Om den globale kapitalens kamp mot kontanter og for å kontrollere alt du gjør.
Tuesday 31 January 2017
The Curse of Powerlines
Original text at Energy Reality.
Powerlines serve for electricity the same function that pipelines serve for oil and natural gas. They often produce similar ecological impacts, including habitat fragmentation, and are an aesthetic blight on landscapes. The expanding network of transmission lines has resulted in linear clearcuts through ecosystems around the globe.
Electricity has two drawbacks that oil, natural gas, and coal do not have. It does not exist in nature in a way that humans can harvest directly (we must convert other energy into electricity), and it cannot be stored easily. Yet it is electricity—providing power to illuminate the night and run myriad machines from cell phones to computers—that we most equate with modern society. Electricity consumption tends to grow steadily in developing economies, even while the underlying sources of that electricity (i.e., coal, nuclear, and natural gas) may shift over time. Power lines play the crucial role of transporting the electricity from the point of production to the point of consumption.
Power lines are typically categorized in two groups. Transmission lines are high voltage lines used to carry electric current from generating stations to consumption hubs. From hubs, where the current is downgraded to house current, distribution lines deliver electricity to the point of consumption.
Power lines can have the same fragmenting effects on wildlife habitat as pipelines. High voltage power lines are allotted a 120-foot right of way (60 feet on each side of the transmission tower) to ensure that the lines are unobstructed from vegetation. This allows companies to clear-cut all natural vegetation within that distance. Clear-cutting forests and other vegetation for pipelines and to accommodate power distribution networks has fragmented forest ecosystems around the world, with substantial impacts on ecosystem integrity. The variety of “edge effects” from such fragmentation, particularly the invasion of exotics or weedy species and loss of interior forest habitat, is well described in the scientific literature.
The aesthetic impacts of power lines are more difficult to quantify than ecological costs but are very real to affected communities. New transmission capacity is expensive to build and often highly controversial. There are numerous current campaigns under way fighting proposed power lines, from the “Northern Pass” project in New Hampshire that would bring additional HydroQuebec-generated electricity to the U.S. energy market, to the coalition of activists working to stop a new, roughly 1200-mile transmission line through southern Chile. That project, proposed in conjunction with a scheme to build multiple large dams on wild rivers in Patagonia, would bisect numerous national parks and national reserves to supply power to urban areas in central Chile.
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| Powerlines cutting through the forests of Øverbymarka, an important "friluftsliv" area close to the town of Gjøvik. -Wikimedia. |
Electricity has two drawbacks that oil, natural gas, and coal do not have. It does not exist in nature in a way that humans can harvest directly (we must convert other energy into electricity), and it cannot be stored easily. Yet it is electricity—providing power to illuminate the night and run myriad machines from cell phones to computers—that we most equate with modern society. Electricity consumption tends to grow steadily in developing economies, even while the underlying sources of that electricity (i.e., coal, nuclear, and natural gas) may shift over time. Power lines play the crucial role of transporting the electricity from the point of production to the point of consumption.
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| Powerlines passing through the cultural landscape of Eidsvoll, on its way from the Norwegian mountains to Oslo. -Wikimedia. |
Power lines are typically categorized in two groups. Transmission lines are high voltage lines used to carry electric current from generating stations to consumption hubs. From hubs, where the current is downgraded to house current, distribution lines deliver electricity to the point of consumption.
Power lines can have the same fragmenting effects on wildlife habitat as pipelines. High voltage power lines are allotted a 120-foot right of way (60 feet on each side of the transmission tower) to ensure that the lines are unobstructed from vegetation. This allows companies to clear-cut all natural vegetation within that distance. Clear-cutting forests and other vegetation for pipelines and to accommodate power distribution networks has fragmented forest ecosystems around the world, with substantial impacts on ecosystem integrity. The variety of “edge effects” from such fragmentation, particularly the invasion of exotics or weedy species and loss of interior forest habitat, is well described in the scientific literature.
The aesthetic impacts of power lines are more difficult to quantify than ecological costs but are very real to affected communities. New transmission capacity is expensive to build and often highly controversial. There are numerous current campaigns under way fighting proposed power lines, from the “Northern Pass” project in New Hampshire that would bring additional HydroQuebec-generated electricity to the U.S. energy market, to the coalition of activists working to stop a new, roughly 1200-mile transmission line through southern Chile. That project, proposed in conjunction with a scheme to build multiple large dams on wild rivers in Patagonia, would bisect numerous national parks and national reserves to supply power to urban areas in central Chile.
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| Powerlines have been utterly destructive for what was supposed to be my family farm, but it’s now so destroyed that it’s impossible to fullfill the meaning of the place as a cultural carrier of land and traditions. Two important countryside traditions are lost with it. In the picture you can see the devestating earthslides that occur beneath where the powerlines cross the Olterud Valley or Olteruddalen. -Wikimedia. |
Saturday 28 January 2017
Hvorfor reiser samtidsmennesket?
