The infrastructure & network perspective

Building resilience & independence in interdependence, relates to preparedness, reconstruction, networks & infrastructures, local/centralized & subsidiarity, waste(cycles)/regeneration  & transport(flows), agroecology & food/water/energy systems, all issues seen through this lense.

Much more material and examples here: UN call – Sustainability – Resources & Links

Develop local resilience

• Need to re-value, re-set local economies with initiatives such as transition towns or community projects (examples Maathai and Benyus who have promoted the use of trees and plants to cover the earth and to spread water in ways that keep it on the land and clean it before it goes to rivers, or projects such as DePave, or http://cityrepair.org/ that educates communities to transform the places where they live, on the basis that localization is the foundation for sustainability.
• Many other examples & stories from the western and developing world provided by Mary, Stephen, Vlad to gather and make “usable”.
• Instate participative democracy wherever possible, it enables people to co-create their future by participating in the decision making process and thus asserting their individuality as part of society (not just yes/no opinion poll type referendum with dictatorship of the majority or smaller common denominator consensus…), is effective to reduce polarization and political tension and stability/effectiveness of solutions, in particular when related to local issues.
• Promote regional clusters of asset based entrepreneurship, sustainable/self sufficient regional economies. Including development based projects around water/energy/food independence, helping emerging and developing countries to reduce debt from IMF and World Bank and looking to domestic ingenuity
• Get a global ethical citizenry to create the communitarian banking and governance generative mechanism as a cooperative collaborative global business enterprise that thrusts creative commons innovation in redesigning the breakdowns on micro local neighborhood level initiatives for the marginalized poor and disadvantaged in our world while arresting/harnessing the technological corporate market driven performance engines who’s competitive intelligence is currently totally out of control in a global financial casino based on ROI capital
• See David Brancaccio in aq tour of the US to discover other ways for local economic prosperity http://www.pbs.org/now/fixing- the-future
• The distinction between Old Economics and New Economics (Maximising economic & business efficiency to balancing efficiency with resiliency) explained here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UNAL_nB4Gak&feature=related

Prepare for the worst. Relationship to disaster

Preparedness – prepare for the worst: a way to rate the resilience features of particular places, e.g., quality of the soil, ability of the land to retain water and to clean water appropriately before it goes to creeks and rivers. In temperate zones, people need food, water, shelter, heat/energy, fiber, medicines. How well can a local place provide these things for its people if supply lines break? The list of necessities will vary by location, but each location could make its own list and its own determination of how well it can provide what it needs. Look at it also in a Water/Energy/Food perspective. If we refer the “Prophets of Doom” documentary on History Channel, all the scientists involved agreed that the best way to mitigate risk was to favor re-localization and decentralization as far as energy, water and food was concerned.

Envisage possibilities of Black Swans and work on avoidance/resilience and response preparedness.

Independence in interdependence: Big or small? Global or local?

• Quoting the British New Economic Forum’s  Great Transition project http://bit.ly/iasWm7 -semi finalist of the Buckminster Fuller 2011 challenge-: “Redefining ‘efficiency’ beyond its narrow economic focus, we suggest a more rounded view, where the impact on the social fabric of cities, towns and rural areas is important when considering issues such as the production of goods and services. Exploring the question of what things are best produced locally, regionally, nationally and internationally, we suggest some criteria that might help in this judgment and make the case for greater local self-sufficiency in some areas, combined with regional, national and international trade in others. Big is clearly not always ‘best’ but neither, necessarily, is small. What we need is appropriate scale and, crucially, a clear means of deciding what this should be.”
• This connects with the principle of subsidiarity (central to the EU): principle according to which matters ought to be handled at the lowest or least centralized level possible to deal effectively with a given issue. Not all can be handled at the decentralized level, not all requires scale. Balance must be found between to big to fail, too small to last…
• Think of nested communities, networked/connected to one-another, with buffering/relay capabilities.
• Limit the interdependence/distance in material flows, but recognize the interdependence in relationships, increased local, bottom-up access to knowledge and power-to-act, channeling collective intelligence as a governing principle and framework, as a balancing power. Provide interconnections between clusters.
• Investigate the purpose centered organization (see William E. Smith’s detailed intervention): The largest global issues we face are problems because we don’t have a high enough order of organization to deal with them. A key characteristic of that organization is that it is purpose centered and allows every single purpose of every individual to be a center of organization. It also adds a new level of organization at every level – one of appreciation. Ultimately, the appreciative connection between the individual and her world give the meaning that encourages her own self organization or self-control and gives her support through influence or stakeholder groups. The region is a good place to start
• For definition of entities, use the principles of Wilber’s Evolutionary theory – http://www.esalenctr.org/display/confpage.cfm?confid=10&pageid=113&pgtype=1
• Consider each example or solution that we mention as a holon, i.e. a as whole (so describing its individual function/advantages etc etc) and as a part (i.e.. assorting it with a “part/connector ID card” that would in a few words outline how it connects to a larger whole and can be leveraged to the benefit of the whole, describing for example how it self-preserves (agency), self-adapts (communion), self-transcends (lever/emergence), and self-dissolves(risks…). Or as a lego piece with a connector to “fit” in a bigger scheme…
• See GANE: A General Agreement on a New Economy For Full Employment, Equity and Environmental Sustainability Summary of Working Paper http://www.greenecon.org/gane/doc_views/summary_doc.html

Next section: UN call – Sustainability – Summary 6 – The Economic Perspective