A Suggestion for a New Forum. (local sustainability)

About This Message Board
1

My first year on the Dope has been quite educational.

I came here by way of Cecil’s Archives. Been thru ‘em all. I got it up to ask Cecil a math question on infinity which had been bugging me forever and was thrown to the Board. Over the past seemingly endless year, I have indulged myself in well-cited anti-American, anti-corporate and anti-religious tirades that have bored us all to tears. Thanks for hanging in with this slow but honest learner.

But I have finally learned a few things.

  1. Ain’t no use in ranting. If you ain’t preachin’ to the choir you be spittin’ on the congregation.

  2. Ain’t no use in layin’ blame. Plenty to go around.

  3. Nonetheless, here we are.

A Crude Awakening
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25605.htm

From this documentary, I glean the following:

  1. Our global economic and social systems require for their very existence an exponential increase in oil demand with a commensurate increase in production while maintaining low gas prices. Quite unlikely to continue.

  2. No matter what you think about “peak oil”, it should be clear that oil is getting harder to find and more costly to extract and an extended period of rising fuel prices is inevitable.

  3. As fuel goes, so goes food. No matter what time frame you put on it, food prices are going up.

This is not a forum for debate about peak oil and oil/energy alternatives. If the movie has not convinced you that our oil dependence has so thoroughly metastasized thruout the global economic structure and social fabric and that the idea of finding alternatives to cheap oil is not worth discussing, please take it elsewhere.

This is a forum for those who can see benefit in encouraging local agriculture on whatever scale and wherever you live, which is to say, anything you can do locally to pad the larder free of imports will serve you well.

While you could find advice here on maintaining a window herb box, this forum is primarily for would-be community organizers of Transition Communities.

Some excellent references.

Transition Network.org.
http://www.transitionnetwork.org/
And from the same folks, Transition Initiative Primer (PDF).
Resources Archive - Transition Network

Transition US
http://www.transitionus.org/
And from a link on the home page, a nice example.
http://transitionus.ning.com/profiles/blogs/global-transition-in-action-345

This forum could well become a global nexis for information exchange on the subject of local sustainable agriculture. I think the issue is important enough to deserve its own forum but, if not, with a little editing, I’ll start something in IMHO, maybe What You Gonna Do When The Well Runs Dry? (local sustainability).

Let’s hear it.

2

Well, you certainly seem committed to the idea, even if we’re not.

Not so sure that this is an issue that could fill a forum – a thread, sure, but more? Not in this neighborhood.

We’re not activists in that sort of sense, in any event.

You are certainly welcome to start that thread in IMHO – in fact, that would be a more appropriate thing than to argue this issue here in About This Message Board.

This thread is only about the idea of a new forum – take up sustainability issues elsewhere, please.

3

I agree with TubaDiva. Single issue forums aren’t really what we do here. A thread on the subject would be fine.

4

Seems to me you are asking this board to create a forum to generate traffic to become a clearinghouse of ideas on a specific topic. As opposed to (a) showing there is enough traffic on the topic to warrant the SD making a forum for it, or (b) setting up your own website.

TubaDiva said:

I agree we don’t want to argue any of the specifics of sustainability or peak oil in this thread, and a polite reminder to responders is certainly warranted. However, I think the OP’s point in listing as much as he did was to justify his rationale for why this is an important enough topic to warrant it’s own forum rather than just starting a thread or two on various aspects of the topic. I’m not quite sure how you meant your comment. If the former, that’s cool.

5

Thanks to all so far.

Roger that.

My reference cites make the case for an established and widespread interest in the subject. I believe it is somewhat more relevant to human well-being than (apologies Ed) refurbishing a barn. It turns out there are plenty of websites out there already and I see no need to add another. But help where one can.

that basically, the Dope takes no position on the need for growing local sustainability and please take it to IMHO. I’m saying, it’s about time the Dope recognized there is a much bigger issue facing us and Cecil would approve an apolitical forum for addressing it.

Roger that.

No arguments here. This would be the forum for concerned Dopers to share what you are doing locally to move comfortably into and thru the 21st century.

Roger that.

6

Such a forum would not be apolitical, though.

7

It must be.

When local eggs are all in the same basket, politics devolves into working together for the common good and, corruption, the inevitable byproduct of governmental centralization, disappears.

8

adhay said:

You missed my point. It’s not good enough that there is traffic on the topic “out there”. There is plenty of traffic “out there” discussing everything from proper firearm care and maintenance to discussing the latest fashion trends as demonstrated by celebrities. The point is to demonstrate that there is plenty of traffic on that topic on the Dope. Look what it took to get election politics separated from Great Debates - something with a large volume of discussion.

