Unleashing Breakout Session Reports

The Unleashing included two breakout sessions in the morning and two in the afternoon. During each session, there were as many as seven groups around the room, talking about topics that had been proposed by participants at the beginning of the day. Each discussion group had a rapporteur who took notes on the proceedings. Those reports appear below. You can read the whole page if you like, or use the Table of Contents to go directly to the report you’re interested in.

Note that these groups are not the same as the action groups formed at the end of the day that will now organize to carry out projects in the community. But the discussions reported below are in many cases the seeds from which those action groups germinated.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Alternative Transportation
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 1

Local Economy
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 2

Countywide Utility Funding and Efficiency
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 3

Urban Sprawl/Density
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 4

Storytelling
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 5

Bringing Beauty Back
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 6

Health and Health Care
Session 1(11:30-12:20) Group 7

Spirit Guides
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 1

Communal Gardening / Local Foraging
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 2

From I to we: Creating Community structures that empower everyone and allow children to contribute to a sustainable economy
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 3

How do we measure progress?  How do we measure embodied energy?
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 4

Alternative Transportation
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 5

Youth Entrepreneurship & Green Jobs
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 6

Greenways and Bikeways
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 1

Reaching out to Communities – Creating a Teacher Resource List
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 2

Neighborhood-based economies and knowledge/action networks
Session 3 (2:00 – 2:45) Group 3

Community-Based Renewable Energy
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 4

Waste Issues
Session 3 (2:00 – 2:45) Group 5

Spiritual Ecology
Session 3 (2-2:45) Group 6

Intentional Community
Session 3 (2-2:45), Group 7

Watershed
Session 4 (2:15-3:00) Group 1

Personal Health, sustaining yourself and sharing personal health lessons with others
Session 4 (2:45 – 3:30) Group 2

Coming Together (Everybody!)
Session 4 (2:45-3:30)Group 3

Sustainable Food Production, Permaculture, Edible Landscaping
Session 4 (2:45-3:30) Group 4

Pedestrian-friendly, Interdisciplinary, Holistic Community of Nature and Humanity
Session 4 (2:15-3:00), Group 6

Reskilling Shop Mob
Session 4 (2:45-3:30) Group 7

Alternative Transportation
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 1

Create a more bikeable, walkable community. Promote use of biodiesel

Medium and long-term goals scared of cars to bike in from County

Need to have plan in place, infrastructure helps people feel safe in order to encourage biking

Want streets to take up less land so that car drivers feel like they’re intruding; making them drive more slowly and safely. Not separate bike paths, but rather people driving more slowly. Change downtown to not encourage driving

Boulder has a good model of pedestrian streets

So. Sweden/Scandinavia – two miles long w/no cars

In creating infrastructure, there has to be a net gain of environmental benefits. (ex. Energy used to create bike lane) Creating bigger fire trucks requires wider streets

Utilize one-way streets, narrower city streets

Civic engagement is important on federal level on issues of bikes v. cars

Need for mentoring of new bike commuters; ex many inexperienced bikers feel like they’re intruding on cars, afraid of weather variations.

Education of drivers: teach bike/share road at DMVs

Increase number of transit coordinators to teach people how to use bus, use car-shares

Increase amount plug-in infrastructure, advocate for Carrboro to connect with a smart grid. Send an open letter to Town Council offering support.

Less than 3% of state’s transportation budget is spend on public transportation. Could organize while on bus to advocate for further funding.

Carrboro doesn’t even have a biodiesel pump!

Local businesses and the Town of Carrboro need to work together w/citizen inputs to create subsidies ex. Pedicabs.

Tuesday 7-10pm bike breakfast

Personal testimony very important in mentoring- ex. Friend who would never drive forced him to bike more/change norms. Local bike advocacy groups could help support the lifestyle change and mentor new bikers.

Any work to create rails to trails to Durham, connecting Carrboro? Don’t have access to that infrastructure.

More bike racks on buses

Increase vanpools w/most efficient routes possible for errands (like zim ride and zip car)

Cyclicious groups who do social rides in improve community

Next Steps

Mentor to increase number of bikers Bike Carrboro, create social network of bikers

Education of drivers for share-the-road/safer driving

Advocacy: (Set up Google Group) for electric infrastructure, connectivity,

Infrastructure: improve connectivity, bus-to-bike transport, in-town priorities are bikers/pedestrians over cars

Improve access to biodiesel/electric vehicle connectivity

Share results of this event w/newspaper and Channel 14 News

Transcribed From FlipChart

  1. Improved bike paths
  2. Enhanced driver respect for cyclists
  3. Retrofit existing streets (e.g. make Cameron one way; designate bike lanes)
  4. Mentoring
    1. bicycle guilt
    2. bus education
    3. NEVs – neighborhood electric vehicles
    4. Pedicab (bicycle taxi)
    5. Durham Bike Coop – bicycle maintenance
    6. Recyclery in Carrboro
  5. Rail to Trail – Durham – add bike trails?
  6. More bike racks on buses
  7. Smart transportation
    1. vans
    2. zim ride, zip cars at UNC
  8. Public charging stations for electric vehicles
    1. Solar power
    2. Smart grid
  9. Community allies
    1. Triangle Green Space Cooperative
    2. NC Green Power
  10. Action Items
    1. Advocacy in newspapers
    2. Advocacy in legislators
    3. Word of mouth
    4. Assist greenway development


Local Economy
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 2

GOAL is to have money stay in the Community.  Create a community with overall feeling of abundance.

  • Having local economy concerning banks, local credit, local money, local stock market
  • Public and private partnerships.  Home programs to foster local businesses, lending programs
  • Mutual aid society, worker owned co-ops
  • Micro loans
  • Individuals investing in each others businesses
  • Local currencies
  • Time banking/barter economy/ dollar community
  • Home rule
  • Service (community) learning exchange (concerning youth especially)
  • Schools produce children that are competent contributors to community economies – no failures/school dropouts /disenfranchised youth or community members

How do we work within legal concepts that exist?


