Quite a long day – bombarded with lots of figures and scenarios about the worlds current and future state of affairs, all very depressing reading, and much that I am all aware, although it's important to be reminded. Some previous thoughts I've read about a silver bullet solution to our problems through technology could be turned on their head and could also be percieved as a threat – I'm slightly sceptical towards this as it's very difficult to predict what the future will hold in terms of technology – we only need to look at the images of the future from the 50's and 60's to see how misguided they can be.
We also talked about massive inequalities of wealth and consumption by countries – perhaps it would useful to show these inequalities in the countries themselves, even with towns or communities allowing or exposing behaviour, but not so to increase conflict or aggression.
I think I have always viewed ecovillages as independant communities, but in fact they are very interdependant on the wider surrounding area, country and certainly in the case of findhorn – international. They may have all been set up with initial shared values (and to some extent these values remain) but they also grow and develop as quickly and diversely as 'the outside world'. It could also be said it is too diverse to call it a movement. Several communities have a strong bond with indigienous or aboriginal pasts – whilst important I think that for existing communities to adapt we may have to look not as far back, and even reference our own living older generations, something that has already been stated by the transition groups across the world.
I also wonder sometimes if the label 'eco-village' is a help or a hinderance to sustainable development.
Reflecting on the ecological footprint of the community – so low that many residences find so hard to believe, a lot of discussion was had today about whether or not ecovillages are infact a 'ideal' model for development. I agree with the thoughts that places like findhorn are like research bases, a lot like educational facilities with their techniques and teachings permiating through to the towns and cities. On the breakdown of the ecological footprint, the main strictions to lowering even further are civil infrastructure, doctors, civil servants, although this has already been potential reducted with the low number of cars and by dealing with their own waste.
With the communities electricity supply provided by the wind farm – there still seems to be several pv panels, used in effect to help pay for the wind farm by selling back (around 20%) to the grid and grants have been made use of to install these. However with the lack of understanding about the end of life use of solar panels, and embedded energy in some manufacturers models their merits are more questionable in this situation.
As I'm from a more technical background, hearing about all the other sides to sustainability is really insightful. I've come across the introduction of community currencies before, and curious about their beneifits and pitfalls and what level of take-up is acheieved. Also by transfering notions of ownership to actual access of equipment and goods is a very persuasive argument and one that has already taken hold with the city car club schemes around many UK cities - it is also another form of social interaction. The level of shared financial commitment that the community has given to start up all these projects is really admirable, but this would probably require more fundamental government support nationwide to avoid low earners missing out. It's level of commitment may not be for everyone, but then again it doesn't have to be.
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