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Page added on December 16, 2015
For a Resilient Future, Put Community First
Imagine a respite from the relentless torrent of bad news! Both The Transition Towns (Transition) and Intentional Communities movements facilitate secession, to varying degrees, from the exploitive culture that surrounds us, and build alternatives that are supported by broad networks. Now the two movements have joined together to share lessons learned about egalitarian community building.
The Transition and Intentional Communities movements offer pathways to recovery from an abusive, extractive growth-economy. Their proponents seek wholeness through cooperation. The movements embrace anyone with the gumption to self-liberate from the corrosive mainstream matrix and commit to resilient social practices that foster the unity of people and the planet.
Intentional residential communities are groups of people dedicated to figuring out how to live together cooperatively. Transition Towns, villages, and city neighborhoods are local nodes of people, connected through a global network, who are determined to wean their localities from fossil fuel dependency and move toward resilience.
Neither model is a magic bullet. But both movements can learn volumes from the other. To that end, the Mid-Atlantic Transition Hub (MATH), The Fellowship for Intentional Communities (FIC), and the Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC)—networks that support Transition initiatives and intentional communities respectively—are purposefully pursuing cross pollination.
Interchange between the two movements is happening in the zone where their missions overlap. That is, in the space where people wake up and summon the grit to live consciously, seek wholeness, and unplug from the dysfunction of the homogenized American norm.The Federation of Egalitarian Communities (FEC) has joined the Spokescouncil of Egalitarian Resilience Networks, an “affinity circle” within the MATH Constellation, to help spark the joint work of the two movements. The Spokescouncil is working to hold both movements accountable to the basic tenets of egalitarian process.
In addition to their shared commitment to equality, both movements seek to cultivate wholeness. Wholeness—systems working purposefully in sync—is the definition of physical, mental, and community health and wellbeing. Wholeness is true resilience. An integrated personality manifests in strong self-esteem. Citizens working together improve communities. Cohesive workplace teams boost the bottom line. Conversely, separation and fragmentation are biological harbingers of disease, and sociological indicators of institutional disintegration. Horrendous income inequity, frayed nerve endings, office infighting, and the lonely, emotional isolation of lives lived in ubiquitous ticky tacky houses and strip malls, reflect illness.
Whereas the pursuit of wholeness through cooperation is embedded yet latent in the DNA of the Transition movement, hundreds of intentional communities already demonstrate just that. Irrespective of how diverse a group of people in an intentional community may be, they necessarily share an allegiance to the baseline value of sustained cooperation. Transition initiatives do not have that luxury.
While “collaboration” and “cooperation” have become buzzwords, relatively few Americans—conditioned as we are in a competitive, top down, power-and-control culture—know what that looks like in practice. Authentic cooperation requires people to change deeply imprinted habit patterns that are continually reinforced by society.
Unlike intentional communities, Transition initiatives deal with scattershot, heterogeneous populations in any given locality with a range of commitment levels to conscious living. As FIC administrator Laird Schaub asserts, “before Transition initiatives can work, people need to learn how to simply get along. They’re starting from scratch. Transition initiatives die when they don’t get these necessary nutrients fast enough.”
Accelerating climate change means that incessant “transitioning” is the new norm to which we’ll be adjusting for perpetuity. MATH frequently reminds constituent groups that “transition” connotes profound transformation. And that transformation begins from within.
Transition initiatives need to dig deep in order to cultivate trust-building –the scaffolding of long term collaboration. MATH highlights intentional communities as laboratories —concrete demonstrations– of the cooperative culture that sparks inner transformation.
Laurie Simons, documentary filmmaker and member of the GANAS community in Staten Island NY, reflects on her personal transformation: “I am used to being right. However, I’m finding that I’m no longer concerned about being right. I went from feeling threatened if not right, to asking for and welcoming input from others. By listening to others’ perspectives my ‘rightness’ is enriched…People bring ideas that I would never have thought of and I end up with something that is more effective and sensitive.”
Michael Johnson, a founding member of GANAS notes that, “The community began with the research question, ‘Why is it that communication breaks down and community operations so often revert to top down?’ Over the years we’ve created a culture of cooperation that permeates members all of the time; tapping into the cooperative aspects of their personalities.”
Both movements face challenges. The Transition movement must dispel its erroneous small-town, back-to-the-land image, especially in the Mid-Atlantic megacity corridor. Similarly, intentional communities are challenged to shake off the utopian-hippy-commune stigma.