Countywide Utility Funding and Efficiency
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 3

 

  • Creating a public fund to help people with utility bills is not a new idea, models from the past.
  • History of local issue:
    • Years ago when a school was sited in Efland, it had sewer probs. It and the surrounding community was then connected to an improved sewer line.
      • 75% minority community.
    • Bills have gone up 300% per month recently because of the high maintenance costs and few people on the line.
  • Possible solution:
    • Use EPA money to help and ½ cent tax referendum to support public fund.
      • Depends on public education and petitions.
      • Will create jobs and bring infrastructure into underserved communities.
      • Brings economic development opportunities.
  • How to bring utilities countywide?
    • OWASA is limited by a boundary for how far they can extend services(long term development plan).
    • Diversifying utilities.
  • Localizing generation and control of utilities through energy efficiency and renewables àmostly electricity
    • Current trend is regionalization of water resources, spreads out risk and responsibility for safeguarding water resources.
    • Electricity grid must stay regional and regulated, but the 2 biggest utilities around are fighting efficiency measures.
    • How to reduce political power of utilities?
  • Watch out for efficiency measures, utilities might raise rates if they’re selling fewer units
    • Look into “decoupling” of their rates from their profits.  Good examples elsewhere.
    • Have them make their profits from selling efficiency measures.
  • Utilities often have to worry about their debt from costs they’ve already sunk.
  • Role of community activism – Cliffside fight, persistence is valuable, utilities commission will listen
  • Every part of community must be engaged for efficiency measures to work
    • Communication matters – language appropriate

Transcribed from flipchart:

Efland issue – maintenance of local Efland system cost born solely by Efland Community – 75% minorities

Diversify Utilities away from Monopolies

Energy

Energy Efficiency

Solar Hot Water

Neighborhood Solar

Local Water = well+septic vs local energy+decentralize generation and efficiency

Decoupling – not more money from more power but rather from efficiency

Justice as commonality for bringing issues together.


Urban Sprawl/Density
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 4

 

  • Tax incentives for living in dense communities
  • Density as common – building – to overcome traditional American Dream of own space.  Changing attitudes/values
  • How to make it easier for people to densify land they have
  • How to keep space from becoming sprawl—government measures, zoning, minimum lot sizes
  • Tax structure doesn’t reflect different costs of living farther away
  • How to make density fit into character of CH/Carrboro – turning big houses into communal houses—which is now illegal.  Create density without changing character
  • Need to stop rebuilding lots with McMansions à again zoning
  • Person/sq foot/yard law?  How do we overcome resistance to these policies?  The market is on our side now, but need to educate and create opportunities.
  • Difficulty of working within government structure, laws – government doesn’t subsidize dense housing.  Laws prevent dense building.  Institutional inertia.  Need to fast-track changes.
    • Maybe this is a responsibility for elected officials not bureaucracy — need for voters to be vocal.  Need to change values of ourselves AND officials
  • How to make dense sustainable housing affordable
  • Questioning whether homeownership is good, regardless of people’s preference –
    • But need affordable, whether it’s renting or buying
  • Need in between housing, between student cheap housing and big expensive housing
  • Disconnect between what dense means (1350 sq ft) and what people are used to and want
  • Desire to see friends/etc – maybe it’s not changing preferences but dealing with possible sudden change of expensive petroleum
  • How to deal with/work with families who have been here and on their land and don’t want to leave or have sprawl around them
  • Getting to know neighbors as a carrot, in addition to the stick of expensive oil that makes it hard to drive to see friends
  • Attitudes changing (degree debatable) but need to speed it up
  • Community dependent on UNC – ripple effects
  • Carrboro as a living model à focus on our town
  • How to plan for growing demand in town, with increased oil costs
  • How to get people moving in to be in dense areas
  • Change zoning regulations so dense land use is legal
  • Town has 2 years worth of stuff in planning so need to put density higher/sooner on list
  • Conflict between visions of density/sprawl
  • People are already spread out and have investments there.  Houses will stay where they are.  Also need to make places where we gather – community-centric.  Creating businesses out of what’s there, to bring people together in more rural areas
  • Commercial pockets in  more dispersed areas – long0term and regional planning necessary.  Overcoming resistance of people who want to remain isolated
  • European differences – main difference is pre-car construction of towns and restrictive laws about property.  In Europe also growing suburbs
  • “politics of Happiness”
  • Need to change government policy regarding sprawl
  • Mix of density/small communities?
  • Place to get most of what you need
  • Model of “pearls on a string” as a way to include small communities and open space – Christopher Alexander
  • Challenge of maintaining a feel of a village while constructing density
  • Congress for the New Urbanism and Doug Farr, Sustainable Urbanism
  • Architectural problems – cookie-cutter developments –  making density beautiful so people chose it.
  • Architecture contributing to a sense of community and sense of place – being proud of your town.

 


Storytelling
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 5

“We must use our ‘art-minds.”  Change the American paradigm, like the way that the  Pachamama Alliance (Awakening the Dreamer) is doing.

  • “have bonfire storytellings for kids and teens.”
  • ‘use the power of our community radio to spread this news of stories of transitioning’.  How do we INVOLVE communities in this new paradigm?
  • ‘change the dysfunctional dream of our society.’
  • evolve measures to show our progress.
  • like Earth Day services at church ‘reach people at their hearts.’ and ‘how do we get to all those who are not here attending today?’

The Story is THE MOST POWERFUL TOOL WE HAVE.

Pachamama Alliance does two roles: 1. hospice role–gently allowing the old story to pass.  2. Midwife role–bring in the new era.  Stories told through art, music, spoken word–these stories begin to have a life of their own.

  • ‘tell stories of what is possible to EVERYONE IN OUR LIVES–frame them positively so people want to respond.  Most  important right now to reach out to many others.’
  • West Country Storytelling Summer Event.
  • ‘leverage the story–tell it to a young person 4 yrs old–and he remembers it always.’
  • ‘Simplicity, truth, authenticity are the essential ingredients of a story that will cause it to last and resonate,
    • challenges us to create a story about this time we are in.
  • the Kapok tree story and wood thrush story–in the kapok story a man wants to cut down the kapok tree and all the animals that live in it come to him in his dream at night and tell him how much they need the tree.  We could do this with plants, animals that live here locally-tell that kind of story to kids and all ages. We could also enact that through playacting, through song and dance locally.
  • ‘when you go to a next meeting at your workplace, try telling a story instead of the usual ways you communicate at work.  See what happens, how effective it might be.
  • “The Monty” was mentioned–a 1 x month storytelling event in Durham.
  • When people are hearing stories they are not watching TV as much.
  • Real, practical media were mentioned such as People’s Channel for reaching audiences.
  • An old example:  do you know what the verse ‘ring around the rosey’ really meant?
  • Tell stories at the local Really Really Free Market.
  • Cheap fuel has us in a SPELL that will be hard to BREAK–’the lure of cheap fuel’ has a power to it, we will have to work consistently in order to break it’s hold on us all.
  • ‘the stories will bring others in to what we are doing here today–let’s reach out widely.’
  • ‘break through the fear and SHOW the way forward’.
  • “Let’s make ‘transition diaries’ and have ‘art troupes’ that act them out!
  • ‘expose the propagandic ’stories’ of ads and do a vignette.  TV lies and insults. Take the dysfunctional concepts of our civilization, and work with them one by one to make skits that show the inanity of each.
  • For example:  it’s okay to sit in your car while its idling for a long time, while you talk on your cell phone and work on your laptop, in the parking lot–how could you make a skit about that which shows the inanity of it in a positive, fun way?  To bring awareness to people…..
  • ‘this is HUGE–what we are trying to change is the culture–this is not just about individual stories, it is much bigger”
  • yes, but the individual stories and the bigger ones go hand in hand’.  It starts with the personal,
  • ‘this is about mythmaking.’ Bigger than story:  a parable or myth.
  • let’s learn how from people who are skilled storytellers.
    Saxapahaw has every Saturday 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. local music and gathering of folks all day.

