Hi Robert - thanks for the comment on Emergent's wall. I apologize for being inactive on the Pickens Plan site - I have been busy!

I completely agree with your comment about the need for more engineers to solve this issue. The inefficiencies in our built environment are a main source of waste, and better design can lead to a healthier environment.

I also like what you are doing with the EPA. Fortunately Lisa Jackson has been proactive thus far and I imagine her administration would be receptive to the work you are doing

Hi Robert! I appreciate what you have shared on our Transition Cascadia group and the spirit of your sharing. It is good to have you connecting with your seaside neighbors over the Cascade Mt towards the setting sun!
I have been blessed with walking & resting on the lands north of Spokane!

I have connected with Lane, the founder of the Cascadia site, to offer assistance in adding the ning site option of all of us members being able to create "Discussion/Forums", to communicate/organize our discussions & resource links, on Cascadia Transition when we choose. I hope you stay connected with us!

Robert,

I also got great benefit out of our intercourse ;-)

My best wishes to Spokane and the region. I've been through Spokane on a bus, like many to most places, at risk of understatement, it could use some help. Yes, a suburb of Spokane is Cheney, but oui won't hold that against thee all.

Digest the following and if you want to carry on further conversations feel free to e-mail me directly at peoplesequityunion@earthlink.net . :

Green Jobs, Equity, and Carbon


These Friends (Friends of the Earth) have it half correct. Cap and trade is a sham, a racket, an invention of Wall Street types.

We should implement carbon taxes and maybe caps, but we need to consider a workable transition so that we do not have power outages and freezing and starving people.

Wind and PVs are an illusion. Neither supplies the voltage and amperage needed to do the great amount of work that our society has grown accustomed to.

The key to a bountiful green (building) economy is the reversal of the thirty, fifty, one hundred year trend of sprawl development, particularly in the United States (that's what I know).

By rebuilding neighborhoods and reallocating goods and services to those renovated neighborhoods (made walkable, meaning that the great majority of people will be able to get what they need and reasonably want within walking distance to their homes).

Such a tremendous commitment and dedication of resources will be a boom for the building trades and will create the effect of reducing automobile usage by 80% in the next 20 to 40 years. Neighborhood, commercial, community and work/telecommute centers will be centrally placed in what are now alienating, automobile dependent, strictly residential areas, alleviating the problems associated with post-peak oil and climate change and bringing with it the neighborly qualities of life associated with communities and neighborhoods, that most individuals and families currently lack.

If we do this, we can take the opportunity to retrofit for weatherization, passive solar design (heating and cooling), electronic environmental controls, solar assisted hot water and drying systems, limited wind and PVs.

Also if done correctly, we can make changes in ownership arrangements that are much more fair and just, and work towards an equitable distribution of wealth among neighborhoods/villages.

Concerning FOEs suggestion of a publicly financed economy, we would optimally transition the "private sector" to a quasi-public one working in cooperation with public funding programs. The ideal would really be to phase out the government programs as much as possible.


In Peace, Friendship, Community, Cooperation, and Solidarity,

Mike Morin
Eugene, OR, USA
(541) 343-3808