Robert Paterson's Weblog

Resilient Communities - First Public Discussion on PEI June 4 Summerside

It's amazing - The idea of "Resilience" is bursting out everywhere. "Resilient Communities" are those that are starting to think about how they will cope when the institutions and systems that we rely on for energy, food and governance might break down.

50 years ago on PEI or in any place, more than half the food eaten was grown within 100 miles. Most even closer. Now most food travels more than 1,000 miles and very little is produced locally. What if the just in time food system might falter or break. What if we lost access to oil? What would it be like to not have oil or electricity for 3 months? We take for granted that global systems of supply are safe and reliable and we have given up our ability to provide the basics for life.

What can we do to plan for such a risk? Can we continue to live as if there was no such risk?

On June 4 there is a work shop on Resilience where I will join 3 other speakers to introduce many of the ideas about what we might do to start to plan to take back our power.

If you are interested please contact Andrea by Email or call 902-894-3399

Here are the details:

Building Resilient Communities in the 21st Century – A Collective Think Tank

1:45 – 4:00pm, June 4

Navigating the way for Resilient Communities through Partnerships and Collaboration  

The Atlantic Coordinating Committee on Crime Prevention and Community Safety (ACC) and the Atlantic Summer Institute on Healthy and Safe Communities (ASI) are navigating their way together to help build resilient communities.  

With a shared vision of building and sustaining healthy and safe communities these two groups will come together to share in a joint event, Building Resilient Communities for the 21st Century – A Collective Think Tank, to be held 2:00 – 4:00pm, June 4.

This Think Tank will be an interactive session to engage people in a dialogue about building our communities to be resilient and sustainable in the 21st century. Community leaders from the Atlantic Region with knowledge and experiences of resiliency will open the session with brief remarks. Dialogue will be moderated and will engage participants in discussion on the following questions: 

• How do people and communities survive and thrive in times of change or in spite of difficult circumstances?

• What makes communities resilient?

• What policies are needed to support communities to cope with economic and social change? 

Speaker and Moderator Profiles 

Chief Darlene Bernard was elected Chief of the Lennox Island First Nation in April 2001. She has been re-elected in 2004 and 2007. Prior to her election as Chief, she served in many important positions with the Lennox Island Band, including positions in Economic Development, Human Resources Development and served as the Director of Employment Services for the band for many years. While serving in this capacity, she played in leading role in include adult education under the AHRDA program and implemented an upgrading program on Lennox Island. Among her proudest accomplishments are the creation of the Mi’kmaq Confederacy of Prince Edward Island, the signing of the Canada-PEI-Mi’kmaq Partnership Agreement and the construction of the Chief Mary Bernard Women’s Shelter in Lennox Island. 

Aisling Gogan is the Director of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Poverty Reduction Strategy. This is a Government-wide strategy overseen by a committee of 12 ministers and has a 10 year goal of transforming Newfoundland and Labrador into a province with the least poverty. Prior to joining Newfoundland and Labrador’s public service she worked as a self-employed social program evaluation consultant and taught Political Science at Memorial University. 

Monique LeBlanc (Moderator) lives and works in Fredericton and currently holds the position of Provincial Coordinator for NB, with Health Canada - Atlantic Region. Monique has a unique connection to both the Atlantic Summer Institute on Healthy and Safe Communities and the Atlantic Coordinating Committee on Crime Prevention and Community Safety, having served on the board and subcommittees of both: the ACC from 1998-2005 and the ASI since 2003. She has had the privilege of working alongside dynamic, passionate, and knowledgeable people in government, in communities and in academia, who have increased her commitment to social justice, to partnership and to helping to break down silo-thinking in government and other organizations. 

Robert Paterson is the President of The Renewal Consulting Group Inc. which was founded in 1994. The motto of the firm is "Looking Beneath the Surface" - helping clients find root causes to complex issues that enable them to frame an optimal context for action. Renewal acts as a bridge between the conventional corporate world and the new networked more personal world. Rob’s experience has spanned the breadth from working as Senior Advisor for Dr Fraser Mustard (President of the CIAR) and the financial sector (CIBC), to understanding global culture and deep involvement in community. Resilient Communities is his most urgent fascination. In our hyper connected world, it is becoming clear that the smallest break in energy, food or credit supplies can reduce a society to ruin. What are the local buffers that would offer enough resilience to survive these shocks? In the fall of 2008, the first international conference on resiliency was held at UPEI, which engaged participants to explore the re-localization of power, energy, food and credit as vectors for increasing resilience. 

