All Blog Posts Tagged 'Outlook' - Transition Whatcom2024-03-29T11:26:24Zhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?tag=Outlook&xn_auth=noCommunity Resience starts with Seedstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2022-03-21:2723460:BlogPost:2095732022-03-21T21:03:48.000ZTerri Wildehttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/TerriWilde
<p>Salish Seeds .....Local Community Seed Project</p>
<p>The Salish Seed Guild has started a remarkable project toward local food security. We are collectively growing out useful seed for home gardeners that are selected for and adapting to Whatcom County. We knew at the beginning of the pandemic that it was well time to take our community's sustainability seriously. While we had been organizing Bellingham's community seed swap for years, much of the seed shared was last year's left overs from…</p>
<p>Salish Seeds .....Local Community Seed Project</p>
<p>The Salish Seed Guild has started a remarkable project toward local food security. We are collectively growing out useful seed for home gardeners that are selected for and adapting to Whatcom County. We knew at the beginning of the pandemic that it was well time to take our community's sustainability seriously. While we had been organizing Bellingham's community seed swap for years, much of the seed shared was last year's left overs from seed companies from all over the country. Much of this source dried up at the beginning of the pandemic as home gardening became suddenly popular. Seed saving is as old as agriculture and we have the skills to grow our own, letting us not have to rely on the generosity and abundance of overworked small seed companies.</p>
<p>So we did. Some of our stalwart do good earth stewards and a bunch of volunteers planted seed, tended plants, harvested and cleaned the seed crop, and packaged over 4000 packets of fresh, local seed that we are now distributing for donation in sites around Bellingham. Inspiration Farm lent us rich soil grow in on the Farm. Brian Kerkvliet and Krista Rome, both local sustainability experts at producing quality food and seed, donated many, many hours to coordinate an amazing rotating crew of volunteers.</p>
<p>But now, after spending $800 for our beautiful seed packets, we are only seeing donations trickle in. Also both Brian and Krista have busy schedules this summer with other sustainability projects. Celt Schira has stepped up to commit to sharing her extensive knowledge to help coordinate monthly work parties. But we will need a full community push to keep this going, with weekly or twice weekly work parties and some actual funding.</p>
<p>It's one of these projects that is the exact right thing to be doing now. With collective effort we can work together to have the seed we need to keep our community growing food whether they can afford seeds or not. But it is also one of those projects that doesn't fit nicely into the logic of capitalism... we are giving away these valuable seeds. We are taking the leap to the gift economy and trusting the collective whole to value this work. This is truly the work of transitioning to local sustainability and needs to be recognized as a very good investment for our time and money.</p>
<p>So...if you have time or money, or good ideas, we will need your help. Honestly, it is so rewarding to spend a half a day out in the fresh air, tending the seeds and soil with other fantastic people. Inspiration Farm is well...an inspiration! You can learn so much by seeing it and from learning from passionate gardeners how to grow and save seed. We plan to be out there most Sundays from 10am-1pm with your help. To see our event calendar go to our website SalishSeed.org.<br/> <a href="https://www.salishseed.org/calendar-of-events-2/">https://www.salishseed.org/calendar-of-events-2/</a><br/> We are also in need of someone savvy about social media and fundraisers/ grant writers.</p>
<p>On the website there is more info about The Salish Seed Guild, ways to make donations, and if you click on the meetings on Wednesday at 6:30 on our calendar page, you can find a link to our zoom meetings.</p>
<p>Thanks for caring, Peas on Earth,<br/> Terri Wilde and the Salish Seed Guild</p>Interview with Larry Korn, Author of One Straw Revolutionary - May 2016tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2020-01-19:2723460:BlogPost:1199652020-01-19T00:18:26.000ZDavid Pikehttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidPike755
<p><br></br>An Interview with Larry Korn, Author of One-Straw Revolutionary<br></br>May 4th 2016<br></br>By: David Pike</p>
<p><br></br>Since The One-Straw Revolution was published in 1978 it has been translated into more than 25 languages and sold over one million copies worldwide. In “One-Straw” as the book has been dubbed, Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka presented an entirely new approach to agriculture which he called “natural farming.” After 25 years of research and trials he demonstrated he could achieve yields…</p>
<p><br/>An Interview with Larry Korn, Author of One-Straw Revolutionary<br/>May 4th 2016<br/>By: David Pike</p>
<p><br/>Since The One-Straw Revolution was published in 1978 it has been translated into more than 25 languages and sold over one million copies worldwide. In “One-Straw” as the book has been dubbed, Mr. Masanobu Fukuoka presented an entirely new approach to agriculture which he called “natural farming.” After 25 years of research and trials he demonstrated he could achieve yields that were equal to or greater than his neighbors, but without plowing, flooding his rice fields, weeding, or using agricultural chemicals. All he did was sow the seeds, spread a straw mulch, and keep a continuous ground cover of white clover growing on the surface of the soil. His method requires less energy than any other, needs no fossil fuels and creates no pollution, and yet the fertility of his soil improved with each passing season.</p>
<p>Although “One-Straw” includes much information on his agricultural techniques, it is primarily referred to as a philosophical text. The core of Mr. Fukuoka’s philosophy revolves around the necessity for humans to return to nature, but one of Mr. Fukuoka’s assertions was that scientific understanding and intellectual knowledge were useless! Such audacious and unconventional concepts were considered preposterous by many as they went against the most basic values and assumptions of modern society. There were those who were offended by his critical views of science but others were intrigued and inspired. Many people, (myself included) have proclaimed that reading The One-Straw Revolution changed their lives forever.</p>
<p>Larry Korn, editor for the English language edition of The One-Straw Revolution, lived in one of the mud-walled huts in Mr. Fukuoka’s citrus orchard for more than two years in the early 1970s with other student workers learning the philosophy and techniques of natural farming. He also traveled with Mr. Fukuoka during his visits to the United States in 1979 and 1986. Larry edited a second book by Masanobu Fukuoka, Sowing Seeds in the Desert (Chelsea Green, 2012) in which Mr. Fukuoka discusses his travels to The United States, Africa, India, and Southeast Asia and his ideas about how natural farming could be used to rehabilitate the human-caused deserts of the world using broad-scale aerial seeding of clay pellets filled with seeds.</p>
<p>Larry has published his own book about his experience living on Mr. Fukuoka’s farm and traveling with him in the United States (One-Straw Revolutionary, Chelsea Green, 2015). He also explores the differences between natural farming and Indigenous ways, traditional Japanese farming, organic farming, and permaculture. HIs ultimate aspirations however are the same as those of Masanobu Fukuoka: helping to show us ways to be closer to nature, and ways we can use natural farming to enrich our lives whether we are farmers, or not.</p>
<p>I had the fortunate opportunity to talk with Larry on a beautiful spring afternoon by the shores of Lake Whatcom in Bellingham, Washington. I told him how I wished I could have met Mr. Fukuoka in person (he passed away in 2008 at the age of 95). Larry said that he felt fortunate to have known him and not that many people had the opportunity.</p>
<p>“That’s one of the reasons I wrote this book,” he said. “I wanted give readers an idea of who Fukuoka-sensei was as a person. His message to the world is quite serious and he could be stern at times, but he had a delightful sense of humor, too. All he wanted to do was live freely and enjoy life. That was also an important part of his teaching.”</p>
<p></p>
<p>David Pike: Why did you feel we needed One-Straw Revolutionary?</p>
<p>Larry Korn: Many people still have a hard time understanding what natural farming actually is. Over the years I have heard similar questions and misconceptions come up again and again so I thought I would try to explain it in a way that would be easier for Westerners to understand. <br/> One of the obstacles is the cultural differences between East and West. A more significant issue, however, is the difference between Indigenous understanding and the way we see and experience the world in our modern culture. When I first saw the connection between Mr. Fukuoka’s philosophy and the way he interacted with the landscape and what tribal people were doing all over the world until just 6,000 or 8,000 years ago everything fell into place for me, so I wanted to share that insight. While I was at it, I decided to go on by comparing Mr. Fukuoka’s natural farming with traditional Japanese agriculture, organic farming, and permaculture.<br/> Another reason I wrote the book was to tell stories about my time hitch hiking from one back-to-the-land commune to another in the early 1970s, living with the other student workers in Fukuoka-san’s orchard, and traveling with him in the United States. Many of the stories are instructive in that they shed light on his thinking and farming techniques and some of them are just plain fun. My idea was to bring the reader with me to those places so they could see them as if they were there themselves, like the day I came to Fukuoka-san’s farm for the first time or when we visited a grove of Giant Sequoias in the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California. I was lucky to have known Fukuoka-san personally and I wanted to share what he was like as a person.</p>
<p>David: In your book you explore the similarities and differences natural farming has with scientific agriculture, organic farming, and permaculture. Do you believe natural farming has advantages over other systems of agriculture?</p>
<p>Larry: Natural farming is fundamentally different from the other agricultural systems you mentioned because it is based on the understanding of a human culture that evolved while it was still in direct contact with nature rather than the attitudes of our modern society. Human beings have been on the earth for several million years and with cognitive ability for around 150,000 years. Over thousands of generations of interacting with the landscape and carefully observing nature’s response they learned to make their lives easier and more secure. They lived harmoniously with other species and they learned from them directly. This knowledge was passed down in an unbroken chain from the beginning of human history. The proof of the effectiveness of their practices and understanding is in the simple fact that they survived for all that time. They could only do that by living within natural law and protecting nature’s ability to continue to provide the things they needed to live. In most cases what they did actually increased abundance and diversity for all species.<br/> Then, for some reason, humanity decided that we were creatures of special value, that the world was created for people alone, and that natural law no longer applied to us. By doing that we separated ourselves from nature and came to live in opposition to it. Instead living to serve nature we came plunder it strictly for the benefit of human beings. Instead of simply serving nature, we came to use nature to satisfy our insatiable desires.<br/> As Fukuoka-san explained it, scientific agriculture is the left hand and organic agriculture is the right hand. Both begin with the question “What can I get from nature?” The scientific farmer believes that using chemicals is the best method while the organic farmer believes that using compost and organic sprays is the most effective.<br/> Permaculture is sometimes referred to as a form of ecological agriculture because it emphasizes the interrelationships among the various elements in nature, but it is still based on human control and getting nature to perform for us. Although permaculture claims to pattern itself after nature, it is still based on intellectual understanding and the imposition of human will. It relies on people do the design instead of nature itself.</p>
<p>David: Many farmers these days are having tough times making ends meet financially. Even Fukuoka-san had to earn a living from his citrus and grain harvests. Do you think natural farming can help farmers earn a viable income? Can it find a place amidst capitalism?</p>
<p>Larry: Natural farmers face the same obstacles diversified organic farmers of all kinds face today: an unfair economic system that undervalues them, their work, their way of life, and the products they produce. It is hard for any small-scale organic farmer to pay the bills each month let alone make a profit. This will continue as long as the prevailing culture continues to value yields above all else and continues to see food only as a commodity.<br/> Natural farmers face additional challenges especially when they are expected to get high yields right away. The land needs to be rehabilitated before production increases and that takes time. Also, natural farming is at its best when it is used to produce food for local consumption on a village scale. That’s not to say that earning a living with natural farming cannot be done, it’s just not the best use for it.<br/> Besides yield and economic gain, natural farming should also be evaluated philosophically since its products also include things like emotional wellbeing, community cohesion, and the health of the environment. Until society acknowledges benefits like these, which are difficult to measure mathematically or economically, and does not recognize the connection between agriculture and culture, I think natural farming’s value as an agricultural system will mainly be as an ideal.</p>
<p>David: Throughout the book we find the philosophy of Masanobu Fukuoka embedded within his teachings of natural farming. The last chapter is titled “Without Natural People, There Can Be No Natural Farming.” What are the implications of promoting a way of farming that is simultaneously a spiritual pursuit?</p>
<p>Larry: Although most people see natural farming primarily as an agricultural technique the farming practice is merely an example of a philosophy, or a way of seeing the world. Fukuoka-san had an insight when he was 25 years-old in which he saw “true nature revealed.” At the same time he saw a better way people could interact with nature in which both benefitted. He tried to explain that understanding to others, but when they couldn’t understand he returned to his family farm to create a physical example of what he was talking about.<br/> The link between the philosophy and the practice is in the mind of the farmer. As the land gradually returns to its natural condition the farmer returns to his or her original state of mind. Fukuoka-san defined original mind in two ways: as the mind of an infant that sees the world without judgment or discrimination of any kind; and, as the mind before it becomes aware of itself.<br/> In any case, the personal development of the farmer is at the center of the practice of natural farming. The goal is to heal our separation from nature so we can live freely, joyously, and responsibly in the world again.</p>
<p>David: Have you had any difficulty in translating particular concepts of Fukuoka-san’s philosophy for Westerners? Which of his concepts are the most challenging for Westerners to grasp?</p>
<p>Larry: The most difficult are the group of expressions that refer to the lack of something, like no-mind, original mind, non-discriminating understanding, and especially do-nothing, as in “do-nothing farming.” These concepts are familiar to Japanese readers but they are all but incomprehensible to Westerners. For us, emptiness, or no mind, is simply a void with no value.<br/>We tend to focus on the material things can be analyzed empirically through scientific investigation, and intellectual thoughts that can be analyzed through classical philosophy. For Asian spiritualists the material forms are limiting and actually serve to block our connection to universal understanding. When the various forms are seen as one interrelated whole it allows an entirely new reality to pour into our consciousness without effort on our part. Far from being a void, this is a universe that is filled with infinite possibilities. They see it as a perspective that is more in line with the world as it actually exists.<br/> The term “do-nothing” presents its own set of problems especially when it is used in the context of agriculture because it implies that one can farm successfully without doing any physical work. That’s not what Fukuoka-san was referring to, of course. Farming an acre of rice fields and a 14-acre orchard using only hand tool requires a lot of work. What Fukuoka-san was referring to is unnecessary work. It’s all those unnecessary agricultural practices like plowing, pruning, fertilizing, flooding the rice fields, and making compost. Once you remove those things you are left with sowing seeds and spreading straw. Okay, it’s not exactly doing nothing, but very close to it.</p>
<p>David: Fukuoka-san did not view using non-native or even invasive species as a problem in restoration projects. He called plants such as Scotch broom “hard workers.” Do you agree with his view?</p>
<p>Larry: I do. Plant species move around the world by themselves all the time. Lately people have accelerated the process and it will continue for the foreseeable future. Plus, conditions have changed to the point where you cannot say for sure whether or not the plants that were once native to a particular area will still thrive there today. In most cases, plants like Scotch broom that seem to be a pest are actually repairing damage that people have caused themselves.<br/> These plants can be extremely useful in rehabilitation. Fukuoka-san used many plants that are often considered overly aggressive to rebuild the soil in his orchard and he recommended many “hard working” species for rehabilitating human-caused deserts in places like India, Africa, and California. It’s easy to see these plants as invaders and go to war with them by chopping them up, plowing them up, cutting them down, or spraying chemicals all over them. It’s a reflection of our alienation and our antagonistic relationship with nature. We see nature primarily as a threat.<br/> A better approach, I think, would be to accept these new residents and learn to live harmoniously with them. We can use them to rebuild damaged soil, for construction, food, medicine, clothing and other things we need. It’s turning what we first considered a problem into the solution. This more positive approach, which Tao Orion refers to as “embracing rampancy,” is nicely explained in her recently published book, Beyond the War on Invasive Species.</p>
<p>David: What are your hopes for the future of natural farming?</p>
<p>Larry: My hope is that natural farming will be adopted as the worldwide standard for establishing what Fukuoka-san referred to as “natural culture and community.” In this new society the values of the current culture, power, control, limitless expansion, and greed would be replaced by cooperation, tolerance, contraction, and simplicity. People would rely on practical, intuitive understanding, rather than scientific knowledge, and they would use simpler and easier methods of farming that would connect them directly with the food they eat. People would not consider themselves any more, or less, special than other forms of life and they would accept and live within the limitations of natural law.<br/> To create this new worldwide community the population would have to be redistributed across the land into small, self-reliant communities where people directly produced what they needed to live. As more and more people grew their own food by natural farming they would be less dependent on fossil fuels and would rely more on human and animal labor and small-scale technology using wind, water, and the sun. The value of crops would be freed from the currency-based economy. Eventually there would be no need for a centralized government anymore and people would be free to experience the wonder of just being alive again.<br/> This is utopian, to be sure. But we need visions like this to remind us of what we are working toward. How we get from here to there is another question. When Mr. Fukuoka was asked how we could overcome the roadblocks to establishing this “free and generous society” he said, “I have no idea how to fix just one or a dozen of the many problems we face today. I can only show you how to fix them all, all at once.” It can happen but only if society decides that this is the direction we want to go. No single person can make this happen all by themselves but we can each work towards it in our own lives.</p>
<p></p>
<p></p>
<p><br/>Addendum<br/>January 18th, 2020</p>