Resources:


Bringing Beauty Back
Session 1 (11:30-12:20) Group 6

The goal of this session was to discuss ways of bringing beauty to Carrboro, with a focus on the downtown area and surrounding neighborhoods, and also Greensboro Rd.  We discussed how many buildings, both residential and commercial, and lots, are unsightly, unkempt and detract from the charm of the town.  We specifically mentioned the gas station and the car wash adjacent to the Farmer’s Market grounds, and how current land use and zoning did not support a beautiful downtown area that people will want to walk around in, and be inspired by.  It is harder to attract local businesses with the current aesthetics.  Also discusses were the rentals surrounding the downtown area and how there was no incentive for either the renters or owners to make and keep the property nice.  Discussed how some of the best real estate in walkable distance from town are rentals that are not very attractive.

The Town Appearance Commission was mentioned.  Also, possible grant sources for money for projects, such as NC Keep America Beautiful, and NC Main Street program.

  • Making things safer for bikers.  Difference between lane for cars, lane for bikes
  • Am I going to drive to HT, WSM, or walk there?  It’s not that pleasant of a walk – no shade, not very nice.  More shade, more beauty, a more aesthetically pleasing walk would get more people walking.
  • More greenways – so when we’re preserving a piece of land, let’s preserve it both for the wildlife and for people.
  • And, simple things: more flowers, birdfeeders, etc by sidewalks.
  • In impoverished areas, neighborhoods get really creative about it: looking for government money to create green space, parks, outside social areas for kids, families, older folks.  Structured encouragement of beautiful graffiti.  One person beautifying their house motivates others to do this too.
  • Neighborhood centers really enable those changes & that progress.
  • Grants: Main Street program, Keep NC beautiful, etc – funding sources.
  • Beauty – very subjective.  Really what we’re talking about is our community’s sense of what that is.  What’s the common thread?  For some, the soundscape is enormously important.  So it’s not just visual.  Enhancement of community beauty: more singing!  Something our culture has lost, and could be regained.  People sing when they are working in the garden.  Security guards at WSM you not to sing.  What about a community choir in the century center?  Singing is healthy and makes us happier too!  Group context is also fantastic, pulling us out of our individual selves.
  • Tension between private & public.  On community scale, it’s public arts.  CH have arts people working with their greenways.  Bringing human art into natural settings.
  • Estes Drive may need to be widened at some point.  We need a sidewalk, but why build it when the road needs widening?  Maybe we wouldn’t need it to be widened if there was a sidewalk.  Discuss with the transportation planner for Carrboro.
  • Rental houses – when you rent a house you don’t have a lot of incentive to beautify, and neither does the landowner.  Maybe a way to get more communal gardening in front of the houses.
  • Is there a Carrboro Garden Club?  Yes!  Adopted a stretch around the Frances Shetley bikeway.  And they go to each other’s houses.
  • Carrboro’s Appearance Commission: signage, billboards, architectural.  New development that requires a permit, they review it.  All volunteer.  Ordinance puts a lot of constraints on the things they can do.  They’re about giving permission, not encouraging things.
  • What would it take to give people some seeds and plants to plant in their yards?  Could be very low cost, get places to donate.
  • Working with businesses – gas stations, carwashes.  Just make things really charming.  Makes you want to walk around.
  • Community development appropriation that every neighborhood is included in?
  • Zoning is a pretty powerful function and determines eminent domain, and laws or interpretation on the books right now give corporations individual rights.  There’s a movement to reverse that, but you can’t just tell them to go away.
  • Their strongest incentive is their business, so if people ask for it they’re more likely to change.
  • There are a lot of places deserted, rusting, not being used.  Something else could be done with it.
  • Early in the century, Carrboro wasn’t so pretty either.  No trees, roads were a muddy mess, terrible buildings.  Is our historical context.


Health and Health Care
Session 1(11:30-12:20) Group 7

We went around the circle explaining why we are interested in this topic and what we want to bring to the discussion

  • Integration of all forms of health care, east and west
  • Access to all
  • Creating healthy places
  • Free clinics
  • Healthy lifestyles
  • Acceptance of end of life
  • Education, Prevention, new models of care
  • Demystification of western medicine/empowerment
  • Altered expectations of what health care is and who sees whom
  • Model of decentralized care that is not driven by only MDs as in India – 85% of problems seen by community health workers, 10% by mobile clinics only 5% go to doctors in hospitals
  • Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater – not all western medicine or hospitals are bad
  • How to we measure “health” – Quantity vs Quality
  • Emphasis on stress reduction, nutrient, mindfulness
  • Need to learn from the broad community – what is health, health care, benchmarks and values
    • Piedmont Health Services has community outreach – community assessments.
    • IFC (interfaith council), SHAC student run free clinic

We brainstormed what a clinic would be like in 20 years

  • Circle of Practitioners – integrative, Ayurvedic (holistic) etc
  • Simple structure
  • Community health workers, health coaches, health educators
  • Based on assessed community needs
  • Patient centered – values based
    • Self care, empowerment
    • Knowing when you need to see who for what – and when you can manage on own
  • Large educational section
  • Mindfulness practitioners, patients, community
  • Schools – traveling health curriculum
  • Stress reduction
  • Link to the environment
    • Alternative transportation, good food, healthcare integrated with beauty
    • Transition Initiative topics
  • “Slow Medicine”
  • Free access – or true sliding scale down to free when needed
  • Scale in every room for checking body weight

At the end there was concern about losing momentum.  Everyone gave contact information and group leader kept list for future contacts.


Spirit Guides
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 1

In our communities, we have to focus on where our main energy is coming from (spirit/divine energy/whatever/whomever that is). We need to allow that guidance to be first and foremost in our lives.

For those of us who are used to going to our guide, we have to try and figure out how to build at spiritually-aligned community. Avatar helped people to get a vision of what a spiritually-guided community that resisted a dominating power who was trying to destroy it looks like. Bringing that kind of understanding to a community is a real gift.

Power of One is an organization who helps to empower people in communities to co-create peaceful, sustainable communities. 10/10/10 will be a national gathering in DC. Three elements: Silence, Being, and Doing.

Our culture is very noisy and can be hard to find silence in. Even in church, silence is only about two minutes. Shared silence brings calm and leads to openness. Especially important to happen in outdoor settings and create labyrinths. If listening is connected to obeying; how can we tune ourselves to the interconnections, we can obey and manifest in our own communities.

Everything comes from presence. How do you spread presence? It is inspired by joy. Music? What’s the avenue? How can we help people find out what their joy is? By doing your own joyful thing.

Need to use understandable words for audiences who aren’t familiar with traditional nomenclature.

