My blog has moved

my blog can now be found at http://ChrysH.Greenpress.com

Community Gardening

I recently started working at a community garden in Christchurch - the Strickland Street or Spreydon Garden. It is an interesting place and I"m meeting some very interesting people with an interest in green issues in a very practical grass roots sort of way.

The garden has a spectacular composting system and takes in kitchen waste from a number of nearby households as well as composting everything that comes from the garden (weeds, prunings etc). I've been learning about the art of teaching people about composting (which like every other form of teaching I've had anything to do with involved a lot of learning). I've also become the promotions person which is a slightly novel experience for one with my background!

I suppose what I'm concluding from all this that the whole idea of social learning and on reflecting on action is as useful gardening and composting as it is in lots of other places. No compost heap or garden is ever the same and on top of that everyone who gardens has learned a great deal through their own experimentation and assessment of success or failure.

This means that actually it is feasible to learn something from everyone who has every tried to plant and grow something and that good gardeners have to be good at reflecting on their efforts because the environment in which they garden is continually throwing new issues and problems their way.

Planning, public participation & learning humility!

I've been presenting submissions at planning hearings this week and last. Yesterday I took a different approach and presented very little so that we could get into questions and discussion. I'm very glad I did because I learned a lot all in quite a short space of time and want to reflect on that.

I'm intrigued at how the system we have here in New Zealand sets submitters up to feel powerless. I sent in my written submission. Then I received feedback that indicated that everything I said was rejected. Unfortunately, this made me feel that it was "me against them" and that I needed to convince and persuade. However if I had done that I would have missed the mark completely and learned nothing.

I had talked about my feelings prior to going into the hearing which was very useful because I had determined that I should go into the hearing with compassion, and to learn, or as another friend, Lucy Baragwanath put it, with humility - the assumption that I didn't know it all (which I already knew!). This worked well, although I found it a bit scary because I was worried that I would look like a fool when the conversation went outside my level of knowledge.

What I learned was a lot more about what the committee could and could not change and just how limited their power is in the system. It also left me thinking that any significant change is impossible once a plan is drafted because of the way various plans and strategies articulate.

The bulk of the work of an advocacy group needs to be done before the plan is put out for submissions.

Time really does matter

I'm writing an article at the moment on communication and change. As I write I"m also composing a presentation to the Regional Land Transport committee here in Canterbury to try and convince them that they need to think differently about transport.

Anyway in doing all this, it is becoming increasingly obvious that there is no way we will be an adaptable resilient society if we keep trying to live at our current speed. Which makes me think that slowing people down is actually the task that we need to be working on if we are going to foster more sustainable practices.

I"m also reflecting on something I heard recently from a colleague who noted that the problem that we have is not so much too much consumption, but too much affluence (which then leads people to consume). So we need to work less (something that I have said in other posts) and earn less so that we consume less but also so that we have more time to reflect on what we are doing and to change. Change, particularly complex changes take time and effort but often not money or resources!

Of course I"m not implying that such a major shift as getting people to feel ok about less affluence is easy but perhaps the recession really is a blessing - its our opportunity to slow down and think. The question is how to make such a shift in a way that is fair.

:-)

Earth Whisperers

I went to my first movie premiere last night. Earth Whisperers was a great documentary movie that caught the personalities of each of the people who talked about their passion - some aspect of the New Zealand Environment. This varied from healers through to organic gardeners to people who have saved large tracts of native bush or restored them. It is well worth a look if you get the opportunity. I must say it is nice to see an environmental movie that provides inspiration rather than documenting the problems we face. Each of these people have done what they did because of the problems that they see and have made a difference in very tangible ways.

Check out a wee excerpt here on YouTube

Transport and peak oil etc

I've been writing submissions this week focused mainly on tranport - and specifically on trying to get our local councils here in Canterbury to recognise the need for them to provide cycling and walking facilities.

For some reason they seem to have lost the plot on this one perhaps because of some misguided reaction to the economic downturn but their answers seems largely to focus on providing for more private cars or (and this is not quite so bad) for significant upgrades to our public transport system.

It worries me that organisations charged with looking after our environment and with thinking about the future can ignore the fact that they need to privilege active transport over private cars and that roading is a tremendously bad investment when we are heading into post peak oil and a growing recognition of the issues associated with climate change. Politics is a weird business.

Still there is hope, as this blogger points out - just a pity it is on the other side of the world!

Peak Everything?

I've just read an interesting article about to come out in American Scientist. Revisiting the limits to growth after peak oil links oil to the cost of other resources from metals and minerals through to food. The authors point out that:

• commodity prices have fallen despite the fact that they have become increasingly difficult to produce because oil prices dropped. This drop hid the effect of the increased energy needed for production.
• For every calorie of food produced in the world, 10 calories of energy to into producing, processing and transporting that food.
• The maximum energy return on investment for oil was 100:1 in 1930 but between 20:1 and 30:1 in 2005. That is the amount of energy balance of energy out to energy in has dropped significantly and continues to do so.
• The "limits to growth" model developed in the 60s and 70s is actually predicting very closely the changes that we are currently seeing.
  