Mennesket reiser av mange grunner. En av de viktigste er for å unnslippe monotonien hjemme. Denne
monotonien skyldes modernistenes planleggingsregime, som ble
standarisert på 1950-tallet. Kjernen her er soneinndeling, eller
tredelingen av livet, hvor man bor et sted, arbeider og gjør sine
innkjøp et annet sted, og tilbringer fritiden et nytt sted igjen. Å
blande livsfunksjoner er innenfor modernistisk dogmatikk noe urent og
kaotisk.
http://7g.nz/
http://markettowns.nz/
The practical result of government promotion of monoculture development is that for most of us there are two communities: a community in which we work and shop, and a bedroom community in which we are stored. – Kevin CarsonWendell Berry er av de som klarest skildrer modernitetens splittelse av livet:
Her ser vi den radikale natur i Berrys visjon. Hele vår økonomi, vår kultur og vårt arbeid, fritid og hjem, er bygget rundt ideen om enkel mobilitet og oppløsningen av ulike aspekter av våre liv. Vi bor ett sted, arbeider en annen plass, handler et annet sted, tilber på et nytt sted igjen, og i fritiden reiser vi vekk. Ifølge Berry er et integrert liv, et liv med integritet, preget av medlemskap i et samfunn der man bor, arbeider, tilber, og gjennomfører de aller fleste andre menneskelige aktiviteter. Valget er klart: "Hvis vi ikke bor der vi arbeider forspiller vi livene våre, og vårt arbeid også." – Wendell BerrySamtidsmennesket forsøker febrilsk å fylle dette tomrommet i sine liv, i mangel av et integrert liv med alle sine aspekter, og i mangelen av ekte fellesskap, med bl.a. reiser. For å få en slutt på all denne reisingen må det igjen bli meningsfylt å være hjemme. Men da må alle aspektene ved livet gjenforenes i et større hele. Et meget godt initiativ er Village Towns!
http://7g.nz/
http://markettowns.nz/
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| For modernistene er funksjonsblanding noe urent og kaotisk, Village Towns fortoner seg derfor som et skrekkelig mareritt for moderne byplanleggere. Allikevel er det Village Towns som kan gi oss et nytt, integrert liv, hvor alle livets sider inngår i et større hele. Slik kan vi bli hele mennesker der vi bor, og slippe å reise verden rundt for å fylle tomrommene i våre liv. |
Thursday 26 January 2017
Illustrating the Solidarity Economy
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| Beautiful biourbanism for a new solidarity economy! Make sure to print this fantastic poster with text in A3 or A2, to hang it on your office. |
We’re very happy to share this fantastic poster, with text by Caroline Woolard and an illustration by Jeff Warren. The poster is also available in Spanish and Mandarin. The following text is extracted from Unterbahn.com:
What practices and places can we rely on and strengthen in the years to come?
What might be called an “alternative” economy in the United States is known globally as the solidarity economy. The solidarity economy identifies and unites grassroots practices like lending circles, credit unions, worker cooperatives, community safety initiatives, community media stations, and community land trusts to form a powerful base of political power. The concept emerged in the global South (as economia solidária*) and is now gaining support in the United States under many names, including the community economy, the peace economy, the workers’ economy, the social economy, the new economy, the circular economy, the regenerative economy, the local economy, and the cooperative economy.
As many people finally wake up to the reality that white supremacy threatens public health on a daily basis, a wide range of people are educating themselves, assertively dismantling structures of oppression in organizations, and learning to follow the lead of black and brown artists and organizers who have been under siege for centuries and who have always been leaders in the solidarity economy. For more information about the solidarity economy, please visit: http://www.communityeconomies.org/Home and http://solidaritynyc.org
Marco Arruda of the Brazilian Solidarity Economy Network stated at the World Social Forum in 2004: “A solidarity economy does not arise from thinkers or ideas; it is the outcome of the concrete historical struggle of the human being to live and to develop him/herself as an individual and a collective… innovative practices at the micro level can only be viable and structurally effective for social change if they interweave with one another to form always-broader collaborative networks and solidarity chains of production-finance-distribution-consumption-education-communication.”
Text by Caroline Woolard
Farväl till funktionalismen
Ønsker du å bli med å starte en søsterorganisasjon av Arkitekturupproret i Norge? Kontakt Arkitekturupproret her.
Bokrecension av Lars-Johan Lindberg
Farväl till funktionalismen av Hans Asplund, Atlantis förlag (1980)
Hans Asplund ( 1921 – 1991) var arkitekt sedan början av 1950-talet och verksam under den tid dåfunktionalismen gjorde sitt segertåg i folkhemmet. Han arbetade på en rad arkitektkontor både i Sverige och internationellt. Från mitten av 60-talet var han professor i arkitektur vid Lunds Tekniska Högskola. Han var dessutom son till den mycket kända arkitekten Gunnar Asplund som ritat Stockholms Stadsbibliotek och som efter sin klassicistiska period blev en av funktionalismens främsta företrädare. 1980 gav Hans Asplund ut boken Farväl till funktionalismen där han ser sig nödgad att begå ett postumt fadermord och fullständigt och totalt ta avstånd från de principer som varit allenarådande vad gäller stadsplanering och arkitektur från 30-talet och framåt, framförallt i Sverige men även internationellt. Boken kom ut i en tid när miljonprogrammens misslyckanden var helt uppenbara för alla och envar, och opinionen definitivt svängt över till dem som motsatte sig rivningar och stadsskövling.
