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Reread: "Blessed Unrest," Paul Hawken's examination of the worldwide movement for environmental and social change

9/21/2018

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Picture"The movement is that part of humanity which has assumed the task of protecting itself." (Photo by TP)
In "Blessed Unrest," author and activist Paul Hawken brings to the table his comprehensive and penetrating insight into a vast unorganized network of like-minded groups large and small, known and unknown. Unique, never before experienced on our planet, it is best described as a movement. 

These are Paul Hawken's words:

​"The movement doesn't attempt to disprove capitalism, globalization, or religious fundamentalism but tries to make sense of what it discovers in forests, favelas, farms, rivers, and cities . . . The movement is that part of humanity which has assumed the task of protecting and saving itself . . . each organization . . . operates independently of an individual person's interest. Specifically, the shared activity of hundreds of thousands of nonprofit organizations can be seen as humanity's response to toxins like political corruption, economic disease, and ecological degradation."

These organizations — as if compelled by life forces like those that drive us individually — regulate themselves, and by taking humankind as an organic whole, the actions to preserve and protect itself are natural, inevitable. This global movement then becomes a living being. 
 
The author wished not only to explain this movement's purpose and aspirations, but also invite and facilitate the joining of other groups by including over 100 pages of descriptions, listings, and references to like-minded groups world-wide. In the appendix, categories such as Recycling and Reuse (for those interested in groups like Repair Café, for example), are followed by the number or groups researched at the time of publication (4,346!) and an extensive list of key descriptors like salvage, preowned materials, waste recycling, repair, etc. 

As for working, boots-on-the-ground groups involved, the Tibetan Plateau Project places conservation and biodiversity at the head of their concerns in Tibet; the United Students Against Sweatshops champions workers' rights in Canada; and Jane Goodall, who calls "Blessed Unrest" "exciting, compelling, and very important," has organized more than 7,000 youth groups called Roots and Shoots to help animals, the environment, and other human beings. I recently sighted a Spanish announcement of Roots and Shoots published by the indigenous Arhuaco community in Santa Marta, Colombia. Hudson Riverkeepers, another movement group, was originally formed in 1984 to hold GE and others accountable for pollution. It has since spawned 150 international organizations under a larger group called Waterkeeper Alliance. 

In "Blessed Unrest," which was originally published in 2007, two URLs are given to access more information. One seems to be infected, and the other does not relate to the information given in the appendix. However, a YouTube video shows Paul Hawken speaking before a Bioneer Conference in which he addresses a few of the topics mentioned in "Blessed Unrest." It is worthy of a look and a listen.

In asking where this movement is going, the answer derives from its humane essentials: Forward. Continued involvement with the best of humanity, engaged with doing what is right, just, and ecologically sound, and by so doing recognizing the spirit that welds communities and individuals together — and which make us the humanity that we espouse.

—Greg Marquez
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Blessed Unrest
How the Largest Social Movement in History Is Restoring Grace, Justice, and Beauty to the World​
By Paul Hawken
352 pp. Penguin

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New members, new learning opportunities, new name: Beautiful Swales is now Beautiful Bioswales

9/17/2018

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PictureSlow water, spread water, sink water: a roadside bioswale (Photo by Camilla Ruiz, CC license below)
We were surprised at the huge turnout for the most recent Beautiful Swales meeting. There must be a need out there to talk about swales and their ability to save stormwater from flowing directly to the ocean. We even voted to change the name of our group to Beautiful Bioswales to better suit the desires of the group (and avoid the B.S. acronym). 

Some of our new members are building bioswales, others want to learn how to build bioswales. We are looking for opportunities to experiment and play with this “landscape element,” which Wikipedia defines like so:

“Bioswales are landscape elements designed to concentrate or remove debris and pollution out of surface runoff water. They consist of a swaled drainage course with gently sloped sides (less than six percent) and filled with vegetation, compost and/or riprap . . . The water's flow path, along with the wide and shallow ditch, is designed to maximize the time water spends in the swale, which aids the collection and removal of pollutants, silt and debris. Bioswales are also beneficial in groundwater recharge and are great stormwater mitigation tools.” For inspiring photos, just Google bioswales and choose “images.”

