Comments raines has made

  • wow! time for my beard trim, methinks

    I didn't realize the camera was quite so zoomed in!

    When I talk about "Sustainable Communities" I'm referring to cohousing and EcoVillages and other forms of Intentional Communities. I've had a lot of fun doing a booth here in Austin at Netroots Nation about those.

    And Gore's Climate Project info is here - there's 1000 of us available to come talk for free to your community group or workplace, adapting the "Inconvenient Truth" slideshow to connect, educate and prepare.

    Note that I was referring to Gore's Thursday talk in D.C., this was before he made his surprise appearance here today!  His new site is at wecandoit.org.On Lessig and Netroots folks on climate change posted 1 year, 4 months ago 1 Response

  • it already exists, and we do call it cohousing

    as documented through the Cohousing Association of the U.S. (Coho/US). In this form of "intentional neighborhood," part of the broader intentional communities movement, future residents band together with a common vision and invest to create homes that start green and get greener over time, in how people live, not just the "sticks and bricks" of green building. Living simply and sustainably in privately-owned smaller spaces (typically condos), with a large shared common house and yards/gardens and operating the home-owners association by consensus. Each with its own kitchen and all the options of privacy you'd expect, with the additional benefits of having the choice of community there when you want it: shared meals a few times a week, no driving for "playdates," supportive neighbors helping each other.

    There's more than 100 established cohousing neighborhoods in the U.S. and even more than that under development. There's quite a few in Oregon (including an EcoVillage out near Portland airport and another in Corvallis), and others down the road in Ashland and Bend. The Northwest Intentional Communities Association (NICA) helps communities in the region start and grow.

    Back to the "independent-living" facility covered in the linked article in the blog entry above, though: I wonder, despite all the lovely language about the open-style kitchen with entertainment provided by chefs (for how many thousands of dollars per month?), how much the residents really are in charge, as opposed to the management, when push comes to shove. In senior cohousing, the resident-owners individually and collectively hire (and share) the caregivers and housekeepers, making for a very different power dynamic.

    The project sounds like a natural market-driven response to the needs of aging Boomers who don't want to give up the illusions of independence and control over their lives, and the nursing-home civil rights revolution brought about over the past few decades by the Pioneer Network with folks like my friends Debby and Barry Barkan at the Live Oak Institute, who are now engaged as part of the on-the-streets Aging In Community movement, co-creating the Elders' Guild.

    Raines Cohen, Cohousing Coach and Certified Senior Cohousing Facilitator
    Planning for Sustainable Communities
    at Berkeley (CA) Cohousing    On Cool housing for oldsters posted 1 year, 5 months ago 7 Responses

  • the discussion on the dKos diary

    is tending towards believing it's an issue of searching-by-tag/category rather than by fulltext. So, pending further data, categorize this one as mild annoyance rather than deep-seated conspiracy.

    R (preferring "Global Climate Crisis" myself)On Search for 'global warming' to no avail posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

  • Diaried on Daily Kos

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/2/1/201211/0424

    (with links here, of course, thanks for helping get the word out on it. Anyone grab any screen shots?)On Search for 'global warming' to no avail posted 2 years, 10 months ago 10 Responses

  • What's the distribution plan?

    As a Climate Project trainee, I'm one of 1000 people going around presenting slideshows based on An Inconvenient Truth, and we (and our audiences) are hungry for good depictions of solutions. When will we be able to get DVD's or send people to theaters?

    A Somewhat Related topic, newsy enough to post here: A Senate Environment Committtee staffer (and key player in the SwiftBoat Veterans for Truth attack on Kerry in 2004) has continued the taxpayer-funded attack on Grist and this blog as part of an attack on Gore, Global Warming, and The Weather Channel (triggering a conservative blogswarm in comments on the TWC blog). Details in my diary on Daily Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2007/1/19/84818/7454On On the road as Everything's Cool debuts in film's biggest deal posted 2 years, 10 months ago 1 Response

  • I appreciate the philosophical discussion here

    I've observed a similar set of reactions among some peak-oil activists as I have previously among some Y2k millenialists: Sort of "If anything can go wrong, then everything will go wrong, civilization will collapse, and that's good because then we can rebuild better and live in Hobbitland..." There is a certain personality profile / cultural type that finds this form of reaction attractive. Which is a shame because I think they do have lots to teach us, but if they "use up their hope budget" (quoting Gore, advising people in communications about climate change in his workshop last week) they don't get people coming back enough to work through the issues. Myself, I'm working on building bridges between the worlds, actually presenting the Inconvenient Truth slideshow at a Peak Oil meeting in San Francisco this week.On Things will fall apart posted 2 years, 10 months ago 18 Responses

  • several Walmart folks were at Gore's

    The Climate Project trainings in Nashville last week. While some other participants were dubious (isn't Walmart synonymous with evil?), he recounted his visit and firsthand experience with what they are doing to reform their practices to reduce climate-change impacts, including using market forces to reduce CFL prices (below incandescent? somebody said that, not sure it was him) to build the market... and it sounds like he's a believer.On Wal-Mart pushes CFLs posted 2 years, 10 months ago 17 Responses

  • 'Let's get started' is right

    The challenge before us, as a civilization, and especially as a behind-the-curve country, is to translate knowledge into on-the-ground (and in-the-air) action. That's what 1000 people have been learning from Mr. Gore at The Climate Project's trainings, how to get people to make little changes and build support for bigger ones.

    (more links in my other comment)On It muddles the science and policy debates together posted 2 years, 10 months ago 47 Responses

  • From spending the last 3 days with Gore

    In his The Climate Project trainings, he is very careful in making sure that, as we thousand trainees go into the field to present his slideshow, we are not perverting the science in our quest to educate and deliver the message. He calls attention to the precision of phrasing he's selected, and, with a science advisor providing background, answers questions and points out areas of conflict, differences between consensus and outside factors. His attention to detail is somewhat contagious, sparking debates between climatologists and science educators in our group as to whether his schematic explain-to-the-layperson illustrations accurately represent atmospheric thicknesses, etc., to the point of running overtime with our conversations (and some poor soul serving as facilitator who gets the job of telling Mr. Gore to pick up the pace!). When participants have suggestions about how to more-effectively communicate an item, or new data has emerged, it gets incorporated into the show and notes; Gore is no scientist, and we are no Gores (although we did invent the internet), but he freely admits as much and is quick to turn to scientists and communicators to hone the message make it more effective while retaining accuracy/defendability.

    Even better, we're getting linked into an online community where we can keep in touch with the scientists as new questions arise or new data.

    David, your comment is right on about the heart of the struggle being about engagement, finding ways to get the message across that don't cause people to run for the hills but rather lay out paths to action.

    Here's another trainee's dailyKos diary on the training. And another.On The former says nothing about the latter posted 2 years, 10 months ago 21 Responses