Boken är mycket systematiskt och pedagogiskt uppbyggd och borde vara obligatorisk kurslitteratur för den blivande arkitekten. Asplund inleder med att förklara de tio teser som de ledande funktionalisterna, med den ryktbare Le Corbusier i spetsen, drivit. Asplund benämner dem: - Acceptism
- Moralis
- Teoreticism
- Materialism
- Teknokratism
- Infnitism
- Internationalism
- Originalism
- Brutalism
- Destruktivism
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| Scandic Victoria Tower (Wingårdhs) |
• Acceptismen innebar inte bara ett passivt accepterande utan ofta ett entusiastiskt understödjande av samhälleliga tendenser såsom industrialisering, urbanisering, massbilism och megalomani av olika slag.
• Moralismen innehåller underrubrikerna ”Förbud mot stilimitation, symmetri och ornamentik” samt ”Påbud om rätvinklighet och ärlighet.” Le Corbusier citeras:
”Människan tillämpar efter sin natur ordning… hans handlingar och tankar dikteras av den raka linjen och den räta vinkeln. Kurvan är fördärvlig, svår och farlig, den är något förlamande.”Klara och tydliga påbud och förbud! Som åtlyds plikttroget än idag.
• Teoreticismen innebar att stadsplanering skall ske utifrån principer om en funktionsuppdelad stad: bostäder för sig, arbete och handel för sig, i helt separata områden. Och mellan dessa, stora trafikleder. Lösningar som sedan i praktiken visade sig inte skapa goda stadsmiljöer.
• Materialismen betydde en total koncentration på mätbara, praktiska funktioner och på fysisk bekvämlighet och säkerhet, en inställning som startade inom forskning, fortsatte till normbildning och påverkade byggnadsprogram och byggd miljö till en jämn, grå tristess.
• Teknokratismen har genom funktionalisternas förgudning av tekniken inneburit disharmonisk överexponering av konstruktionselement och en atrofiering av formerna till följd av allt mer industrialiserade byggtekniker och därtill anpassade nyanslösa material.
• Infinitismen syftar till att upplösa rummet och sudda ut gränser, t ex mellan ute och inne (genom bl a genom stora glasväggar), samt utdragning av former till antingen höga skyskrapor eller platta pannkakor. Resultatet har blivit brist på rumsbildning i staden, ledande till oro, skyddslöshet och svårfattlighet på gränsen till kaos.
• Internationalismen innebär att samma typ av arkitektur skall genomföras överallt i hela världen, oavsett klimat, tillgång till material eller hänsyn till lokal kultur.
• Originalismen har uppmuntrat till en originalitetsjakt för att kompensera den tristess som Moralismens alla förbud och påbud innebar. Ibland baseras effektsökeriet på kommersiell önskan om publicitet, ibland på alltför ytliga tolkningar av de moderna konststilarnas formspråk. De originella formexplosionerna har ofta varit disharmoniska, pretentiösa, svårförståeliga, nyanslösa och har lett till funktionella, tekniska och ekonomiska misstag. Rekorddyra experimentbygget Nya Karolinska, som efter bara tre år börjar tappa fasadplåtarna, är ett aktuellt xempel på detta.
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| Gamla KTH Arkitekthurhögskolan, Stockholm |
• Destruktivismen illustreras av funktionalisternas hån och förakt för det ärvda byggbeståndet, vilket ledde till onödiga och mycket destruktiva rivningar av fullt funktionsdugliga och älskade byggnader, ibland hela stadsdelar, helt utan hänsyn till de invånarnas känslor, historia, önskemål och behov, och i en takt och omfattning som historiskt aldrig tidigare förekommit utom vid krig och bränder.
I boken utreds i detalj tes efter tes på nästan 300 sidor med bilder och exempel samt otaliga citat från kända och okända funktionalismprofeter som närmast får håren att resa sig pga deras brutala omänsklighet. Det är inte alls konstigt att Le Corbusier så småningom ställde sig i fascisternas tjänst under den franska Vichyregimen. Detta borde ha gjort honom politiskt omöjlig men det har helt hamnat under radarn, i alla fall i Sverige – med undantag av en enstaka artikel häromåret (Omöjligt att blunda för Le Corbusiers fascism, Lena Kåreland, SvD, 2015) efter att den mörkare sidan hos Le Corbusier uppmärksammats internationellt.
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| Tidig finfunkis på Gärdet, Stockholm (foto: Inger Glimmero) |
Farväl till funktionalismen kan hittas på antikvariat och brukar kosta runt 250 kr.