In fact, far from 1960’s throwbacks, 21st century egalitarian, income sharing communities are the epitome of New Economyprinciples— compassion in action that can usher in the “next system.”As per GPaul Blundell of the Point A Project,“In intentional community, more of our lives are of common interest. In egalitarian, income-sharing communities, your life IS the economy, and work is recast as cooperative work. So the material and financial aspects of your life and wellbeing are of public interest.”
Waxing strongest when times are toughest, the Transition and intentional communities movements offer wholeness in authentic community as an alternative to demoralizing social fragmentation. True to form, these movements are doing what they do best—working together to overcome challenges.
The Transition and intentional communities movements demonstrate that we are never out of options. We are resilient.
24 Comments on "For a Resilient Future, Put Community First"
makati1 on Wed, 16th Dec 2015 7:24 pm
Resiliant? With Trump in the lead and the rest trying to catch up by any lie possible, that is ‘resilient’? a world war is ‘resilient’? Better you use your efforts to get your freedoms back than play at ‘community’. Get out in the streets in the millions and effect real change. Nope too difficult. Let someone else do it.
More of the privileged playing at prepping and thinking that they can change the greedy humans with a few meetings in a nice comfortable home, with plenty of refreshments. Most, if not all, got there in their nice big gas guzzlers. Minds without thought.
I think some psychiatrists would call this a ‘support group’. People of like mind coming together to agree with each other for moral support, while accomplishing nothing in the real world. LMAO
Apneaman on Wed, 16th Dec 2015 11:22 pm
mak, many transition town folks do much more than talk. As collapse progresses they will be better positioned than the unprepared suburban masses. Community is actually closer to our natural state than what phony neoliberal capitalism offers or libertarian bullshit. I still remember the 1970s when I lived in a small town and there was no cable or internet and we did many community events and projects.
Ayn Rand vs. Anthropology
Did natural selection favor individualists or altruists?
http://evonomics.com/ayn-rand-vs-anthropology/
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 1:23 am
Ap, none of these pretenders will be positioned to do anything but suffer like everyone else. It is not the 70s anymore. Never will be again. A whole different breed of humans occupy the 1st world today. The “let someone else do it” crowd.
Yep, my family used to get together on special days and bond. Now they can barely bother to text or email each other. They live all over the East Coast and don’t have time to gather as a family, or the money.
As for town events, if it ain’t financially profitable to some organization/corporation, it doesn’t happen. What makes you think that that is going to change in the near future because 1/1000th of the population thinks it should? Decreasing incomes on all levels will make towns less open, not more.
My estimate may be exaggerating the percentage of ‘transitioners’ who actually understand the end of oil and the collapse of the financial system they depend on. If there are those ~320,000 in the US who are actually doing something useful, why aren’t there changes being made today? I haven’t seen any.
Maybe if they had started this movement in the 70s, it might have worked, but, like Climate Change, which we were also warned about in the 70s, nothing happened and nothing will, until it is too late. I think we passed that line decades ago. Same with transitioning to any significant amount. Not going to happen.
I fear the armed gangs and plunderers will overcome any small pockets of
‘security’ in the US. After all, they far outnumber the ‘transition’ crowd already. And they are armed and experienced killers who will want, and take, what you have, over your dead body, if necessary.
“Some 33,000 violent street gangs, motorcycle gangs, and prison gangs with about 1.4 million members are criminally active in the U.S. today. ”
https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/investigate/vc_majorthefts/gangs/gangs
Wait until that 2 million plus now in US prisons return to the streets and double that number.
Not quite the picture many have of America is it? And that number will increase as poverty expands, as sure as the sun will come up tomorrow. LOL
Apneaman on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 1:36 am
mak, what is your estimate and opinion on the many people involved in the transition movement based on exactly? Have you been to one of the transition towns in Europe or N America and seen with your own eyes what exactly they have done to prepare and how they live? Have you been to a meeting? Do you personally know a member? Have you been to their main web site of one of the regional web sites? How many members do they have? How many towns? How many local chapters?
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 3:06 am
Ap, Since I typed in my reply and the site has not posted it, you will have to check later. ???