One new member, Shawn Maestretti, posted a time-lapse video of building a bioswale in Altadena to the Beautiful Swales Facebook page. Thank you, Shawn. I watched and learned.

Another new member, Leigh Adams, will be teaching about swales, along with Shawn, at a rain water harvesting workshop at Tree People on Oct. 13.

Speaking of Leigh, she gave a tour of her lovely water-harvesting demonstration garden Crescent Farm to members of the Throop Learning Garden (including lucky me). We were all inspired. It is an education just walking around there. Make a point of visiting, next time you are at the L.A. Arboretum in Arcadia. Thank you, Leigh, and I look forward to seeing swale projects at Throop Learning Garden in the future.

If you are interested in learning, or teaching, about bioswales, I hope you will join us. Our next Beautiful Bioswales meeting will be Sept. 26, 6:30 p.m. at Sierra Madre City Hall, which has three new large swales.

And for some small scale hands-on experimentation, join us at Refurbishing the Native Plant Garden at the Jackie Robinson Post Office, Saturday, October 6, 8 a.m. to 11 a.m., 1355 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena 91104

A final note: Swales work in all sizes. Making a decision about how big the swale should be is sometimes as simple as thinking: the bigger the water source, the bigger the swale. Swales slow water, spread water and sink water. 

I look forward to seeing you and your shovel soon.

Signed,
Sylvia Holmes
The Swale Advocate
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​The photo used to illustrate this article has been licensed under a Creative Commons-Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License.

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View From the Piano: Grief (Part 5)

9/17/2018

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If you haven't read all of the previous posts on this topic, Grief Parts 1 through 4 and there was a Despair that came first, now would be a good time to review those articles. You'll be much clearer about what comes next if you do. (For links to previously published installments scroll to the bottom of this post.)

If you are feeling a desire to run from this story, I think that is a reasonable and rational response — which is one of my main points in writing all of this. We live in a human-created, industrialized society. Rationality rules, and so it's become natural to lean on rationality. Say thank you to this pull to rush back into rationality and ignore it. Try to remember there is more to life than rationality. Life is a mystery. We don't understand it, and denial of that is just an attempt to control life or retreat into rationality. Most of our lives are based in feelings, intuition and more. All of which can be very non-rational.

With rationality we are like the fish in water. Does the fish even recognize the water it swims in? Does the water become a background for the life of the fish? Our industrialized society is grounded in rationality. Our lives are lived in a sea of rationality. Rationality is so pervasive it is like the water to the fish. We rarely acknowledge that.

I started this conversation suggesting there was something to be hopeful about so here are some ideas worth thinking about. 

Life is a mystery. Science doesn't know what life is and can't explain where the essence of your loved one goes when they die. Science doesn't have those answers, the process of science won't find the answers. The scientific method is a rational process that doesn't operate on the spiritual humanist plane. 

Science also doesn't have much, if anything, to say about the obvious progressive history of evolution. Both the evolution of life and the evolution of the physical universe have proceeded from exceedingly simple to complex. This is not a random direction as science would have us believe. Even more compelling is that this evolution has proceeded faster and faster over billions of years despite the increasing complexity.

Again I say that I have an innate intuition that the universe is a more positive enterprise than what our human culture currently appears to be. If evolution isn't random then who or what is directing the last six billion years. This idea starts to sound vaguely religious or spiritual, and so I want to add that my spirituality has alway been centered around nature. I would go backpacking alone and just be in a place far away from other people. I always felt the human culture fall away and something more elemental take its place. I've never been religious in my spirituality.

For now the main point is that humans are not in control. Something else is.

—David Cutter
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We previously posted articles in this series in:

February (Despair)
March (Grief: Part 1)
May (Grief: Part 2)
July (Grief: Part 3)
August (Grief: Part 4)

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Better together: Open invitation to a community gardening event in October — plus some thoughts to guide us there

9/12/2018

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PictureWhy do we make partnerships? (Photo by Josh Calabrese on Unsplash)
”Better together” is a theme that has been recurring in my life.

