Re: ecovillage and sustainability

on 4/20/04 7:27 PM, E.Christopher Mare at [email protected] wrote:

> Edenvillage writes:
> I hate to be the one to say it but Size is important.
> 
> 
> Of course size [scale] is important. Who would deny that there are
> different design considerations for: a simple homestead, an eco-enclave,
> an eco-hamlet, or an eco-village?

in me own search for a sustainable me/family/neighborhood i went for the
larger size option initially thinking it would be more inexpensive and
efficient to cooperate with lots of people....after almost 20 years of
searching i have ended up on a three acres by meself....i have noticed that
one in a hundred or thousand or is it million???? will seriously pursue this
ego-village concept into practical reality....imho ego village is putting
the cart before the horse....to date i know of no successful eco village,
tho i admit i am not the best informed....

so having said all that perhaps one approach to starting an eco village may
be to start with the self....use less toilet paper or none, grow some food
in containers in the city, etc....then seek others doing similar and start
planning and organizing how to get some land....maybe start with a small
piece of land and small number of people with more land nearby that can be
bought later when things are starting to manifest....in others words think
big, but start small, then others will see that we walk our talk and are
credible....with no credibility or concrete action why or how can we take
any eco village idea seriously????....

even small farms can have an influence in being examples of more sustainable
living...we do not have to start with a huge eco village infrastructure with
all it's difficult codes and expenses initially, but rather slowly move in
that direction as enough high trust skilled people come on board....a step
by step plan rather than some huge thing that all we can do is dream about
until we die....

another aspect that i feel should be talked about considerably is the use of
decentralization and consensus decision making....imho i do not feel we can
create peace on earth or sustainablity on earth without some serious shift
toward consensus decision making in our families, jobs, neighborhoods,
countries, etc....that is why i feel that the usa is way off course ignoring
the consensus of the un and invading iraq on it's own....consensus decision
making imho is the paradigm shift in communications it will take to make a
sustainable world or family....but i think we need to start small in our own
families first and achieve consensus there before making an eco village
fantasy....how many of us have consensus in our immediate family????...how
many are even trying or aware of how important that is as a first
step????....ok, i am starting to ramble....aloha,

forest
[email protected]
http://www.lavazone2.com/forest/


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