Small Spaces etc. - Micro Minimal

This week the most minimal of small spaces to date. The first is called One-Sqm-House. This one square meter (10 square feet) dwelling is an architect's prototype. This clip is via Alex at Tiny House Talk, whose tag line is "small spaces more freedom."

When I first saw this I thought of past competitions for architects and designers to produce temporary, emergency and homeless shelter.

The examples below are from one of these competitions 5 years ago. I've since lost the proper links to the source. Whoops.

There is a kind of hierarchy within the homeless population.  There are those who have found temporary shelter within homes of family or friends, those who have an RV or car, those who have vouchers for temporary shelter and those simply fending for themselves on the street.  Despite the most common picture of a homeless person being like the Banksy illustration at the beginning of this post or the guy above, it is women with children who are in fact the most vulnerable of homeless population. 

The Babes of Wrath are two women, Diane Nilan and Pat LaMarche, who travel around the country and work with homeless children and families. You can follow their EPIC Journey (Everyday People In Crisis) here. They are interviewed here on the Young Turks.

Recently the homeless were counted in San Diego County, a local girl mounted a blanket distribution project for the homeless in memory of her uncle and housing strategies for lowest income has presumably been the subject of several years of General Planning Update citizen participation. 

Aternet is currently running a series on the poor. Part 1's recent article, 2 Years in Jail for Sitting on a Milk Crate? The Shocking Ways America Punishes Poor People Living on the Street (Hard Times, USA) haunted me. I know from experience how few places there are to sit while walking in Encinitas. We aren't alone. Laws all over the country are designed solely to target the homeless. There are better solutions. 

Part 2 is titled Hard Times, USA: Would You Consider Thinking Differently About Poverty and Poor and Homeless People? A huge number of Americans feel vulnerable every day of every week, their future unknown. What are you going to do about it? Both of these are really excellent articles and are recommended. The rest of this powerful series Hard Times USA is at Alternet this month.

There is one simple response (as the video illustrated) for what is the most important thing one could spend money on for the homeless? Houses. Simple but not easy to incorporate in our community dialog.

Gleaning

In this season of food drives, here is a challenging idea for Encinitas to consider in all the growing seasons to come. Gleaning. The video below speaks to Ventura County and their Food Share Program.

What do we have in San Diego County? We have Senior Gleaners with an emphasis on grocery store shelves in this coastal area. It would be good to hear what exists now and what might really fit well with our community goals and community future. Sounds like this is a wonderful start. And, boy do we have seniors. Encinitas seniors appear to be a vigorous and involved lot.

"The Senior Gleaners of San Diego County are working to enhance the food-giving capacities of local agencies, most of which run out of food on a monthly basis. Senior Gleaners is divided into three main working groups in the county , South County, North County and the Coastal area. Each area has a team of workers who volunteer to pick, sort, gather and deliver up to 100,000 pounds of food to area agencies monthly. Only agencies that qualify under federal poverty rules (and have a 501-c-3 nonprofit status) are eligible to receive the food. Growers contact team leaders when they have crops that are over-ripe or too costly to pick; certain grocery stores offer edible food that cannot be sold and packing sheds have crates of food that is not suitable for the marketplace but safe to eat."

The Gleaners from Hunger In California on Vimeo.

On another local note, how about gleaning urban neighborhoods where homeowners with more fruit trees than they can manage could contact Encinitas gleaners to harvest and distribute this foraged fruit?  What about involving the young? vets? women in particular? What about future plans to plant many fruit and nut trees in Encinitas Urban Forest for this kind of public use? The right entrepreneurial spirit could do a great deal here.

Waste is our easiest target for eradicating ills - be it insufficient food, energy, money, goods or services - or the existence of litter and pollution.

Turn Off That Damn Light!

Well, I laughed.  This also prompted the more serious issue of what our loss of night skies is doing to us and to the living world around us.

During this Solstice holiday, the following LA Times article excerpted below was recommended by friends.

The need for humans to have healthy sleep patterns has been well documented. Anyone of us who has had to work the midnight shift knows the havoc this can play on one's emotions and physical body.

"Our bodies need darkness to produce the hormone melatonin, which keeps certain cancers from developing, and our bodies need darkness for sleep."

"The rest of the world depends on darkness as well, including nocturnal and crepuscular species of birds, insects, mammals, fish and reptiles. Some examples are well known — the 400 species of birds that migrate at night in North America, the sea turtles that come ashore to lay their eggs — and some are not, such as the bats that save American farmers billions in pest control and the moths that pollinate 80% of the world's flora. Ecological light pollution is like the bulldozer of the night, wrecking habitat and disrupting ecosystems several billion years in the making. Simply put, without darkness, Earth's ecology would collapse."

The primary point here is that the author, Paul Bogard makes is that we can change this.