Lars-Johan Lindblad,
Energiingenjör
Wednesday 25 January 2017
La oss være retrovative med stolthet!
I stedet for å benytte ord som nostalgisk eller reaksjonær, bør vi heller anvende det nyskapende ordet RETROVASJON.
– A Time for Retrovation
Village Towns er et godt eksempel på retrovativ nytenkning:
http://7g.nz/
http://markettowns.nz/
Gamla stan er det nærmeste vi i Skandinavia kommer en Village Town i dag. Vi elsker alle Gamla stan, hvorfor bygger vi da ikke en masse nye Village Towns, istedenfor dette: https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/vil-stoppa-3400-bustadar-fordi-dei-ligg-for-langt-til-skogs-1.13327921
Å være nostalgisk er ut, å være retrovativ er in. Som jeg skriver:
– A Time for Retrovation
Village Towns er et godt eksempel på retrovativ nytenkning:
http://7g.nz/
http://markettowns.nz/
Gamla stan er det nærmeste vi i Skandinavia kommer en Village Town i dag. Vi elsker alle Gamla stan, hvorfor bygger vi da ikke en masse nye Village Towns, istedenfor dette: https://www.nrk.no/hordaland/vil-stoppa-3400-bustadar-fordi-dei-ligg-for-langt-til-skogs-1.13327921
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| Vi kunne ha fylt opp verden med vakre Village Towns istedenfor suburbant ødeland, bomaskiner og stygge kjøpesentra. Klikk i bildet for å drømme deg vekk! |
“Tesaker er i likhet med meg av den oppfatning at for å ivareta et steds kulturhistoriske rolle og verdi må dette gjøres på et retrovativt sett, hvilket betyr at man anvender gammel teknologi og kun forbedrer denne med ny teknologi der denne ikke forringer den gamle teknologiens egenart. Dette innebærer at man benytter seg av lokal, kretsløpsbasert, småskala teknologi, hvor man klart skiller by og land, på tvers av rådende modernistisk praksis, som er et ideologisk tankegods fra Le Corbusier og de tidlige modernistene, som mente at by og land skulle forenes av en enhetskultur.”Så la oss være retrovative med stolthet!
“Min oldefar levde hele sitt liv i en usedvanlig lykkelig tid, hvor alle aspekt ved livet var integrert i det lokale; teknologisk, sosialt, religiøst og kulturelt. Grenda hadde eget bedehus, badehus og nærbutikk. Nå, 100 år etterpå, er alt borte.”
“Man kan også spørre seg om det moderne mennesket er så mye lykkeligere med sine baderom til halvmillionen, enn hva mine forfedre var da de samlet seg i badehuset ved Sagelven på lørdager, for å være klare til bedehuset på søndager? Badehuset var en sosial møteplass, hvor man renset kroppen, hvoretter sjelen ble renset påfølgende søndag. I badehuset lyttet man til sine medmennesker, på bedehuset til Gud, under talerstolen til Totenåsens apostel. Ikke en geistlig, men en enkel husmannssønn, med et stort kall, å samle grendene rundt Totenåsen i Kristus.”
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| Er det moderne mennesket lykkeligere i ensomhet i sine luxuriøse baderom, enn hva min oldefar var i grendas badehus ved Sagelven? Foto: Sue pile |
Tuesday 24 January 2017
The Ecocide, Culturecide and Civicide of the Baby Boomers
Read original article at Village Towns' 7 generations.
When you fly over America, coast to coast, you see a massive development pattern that did not exist in 1950. Patch after patch of suburban sprawl connected by roads and by the most extensive, expensive infrastructure project in history - the interstate highway system. In the Baby Boomers' lifetime over half of the nation shifted from rural, town and city living to the suburbs. It was the most successful, rapidly-replicating development pattern in history. Unfortunately, it is also the most destructive. However, ignoring that for a moment, let's look at what made it successful, and then determine if a non-destructive, economically, socially & culturally enriched development pattern can be introduced that spreads as rapidly and successfully as suburban sprawl.
The answer is in the concept of development pattern. Once the suburban model was proven, local governments saw it provided economic stimulus, so they zoned for it. The legal and planning documents were replicable, and developers saw that huge profits could be made turning farmland into quarter-acre paradise. All that needs to be done is to use a development pattern that is done for the right reasons, but ensures the same replicability for politicians and developers. Neither needs to bring a high level of consciousness to their work, but merely to follow the rules.
Since about 1950, humanity has engaged in a war on Nature and on Human Nature. Or to be more precise, since we are a part of Nature and humanity - both the perpetrators and victims, we have been conducting a slow form of collective suicide... let's call it ecocide, cuturecide and civicide (the destruction of civilization as we know it). We did not declare such a war, indeed it is mere collateral damage, but the damage is so great as to potentially threaten life as we know it. Of course, even as the scientists, experts and scholars make such observations and dire predictions, we really don't believe it. If we did, we would change our business-as-usual as fast as America did after Pearl Harbor in 1941. It's unfortunate Al Gore was a politician, and more unfortunate that he chose the title An Inconvenient Truth, because those who believe his message really don't believe it will be more than inconvenient. Sure, it might be warmer, but in some places that will be welcome. Floods and drought will be inconvenient, but we will get through it. So we have global conferences where national leaders make vague pledges to keep the increases to some theoretical number, and little New Zealand decides its contribution will be to buy carbon credits - spending either $100 or $1,350 per household - rather than actually cut back on its emissions.
