Sound Of Sirens

ecoCampLondon is a Barcamp about the environment and sustainability which aims to get together passionate people to discuss, engage, interact and ultimately take action!

BarCamps without any specific topic (but “internet”) are kind of exploding now. Too many people attend and there is often that feeling that everything has already been said at other BarCamps before. Plus there is usually no reason to talk about sustainable ideas, since no one wants to hear about it. The exception proofs the rule in the new development of so called ‘Theme BarCamps’. They focus on certain topics like ‘only Wordpress’, ‘only Typo3′, ‘only social issues’ (SocialCamp in Berlin) and now ‘only sustainability and environment’. How great is that? As BarCamps are always sponsored by some companies, those events are usually free of charge and commited to get people involved, share ideas, inspire each other and create a new way of thinking together. You talk a lot and might get the idea of only talking instead of doing, but you really come up with new guidelines everyone tries to follow afterwards, and you usually make new friends and co-operations. Enough going into raptures over BarCamps now - here’s my advice for everyone who is in Britain’s capital on Saturday, 29 November 2008: The EcoCampLondon. It’s also an carbon-neutral event.

I suggest you browse their site, archives, programs…enjoy!

KPFAs mission:

To promote cultural diversity and pluralistic community expression

To contribute to a lasting understanding between individuals of all nations, races, creeds and colors

To promote freedom of the press and serve as a forum for various viewpoints

To maintain an independent funding base

http://kpfa.org/

I recently found some quite inspiring videos from the Burning Man Festival. Even more inspiring was the their background. To me this is a quite special and beautiful way of communicating new and old insights: Mythmaker is about the ancient arts of storytelling, about theatre and circus and about sustainable living.

The mission of Mythmaker: To create, integrate and perform a new cultural mythology. To live and inspire a new dream, which empowers the individual, community and culture to co-create a sustainable future for all life.

I like their commitment and I like their creativeness. I personally would like to communicate the demystification of one or the other myth, but that’s a question of content, I guess…

The ANH is an a-political, non-ideological and plural initiative promoted in 2003 by ten founding members and presided by Deepak Chopra. Today, it is a group constituted by people from all over the world with a common goal in mind: to create and reinforce a more sustainable, pacific and empathic humanity.

www.anhglobal.org

From the 7th until the 9th of November the ANH organizes its first forum/conference in Barcelona. There will be a lot of high scale speakers and a lot of people interested in:

To create an alliance of people based on the awareness of humanity’s interconnectedness. We believe that if enough people share the value of peace, war can be brought to an end. If enough people shift their awareness toward social justice, human rights, and environmental sustainability, then injustice, oppression, and the destruction of the ecosystem can be stopped.

Such a shift is already occurring - now it needs critical mass, which in turn needs organisation. The Alliance aims to connect individuals, caring communities and groups at a global level.

Unity isn’t fought for and won. It is realized one person at a time.

www.anheurope.org

‘Art, Ecology & Education provides pathways to an integrated and sustainable way of living. We participate in the development and integration of an ecologically conscious and systemic worldview.
Using a holistic and transformative approach in our work, we support individuals and groups in the process of transition towards a life sustaining society.’

Upcoming workshops (in german and english):
12+13 July CHANGE - a different worldview for sustainable living
20-24 August ‘EFTERFESTEN Gathering for Sustainability’, Sweden
3-7 September SHIFTING TERRAIN - dancing new ways of perceiving
20+21 September PERMACULTURE - the Basics

Next AEE Evening at the HUB, Berlin:
9 July, 8pm, CSA / Community Supported Agriculture - Conscious consumption one step ahead

Art, Ecology & Education (www.art-ecology-education.org) works as international, intercultural consortium based in Berlin.

Participate in shifting the paradigm / feel free to get in touch!

Check them out!

The Global Oneness Project is a web-based video initiative exploring how the simple notion of oneness can be lived in our increasingly complex world.

We’re traveling the globe interviewing creative and courageous people who base their lives and work on the fundamental understanding that we are all connected and thus bear great responsibility for each other and our shared world. Our living library of films is available for free from our website or on DVD for events and educational use.

We are committed to documenting what is being born during this time of planetwide transformation. While we are confronted with unmistakable signs that our current way of life is no longer sustainable, inspiring and innovative people and programs are blossoming in all areas of our collective society. From a pay-it-forward café in Ahmedabad, to a youth program that brings African wisdom to Los Angeles, from the General Secretary of the Andean Nations, to the spiritual guardian of Ayers Rock, our film subjects live and work with many of the following values, attitudes, and beliefs:

* We are responsible to each other, the earth, and future generations.
* There are enough resources for us all, if we share.
* Free exchanges of information allow for greater, collective creative potential.
* Love, care and compassion have the power to transform the fabric of society.

We hope that by showing the diverse ways oneness is expressed—in the fields of sustainability, conflict resolution, spirituality, art, economics, indigenous culture, and social justice—others will be inspired to create solutions to personal and community challenges from their own lived understanding of oneness.

www.globalonenessproject.org

Roberto Perez, a cuban permaculture designer, talks about how Cuba survived Peak Oil. Also there is a documentary about this: ‘The Power of Community - How Cuba survived Peak Oil‘.