<p>I am so grateful to have had this opportunity to meet with Larry Korn and have been saddened by Larry’s departure from this world. In reflecting back upon this interview and the time I spent with him I remember that every time I asked him questions about specific natural farming techniques for the Pacific Northwest he brushed the questions aside casually like an Aikido master. When I pried him for answers he finally explained that applying Natural Farming is all about being aware of your environment, being an evolutionary piece of the nature around you and working with it to help it become abundant. His outlook was that he was not concerned with specific techniques because those change depending on every different place on the planet, even if they are adjacent fields! What I remember most clearly from Larry was this:</p>
<p>“I am not a farmer, I am a messenger. My job is to pass on the teachings of Fukuoka-san. I don’t know how everyone can apply the techniques of natural farming on their farms, but I do know how to teach the ways we can discern that knowledge. What Fukuoka-san was always insisting was that we are not going to change this planet for the better by just changing our farming techniques, we can only turn things around by returning closer to nature, and we can only do that by changing who we are - we need to become Natural People.”</p>
<p>My favorite memory of Larry, and a moment which I think sums up his goal in life, was when I first began the interview and I had asked him a mundane question about how we deal with the rampant buttercup (Ranunculus) infesting the fields and gardens of the Pacific Northwest. He smiled at me and turned to look over Lake Whatcom. The sunlight broke through the clouds and struck the trees on the mountainside across the lake -</p>
<p>“Look at that! It is so green! That’s beautiful! What a beautiful world we live in.”</p>Ten Weeks Intag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2017-09-22:2723460:BlogPost:1126702017-09-22T22:07:52.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>Succession came to pass on July 1<sup>st</sup>, ten weeks ago. <b>A-1 Builders, Inc. is now A-1 Builders, A Design/Build, Worker-Owned Cooperative! </b> My former employees are now my bosses! For the time being I’m helping the new team deal with marketing on a part time basis; my hours worked per week since July 1<sup>st</sup> has been on the order of working 1/4 hour a week! Can’t really call this <i>‘part time’</i>; I think I’ll call it <i>‘microscopic time’.</i></p>
<p>Perhaps in other…</p>
<p>Succession came to pass on July 1<sup>st</sup>, ten weeks ago. <b>A-1 Builders, Inc. is now A-1 Builders, A Design/Build, Worker-Owned Cooperative! </b> My former employees are now my bosses! For the time being I’m helping the new team deal with marketing on a part time basis; my hours worked per week since July 1<sup>st</sup> has been on the order of working 1/4 hour a week! Can’t really call this <i>‘part time’</i>; I think I’ll call it <i>‘microscopic time’.</i></p>
<p>Perhaps in other businesses or organizations my change from boss to employee would imply significant changes to the relationships in house, but this succession has felt so smooth, and I believe this is all about the word <i>‘cooperative’. </i> The fresh air of feeling like those around me care for this mother ship, at a time when our political climate is insanely divisive, allows me to know that our transition into a worker-owned cooperative has been, and is, the right path to travel.</p>
<p>Already the 5 new co-owners, or members, have blown through what used to define success around here. They need help with marketing like I need a new fulltime job! NOT! I adore watching this team rock ‘n roll. And they’re already surpassing thresholds that it took decades for me and us to achieve.</p>
<p>Some evidence of this:</p>
<ol>
<li>Under my watch, during the past few years, our design team of 3 designers maintained a waiting list of perhaps 3 to 6 clients on our waiting list for design. Since July 1<sup>st</sup> this waiting list has grown to a high of 20 clients waiting for active design. And that’s with <i>four</i> designers now instead of the three during my watch… and one is a licensed architect, someone relatively new to our operation.</li>
<li>Because of this lag time in design, our client base tends to be better planners; they’ve got to wait! [Frankly, they’re <i>willing</i> to wait for the best.] This strips away <i>urgent</i> projects, which, in any endeavor, promotes rushing and its first cousin: mistakes. Urgency in construction sucks. Let’s use our heads, take the right amount of time, and do it right the first time.</li>
<li>Here’s another important threshold we’ve utilized to help us know we’re on the right path: <i>how many production hours are sold out ahead?</i> In other words, how much actual construction work, in person-hours, is already sold but not yet underway? Our imaginary ‘traffic light’ would turn yellow when this fell below 2,000 hours [simplistically, this is the productivity of one person working for one year]. Between 2,000 and 4,000 hours out ahead felt like third or fourth gear… we were coasting comfortably. And this 2K to 4K hour range best described the company during my last year. <b>Now, however, they’ve surpassed 7,000 pre-sold production hours, a number unheard of during my watch!</b></li>
</ol>
<p>This… in ten weeks! Proof that it was time for me to get out of their way. Proof that I had hired and groomed the right team to pass and surpass my lead.</p>
<p>Most amazing amidst the changes goin’ on around here, though, is that the new co-owners [called ‘members’ in cooperative jargon] have normalized their compensation so that each of them make the same amount of dough. Clearly, the 5 co-owners [or ‘<i>Kowners’</i> as we’ve nicknamed them] have more fully embraced the cooperative model than I imagined after a mere ten weeks!</p>
<p>Evidently, it was time for me to step aside… for <i>us</i> to step aside. Proudly, Cindi Landreth – my wonderful wife; co-owner of the prior company; manager of Adaptations, our design division; one of its designers – and I have left this team of <i>Kowners</i> a structure of cooperation that is already serving them well. But it’s not just about <i>them</i>, defined as these 5 people. Their achievements will empower the <i>other</i> 17 employees here who are not yet eligible to earn the <i>Kowner</i> badge. The achievements of the <i>entire</i> staff will then empower <i>other</i> organizations in town to explore the cooperative model to perhaps surpass their own past thresholds of what it meant for them to be successful.</p>
<p>Said empowerment will then trickle down to help our community thrive, a community that includes our town, our county and beyond… encompassing our ultimate mother ship. Mother Earth needs new models because, frankly, what’s out there now is simply not working. She’s hurting, big time, because of an infinite growth model disconnected from the reality of the natural world.</p>
<p>I feel like my career here has birthed a group of humans who may help to redefine what <i>could</i> work towards a healthier world. Working together on a journey to align human law with natural law; designing and building structures with the future in mind; treating one another as peers, equitably, fairly. Where <i>‘one another’</i> includes everyone and everything.</p>
<p>I feel so proud to get out of their way. Letting go has felt so healthy because cooperation has served as our design intent.</p>Slow Sand Fresh Water Filtertag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-11-23:2723460:BlogPost:1089672016-11-23T01:54:53.000ZDavid Culverhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidGCulver
<p>I live in an all-electric home and when the power grid is out we have nothing. No water, no sewer, lights, cooking or anything else. I will have a generator to run sparingly to keep the freezer and the refrigerator going. Our home is a passive solar home with great insulation.</p>
<p>If the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake happens, the grid could be out for a year. During that time, with the well pump not working, we will need a source of clean fresh water.</p>
<p>A slow sand filter, made…</p>
<p>I live in an all-electric home and when the power grid is out we have nothing. No water, no sewer, lights, cooking or anything else. I will have a generator to run sparingly to keep the freezer and the refrigerator going. Our home is a passive solar home with great insulation.</p>
<p>If the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake happens, the grid could be out for a year. During that time, with the well pump not working, we will need a source of clean fresh water.</p>
<p>A slow sand filter, made in a 55-gallon plastic drum, once set up and after running for a month or so, produces about 10 gallons per day of remarkably clean water.</p>
<p>The filter needs untreated raw water on a continuous basis. We intend to harvest rainwater from our shop roof to feed the biological layer of beneficial microbes that grow in the sand of the filter. We have two 1500 gallon tanks to store raw roof water to feed the filter on a continuous basis.</p>
<p>The filter is a gravity feed unit and I will feed it with raw water pumped with a small DC pump powered by solar PV panels and a battery.</p>
<p>I am just beginning the process of building one of these filters. I am currently working toward installing gutter screens. I have the two storage tanks and the drum to build the filter in.</p>
<p>If you have been thinking about this scenario, and would like to discuss this solution to the problem of having no fresh water for months and months, please join me at the Ferndale Library in the small conference room, on Tuesday December 13<sup>th</sup> from 7:00 PM until 8:30 PM. I hope to see you there.</p>
<p>David</p>Second Aid: Lessons Learned From Past Adventurestag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-11-03:2723460:BlogPost:1087952016-11-03T17:51:21.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>All too often I’ll run into another hiker and the following conversation ensues:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“How many nights are you staying out?”</em></p>
<p>“None… I hope. We’re on a day hike.”</p>
<p><em>“Then why are you carrying so large a pack?</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Allow me to unpack my answer… an answer that addresses situations well beyond wilderness travel. An answer that extends into my settled, civilized life as well. Why, at home, are Cindi and I prepared for a major natural or…</p>
<p>All too often I’ll run into another hiker and the following conversation ensues:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“How many nights are you staying out?”</em></p>
<p>“None… I hope. We’re on a day hike.”</p>
<p><em>“Then why are you carrying so large a pack?</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Allow me to unpack my answer… an answer that addresses situations well beyond wilderness travel. An answer that extends into my settled, civilized life as well. Why, at home, are Cindi and I prepared for a major natural or human-induced disaster? Why, in our car, is it normal for the trunk to be half full of extra clothing and emergency gear?</p>
<blockquote><p><em>‘cause shit happens.</em> The fan is out there somewhere… rotating. Car wrecks happen; falling down at home happens; broken ankles happen.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hence this blog post… about our company’s day hike to Mt. Pilchuck this past summer that ended with a helicopter rescue. I vowed to write about what we learned: about safety; about appropriate preparation; about teamwork; at home, at work, in the wilderness.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479843?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="200" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479843?profile=RESIZE_320x320" width="200" class="align-right"/></a>I’m not suggesting that you should increase your worrying coefficient. Calm down. To the contrary, allow me to quote Cindi, that person who shares my personal and work life, when she talks about ‘<em>creating structure to support your life.’ </em>Preparation and planning <em>reduces</em> one’s need to worry… because if the shitty fan blade striketh, you’re <em>ready</em> for the ensuing stress.</p>
<p>Although you may be knowledgeable about first aid to some degree, have you thought much about <em>second</em> aid? During the initial aftermath of an accident or injury, it’s critical for you to guesstimate when you can expect experienced aid to show up. That estimate helps define what needs to happen early on, from the time an injury occurs until the time when an experienced rescue human can step in and take over. The latter is often referred to as <em>second</em> aid.</p>
<p>First aid is up to you and yours, assuming you’re just about first on the scene. Our recent chopper rescue taught us this: proper preparation and planning depend upon first <em>and</em> second aid… stabilizing the victim and then either transporting the person or awaiting a rescue.</p>
<p>Seconds after Patricia broke her ankle we found her on the ground in severe pain and emotional trauma. She was with her daughter and her daughter’s friend– strangers to our group of 5 co-workers. No bleeding and no apparent head injury, so her injuries weren’t life threatening. That was a good thing, given that second aid would probably be many hours away. [The actual time between injury and helicopter arrival turned out to be 4 hours. Compare that to my present situation at work as I write this: I’m next door to a fire station! The time between injury and rescue, at the moment, might be 30 to 60 seconds!]</p>
<p>Since we had cell phone reception to reach 911 we didn’t need to rely upon my recent purchase of a Delorme ‘<em>inReach</em>’ satellite communicator. [Some sick part of me wanted this rescue to depend upon this new state-of-the-art device I had just bought… for just this sort of situation!] Emergency dispatch helped us determine that we shouldn’t splint her ankle; the chopper team would use an air splint. So our attention was focused upon:</p>
<blockquote><p>Keeping her… and ourselves… warm.</p>
<p>Helping Patricia feel as calm, and as cared for, as possible. Call it ‘<em>terror management’</em>; she was one hurting puppy.</p>
<p>Preventing other hikers from tripping over her and us. [We were right on the trail attending to her needs.]</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That said, while waiting, we had plenty of time to prepare for the chopper, discussing everything from the noise that would prevent verbal communication, to securing our clothing that might blow around in the rotor wash. One thing we overlooked: eye protection. We should have put on our sunglasses to prevent the intense rotor wash that made seeing almost impossible while it hovered overhead. Good thing I wasn’t responsible for splinting Patricia’s ankle! Given how poorly I could see without eye protection her lower leg would now look like a pretzel had I done the splinting!</p>
<p>In my pack I carried everything necessary to keep one person warm and dry for an unplanned overnight outside, and keeping Patricia warm required nearly everything I had in my 65-liter Gregory ‘<em>Baltoro’</em> pack… and then some: extra clothing in others’ packs; some chemical warmers for under her armpits from another passerby. We slipped some insulation beneath her to protect her from the cold ground. We set up walking sticks as visual barriers so that others wouldn’t fall on top of her.</p>
<p>Ultimately, Patricia was invisible to an innocent passerby…wrapped within an insulated cocoon piled high with every piece of clothing and emergency gear imaginable! You couldn’t tell there was a human therein!</p>
<div id="attachment_20039" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-20039 size-full" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Team-huddled-around-cocoon.jpg" alt="team-huddled-around-cocoon" width="333" height="500"/><p class="wp-caption-text">[Yes, that’s Patricia, beneath the silver emergency blanket, as warm ‘n cozy as we could make her cocoon while we awaited second aid.]</p>
</div>
<p>Two past events prepared me for this appropriate preparation, yielding this large pack that others often ponder about:</p>
<blockquote><p>I was caught out on an unplanned overnight about 20 years ago, on an overcast, summer evening near the Twin Sisters to our east. My day pack volume at that time was perhaps 40 liters, too small to handle everything someone would need to reasonably make it through the night. So, for example, although I had shorts and light rain pants with me I didn’t have any long pants for warmth. [The very next day I bought a larger day pack, vowing never to make the same mistake again.]</p>
<p>During the 2001 Nisqually earthquake that battered Seattle I anchored a weekly radio program called <em>‘On The Level’ </em>on KGMI… about remodeling and custom homes. After the shake I interviewed Seattle’s emergency director on the air, learning how people took as many as 3 days to make it home because of damage to I-5 and its bisection of the city. Most people had what was in their car; few were prepared with emergency gear. Soon thereafter I started carrying a 3-day kit for two people in my car, and still do to this day [warm clothes; rain gear; flashlights; water; flashlights; etc.].</p>
</blockquote>
<p>That’s my point. <strong>One needs to be prepared to survive until you can access <em>second</em> aid</strong>… outside help and expertise… a truism in an urban <em>and</em> wilderness setting alike! But it’s one thing carrying this stuff around in your car, another when one’s backpack weight shouldn’t exceed 25% of your own body weight.</p>
<p>Given these past two events, I took safe wilderness travel to heart. The Mountaineer’s Basic Climbing class provided the core of my learning, focused on <em>wilderness</em> first aid, and the inherent understanding that <em>second</em> aid is usually very far away!</p>
<p>Ask yourself this: if you’re on a hike 5 miles from the nearest road, could you and your group sustain CPR for a victim until rescuers appear? Probably not if your numbers are few; administering CPR is extremely hard, physical work. Instead, sustained CPR just might produce additional injured victims instead of potentially saving the life of the original victim! Hence, the very nature of <em>urban</em> first aid is a far cry from <em>wilderness</em> first aid.</p>
<p>The 10 essentials; extra food and clothing; water; worthy rain gear… takes up a lot of volume! Got space?</p>
<p>If not, get some! Don’t let your pack size limit your life expectancy!</p>
<p>Consider, too, carrying some technology in your pack. I carry my smart phone. Why that extra weight? Because it actually <em>saves</em> weight given what I no longer need to carry. My phone is loaded with:</p>
<p>A wilderness first aid book</p>
<p>A survival medicine handbook</p>
<p><u>Freedom of the Hills</u> [the Mountaineer’s textbook from their Basic Climbing class]]</p>
<p>A general-interest reading book for my backpack trips</p>
<p>Information about giardia and lightning</p>
<p>How to signal an aircraft with emergency information</p>
<p>Map and compass instructions</p>
<p>Information about pharmaceuticals I carry in my first aid kit</p>
<p>Owner’s manuals for items such as the satellite communicator, my camera and my UV water sterilizer [SteriPen]</p>
<p>The ‘Earthmate’ app synchs with the Delorme satellite communicator, providing a much larger screen and buttons than relying on the <em>inReach</em> by itself</p>
<p>No books to carry; more safety information on board; more peace of mind.</p>
<p>Enough about technology and what one carries. A few words about the carrier – <strong><em>your body!</em></strong> Is your <em>body</em> ready, willing and able to submit to what you’ll be asking it to perform?</p>
<p>Consider this metaphor from my friend Phil Damon, referring to one’s body as one’s horse. Just how well do you care for your horse? You’re asking it to carry your pack, your essentials… your <em>personality</em>. Is there any obligation mightier than treating your horse with love and respect? <strong>Preparing your horse for an adventure is perhaps the single most important piece of preparation.</strong></p>
<p>A few more top-of-mind lessons to share:</p>
<blockquote><p>Alert someone who’ll know where you’re going and when you’re expected to return. So important and simple, but how often is this overlooked? Even if you’re heading over a mountain pass in your car! Someone needs to initiate a rescue if you’re too late! [And since you’ll lose cell coverage heading over the pass, why not take your Delorme <em>inReach</em> satellite communicator on such a trip as well?]</p>
<p>Before you start a trip, ask everyone else in your group to describe their pre-existing medical issues. Shouldn’t others know what to do if symptoms begin for some underlying issue? Do they have drugs in their packs, or in their cars, that you should know about?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I was so very impressed by the rescue response for Patricia: the chopper, its personnel… 4 men [pilot; 3 rescue techs]… and the equipment. These dudes risked their own lives to help us. Isn’t that reason enough to honor, and act upon, one’s responsibility to be properly prepared when taking on an activity, wilderness or not? I think so. After all, relying upon others instead of your own preparation seems selfish, unfair and unpredictable. Sure, shit happens, but it’s your doodie to minimize the pile…</p>
<p>Prepare for the worst, expect the best, and embrace what comes.</p>
