Transitioning to Sustainability
Albert Bates
Global Ecovillage Network
October 5, 2005, New York City
© 2005 Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology
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Petrocollapse Russia, 1991: the gas lines ran for several kilometers. Some days there was not even any fuel at the stations where they waited, but they kept waiting, hoping the station would be refueled, if not that day, maybe the next. |
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Traffic vanished from city streets. Only the military and mafia had fuel. People took trains to the country on weekends to farm small garden plots ("dachas") in order to have enough food for the winter. |
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Every day people queued up at bakeries and grocery stores, hoping to be among the first to pick from the nearly empty shelves. |
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Trucks carrying food from the countryside didn’t bother to go all the way to the grocery stores or central warehouses. They could pull up to any apartment house and sell their loads in a few minutes. |
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 Enterprising Russians made rooftop gardens and planted nut trees between buildings. They found that 3 people working on the roof—and making worm compost under the stairwells—could supply 150 residents with fresh fruit and vegetables. |
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 Young people started moving to former State farms and abandoned villages and building new ecovillages. |
In Cuba the number of yokes of oxen increased from 500 to 5000.  |
 People learned to make medicines from more than 8000 indigenous plants. 20,000+ urban food gardens have been put in place and are now producing more than 65% of the food needed for the city of Habana. |
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Intercity transport enlisted giant “Camels” that could carry 300 passengers.
Horses and bicycles reclaimed city streets. |
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1991-94 First international meetings of representatives of ecovillage communities in Denmark, Germany, Russia and Scotland and decision to formalize the ecovillage movement under the name of the Global Ecovillage Network (GEN) |
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Three Driving Impulses to the Ecovillage Movement: Social Egalitarianism Economic and Land-use Efficiency Eco-idealism / Spirituality Today there are more than 1,000,000 ecovillagers living in at least 20,000 experimental and transitional communities worldwide. Many of these are urban experiments. Many are in poorest parts of the 2/3 world. |
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Four scenarios from ‘POWERDOWN’ by Richard Heinberg -
1. Last One Standing - the way of WAR and COMPETITION Ecovillages are the fourth strategy. |
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Building Lifeboats
Emergency Preparation |
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An Alternative World
Buildings But the expe |
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 Dr. Patch Adams’ ecovillage in West Virginia demonstrates an important survival aspect: it’s planned 40-bed hospital will provide an essential service for the surrounding region. |
| Campus Initiatives
Campus ecovillages are the latest innovation—they are experimental crucibles for changing the way we all will live, and students living in them are pioneering the future.
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 Berea College is part of the growing Green Campus or University Ecovillage movement in North America |
| Higher Education Network for Sustainability and the Environment Association of University Leaders for a Sustainable Future Mount Allison University Ball State Slippery Rock Univ. Alter Project SLU MacKoskey Center Humboldt State’s CCAT Center for Regenerative Studies at Cal Poly Pomona Northland College’s Eco-house McLean Environmental Living and Learning Center Middlebury College’s Weybridge House Univ. of Vermont’s Slade House Consortium for Ecological Living Cornell’s Ecology House and EcoVillage at Ithaca Sustainable Communities Associates at Oberlin College Oberlin’s Ecological Design Innovation Center College of the Atlantic Berea College Ecovillage Berea College Sustainability and Environmental Studies House Sterling College Ecodorm at Warren Wilson College Prescott College Mercury House Living Routes and Geocommons |
 Eco-village at Ithaca |
| Ecovillages themselves are becoming educational centers, offering an unique immersion pedagogy for sustainability studies. Through Gaia University in the US and UK, ecovillages are now able to offer Bachelors and Masters degrees accredited througfhout the world.
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Instituto Latinoamericano de Permacultura, Bolivia The Farm Ecovillage Training Center, USA International Society for Ecology and Culture, Ladakh, Kashmir Center for Alternative Technology in Wales, U.K. Reserva Integral Sasardi, Colombia San Isidro, Mexico Thlolego, South Africa Lebensgarten, Germany Zegg, Germany Damanhur, Italy Tamera, Portugal Lost Valley, USA Kibbutz Lotan, Israel Auroville, India Djanbung, Australia El Poncho, Bolivia Huehuecoyotl, Mexico Moonshadow, USA Sirius. USA Mollison Center, Brazil Tanamalwila, Sri Lanka Eco-Yoff, Senegal Crystal Waters, Australia Gaia, Argentina Ecovila ABRA144, Brazil Ecovillage el Jobero, Cuba Findhorn, Scotland Ecoaldea Gratitud, Mexico |
| Near Term Priorities
Access to the basics: food, water, medical, sanitation |
Alternative Fuels
Contrary to some university studies, alternative fuels are economical to produce on a small scale. Some ecovillages are producing ethanol and biofuels from diverse crops like crabapples, chaff, bullrushes and bamboo, using solar heating, fermentation and cold press techniques that have no fossil fuel inputs. |
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Most travel needs are very local. Lightweight pedal assist, solar and hybrid vehicles can meet these needs if they don’t have to compete on the highway with SUV behemoths. |
| At the Tamera Solar Village in Portugal, vegetable oil is heated under parabolic Fresnel lens arrays to 200°C then stored up to 3 days in insulated tanks before being used for heating, cooking and to fire Stirling engines for electricity. |  |
| Damanhur, an ecovillage of 800 residents, created a complimentary local currency, the Damanhurian Credit, which encouraged regional trading and enabled the entire valley to preserve its valuable local farming and manufacturing culture. |  |
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China is now providing federal support to create ecovillages and ecoregions in rural areas. It also plans to build at least one ecocity for 10 million people in the next 10 years. |
| Challenges to Ecovillagers | Start-up financing Community glue Creation of business support infrastructures The whole-systems challenge Cultural, financial, and governmental disincentives Living on the edge: trials and errors |
| The solution to all of these is a mutual assistance network. To learn more about the work of the network, see gen.ecovillage.org |
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riment is not new… just more multidimensional and harmonized.