You just said you think there are plenty of websites out there discussing the problem so you don’t feel the need to start your own board. At the same time, you are trying to convince the Straight Dope that the existing websites are insufficient and that it is worth their effort to create a forum to draw in traffic and become a major resource on the topic. Those two statements are in direct contradiction.

Why is this a topic for The Straight Dope to condone or condemn? Why is this a topic for The Chicago Reader to voice an opinion? Why should the Straight Dope do something you just said you couldn’t be bothered to do yourself? If it’s that important, why leave it to others to create a forum for you?

9

And then I get a pony.

It is, by the nature of politics, impossible to remove opinion, jockeying for position, and other ‘political’ factors from any discussion such as the one you describe. At a minimum, it is naive to assume such would occur.

Heck, the first step towards your goal would be to get people to acknowledge that the problem exists. Then you’d need debate and politics about the level, if any, at which it exists.

Good luck with that.

10

Cite? :wink:

11

When the people who run an organization are doing a lot of the work themselves, they turn out to go about it pretty honestly and openly. Steal from themselves and neighbors? :wink:

12

That isn’t a cite, it’s another unsupported supposition disguised as a query. People steal from neighbors, and even family, all the time-it’s called “greed”.

13

Apologies to TPTB. That should have been saved for the discussion on the topic itself.

14

Quite so. On the Dope, a real hurdle.

Most folks here still believe that there are political and technological answers to the future inevitable rise in oil prices. There’s your pony.

Precisely what the proposed forum would be free of.

Teaching a pig to dance is a waste of your time and it irritates the pig, as my daddy used to say. And I am not sure that in this case I am not the pig.

Thanks for your time and comments.

Let me echo my OP and say that this past year on the Dope has been very educational. It has certainly turned me into a competent web researcher and, over time, taught me to temper my words in discourse.

I certainly get your points about the lack of an upside for the Dope to host this forum and will go so far as to say it was ill-considered on my part. It’s off to IMHO sometime soon, maybe.

15

Again, cite? This, and your previous post, bears no relation to what goes on in the real world.

16

TBG said:

adhay said:

It is certainly possible to constrain the rules for such a forum to discuss practical means of achieving sustainability and limit out discussion about the need for, value of, or alternatives to sustainability. “We are not debating the rightness or wrongness, or the need, this forum is for discussing the means of achieving and implementing sustainability at the local level.” If that discussion includes “get involved in local politics, write opinion pieces for your newspapers, etc” then that certainly is a political element, without being an argument about why it should be undertaken.

17

Colibri

The main difference between the ‘real world’ as you describe it and the potential post cheap oil world that I’m talking about is that your world is based on competition and mine is based on cooperation.

Your world (also the world I’m living in at present) was imposed on us at birth. All the best real estate had been divvied up and family political dynasties control the govt and its policies, foreign and domestic while cheap oil provides bread and circuses for the masses. This, while our media to this day trumpets the idea that to become more fit in the social Darwinian scheme of things, you need this year’s model.

The party’s over.

My world is just starting out.

We recognize that things are going to get very tight but agree that by becoming less dependent on gas and imported food, we can much alleviate locally the privations which are sure to come to most of the world.

It begins with a few concerned citizens ringing the wake up bell, calling together local agriculturists, making them aware of the greater problem and encouraging them to work together toward bringing about local sustainability. We encourage individual participation in their efforts and rest takes care of itself. There is no “govt”, per se, although I see something like The Local Agricultural Consolidation Project, Inc. as a member of the local Chamber of Commerce with the community communication network at its disposal. Now that’s politics.

Point being, something like this grows from the ground up and transparency is the key. Everyone knows everybody else and what they’re doing. Got no time to steal, brother.

Now I know this is not a cite but it’s all I’m going to say on the subject.

18

The trouble is that “our world” of greed and competition and politics has been around since the Neolithic era. The earliest surviving written works–the Epic of Gilgamesh, the Iliad, the Oddessy, the Bible–all describe a world where human beings strive and fight and argue and squabble.

The people who impose this world on us are the fighters and squabblers. But how are you going to get them to stop fighting? By tellng them that this crisis is too important to waste time fighting? That ain’t gonna work.

I’m looking out my window right now, and seeing hundreds of trees. Why do trees grow tall? A taller tree absorbs more sunlight than a short tree. But investing all that energy in a thick trunk is wasteful. If only the trees could get together and agree to only grow 1 cm from the ground, they’d be much more efficient. But the first tree to break the rules and grow 1.1 cm from the ground will overshadow the others. And pretty soon we have majestic redwoods pouring insane amounts of resources into selfishly hogging the light. And so a forest is proof that your world cannot happen.

19

Call me when the revolution starts, comrade.

20

adhay, wouldn’t a blog be a better place for you to disseminate your ideas?
With a blog you can control the discourse, present the main topics, and moderate comments. You can’t do that here.