Rick Shaw, joined the RCMP in 1990 at Halifax and is originally from Cape Breton, NS. He served 12 years in British Columbia at five postings. His duties in Terrace and Kelowna included General Duty, General Investigation Section (Drugs / Major Crimes), Bicycle Patrol and Highway Patrol. He was the Detachment Commander at his other three postings of Anahim Lake, McBride and Masset. Insp. Shaw transferred to RCMP Headquarters, Ottawa, in Dec. 2003 to the Operational Policy Section. He held numerous portfolios including Officer Safety, Police Dog Services, Use of Force and Backup Policy. He was commissioned to the rank of Inspector as the Officer in Charge (OIC) of National Youth Services in 2007. This role was soon amalgamated with the OIC of Community Policing to form his current position OIC of RCMP National Crime Prevention Services.

Natural Farming - The Salatin Polyface Story

If you have read the Omnivore's Dilemma, you will have read that amazing chapter about the Salatin Family.

Here is a link to a few short videos and to their main site.

The farm of the future is here. It is not hard to do only hard if you think that farming is how we all do it now

Thanks Josh for the link

New World Bjork - See!

See! Thanks to DemeterMuse

Train-whistles, a sweet clementine
Blueberries, dancers in line
Cobwebs, a bakery sign

Ooooh - a sweet clementine
Ooooh - dancers in line
Ooooh ...
If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder - I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see
I'm softly walking on air
Halfway to heaven from here
Sunlight unfolds in my hair

Ooooh - I'm walking on air
Ooooh - to heaven from here
Ooooh ...
If living is seeing
I'm holding my breath
In wonder - I wonder
What happens next?
A new world, a new day to see

Art 2.0 Inside the artist's mind

Here is a link to James'

Squeeze the "pustule" and you will release the "thing" - explore the universe. Follow the arrows back. Return the rear end of the pustule - be reborn as a new figure - go out and explore again.

Art 2.0. James has created a world that you inhabit. You participate inside the mind and palette of James.

Surely art would also change? If Art 1.0 shows you only one perspective - that of the artist - Art 2.0 will enable you to explore inside the art?

And who is James?

My dear son and also genius

Green Grand Daughter

Freelancing - the Dutch Experience

My friend, Ton added this to the Freelancing story - in the Netherlands, Freelancing is no longer just for the few:

Workshops like those are important for several reasons. First of all because more and more people are working as independent professionals. Second, because it seems that what makes traditional organizations work is now making them fail in a more complex environment and a world that is now much more clearly the closed resource system it already always was, rendering the eternal-growth-paradigm of our economy and monetary system simply impossible.

As to the first point, the number of independent professionals in the Netherlands started to rise sharply in 2000. This was the moment where people here were sufficiently connected via internet (>75% of companies in 2000, now ~100%) and mobile communications (>67% of people in 2000, now 115%, i.e. 19M subscriptions on 16M5 people), to be able to loosen yourself from incumbent structures and still stay in touch with the people and resources needed to do your tasks. (See this earlier posting on workplace) As a result over half of all registered businesses in the Netherlands are now in fact independent professionals (434.710 out of 797.840 in January 2008, equaling 5% of the work force.). Of those independent professionals 60% routinely work together with other independents on projects, and another 25% want to do so. The number of independent professionals has risen even more in the last three months as larger companies are getting hit by the recession.

Maybe this transition will happen more quickly. After all, with so many layoffs here in Canada and the US, many will seek to find their own way rather than look for another job.

How is it going with you? What is your freelance story?

The Fractal History of the World - A map of where we are and where we are going

Would you like to know what is really going on? Would you like to have some confidence that you could plan for your future? Would you like to be able to test the solutions being offered and know what will work or not?

Would you like a map that can take you into the future?

I think I can offer you this.

We can experience our world right now as if we were living on a Caribbean Island in a Hurricane. All we know and feel is Chaos and confusion as titanic forces beyond our ken and control knock down how we live.