Davy on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 5:49 am
If something is beneficial, smart, and involves wise decisions some people hate the idea of it if it is not related to their benefit directly or indirectly. There is a need in some of these people for the other guy to fail and for them to succeed. It points to a negative psychological condition. Some people condemn anything if it is American but the same thing if it is Asian is OK. This condition points to personal emotions and not reality with some comments on this board. The Germans call it “Schadenfreude”
“Why Are We Pleased With Others’ Misfortune?”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200901/why-are-we-pleased-others-misfortune
“It is not enough to succeed; others must fail. (Gore Vidal). Malice is like a game of poker or tennis; you don’t play it with anyone who is manifestly inferior to you. (Hilde Spiel). The emotion of pleasure-in-others’-misfortune (Schadenfreude in German) is generally regarded as morally evil. It is often considered to be less acceptable than envy, which is regarded as a deadly sin. It would appear to be morally more perverse to be pleased with another person’s misfortune than to be displeased with another person’s good fortune. Indeed Arthur Schopenhauer argues that to feel envy is human, but to enjoy other people’s misfortune is diabolical. For Schopenhauer, pleasure-in-others’-misfortune is the worst trait in human nature since it is closely related to cruelty. I believe that once we understand better this emotion, it becomes more natural and acceptable. (See also Portmann, When Bad Things Happen to Other People)”
“In describing pleasure-in-others’-misfortune, two features are not disputable: our pleasure and the other’s misfortune. These features describe a significant conflict between our positive evaluation of the situation and the negative evaluation of the other person. This conflict indicates the presence of a comparative, and sometimes even, a competitive, concern. A major reason for being pleased with the misfortune of another person is that this person’s misfortune may somehow benefit us; it may, for example, emphasize our superiority.”
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 7:22 am
They are nothing more than playing at change even if they believe they are accomplishing something. I don’t have to go to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting to understand what it is or how it works. And they often slip back into old habits when they stop going.
There are no permanent ‘transition towns’ in reality. None will exist when the SHTF and hardship is real and personal. None. Not in America or even in Europe. It is not in their ‘genes’.
I can find you any number of websites supporting every unicorn hugging idea that has come down the pike, but that doesn’t make them a real answer to the changes coming. Denial and hope. Nothing more.
I do not see the possibility of any lasting ‘transition’ in the Us as the dreamers would like to believe will happen.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 9:39 am
Mak, I can not take you serious in your criticism or grass root efforts in the US. The man who moved away from his family, the only people you can really trust in truly desperate, dog eat dog times. To an overpopulated island in the area of the world with the fastest growing pollution issue.
Not in our genes? It was only the wealthy in this country who were never survivalist. Some had slaves, but a majority of people on the frontiers or small northern towns needed to be hearty to live.
I have relatives who I sit and talk about farming and hunting with who had no electricity or indoor plumbing as children, staying warm was a herculean task 70 years ago in northern rural areas in this country. I take in all of the knowledge I can gain from them. The most important lesson I can learn from them is that it was extremely difficult, winter preparations are a year round responsibility and you need to have people you can trust to take care of you when you can’t take of yourself. The Amish do not live in one bedroom homes for a reason. Community effort is going to be absolutely necessary, good luck with the locals not stealing your food. After busting there asses at low paying jobs there whole life only to see an American come in and buy up the farm land they probably dream of owning.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 9:44 am
Grass root efforts are our only hope in my opinion. There is no way to get millions of people into the streets without it playing into the elites hands, they would deceive us into fighting ourselves as they have since biblical times. Our current 2 party system with the illusion of democracy every few years is to large corrupt and cumbersome. Local politics have less money for corruption and slightly more transparency, because elected officials live within your community. Does it make more difference for your preparations if the US is meddling in a far away land or if your housing association will not let you raise chickens or have a compost or hang dry laundry.
GregT on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 10:25 am
“Grass root efforts are our only hope in my opinion.”
Absolutely agree with much of what you say Practical, however, much of the ‘grassroots efforts’ that I see here in NA are not grassroots at all. Recycling ones styrofoam containers, while driving a Prius to the office, drinking a Starbucks no foam latte’ from a ceramic container, is hardly what I would consider to be grassroots. The mass exodus continues to be towards the city centres, not away from them. Small local communities are in our futures. Everything about large population centres is unsustainable, whether one has chickens, a compost bin, or hangs their laundry off of the balcony to dry, or not.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 10:58 am
GregT, very true about the status quo as it is today, I am hoping that the current pollution conditions in Asia make people wake up and stop going into cities for factory work, because the factory cant run 7 days a week, or they realize that it is not worth the damage to there health. If people stayed on their small farms maybe the price of useless plastic goods will go up because of a decrease in essentially slave labor.
