Posted by Dave on May 18, 2009
Damn you Reefer Madness, William Randolph Hearst, Dupont and racist American government of the 1930’s! Over 70 years later and we in the U.S. are still suffering the ill effects of banning marijuana and all its associates during a period of economic rebound that encouraged greed, paranoia, racism and lax political oversight. (Sound familiar?)
Industrial hemp was going strong throughout the 1920’s. It found uses in everything from paint to cosmetics to food. It is even rumored that the first pair of Levi jeans were made from Hemp in the mid-1800’s. (The evidence was destroyed in the great San Francisco fire.) People have long derided prohibition as one of the stupider achievements of American history, blaming it for (among other things) giving rise to organized crime. Well, if prohibition was stupid you have to lump reefer madness into the same category of dumb. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on May 7, 2009
I keep wondering when the “lease revolution” is going to take hold for the individual consumer? But alas, the stigma of “leasing is for the least” seems to be clinging to our culture like stank on the unshaved armpits of a female U of M (Montana) graduate.
Part of this could be due to the fact that the only two real players in the consumer leasing business are Rent-a-Center and Aaron’s. And RAC seems to be doing more payday loans and high price rentals that anything. I’m still a little foggy about what Aaron’s actually does. Both stores are mysterious via website.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on May 6, 2009
I remember a time when stuff used to be done with a creative combination of craft, human dexterity, ingenuity and the computing force of the human mind. When the final product rose triumphantly out of its raw materials the creator knew exactly what it contained and what it was capable of and how to keep it capable of that. Now it is only a matter of time before we look to John Connor to deliver us. I realize Connor isn’t a stereotypical redneck, but he’s a redneck stuck in a suburban rat body (play along, come on).
Seriously, am I the only one who remembers such UIL competitions as “Number Sense?” WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 27, 2009
Now this is the stuff of my childhood dreams. When my imagination was still unbounded and unfettered by the burdens of reality and the skepticism of age I dreamed of molding and forming society like play-dough. The Venus Project, the brain child of Jacque Fresco, is doing just that. This is the luxury of genius at its best. Even at first glance I can recognize the science fiction novels I have read that have been influenced by this stuff.
But is all of this just modernist, Jean-Luc Picard type thinking that is already being supplanted by the post modern sense of relativist spirituality? WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on April 20, 2009
Well, here is a potential answer. A week ago I commented on the difficulty of morally responsible consumerism in regards to finished wood products. I found this great resource via “Materialicious” and had to pass it on. Woodbank gives you a place to buy and sell salvaged, reused and certified wood. It’s pretty cool and an ingenious method of helping consumers fight back against irresponsible and immoral timber harvest and production.
Posted by Dave on April 4, 2009
Question: Is providing free sleeping structures for the homeless like passing out condoms to the randy? I came across this article yesterday, via the Tiny House Blog, about EDAR (Everyone Deserves a Roof). Peter Samuelson has developed this little shelter that is a cross between a shopping cart and a commercial sized laundry cart. It provides mobility during the day for caring or collecting goods and a shelter at night. WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on March 23, 2009
I found a recent study, albeit a small one, done in the UK that brings up an interesting question (even if it doesn’t provide too many answers). New Tricks With Old Bricks, a study done by the Empty Homes Agency, tries to show that an old refurbished home can be just as “green” as a new build. Now by “green” in this particular study they are referring only to the home’s carbon emissions, or as we refer to it across the pond, carbon footprint. While they did include embodied carbon and operational carbon they only studied six homes, and they projected the totals over a fifty year period.
WAIT! There is more to read… read on »
Posted by Dave on March 9, 2009
Here is an idea. What if local churches and other such entities which represented a significant amount of cumulative wealth banded together to bail out local home owners in danger of foreclosure. I know of one example I heard of several years ago of an urban church financing members’ homes at a below market percentage. The low interest yielded on the loan over thirty years goes toward increasing the total pool of money available to finance more homes.
Churches are a community asset that tend to move-in and stay around for long periods of time. Even if members come and go, the church remains. They could be perfect entities to provide local care for those in need.
A local church has a better chance of knowing which families are good bets and which are not. They know which have contributed to the community and which are traveling through or unstable.