Or we can get up high enough to see the pattern and the nature of the hurricane and learn where we are. We can have a map. The map won't stop the storm, but it will enable us to navigate into the future and to avoid the rocks and the lee shore. The map can help us have some control.

We know that all turbulence has a pattern. We know that the pattern is always the same. It is Fractal. We know that all development has a pattern. That pattern is also Fractal. In fact it is the same pattern!

We also know that the only way we can see this pattern is to find the right perspective. If we look into the night sky, we see only chaos. If we use the Hubble, we can see that the universe is made up of highly ordered structures, galaxies. Which of course look like hurricanes. That are also the same pattern that nature uses to organize all development.

In this series, I have sketched out a history of our species using fractals to show our development. I think I can offer you a map that will tell us what is happening now and where we might be going. I can't tell you what is going to happen with precision, but I can offer up a highly probable view of the future.

Here is the universal pattern that nature uses to organize complex systems.

Human Society is surely a complex system. As is a human as an individual. All our body parts use this ratio. So is the family, the tribe and the nation.

Just before we go into the Fractal History series, here are two key ways of seeing this pattern.

The curve is shaped, not controlled, by the ideal of the ideal environment for whatever is under development. An acorn that sprouts in an optimal environment for oak trees will grow into a sapling. If the environment remains supportive it will progress to maturity. If the environment remains supportive it will progress in the end to becoming a mature oak forest that itself supports a huge life system.

So nothing is guaranteed, but we can influence the curve by supplying the optimal environment. Every gardener knows this. Few parents do!

So the real work is not managing but in environment setting. In human societies this is largely our culture. It is our culture that shapes us. It is our culture that lifted us up from the rest of nature. We can use culture to give us the ability to adapt to what ever nature throws at us.

So if our culture does not evolve and offer us the optimal support, we will get stuck or worse, fail.

For the most important is that the curve is not a straight line. If we get stuck at any of the key curves in the pattern, our development is halted. Many so called adult's are stuck in childhood. If the damage is too great, such as a baby in a Romanian Orphanage who gets no love, we can die or never mature.

Every single thing in nature living or inert has key factors that apply to the bends in the curve. We know what these are for galaxies and for oak trees. What are they for us? I think I know.

In the model I offer, you will see how the same few vectors have helped us turn the corner at every point so far. You as I did, will see that they have come back into full force and are working on our current society.

Of course it does not mean that we will make the turn successfully. We can only see the probabilities of the future. But it is my hope that if enough of us can see this, that we can act deliberately to give us a good nudge in the right direction.

I hope that you find this helpful.

• Part 1 - Hari Seldon is a Reality - We can tell the future
  

• Part 2 - Our Time Now - What is going on

• Part 3 Our Future - Collapse or Descent

• Part 4 - Freelancing - the path to the new

Here are some supporting articles:

• Fractals the math for complex problems and systems - why we need this now

• What we now live in a  complex system and why trying to solve complex problems with complicated or simple processes fail

• What working with nature's power rather than against it can be like

• Telecommuting - one of the paths to the future

• Recession Gardens - one of the paths to the future
  

• Rebecca Hosking's farm of the Future - The path to the future

Freelancing - A Guide to Finding Freedom

I used to think that we could reform the system from within. I have failed utterly in that. Luther tried so hard to stay within the Church. But he couldn't either. The system is so powerful that I don't think that internal reform is possible. Clayton Christenson makes the same point in the Innovator's Dilemma. The only way the new and disruptive can survive the immune response of the host, is for it to be separate from the main organization.

We also know that knowing what is best and doing it does not follow. I know I need to lose 30 pounds. But at the moment I can't. You may know you need to stop smoking - but it is so hard. This kind of deep change can only happen when we live it and when we have support from others like us. I need the support of other pudgy middle aged men to lose the weight. Smokers will push back at religious non smokers, but have a chance if supported by empathic ex smokers who know how hard this is.

So bearing these two points in mind, here is my series on Freelancing.

I offer it up as one who was the epitome of the corporate and institutional life. As one who was a Prince of the old system. All that I have learned to become what I am today, was learned in a messy and fumbling manner. The only way I could have got to where I am now is with the support of dear friends.