<p>Onward into the storm…</p>Company Day Hike To Mt. Pilchuck Led To Team-Affirming Helicopter Rescuetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-09-13:2723460:BlogPost:1082492016-09-13T00:10:06.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<h3><strong>Sunday, September 4th, 2016. Hikers from our company: Rick Dubrow, Cindi Landreth, Cathie Bertola, Shawn Serdahl, Justus Peterson.</strong></h3>
<p><img alt="typical-ankle-buster-trail" class="alignright wp-image-20031" height="350" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Typical-ankle-buster-trail.jpg" width="263"></img> Injuries usually happen upon descent. So it was on Sunday, 9/4/16 at the 4,420 foot level of Mt. Pilchuck. Five of us, all co-workers at A-1 Builders and Adaptations Design Studio, on a company dayhike, heard someone screaming in pain from above; close by. In moments we reached Patricia, a fit 59 year old Peruvian child…</p>
<h3><strong>Sunday, September 4th, 2016. Hikers from our company: Rick Dubrow, Cindi Landreth, Cathie Bertola, Shawn Serdahl, Justus Peterson.</strong></h3>
<p><img class="alignright wp-image-20031" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Typical-ankle-buster-trail.jpg" alt="typical-ankle-buster-trail" width="263" height="350"/>Injuries usually happen upon descent. So it was on Sunday, 9/4/16 at the 4,420 foot level of Mt. Pilchuck. Five of us, all co-workers at A-1 Builders and Adaptations Design Studio, on a company dayhike, heard someone screaming in pain from above; close by. In moments we reached Patricia, a fit 59 year old Peruvian child psychologist visiting her daughter, Cynthia, an aerospace tech in the Everett area. The two of them, along with Cynthia’s friend, Emily, were descending on the trail, winding through a large boulder field. Perfect ankle twisting terrain; here’s what the trail looked like. The terrain won.</p>
<p>Let’s first put the hike in perspective: access to the trailhead is via the Mountain Loop Highway east of Burlington; 5.4 miles round trip; 2,300’ elevation gain; 5,327’ high point; the Washington Trails Association website rates it as ‘intermediate’: <em> “Easily one of the most rewarding hikes in the area… gifts you 360-degree views of Mount Baker, Mount Rainier and the Olympics from its shelter lookout….” </em></p>
<div id="attachment_20032" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-20032" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Mt-Pilchuck.jpg" alt="The view up to the summit taken from the approximate location of the injury." width="500" height="375"/><p class="wp-caption-text">The view up to the summit taken from the approximate location of the injury.</p>
</div>
<p>Within seconds of reaching Patricia we knew her right ankle was broken; it was too deformed to be anything but. Check out the photo. Thankfully her skin wasn’t broken, but nearly so. In severe pain she was speaking Spanish with her daughter, reverting to the language she knew far better than English.</p>
<div id="attachment_20033" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="wp-image-20033 size-full" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/On-hospital-bed.jpg" alt="on-hospital-bed" width="500" height="323"/><p class="wp-caption-text">A look at her ankle… hours later, in the hospital.</p>
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<p>Although numerous people simply walked on by — although her distress was obvious — we didn’t. Looking back on the event it seemed almost intuitive and given: the 4 of us quite naturally went into rescue mode, instantly acting like a team. Why 4? Cathie, our 5<sup>th</sup> co-worker, was farther down the trail at the time, moving faster than the rest of us throughout the day. Being an avid runner, lean and very light weight, Cathie was chilling down quicker than the rest of us, so she kept a much steadier pace. She was long gone during the initial aspects of the rescue, probably at the car already.</p>
<p>We quickly determined that we had cell reception, so using our DeLorme<em> ‘inReach’ </em>satellite communicator was unnecessary. Justus reached 911 dispatch and they pretty quickly determined that it would be a chopper extraction. There was no place to land, and walking her out on a wheeled stretcher could take 4 hours. Not good.</p>
<p>Thankfully, Patricia hadn’t hit her head when she fell, and she complained of no other injuries. So we kept her stationary and scurried to get her… and <em>keep</em> her… warm. Soon we had her buried in a make-shift cocoon using every piece of clothing and mountaineering equipment you could imagine. Numerous hats, gloves, tops, pants, emergency blankets; chemical heat packs under her armpits. The cocoon also acted to visually shield her from view by the many through-hikers both ascending and descending. Although she had fallen, and remained, directly on the trail, we now looked more like a bunch of humans huddled around a pile of mountaineering gear at a garage sale! She was invisible now.</p>
<div id="attachment_20034" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img class="wp-image-20034 size-full" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Cynthia-holding-her-Mom.jpg" alt="That's uninjured Cynthia! Where's Patricia? Buried beneath the cocoon of clothing and equipment. " width="500" height="472"/><p class="wp-caption-text">That’s uninjured Cynthia! Where’s Patricia? Buried beneath the cocoon of clothing and equipment to her left. Patricia’s head is immediately adjacent to Cynthia’s head!</p>
</div>
<p>Still, she was shivering. As her ankle pain subsided it became pretty clear that our greatest challenges were hypothermia and shock: her stress was severe. Foreign country; foreign language; injured; lying on the ground in this cocoon, unable to see out; strangers coming and going…soon to be airlifted to some unknown destination. Scared is an under-statement.</p>
<p>Still, she continued in and out of shivering, as did Cynthia, later Emily, later many of us. The air was chilling down. If there was any positive aspect of the crowds on this popular trail on Labor Day weekend, it was this: <em>lots</em> of people were moving up ‘n down the trail through our clog, our cocoon. Sure, managing the foot traffic was an ongoing task, but these fellow hikers also had gear: chemical warmers, emergency blankets, extra food for those of us who stayed put. Nearly everyone offered up food and water but, thankfully, Justus knew we should keep her on an empty stomach and bladder in case she was to require surgery. Said congestion management included the erection of two barriers… ‘X’s’… composed of ski poles, just above and just below the accident scene: we had to eliminate the possibility of someone inadvertently walking right over us and striking Patricia’s leg. Indeed… a few close calls!</p>
<p>Through hikers included a nurse; then a doctor who stayed the course until Patricia was extracted; then Mike, who nonchalantly said… <em>“Have you called search and rescue yet?”</em></p>
<p><em>“Yes</em>”, we told him.</p>
<p><em>“Well, now they’re here. I’m a member of search and rescue. I just happen to be on this trail today!”</em></p>
<p>Mike whips out his search and rescue [SAR] radio. Dead battery. “<em>Don’t worry; I’ve got a spare.” </em>Whew!<em> </em>And as we watch Mike shift into gear we realize he has the full meal deal, including a high visibility, bright orange, full body emergency coverall. This dude was ready for this. Within seconds he was in touch with the sheriff’s dispatcher and the chopper pilot who was now, we were told, about 20 minutes away.</p>
<p>What about giving her any meds for pain? I had some pharmaceuticals in my wilderness 1<sup>st</sup> aid kit, so I reviewed its contents with Tom, the doc. He leaned strongly towards Hydrocodone, a strong pain killer, but neither Mike nor Tom wanted to take responsibility for administering meds. So Mike checked in with the chopper team, soon to be told that no paramedic was coming. Hearing that he confidently said “… <em>give her one Hydrocodone”</em>. Done.</p>
<div id="attachment_20044" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img class="size-full wp-image-20044" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Cathie-calming-Cynthia-Patricia.jpg" alt="Cathie calming Cynthia and Patricia while we're awaiting the chopper." width="500" height="280"/><p class="wp-caption-text">Cathie calming Cynthia and Patricia while we’re awaiting the chopper.</p>
</div>
<p>Then we began to prep for the chopper’s arrival: pack up anything that can’t sustain high rotor wind; manage the hikers walking up ‘n down the trail… as well as the onlookers; calm Patricia down, and warn her of the impending process: deafening chopper noise; probable splinting; loading her into a litter; then lifting her by cable into a hovering chopper. [In retrospect I wish I warned everyone to put on eye protection, even if they were sunglasses that weren’t needed in the low visibility day. The chopper’s rotor wash made seeing problematic. Flying particles proved threatening.]</p>
<p>In the meantime, awaiting the chopper, Cathie re-appeared, hiking back up to us, having heard about the ordeal from other hikers reaching the trailhead. She and Cynthia lied down on the ground right next to Patricia, adding body heat and mucho caring. Even so, Patricia’s anxiety kept growing and growing. Competing with her anxiety, though, was her gratitude for those caring for her… we 5, Mike the SAR dude, Tom the doc. Although a bit reluctantly Tom complied with Mike’s request: given that we had now administered a pharmaceutical, Mike wanted Tom to stay put.</p>
<p>We were now ready for the chopper. The rotor noise began from afar, rising rapidly; a foggy, chopper shape emerged from the mist we had dealt with all day. Here’s our first view of the rescue rangers!</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20035" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Initial-glimpse-of-inbound-chopper.jpg" alt="initial-glimpse-of-inbound-chopper" width="600" height="213"/></p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-20036" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Approaching-chopper.jpg" alt="approaching-chopper" width="300" height="450"/>Mike, in his bright orange SAR suit, walked up the trail some, perhaps fifty yards away, so that the initial work wouldn’t be directly overhead. The plan: drop a rescue tech first, then the litter, then the second tech… to Mike’s location; they would come over to the cocoon; get her ankle splinted; wrap her in some heated mountain rescue garb; get her in the litter. Only <em>then</em> would they move the hovering chopper directly overhead. Then extract tech 1; extract Patricia; extract tech 2.</p>
<p>Amidst pounding noise and intense wind they succeeded… with perfection. Teamwork and technology at its best. Caring at its best. The pilot’s prowess was impressive, hovering precisely. That said, I sensed the danger all of us were in, given the intensity of what was unfolding. Their team was impressive, but here’s this chopper directly overhead, perhaps 100’ above our heads.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter wp-image-20039" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Team-huddled-around-cocoon.jpg" alt="team-huddled-around-cocoon" width="417" height="626"/><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-20040" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Rescue-tech-awaiting-instructions.jpg" alt="rescue-tech-awaiting-instructions" width="339" height="500"/></p>
<p>Equally impressive, in retrospect, was our teamwork as five co-workers. An unspoken assumption filled the air from the very first moment we came upon Patricia: we were here to help this injured and frightened woman make the best of this ordeal. We just did it, no questions asked. We stayed put and each of us did what we could; doing what we knew; offering what we had on our backs.</p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20043" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Wrapping-her-up-for-transport.jpg" alt="wrapping-her-up-for-transport" width="375" height="500"/></p>
<p><img class="alignleft wp-image-20041 size-full" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Strapped-in-and-ready-to-fly-away.jpg" alt="strapped-in-and-ready-to-fly-away" width="375" height="500"/><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20042" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Patricia-being-lifted-by-cable.jpg" alt="patricia-being-lifted-by-cable" width="333" height="500"/></p>
<p> </p>
<p>Almost immediately after Patricia was hauled up, up ‘n away Emily and Cynthia hiked down to their car with us, exchanging contact information and immense thanks. Sure, there was a lot of anxiety on Mt. Pilchuck that day, but the amount of gratitude matched, if not surpassed, that anxiety. People helping people. What had begun as a team-building day hike for our company proved to be a team-<em>affirming</em> day hike. We already, naturally, beautifully, behaved as a team… chock full of caring, something that seems to bind us all together here at work as well. We care. It showed. It worked.</p>
<p>We were well prepared… and proud of it.</p>
<p><strong><u>Epilogue</u></strong></p>
<p><img class="alignright wp-image-20037" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Patricia-Cynthia-smiling-in-hospital.jpg" alt="patricia-cynthia-smiling-in-hospital" width="341" height="256"/>Patricia was flown to Providence Hospital in Everett and required surgery: a plate and 5 fasteners. We learned that one of the reasons she came to the states was to do a 5K race on Saturday, Sept. 10<sup>th</sup>. She had been training for this for 4 months.</p>
<p>Cynthia decided to attend the race and then decide whether she’d participate in her wheelchair! Clearly, this woman is a fighter!</p>
<p>The day after the 5K event I emailed Cynthia about Patricia’s resulting decision and she said that <em>“… she did go, but did not participate. She didn’t want to hurt herself even more. Here is a picture before the race. This was her first weekend out, and she’s been doing great!”</em></p>
<p><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-20038" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/At-5K-race.jpg" alt="at-5k-race" width="400" height="558"/></p>
<p><strong><u>Footnote</u></strong></p>
<p>What’s to be learned from this rescue regarding preparation and planning? After all, it was just an innocent summer day hike, right? Why do I carry a day pack that many hikers think is a multi-night pack? A 65 liter <em>day</em> pack? Carry extra clothing? A first aid kit? Pharmaceuticals? Flares and smoke bombs?</p>
<p>What <em>is</em> appropriate planning and preparation? And it’s not just about wilderness travel. What’s in your car, for example, should the big one shake our ground while you’re at work, taking out a section of I-5, so that getting home to the other side of town is impossible for a few days? Got milk? What do you got?</p>
<p>That’ll be the topic in my next blog post, so stay tuned. Let’s talk about preparation and planning; how and why we were ready… because, it seems to this writer and mountaineer, shit happens.</p>
<p><span>[Images were taken by Cynthia, Cindi Landreth and Rick Dubrow.]</span></p>Justus Peterson’s Journey Towards ‘Greener Pastures’: a Mid-Course Correctiontag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-06-29:2723460:BlogPost:1082282016-06-29T15:24:03.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>On January 15th, 2016 I went back to work for A-1 Builders after an interim period of 10 years of lucrative employment in the oil industry.</p>
<blockquote><p>I turned my back on the oil industry for a number of reasons, but ultimately it was for my health, both physical and mental. But my journey goes deeper than being just about me; my journey sheds light upon our culture’s ‘jobs versus the environment’ debate; upon this region’s challenge to manage the explosive nature of oil by rail;…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>On January 15th, 2016 I went back to work for A-1 Builders after an interim period of 10 years of lucrative employment in the oil industry.</p>
<blockquote><p>I turned my back on the oil industry for a number of reasons, but ultimately it was for my health, both physical and mental. But my journey goes deeper than being just about me; my journey sheds light upon our culture’s ‘jobs versus the environment’ debate; upon this region’s challenge to manage the explosive nature of oil by rail; upon carbon energy’s horrendous contribution to heating up our world.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Head-shot.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Head-shot.jpg?width=278" width="278" class="align-right"/></a>Looking back now, my mid-course correction to a safer and saner means of employment has softened my impact upon all of my spheres of influence… in my own skin, at home, everywhere. Every step I take I can feel, appreciate and adore my reduced ecological footprint. <em>My shoe size has plummeted!</em></p>
<p>In 1997 I was 19 years old when offered a great paying job by my friend’s father. The job offer: as a laborer for an industrial contractor. Little did I know how this offer, which I accepted, would change my life forever.</p>
<p>I began my new job inside the Arco Cherry Point refinery, then moved around to a few different plants. In November of 1998 I discovered why they paid so well: I was working at the Equilon refinery in Anacortes as a maintenance hand when suddenly an <strong><a href="http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?displaypage=output.cfm&file_id=5618">explosion erupted</a></strong> in the Coker unit… killing 6 men. I stood in disbelief as I literally watched these men die.</p>
<p>When I came home from that tragic day my girlfriend – now my wife – was crying on the phone with my father. I had phone messages from my family waiting to hear if I was alive. <strong>I made the decision to leave that world behind and find something more humane; something safer; something softer on the planet. Monetary security was not worth my life.</strong></p>
<p>I applied for, and was hired by, A-1 builders in April of 2000. I quickly fell in love with this company and its vision, seeking green business and building practices. I found peace in its simple approach to life and the pursuit of happiness… working to live instead of living to work. For the next 7 years my life was full of education and creative freedom.</p>
<p>But money again nudged its aggressive power. Towards the end of 2006, at the 7 year mark working at A-1, Ben Franklin showed up, along with the dead Presidents, saying they would fill my pockets with dough if I’d sacrifice my soul. So I returned to work at the refinery as a carpentry foreman.</p>
<blockquote><p>At the ripe old age of 28 I thought I had made it: over the next 10 years I made more money than most men in my family… and I gloated about it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>To earn that money I averaged about 2,500 to 2,700 hours a year, 25% to 35% more than a typical full time job.</p>
<p>My wife and I welcomed our first child in 2008 and our second in 2011, yet both times I was at work when I got the call that she was in labor. I had sold my soul to the company store… again.<br/>In 2012, 3 days after my son’s first birthday, disaster struck again. A major <strong><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCJkhFiQAGk">fire erupted</a></strong> at the BP Cherry Point Refinery destroying a large portion of the plant I was in. I ran as fast as I’ve ever run as those flames reached as high as 400 feet. Reaching safety, I was able to call my wife to tell her I was ok… after a 60 to 90 minute delay since the fire broke out. As she wept on the phone my heart pounded and I thought to myself: <strong>it’s time to get the hell out of this place for good.</strong></p>
<p>I spent the next 16 weeks working nights, each shift being 4:45 pm to 6:45 am, 7 days a week — that’s a 98-hour work week – to get the plant back into operation. I worked as hard as I’ve ever worked and in the end the plant and its money were flowing again. I gave and they took. I was offered and accepted promotions. They seemed to embrace the level of devotion and care I invested.</p>
<p>But I was wrong!</p>
<p>I came in to the office which I had helped build and they asked if I’d manage their next large projects… out of town! I said “no”. My family was here and they needed me home every night. I then asked for the time I would need to coach my son’s T-ball team and they cringed.</p>
<blockquote><p>I longed for the days of being with a company that had heart and direction. I began to despise the pursuit of financial gain being the end all, be all, of my life. I knew who and where I was meant to be.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Mine.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Mine.jpg?width=319" width="319" class="align-center"/></a><br/>Let’s move the clock ahead to late 2015…I was on a break in the plant when I came across a web posting that A-1 Builders was seeking new employees: my chance to abandon the life of a refinery rat, an insignificant cog in a dying, heartless industry. I applied and was hired back into the world of the living.</p>
<p>The grass is greener in these pastures. This team cares about our impact on our community and on our planet. Most of all we care about each other.<br/>Amory Lovins nailed it when he wrote that…</p>
<blockquote><p>“Economies are supposed to serve human ends, not the other way round. We forget at our peril that markets make a good servant, a bad master and a worse religion.”</p>