Created a phone tree and email list to do activities such as go visit the labyrinth


Communal Gardening / Local Foraging
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 2

GOALS:  Get more people to the local community gardens in Carrboro and Chapel Hill.

Get more people and money to support gardens.

Ideas for change:

  • Create a community garden on Smith Level Road land available
  • Community garden in Carrboro
  • Reaching out to people to join
  • Find other possible sites for community gardens  — people have land
  • Trading system of products – goat cheese for eggs, bartering system

Resource Possibilities

  • Places that are green grass areas to grow food – get paid to do this by the town
  • Use a kiosk as central location for bartering system
  • Foraging guild in Carrboro with Josh Levine
  • “private” community garden network – “land share”
  • Make resource list for new gardeners and information sharing
  • Preserving food

Garden blog

yourfirstgarden.com  Marcia Ming

From I to we: Creating Community structures that empower everyone and allow children to contribute to a sustainable economy
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 3

 

  • A child’s social interactions must include nature and necessary life skills.
  • Change the school model to one that encourages mentoring, empowering individual unique contributions.
    • Testing focus in schools is very stressful and disempowering.
  • Community and communication are intertwined.
  • How to raise kids in community now that everyone in the household is working.
    • How kids can have access to adults beyond their parents.
  • Letting our kids out of the house takes trust.
    • We need to build a system that we can trust in order to let our kids go.
    • Utilize existing structures – 4H is a good program to give kids hands-on learning and success, Boy/Girl Scouts, Boys/Girls club, Pickards Mountain, Spence’s Farm.
      • Need to raise awareness to get people access.
  • Schools have such a broad mandate already, that we can’t expect more from them. Community must step in.
    • Don’t wait for the schools or rely on the schools to teach everything.
    • Be involved in Public Schools to transform them
    • Also open up schools to the communities
  • Academic achievement is entrenched in public school system (factory for churning out degrees)
  • Now we don’t have multi-generational households, missed learning opportunities.
    • We need 2 incomes per household so we push kids into schools ASAP.
  • Our community models the way the world should work for our kids.
  • Create “No Child is a Failure” instead of “No Child Left Behind”.
  • Have centers where parent volunteers can be mentors to individual kids that support diversity
    • Can be at a farm or a school or other community environment
  • Creative collaboration helps to create and maintain community.
  • Hands-on experiential education that helps them be a part of the community.
  • Tap into children’s and elder’s wisdom.
  • Knowing health of our ecosystem is necessary.

Transcribed from Flip Chart

  • Children social interaction include nature and necessary life skills
  • Change in school model to mentoring and empowering individual’s unique contribution
  • Creative collaboration to create and maintain community
  • Hands-on experimental Education for children that helps them be a part of community
  • Tap into childrens’ and elders’ wisdom
  • Knowing health of our local ecosystem
  • Community structure that supports children outside of school
  • Identify local existing  programs that light kids up
  • Create no child is a failure
  • Have centers where parents volunteers can be mentors to individual kids tha support diversity can be at a farm or a school or other community environment

 

How do we measure progress?  How do we measure embodied energy?
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 4

 

  • Energy/materials
  • If you make energy cost more, market will adjust
    • But we’re not starting from scratch
    • So you make the first step – overcome the infrastructure.  Measuring process has to gauge where we are today
  • Reconsider what seems like a good idea, in terms of env-energy
    • Ex widening roads – is energy return sufficient?
  • Provide infrastructure because as costs rise, people will have to resort to those alternatives
  • Need to go to less and conserve
  • Moving target
  • The most we can do is facilitate change
  • Keep energy return on energy investment in the back of our mind
  • How high does policy change have to reach?
  • Problem of increasing efficiency à leading to increased use. Have to counteract this
  • Part of gauge needs to be making things sustainable as well as efficient
  • Universal measure of energy – same as ultimate source.  BTUs
  • Metrics:  how to measure progress in Carrboro?
    • CO2 emissions estimates
    • Find out if someone is measuring energy use – Utilities/power companies, gas stations, VMTs
  • Also measuring interest and participation.  How do groups get new members and grow?  How does TCCH relate to theses groups?
  • Tied behavior and energy use
  • Metric wanted:  how many miles do people commute?
  • Hidden costs of energy allow people to ignore them so need cultural change in addition to knowing dollar amounts
  • Jim Hansen says need to focus on coal production (reduction) because other resources will run out.  Hansen-Storms of our Grandchildren
  • Information about where our electricity comes from – 70% coal
  • Cap and Trade policies?  Fee and Dividend?
  • Use of energy as metric in Carrboro
    • Need to inventory where we are
    • And then compare at some point in the future
  • Other metrics
    • Solid waste (county measurement)
    • Water (factor in population growth/density/shifts
  • Need to tap into information that government is already producing
  • Metrics/measuring attitudes?  Surveys as learning tools?
  • What can realistically be measured?  Try to identify areas that are most productive to target – resource allocation
  • Scale – if we limit measurements to Carrboro, do we capture enough?
  • Other metrics – housing energy use.  State of housing stock/real estate.  Water footprint, as we learned from drought
  • How do we predict things – stop being reactionary and start being visionary
  • Want culture change to improve energy – some disagreement over which we try to measure
    • Pledge?
    • Listserv?
    • Make people’s energy use public?
  • Possibility for focusing locally
    • NC Warn preventing local plants
    • Also need to engage in larger-scale action
  • Government side of individual accountability.  Governments tend to be on both sides of energy (subsidizing ethanol…)
  • David Arnman at UNC – tracking carbon emissions – as a model and as a resource

 

Alternative Transportation
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 5

 

We went around the circle and shared our ideas about alternative transportation. Some of those ideas are listed here.

Only a tiny percentage of the N.C. DOT budget goes to public transit. DOT needs to hear from residents who want more money for transit.  Suggestion to print up copies of a letter to DOT demanding more funding for transit and bike and pedestrian facilities, and hand them out when you ride the bus, ask bus riders to send them to DOT. We need a statewide advocacy group for low-carbon transit funding.

Suggestion:  a system of on-demand jitneys. This could be a business opportunity for someone.

Suggestion:  N.C. motor vehicle registration surcharge to fund alternative transportation. There may be some sort of transit-funding surcharge in the new (national) energy bill. The oil spill in the Gulf is an opportunity we should not miss to point out how much more desirable non-fossil-fueled transportation is.

People from Transition volunteer could monitor the local and state government transportation planning meetings (e.g., meetings on 15/501 and 54 transportation corridor planning) and advocate for alternatives to automobiles. It would be important to send the same people all the time, so that they would become recognized and more likely to be taken seriously. Maybe one person could attend Carrboro meetings, one could attend Chapel Hill meetings, one could attend state meetings, etc.

It was important to connect area greenways so that they could be used for bike transportation.

More bike-friendly roads are also needed.