Global solutions have to happen somewhere. That somewhere is either where people live, or where the raw materials and manufacturing of the things people buy occurs. Consumption is ultimately local. It happens locally, even if supported by a supply line located somewhere else. How we consume locally determines how we will live and how the planet and its people will fare in the future.
When we drive a car, we drive locally - although sometimes local can mean a hundred mile commute every day. Zoologists call this territory our home range, the same loops we drive every day. When billions of people rely on transport every day, the cost and damage to humanity and nature is huge. Over time, it is potentially life threatening... all because the prevailing development pattern is based on transport.
So what happens if we change the development pattern by moving destinations so all day-to-day destinations are within walking distance? A whole host of problems disappear. Not mitigated or offset; the problems are eliminated. You save money, reconnect people, create a safer place to live, the air smells sweeter, the outdoors are quieter, life improves.
Creating walking home ranges is not new idea, it is how almost all human beings lived before they developed energy servants. Go to Old Europe and you find these timeless development patterns still operating. Not only that, but walking home range territory is growing as cities like Hamburg commit to going car-free. However, retrofitting a transport-based design is difficult. It's the future growth where sustainable development patterns can be most effective.
In 1950, the earth had half a billion middle class people. Today it is 2 billion. In 15 years, it is projected at 5 billion. But the middle-class development pattern is based on transport - mostly cars. It's killing us already, if we are to find room for 3 billion more middle class people, we need a different approach. So far, we have just talked about transport. But there is a lot more than just how we get around. Let's look at some of society's challenges.
As of late, Climate Change has captured centre stage as the challenge facing humanity. Certainly it is big, and could be catastrophic, but if tomorrow we invented a way to clear the skies of greenhouse gasses and lower the global mean temperature to pre-industrial levels, all would not be well. It's a challenge even listing all the big challenges, because different people and groups focus on different ones in what has been called silo thinking.
Consider the list below, and then reflect on how many of these challenges can be addressed by changing how we live. For example, if we eliminate the need to drive on a day-to-day basis by moving destinations so all are within walking distance, the positive effects are far greater than just eliminating tailpipe emissions. Children can play in the streets, which reduces the pressure on families and gets the kids active, outdoors. Old people need not move away to segregated retirement homes when they stop driving. Cafe culture - sitting outside at a cafe table on the village plaza is a gentle pleasure... no noise or noxious smells from passing cars & trucks. Eliminating driving cuts the cost of living by about 25%. The land given over to parked and driven cars & trucks is claimed back to the community. the streets become human scaled with no off-street parking for businesses and no 2-car garage as part of the home mortgage. Before ultra-high speed broadband, this may not have been possible, but with the 21st century shifts in technology, telepresence and e-commerce take the place of commuting and shopping.
What are some of the challenges faced by humanity today, and as you read them, think about how a new approach to development patterns could overcome those challenges?
Ecocide is an active word. Civicide and Culturecide are made up, but follow the same theme. Some challenges are massive like species extinction and being told that if we don't change our farming methods, we have sixty harvests left before the topsoil is gone. Others are personal, like boredom, loneliness and addiction to mask the emptiness. Money is a big problem even though technically money is just a medium. In tribal cultures everyone worked, everyone created wealth or perished. Today, we work for money and too often fail to understand the importance of creating wealth rather than cost externalising.
We propose that when one examines all of the challenges listed above, they are fundamentally local in consumption, but institutional in production. In ecology, it is the growth of the consuming class - from 1/2 billion in 1950 to 2 billion today, projected to 5 billion by 2030 that creates the market for the stuff that is wrecking the natural ecology. In our civilization, we have built a society based on energy servants making the average person more powerful in some ways than the monarchs of yore, but we use that energy to drive in circles; to burn in years what took Nature epochs to create. We have created a society of institutions that no longer can fulfil their purposes. To quote Dee Hock who put it so succinctly: schools that can’t teach, universities far from universal, corporations that neither cooperate nor compete, only consolidate, unhealthy health-care systems, welfare systems in which no one fairs well, farming systems that destroy the soil and poison food, families far from familial, police that can’t enforce the law, judicial systems without justice, governments that can’t govern, economies that can’t economise.
People are, by nature, social beings. They live in communities and left to their own devices, they tend to cooperate out of necessity and compete when given the opportunity. They are individualistic but not isolated. As children, they naturally learn by observing and interacting with older people. Socially, these communities tend to work best when about 250 to 750 people, what we call villages, but economically one rises above a subsistence level when the larger community is about 5,000 to 10,000 people - what we call towns. Beyond that size, communities tend to become bureaucratic as empire-building institutions remove local checks and balances.