</blockquote>Efficiency Without Sufficiency Is Insufficienttag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-06-02:2723460:BlogPost:1081762016-06-02T18:00:00.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>I’ve spent my adult life reducing my ecological footprint, struggling with possible next steps because they are, frankly, enormous. Giving up air travel, for instance. Visiting my aged parents in Florida and accessing the wilderness in the southwest are particularly appealing. [I can, and do, purchase carbon offsets for such travel – though offsets are an admitted distant second to actually hanging up my wings […</p>
<p>I’ve spent my adult life reducing my ecological footprint, struggling with possible next steps because they are, frankly, enormous. Giving up air travel, for instance. Visiting my aged parents in Florida and accessing the wilderness in the southwest are particularly appealing. [I can, and do, purchase carbon offsets for such travel – though offsets are an admitted distant second to actually hanging up my wings [<a href="http://www.offsetters.ca/education/calculators/flight-emissions-calculator">http://www.offsetters.ca/education/calculators/flight-emissions-calculator</a>;<a href="http://www.offsetters.ca/education/buy-offsets">http://www.offsetters.ca/education/buy-offsets</a>]].</p>
<p>I’ve spent a lot of energy and time wondering about this huge speed bump: <em>why won’t I take these next steps forward in reducing my own footprint?</em></p>
<p>My answer requires me to step back and look at the ecological footprint of the masses. Us. Groups of humans, whose overall footprint equals the number of humans multiplied by the average impact per human. Pretty simple math: we can reduce a group’s footprint by decreasing the impact per human and by managing the number of humans.</p>
<p><img class="alignright size-full wp-image-16466 align-center" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Mobile-home-palace.jpg" alt="Mobile home palace" width="576" height="384"/></p>
<p></p>
<p>Let’s look at how we’re doing with housing, the arena in which I’ve spent my entire career. And, for simplicity, let’s look at my own lifespan, having been born in 1951.</p>
<p>Janelle Orsi and Emily Doskow provide this data in <u>The Sharing Solution</u>:</p>
<p><strong>Average home size in the U.S.</strong></p>
<p>1950: just under 1,000 square feet [sf]</p>
<p>2008: approximately 2,500 sf</p>
<p><strong>Average number of people living in a house</strong></p>
<p>1940 = 3.7 people</p>
<p>2009 = 2.6 people</p>
<p>So the average square footage per person becomes:</p>
<p>1940-1950 era = 270 sf/person</p>
<p>2008-2009 = 960 sf/person</p>
<p><strong>This represents a 355% increase</strong></p>
<p>U.S. population during this same period:</p>
<p><strong>1950</strong>: 152.3 million</p>
<p><strong>2014</strong>: 318.9 million</p>
<p><strong>This represents a 209% increase</strong></p>
<p>Roughly speaking, <strong>housing square footage during my own lifetime has increased about 700%</strong> [twice as many humans each living in three and a half times as much space].</p>
<p>Granted, some of us are spending a considerable amount of time, energy and dough to reduce the ecological footprint of our own living space…. our <em>efficiency</em>. No doubt these efforts, along with more aggressive energy codes, have reduced the ecological footprint of new square footage. Renewable energy, for example, is surging forward [consider watching Al Gore’s recent TED Talk, sharing his optimism for our recent strides with renewables: <a href="https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_climate_change">https://www.ted.com/talks/al_gore_the_case_for_optimism_on_climate_change</a>].</p>
<p>How, then, are we doing on the <em>population</em> side of the equation? Isn’t our population size sufficient already? Professor Albert Bartlett [former Professor Emeritus in Physics at University of Colorado] asked this:</p>
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>“Can you think of any problem in any area of human endeavor on any scale, from microscopic to</em></strong></h2>
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>global, whose long-term solution is in any demonstrable way aided, assisted, or advanced by</em></strong></h2>
<h2 style="text-align: center;"><strong><em>further increases in population, locally, nationally, or globally?”</em></strong></h2>
<p></p>
<p>His aggressive answer — “NO!” — is fundamental to his thesis that <em><strong>“… the greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function.”</strong> </em>[If you’ve never heard or read Prof. Bartlett’s profound speech about this exponential function, you owe it to yourself to make it so. His talk is amidst the most important lessons I’ve learned since childhood. Watch it here: <a href="http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/arithmetic-population-and-energy-lecture/">http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/arithmetic-population-and-energy-lecture/</a> or read it here:<a href="http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_transcript_english.html">http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy_transcript_english.html</a>]</p>
<p>Hence my thesis here: <strong>efficiency without sufficiency is insufficient. </strong>It seems perfectly clear to me that if we don’t control our numbers, population growth will continue to exceed improvements in each person’s efficiency. We’ll continue to slide…</p>
<p>Population remains a topic our culture, our world, avoids like the plague. <strong>From my perspective overpopulation <em>is</em> the plague.</strong> I join Martin Luther King Jr. when he said,</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Unlike the plagues of the dark ages, or contemporary diseases which we do not yet understand, the modern plague of overpopulation is solvable with means we have discovered and with resources we possess. What is lacking is not sufficient knowledge of the solution, but universal consciousness of the gravity of the problem and the education of the billions who are its victims.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Yes, I rationalize: until I see humanity grasp, and act upon, the need to control our population – to call it, already, <em>more</em> than sufficient – I find myself unwilling to take further steps towards decreasing my own ecological footprint. My personal sacrifice is enough, me thinks. I’ve already decreased it way far below the norm and now I need to see others… gobs of others…step up to the plate.</p>
<p><strong>We can’t grow on like this.</strong></p>Time for a wellness exam?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2016-01-15:2723460:BlogPost:1044672016-01-15T00:04:56.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>No, not for you! Nor your kid. I’m talking about your house.</p>
<p>When was the last time someone knowledgeable was in your crawlspace or attic? What… you don’t hang out there and know its current condition? <em>C’mon now</em>…</p>
<p>That’s my point… for the same reason that annual wellness exams are recommended for <em>you,</em> <strong>someone experienced should periodically study your home’s health and well-being.</strong></p>
<p>How often? One obvious time is when you’re about to…</p>
<p>No, not for you! Nor your kid. I’m talking about your house.</p>
<p>When was the last time someone knowledgeable was in your crawlspace or attic? What… you don’t hang out there and know its current condition? <em>C’mon now</em>…</p>
<p>That’s my point… for the same reason that annual wellness exams are recommended for <em>you,</em> <strong>someone experienced should periodically study your home’s health and well-being.</strong></p>
<p>How often? One obvious time is when you’re about to invest into a substantial remodeling project, or if it’s been 5 to 10 years since the <em>last</em> wellness exam. Continuing the same metaphor, an older home warrants wellness exams more often than younger ones.</p>
<p>Why do an inspection before a significant remodeling project? We want to help you spend your hard-earned money wisely. Sure, you may have called us to upgrade your kitchen, or your deck, but it may be prudent to repair some unknown deterioration at the same time. <strong>Some of the dough you want to invest in what you’d <em>like</em> to do may make sense to spend on what you <em>need</em> to do.</strong> So the intent of this <em>Pre-Remodel Condition Evaluation</em> is to help you avoid these unintended consequences and to resolve these issues early on. Together let’s prioritize what you should do… and when.</p>
<div id="attachment_10957" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Leon-Inspection-32.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/Leon-Inspection-32.jpg?width=420" width="420" class="align-center"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Might there be insects… pests… known as <em>wood destroying organisms</em> at home, living up to their name? Larger animals finding warmth and habitat in your floor insulation? Water infiltration in places you can’t see? What’s actually going on with that deteriorating spot on the bathroom floor, or the moldy window sills, or the strange whiff you get upon returning home from a weekend away? And these are symptoms you <em>know</em> about! What’s going on in the places you <em>haven’t</em> seen (nor care to experience) for years and years?</p>
</div>
<p><strong>Hear me out and you might save some dough while also improving your indoor air quality.</strong></p>
<p>Sure, what I’m suggesting is different than a personal wellness exam in which denial might <em>kill</em> you. Here, instead, denial might <em>cost</em> you. Not just in terms of money. There are health implications, too, and they extend beyond rot, mold and mildew. A home or office with an unhealthy ventilation system can create stagnant air; air that aggravates respiratory health issues; unfiltered air chock full of irritants like pet dander.</p>
<p>Consider this analogy… isn’t <strong>rot like bone cancer in a building</strong>? And, like cancer, the earlier it’s discovered, the easier and cheaper it is to address. Catch it early!</p>
<p>I want you to consider a building inspection by a qualified professional on the order of every 5 – 10 years, depending upon its age. Did you get a whole-house inspection when you purchased your home? When was the last time you studied that report? Have you fixed the important items or simply filed it away after closing the deal and moving in?</p>
<p>Consider broadening the scope of this wellness exam to include an energy exam or audit, sometimes called a building performance test. Did you know that most buildings lose more energy because of the cumulative cracks and holes in their shell, or exterior envelope, and <em>not</em> due to poor insulation? It’s much like going out and buying a thick, yummy down parka and forgetting to zip it up! The insulation hardly does you any good.</p>
<p>And <strong>how do you know if you are getting the right amount of fresh air in your home? </strong> Too <em>much</em> fresh air means unnecessary heat loss, wasting money and harming our precious, shared environment. Too <em>little</em> fresh air means poor, stagnant indoor air along with its inherent health implications.</p>
<p>An energy audit, which need not be repeated anywhere as often as the condition inspection, can help you dial in the right amount of fresh air. This is referred to as <em>air changes per hour (ACH)</em>, or how often the air inside your home is exchanged with fresh, outside air. [FYI… the healthy number should be about a third of your indoor air exchanged with fresh air every hour, or .33 ACH]. Sure this takes some specialized equipment and know-how, which is my point. Diagnostic tools are needed to determine one’s ACH, and such a test is relatively inexpensive… and important! Oftentimes, the solutions to get the ACH right are often easy to do by unskilled home owners (e.g., caulking here, weather stripping there).</p>
<p>Who can you hire to perform an energy audit and condition inspection? Typically they are two different companies or skill sets, so let’s talk fist about the condition inspection. When a property owner is considering a remodel, we can to this in-house, and we call this a <em>Pre-Remodel Condition Evaluation</em>, or PRCE. Typically costing in the $300 to $500 range we produce a brief report, review photos with you, and prioritize what needs to be done, when, and the cost of necessary repairs. [Please go <a href="http://a1builders.ws/?p=19144"><strong>HERE</strong> </a>to see an actual PRCE report we did, stripped of the client’s name and address].</p>
<p>If the timing of your wellness exam is <em>not</em> related to a remodeling project, we suggest you hire a whole-house, pre-purchase inspection company like you’d hire prior to buying another home. GOOGLE ‘home inspectors Whatcom County’.</p>
<p>For energy audits there are many companies to choose from. GOOGLE ‘energy audits Whatcom County’. Here are a few places to explore:</p>
<blockquote><p>CAZ Energy Services. They offer two levels of service – a <em>‘basic home assessment’ </em>and a ‘<em>detailed home assessment’,</em> which you can read about<a href="http://www.cazenergy.com/">HERE</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://sustainableconnections.org/energy/energychallenge">The Community Energy Challenge</a></p>
<p>Puget Sound Energy’s <a href="https://pse.com/savingsandenergycenter/Rebates/Pages/HomePrint.aspx">‘HomePrint’</a> Assessment</p>
</blockquote>
<p>It’s hard to imagine a greener thing you could do at home than guarantee on an ongoing basis that it’s not deteriorating; that it’s using energy efficiently; that the air you breathe inside your home is clean and healthy. After all, since <strong>most folks spend about 90% of their time indoors</strong> that air ought to be as clean as possible!</p>
<p>Not only is your home in all likelihood your largest monetary investment, but it probably represents the most material resources you steward.</p>
<p>Please take care of it.</p>
<p>Regularly.</p>Conditioned Spacetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-12-23:2723460:BlogPost:1040442015-12-23T20:43:31.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>Feelin’ pretty cozy? Chances are you’re reading this blog post while inside conditioned space whose air temperature is being controlled by you or some other human. We typically move around from conditioned space to conditioned space: our car, home or place of work. We’ll go outside and travel through unconditioned space in order to gain access to our next managed, conditioned cocoon. Comfort zone to comfort zone, minimizing discomfort while in transition.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Comfort drives so…</p>
<p>Feelin’ pretty cozy? Chances are you’re reading this blog post while inside conditioned space whose air temperature is being controlled by you or some other human. We typically move around from conditioned space to conditioned space: our car, home or place of work. We’ll go outside and travel through unconditioned space in order to gain access to our next managed, conditioned cocoon. Comfort zone to comfort zone, minimizing discomfort while in transition.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Comfort drives so much of what we choose to do and where we choose to be, doesn’t it? And these choices typically disconnect us, to varying degrees, from the natural, unconditioned world; from outside. Most of us go outside so as to get back inside, conditioned and comfy.</p>
<p></p>
<p>What a bind we’re in! If the temperature of the room or car you’re in right now is achieved by burning carbon, then unconditioned space – Mother Nature – suffers some in order to furnish you with your conditioned space. Reminds me of an anonymous quotation I dare not put on our readerboard on Northwest Avenue:</p>
<blockquote><p><em><strong>Plants and animals die to make room for your fat ass!</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>The thing is, our physical, conditioned places condition our mental spaces as well. When you’re hangin’ out in a dark, dreary room free of plants and natural light, it sure is difficult to feel at one with the natural world! So the physical spaces within which we reside help determine the mental spaces within which we reside!</p>
<p></p>
<p>Ultimately, then, it’s important to pick our places carefully. Know that plants and animals will probably suffer to the degree your comfort is derived from environmentally-unfriendly products and processes. And know that your mental health will probably suffer to the degree that your built environment is derived from unnatural settings, disconnected from nature.</p>
<p></p>
<div id="attachment_19476" class="wp-caption alignright"><img class="wp-image-19476 align-center" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Holding-up-tent.jpg" alt="Holding up tent" width="421" height="495"/><p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: center;">Rick holding up his favorite house…</p>
<p class="wp-caption-text" style="text-align: center;">in the Grand Canyon aside the Colorado River.</p>
<p class="wp-caption-text"></p>
</div>
<p>It’s no wonder I’m so driven to be outside; to challenge my body; to have the skills and gear that allow me to remain comfortable inside less-than-comfy, conditioned space, or outside of conditioned space, or in the wilderness. I’m driven to find comfort in the uncomfortable; attached and connected to nature, free of a conditioned cocoon. Concurrently I’m then minimizing the environmental damage of my actions by not needing a cocoon, or the comforting heat, and my mind is free to roam, unencumbered by the cognitive dissonance of hurting Mother Nature while staying warm.</p>
<p></p>
<p>If you’re concerned about the state of our natural world, and you get this connection between your comfort and nature’s continued deterioration, then be very aware of how you achieve your comfort. Know the consequences of your actions. Staying warm, done wrong, overheats the planet. Damn. We’ve learned this lesson, Mr. Gore, and it’s time to change our ways.</p>
<p></p>
<blockquote><p>Find comfort with solar energy and wind power; find comfort with smaller spaces; find comfort with wearing sweaters and down booties; find comfort grabbing a hat instead of the thermostat.</p>
</blockquote>
<p></p>
<p>Find comfort while treating Mother well. We now know how.</p>
<p></p>
<p>If we’re going to succeed in turning environmental degradation around, my comfort cannot be achieved by imposing a climate emergency upon you. And your comfort should not create my emergency. There’s one planet; it’s one spaceship; we’re all crew, and there are no passengers.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Condition your space well.</p>
<p> </p>Passing the Batontag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-11-27:2723460:BlogPost:1041972015-11-27T20:10:15.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>If all goes well I must relinquish the throne here in about three months. That’s the optimistic time frame when A-1 Builders will morph into a worker-owned cooperative (WOC). I use the phrase ‘<em>must relinquish the throne’ </em>rather lightly given that I’m bringing it upon myself; this shift in power is voluntary. Instead of Presidential decisions, they will be made by 6 hopeful owners, myself included, each of whom has worked here at least 5 years, each person bearing one vote, 6…</p>
<p>If all goes well I must relinquish the throne here in about three months. That’s the optimistic time frame when A-1 Builders will morph into a worker-owned cooperative (WOC). I use the phrase ‘<em>must relinquish the throne’ </em>rather lightly given that I’m bringing it upon myself; this shift in power is voluntary. Instead of Presidential decisions, they will be made by 6 hopeful owners, myself included, each of whom has worked here at least 5 years, each person bearing one vote, 6 rowing as hard as just one.</p>
<p>Three months to achieve this conversion is optimistic. What’s more realistic or, further out, pessimistic? Such deals take on a life of their own. Lenders, CPAs, attorneys may affect the deal, so it’s hard to say.</p>
<p>So I still control this keyboard for at least three months — probably longer — and use it I will. Sure, I see myself continuing to write once I share decision making; I adore writing. My fingers articulate more effectively than my vocal cords. But for the time being I stand solo in front of A-1’s podium and during this short while I’d like to share my core beliefs that have helped me run my own life; that have helped me steer this business for almost 40 years. That’s when I bought A-1 Builders, a business I’ve traced back to 1928 informally; a formal trail I can trace back to 1955. I’m a 64 year old human running a 60 year old company.</p>
<div id="attachment_19441" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Milo-Rick.jpg"><img class="wp-image-19441 size-full" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/11/Milo-Rick.jpg" alt="Milo & Rick" width="600" height="400"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Rick and grandson Milo sharing the simplicity and joy of snowshoeing and tent camping.</p>
</div>
<p>If you’ve read much of my writing previously you’d know my perspective that green building is simply a subset of green business practices which is simply a subset of green personal practices. What drives me drives all of me. That said, are A-1 Builders and Adaptations Design Studio designing and building structures as green as my heart knows is necessary to achieve sustainability? Admittedly, no. Instead, I’ve pushed our green envelope as far as I dare to and still achieve economic sustainability for our 15 co-workers, their families, local subcontractors, material vendors and supporting professionals that rely in no small part upon this company. Walking my talk continues to be a question of balance.</p>
