten-Herdecke in Germany)
f) Community rooms, cafes, auditorium (for stage plays, concerts)
g) Greenhouses, nurseries, barns, grain storage, silos, fish ponds
h) Mechanic workshop, blacksmith's shop, machine shops
i) Decentralized power supply, utilities such as rain water cistern, biological water purification (example: Ecovillage Findhorn: Biological Waste Water Treatment), etc.
j) Recycling yard
k) Fire service, police and/or self-defense force?!
l) NO old people's home but instead inter-generational housing!!
m) A Mel's Drive-in type diner (my favorite restaurant) ;)
a) CFC-free fridges, stoves and heating powered by renewable energy sources
b) ...
c) ...
a) Satellite cellphones
b) HAM radios
c) Old-fashioned Morse senders: What is Morse Code?
d) Internet, if it's still up and running
a) Transportation: bikes, ZEVs (zero-emission vehicles), electric cars, trucks
b) Construction: excavators, backhoes, etc.
c) Agricultural: tractors
d) Recreation and housing: trailers, trailer trucks
a) Trade as much as possible with local companies - they're more likely to have an interest in what's going on locally as that is going to affect them as well
b) Buy products and produce from local farmers and small manufacturers (dito)
c) Deal with local service and utilities companies (dito)
This fosters and strengthens the local economy and among other things also reduces pollution from transporting goods over large distances.
Eco and intentional communities - Lists, links and resources
Sustainable living vs. survival?!
Reading the alternative news I'm increasingly getting the impression that preparing for our very survival may be a lot more important than "just" living sustainably. The Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us makes for chilling reading and points out what may be in store for us! However, I don't think that habitable greenhouses and eco villages are mutually exclusive, rather to the opposite. The knowledge, skills and technologies developed in sustainable living will be needed to make the habitable greenhouses truly sustainable.
Not everybody who has a lot of knowledge, skills and human qualities to offer will be able to come up with the often thousands of $$ some eco communities have to charge new members. Conversely, not everybody that has the money and appears to fit in may not do so in the long term.
Starting an eco-community is a huge project requiring lots of planning and preparation. We might only have 5 to 10 years, not a lot of time for that kind of project. This is about the time that the Pentagon Climate Change Report and the 1992 remote viewing "Enigma Files" project assume before things turn really rough.
a) The close-knit Findhorn, Scotland or Fundacion Condorhuana, Ecuador type of communities
b) A second type for more individualistic people allowing for more personal freedom, individual expression and would resemble a more urban setting.
Multi-national corporations tend to have a sociopathic self-interest, only interested in their profit margin and way too much power to influence things to their advantage. In addition, their size makes them rather anonymous entities extremely hard to deal and interact with. So, trade between eco and intentional communities and creating local, self-reliant, sustainable economies is crucially important for three reasons:
a) Independence from services, products and produce from multi-national corporations
b) Promotion of and trade with "green" and fair trade products
c) Reduction of the destructive power of multi-national corporations.
Who gets in? Start-up eco and sustainable communities require a lot of physical labor to get established. Still, it's probably a good idea to let people make contributions where they're best at or most enthusiastic about. Not everybody enjoys physical labor or is capable or good at it. What about handicapped people or the elderly? Wouldn't refusing them only be akin to some new "master race" ideology!
This is an issue of paramount importance. Many coastal regions worldwide are likely to be affected by rising sea levels. Other areas may experience more earthquakes and severe weather patterns.
a) Living underground
b) Creating environmentally controlled greenhouses of varying size
Note: the "Enigma Files" remote viewers see survivors live in huge 'environmentally controlled greenhouses' because the atmosphere outside is no longer breathable. As this technology has not yet been developed it would make sense to get started on it ASAP!
The use of wood for construction purposes may be severely limited due to the likely environmental degredation and the resultant scarcity of wood.
How to and in which form to collect and preserve agricultural seeds as well as samples of as many plants as possible? What about genetic and microbial samples?
One goal of eco and intentional communities should be to maintain and preserve as much technology, especially the latest in green and sustainable technologies, and technological knowledge as possible to avoid falling back to pre-industrial times.
What to do when during the upheavals outsiders are desperate and need help? To help them is of course the right thing but requires to take from the community. But if a community is overwhelmed and over-run by desperate outsiders the community will collapse. Will we need something like a medieval fortified village with weapons?!