The downtown area should be closed to automobile traffic. Several other members of the group voiced their agreement with this.

Growth should be focused in relatively narrow corridors and those corridors should be served with public transit.

Bikes should be made more available (like programs in other cities that have bikes available at stations around town and members can use them any time for an annual fee). If enough people start riding bikes, we might reach a tipping point where it becomes an option that people take seriously and choose more often.

Suggestion: combining improved transit with a car-sharing program.

Resource:   Greenway Transit (www.greenwayrides.com), which operates Pedicabs (bicycle rickshaws) and biodiesel transit options.

One member of this group has  built a working model that generates magnetic energy, but is having trouble getting people to look at it and take it seriously.

There should be a gas tax, but that alternative transportation should be made available at the same time, so that people can respond to the tax by deciding to choose greener modes of transit.

There should be education about the need for civility in the transit discussion.

The Chapel Hill bus system should use smaller buses and run them more often, or run them on more routes.

We need more weekend buses.

There needs to be more bus service on Eubanks and surrounding areas (I think she said Eubanks…sorry for not quite getting that).

Curitiba, Brazil had drastically improved its traffic situation by making cars too inconvenient and expensive to drive in the city.

We need to build with more density.

One member felt it is less safe biking here than in other places she’s lived. Drivers need to be educated in how to respect the rights of bikers.

Suggestion: the best way to reach drivers with education about bikers was through the DMV process.

We should advocate for adoption of Smart Grid technology in North Carolina. This would go hand in hand with Project Get Ready, which is preparing Raleigh for the infrastructure needed to service plug-in electric vehicles.

We should support biomass fuel and geothermal energy.

There should be a gradually increasing carbon tax that would fund alternative transportation.

We should integrate/develop a holistic transportation system.

We need “transportation diversity.”

 

Youth Entrepreneurship & Green Jobs
Session 2 (12:20-1:00) Group 6

 

As we don’t have fossil fuels, we’ll need more human labor.  Localisation, away from machines

Best case scenario for having a healthy community: green buildings: efficient, create their own energy.  Physical changes needs to happen, and that will take lots of jobs.

Keep focus on creating jobs

We need folks willing to create local businesses, and taking that initiative

Building our own homes, etc requires reskilling… Young folks don’t have tangible skills.  Vocational education is really important!

Across the country, 1) stimulus money 2) public/private partnerships.  Teach them green construction trades.

During the summer & off season, used to have job fairs in the school.  Barney Sparrow & the Sparrow bros who used to do a lot of the construction around.  Would go to schools, hire youth to work during the summer, train them – apprenticeship model.  Those kids went on to be some of the future brick masons, rock masons, etc.  But it MUST include livable wages.  To have sustainable entrepreneurships for youth, we have to have them find things they like, and then pay them well.  Incentivize!  Use schools, community centers, etc.  Have internships for it too

So: have small businesses take more responsibility for recruiting, and then incentivize with fair wages.

We need to look at the skilled trades with RESPECT.  A change in attitude.  When a catastrophe comes, what do lawyers bring to the table?

Training is difficult now because it’s so hard even for trained folks to get jobs.

Gov’t programs that provide money to train people: There are some programs!  They’re out of money right now, but in 2 months, they’ll have a budget again.  July/August, $ comes in.  Workforce Development board in each county: on the job training, youth work experience and adult work experience programs.  They pay an employer to hire you.  100% for 3 months or 50% for 6 months.  No real requirement that they hire you afterwards, but highly recommended.  USE this programs!  Contact the company and tell them you can get your salary paid for.

WIA Employment Stipend.  Enable businesses to make judgments on who to hire that reflect their values – so they can hire young folks and train them.

Local incentives for businesses to makes offices, etc more green: pays itself back over time if they have some help w/ original capital investment, and that provides jobs and drives the economy.

Political engagement from everyone in this room could make that happen really easily.

Retrofitting houses, looking at local universities, architects to redesign houses so we don’t need AC in the summer – so you don’t have to use AC to re-cool them.

In Durham, instead of audits, working on the neighborhood level to do a handful of things that will basically be necessarily on all the houses.  We already know you’ll need to seal your ducts, insulate, etc. – spend all $ on retrofits, instead of spending a lot on audits.  Weatherizing can pay back, but people need the up front money to do this.

In CH, Empowerment Inc has some traction on this.

Missing link: folks reaching out to businesses to convince them to hire & train local folks.

Getting people over the hump of figuring out what needs to be done.  People want to do something but don’t know what and people who know how to do what needs to be done.  Address the pot of money gap and the knowledge gap.

Have success stories to share with other folks, inspire local businesses, housing areas.  Where it’s done a good job, not been expensive.

How to get something like Empowerment Inc, have a career & skills development center – training could happen there, might be easier for companies.  Businesses come and say “I need this kind of employee.”  So, having a development center that’s closely tied to what local businesses need.  Training center driven by needs of local businesses.

Food system and school system are getting managed by out of state, and those are $ that are going out of state.  Hire local folks trained as nutritionists, business managers, etc to provide those services instead of a big company.  We could grow those things locally too!  It could be such a great educational system too!

Create the political will to get the local government to mandate these things: you need to buy local, you need to have these energy standards on your buildings.  Local gov’t can only mandate so much, but with public/private partnership, you can bypass that system entirely.

Create some kind of groundswell for buying local, local economy.  Not just buying but engaging.  Get the word out about multiplier effects of local spending.  Students themselves can be engaged in local food production methods, learning skills.  School grounds are great opportunities for permaculture plantings!    Incorporation into curriculums.

 

Greenways and Bikeways
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 1

 

There was a debate about the pros and cons of Paving the Greenway – the points below were raised in discussion.

  • There are reasons why the concrete would be okay.
  • Others are concerned.  ‘Paving next to waterways impacts waterways.’  Wants to know where things are on this legislatively?
    • A.  There’s no money at present to pave.
    • B. Where the funding would come from is through the DOT, which REQUIRES a 10-foot-wide paving as a minimum.
    • Point raised: ‘We’ve got to challenge that, why is the DOT so rigid on that, it doesn’t make sense to have a 10′ wide path there.
    • ‘this group meeting here today can help us move forward, with some clout.’
  • The University already has plans for bike and greenways other than
    paving Bolin Creek.  UNC is going to put money into it.  Creeks over
    time change their courses of flow, so that’s a factor that must be
    taken into account.  AND, 10′ of paving MEANS  30′ wide of destruction
    of forest, in order to pave.  AND, concern about invasive species.
  • We need to bike more, so anything we can do to encourage that, so if there are reasonable alternative routes that help bikers get through town…. some want only to widen roads so bikers can go on roads, but this needs to be done SAFELY.
    • In Portland–there are roads that are made safe for bikers.
    • Other groups to look at:  Triangle Cycling.  Bike Carrboro, outgrowth
      of Transportation Board.  Recyclery, which is currently homeless but
      has a webpage.
    • ‘there’s funding for bikeways (?) other than through DOT’.
  • ‘Why not CHALLENGE the DOT’s 10′ rule?
    • the issue is protecting the creek.  OWASA’S  easements, where
      the proposed paving would go, are incredibly eroded.
    • Recommendation for stabilizing those areas. ‘Our group ideally should walk the length of the creek and then craft individual solutions for different sections of the way.’
  • ‘To really encourage less car use, we need a paved bikeway.’
  • Point raised: Half of 1% of total UNC impact will be the greenway area
    that they propose to concrete-pave.
  • But we don’t pave Yosemite so we can get through it.
  • There’s a bigger picture to the solution to climate change than just getting out of cars.
  • Part of the challenge unique to our town is:  it’s particularly inaccessible to bikes because of a lot of hills.
  • Cities only work well when you have a certain ‘density of density’.  We need a compact urban fabric.
    The pavement (and the DOT) is the enemy.

