The Traveler

The experience of the authentic and the real is a crucially important aspect of adventuring in other countries, tasting their character, history and ways of seeing. Different places and people can teach one so much about the character and quality of everyday lives and of the culture, and ultimately, the way a country impacts the world in its exercise of policy and its shepherding of resources. In the Old World, these influences come from a timeline of history reaching back thousands of years, unlike our young country of the USA, dominated right now by commercialization and mass marketing. The fundamental synthesis here is that the environment (built and natural) is key to character of place and way of life, and establishes the framework for how a society succeeds or fails in its ability to sustain its existence.

In Croatia and Slovenia, the recovery from their wars of independence is underway with new governments and repaired structures, with a struggle to revive the production of agricultural resources and a marshaling of their ecological heritage. These values come through loud and clear as one travels up the Dalmatian coast, and it's delightful to talk with people about their lives, hopes and dreams.

An excellent series of articles is being published in Stratfor by George Friedman on the Geopolitical Journey, which delves into the exploration of the Eastern European countries around the Black Sea and their bedrock cultures and historical geopolitics. As he says, "Geopolitics teaches us to think in terms of constraints and limits. According to geopolitics, political leaders are trapped by impersonal forces and have few options in the long run." This means that political vision is shaped by culture and the land and its resources. Which hopefully leads us to the conservation of resources to the benefit of each society and its descendants, which is what sustainability is ultimately about. These countries are currently experiencing the consequences of war which drains life and vitality out of these regions, and takes generations to rebuild. Perhaps that makes their way of life so much more dear in the face of limited resources and counterproductive global fiscal structures.

Jared Diamond constructs the same thesis about the availability of resources across the equatorial land mass in his book, "Guns, Germs and Steel", and the impact that has on human history, which is the written record of human migration and conflict. The land and its configuration, resources and character have a direct impact on political structures through the availability of food, water, minerals and energy due to the unique way in each environment that its population has to solve the habitability challenges and food supply needs.

So it's important to experience and understand what these places and their resources are about. It helps us solve the complex problems that seem to be simply ideological or profit-driven, and get to the heart of the resource and land management issues that drive how humans live on their land and experience it, use it, and conserve it for future generations.

2010: State of the World

"Like a tsunami, consumerism has engulfed human cultures and Earth’s ecosystems. Left unaddressed, we risk global disaster. But if we channel this wave, intentionally transforming our cultures to center on sustainability, we will not only prevent catastrophe, but may usher in an era of sustainability—one that allows all people to thrive while protecting, even restoring, Earth".

The most recent State of The World report has a new urgency, one that calls for a movement against the consumerism that threatens our global ecology. Following up previous reports, the World Watch Institute is an organization that calls for ongoing reform of capitalistic practices that do not burn up our global resources, and establishes benchmarks for achieving balance.

Part of the Solution

So we've overdeveloped ourselves into a climate crisis, now what? That's the major, major problem going forward for the entire world: how do we cut down our demands on a natural system that is crumbling under the weight of human habitation? One of the first steps, and the easiest, is to follow the lead of the IPCC guidelines and reduce the energy demands created by the built environment. This built environment accounts for nearly half of all energy and resource consumption, so it's the logical place to begin to reduce our impact.

Examples of this kind of approach are emerging in projects around the globe. They are projects that are moving towards "zero carbon" footprints in response to this challenge.

Architecture 2030 identifies that buildings are the problem, as well as the solution. It lays out a strategy of carbon reduction over time, with the idea that older, inefficient structures will be recycled or replaced with structures that minimize this carbon cycle in its construction, operation and maintenance. This approach is being most effectively implemented by three organizations, USGBC, AIA and Architecture 2030.

What kinds of development and building structure emerge from these requirements? Eco-Structure showcases three buildings that have completed the first full set of third-party audits for the Living Building Challenge from the International Living Building Institute. A slideshow of these buildings show a very sensitive placement in their environments, and these structures exhibit very simple use of materials and systems.

The approach to our human systems must be that they function in concert with natural systems, and that the entirety of our human systems doesn't exceed what the natural systems can support. We've passed that point with the cumulative extraction of coal, oil and gas, and must now move quickly to put this in reverse and live within the means of energy and water that can be sustainably used. The mindset has to change when the net demand of human societies is greater than the air, water and food sources that this planet can support. The mindset must necessarily shift from consumption to putting money in the bank and not eroding principal. The same thing every parent should be teaching their kids, but which capitalism pitched out the window in an overweening assault on people and ecology for little pieces of green paper.

Our Global Debt

This is not a financial article, but it could be. The parallels are famously congruent, as Thomas Friedman has emphasized repeatedly. The United States, in its aggregate, owes an immense debt to the developing countries of the world. Using the balance of measure of the ecological capacity calculation, the US has a footprint of over 150% of biocapacity. According to the Global Footprint Network, "This ecological debt is not equally spread. The report shows that over three quarters of the world’s population “live in nations that are ecological debtors – their national consumption has outstripped their country’s biocapacity. Thus, most of us are propping up our current lifestyles, and our economic growth, by drawing (and increasingly overdrawing) upon the ecological capital of other parts of the world.”

"The Ecological Footprint has emerged as the world’s premier measure of humanity’s demand on nature. It measures how much land and water area a human population requires to produce the resource it consumes and to absorb its wastes, using prevailing technology."