I offer it up also in the now certain knowledge that if enough of us can separate ourselves from the system as it is, we have a chance to build the new one along side. We might truly execute the Christenson strategy in society. We build grow the better to a size where others can join us.

I hope that you find yourself in here somewhere. Good luck

• Introducing the idea and the series
• What’s it’s like – Being truly free
• Why a job is not secure
• How to leave your job and how to market – It’s all about the relationship
• Costs – Freedom – Co Working – Sleeping at Night
• Growth – how to grow and not lose it all
• Managing yourself and your clients – how to be a grown up – it’s all about love
• Working at Home – managing your time your Spouse and Kids
• How to have Control and Adventure

What the leading edge of the recession looks like - no quick fix!

Over the next 3 months I will be posting about our work with 32 of the hardest hit cities in America. Our intent - to mobilize the people to help each other. As you can see from this film - there is no help to come from the system. They are in deep trouble too. When you see this excellent film you will see that there is no way back to where we were. We create a new economy or nothing.

Democracy - We have a problem!

"We have geared the machines and locked all together into interdependence; we have built the great cities; now there is no escape. We have gathered vast populations incapable of free survival, insulated From the strong earth, each person in himself helpless, on all dependent. The circle is closed, and the net Is being hauled in."

  ~ From The Purse Seine, Robinson Jeffers, 1937

Churchill once said words to the effect that Democracy was a very flawed system but better than any alternative.

I am not so sure anymore? Can democracy as we know it help us in the increasingly complex world that we live it? Is there a better way?

First a few headlines that lead me to believe that we have indeed a problem. As I list them - see if you see a pattern that may tell us what the core problem may be.

California is all but ungovernable. It is not possible to tax to pay for services. It is not possible to cope with the problem. No Governor can break the logjam of the state house and how democracy works in CA.

In the UK it is now clear that those in Parliament have routinely abused their position. It is not just a few bad apples. The entire culture is rotten. No one in England has any trust left for MP's.

Washington is clearly bought by special interests. Black Rock a huge hedge fund is in control of the bailout! The NRA will never allow sensible people to deal with guns. Healthcare reform will never get by the Insurance Companies. Iceland's government was completely controlled by the kleptocrats.

We tout democracy in the developing world and then fuss when Hamas win the election or when a weak Afghan president buys votes by giving in to the extremists on women. Israel will never be able to move because the settlers and the religious right control the system.

In Mexico, the drug lords have the money and the will to control the country.

So here is the problem. Whether it is Wall Street or the Taliban, special interests has hijacked democracy. Politicians are there to be bought off by money or by threat. Democracies all over the world are controlled by small groups. The majority of people are along for the ride and are helpless.

Do you have any confidence that our elected officials can cope anymore?

Is this also not a reflection of all our institutions?

Have not nearly all become self centred?

So here is what I think will happen. And it is not about reform as we know it.

Let's look at how history reminds what happens when civilizations are captured by in groups at a time when key resources become tight as they will in the time of peak oil, tight credit, lack of water etc.

The last great statue on Easter Island was cut just before the collapse. The last great pyramid was built by the Maya juts before the end. All in a vain attempt to appease the Gods by the elite.

When all failed. When it was clear that the elite were only shams. Well it was not pretty.

What then happened in central America was that the people left the cities and have never really returned.

In 400 Ad there were 700,000 people in Rome. By 500 there were maybe 20,000. There was not a million people in a city again until 1800 in London.

What I can see is a pattern of growth that leads to over shoot that leads to the elite taking one last grasp at control. But nature and the cost of the overshoot always has the last laugh and we collapse back into the mud.

So what to do? Wait passively? Until now we did not have enough perspective to see the pattern. But if we can then there is action that we can take.

It is to start to relocalize power and bring back control to where we live. if say on PEI where I live we can provide 80% of our food and 80% of our energy, we may have in fact a better life in the future than we do now.

Any community can do this. Hundreds now are thinking this way.

The decision that I have made is that I will invest my time and energy only in taking back control locally. For me, my family and for the people that live near me.

Ironically, such a decision brings me closer to your community. For there is no competition for resources from the centre. We can all help each other learn how to do this well.

We can make the elite irrelevant.