 

Reaching out to Communities – Creating a Teacher Resource List
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 2

GOALS:

  • Getting teachers together who have knowledge about ecology, mushrooms, foraging, to teach workshops for local community
  • Identify master teachers in the area who know skills in tracking, plant identification

Outcome/Resources/Possibilities:

  • Connect to Wendy and Lynne Gronback
  • Tracking – (??name unreadable)  Local tracking, plant and astronomy teacher
  • Teach these tools in a storytelling manner to kids, youth and old
  • Holbridge School – in Saxapahaw – totally sustainable.  Mark Dragon – possible teacher connection
  • Student organization called “Yikes” in Durham about Climate Change
  • UNC – Botanical Gardens Biological Reserve – beautiful land
  • Michael Erwin – Chapel Hill High “seen and hears” storytelling
  • Cindy Shea – Sustainability resource UNC
  • Gathering of teachers interested in this topic to talk about potential of creating programs for students

Neighborhood-based economies and knowledge/action networks
Session 3 (2:00 – 2:45) Group 3

 

  • Must be content within our communities before we can move outward/forward.
  • We’re missing the neighborhood-level of social identity. We jump from individual to city/county/state and miss the groups at the 20-100people scale.
  • Job creation is essential to allowing people to work where they live.
  • Money is a barrier to people. Neighbors used to help each other.
    • Set up a time bank to keep track of volunteer hours and disengage from capitalist economy.
      • There is a growing distrust of capitalist economy.
      • The problem is not capitalism but bad capitalism, not government but bad government
  • Having been burned so badly in the current economy, it shows that local economies are a good way to go.
    • At the same time, it’s important to keep connections between towns and cities.
  • Organize neighborhood groups with point people as contacts for the larger community.
    • This would help hold things together.
    • Start with HOAs?
    • Having block parties would increase connections.
    • Isolation is almost an inherent part of the current US social structure.
      • Sociability in a community is rare.
      • Sociable lifestyle helps economic efficiency – sharing tools, transportation.
  • Often individual and community action needs to precede political change.
    • Organization is necessary.
  • Our values have shifted, and we need to simplify. We don’t need as much stuff.
  • People are more and more working on their own from home.
  • Useful image: regular people carrying everything they own on their backs – impossible.
    • Points out the reality that we are all working jobs in order to pay for the things we own.
  • Pay it forward idea – if we all open up to a couple of people and let them know why we’re being generous, then maybe they’ll do it too and create a ripple effect.
    • How does it start? – community listserv helps, kiosks can also work.
  • Encourage people to take action in helping each other without having to have endless tiresome meetings.

Community-Based Renewable Energy
Session 3 (2:00-2:45) Group 4

  • Financial model – returning investment
  • Partners communities with outside investors
  • Other groups:  NC Green Power – cooperative independent power generators.  Partnered with energy utility in NC
  • For power generators 15-20 years to pay back investment
  • NC relies 60% on coal, all out of state.  Solar (NC GP) is a way to spur local business
  • NCGP – no minimum size (as long as you’re putting it into grid) and individual partners.  Arrangements with every utility in NC
  • Megawatt Solar – lends itself to community investment
  • Solar panels over entire park and ride lots – also would be electricity source for electic car recharging
  • Need local company or non-profit as financial mechanism (AIRE’s goal)
  • Berkeley model of subsidizing rooftop solar panels (or loans), paid back on property taxes
  • AIRE spreadsheets etc to convince (work through) financial feasibility
  • Importance of legislation supporting green power.  Easiest time is as new houses are built – legislation that helps this
  • Individual change – less need for new-renewable energy
  • 20-30 yr lifespan, operation/maintenance inputs
  • Environmental impacts of batteries?  Lead-acid batteries
  • Have to have spinning reserve (turbines spinning) if any power system goes offline
  • Renewable energy is not low-hanging fruit.  First is efficiency, reduction, solar hot water
  • How do you finance energy office at community level (other conversations today?)
  • Solar hot water – financing from companies who will install and they own it for 7 years (also AIRE)
  • Job opportunities
  • In community model, savings on energy efficiency can be re-invested
  • Waste as a resource (methane from human waste).  Making compost.  Cities producing wastes to be made into compost/energy. Sending things back to countryside, balancing resource flows.  Redirecting waste stream to food production
  • Integrating residential waste into county’s composting system?
  • Problem of toxins in solid human waste – and having people participate
  • Portland CSA program – composting food waste in each neighborhood for common use.  Zoned agriculture in your house, in community, at farmer’s market, in supermarket
  • Study by John Blackburn – is on NC WARN website:  renewable energy (hydroelectric, wind solar) can provide 93% of energy needs.  Can do away with nuclear/coal.  Offshore wind potential?  Desalination?
  • Problems of energy storage/battery technology.  Innovative solutions – water towers pumped with wind/solar energy, and hydro-system running down.  Because every town has a water tower, water pump storage already used in dams.  About 80% efficiency.  NY article in most recent issues.  Sal Griffith
  • Multipurpose town utility efficiency to find symbiosis and attracting financing?  Resource:  Denver, CO’s smart city initiative with read about panel for customers.
  • Duke Power in 2014 plans to have smart meters for most customers
  • Progress Energy project in low-income areas.
  • Clean Energy Durham
  • Need to even out energy load – reducing the total peak load – smart grid can help this
  • Create a local company to help support energy creation in this area.

 

 

Waste Issues
Session 3 (2:00 – 2:45) Group 5

Local Statistics

  • 0.63 tons garbage/person/year to landfill
  • 0.54% less than 1991-92
  • According to EPA 70% organic (20% food)

Sharing of examples of and ideas for solutions

Boulder, Co

  • “pay as you throw” – recycling free
  • Campaigns on packaging

Municipal composting – city collects

Bottle Bills

Composting toilets

Composting at apartment buildings, communal housing – Toronto and California examples

Pilot projects on small scale – apartments, university?