Churches may not represent millions of liquid assets, but if they can raise $500,000 for a building program to invest in their own building, why not do so for neighbors instead? Why should we homeowners only pay interest to the banks for the privilege of using their money? This idea made perfect sense back when a home loan was $20,000 and the bank was a truly local entity. Then the banker was just as likely as anyone to know who was a good bet and who was not. Now maybe local churches and other community organizations could step in and fill the gap.
Posted by Dave on March 3, 2009
The Tulou are clan houses built in the Fujian province of South East China. It is believed that these structures were built as early as the 13th century, and many of them survive today at varying ages. Some are several hundred years old. I first heard of these structures from Earth Architecture’s website and they grabbed hold of my imagination for a few different reasons.
First they are built from earthen materials, the outer walls being essentially rammed earth with wooden structures sometimes internally. I am fascinated with earthen building materials because you just can’t get more sustainable. Literally the whole world’s population could build their homes with dirt and the earth would be no worse for wear.
Secondly, they have stood the test of time. Not only in the sense that the buildings have lasted for hundreds of years, but also people in China have continued to actively live in them and construct them up until the last 100 years. Practically, they must have worked. Not only did they succeed in providing defense from other warring clans, but there must have been more.
Lastly, the tulou were built to house entire clans. Some of the ones still in use today house up to 600 people. Yet in Western culture it is rare to even find a handful of extended family members under the same roof. I myself live in an urban bungalow with my wife and child, but we have often sought ways to shake this formula up. International students have lived under our roof, friends who needed a place to go, and students who I have worked with and shared life with. But these arrangements have been temporary. Should we be so ardent about our values for individualism and personal space? Are these things the earned privilege of a wealthy and affluent culture? Or are they blights on what would otherwise be a more meaningful and sustainable life?
What other residential models like the tulou are out there but withering in the brutal heat of modernity? Can we take some lessons from the dying clan lifestyle of China? Or at least build homes that we expect our children’s children to be able to come home to some day, if only for a visit.
Posted by Dave on March 2, 2009
After reading a recent article by Alex Steffen on www.worldchanging.com I thought I would pass it on and continue the conversation. Alex refers to the different emerging camps in sustainable living as different shades of green (and gray). These terms are starting to take off and I think for good reason. There is a debate going on about how we should best pursue saving our planet through sustainability, and some well defined terms will help in this debate.
Alex describes himself as being “bright green”, a camp that embraces a “belief that sustainable innovation is the best path to lasting prosperity, and that any vision of sustainability which does not offer prosperity and well-being will not succeed.” He says that sustainability must be bright.
People in the “light green” camp “tend to emphasize lifestyle/behavioral/consumer change as key to sustainability, or at least as the best mechanism for triggering broader changes. Light greens strongly advocate change at the individual level.”
“Dark green” is described as a group that “emphasize a need to pull back from consumerism (sometimes even from industrialization itself) and emphasize local solutions, short supply chains and direct connection to the land.” Dark green’s are described as being more concerned about change at the community level.
Lastly, Alex refers to the “Gray’s” as the people who don’t really advocate doing anything.
Now, between the different shades of green I can certainly see good things about each. Any shade of green is better than gray or whatever color you would assign to dead. I certainly cannot dismiss the need for the bright green innovation that I believe will help guide the revolution to come and hopefully put the minds and talent that the U.S. has to offer back on the map. But according to the above definitions, you might have guessed, I have to label myself as being “dark green.” Now besides really loving the movie “Grosse Point Blank,” I wouldn’t describe myself as being “dark.” But I am all about change on a community level. I feel that individuals are weak and undisciplined and that cities and countries are too big to engage in meaningful ways.
Communities can be just big enough to bring strength and the power of numbers, while being just small enough to have individual ownership. Everyone in a community matters. Don’t get me wrong, I believe there is a balance here. I will not openly “pooh pooh” globalization as a boogeyman, but I do believe that while Industrialization and Globalization have been the twin cannons that have launched the human race forward the last century, they must subside this century if we are to survive. As a human race we need a “new” engine to drive us forward. I tend to think that the “dark green’s” out there might have some good answers for what this engine must be.
What shade of green are you?