The global consumption footprint now exceeds the capacity of the planetary resources by 50% and is headed towards 100%. Clearly, this is not sustainable and will have disastrous impacts upon the global systems that currently support life. Much of this is due to population growth and the concurrent industrial revolution that managed to magnify the resource demands while creating toxic pollution, first with coal power and then moving onward to manufacturing and oil-based industries that dumped pollution into the land, air and water that is now breaking down natural processes. In addition, there's the toxicity of building over and suffocating much of the natural landscape and forests that provided the "ballast" against this destructive activity for several hundred years even after being diminished by thousands of years of human habitation.

This doesn't even begin to address the climate change that is increasing the volatility of weather, inflicting flood and drought throughout the globe, eroding the stability of existing resources. We're in a very dangerous vise right now, of our own making, and unless we pull together as nations and people and devise constructive ecological strategies through technology and communication, I don't see a positive outcome to this. The laws of physics and systems will kick in, and we all know what happens when human societies fight over a shrinking pie.

The clear solution is a very, very rapid response to correct these issues of carbon production (energy sources), pollution and trash production resulting from inefficient processes which dump toxins in the middle of what should be a complete cycle of deconstruction and reuse. Some of these strategies are beginning to emerge, for example, as the 2030 Challenge, exemplified in the ICC Code, to achieve zero carbon in construction in 2030, in the building sector - which consumes more energy than any other sector.

This strategy runs in concert with reduction of the physical human footprint with highly efficient structures and a restoration of natural habitats and biodiversity. It means that human societies will have to do more with much, much less. It means we will have to decide what "profit" really is, and demand actual real value for whatever it is we do to come back into balance with the natural world that provides us with life.

I hope we have the will to do what has to be done, before systems start collapsing around us.

Walk Through a Land of Water

WATER HYMN - Plitvice Lakes from Greenwave on Vimeo.

This is Plitvice Lakes National Park in Croatia, a stunning series of lakes and falls that are cascading down the verdant hills at the center of the country, near the border with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The lakes are situated on the Plitvice plateau, between two mountains The sixteen lakes are separated into an upper and lower cluster formed by runoff from the mountains. The lakes collectively cover an area of just under a square mile, with the water exiting from the lowest lake to form the Korana River.

The Plitvice Lakes lie in a basin of karstic rock, mainly dolomite and limestone, which has given rise to their most distinctive feature. The lakes are separated by natural dams of travertine, which is deposited by the action of moss, algae and bacteria. The encrusted plants and bacteria accumulate on top of each other, forming travertine barriers which grow slowly each year. The lakes are renowned for their distinctive colors, ranging from azure to green, grey or blue. The colors change constantly depending on the quantity of minerals or organisms in the water and the angle of sunlight. The lakes are divided into the 12 Upper Lakes (Gornja jezera) and the four Lower Lakes (Donja jezera). The Plitvice Lakes national park is heavily forested, mainly with beech, spruce, and fir trees, and features a mixture of Alpine and Mediterranean vegetation. It has a notably wide variety of plant communities, due to its range of microclimates, differing soils and varying levels of altitude.

The serpentine boardwalk is an amazing experience, no handrails, and winds endlessly through the falls and lakes. There is just no other place like this one, and the area is largely unspoiled as well as full of wildlife in the forested area. Croatia is recovering from its war of Independence from Yugoslavia in 1995, as are other former Baltic states, and are preparing to enter the European Union. One governing principle of this country and others are a commitment to sustainable existence and preservation of the natural ecosystem. Further south in Dalmatia, the country is struggling to re-establish olive, lavender and wine production in the rocky soils of the islands. The intent is to establish eco-tourism as well as promote the well-known resort areas of Dalmatia and its historic remains of the Roman Empire, the Venetian occupation of Dalmatia, and the remnants of the Austro-Hungarian empire.

The government is taking these steps forward with great care, and exhibits a commitment to its own culture and history. In this sense, it's not a "third world" country, its approach is a conservative one that does not want to embrace an urban lifestyle as a source of investment and development, or create massive engineering projects for its infrastructure. It has an extremely rigorous historic preservation ethic in its existing towns and cities, and is seeking to repair and reinforce its heritage.

Makes me want to start over in the US when I see the dysfunctional urban and industrial landscapes around our country; the endless roof farms. And we've never even been bombed like most of Europe. We just trash the land and then keep moving on...it's all "immediate profit" and very little planning for effective sustainable use of the land by the community, which pays off in the long run.

I'm beginning to sound like a European Socialist!

Water

Today is Blog Action day, and the topic is water. It's the UN topic for a global effort directed at providing clean water to people all over the globe, largely in impoverished countries. But it's also about preventing pollution, cleaning up waterways and restoring them so that they perform their natural functions in ecosystems that have been degraded by urban development. That greatest store of our water on the planet, the oceans, have become the dumping ground of toxins that will disintegrate the chain of life if this activity proceeds unchecked.

I've written extensively on this blog about the state of water supply in California, particularly as it extends to the plumbing approach taken by the State Water Projects and the primitive engineering of the Bay Delta, as well as emerging watershed management and regenerative land planning approaches that preserve natural systems. Here's the list of my posts involving water and its vital importance to life and all of its processes. Just about every sustainable land use and building practice involves completing the circle of the water cycle.

I can only hope that we can learn to live within our environmental means before we go the way of the Anasazi.

Fall Sabbatical

And memories of an old land of wisdom. See you folks later in October!