None of these are new observations. They are how humans have worked for ten thousand years since they stopped being nomads and settled down. When they settled down, development patterns began to emerge.
For the first 10,000 years, these development patterns were based on the individual. Then in the 20th century a new experiment was introduced - base development patterns on transport. Move day-to-day destinations so people must use mechanised transport to accomplish the mundane chores of daily life. As the challenge list shows, this experiment is a failure. We need a new set of development patterns.
Rather than look to unproven, utopian ideas, prudence would suggest we examine what worked for 10,000 years to see if it can be adapted to a 21st century, ultra-technological world.
Development Patterns are how people live.
Designing sustainable patterns improves quality of life.
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Suburbia.
Image: Alan Huett.A dream about monotony, consumerism and envy. It's the Norwegian dream! |
Development patterns as an important answer to the challenges facing the planet and its people
When you fly over America, coast to coast, you see a massive development pattern that did not exist in 1950. Patch after patch of suburban sprawl connected by roads and by the most extensive, expensive infrastructure project in history - the interstate highway system. In the Baby Boomers' lifetime over half of the nation shifted from rural, town and city living to the suburbs. It was the most successful, rapidly-replicating development pattern in history. Unfortunately, it is also the most destructive. However, ignoring that for a moment, let's look at what made it successful, and then determine if a non-destructive, economically, socially & culturally enriched development pattern can be introduced that spreads as rapidly and successfully as suburban sprawl.
The answer is in the concept of development pattern. Once the suburban model was proven, local governments saw it provided economic stimulus, so they zoned for it. The legal and planning documents were replicable, and developers saw that huge profits could be made turning farmland into quarter-acre paradise. All that needs to be done is to use a development pattern that is done for the right reasons, but ensures the same replicability for politicians and developers. Neither needs to bring a high level of consciousness to their work, but merely to follow the rules.
Why is this important?
Since about 1950, humanity has engaged in a war on Nature and on Human Nature. Or to be more precise, since we are a part of Nature and humanity - both the perpetrators and victims, we have been conducting a slow form of collective suicide... let's call it ecocide, cuturecide and civicide (the destruction of civilization as we know it). We did not declare such a war, indeed it is mere collateral damage, but the damage is so great as to potentially threaten life as we know it. Of course, even as the scientists, experts and scholars make such observations and dire predictions, we really don't believe it. If we did, we would change our business-as-usual as fast as America did after Pearl Harbor in 1941. It's unfortunate Al Gore was a politician, and more unfortunate that he chose the title An Inconvenient Truth, because those who believe his message really don't believe it will be more than inconvenient. Sure, it might be warmer, but in some places that will be welcome. Floods and drought will be inconvenient, but we will get through it. So we have global conferences where national leaders make vague pledges to keep the increases to some theoretical number, and little New Zealand decides its contribution will be to buy carbon credits - spending either $100 or $1,350 per household - rather than actually cut back on its emissions.
Global solutions have to happen somewhere. That somewhere is either where people live, or where the raw materials and manufacturing of the things people buy occurs. Consumption is ultimately local. It happens locally, even if supported by a supply line located somewhere else. How we consume locally determines how we will live and how the planet and its people will fare in the future.
When we drive a car, we drive locally - although sometimes local can mean a hundred mile commute every day. Zoologists call this territory our home range, the same loops we drive every day. When billions of people rely on transport every day, the cost and damage to humanity and nature is huge. Over time, it is potentially life threatening... all because the prevailing development pattern is based on transport.
So what happens if we change the development pattern by moving destinations so all day-to-day destinations are within walking distance? A whole host of problems disappear. Not mitigated or offset; the problems are eliminated. You save money, reconnect people, create a safer place to live, the air smells sweeter, the outdoors are quieter, life improves.
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| Gamla stan, Stockholm. |
Creating walking home ranges is not new idea, it is how almost all human beings lived before they developed energy servants. Go to Old Europe and you find these timeless development patterns still operating. Not only that, but walking home range territory is growing as cities like Hamburg commit to going car-free. However, retrofitting a transport-based design is difficult. It's the future growth where sustainable development patterns can be most effective.
In 1950, the earth had half a billion middle class people. Today it is 2 billion. In 15 years, it is projected at 5 billion. But the middle-class development pattern is based on transport - mostly cars. It's killing us already, if we are to find room for 3 billion more middle class people, we need a different approach. So far, we have just talked about transport. But there is a lot more than just how we get around. Let's look at some of society's challenges.
The Problem Statement
As of late, Climate Change has captured centre stage as the challenge facing humanity. Certainly it is big, and could be catastrophic, but if tomorrow we invented a way to clear the skies of greenhouse gasses and lower the global mean temperature to pre-industrial levels, all would not be well. It's a challenge even listing all the big challenges, because different people and groups focus on different ones in what has been called silo thinking.