My main point would be the sense of community, of culture and music that exists in Cuba. Wonder what that cultural base would be in European countries or the US…

Related articles on Sound Of Sirens:
Energy Watch Group: Peak Oil ist ‘jetzt’
Life is Rhythm is Dance: The Afro-Cuban Rumba

It’s about style, it’s about status and it’s about opportunities deriving out of a ‘consumer-oriented look at the next 12-18 months’:

“Eco-friendly goods and services sporting bold, iconic markers and design, helping their eco-conscious owners show off their eco-credentials to their peers.
At the heart of ECO-ICONIC is a status shift: Many consumers are eager to flaunt their green behavior and possessions, because there are now millions of other consumers who are actually impressed by green lifestyles.”

For those of you who are not familiar with this stuff: This is called a trend-briefing. Here you find the whole thing of may/june 08: www.trendwatching.com/briefing/ Have a look where we’re heading…

People working in this field are called Consumer-Ethnographers. And sometimes I get the feeling that they look at ‘consumers’ a bit like the old ethnographers were investigating ‘the brutes’ back then…quite similar notions and quite similar blindfolds sometimes… Interesting species, these ‘consumers’, aren’t they. And if investigated properly the knowledge of their behaviour will make you rich (first and foremost) and better than the others.

Doesn’t change much, the way of perceiving and thinking, does it. I figure, burned down to the basics, again you’re at growth, competition and expansion oriented folks, manipulating, instrumentalizing and exploiting people and nature. As eco and sustainable you call the development, as ‘eco-embedded’ it would ‘have to become’ - in my book there won’t be any sustainability as long as there is an ethnographer investigating a consumer in order to…

This is nowhere near an understanding of our interconnected nature with our surroundings. This is repeating the same patterns.

But check the trendwatching site - and see for yourself how you feel about this stuff…

Die Energy Watch Group veröffentlichte im Mai ihren neuen Bericht. Ausserdem ist heute, am 22.5.08 der Rohölpreis so hoch wie noch nie. Und in den letzten 12 Monaten ist der Preis um 100 Prozent gestiegen. Eigentlich ein guter Grund sich entsprechende Sound Of Sirens Artikel nochmal durchzulesen.
Hier ein kurzer Auszug aus dem neuen Bericht der Energy Watch Group:

Die wichtigsten Erkenntnisse

Peak Oil ist ‘jetzt’

Seit einiger Zeit tobt eine heftige Debatte um das weltweite Ölfördermaximum („Peak Oil“). Institutionen mit großer Nähe zur Energiebranche, wie etwa das Consulting-Unternehmen CERA, betreiben eine Kampagne zur „Entlarvung“ der „Peak-Oil-Theorie“. Die vorliegende Studie gehört zu einer langen Reihe von Arbeiten, die innerhalb und außerhalb der ASPO (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas, etwa: Vereinigung zum Studium des Fördermaximums von Öl und Gas) entstanden sind und zeigen, dass das Ölfördermaximum keinesfalls mehr als „Theorie“ bezeichnet werden kann, sondern eine Realität ist, die sich bereits vor unseren Augen abspielt.
…Den Analysen unseres Szenarios zufolge ist das weltweite Ölfördermaximum 2006 eingetreten…
…Die wichtigste Erkenntnis ist, dass die Ölförderung nach dem Peak einen steilen Rückgang erleben wird.

Please be aware of that. And please be aware that socalled free trade is an invention that destroys lifes, cultures and our planet.
Also we do not have to go to the rain forest, to India or North America, the same thing is happening in Finland, where indigenous people are being marginalized and robbed of their rights, land is being taken and robbed of its resources, governments are backing corporations.
Watch this documentary: Last Yoik In Sami Forests?, check the website: www.elonmerkki.net

The shift, the change will come through us, through people who speak up, who demand their rights, who create lively cultures and lively democracies, who think and act as an interdependent world family, looking for ways from being dependend consumers to responsible producers.

We have to replace the well being of corporations again with the wellbeing of real people and real societies. We have to create and build new self-governing economies. Connect which each other, learn from each other.
Know more: Vandana Shiva on zmag.org
Connect: CivWorld Interdependence Day,
Find support: Post Carbon Institute (Assists societies in their efforts to relocalize communities and adapt to an energy constrained world.)
Transition Towns (Local responses to the challenges of climate change and peak oil. Relocalization, Network and Support)

Thoughts about reclaiming the culture into sustainable business plans.

“[...]These days, when people in business talk about sustainability, they mean environmental sustainability. Traditionally, the environment was an externality that was ignored. More and more, with the conversations of “carbon neutral,” people are starting to think about what it means to environmentally sustainable. At the same time, a company can be environmentally sound and completely destroy local economies and other aspects of culture through their moves.[...]“

by apophenia, Danah Boyd.

Hi Friends!

You’ll find an interview with Esther De Jong from Sustainable Dance Club now in the Interviews Section. It’s about planning and running the world’s first sustainable night club. We talk about the people behind, their challenges, sustainable culture and technologies (i.e. an energy-generating dance floor). Enjoy!

By the way - do you know a project or a company you think it’s worth beeing featured in an interview? If so, feel free to use the submit button to the right! :)