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Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Hot Japan’s cool green trends
Madeline Ashby, WorldChanging
… I had come to Japan with my husband as part of my Master’s thesis. But along the way, I discovered a series of green trends that increasingly demanded my attention. How Japan markets green tech changed my notions about how my chosen country (Canada) should tailor green campaigns.
… Consider the “cool biz” look advocated by former Prime Minister Koizumi’s cabinet. Rather than ask homeowners to bump their air conditioning thermostats a notch during the summer (as Canadian David Suzuki has), Koizumi advocated a very simple change to the Japanese salaryman’s traditional dress code: no more ties, and no more wool. Previously, rigourous social enforcement kept these men boiling in their suits like potatoes baked in their own jackets. Summer temperatures in Tokyo’s semi-tropical climate range from 28-34 degrees C and humidity is over seventy percent. “Cool biz” allowed them to stop air conditioning so aggressively.
When I first heard of this plan on a balmy night in Ginza, I thought it little more than a publicity stunt. Come on, I thought, who actually listens to the prime minister on sartorial matters? Then I took a look around.
The workers surrounding me were in light shirts, with nary a jacket in sight. Koizumi had struck a nerve by giving these men and women the permission to be comfortable, and tying that indulgence to energy efficiency and ethical responsibility.
… Japan does not have all the answers to green living. It still emphasizes convenience, excess, and disposability. Consider the sheer amount of packaging in many Japanese goods:
… But if Japan has done anything correctly, it’s to marry government involvement with the attractiveness of innovation. Green tech is a point of pride. Green campaigning is about comfort and luxury-something one wants to do, rather than what one ought to do.
(31 August 2008)
Plan C 5.0: Community Solutions to Climate Change and Peak Oil
Ryan D. Hottle, Global Climate Solutions
Relocalization-the process of creating sustainable and largely self-reliant communities that are all at once beautiful, prosperous, and meaningful places to live-is perhaps the single greatest step we can take to “decarbonize” our lives and thereby prepare for climate change and peak oil simultaneously.
It’s a shame and a testament to our highly compartmentalized 21st century mindset that many within the “climate change community” and the larger “sustainability community” don’t know about peak oil and the potentially damning effects it could have on our social and economic systems. For example, I take courses from highly, highly educated climate scientists who can speak for hours on, for example, the intricacies of cloud formation as it relates to sulfate particles in the atmosphere and how they are expected to change with a warming atmosphere. But ask them about “peak oil?” They don’t know what it is. Never heard of it.
You might be able to claim ignorance, but you can’t say there wasn’t anybody warning you about it or describing the solutions either. Community Solutions (www.communitysolution.org), a vibrant non-profit organization out of Yellow Springs, Ohio, has been ringing the clarion call for solutions to climate change and peak oil for over half a decade now and are preparing to host their 5th annual conference on “Plan C: Individual Survival Strategies for the Energy Crisis.” (Conference website available here: www.plancconference.info.)
To say that the list of speakers they have lined up are good would be a gross understatement-it would be worthy to travel to hear any one of the seven amazing visionaries they have scheduled.
Among them John Michael Greer (who has recently been called “the greatest peak oil historian in the English language), Richard Heinberg (easily the most influential and prolific writer on peak oil ), Peter Bane (probably one of the top Permaculture practitioners and teachers in the world, co-editor of Permaculture Activist [www.permacultureactivist.net], and also my PC design course teacher;) and-let us not forget-Megan Quinn Bachman (Outreach director of Community Solutions-young, passionate, articulate, and a global leader-what more could you ask for?!)
The conference is scheduled to take place October 31st-November 2nd in Rochester, Michigan. In order to receive Early Registration prices you have to sign up before September 30th. The cost for the conference is a steal, in my opinion, with extremely low costs . (I should note that I am not affiliated whatsoever with the conference-I am merely a strong supporter of the great work and leadership Community Solutions has been providing over the years.) …
(2 September 2008)
Introducing Transition Chat!
Rob Hopkins, Transition Culture
Transition Chat! is a new initiative co-ordinated by the Transition Network, which will provide a forum for people to share successes, failures, ideas, best practice and so on. We are really excited about the potential for this. The idea is that each session takes place on a Monday, between 2 and 3.30pm GMT (it can roll on if the conversation is particularly animated) and it is hosted in a web chat format. Pop them in your diary, the first one is next Monday.
The Timetable.
The first 10 have been arranged, and they offer a mixture of deepening your understanding of various aspects of Transition, the opportunity to ask the questions you struggle with to experts in the field, and chatting with other Transition folks. The timetable thus far is as follows;
Sept. 8th.Transition Network Structure Document: hosted by Rob Hopkins and Peter Lipman. An opportunity for anyone unable to make the discussion day on the 10th to input into this important document.
(3 September 2008)
Planting seeds: Website seeks to liberate diets – and wallets – from supermarket
Freedom Gardens, Press release
Site’s ‘100-Foot Diet’ Brings Local Food Movement Home
PASADENA, Calif. — Think of it as Facebook meets the Farmer’s Almanac: A social networking site for people who want to fight soaring food prices and global warming by growing their own food. At FreedomGardens.org, novice and expert gardeners from around the world gather to post success stories, ask questions, and challenge one another to ever-increasing levels of self-sustained living.
The site is backed by the example of its founders, Jules Dervaes and his three adult children, Anais, Justin, and Jordanne, the urban-dwelling “eco-pioneers” who have been growing most of their own food since 2001 on their 66 ft x 132 ft lot in the greater Los Angeles area.
By growing at least a portion of what they eat, “Freedom Gardeners” can take back control from the corporate food system. In the process, they can improve their health, reduce their ecological footprint, and — with food price inflation at the highest levels since 1990 — save money. Taking these basic steps, others can join what the Dervaeses call a “homegrown revolution(TM).”
To motivate gardeners and focus their efforts, Freedom Gardens presents challenges like the 100-Foot Diet. Mr. Dervaes uses the illustration of a target to explain the diet in the context of the global food economy and the distance food travels from field to plate. “This diet is bringing you back to your home; that’s the bull’s-eye!” he says. “People can look for food security right in their backyard.”
The free, interactive site uses social networking software to connect gardeners who can share tips about plant selection, soil and pest problems, and climate issues. Also, members of this supportive community can offer words of sympathy and encouragement for online friends going through difficult times.
“We’re providing the setting for ‘over-the-fence’ chats so neighbors can help each other,” says Mr. Dervaes. “Through our website, we facilitate their getting together.”
About Freedom Gardens
Launched in May 2008, Freedom Gardens is a social networking website for gardeners and homegrown food enthusiasts. The site’s founders, the Dervaes family, draw on many years of personal experience on their model urban homestead, PathtoFreedom.com, to help others take back control of their diets and their budgets by growing their food. For more information, visit http://www.freedomgardens.org.
(September 2008)
Freedom Gardens writes:
Now with 940 members and growing strong, one can participate up to one of their many interactive, homegrown challenges and campaigns like: ‘The 100 Foot Diet,” “Liberate Your Yard,” “Harvest Keeper,” and “Save Our Seeds.”