Consider the list below, and then reflect on how many of these challenges can be addressed by changing how we live. For example, if we eliminate the need to drive on a day-to-day basis by moving destinations so all are within walking distance, the positive effects are far greater than just eliminating tailpipe emissions. Children can play in the streets, which reduces the pressure on families and gets the kids active, outdoors. Old people need not move away to segregated retirement homes when they stop driving. Cafe culture - sitting outside at a cafe table on the village plaza is a gentle pleasure... no noise or noxious smells from passing cars & trucks. Eliminating driving cuts the cost of living by about 25%. The land given over to parked and driven cars & trucks is claimed back to the community. the streets become human scaled with no off-street parking for businesses and no 2-car garage as part of the home mortgage. Before ultra-high speed broadband, this may not have been possible, but with the 21st century shifts in technology, telepresence and e-commerce take the place of commuting and shopping.
What are some of the challenges faced by humanity today, and as you read them, think about how a new approach to development patterns could overcome those challenges?
| ECOCIDE: The War on Nature | CIVICIDE: The War on Civilization | CULTURECIDE: The War on Culture |
| Species extinction | Wealth based on peak oil | Structural interpersonal disconnection |
| Collapse of marine ecosystems | Cataclysm migration | Fragmenting families |
| Ice shelf melt and sea level rise | Economic polarization | No provision for aging population |
| Fukushima-type nuclear leaks | Toxic profits based on cost-externalizing | Lack of opportunity for youth |
| Rise in global air temperature | Periodic regional/global economic collapse | Habitat homogenization |
| Topsoil depletion (60 years left) | Structurally high unemployment | Loneliness and social isolation |
| Chemical farming toxicity | Unaffordable housing | Risk-averse childrearing |
| Ocean acidification/ocean hypoxia | Crime tolerance | Youth segregation, role-model isolation |
| Dead-zone seas | Neo-diseases (cancer/diabetes, | Elder segregation & isolation |
| Fish food stocks dwindling | Urban transport congestion | Atrophied citizenship |
| Future food shortages | Lack of start-up capital | Substance abuse |
| Water shortages and pollution | Local government debt-blowouts | Failing, isolated schools |
| Farm-fouled waterways | Nature deficit syndrome | Youth alienation & suicide |
| Bee colony collapse disorder | Night-light pollution | Arts commoditization |
| Exotic species colonization | Noise pollution | Internet addiction |
| Localized air pollution | Weakening immune systems | Social disconnection |
Ecocide is an active word. Civicide and Culturecide are made up, but follow the same theme. Some challenges are massive like species extinction and being told that if we don't change our farming methods, we have sixty harvests left before the topsoil is gone. Others are personal, like boredom, loneliness and addiction to mask the emptiness. Money is a big problem even though technically money is just a medium. In tribal cultures everyone worked, everyone created wealth or perished. Today, we work for money and too often fail to understand the importance of creating wealth rather than cost externalising.
We propose that when one examines all of the challenges listed above, they are fundamentally local in consumption, but institutional in production. In ecology, it is the growth of the consuming class - from 1/2 billion in 1950 to 2 billion today, projected to 5 billion by 2030 that creates the market for the stuff that is wrecking the natural ecology. In our civilization, we have built a society based on energy servants making the average person more powerful in some ways than the monarchs of yore, but we use that energy to drive in circles; to burn in years what took Nature epochs to create. We have created a society of institutions that no longer can fulfil their purposes. To quote Dee Hock who put it so succinctly: schools that can’t teach, universities far from universal, corporations that neither cooperate nor compete, only consolidate, unhealthy health-care systems, welfare systems in which no one fairs well, farming systems that destroy the soil and poison food, families far from familial, police that can’t enforce the law, judicial systems without justice, governments that can’t govern, economies that can’t economise.
The Solution Statement
People are, by nature, social beings. They live in communities and left to their own devices, they tend to cooperate out of necessity and compete when given the opportunity. They are individualistic but not isolated. As children, they naturally learn by observing and interacting with older people. Socially, these communities tend to work best when about 250 to 750 people, what we call villages, but economically one rises above a subsistence level when the larger community is about 5,000 to 10,000 people - what we call towns. Beyond that size, communities tend to become bureaucratic as empire-building institutions remove local checks and balances.
None of these are new observations. They are how humans have worked for ten thousand years since they stopped being nomads and settled down. When they settled down, development patterns began to emerge.
For the first 10,000 years, these development patterns were based on the individual. Then in the 20th century a new experiment was introduced - base development patterns on transport. Move day-to-day destinations so people must use mechanised transport to accomplish the mundane chores of daily life. As the challenge list shows, this experiment is a failure. We need a new set of development patterns.
Rather than look to unproven, utopian ideas, prudence would suggest we examine what worked for 10,000 years to see if it can be adapted to a 21st century, ultra-technological world.
Saturday 21 January 2017
Ein moderne barndom
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| Moderne tilrettelegging av barndomen. Kan det verta sjølvstendige individ av noko slikt? Eller bør vi hente attende eventyrleikeplassen og la borna byggje sin eigen barndom? –Wikimedia. |
Problem
Eit slott, laga av kartong, steinar, og gamle greiner, av ei gruppe born for dei sjølve, er verdt tusen perfekt detaljerte, og perfekt dekorerte slott, laga for dei i ein fabrikk.
