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Compostmodern ’09
Jeremy Faludi, WorldChanging
This past weekend in San Francisco was Compostmodern, the green design conference we’ve mentioned many times before (Alex Steffen keynoted last year’s event). Despite being thrown by the AIGA, it feels much more like an industrial design conference. I personally think this is quite productive, but I’m biased by being a product designer. They had great presentations, from the widely-known Saul Griffith and Nathan Shedroff to newcomer Emily Pilloton and our own Dawn Danby and Joel Makower. Here are some notes and thoughts from the day.
Allen Chochinov had a ten-steps method for approaching green design, including things like acknowledging your own privilege and power as a designer. As he put it, you don’t have to just do what the client asks, rather, “your job is to move the client over to where you are.” Giving the client what he or she asks for is only the simplest zero-effort solution. Understanding what your clients think they want, and convincing them to want what you want to make for them, is the goal. Allen’s approach to this is to sometimes just be punk and do what you want without getting permission first, but Danby later approached this with the caveat that you must first speak your client’s language in order to get them where you are. This requires listening and social skills that we weren’t trained for as designers, but which can, in fact, be more important than our design skills. The most successful designers in the world aren’t the most successful because they’re the best designers, they’re the most successful because they’re the best salesmen, the best at getting clients on board with their ideas. The same is true for success in sustainability. Another point Chochinov made, which was later reiterated by John Bielenberg of Project M, was being “intentionally dumb,” questioning assumptions and doing things “wrong” in order to get a fresh take and cause innovation.
(23 February 2009)
4 Models for Organizing a Community for an Uncertain Future
Michael Foley , The Oil Drum: Campfire
In a previous post, I argued that an important part of preparing at the local level for an uncertain future lies in strengthening our communities and making them more resilient. That takes community organizing, or making use of existing organizations. Mobilizing for policy change at both local, state/provincial, and national levels also requires organization. A few letters to the editor or cranky phone calls to your representatives won’t cut it, though it may occasionally be personally satisfying. So how do we organize? And what sorts of organizations can we put to use? The following is an effort to lay out the basic models I’ve seen in action in the United States and Latin America. With minor differences, I suspect they’re pretty much universal in the “modern” sector of societies around the world.
There are four basic models: NGOs (non-governmental organizations), community organizations, coalitions, and “coordinadoras” or “organizations of organizations.”
NGO’s
NGOs (non-governmental organizations) are relatively small, professionalized advocacy and service organizations. They’ve proliferated over the last thirty years around the world and become major players in development, advocacy for the disadvantaged and oppressed, and the environment. They can be distinguished from other sorts of non-profits in their small scale and niche market characteristics: hospitals are big, permanent community institutions while health NGOs bring healthcare to refugees and displaced persons; schools and universities have established places in society while education NGOs sponsor early childhood education programs where there are none, conduct after-school classes for disadvantaged kids, or pursue adult literacy programs. Most environmental organizations, big and small, are NGOs. Obviously, there’s lots of overlap between traditional non-profits and NGOs, but the difference should be clear enough.
NGOs are very adept at identifying community needs, coming up with solutions, and mobilizing funding.
(25 February 2009)
Post Carbon Newsletter – February 2009
Staff, Post Carbon Institute
As the US economic stimulus package finally leaves the starting gate, both the Obama Administration and the media are speaking more openly about a stark reality: the global economic crisis is deep, severe, and will last more than a few years.
This month’s featured articles dig in to the depths of the crisis, starting with Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg on the always-difficult subject of population. Program Director Daniel Lerch discusses the significance of last summer’s record oil price and record stock market plunge. Heinberg and Matt Savinar then explore the crisis in greater detail in an hour-long radio interview.
Next there’s an update from Transition United States, the new US arm of the international Transition Towns movement and a Post Carbon Institute partner.
From our sister site Energy Bulletin we highlight three articles on the challenges we face in both understanding and confronting the global economic crisis. Kurt Cobb suggests our modern lifestyles have not adapted us to deal well with long term societal challenges. Dmitry Orlov applies first-hand lessons from the collapse of the Soviet Union to the teetering American economy. And John Michael Greer continues his exploration of “the ecology of social change.”
And finally, we list a set of new features from Global Public Media. First, there’s the second installment of a Richard Heinberg Museletter on energy limits to growth and the path to sustainability. Then “Reality Report” host Jason Bradford interviews Matthew Stein, author of When Technology Fails. Transition US co-founder Jennifer Gray is interviewed by “Peak Moment” host Janaia Donaldson about how this dynamic initiative got started and where she sees it going. And finally, “Crop to Cuisine” host Dov Hirsch talks about one local resource that doesn’t seem to be anywhere close to peaking: beer.
Photo credit: Joe Raedle/Getty Images
(25 February 2009)
