The Greening of Gavin

Positive Vision

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Whilst reading and studying the Transition Handbook, I can across the concept of creating a positive vision of the future.  Now I do try and write with a positive vision in mind when I compile with my How To posts, and trying to capture the essence of what I do, but sometimes I fall into the trap of doom and gloom which simply alienates people.

This is why I wrote my latest post over at the Simple Green Frugal Coop, titled “Creating A Positive Vision of The Future“.

As this is my main post for the day, please pop on over and let me know what you think via a comment.  Any feedback is appreciated.

Gavin

How Resilient Are You?

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So we know what resilience kind of looks like, or at least we have a definition now.  Before we get into solution mode, I want you to take a little survey that I found at Yes! Magazine (thanks to Gustoso for pointing it out).

http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/a-resilient-community/how-resilient-are-you

It only takes a few minutes, and there are only 20 multiple choice questions.  This questions certainly made me think and query a few of my behaviours, however I just scraped in to the upper limit with a score of 70.  Rainwater tanks, a food stockpile and an independent power supply helped to raise my score, however I don’t think there was enough emphasis on growing your own food.

Let me know how you scored in a comment with areas you think you may have fallen short.  It is not a competition, just a tool for seeing what areas we may need to work on.  I need to work on local finances and local economy, so I will have to think about that a bit more.

Have a go, because at this early stage, there is certainly nothing to loose.  We still have time.

What Is Resilience?

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I have discussed before in my post Peak Everything, that the due duel impacts of climate chaos and peak oil, will in the near future impact our ability to keep the current consumer kultcha alive and kicking.  The way we are partying like it is 1999 is just not going to continue ad nauseum (thank goodness).

In my quest to define resilience, I could find no better explanation than the one given in the Transition Handbook;

Walker et al. define it thus:“Resilience is the capacity of a system to absorb disturbance and reorganise while undergoing change, so as to still retain essentially the same function, structure, identity and feedbacks.”In the context of communities and settlements, it refers to their ability to not collapse at first sight of oil or food shortages, and to their ability to respond with adaptability to disturbance.

I have written before about the consequences of not being resilient in my post, “Nine meals from Anarchy“.  It is worth a read before proceeding any further, but it doesn’t give you the whole picture.

Economist David Fleming argues that the benefits for a community with enhanced resilience will be that:
• If one part is destroyed, the shock will not ripple through the whole system
• There is wide diversity of character and solutions developed creatively in response to local circumstances
• It can meet its needs despite the substantial absence of travel and transport
• The other big infrastructures and bureaucracies of the intermediate economy are replaced by fit-for-purpose local alternatives at drastically reduced cost

So what can we do to our communities to make them shock proof?  Well not wanting to get too far ahead, that will be the subject of the next post!  

Can you think of another definition?