<p><strong>Top of mind amidst my core beliefs is the need for <em>simplicity</em></strong>. Simplification attracts me to human powered tools and vehicles; wilderness travel on foot; steady state economics; intermediate technology; think local first; reduce, reuse, recycle (remodel); not exceeding the carrying capacity of one’s land base; small is beautiful; businesses paying for the true cost of what they do.</p>
<p>And simplicity creates a small ecological footprint, something we desperately need to secure. Why?</p>
<blockquote><p>“<em>Today humanity uses the equivalent of 1.6 planets to provide the resources we use and absorb our waste. This means it now takes the Earth one year and six months to regenerate what we use in a year.”</em> – Global Footprint Network</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Do I believe we can achieve global sustainability using <em>voluntary</em> simplicity? Will enough people ‘<em>see the light’</em> and decide, on their own, to amend their ways? Well, as a starter, let’s define the term…</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Voluntary simplicity, or simple living, is a way of life that rejects the high-consumption, materialistic lifestyles of consumer cultures and affirms what is often just called ‘the simple life’ or ‘downshifting’. The rejection of consumerism arises from the recognition that ordinary Western-style consumption habits are degrading the planet; that lives of high consumption are unethical in a world of great human need; and that the meaning of life does not and cannot consist in the consumption or accumulation of material things. Extravagance and acquisitiveness are accordingly considered an unfortunate waste of life, certainly not deserving of the social status and admiration they seem to attract today. The affirmation of simplicity arises from the recognition that very little is needed to live well – that abundance is a state of mind, not a quantity of consumer products or attainable through them.” </em>– The Simplicity Collective</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Do I believe we can achieve global sustainability using <em>voluntary</em> simplicity? Emphatically… NO! During my more naïve, formative years, living through the ‘original’ environmental movement of the ‘60’s, I believed otherwise. The social strides emerging around me were impressive; voluntary simplicity might prevail!</p>
<p>Fast forward to 2015, filtered through forty years of observation, and my mind has changed. Sure, the voluntary simplicity movement has gathered steam, but, simultaneously, the grow-or-die movement has exploded in relative size and dwarfed simplicity. Simplicity has been steam-rolled by bigness and complexity. Flattened.</p>
<p>Citizens, quite simply, have been transformed into consumers, and a ‘good’ consumer, we’re told, helps to fan the mainstream drive towards complexity; towards ‘more is better’; towards property rights and private interest groups; away from regulations and attempts to limit consumption and population.</p>
<p>If one embraces the need to downsize, to achieve global needs that only require one earth or less of available resources, and if <em>voluntary</em> movement in that direction is insufficient, then the transition needs to be directly managed… involuntarily. <em>Hoping</em> for the transition simply isn’t a plan.</p>
<p>That said, this isn’t the place to present the plan. I’m here to keenly argue for the <em>need</em> to get there – downsized and sustainable — and get there soon. Here’s U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan fourteen years ago…</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“In the past we could afford a long gestation period before undertaking major environmental policy initiatives. Today the time for a well-planned transition to a sustainable system is running out. We may be moving in the right direction, but we are moving too slowly. We are failing in our responsibility to future generations and even the present one.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>So let’s move fast!</p>
<p><em>Oh no, Uncle Bill!</em> Not only does the concept of down-sizing nauseate Joe America, sucking the air out of political will, but we’ve got inertia in the way. <em>How can we move fast?</em></p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The great enemy of any attempt to change men’s habits is inertia. Civilization is limited by inertia.”</em> ― <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/275170.Edward_L_Bernays">Edward L. Bernays</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you’re still with me, and you accept the need for involuntary simplicity, or forced down-sizing, consider this: <em>do you know about another concept more incompatible with our mainstream, capitalist economy?</em> Imagine enforced one-car families, or homes restricted to 500 square feet per person? In America? In the developed or developing world? Who are you kidding?</p>
<p>Civilization is limited by inertia. So, until downshifting is forcibly imposed, whose time will surely come – one way or another — <em>voluntary</em> simplicity and piecemeal regulations will simply slow down the pace of deterioration. Slow down the rate at which water is heated and frogs don’t have the sense to leap away. Slow down the rate at which our climate is heated and humans won’t have the sense to behave otherwise.</p>
<p><strong>But this I know: although I don’t believe that voluntary simplicity is enough to achieve ecological sustainability in the face of the power and inertia of mainstream capitalism, voluntary simplicity <em>has</em> offered me inner peace; it <em>has</em> driven me to keep my wants small; it <em>has</em> allowed much time for wilderness travel. I adore simple.</strong></p>
<p>Mainstream culture abhors simple.</p>
<p>Unless we find the way to proactively balance human development with the limits to growth imposed upon us by our source — our earth — the human experiment is doomed.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The ten thousand year experiment of the settled life is about to come to a crashing halt.”</em> – Chris Hedges</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Be working on your airbags.</p>
<p>And keep it simple.</p>It Takes a Village...tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-09-23:2723460:BlogPost:1032482015-09-23T22:49:18.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478405?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-center" height="543" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478405?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="362"></img></a> Have you seen the finished <em><strong>Community Bicycle Repair & Information Station</strong></em>, or C-BRIS, that we designed and built on our property on Northwest Avenue? Better yet, have you used it?</p>
<p>It’s here for you; built for you… hoping to help you get on your bike more and more. And with plenty of information and maps for walking, hiking and riding the…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478405?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478405?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="362" height="543" class="align-center"/></a>Have you seen the finished <em><strong>Community Bicycle Repair & Information Station</strong></em>, or C-BRIS, that we designed and built on our property on Northwest Avenue? Better yet, have you used it?</p>
<p>It’s here for you; built for you… hoping to help you get on your bike more and more. And with plenty of information and maps for walking, hiking and riding the bus, the C-BRIS is all about getting you more active; leaving behind your car.</p>
<p>Before I send you on to our website posting that’s all about the C-BRIS… from KING-5’s video coverage, to <em>Southside Living Magazine</em>‘s article about it, to cool time-lapse photography of its construction… I have a special request for you, as a member of our village.</p>
<p>Vandalism has been an issue from day 1. Yeah, we figured as much… but not THIS much! And we need all eyes and ears watching the C-BRIS, and shutting down any misuse that you see going on as you cycle, walk or drive by. If need be, call 911. Or simply park right next to it for a bit and watch the lowlifes scatter!</p>
<blockquote><p>The C-BRIS contains two large bike repair manuals, costing over $30 each. Five manuals have already been stolen. Each one has been attached to a shelf with stainless steel cable; each time with thicker and thicker cable.</p>
<p>Someone chewed through the hose end that terminates into the valve to pump up one’s tires… and stole the valve.</p>
<p>Folks have used the electrical outlet to charge their cell phones while sitting behind the C-BRIS smoking dope.</p>
<p>The slab has been pissed on.</p>
<p>The suggestion box’s pad of paper and pen have been stolen.</p>
</blockquote>
<h2>It took a village to design and build this thing, and it’ll clearly take a village is protect it!</h2>
<p>So please do what you can do to make this puppy live here a long, long time.</p>
<p>The other side of this double-edged sword is the overwhelming, positive energy that has come our way as a result of this structure. Allow me to share just 3 of the 65 notes we’ve gotten prior to 9-23-15 in our suggestion box:</p>
<blockquote><p>“This is one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Being a lifelong biker from Bellingham… 4th generation… I appreciate what biking can do for everyone, on a local and global scale. So thank you to everyone involved… so much!” – Josh Blake</p>
<p>“FANTASTIC/AMAZING… A-1 and Rick Dubrow rock the bike community in Bellingham. Better and more comprehensive a facility than I’ve seen anywhere in the nation/world… and my wife and I have been bike touring since 1980 (Although never biked in Europe). What did you not think of…” – Ron and Donna Merlino</p>
<p>“Today I rode past and noticed you added a comment box. This is not a suggestion; it is a THANK YOU. Not only has your bike station been a huge, huge help to myself and others in this community, your genius and selflessness are an absolute inspration to me. Thank you from my heart.” – Heather Paton (written, and snail-mailed to us, on a custom made cardboard postcard!)</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Know that the suggestion box has offered up many an idea. One of them we’re running with is the installation of a ground-level bike stand… coming soon. This will help those without a kick stand to rest their bike before, or instead of, needing to lift one’s bike up onto the bike rack. Or, if 2 bikers show up at the same time, this ground-mounted stand will allow a batter’s box for who’s on deck to work on their bike.</p>
<p>Other suggestions… like providing lube and grease; or a water fountain; providing additional tools besides the most commonly needed tools which are already there; providing a porta-potty… stretch us beyond our capacity. And because of how often folks are using it to charge their cell phones, we’ve had to cover up the electrical outlet with a blank cover plate.</p>
<p>Like most everything in life, the C-BRIS brings out the best and worst in people. We need you and the rest of the village to help us filter out those capable of damaging this gem.</p>
<p>The good shall prevail. The C-BRIS shall live. Please help make it so!</p>
<p>Now, for the rest of the C-BRIS story, go <strong><a href="http://a1builders.ws/2015/07/community-bike-repair-information-station-c-bris/">HERE</a></strong>.</p>Patterns for Navigating the Transition to a World in Energy Descenttag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-09-03:2723460:BlogPost:1033102015-09-03T18:14:19.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p></p>
<br />
<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg" style="font-size: 13px;"><img alt="Integral Leadership Review" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1993" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg?w=640"></img></a> <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/" style="font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">Integral Leadership Review</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> (ILR) has published the paper I presented to the recent </span><a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/?offset=1437163743337" style="font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">Integral Theory…</a></h1>
<p></p>
<br />
<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg" style="font-size: 13px;"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1993" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg?w=640" alt="Integral Leadership Review"/></a><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Integral Leadership Review</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> (ILR) has published the paper I presented to the recent </span><a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/?offset=1437163743337" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Integral Theory Conference</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> 2015, “</span><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13462-819-%ef%bb%bfpatterns-for-navigating-the-transition-to-a-world-in-energy-descent/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Patterns for Navigating the Transition to a World in Energy Descent</a><span style="font-size: 13px;">” in their </span><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/table-of-contents/?slug=august-november-2015" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">August-November 2015</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> issue.</span></h1>
<br />
<div class="entry-content"><p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-heading.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1994" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-heading.jpg?w=640" alt="ILR heading"/></a><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-patterns-for-navigating-intro.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1995" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-patterns-for-navigating-intro.jpg?w=640" alt="ILR Patterns for Navigating Intro"/></a></p>
<h1><strong>Abstract</strong></h1>
<p>This paper considers current concerns about resource depletion (“energy descent”) and the unsustainability of current economic structures, which may indicate we are entering a new era signaled by the end of growth. Using the systems thinking tool of PatternDynamics™, developed by Tim Winton, this paper seeks to integrate multiple natural patterns in order to effectively impact these pressing challenges. Some of the Patterns considered include Energy, Transformity, Power, Pulse, Growth, and the polarities of Expansion/Contraction and Order/Chaos.</p>
<p>We tend to have horrible visions associated with downturns and “collapse.” Can we even entertain the possibility that we might be entering a period of decline in energy and standard of living? Can we re-examine our assumptions about “growth” and “development”? Jean Gebser’s emphasis that every mutation of structure is preceded by a crisis is considered and Howard T. Odum’s ideas about energy as the basis of man and nature informs the discussion. Edgar Morin’s <em>dialogic</em> <em>Method</em> of active inquiry in regards to the interplay of polarities assists in our understanding and response to the complex challenges we face.</p>
<p>Read the paper <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13462-819-%EF%BB%BFpatterns-for-navigating-the-transition-to-a-world-in-energy-descent/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Also in this issue</strong> is Tim Winton’s reflections on the conference that is worth reading: “<a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13570-819-notes-on-the-field-thoughts-on-integral-leadership-post-itc-2015/" target="_blank">A Note on the Field: Thoughts on Integral Leadership Post ITC 2015</a>.”</p>
<p>Jeremy Johnson also did a great job as the official conference blogger. Some of you might be able to identify me in the first photo on <a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/2015/8/3/theories-have-become-their-dancing-reflections-on-itc2015s-artistic-nocturne" target="_blank">this page</a> (Jeremy and Tim were two of my five suite-mates, which also included Chris Dierkes, Gaby McDonald, and Trevor Malkinson).</p>
<p><strong>About ILR, from their website:</strong></p>
<blockquote><h3><em>Integral Leadership Review</em> – the world’s premier publication of integrated approaches to leading and leadership.</h3>
<p><em>Integral Leadership Review</em> is a bridging publication that links authors and readers across cultures around the world. It serves leaders, professionals and academics engaged in the practice, development and theory of leadership. It bridges multiple perspectives by drawing on integral, transdisciplinary, complexity and developmental frameworks. These bridges are intended to assist all who read the <em>Integral Leadership Review </em>to develop and implement comprehensive shifts in strategies by providing lessons from experience, insights, and tools all can use in addressing the challenges facing the world.</p>
</blockquote>
</div>Be Working On Yourstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-08-06:2723460:BlogPost:1031862015-08-06T16:00:01.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>This builder doesn’t build house boats. No, the typical home we work on simply doesn’t float. Not a big deal, unless predictions come to pass that waters may rise.</p>
<p>Data is already in hand confirming the truth of these predictions. Daily we learn more and more about the perfect storm, brought to you by the science of climate change. Water <em>is</em> expected to rise by <em>such-and-such</em> an amount by <em>so-and-so</em> a date, and, for those of us with eyes open, we’re observing…</p>
<p>This builder doesn’t build house boats. No, the typical home we work on simply doesn’t float. Not a big deal, unless predictions come to pass that waters may rise.</p>
<p>Data is already in hand confirming the truth of these predictions. Daily we learn more and more about the perfect storm, brought to you by the science of climate change. Water <em>is</em> expected to rise by <em>such-and-such</em> an amount by <em>so-and-so</em> a date, and, for those of us with eyes open, we’re observing this sea change already.</p>
<p>Yes, we’ll argue ‘til we’re blue in the face trying to reach consensus about the <em>amount</em> of ‘such-and-such’ and the <em>date</em> of ‘so-and-so’. These are critically important pieces of information, but <em>this</em> green builder doesn’t have expertise in defining ‘such-and-such’ and ‘so-and-so’. I’ll leave this to the scientists.</p>
<div id="attachment_19294" class="wp-caption alignright"><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoda-Bike.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/Yoda-Bike.jpg?width=562" width="562" class="align-center"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">So what <em>can</em> we do right here, right now, to design and build our way towards preparing for this perfect storm? <em> </em>Since these predictions <em>are</em>coming true, are you actively working on <em>your</em> ark? (And surely you know I’m speaking of an ark in a figurative, not a literal, manner! Instead I’m referring to a strategy or pathway that will help you adapt to this rising tide of environmental degradation.)</p>
</div>
<p>Well, then, let’s imagine the appropriate ark. I say ‘appropriate’ because I seek an ark that addresses <em>many</em> concerns, synergistically: climate change; over-consumption; over-population; dwindling resources. Much like the expression ‘<em>perfect</em> <em>storm’,</em> which describes the powerful synergy of many a negative weather system, I want an ark which achieves the<em>uplifting</em> synergy of many a <em>positive</em> solution!</p>
<p>So let’s imagine an ark – a pathway – you and I might create that is both positive and hopeful; a path that works in the short term <em>and</em> the long term; that can be built in stages, one section at a time; that works on numerous challenges created by our bloated footprints.</p>
<p>Clearly, the pieces of such an ark should decrease one’s ecological footprint, piece by piece, row by row. Housing needs to be energy efficient, relying more and more upon less and less petroleum. It needs to be small. It needs to be close to an urban center. It needs to support cycling, walking and mass transit.</p>
<p>Interesting: almost the same can be said about our food. Our food needs to be energy efficient, relying more and more upon less and less petroleum. It needs to be as vegetable-based as possible. It needs to be sourced nearby.</p>
<p>The same can be said about transportation and other aspects of our lives that make up our personal and combined footprint: every little bit erases some of our footprint; gives us more time; stretches our resources.</p>
<p>Every step towards a smaller footprint builds the appro0priate ark we may need to weather the perfect storm if, and when, things really go to hell: a lifeboat that provides the basics of shelter and food.</p>
<p>All of these steps forward address <em>efficiency</em>… more miles driven per charge; less electricity used per person; a higher percentage of renewables used. <strong>But what about<em>sufficiency</em>?</strong> What good does being more efficient do if we then swell our numbers by the same percentage? If our new vehicle fleet is 30% more efficient than before, but our population grows 30% over the next 20 years (which is Bellingham’s actual population growth rate of late), aren’t we back to where we started? <strong><em>When will we learn as a culture that we need to take our foot off the accelerator as a critical step towards stopping? </em></strong>How else are we going to avoid the looming cliff edge? With yet another technological fix?</p>