City’s currently are not set up in a sustainable way but my local cities, Boston, Portsmouth, Portland for example, are not so densely populated that you could not provide for a significant population, given much smaller than the current one. There is all this utopian talk of high rise farms which is bullshit, but think of all of the parking garages, abandoned warehouses, flat roof spaces, balconies, shipping terminals that are going to be scene as possible growing space in the future. I have family in Boston that recently added a greenhouse to her roof deck. Or take Detroit where the suburbs are being returned to vacant lots. If you live near your food source, in shared housing, with other people who are physically capable of tending a garden, your energy needs would decrease a huge amount. Indoor growing with LEDS has become much more efficient in recent years and I would argue the EROEI is better with artificial light when you are efficiently producing food close to the area of consumption, than a typical input intensive monoculture pulling water constantly from deep in the Earth to be inefficiently wasted on corn to feed a sick feedlot cow.
Davy on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 11:00 am
Practical, I can’t speak for all of NA but here in the Midwest we have very few who subscribe to “transition towns” type groups. We do have a significant amount of people choosing to live closer to the land and as independent of the modern crutches so many depend on.
This is a transition movement of “back to the landers”. Many don’t understand peak oil or the economy but they know things are not right. I appreciate someone like you who does not focus and over generalize the US like so many on this board. I hope you will assist me in maintaining a fair and balanced view of what is really going on in the US with people who actually live here.
PracticalMaina on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 12:12 pm
Davy, I agree, in Maine many of the people who will be prepared do not have any idea about global issues, but grew up close to nature because there is no other way for them. I know several people who are millennials, who grew up with no backup heat other than a wood stove, and would wake up with frost on the inside of their windows. Not in a new energy efficient homes but essentially converted camps. Now these individuals are more like the masses, living in comfort on there I-phones, but the basic survival instinct and mental toughness is still there.
I have a hunting buddy who has convinced many towns police forces and the sheriff to call him any time a deer or moose is killed or mortally wounded by a car. He will take the carcass and salvage what he can in order to have free organic meat. If the grocery store were empty tomorrow, he would have to brew his own beer, and that would be about it.
As far as keeping stuff neutral on the board, I love this country and its people, from a survival aspect I think we would be in good shape. That being said the federal government is a constant source of disappointment to me. The agencys that are supposed to protect us are bought and sold. I was reading some scary articles about pharmaceuticals and the FDA pushing anti psychotics that were supposed to be for the 1% of the population on something like 30 million Americans, suddenly anxiety and depression call for these strong drugs. Obama the nobel peace prize winning president has bombed more country’s than Bush and Cheney the war profiteers. and told the EPA to leave fracking alone after his second election, and pushed coal exports, ect. ect.
Apneaman on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 2:32 pm
COP-21 Accords and Near Term Human Extinction
“In the opinion of Dr. Guy McPherson, a Professor Emeritus of Natural Resources, Evolutionary Biology and Conservation Biology from the University of Arizona, the Accords are smoke and mirrors, will have no effect on climate change and could well cause increase in carbon emissions. He agrees with James Hansen, the former NASA scientist who also criticized the Accords. Hansen is quoted in the December 12, 2015, issue of as saying the intention to reach a new global deal on cutting carbon emissions beyond 2020, is ‘no action, just promises.’”
http://www.radiocurious.org/2015/12/16/cop-21-accords-and-near-term-human-extinction/
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 8:06 pm
Guess we agree to disagree, but transition is only good if it is personal and doesn’t rely on others outside the family group/land. When the water treatment plant goes down and the sewage treatment is no longer working, towns, like cities, will empty and disappear. The wells in the town will not be drinkable, nor any of the streams.
Towns in the Middle Ages survived where water was available and drinkable. Even then, the life expectancy was about 40 years or less, IF you survived childhood. And, they were surrounded by huge amounts of arable land, not asphalt, brown fields, etc.. But they still had a lord/chief who took a large part of their labor for himself and his protectors. That is the norm, not the exception.
When you have never had to think about such a life, or accept that it will soon be that way, or worse, in your neighborhood, it is difficult, if not impossible to consider it.
