Professor Lonnie Gamble | StudentBlogs / Bonnie Mercer

Article Report

Steward Community Woodland- Surviving in the Woods!

I read an article from the British permaculture magazine about a small off-the-grid community in the woodlands of Devon, England, called Steward Community Woodland. The small community, of seven adults and four children, are big advocaters of reducing, reusing and recycling. With the help of a few reclaimed parts and lots of creativity, the community came up with some ingenious ways of producing electricity!

The one i loved the most is the use of human power through cycle generators! A person cycles to turn a generator that produces electricity that is either used immediately or stored in batteries (which is less efficient but can be more convenient). The cycle generators were used to power laptop computers on which they created and updated their website and at public events to provide educational entertainment.

The next thing the community built was a micro-hydro power system, which was built with no cost, using only reclaimed materials! With grant money they have also purchased various types of PV panels, in order to compare them in different conditions. Although they are not the most green of renewable sources of energy, they are very convenient, low maintenance and provide power in summer when the micro-hydro is not operational.

The community is looking into applying for planning permission to set up a wind turbine in the near future. They are also currently researching the possibility of using wood gasification, which is a process where wood is burned in such a way that the flammable gas can be extracted before combustion, to generate electricity and power forestry machinery such as a sawmill. This means they would be able to use off cuts and ‘waste’ wood to power the machinery.

Conservation is the key! At present power is very limited, so they have learned to conserve electrical power in a big way! They use no more than 100 watts of power; that’s less than 10 watts each (I guess that's per day?!). That's pretty impressive considering that 100 watts is the amount used by a standard light bulb! They have also managed the project and the woodland using this power. Obviously they don't have to worry about electrical heaters, because they have plenty of wood to fuel their heating needs. But by remembering to turn off the light in the spare room or exchanging a few bulbs for energy efficient ones, the community believes that it's possible for everyone to conserve as much power as they have!

Bioneers 2007!

We travelled to Grinnell this weekend to take part in the 18th annual Bioneers conference; based in California the conference is broadcast to 18 different locations around the country and heard by approximately 13,000 people over the duration of the 3 day weekend!

The conference was packed with talks from visionary speakers from all walks of life, each bringing a different perspective and a unique solution for positive change. I was at the conference for two days, and despite the fact, that due to the satellite broadcast, we spent most of our time in a lecture hall glued to a screen, i found the conference very powerful and moving.

The opening remarks came from Kenny Ausubel and Nina Simons, co-founders and co-presidents of Bioneers, both of whom spoke passionately about the need for change for every area of life. Kenny Ausubel brought out the point that 'taking care of nature means taking care of people, and taking care of people means taking care of nature', but the sustainable world he imagined went beyond this: a true sustainable world needs to incorporate social justice, an end to the gulf between the rich and the poor, and respect for indigenous communities; in this world there would be 'Dignity and respect for all people and the circle of life'.

The conference opened with a song and a few words from 13 Grandma's from indigenous communities from around the World. Talks followed from Biomimicist Jay Harmen, Judy Wicks who talked about socially responsible business, John Abrams on employee ownership and Van Jones who talked about the necessity for environmentalism to uplift every area of society. This just demonstrates the diversity of the topics covered.

At the beginning of John Abrams talk, I was thinking 'is employee ownership really that relevant to sustainability?' but the points he brought out were so relevant, and i began to realize that sustainability means a complete shift in values and the way we perceive the whole world. Abrams talked about power as being infinite, he said employee ownership extends power, power is not a finite thing for one person to own. We are all powerful, and this goes beyond employee ownership, in our new world i think we will re-realize our true power and take back ownership of every area of our lives. As we know, we all create our own reality, we've just forgotten how powerful we really are.

The talk by Van Jones also really shook me. He said, 'As this movement moves from the margin to the center, who are we going to take with us and who are we going to leave behind?' He brought out the point that at present the environmental movement consists primarily of rich white westerners concerned about saving the polar bears, but there are also millions of poorer people in this country who don't have the privilege of worrying about problems so far away from home. Jones described a green wave that's rising and the necessity for that wave to lift all boats. He talked about the potential to create a green economy strong enough to lift people out of poverty.

The talk from Jones really effected me deeply, because i had always been one of those 'rich westerners', who couldn't really comprehend how everyone else could be so 'narrow-minded', how could they not see the bigger picture? But, actually i was the one being narrow-minded, i can't even comprehend the social injustice that they experience everyday. And i realized that being born with this privilege gives me an even greater responsibility to create positive change for everyone.