<p>I wish it were that easy. Enter <em>Jevons paradox</em>.</p>
<p>From Wikipedia:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>In economics, the Jevons paradox… occurs when <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_change">technological progress</a> increases the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficiency">efficiency</a> with which a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_(economics)">resource</a> is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumption_(economics)">consumption</a> of that resource rises because of increasing <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demand_(economics)">demand</a>. The Jevons paradox is perhaps the most widely known paradox in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecological_economics">ecological economics</a>. However, governments and <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalist">environmentalists</a> generally assume that efficiency gains will lower resource consumption and are an effective policy for <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability">sustainability</a>, ignoring the possibility of the paradox arising.</em></p>
<p><em>In 1865, the English economist <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Stanley_Jevons">William Stanley Jevons</a> observed that technological improvements that increased the efficiency of coal-use led to the increased consumption of coal in a wide range of industries. He argued that, <strong>contrary to common intuition, technological progress could not be relied upon to reduce fuel consumption.</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>We’ve got to embrace the need to address sufficiency <strong><em>and</em></strong> efficiency. Simply put, until we stop growing in numbers, efficiency gains will be gobbled up and surpassed. Yes, we just might buy some time with improved efficiencies, but the cliff edge continues to approach… a bit more slowly, perhaps. And there’s hardly a voice audible in the mainstream press saying <em>‘enough is enough’</em>. Our ‘<em>grow or die’ </em>paradigm presses onward, ignoring Jevon; ignoring common sense.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“</em><em>The good news,”</em> says Sally Erickson, <em>“is that, probably, a very different kind of </em><em>life will be a life which has meaning and purpose and is grounded in the reality of soil and water and other living, breathing, feeling creatures. In some ways it will be a harder life that you’ll have to choose. But it will be better.</em></p>
<p><em>“The waters are rising”,</em> she says. <em>“We’re going to have to let go of the shore. It’s time to build an ark. It’s time. Don’t wait. Build it now.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Be working on yours.</p>No "Happy Chapter" heretag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-07-07:2723460:BlogPost:1030332015-07-07T17:32:52.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>I’ve heard this term <i>‘happy chapter’</i> used to refer to so many a documentary or news report that, although terribly depressing, ends on a happy note. So, for example, a piece about global warming might end with a description of what’s being done about it. <i>‘There’s work being done’</i>, implies the happy chapter; <i>‘others are on top of it. Not to worry all that much.’</i></p>
<p>Yes, there’s a compelling motivation for me, or any author or news reporter, to leave you upbeat. …</p>
<p>I’ve heard this term <i>‘happy chapter’</i> used to refer to so many a documentary or news report that, although terribly depressing, ends on a happy note. So, for example, a piece about global warming might end with a description of what’s being done about it. <i>‘There’s work being done’</i>, implies the happy chapter; <i>‘others are on top of it. Not to worry all that much.’</i></p>
<p>Yes, there’s a compelling motivation for me, or any author or news reporter, to leave you upbeat. You’ll like me more; my message will be more attractive than repulsive. Why read what I write if I bring you down? Contrary to this compelling motivation, I, instead, am driven to honesty and transparency; to tell it like it is. I doubt you’ll find this particular column upbeat but I hope you’re drawn to my honesty, my transparency and my message. If not, you can always find what you want to hear; what you’d like to believe.</p>
<p>I’m reminded about a local Salmon Summit I attended years ago. The keynote speaker was describing the gloom and doom of what happens to biological diversity within creeks and streams as development increases. <i>“I’m sounding like Dr. Doom”,</i> he stopped his train of thought, <i>“but I need to paint a picture that’s somewhat connected to reality.”</i></p>
<p><i>“……<b>somewhat</b></i> <i>connected to reality!?“</i> Here’s a keynote speaker asked to tell his truth and the compelling drive to insert his ‘happy chapter’ tainted what we heard from him! I don’t want to hear what’s <i>somewhat</i> connected to reality; I want to hear about reality -- straight up. No happy chapter unless the happy chapter is real. If reality is gloomy then I want to hear from Dr. Doom. </p>
<p>So what’s <i>my</i> reality? </p>
<p>It’s very gloomy. (I would have said ‘<i>pretty darn gloomy’</i> had I fallen for the happy chapter syndrome!)</p>
<p>Yes, Whatcom County is a hot bed of progressive individuals and organizations. Our purchase of green power; the amount of LEED certified professionals and green building; the proportion of hybrids vehicles… (Damn, this is starting to sound like a happy chapter!). We’re adorned by an abundance of cultural creatives. </p>
<p>The sad reality, though, is that our environmental health is crashing – brought to you by the normals who embrace mainstream culture - far faster than the improvements brought forth by the likes of whom adorn our community. I am repulsed by the health of our environment and an economy/culture that denies its responsibility for its continued deterioration. In <u>The Ecology of Commerce</u> Paul Hawken nailed it, suggesting that <i>“There is no polite way to say that business is destroying the world.” </i></p>
<p>But I will not ignore its symptoms and deny reality. I will not live numb and distracted, even if remaining aware hurts. My truth is that we’re in a world of hurt and that baby steps need to be left for babies.</p>
<blockquote><p><i>“If what we want is to stop the destruction of the life of this planet, then what we have been doing has not been working. We will have to do something else. Something else, as in something really else, as in ‘now for something completely different’ else. Not the same old tricks in a new shade of muddy green</i>.” – Tim Bennett</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231537827?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="348" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231537827?profile=RESIZE_480x480" width="348" class="align-center"/></a>Its little wonder that I spend my free time high and outside, driven by a hunger for high country. Wilderness is magnificent in its own right, but time there also means less time being subjected to humanity’s insane tendency to destroy its very source and sustenance.</p>
<p>Loving the natural world and abhorring humanity’s drive to pave over Eden makes me crazy, so I live in two worlds. Derek Jensen got it right when he said that… <i>“We’re fucked, and life is really, really good.”</i></p>
<p>(Oh no, Uncle Bill, I’m ending with a <i>happy chapter</i>!)</p>
<p>Sure hope you still like me.</p>Enough Alreadytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-06-05:2723460:BlogPost:1027992015-06-05T19:54:49.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>Some of our favorite readerboard quotations are submitted by our friends and neighbors, and one of these recent gems suggests that <em>‘one must break down before you can break through’</em>. This adage surely rings true as it relates to making lifestyle changes seemingly necessary as our environment deteriorates. <strong>Human nature appears to require pain in order to spark change.</strong> And the greater the urgency for change, or the more immense the needed change, the more intense must…</p>
<p>Some of our favorite readerboard quotations are submitted by our friends and neighbors, and one of these recent gems suggests that <em>‘one must break down before you can break through’</em>. This adage surely rings true as it relates to making lifestyle changes seemingly necessary as our environment deteriorates. <strong>Human nature appears to require pain in order to spark change.</strong> And the greater the urgency for change, or the more immense the needed change, the more intense must be the pain in order to climb the seemingly insurmountable mountain. No pain, no change. Habits are simply hard to break.</p>
<p>Sir Isaac Newton taught us about momentum back in the late 1600’s: <em>bodies in motion tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an external force</em>… like fear or anxiety! Habits have momentum, and lots of it.</p>
<p>Let’s look at carbon’s momentum in our lives. Stop reading for a moment and look around. Find something that isn’t made of, transported by, fertilized with, or heated by, petroleum or a related carbon cousin, like plastic. Could you find something?</p>
<p>Captains of industry, bent on extraction, want you and me to have plentiful carbon, cheap. And they’re smart, investing wisely in government, buying a senator or two; buying a policy maker who designs the system; converting our politicians into compensated spokespeople.</p>
<p>Three decades ago those of us willing to listen were warned that unless we made profound changes to how we lived upon this great planet, that a distressing set of symptoms would alight upon our world.</p>
<p>What’s happened as a result of these warnings? Most everyone changed very little. And most everyone had lots of babies. So here we are, thirty years later, with most every living system in a tailspin, with very little resilience, with very little self-reliance. Instead of contraction our human impact has exploded.</p>
<p>But you and me, though aware of the science and symptoms of carbon’s increasing parts per million, remain fairly comfortable. Although you need not look very far for evidence of these limits to growth, for the most of part we can still live our lives normally. Much like the frog who doesn’t leap out of a sauce pan whose heat is slowly rising, we’re not leaping out of our cultural soup; we haven’t broken down and we’re therefore not apt to break through.</p>
<p>Author Derek Jensen nailed it when he wrote…<em>“We’re fucked, and life is really, really good.”</em></p>
<p>Meanwhile we’re losing species; losing ice; losing predictable, bearable climate. We continue to get closer and closer to the cliff’s edge and most of us get that. Commercial interests and their compensated spokespeople deny or ignore it. Instead they comfort us and play aikido with our minds, changing the subject and having us focus instead upon things important, like the evening gowns worn at the Oscars.</p>
<p>What are you and I left to do if we see the fuckedness head on and choose to ignore the evening gowns? How can we break through to a post-carbon culture if the external forces to shift carbon’s momentum are left hidden and ignored by the mainstream press and by our leaders? What tools do we have at hand to force the contraction of our exploding impact?</p>
<p>Until our government gathers the political will to regulate carbon use, population growth and our individual ecological footprint, the only tool we seemingly have to reverse or even slow down our race to the cliff’s edge is voluntary action: wanting less; embracing enough as plenty; voluntary simplicity.</p>
<p>At best, though, voluntary simplicity by the cultural creatives -- the chosen few, from my perspective -- will simply decrease the rate of deterioration, slowing down how quickly the water warms up in the saucepan. And if the water doesn’t get hot enough to induce leaping out, there goes the fear, the angst, the external forces, that would empower our breakdown… and subsequent breakthrough. Thanks to environmentalists, me being one of them, we’ll more slowly heat up until be boil to death.</p>
<p>So whadawedo?</p>
<p>From my perspective we can’t afford to wait for further deterioration. By the time we break down because of the heat we’ll be so far into resource and environmental over-shoot that it will be too late to rewind the tapes to achieve an attractive, sustainable future. Resources will be depleted; resource wars will be rampant.</p>
<p>Not good.</p>
<p>How, then, do we break through to a post-carbon paradigm without breaking down first?<strong> If the premise here is that human nature appears to require pain in order to spark change, how do we spark change without pain?</strong></p>
<p>Frankly, I don’t see a way. Although science and logic would be my tools of choice to spark change, they are decreasing in importance instead of playing an increasing role in addressing our demise. Our culture’s distrust of science appears to be increasing! OMG.</p>
<p>Although I don’t see a proactive, intelligent way forward this side of a revolution, or eventual civil war, I also can’t stop trying. A moral obligation drives me to continue, even though I understand that all of my efforts may simply result in reducing the water temperature's rate of rise; reducing the chance to break down. What am I to do otherwise? Go out and aggravate the situation? Live the American Dream?</p>
<p>Instead I’ll voluntarily do what I can to deconstruct this system that violates nature; that rapes nature; that rapes you, me and our descendants. Unless our human laws are aligned with our natural laws, achieving sustainability will remain a myth.</p>
<p>Those who govern must be forced to break away from their toxic ties to commerce and embrace the logic and science that tells us about the impending cliff edge. Simply put, it’s killing us to allow people to bear as many children as they’d like; to build as big a home as they’d like; to drive supersized, inefficient vehicles; for 1% of the population to control 95% of the wealth; to continue to ‘legally’ pollute; to succeed by selling under-priced goods that externalize their harm upon you and me; to avoid pollution control by moving production to filthier countries.</p>
<p><strong>‘Enough’ must be regulated if we are to survive and thrive;</strong> ‘enough’ must be aligned with the needs of our land base’s carrying capacity.</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but enough already. Take it down.</p>Culturally Induced Madnesstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-05-04:2723460:BlogPost:1024552015-05-04T23:04:03.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>When I was born in 1951 new homes averaged about 300 square feet per person. Compare this to about 900 square feet per person in 2003… a tripling in size in just 50 years. With this super-sizing comes the inherent fact that <strong>our homes generate more pollution and global warming gases than our cars</strong>! Our homes demand more energy consumption (12.2 barrels per person per year) than the food we eat (10 barrels per year) and the cars we drive (9 barrels per year).</p>
<p>No wonder…</p>
<p>When I was born in 1951 new homes averaged about 300 square feet per person. Compare this to about 900 square feet per person in 2003… a tripling in size in just 50 years. With this super-sizing comes the inherent fact that <strong>our homes generate more pollution and global warming gases than our cars</strong>! Our homes demand more energy consumption (12.2 barrels per person per year) than the food we eat (10 barrels per year) and the cars we drive (9 barrels per year).</p>
<p>No wonder we’re referred to as <em>consumers</em>, chewing up the natural world at such an alarming, unsustainable rate; a rate that is destroying the natural capital that provides the sustenance we rely upon for our basic needs.</p>
<p>Mainstream media tends to insulate us from this information, doesn’t it? Sure, we’ll be kept up to date with today’s stock market performance, elevating the health of our economy to center stage. Meanwhile, the health of our natural world seems hidden behind countless curtains. Back stage our natural world dies off while our houses expand.</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479756?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479756?profile=original" width="400" class="align-center"/></a>Put succinctly, here’s an anonymous quotation that my staff won’t allow me to place on our readerboard… “<em>Plants and animals disappear to make room for your fat ass.”</em></p>
<p>What madness!</p>
<p>If you’re paying attention — and your source of income doesn’t reply upon this addiction that <em>‘more is better’</em> — you know that it’s time to abandon our bloated role as <em>consumers</em> and behave as cooperative <em>citizens</em> who take no more from our natural world than it is capable of replacing.</p>
<p>But how can we do this while we’re bombarded by mainstream media? Advertising seduces you and me to be dissatisfied with ourselves — what you own; what you look like; how you smell; even how you sleep. So much is wrong with you so you’d better <em>“… talk to your doctor about…”</em></p>
<p>For just a moment, allow me to play doctor. My advice: <strong><em>Learn to ‘no’ thyself.</em></strong></p>
<p>Accept the fact that advertising exists to increase commerce… and that it works! Jim Morrison told us that<em>“Whoever controls the media controls the mind.”</em> Media effectively bombards us with enough material information that I’ll bet you can look around the room you’re in at the moment and pretty much know what you’d like to purchase as your next TV — or next easy chair or next whatever you look around and see.</p>
<p>For a moment, imagine a TV commercial suggesting that you should feel grateful about that which you already possess! What a refreshing idea, eh? <em>“Ahh… sit back and relax into the recliner you’ve owned for years. Breathe deeply the cleaner air that results from not replacing your older chair. Don’t replace it! Savor that which you already own!”</em></p>
<p>Marketing will continue to work unless one learns how to ‘no’ thyself. But how?</p>
<p>As your doctor, I so wish I could prescribe a green pill for you to take once a day to reduce your degree of consumption. <em>“Here, take this daily prescription of ‘Dowithlessocor’.”</em></p>
<p>Instead I ask you this: if you’re caught beneath a bombardment of any kind, what should you do?</p>
<p><strong>Take cover!</strong></p>
<p>Marketing is so damn effective that we need to create mind armor of sorts. Perhaps this means cancelling cable television and only watching movies. Perhaps this means turning your TV into a fish tank instead.</p>
<p>I don’t know what it means for you; that’s <em>your</em> job. You know thyself. <strong>Create your own mind armor and learn to ‘no’ thyself.</strong></p>
<p>Please, take cover.</p>
<p><strong>We can’t grow on like this.</strong></p>Chicks-Red Layerstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-04-24:2723460:BlogPost:1025792015-04-24T02:59:14.000ZRosettehttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/Rosette
<p>My daughters and I hatched out 26 chicks in our old-fashioned turn it yourself incubator.</p>
<p>We live on a city lot and need to sell them before the neighbors find out :-)!</p>
<p>These are a Rhode Island Red/Leghorn cross, so as one buyer said, "They will lay out the wazzoo"</p>
<p>Hatched date April 7</p>
<p>Straight Run</p>
<p>$3 each…<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477608?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-left" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477608?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"></img></a></p>
<p>My daughters and I hatched out 26 chicks in our old-fashioned turn it yourself incubator.</p>
<p>We live on a city lot and need to sell them before the neighbors find out :-)!</p>
<p>These are a Rhode Island Red/Leghorn cross, so as one buyer said, "They will lay out the wazzoo"</p>
<p>Hatched date April 7</p>
<p>Straight Run</p>
<p>$3 each<a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477608?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477608?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750" class="align-left"/></a></p>Mutating Withintag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-04-18:2723460:BlogPost:1020822015-04-18T00:23:40.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>I’m 64 years old now. Beyond 60, the youth of old age. Approaching retirement; defining retirement; exploring succession planning.</p>
<p>What will <i>A-1 Builders</i> and <i>Adaptations Design Studio</i> look like during, and after, Cindi and I extract ourselves from the helm. Will this extraction be slow or sudden? Will we reduce our hours along a descending, straight line, or along a series of steps leading from fulltime to zero? Great questions, ones we’re discussing daily. But this…</p>
<p>I’m 64 years old now. Beyond 60, the youth of old age. Approaching retirement; defining retirement; exploring succession planning.</p>