This is NOT when “the meek inherit the earth” unless you are talking about insects and bacteria. Those towns will be taken over by the local thugs as soon as it starts to get bad. Then they will spread out into the farmlands and plunder like any decent plague of locusts will until there is nothing left.
You can believe/hope/dream what you want. Time will tell who is correct. I’m still glad I live where people are still self sufficient and family/group oriented, not selfish, drugged up and armed as in the Us. Prepare now, for the end is near. LMAO
GregT on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 8:27 pm
“I appreciate someone like you who does not focus and over generalize the US like so many on this board. I hope you will assist me in maintaining a fair and balanced view of what is really going on in the US with people who actually live here.”
The fair and balanced view has been presented by many here, including your fellow Americans Davy. Of which Makati happens to be one. He has spent more time living within your country than you have. He is obviously fed up with the direction that the empire has taken his country in. You continue to blindly support it. The US is going down the shit-hole Davy, and is dragging the rest of the world with it. The most greed filled, morally inept, stupidly indoctrinated empire that the world has ever seen.
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 8:36 pm
This is why I don’t expect America to survive or ‘transition’.
“Within an hour on the Yale campus, Horowitz collected over 50 signatures from student who wanted to repeal a significant part of the Constitution.”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-17/america-its-over-yale-students-sign-petition-repeal-first-amendment
Suicide by ignorance.
Apneaman on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 9:16 pm
mak, on a warming planet where typhoons are already getting stronger because they have more energy and are only going to increase with the warming, how is it that the Philippines are better positioned than anywhere else when they get nailed many times every year? They are pretty much in the worse place on the planet as far as typhoons go (ground zero). That’s somewhere I would not choose to be as the heating continues. More heat = more energy = deadlier typhoons.
Tropical Depression to Follow Deadly Typhoon Melor Into Philippines
http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/depression-onyok-follows-melor-philippines-flooding-rain/54254568
Apneaman on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 9:20 pm
Apparently there are no countries on the planet that have escaped the destructive cancer of drug abuse and the violent gangs that go with it.
Crystal Meth and Cartels in the Philippines: The Shabu Trap (Trailer)
“At the start of 2015, Mexican national Horacio Hernandez Herrera, allegedly third in command of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested in the Philippines’ capital, Manila, at the center of a 12 million peso ($255,000) drug bust.
Herrera’s arrest came as Philippine authorities confirmed that not only were Mexico’s cartels vying for a piece of the country’s rapidly growing drugs trade, but forming an alliance with Chinese syndicates to do so.
The Philippines drug of choice? Shabu: A local name for crystal meth, present in over 90 percent of the capital’s neighborhoods.”
https://news.vice.com/video/crystal-meth-and-cartels-in-the-philippines-the-shabu-trap-trailer
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 10:13 pm
Well, we have a lot of typhoons here, but in 7+ years, only one was bad here in Manila and that one was not much worse than a long, bad thunderstorm. True, the one last year was exceptionally bad, but then so was Katrina and Sandy in the US recently.
~750,000 were evacuated for this last one here, but only ~20 lives were lost. Less than those lost in 4 hours on US roads or murdered in those same 4 hours in the Us. It is all perspective.
The Ps has survived for centuries with these storms. They will continue to survive. After all, if you can rebuild your home with free bamboo and reeds, and had nothing of value to lose, how bad can it be?
The US has ice and snow storms which will also get worse, sub zero temperatures, super hot days, tornadoes and hurricanes, which will get worse and more frequent. Then there is the drought and the forest fires and…
I’ll still choose the Ps and our farm to live out my last years. Not the crazy, drugged up, armed, brainwashed US.
makati1 on Thu, 17th Dec 2015 10:26 pm
As for the drug problem, it exists, and I have seen occasional news articles about Shabu, but the effort to contain and remove by the government is also obvious. Drugs are not a problem here like in the US. Most cannot afford them, just the upper class. Not like the $70B+ illegal drug trade in the US where $255K is pocket change and you can buy it on every street corner for the price of a bottle of Chivas or less.