Raleigh has given people compost bins,  Orange County sells bins for $50

C/CH picks up yard waste for composting

Carrboro Chapel Hill Community Composting Coop

Policy to ban wasteful packaging

Tax grocery bags

Ban plastic bags

Reduce/reuse/recycle

Possible jobs for mentally ill – self-efficacy

Examples of problems to solve

People dumping garbage in the woods

Hospital waste

Nano waste

E waste

Expense – no new expenses for Orange County right now

What to do with meat (not allowed in compost locally

What to do with non-compostable materials from individuals and industry

Availability of composting in town houses

Eubanks Rd – siting issues – communities affected

Design issues for computers – e waste reduction

Information to gather

What does UNC do?

Is the community doing local electronics recycling?  Repair? “purple elephant refurbishers”

Can disassembly be done locally?

Current laws about electronic recycling?

Can volunteers participate in a study?

Which demographics to challenge?

Would more education help?

What do restaurants do?

Realistic projects:

  • Composting (Sierra Club)
  • Develop a plan for electronics

Spiritual Ecology
Session 3 (2-2:45) Group 6

We shared our reasons for joining this group:

  • Spirituality is at the HEART of the problems and solutions facing us
  • Spirit will sustain us
  • Spirituality not necessarily religion is needed
  • Interconnectedness of humans-earth-cosmos  is a spiritual concept/reality
  • Creation groans with what humans are doing to the earth
  • Ecojustice – wellbeing for humans on a thriving earth is the goal
  • Individual spiritual growth “soul walk” is connected through work with the earth
  • Need for humility about our species and earth’s resources – we are not “in charge”
  • “we belong to the Earth” the Earth does not belong to us – we are OF the Earth
  • Need to reconnect children to nature
  • Earth-life-nature sacred, same energy , connected, provide a model for change

We shared ideas about how things might be different and how they could change

  • We need to change the “dream” to be about “important things of spirit and human interaction not material possessions
  • Modern life as “sucked divinity” out of the world, particularly the Judeo-Christian tradition in the West – there needs to be an acknowledgment for some of this and some psychological work to “unlearn” these habits/overlays
  • COMMON THEME:  transformation will need to come from deep spiritual change
  • Look for what makes your heart sing – and follow it
  • Globally there is a great awakening of SPIRIT happening – the Great Unleashing response is proof of this or an illustration of this awakening
  • “Hopeful Possiblism” discussed by Norm Christensen at lunch is a good way to formulate the attitude needed to make this great transformation
  • Gratitude is a key to transformation
  • Understanding-sustaining-respecting ALL of our “communities” however they are defined (not purely geographic)
  • We could form a spiritual ecological community
  • We could work within existing/current religious communities
  • We must learn from others

How does this get expressed in practical terms?

  • Plant guild nature walks in Carrboro
  • Invite plant walk experts to congregations
  • Eno River and Haw River Assembly eco/labs for school children
  • Environmental Sabbath
  • Creation Seasons

We need a “common spirituality” that allows ALL to connect to all of life/earth/cosmos – articulating this, putting it into words, without blame or separation – admitting all traditions equally

Sense of Place – Where/What is your Sacred Place – find it, study it’s ecosystem, identify with it and protect it – Community celebration of the “web of life” in this sacred space

Intentional Community
Session 3 (2-2:45), Group 7

  1. Spiritual Groups
  2. income sharing (communes)
  3. cohousing
  4. ecovillage (e.g. carolinacommonwell.org)
  5. potential carbon reduction measures
    1. motor pool
    2. local agriculture
    3. utilize local resources for building
  6. Enhanced quality of life – human bonding – intergenerational interaction

Watershed
Session 4 (2:15-3:00) Group 1

We talked about how to turn caring to community action.  Trace Morgan, Bolin & Booker Creek to Univ. Lake & Jordan Lakes

Insects are best indicators of health in a water source.

See rainwater not as a pollutant, but as a resource.

Soil should be a sponge, not the tamped down & worn-out like we mostly have; (think of “ground” as where we harvest H2O & work to feed it— “seeking people” who will help feed the soil—convert lawns to natural areas or gardens, plant trees, etc.

One of best things we can do is to take downspouts & feed our yards & gardens (see raingardens on townofcarrboro.org website)—our roofs could provide for all the gardens in town…

1 inch of rain water on 1,000 sq. ft. of roof yields 600 gallons if captured in barrels, etc.

New state stormwater runoff requirements for Jordan Lake

Cane Creek & Univ. Lake surface water feeds CH

Trying to get neighborhoods working on a Watershed Restoration Plan

OWASA—need to restructure public facilities to have continued incentive to conserve.

 

Personal Health, sustaining yourself and sharing personal health lessons with others
Session 4 (2:45 – 3:30) Group 2

 

  • Yoga studios, personal trainers, healthy diets, supportive community are expensive in money and time.
  • This is restrictive for many populations to bring sustainability into our own bodies.
  • Especially in some communities, taking time off or exercising can be at odds with cultural forces/norms.
  • Many of us are looking for restorative activities to support us in the fight.
  • Trans-resveratrol – might be a natural remedy to increase energy
  • It exists in many plants but especially in one (plant common names = monkey weed, houzang; plant genus – polygonae)
  • We need to be aware of how much we’re controlled by the cultural drive to be productive.
  • Examine our assumptions.
  • We look to substances like sugar and caffeine to extend our natural abilities.
  • Chinese tai chi is a model for how to increase personal health en masse.
  • How to balance the urgency of the moment with taking time for self.
  • It takes discipline to slow down and take care of yourself but if you do you will quickly see that you have more energy.
    • “Discipline is remembering what you want.”
    • America stresses its citizens more than other cultures.
  • Sometimes it takes a crisis to get you to make good changes for your health.
  • For some it might be refueling to get together with people and organize around a topic they’re passionate about.
  • Sometimes this type of refueling can go too far (at the expense of balance).
  • Everyone needs to find what fuels them personally.
  • It’s important to unplug (from cell phone, computer, TV/internet, etc) long enough to rest.
  • Often doing something that’s good for you is also good for the environment (walking to work, not reheating in plastic containers makes you buy less of them while reducing your BPA intake).
  • You can sometimes change the way you see your stressors. Changing your perspective from fighting them or feeling put-upon to embracing them can make a huge difference in your attitude.
  • Our instincts to feel burdened might be carried over from past stressful experiences.
  • Hope is energizing, Guilt/Fear/Ego can be motivating but will wear you down.
  • It’s important to reground yourself several times a day and shift back to the positive.
  • One trick to thinking about maintaining balance is to imagine that all of the important things in your life are represented in a pie. You don’t want some pieces to take over the space that other pieces need.
  • Make yourself well spiritually, then share it.

Coming Together (Everybody!)
Session 4 (2:45-3:30)Group 3

Want to make it easier for people to connect with each other across real/false boundaries

Want to interact with entire community but don’t know everybody, and don’t know how to get involved.