<p>What will <i>A-1 Builders</i> and <i>Adaptations Design Studio</i> look like during, and after, Cindi and I extract ourselves from the helm. Will this extraction be slow or sudden? Will we reduce our hours along a descending, straight line, or along a series of steps leading from fulltime to zero? Great questions, ones we’re discussing daily. But this blog post is less about extraction; more about succession planning and structure.</p>
<p><i>Should we simply sell the company to a stranger?</i></p>
<p>Years ago, when I started to think about my inevitable retirement, I imagined heading to LA, Las Vegas, or the like, seeking out a builder who was tired of their deteriorating quality of life; seeking to relocate their business to a place more sane. What a logical buyer?</p>
<p>This classic succession plan – selling one’s company to a stranger -- usually leads to a significant shake-up within. Will existing staff bond with the new owners? Will the new owners even care about who’s here? Will they wipe the slate clean and start anew? How dare we allow this to happen to our outstanding and committed staff?</p>
<p>Will a new business owner even care about embracing our mantra, which is to implement healthy, environmentally sensitive and resource efficient building and business practices? Talk about an unpredictable, unacceptable legacy.</p>
<p>Instead, Cindi and I searched for a pathway that supports both our staff <i>and</i> our mantra. These two deliverables became the most important critical success factors in our search for the right succession plan.</p>
<p>Our search led us to the <i>worker-owned cooperative</i> (WOC) model. Simply put, we would sell the company to eligible employees: those who have worked here for at least 5 years. The existing VIP’s would carry on; the culture and ethics we’ve massaged into being would live on. Cindi and could then step away with pride, safety and security. Both our staff <i>and</i> our mantra would thrive.</p>
<p>That’s our hope and that’s what we’re working hard to manifest. And know this… since we’re a design/build firm, what’s to stop us. It’s what we do each and every day. Design something and then build it. No matter… instead of homes using sticks ‘n stones we’ll design and build an outstanding organization incorporating the best human building blocks we know. Proven humans carrying forth a proven mantra… building a better Whatcom County.</p>
<p>The International Cooperative Alliance defines a cooperative, in general, as <i>“an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.”</i> It is, essentially, an enterprise formed by a group of people who join forces and work together to solve a problem or reach a goal that they all share. In a cooperative, only members are permitted to own common shares of equity. All cooperatives are owned and governed democratically, applying the principle of <i>“one member, one vote.”</i></p>
<p>What’s so appealing to us about the <i>worker-owned</i> cooperative model in particular? You’re probably familiar with member, or consumer, cooperatives like our Community Food Coop and R.E.I., right? Employee, or worker-owned, cooperatives, are a different breed: the company’s <i>employees</i> rather than its customers are the patrons. As such, employee coops are not often encountered in the business community. This may be because coops are not widely understood, and, even if they were, a healthy, happy employee cooperative requires a certain set of circumstances and attitudes to thrive.</p>
<p>The Northcountry Cooperative Foundation says that <i>“…the worker cooperative structure has many advantages, especially for a relatively small business. It is simple to create, relatively inexpensive to establish, and offers significant tax benefits. It is easy to understand. Worker cooperatives also build local assets and increase economic stability for worker-owners and their communities. Participatory decision making, featured in most worker coops, can enhance productivity, improve product and service quality, and promote the development of workers’ skills.”</i></p>
<p>Although Cindi and I are working hard to mutate our Sub-S corporation into a worker-owned cooperative, we’re far from arriving there. Yes, we’re doing our homework: we’ve got an active Steering Committee meeting weekly; we’ve hired Tom Dorr to be our financial and strategic advisor; we’ve retained Emily Rose Mowrey as our attorney. We’ve got the team and a destination.</p>
<p>Onward into the storm…</p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478420?profile=original" target="_self"><img width="750" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478420?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="345" class="align-full" height="448"/></a><a href="http://http://a1builders.ws/2015/04/mutating-within/" target="_blank">http://a1builders.ws/2015/04/mutating-within/</a></p>Watch Our Cycling Kiosk Emergetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-04-03:2723460:BlogPost:1015102015-04-03T17:37:18.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
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<div class="hentry-pad"><div class="entry_wrap fix"><div class="entry_content"><p><strong>A-1 Builders turns 60 this September</strong> and it’s time to celebrate this new decade by giving back to our community… again!</p>
<p>While 60 may be referred to as the youth of old age for <em>humans</em>, not so for businesses and organizations. Although in a legal sense corporations may be considered persons, they sure don’t age the same way! We’re a perfect example. Although A-1 is turning 60, we’re exploring the transformation of our firm into a worker-owned cooperative! (My next blog post will be all about worker-owned cooperatives and why we’re leaning that way, so stay tuned.) More a re-birth than a move into an assisted-living unit, the coop model will infuse the company with additional, fresh ownership blood.</p>
<p>When we turned 50 in 2005 we were driven to find an appropriate way to thank our community. After all, without the help and engagement of our clients, neighbors, subs, vendors, and professional affiliates, there’d be no ‘us’, right? Mutual symbiosis. Community.</p>
<p>We chose to help the Community Food Coop birth a rather large bicycle parking facility pictured right here…</p>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bikeport-at-Coop.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-19084" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bikeport-at-Coop.jpg" alt="Bikeport at Coop" width="600" height="376"/></a></p>
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<p>We provided the design work and construction at virtually no cost to the Food Coop; our employees, subs, vendors and even a few, fellow builders jumped in and donated the materials and labor to make this happen. (For more on the Coop’s bike port go <strong><a href="http://a1builders.ws/2012/07/giving-back-to-our-community-donating-the-design-and-construction-of-the-community-food-coops-bikeport-for-our-50th-company-anniversary/">HERE</a></strong>.)</p>
<p>Now, approaching 60, we sought another project to thank our community and again settled upon the promotion of cycling as a worthy cause. This time it will be an 11’ x 11’ kiosk on site here on Northwest Avenue, accessible from the sidewalk. It’ll include <a href="http://www.dero.com/product/fixit/">a bike stand with an air pump, along with the appropriate tools for simple maintenance.</a> Throw in bulletin boards galore, we’ll provide cyclists and pedestrians with maps and information, ranging from city bike and pedestrian paths to garage sale notices to organizational event notices. Here’s glimpse at what it will look like:</p>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bike-Repair-Kiosk.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-19085" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Bike-Repair-Kiosk.jpg" alt="Bike Repair Kiosk" width="600" height="388"/></a></p>
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<p><strong>All with donations and volunteer labor!</strong> We reached out to our employees, subs and vendors… then to our clients and professional affiliates. Given the enormous generosity of those asked, the donations equal the costs! And a plaque listing the volunteers and donators will join the information that will adorn the kiosk.</p>
<p>Our thanks also go out… big time… to the efforts by the City of Bellingham’s permit center. At first glance, due to the zoning of our property, permits looked like they would cost about $3,300, and this hurdle proved to be our biggest speed bump! Really. For an 11’ x 11’ covered kiosk we and others wanted to give to our community!</p>
<p>Wasn’t there a way to bring permitting costs down?</p>
<p>Yes, indeed. The city drilled deeply and discovered that since the kiosk could be considered an accessory use of our property, there would be no need to access and pay for a Planned Development permit. $300 instead of $3,300. Whew…</p>
<p>If things go according to our high dream, this kiosk will be the first of many throughout town. Imagine a dependable scattering of bike repair and information kiosks along various bike paths, all perhaps funded via crowdfunding. Let’s dream big.</p>
<p>So keep your eyes open for the emergence of our kiosk as time goes on. We know we won’t have it done for <em>Bike to Work and School Day </em>on May 15<sup>th</sup>. For now, our construction schedule is unclear; we simply know it will come to pass.</p>
<p>For all of us. For all of you. For community… <a class="pledit" href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-admin/post.php?post=19083&action=edit"><span class="pledit-pad"><br/></span></a></p>
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</div>Pulverized, Ground-up Civilizationtag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-03-16:2723460:BlogPost:1013402015-03-16T16:38:12.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">Dust permeates our indoor environment. It’s everywhere, some of it natural – dead skin, soil, pollen, dust mites. Some of it unnatural - chemicals, pesticides, rubber, herbicides - all these and more comprise the dust inside our homes and places of work.</p>
<p>What many people don't know is that toxic chemicals are brought inside all the time, simply by wearing your shoes indoors, or from your pets coming in after romping around the yard. We…</p>
<p align="center" style="text-align: left;">Dust permeates our indoor environment. It’s everywhere, some of it natural – dead skin, soil, pollen, dust mites. Some of it unnatural - chemicals, pesticides, rubber, herbicides - all these and more comprise the dust inside our homes and places of work.</p>
<p>What many people don't know is that toxic chemicals are brought inside all the time, simply by wearing your shoes indoors, or from your pets coming in after romping around the yard. We breathe this soup and, frankly, we’re allergic to much of it. Worse yet, outdoor UV rays that would normally and naturally break down much of the toxins <i>inside</i> your home are non-existent there, so they tend to accumulate. And what better an accumulator than carpet, seemingly driven to collect that which is on the bottom of your - and Fido’s - feet!</p>
<p>Let’s consider the health implications of living amidst our ground up world and then suggest a pathway for you to resolve this dusty issue. </p>
<p>Dust mites are the most potent source of allergens in house dust. Dust mites are microscopic insects that live in pillows, mattresses, carpets and upholstered furniture. Magnify a dust mite photograph and it’s like tuning into the sci-fi channel on your tube. They thrive in warm, humid conditions, and eat shed skin scales from human skin. Mmmmmmm…</p>
<p>It's the <i>waste</i> that they produce that people react to -- in other words, their poop. <b>Dust mites are so prevalent that about 20-30% of the weight of the pillow on your bed is typically made up of dust mites and the waste they make! </b>And that’s where we lay our heads for about a third of our life… sleeping; breathing. Prolonged exposure to these allergens can cause, well, allergic reactions. Go figure! With twenty percent of the U.S. population suffering from active allergies and asthma, an estimated eight to twelve percent are known to be caused by the poop of these tiny critters. </p>
<p>Dust mites aren't the only thing we have to be concerned with. Pesticides are also found in house dust. PCP is often found in the dust of houses where wood preservatives have been used to treat wood. Lead, a chemical which causes learning disabilities in children, is found just outside the foundation of our older homes, as a result of sanding and scraping past layers of lead paint. Road dust, wood and coal smoke, and other potential carcinogens also pose a threat in dust. Having all of these substances in your home raises the risk of allergic reactions, sickness, and cancer. Not good. </p>
<p>Because of their immature immune systems, children are <i>especially</i> susceptible to the dangers of their environment. The youngsters tend to ingest a lot of dust and other pollutants because they play on the floor. They stomp, they jump, and they put things in their mouths. It's exactly these things that cause them to form allergies and other sicknesses. Many allergies are developed in toddlers from prolonged exposure to dust and the patterns continue to get worse over time. Twenty-five years ago, one in twenty-five children in Washington State were diagnosed with asthma. Now the number has risen to one in ten children, and one in fourteen adults. With all these dangers that house dust pose to us, what can we do?</p>
<p>A lot.</p>
<p>And, quite simply, removing one’s shoes at the door is the most powerful thing you can do. An effective <i>‘shoes off’</i> policy can decrease dust loading in your home by as much as 95% -- as well as reduce the amount of house cleaning you’ll need to do!</p>
<p>This is but one of many ways to address the implications of dust on indoor air quality. Want to learn more? Here’s a link to my radio program on dust recorded for KMRE 102.3 FM called <i>‘On The Level’</i>. My two guests, local allergist David Elkayam, and building performance specialist John Davies, will help you understand what you can do, and why you should do it, in order to achieve healthy indoor air qualit </p>
<p>Click on this link to access my show…<a href="http://a1builders.ws/?attachment_id=18652">http://a1builders.ws/?attachment_id=18652</a></p>
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<p> </p>Anonymous Resistancetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-02-12:2723460:BlogPost:1011762015-02-12T18:14:02.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>All too often it can prove edgy to speak your mind. I get that. Your values surface to the tip of your tongue but you hold tight for fear that you’ll expose a part of yourself at odds with your co-workers; at odds with your spouse, church or employer.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>“Do I dare speak up?”</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>How do you decide?</p>
<p>The answer requires a slight detour. Let’s focus on an unintended consequence of our military-industrial complex: the steady loss of…</p>
<p>All too often it can prove edgy to speak your mind. I get that. Your values surface to the tip of your tongue but you hold tight for fear that you’ll expose a part of yourself at odds with your co-workers; at odds with your spouse, church or employer.</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>“Do I dare speak up?”</strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>How do you decide?</p>
<p>The answer requires a slight detour. Let’s focus on an unintended consequence of our military-industrial complex: the steady loss of life. Be it the loss of bio-diversity, the creation of toxic waste, aggravating global warming… each of us contributes to this tragic drama. Many of us willing to acknowledge this loss of life find ourselves making a living by inadvertently supporting this loss of life.</p>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Polar-Bear-Sleeping_edited-1.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-18815 align-center" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/Polar-Bear-Sleeping_edited-1.jpg" alt="Polar Bear Sleeping_edited-1" width="280" height="201"/></a></p>
<p>Perhaps where you work you’re concerned about the amount of storm water reaching a nearby creek.<em>Do you raise this red flag at a staff meeting? </em>Maybe you believe in steady state economics. <em> Do you bring this up at a Board of Realtors meeting? </em>Perhaps you consider over-consumption a compelling issue. <em>Do you share this with your co-workers at a staff meeting at Best Buy?</em></p>
<p>Damn that cognitive dissonance; that friction between your values and your actions. How might you reduce the heat generated by this friction? Where’s the WD-40 when you need it?</p>
<p>Clearly, if the cognitive dissonance is of sufficient magnitude, you’ll jump ship. You’ll change jobs and go to work for an environmental non-profit; you’ll find friends who can hear your voice and share your concern; perhaps you’ll find a church that embraces the stewardship of the planet that’s aligned with your values.</p>
<p>Alternately, you may find your circumstances a bit more rigid. You may feel stuck at your job because you need to sustain your income in order to send your kid through college. The details vary, but life can tend to hold you at bay, unable to act. Stuck. Insufficient WD-40 to let loose.</p>
<p>Then what?</p>
<p><strong>Consider growing an <em>anonymous</em> voice for action aligned with your values.</strong></p>
<blockquote><h3><strong>Why not, for example, donate anonymously to a non-profit that’s working hard on an issue close to your heart. </strong></h3>
</blockquote>
<p>Have you ever looked at the list of donors on the back of Whatcom Watch? Many are anonymous. Why? Perhaps (s)he doesn’t want to be hassled for additional requests for money. Or <strong>perhaps it’s a realtor or a Best Buy salesperson who realizes their contribution to this loss of life and is compelled to act anyway!</strong></p>
<p>Derrick Jensen, an acclaimed author who helps people discover their voice, be it public or anonymous, puts it this way:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong> <em>“….the fact remains that if we judge my work, or anyone’s work, by the most important standard of all, and in fact the only standard that really matters, which is the health of the planet, my work (and everyone else’s) is a complete failure. Because my work hasn’t stopped the murder of the planet. Nor has anyone else’s. We haven’t even slowed it down. The health of the planet is the only standard that really matters because without a living planet nothing else is important, because nothing else exists. Life itself is more important than what we create.”</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>If you feel like logistics in your own world prevent you from caring for the environment in alignment with your concern for loss of life, find another way. Find your voice and make it so, even if it <em>is</em> anonymous.</p>
<p>Paul Wellstone nailed it when he said…</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>“If we don’t fight hard enough for the things we stand for, at some point we have to recognize that we don’t really stand for them.”</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Derrick Jensen, in most every talk he gives, reveals that 90% of the large fish on earth are gone. He’ll ask his audience, and I ask you, this…</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>A</em><em>t what point will you take charge of your actions? Will it be when 95% of the fish are gone? 98%?</em></strong></p>
</blockquote>Quality, well built, Chicken Coop For Saletag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-02-02:2723460:BlogPost:1009462015-02-02T14:38:58.000ZCipriano Mauriciohttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/CiprianoMauricio
<p>Just in time for your spring chickens!</p>
<p>Save material costs on your coop. We've invested over $600 in wood and hardware. Built with care and love. Extra safe from predation. Accommodates 8 full size chickens and 12 bantams. Grab it now before someone else does.<br></br> <br></br> Asking $250. I'll help you dismantle. You haul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Message me. I look forward to hearing from you.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Have a great week!</p>
<p>Cipriano, Monica, and Milagro…</p>
<p></p>
<p>Just in time for your spring chickens!</p>
<p>Save material costs on your coop. We've invested over $600 in wood and hardware. Built with care and love. Extra safe from predation. Accommodates 8 full size chickens and 12 bantams. Grab it now before someone else does.<br/> <br/> Asking $250. I'll help you dismantle. You haul.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Message me. I look forward to hearing from you.</p>
<p></p>
<p>Have a great week!</p>
<p>Cipriano, Monica, and Milagro</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476208?profile=original"><img width="600" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476208?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600"/></a></p>