BTW: “In mid-August 2013, Rupert Murdoch’s corporation 21st Century Fox invested US$70 million in Vice Media,…”
“In June 2014, it was reported that Time Warner was negotiating to acquire a stake in Vice Media…”
“… on 29 August 2014, that A&E Networks—a joint venture of Hearst Corporation and The Walt Disney Company—would acquire a 10 percent minority stake…”
“In late 2014, VICE Media announced that Alyssa Mastromonaco, who formerly worked in the Obama administration, would come on board as the company’s chief operating officer…”
It is now owned and controlled by the same six media corporations as all the other ‘news’ outlets in the US. Beware it’s ‘facts’.
Davy on Fri, 18th Dec 2015 6:13 am
Same old shit out of the anti-American supporting the ugly anti-American. Then the personal attacks that I am supporting the great evil. We then hear the usual bad things about the US along with indoctrination and so forth. This individual does not live in the US but acts like an expert on all things US. He has an agenda that dismisses and discredits anything US and he acts as though he has lived in every state in the US. He will not acknowledge my criticism of the US because it is not enough. His message is one of agenda and extremism. His message is diminished by the fairness and balance I present. He can’t stand my voice so periodically he must lash out and attempt to start a fight. He loves to bully boat and planter. His bullying is obsessive and continuous sometimes. I am trying to limit the personal attacks and keep it on the level of ideas. If this individual want to dive back into the attacks so be it. The very fact that he has to respond with personal attacks points to psychotically issues that his message of extremism is being discredited.
Davy on Fri, 18th Dec 2015 6:24 am
I rarely do this but I think it is important to understand two of the above anti-Americans. I also want to compliment another above who chooses the truth over agenda. This board hero feels very negative about the US but I admire him because he does not go the next step and preach winners. He knows we are all losers. Here is yesterday’s post:
If something is beneficial, smart, and involves wise decisions some people hate the idea of it if it is not related to their benefit directly or indirectly. There is a need in some of these people for the other guy to fail and for them to succeed. It points to a negative psychological condition. Some people condemn anything if it is American but the same thing if it is Asian for example is OK. This condition points to personal emotions and not reality with some comments on this board. The Germans call it “Schadenfreude”
“Why Are We Pleased With Others’ Misfortune?”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/200901/why-are-we-pleased-others-misfortune
“It is not enough to succeed; others must fail. (Gore Vidal). Malice is like a game of poker or tennis; you don’t play it with anyone who is manifestly inferior to you. (Hilde Spiel). The emotion of pleasure-in-others’-misfortune (Schadenfreude in German) is generally regarded as morally evil. It is often considered to be less acceptable than envy, which is regarded as a deadly sin. It would appear to be morally more perverse to be pleased with another person’s misfortune than to be displeased with another person’s good fortune. Indeed Arthur Schopenhauer argues that to feel envy is human, but to enjoy other people’s misfortune is diabolical. For Schopenhauer, pleasure-in-others’-misfortune is the worst trait in human nature since it is closely related to cruelty. I believe that once we understand better this emotion, it becomes more natural and acceptable. (See also Portmann, When Bad Things Happen to Other People)”
“In describing pleasure-in-others’-misfortune, two features are not disputable: our pleasure and the other’s misfortune. These features describe a significant conflict between our positive evaluation of the situation and the negative evaluation of the other person. This conflict indicates the presence of a comparative, and sometimes even, a competitive, concern. A major reason for being pleased with the misfortune of another person is that this person’s misfortune may somehow benefit us; it may, for example, emphasize our superiority.”
PracticalMaina on Fri, 18th Dec 2015 8:55 am
Makati, I am missing some of that cold weather. El Nino is throwing all sorts of warm air at the US and my driveway is mud when it should have almost half a foot of frost. Speaking of that, I am hoping next year is not a bad hurricane season, despite the fact I think it will be for the US. Why people do not build round homes, or have basements in hurricane alley is beyond me.
Your point about bamboo and reeds is valid. These are the types of things we need to start doing. Houses will get knocked down, rebuilt wrong and repeat, all over the world. We need to be able to rebuild them stronger and in a more sustainable manner. Hemp makes a phenomenal building material, takes CO2 out of the atmosphere and does not require very much fertilizer input. These fast growing plants are going to be key to feeding, housing, fuel and carbon sequestration. Hemp needs to be legalized on a national level, how can you have a product that is in probably more than half of all organic health food products be considered a psychoactive drug that has no medical benefits. This is one issue I will strongly contradict myself on because I feel this is one issue that the federal government must address, as well as reigning in corruption on all of its regulatory agency’s. Much easier said than done.