Need to focus on the needs of every person & every group of people to serve them – everyone has different needs.  Get rid of “us/them” mentality.

Understanding everyone’s values & backgrounds.

Tons of great ideas in this room, and not everyone with great ideas is in this room, so how to we engage everyone who’s not here today?

Getting educational systems involved.

Including communities & developing a citizen’s bill of rights – what do we all want as citizens?  Find the things we have in common?

Bringing people together – whether for dancing or planting trees.

If I can face all my fears, attack them, be silly, do improve, that helps.

Sharing ideas & cross pollinating is great, sometimes I have to force myself to be social.

More age diversity too!

All our projects should also have the component of getting further out into the community.

Finding out what we all have in common.  On a day to day basis, we really do have the same basic needs and basic interests – try not to get fragmented.

Believe in the power of collaboration, find ways for community building.

Arcadia feels like a very small world and I’d like to broaden my world.

The key is to get folks coalescing in small groups and then come back into larger groups too.  Going forward from here.

Just moved here, want to be involved with the community as a whole.

New ideas for organizing and broadening the message for social justice, and getting diversifying the participants.  Young folks too!

Collaboration and idea exchange space is fantastic.    We have great ideas, we need to do it more often.  We need to create something very active that touches very real aspects, but start with a place we can all talk to each other.

Supporting local businesses in creating public space, or using spaces like this.

Getting more kids involved, and adults who work with kids – getting them up to speed on issues.  Preaching to folks who aren’t in the choir.  Get people fueled to make a difference in the lives of our young people.  Empower people to make better choices.

How do you get this message out? People’s Channel?  Gatherings?  Newspapers articles from the future?  How do you reach the folks who aren’t here today?

HOW??

One model: interested folks coming to different forums.  Coffeehouses, this, community forums, press invited – that info recorded, it goes out on radio.  Media outlets, and follow it up with an action for that month.

Marcia’s a former journalist & marketer – knows how to get the information out: internet is really powerful now!  A gathering place online.

Internet: broadcasting info over the internet is great, but only for the people who have access.  So we need education paired with that too.  In community development work, folks don’t want to be a part of something unless they have a say in it.

We can’t just tell people our message and expect them to come around.  It needs to be a two-way street.  Listening and relationships need to be at the heart of it.

Common place to post things – in the physical, not electronic world.  Message boards.

Like-minded people like to congregate, and teach each other.  Skill shares.  Nothing beats being with people.

Common space idea, but want to move into communities through the churches.  WSM is great but doesn’t represent the diversity of our community – bring it to other venues than we’ve traditionally gone to.  Schools, churches.  Meet people.  Have personal conversations.

RENA – link to them.  Would be easy!  They have a community center!

Coalition Against Environmental Racism – supports Rogers Road neighborhood, has been doing good work and has a real environmental organization.

Spiritual communities are really important organizations.  Especially given that religion has been divisive in the past.

Orange Justice United – reaching out to them too.  Follow those leads make pre-unleashing.

I work in Orange County, and there’s a lot of poverty and 85% of those are young folks.  The rest of the county comes to me, and they get left out.  Carrboro is great but it’s a bubble.  Issues facing Carrboro are also facing folks in Cedar Grove.  They won’t come to WSM, but they’ll come to their church.

 

Sustainable Food Production, Permaculture, Edible Landscaping
Session 4 (2:45-3:30) Group 4

 

  • Children and elderly as important in sustainable agriculture
  • Experience of agriculture/land shrinking.   Opportunities because of strong local food movement and expertise, and climate
  • Areas in production a surplus of skilled farmers, growing more than they can sell.  Need for increased demand to allow farmers to expand operations.  Examples:  Plant@breeze incubator, internships
  • Barrier is not interested, skilled people.  Land is one problem
  • Need for change in culture, different relationship to growing food
  • How much land to feed 4 vegetarian diet here?
  • Land for farmers – need 50-100 million new farmers in addition to home-scale farmers
  • Markets-problems selling bumper crops – but also need for more markets
  • New Orange City processing center
  • Film on Cuba after end of Russian energy inputs
  • Farmers here going to mountains.  Triangle Land Trust has begun leasing land – providing access to land for farmers
  • Disconnect between farmers who want retail cost for products and restaurants who want to pay wholesale
  • Our current numbers:  0.4-0.5% (maybe more) is local food
  • We’re paying added costs – out of local economy—for non-local foods
  • CFSA programs to grow great wheat (new)
  • Grocery stores and schools point to issues of scale.  So go in distributors – Sysco.  But a local distributor would help.  Also program like local food shuttle à multiple levels needed for regional food system
  • Many farms still depending on off-farm income
  • Place of children—need for them to be a part of a while food cycle
  • To stimulate demand – make institutions choose sustainable food
  • Price point issues – how to make quality food affordable?  As oil prices increase, industrial costs will increase.
  • Low-carbon diets ?stop eating red meat – or having meatless days of the week
  • Biggest point – sustainability – rotation important
  • Community gardens – gardening as a community event – to provide labor.  Farm-to-School programs show that kids going to farms helps.  Also co—roduction: time-banks.  Service hours could require children as well as service hours
  • Aquaponics-hydroponics plus aquaculture.  Can be done on a really small level.

 

Pedestrian-friendly, Interdisciplinary, Holistic Community of Nature and Humanity
Session 4 (2:15-3:00), Group 6

This group was interested in the “big picture” of sustainability – lane use, intentional sustainability, the tension between needs and desires of individuals and community

Question:  How do we foster change?

–Develop a sense of (sacred) place and intentionality

–Build good “human habitat” and other creatures (not car habitats – reclaim car habitats)

–depart from model of “single family home” – more compounds and sharing (African

model modernized), no more “Euclidean Planning”

–Change zoning

–Cohousing

Consciousness shift is required from Separation to Unity and including all ages

Change the “American Way”  — slow down, take the time to live lighter on the earth.

Action is critical – don’t over intellectualize and talk it to death – a danger in communities like ours with emphasis on higher education

What is the catalyst in a University Town of Privilege – MUST BE GRASSROOTS.

Need to connect with other groups and connect the groups to get a unified VISION

This topic should be a “Transition Working Group”  to maintain the big picture, continue to do outreach, “gather the choir” and foster collaboration

One good resource is Powerofone.org  (Laura’s Nonprofit)

Communication is critical among all groups/people

“corporate behaviour” experts might be helpful

Consensus-processes where you think as a community member not individuals – might be a good topic for “reskilling.

 

Reskilling Shop Mob

Session 4 (2:45-3:30) Group 7

Property with spaces for community repair space

List of people or organizations with skills to share

List of spaces and collaborators  — town, green space, church

Idea of worship all day – “art walk”

Skill-share before Carrboro Green Space moves

Go to Carrboro Raw – the skillshare tour

What people want to learn

List of places already teaching skills