<p></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477384?profile=original"><img width="600" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477384?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600"/></a><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478300?profile=original"><img width="600" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478300?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600"/></a><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478673?profile=original"><img width="600" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231478673?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600"/></a></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479785?profile=original"><img width="600" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231479785?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="600"/></a></p>The Underlying Hooktag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-30:2723460:BlogPost:1011702015-01-30T17:19:59.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p>Hundreds of times a day you and I swim around our respective fish bowl interacting with the bait of our consumer society. Advertisements are everywhere we turn.</p>
<blockquote><h3><strong><em>“Bite on this, won’t you?” </em></strong></h3>
</blockquote>
<p>We’re shown the seductive characteristics of a product – the bait – but we’re <em>not</em> shown the underlying, hidden hook.</p>
<p><em>What do I mean by that? What hook?</em></p>
<p>Let’s open our eyes wider and explore the consequences…</p>
<p>Hundreds of times a day you and I swim around our respective fish bowl interacting with the bait of our consumer society. Advertisements are everywhere we turn.</p>
<blockquote><h3><strong><em>“Bite on this, won’t you?” </em></strong></h3>
</blockquote>
<p>We’re shown the seductive characteristics of a product – the bait – but we’re <em>not</em> shown the underlying, hidden hook.</p>
<p><em>What do I mean by that? What hook?</em></p>
<p>Let’s open our eyes wider and explore the consequences of consuming the bait…</p>
<p>Every time we get hooked and ingest some bait we also consume an obligation to generate money: it takes dough to bite. If we’re not careful enough to manage the extent of our consumption, we find ourselves trapped in need of an income level that restricts our freedom. We’ve raised the bar of our fixed expenses. Before we know it our stuff can control us. So<strong> if your goal is to remain in control, to remain free, you need to understand and acknowledge the hook as much as the bait.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jelly-Fish.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-18979 align-center" src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/Jelly-Fish.jpg" alt="Jelly Fish" width="326" height="217"/></a></p>
<p>It’s tough though. You and I are hard wired to be aware of large, sudden changes: an attacking tiger; a house fire. Instead, we’re wired to overlook small, incremental changes: today’s growth of weeds in our garden; 5 more cars on Whatcom County’s roads since yesterday. Small, incremental changes in your consumption are easy to ignore… for a while.</p>
<p>But wait a moment… I’m assuming a certain level of awareness in order for someone to differentiate between good and bad bait. Given the enormity of advertising aimed at children and young adults, by the time one’s financial skills and awareness emerge, one’s fixed costs may <em>already</em> be formidable. Take the young adult who bought a cool car, who then takes on college loans. Then a spouse and a couple of kids. A mortgage.</p>
<p><strong>Our culturally-induced, self-imposed, elevated fixed costs can put us in a fix, can’t they? </strong>One’s job search can become constrained to only those offerings whose pay exceeds one’s fixed costs. <em>Do these jobs allow you to embrace your personal values at work, or must you leave them at home? Do these jobs restrict your freedom, allowing you to do what you want with your life, or have you become a slave to your fixed costs?</em></p>
<p>This underlying hook is larger than simply looking at our <em>own</em> pocketbooks and freedom, though. What about how our spending affects our environment… our shared commons?</p>
<p>There are underlying, hidden hooks there as well, sometimes referred to as ‘externalities.’ Consumer prices are held as low as possible, thereby improving the bait, by businesses diverting as many costs, legal or otherwise, onto the public at large. One example: gasoline costs you far less than it should were it to include externalities like higher health care costs caused by compromised air and water pollution. So our commons suffers while commerce thrives.</p>
<p>Imagine the accumulation of these externalities upon the commons — this pollution loading — isn’t it much like our higher, personal fixed costs… constraining our freedom? Ultimately we suffer by avoiding paying a product’s <em>true</em> cost, its <em>total</em> cost. A product’s externalities increase toxic loading on the commons, further compromising our health, thereby constraining our freedom.</p>
<p>If there’s hope for a sustainable future, we need to acknowledge, and then change, the environmental and social quagmire created by our consumer culture, embracing the need to downsize; relocalize; embrace voluntary simplicity; fund and utilize alternative transportation; commit to renewable energy.</p>
<p>Piece of cake… all that stands in our way is our mainstream culture!</p>
<p>Hopefully, armed with an awareness of our culture’s underlying hooks, you can shrink your own ecological footprint. As this shrinks, your freedom expands and your efforts will infect <em>others</em> to decrease their footprint. So let’s get out there and convince our friends, relatives, coworkers and decision makers that its time to downsize; to stop buying and selling so much stuff; to promote marketing that’s aligned with a sustainable future. They’ll understand, won’t they?</p>
<p>Hardly. Upton Sinclair said that <strong><em>“…it is difficult to get people to understand something when their salary depends upon them not understanding it.”</em></strong></p>
<p>Ask a salesperson to sell less stuff and (s)he will look at you like you’re crazy… their mind closed; fixed by their self-imposed, culturally-induced, elevated fixed costs. They need to sustain an ever-increasing income stream. They want <em>more</em>, not less, damn it!</p>
<blockquote><h3><strong>In order to avoid this trap we need to acknowledge the underlying hook hidden behind the bait that our consumer culture lays out before us. </strong> And each of us needs to teach our children well by discussing this underlying hook whenever they point out the next <em>whatever</em> they want to buy.</h3>
</blockquote>
<p>Teach them to be <em>citizens </em>first; <em>consumers</em> second. Teach them to consume at a level that will permit their children’s children’s children to thrive. Teach them to avoid becoming <em>liquidators</em>: consumers who enter the food chain at a level that promotes a future of involuntary darkness for their children’s children’s children.</p>
<p><strong>Involuntary darkness sucks. </strong> An individual needs to remain free in order to understand and accept something at odds with their source of income. Only then can we act appropriately. But an open and aware mind requires that we don’t dam the free flow of thought and action by creating, incrementally, the need for a bloated salary.</p>
<blockquote><h3><strong>Avoid getting hooked. As a radical act: want less!</strong></h3>
</blockquote>Benefits Of Saving Open-Pollinated & Heirloom Seeds - Summarytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-20:2723460:BlogPost:865352015-01-20T23:30:02.000ZHeather Khttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/HeatherK
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Many people wonder what is meant by open-pollination seeds,</span></font> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">and the benefits of saving those seeds ,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">verses hybrid seeds. <em> (2013 post)…</em></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Many people wonder what is meant by open-pollination seeds,</span></font> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">and the benefits of saving those seeds ,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">verses hybrid seeds. <em> (2013 post)</em></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><b>Open-pollinated</b></u></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;"><b>plant v</b></span></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>arieties make seeds that will grow into a plant of the same variety.</b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">By planting these saveable varieties, we help preserve our horticultural heritage & its diversity. </span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Some seeds have been grown, selected, & preserved by farmers/gardeners since ancient times, some as long as 9,000 yrs ago. These seeds were selected for exceptional flavor, nutrition, and for extended harvest season. </span></font> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Many are facing extinction.</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Biodiversity strengthens our ecosystem</span><i>.</i> <span style="font-style: normal;">We can increase both the earth's biodiversity and our family's food security. </span></font> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">The ability to feed ourselves strengthens our freedom to live our democracy,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">and maintain our inherent right to self-governance.</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> <font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><b>Hybrid seeds</b></u></span><span style="font-style: normal;">, on the other hand, grow into plants which, while they are usable plants in themselves,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>will not produce seed of the same variety</b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;">—<font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>hybrids do not 'breed true'.</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"> </span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">The gardener who plants hybrid varieties,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">will have to buy seed every year, and seed production is concentrated in the hands of a few companies, often owned by petro-chemical corporations. </span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Many seeds for sale in stores are hybrids, bred to produce under agri-business conditions.</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">(</span><span style="font-style: normal;"><span style="text-decoration: none;">Biotech is about ownership.. the illusion of “owning” the seeds).</span></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, Times New Roman, serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt;"> <span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>GMO 'seeds'</strong> </span>- (Genetically manipulated seeds). Most seed-savers & organic farmers are aware of the dangers of another type of 'seed', a type of 'unpure' seed, known as GMO 'seeds'. These 'seeds' are manufactored by humans, and their pollen is harmful to bees and other living beings. </font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, Times New Roman, serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt;">Organic gardeners & farmers can take the <strong>'Safe Seed Pledge</strong>: & support seed-saving farmers who take this pledge: <span style="font-size: larger;"><em>"Agriculture and seeds provide the basis upon which our lives depend. We must protect this foundation as a safe and genetically stable source for future generations. For the benefit of all farmers, gardeners and consumers who want an alternative, we pledge that we do not knowingly buy or sell genetically engineered seeds or plants. The mechanical transfer of genetic material outside of natural reproductive methods and between genera, families or kingdoms poses great biological risks, as well as economic, political and cultural threats. We feel that genetically engineered varieties have been insufficiently tested prior to public release. More research and testing is necessary to further assess the potential risks of genetically engineered seeds. Further, we wish to support agricultural progress that leads to healthier soils, genetically diverse agricultural ecosystems and ultimately healthy people and communities."</em></span></font></font></font></p>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in;"><font color="#000000"><font face="Times New Roman, Times New Roman, serif"><font size="2" style="font-size: 11pt;"><span style="font-size: larger;">Locally, Uprising Seeds farmers have built their seed-saving business around their commitment to grow safe & pure seeds: <a href="http://uprisingorganics.com/safe-seed-pledge-gmo-testing">http://uprisingorganics.com/safe-seed-pledge-gmo-testing</a></span></font></font></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">* * * * * * *</span></font><br/> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Seed Savers 'bible-book" “</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><u><b>Seed to Seed”</b></u></span> <span style="font-style: normal;"><b>by Suzanne Ashworth for a guide on saving vegetable seeds.</b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">Consider being 'profoundly local', like Vermont gardener & plant selector, Sylvia Davatz, who is supporting her local food movement to take the next logical step,</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">and to</span> <i><b>“establish a supply of locally grown seed as the underpinnings of a local food suppl</b></i><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>y.”</b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>“<font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Small farmers are a threat to the consolidation of absolute power.</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;">” - Farmer Eliot Coleman</span></font></b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">'The less biodiverse any system is, the greater the potential for its collapse.</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;">In shriveling the gene pool... we strip our crops of the ability to adapt to change & we put the entire food supply at risk. The more food varieties we lose, the closer we slide to the tipping point of disaster.'</span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><i>Info source: Ecology Action seed catalog & “The Seed Underground” Janisse Ray</i></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2">Consider saving some bean & pea seeds this year, plus creating your own local heirloom seed-swap, and attend seed-swaps in neighboring communities with similar growing conditions.</font></p>
<p style="font-style: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>All Welcome to Attend our annual Community Seed Swaps. In 2015 we held our 7th annual swap.</b></span><span style="font-style: normal;"><b><a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/community-seed-swap-2013"><br/></a></b></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>Salish Seed Coop & Network & More Recommended Resources-</b><span style="color: #0000ff;"> <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/seedsavers/forum/topics/seedsaving-links-books-videos">http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/group/seedsavers/forum/topics/seedsaving-links-books-videos</a> .</span></span></font></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #3366ff;"> </span></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><strong>Keep your seed genetics fresh & broadly diverse-</strong> purchase seeds through organic seed farmers, like locally Uprising Seeds- <a href="http://uprisingorganics.com/">http://uprisingorganics.com/</a> thus increasing the genetic diversity of your seed supply.</p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><em><strong>"Seed Saving Basics</strong></em><span>" - Mauid Powell-(One Page Summary) OrgegonStateU- </span><u><a rel="nofollow" href="http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/book/export/html/175667">http://smallfarms.oregonstate.edu/book/export/html/175667</a> .</u></p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"> </p>
<p style="font-weight: normal; margin-bottom: 0in;"><font size="2"><span style="font-style: normal;"><b>I'll add another blog later, with including more of the mysteries & hope found within a seed.</b></span></font></p>Rick Dubrow's blog post - December 2014 - "Hammering Out My Manifesto"tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-07:2723460:BlogPost:1011042015-01-07T20:11:55.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p><span>"It’s time to articulate the core assumptions and beliefs that empower THE HAMMER. Before I hammer them out, though, let’s get something straight: thousands of words, if not books, would be necessary to describe how I’ve arrived at these conclusions. This is a blog, however, and not a book. So brevity will prevail… for now. Want to [...]</span><a class="read-more" href="http://a1builders.ws/2014/12/the-hammers-manifesto/"> Read More…</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><span>"It’s time to articulate the core assumptions and beliefs that empower THE HAMMER. Before I hammer them out, though, let’s get something straight: thousands of words, if not books, would be necessary to describe how I’ve arrived at these conclusions. This is a blog, however, and not a book. So brevity will prevail… for now. Want to [...]</span><a class="read-more" href="http://a1builders.ws/2014/12/the-hammers-manifesto/"> Read More</a></p>
<p><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476096?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476096?profile=original" width="325" class="align-full" height="541"/></a></p>
<p></p>Rick Dubrow's Blog Post - Dec. 2014 - "Hike The Ridge With Me"tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-07:2723460:BlogPost:1010112015-01-07T20:00:00.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p><span>"Over 20 years ago I anchored a radio program on KGMI AM-790 — “On The Level” – about housing and remodeling. My weekly, one-hour show lasted for about 4-1/2 years. Every single Saturday morning at 9 am, November ’91 through late ’94. The show did wonders for getting A-1 Builders on the map, given that [...]</span><a class="read-more" href="http://a1builders.ws/2014/12/walk-the-ridge-with-me/"> Read More…</a></p>
<p></p>
<p><span>"Over 20 years ago I anchored a radio program on KGMI AM-790 — “On The Level” – about housing and remodeling. My weekly, one-hour show lasted for about 4-1/2 years. Every single Saturday morning at 9 am, November ’91 through late ’94. The show did wonders for getting A-1 Builders on the map, given that [...]</span><a class="read-more" href="http://a1builders.ws/2014/12/walk-the-ridge-with-me/"> Read More</a></p>
<p><a href="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IMG_2220-768x1024.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://a1builders.ws/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/IMG_2220-768x1024.jpg" class="align-full" width="242" height="323"/></a></p>Rick Dubrow's December 2014 blog post "I'm Done Keeping Quiet!"tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-07:2723460:BlogPost:1008992015-01-07T19:57:06.000ZRick Dubrowhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/RickDubrow
<p><span>"I tried, damn it! When my efforts to prevent coal trains from passing through Bellingham failed, the wind in my sails went still. My activism went… inactive. Although we secured twice the necessary signatures to get it on the ballot, our very own progressive Bellingham City Council crushed Coal Free Bellingham’s ‘Community Bill of Rights’, [...]…</span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231475799?profile=original" target="_self"><img class="align-full" height="294" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231475799?profile=original" width="220"></img></a></p>
<p><span>"I tried, damn it! When my efforts to prevent coal trains from passing through Bellingham failed, the wind in my sails went still. My activism went… inactive. Although we secured twice the necessary signatures to get it on the ballot, our very own progressive Bellingham City Council crushed Coal Free Bellingham’s ‘Community Bill of Rights’, [...]</span><a href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231475799?profile=original" target="_self"><img src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231475799?profile=original" width="220" class="align-full" height="294"/></a><a href="http://a1builders.ws/2014/12/im-done-keeping-quiet/" target="_self">Read More</a></p>Cheap oil forever, Who saw this coming?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-01-02:2723460:BlogPost:1007832015-01-02T03:00:00.000ZJ. C. Walker,Jr.http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/JCWalkerJr
<p><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28282-saudis-tell-shale-industry-it-will-break-them-plans-to-keep-pumping-even-at-20-a-barrel">http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28282-saudis-tell-shale-industry-it-will-break-them-plans-to-keep-pumping-even-at-20-a-barrel</a></p>
<p><a href="http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28282-saudis-tell-shale-industry-it-will-break-them-plans-to-keep-pumping-even-at-20-a-barrel">http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/28282-saudis-tell-shale-industry-it-will-break-them-plans-to-keep-pumping-even-at-20-a-barrel</a></p>methane hydrates blogspottag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-12-12:2723460:BlogPost:1005682014-12-12T04:37:26.000ZJ. C. Walker,Jr.http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/JCWalkerJr
<p><a href="http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/">http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/</a></p>
<p><a href="http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/">http://methane-hydrates.blogspot.com/</a></p>