​First, after lobbying Pasadena officials for two years, Pasadena 100, a climate-concerned coalition saw evidence of its impact. At the City’s recent public presentation on our 20-year energy plan, it was clear that a group of citizens with a unified message can be heard. The city has been responsive to our ask for more renewable energy. Each solo voice may not have had this impact. Better together.

Then, at the final performance of the Griffith Park Summer Shakespeare Festival, the power for lighting and mics was in and out. At a dramatic moment, an actress called to the audience “Please light me!“ Boom! Hundreds of cell phone flashlights went up! The audience cheered itself and her. Better together. These moments reaffirm my personal commitment to stay engaged in spite of a daily distressing newsfeed that can feel like a global tailspin.

Why do we join groups and make partnerships? Because deep down we each know that we have more impact when we are unified. We are put on this planet not as isolated beings, but as a network of living things, human, animal and plants, and so we instinctively know that we are connected to everything that surrounds us. It is empowering to share commitments. It fortifies and solidifies the vision we carry.

The shared vision that our neighborhood could be more attractive to people and pollinators by transforming a plot of dirt in front of the post office on Mentor Ave. into a native garden came together two years ago. Now, an eye-catching garden with seasonally morphing colors, shapes and sizes delights motorists and beckons pedestrians at an otherwise bland corner. The habitat that thrives between the stone wall of the post office and the concrete and asphalt of the sidewalk and street was hit hard by the 118 F scorch we had on July 6. Now that we are being teased by days in the mid-80s, neighbors are beginning to reimagine how to make this respite for the eyes more resilient and more beautiful still. This month, three different groups of neighbors each brought a load of free city mulch to freshen the garden and to help retain moisture in the soil when the next inevitable heatwave hits. Better together.

Placemaking, a process for activating a space to build community, has this principle: Have ten things going on because people show up for different reasons.

Here's the upcoming Garden Event recipe:

1) solicit arroyo stone donations for texture in the garden
2) gather folks to hold a vision for beauty that supports bugs and birds
3) add a few shovels and buckets and plants
4) get the Beautiful Swales advocates to come teach about and create water catchment swales and
5) maybe add a bicycle-drawn piano, Piano à la Carte.

Better together.

—Therese Brummel

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Refurbishing the Native Plant Garden at the Jackie Robinson Post Office
Saturday, October 6
8 a.m. to 11 a.m.
1355 N. Mentor Ave., Pasadena 91104


Join us!

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"Pardon me for being dramatic": Impassioned appeal for the City of Pasadena to help fight climate change

9/2/2018

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Transition Pasadena member Sylvia Holmes recently spoke at the Water and Power Integrated Resource Plan Community Meeting. The following is a slightly edited version of her talk:

Thank you for your public service. The last time I came to this meeting, I asked for the social costs to be part of EVERY model. Immediately after I spoke, I heard “there is a model with the social cost of carbon.” I felt dismissed; this is supposed to be a community meeting looking for feedback. That is a false mission if you never seriously consider incorporating the ideas in that feedback.

This is a very serious moment in time. When the canary in the coal mine died, the miners knew that they were next. Well, the largest King Penguin colony in the world has dropped in size by 90 percent. I think we are next.

Climate change is speeding up. Pardon me for being dramatic but people’s lives are at stake. This is about survival. You have some important decisions to make. You may not think that it is you who is making the decision, but let’s be honest: The Pasadena City Council will do whatever you suggest because you will be the experts on the day that they vote.

Therefore you CANNOT suggest that they consider a model without the social cost of carbon. It would be irresponsible. They will pick the cheaper option even though it is a lie. And it is a lie because cheaper in the short term is deadly in the long term. 

The late Kofi Annan, a former UN secretary general and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, said “I believe we have a responsibility not only to our contemporaries but also to future generations — a responsibility to preserve resources that belong to them as well as to us, and without which none of us can survive. That means we must do much more, and urgently, to prevent or slow down climate change. Every day that we do nothing, or too little, imposes higher costs on our children and our children’s children.”

In Pasadena it is vital to opt out of the planned 50-year Utah gas plant.

Be ethical! Lift this burden from our country! You have a chance to right the wrongs of the past.

Thank you for your attention. I vote climate.

And thank you for all of your hard professional work on this complex problem and your willingness to listen. I’m confident that you and the city council will do the right thing.

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