LøysingChristopher Alexanders vidgjetne bok feirar 40-års jubileum i år. Ein god hyllest ville vera å hente fram att eventyrleikeplassen!
Sett opp ein leikeplass for born i kvart einaste nabolag. Ikkje ein ferdig leikeplass, med asfalt og husker, men ein plass med råmateriale av alle slag – nett, boksar, tønner, tre, reip, enkle verktøy, plankar, gras, og vatn – kvar ungane kan skapa og gjenskapa leikeplassen sin på eigehand.
Herlig ... man får kreative unger ved ikke å gjøre alt så ferdigstilt. Husker mitt barnebarn på ca. ett år, da pappaen hennes kom hjem med en nydelig leke, innpakket i papir med cellofanbånd rundt. Ungen var mest interessert i båndene og papiret ... til skuffelse for pappaen. - Marianne Solli
Friday 6 January 2017
Kulturhistorisk vandring fra Fossemøllen I til Fossemøllen II (Bevar de siste minnene etter fossemøllingsslekta!)
Strekningen etter Olterudelva forbi Grythengen huser fine ruiner etter gammel vannkraftsindustri, som ble
opparbeidet av Herman Evensen Fossemøllen (1839-1919), som kom fra
gården Fossemøllen ved Kvernumsstrykene på Skreia, nå Kvernum bruk, hvor
fossemøllingsslekta drev omfattende sagbruks- og møllerivirksomhet. Han
fikk bo ved husmannsplassen Grythengen under Grythe, mot at han drev
sagbruk og mølle for gården ved Olterudelva.
Det bør ved Kvernumsstrykene på Skreia settes opp ei informasjonstavle
om den rike vannkraftsindustrien som har vært her siden middelalderen,
om gården Fossemøllen og fossemøllingsslekta, som spilte slik en viktig
rolle for den tidlige industrialiseringen av Skreia og Toten, og om
Herman Evensen Fossemøllen som videreførte denne tradisjonen ved
Grythengen oppunder Totenåsen. Ruinene etter industrivirksomheten ved
Olterudelva bør markeres på et kart her, som et turmål for de som er
interessert i vannkraftsindustrien i og rundt Skreia, gjerne som del av
en kulturhistorisk vandring fra Fossemøllen I til Fossemøllen II /Grythengen.
Etter denne ruta tilbrakte jo også elvemennesket og den naturfilosofiske høvdingen Sigmund K. Setreng sin ungdomstid.
Som kulturområde bør ruinene etter herr Fossemøllen ved Olterudelva ses i sammenheng med den vannkraftsindustrien som foregikk på Skreia, og hvordan kunnskapen herfra spredte seg til småelvene ned fra Totenåsen. Det er sterke utbyggingsinteresser som ønsker å avslutte Kvernums rolle som industriområde, her hvor det har vært småindustri siden middelalderen. Dette vil være svært identitetsødeleggende. I artikler i OA og hos P2P-Foundation har jeg tatt til orde for for at Kvernum bruk tilrettelegges for småindustri, som del av en ny økolandsby på Skreias tak, og jeg ønsker å invitere Michel Bauwens for å inspirere. FILAGO har nå lansert et meget godt tunkonsept i Hurdal, og jeg håper å kunne samarbeide med dem og Ross Chapin Architects for å lansere en økolandsby på Skreia.
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| Herr Fossemøllens ruindam ved Olterudelva i Øverskreien på Østre Toten |
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| Her i Kvernumsstrykene i Lenaelva på Skreia industrialiserte fossemøllingsslekta Toten. Som takk for vår innsats burde totningene bevart Fossemøllen II eller Grythengen som et retrovativt elvebruk! Det minste de kan gjøre er å respektere de siste ruinene etter mine store forfedre! |
Som kulturområde bør ruinene etter herr Fossemøllen ved Olterudelva ses i sammenheng med den vannkraftsindustrien som foregikk på Skreia, og hvordan kunnskapen herfra spredte seg til småelvene ned fra Totenåsen. Det er sterke utbyggingsinteresser som ønsker å avslutte Kvernums rolle som industriområde, her hvor det har vært småindustri siden middelalderen. Dette vil være svært identitetsødeleggende. I artikler i OA og hos P2P-Foundation har jeg tatt til orde for for at Kvernum bruk tilrettelegges for småindustri, som del av en ny økolandsby på Skreias tak, og jeg ønsker å invitere Michel Bauwens for å inspirere. FILAGO har nå lansert et meget godt tunkonsept i Hurdal, og jeg håper å kunne samarbeide med dem og Ross Chapin Architects for å lansere en økolandsby på Skreia.
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| Kvernum bruk, hvor gården Fossemøllen lå. Ikke vanær dette eldgamle industriområdet ved å degradere det til et boligområde! |
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