• Oil effectively currently provides each person in Europe and the States with "on average some 30 to 60 or more "energy slaves," machines to "hew their wood and haul their water," each slave being equal to a strong, fit person.
• Our new sources of green energy do not provide very high return on energy investment and certainly will not be able to replace oil any time soon as a source of cheap energy.
• Few scientists are working on the issues associated with human population approaching the limits to growth since there has been no funding for that work. Over the last 20-30 years. this means that there are no obvious intellectual leaders debating these issues today and governments do not appear to be taking them seriously in any way, perhaps as a result of this.

Slow living

I'm reading a book by Wendy Parkins & Geoffrey Craig called Slow Living and really enjoying it.

Slow living has emerged from the slow food movement and builds from it. They talk about slow cities - small cities of 50 000 people or less which are focused on fostering "slow spaces" - spaces where people can take time out to reflect, and wonder and to enjoy just being with and talking to other people. Slow spaces, in other words are spaces that encourage people to build some form of community.

What I really like about their argument is the idea that we need to learn how to enjoy life, "to be less impressed by money and success, . . . and to have alternative stories about what makes life good" (I'm quoting one Adam Philips here) Slowing down occasionally and reflecting on enjoyment actually enhances it. If we just keep moving fast, there it not time to notice the little things nor to reflect on or be grateful for the enjoyment and wonder that exists in the everyday.

To this end, I've started a new practice of recording all the things that I've enjoyed about each day at the end of it and I find that there are an increasing number as I get better at spotting them.

:-)

Facilitating Innovation and change

I was asked to write something the other day about innovation and rather oddly it took me some time to realise that in fact I do know quite a lot about innovation, having studied change and development processes!

Anyway, a few conversations later I found myself thinking about the conditions that foster innovation. I've reached the conclusion that the greatest problem that we have in this day and age is our focus on efficiency and time management. Having had a few months off work now, I find myself able to think, talk, work out how to do new things and generally be a more adaptable human being, despite trying not to spend much money. Innovation is sooo much easier and so much more likely because I can apply my mind to the various things the trip me up and I have time to let them tick over while I do other things without feeling the slightest bit guilty.

I put this together with the fact that we are told as New Zealanders that our productivity is very low and yet most of the people I know are working their butts off. Maybe if we worked less we'd actually be more productive?

:-)

Credit crunches and Ecological limits

A new issue of Resurgence is out. I was particularly interested to read an article by Andrew Simms called Planet Crunch where he puts together a range of issues from the links between our attitudes to credit and money and how that links to resource use. I was also interested to read his account of the way in which oil tanker drivers were able to bring the UK to its knees because of the "just in time" nature of oil distribution through the UK. This didn't just affect people's capacity to travel - it had a major effect on food distribution to the point where Simms suggests the UK was "9 meals away from anarchy". This of course links up social unrest with food distribution and in the longer term with access to a resources that people need to live their lives. Given the fact that the world human population is growing and that food reserves are at their lowest for a long time food security is becoming something to think about for all of us - rather than only those living in poverty. As Jared Diamond put it in Collapse being rich only gives you the capacity to die last when the ecosystem on which you rely collapses.

Not a happy thought but one that might be worth pondering in terms of what action is needed as we head into a world of diminishing resources.

Changing for the times ahead

I've just read an interesting account of how the current bailout packages and focus on
"getting people spending again" is not going to create the shifts that we need as we move up against our biophysical limits. Interestingly I see Chris Martenson has also just released a new report that discusses the need to think about how life might change in future as we move up against those same limits. To me, the way we do this as the pressure comes on will stem from the state of our communities at local level and the nature of our political and social system.

Dimitri Orlov confirms this in his account of what happened over the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1990. He also offers some analysis of how he thinks a similar collapse might be played out in the USA and in another article some ideas about best practice for social collapse, in which he points out that goverments might be better to focus on how to provide Food, shelter, transportation, and security on an emergency basis. It was interesting because it contrasts with the sense of success that one gets from reading about what happened in Cuba as a direct result of the Soviet collapse but with what seems to have been a slightly more 'together' set of communities. Orlov points out some very important aspects of the political set up in the Soviet Union and how that assisted or exacerbated recovery and the lives of people on the street. He notes also that money becomes quite irrelevant but social connections, access to needed resources are invaluable in a post collapse scenario.

lots to be happy about

Its been a while since I wrote here. What can I say? it's summer here and I've been on holidays. I"m just back from a couple of days at a retreat in Mid Canterbury and I'm feeling very relaxed and, well happy - despite all the bad news around the place!

A new blog talks about this a bit. It's one of the thing that constantly delights and amazes me that there is so much pleasure in working in the garden, reading a book, doing chores around the house, going for a wander or visiting friends. It's all a matter of having the time and I wonder sometimes what all our working working working is for when it just seems make us so time poor and to try to squeeze so much into so little time. I"ve had a month on holiday now and I"m just starting to feel like I"m getting down to a reasonable pace and starting to enjoy those small things that get lost in the rush.

roll on the next month!

Genuine progress indicator

I heard an interview on the radio the other day and it sparked my interest. the interview was with Ronald Colman and it was about the genuine progress index. The idea that GDP does not measure wellbeing or indeed progress is not new - I have read numerous articles about this over the years but what interested me that here is an organisation actually working to develop and use an index that might be useful instead.