I’ll be doing a full-day Liberation Ecology workshop as part of a Permaculture Design Certificate course in Manhattan. It’s an interesting format - stretching a 2-week (72 hour) course out over a year, in order to be as accessible as possible to working families. I’ll be teaching on the opening weekend. Details about location will get posted as the date approaches. Some other information about the class follows:Local Energy Solutions, a 501(c)3 Not For Profit Organization and a project of the Five Borough Institute, is organizing a second Permaculture Design Certificate course. LES will bring permaculture to more New Yorkers as an antidote to the converging crises in climate, energy and food production. This provides one way of empowering city dwellers to live more sustainably.This class will be held over a 1 year period, from March 2008 to February 2009. Classes will be held on the first Saturday of each month with the exception of July and August which will have no classes. Two Sunday classes will be held in March 2008 and February 2009. Class will be held on the following dates: Mar 1,2; Apr 5; May 3; June 7; Sept 6; Oct 4; Nov 1; Dec 6; Jan 3; Feb 7,8.Classes will be held in mid-town Manhattan, close to public transport. We will be encouraging all participants to bring their own food to share at lunchtime.
Archive for November, 2007
The trip to Peru is approaching faster than I can believe.
I’ve been networking like mad. First, to try and connect with the people working on the Gesundheit/PAHO collaboration, scattered from Peru to Norway to Virginia. Secondly, to try and connect our whole network effort with the other clinic/water/sanitation project underway in Belen. Unbelievably, there have been two projects developing there over the last few years, without being aware of each other. So I’ve been doing what I can to intiate some coordination and collaboration between the two groups. Everyone seems pretty eager to do so - more heads to put together, and more avenues by which resources can flow to the community of Belen. What could be better than a Gesundheit/PAHO/Amazon Promise/Engineers Without Borders collaborative?
When not doing that, I’ve been digging deep into the global conversation on low-budget eco-sanitation initiatives. Engineers and permaculturists have not always made the easiest of bedfellows, and there are a lot of engineers involved in this project. And, as far as I can tell, I’m the only participant coming from a background in permaculture. (And I know I’m the only one coming from a background in liberation ecology!)
So, even though this is a preliminary reconaissance for me, I need to be prepared to persuasively, if not forcefully, frame the discussion in terms of community leadership, low-energy/biological systems, and resource-cycling. I may be overestimating the difference in perspectives, but it doesn’t hurt to be prepared.
It’s a complex situation, environmentally, culturally, technically… in every way. I’m excited to begin the conversation in earnest, with folks on the ground there in Belen.
If anyone is interested in helping to organize a northeastern climate justice convergence for next summer - or if you are just curious - feel free to come to this general interest organizing meeting.
The meeting will be held at the Albany Free School, in Albany NY. I know that folks from Rising Tide, from the Rhizome Collective, and many others, will be participating. Housing is available.
Full post here.
It’s been a very full week since returning from Berkeley, and I’m overdue to give a report on how things went out there. It was an amazing trip. The Symposium itself was a heady mixture of great and less-than-great, as such things often are.NB: I won’t often be writing about art in this space - unless the mission of this project changes substantially. So savor it, or disregard it, as exceptional, whichever way you lean.First, the Symposium. The organizers of Out of Time-Space had, in my opinion, a great idea: take the abstract, experimental, high-concept art scene of UC-Berkeley and San Francisco Art Institute, and emphasize and extend the more politically-grounded and socially-engaged side of that millieu. Continue reading ‘Report: Regenerative Media Ecologies
@ UC-Berkeley’