"It doesn't have to be this way. Light pollution is readily within our ability to solve, using new lighting technologies and shielding existing lights. Already, many cities and towns across North America and Europe are changing to LED streetlights, which offer dramatic possibilities for controlling wasted light. Other communities are finding success with simply turning off portions of their public lighting after midnight. Even Paris, the famed "city of light," which already turns off its monument lighting after 1 a.m., will this summer start to require its shops, offices and public buildings to turn off lights after 2 a.m. Though primarily designed to save energy, such reductions in light will also go far in addressing light pollution. But we will never truly address the problem of light pollution until we become aware of the irreplaceable value and beauty of the darkness we are losing."

In addition to this informative piece is a companion, Dark Skies (pdf) with some really good illustrations to support the Bogard argument.

This is yet another topic that has often been belittled and mocked as some hippy goofiness or NIMBY fixation, as with the Hall property plans for a Regional Sports Park's extensive exterior lighting. For this reason it seems we should help educate our friends, neighbors and city planners to the realities of night skies to our healthy and prosperity.

Hat Tip to C.J. and Jean Bernard Minster

Update via Encinitas Undercover 12/28/12
Read the letter to the UT Editor from a Cardiff student regarding 90 foot high lights.

Fracking Comes to California

Fracking being a real danger to water table safety and purity is becoming well known, in part due to Josh Fox's movie Gasland. But, if that isn't threat enough, the process causing earthquakes sounds extremely dangerous to this non-scientist.

Via Salon
The Federal Government auctioned off 18,000 acres of leased land in Central California.

"Eight different groups — including oil companies — bid for the leases involving 15 parcels of land up for auction in rural stretches of Monterey, San Benito and Fresno counties, Bureau of Land Management spokesman David Christy said. The agency plans to announce the winners within 24 hours.

Numerous environmental groups who saw the auction as a sign that California is next in line for an oil and gas boom protested outside the auction in Sacramento, with some activists donning hazmat suits.

The auction attracted a normal turnout of bidders, and about half the parcels went for just $2.50 an acre, much less than the typical price in nearby Kern County, an oil-rich basin along a mountain range north of Los Angeles."

Via Crooks & Liars

 

C&L's Karoli writes of the auction this week,

There were protests, of course, but that didn't really stop anything. Similarly, the regulations around fracking are so loose that having to get an additional permit is just part of the cost of getting richer to these oil barons. Worse, fracking regulations aren't even finalized yet, and were just pushed back yet again. Until demand lessens, they're going to be able to destroy the environment and hasten climate change. This needs to be as high of a priority as Medicare and union membership. The oligarchs will not be satisfied until they have exhausted or stolen every resource on the planet.

Related Story in the Cultural Environment 

Oil and Gas Industry Prepare Smear Campaign Against Matt Damon Flick "Promised Land"

Next month Focus Features releases Matt Damon’s new movie and the oil and gas industry is worried sick about it. The movie, Promised Land , is about a Pennsylvania farm town deciding whether to go forward with shale gas drilling after a team of landmen arrives in the area.

This is a worthy read, both for the orchestrated huge money tactics that are being rolled out by fossil fuel industry and for the story being told by this Hollywood film. (It is still difficult to believe that prisons are not filled with these fossil fuel industry decision makers, bribery agents and hucksters.)

But my primary reason for adding this story about a fictional place is what has the oil and gas industry giants so spooked and what our community is actively pursuing - citizen participation in decision making. This film sounds like a source of inspiration even if there are no shale fields directly under our feet. Whatever the resource or threat to climate change we must be vigilant.

Despite the industry's faux-outrage and attempts to stir up hype, the Damon movie is not anti-fracking or a propaganda piece. The film offers up a clear-eyed look at economic hardships faced in many rural communities. It also makes a simple point: with so much at stake, shouldn't communities have a candid, informed discussion about the risks and benefits of oil and gas drilling?

Killers

Ten Arguments Gun Advocates Make, and Why They're Wrong

by PAUL WALDMAN 12/15/12 in The American Prospect Post (in total)

A guide to the debate we'll be having, or at least we ought to have.

There has been yet another mass shooting, something that now seems to occur on a monthly basis. Every time another tragedy like this occurs, gun advocates make the same arguments about why we can't possibly do anything to restrict the weaponization of our culture. Here's a guide to what they'll be saying in the coming days:

1. Now isn't the time to talk about guns.
We're going to hear this over and over, and not just from gun advocates; Jay Carney said it to White House reporters today. But if we're not going to talk about it now, when are we going to talk about it? After Sandy hit the East Coast, no one said, "Now isn't the time to talk about disaster preparedness; best leave that until it doesn't seem so urgent." When there's a terrorist attack, no one says, "Now isn't the time to talk about terrorism." Now is exactly the time.

2. Guns don't kill people, people kill people.
Maybe, but people with guns kill many, many more people than they would if they didn't have guns, and guns designed to kill as many people as possible. We don't know if the murderer in Newtown was suffering from a suicidal depression, but many mass shooters in the past were. And guess what? People suffer from suicidal depression everywhere in the world. People get angry and upset everywhere in the world. But there aren't mass shootings every few weeks in England or Costa Rica or Japan, and the reason is that people in those places who have these impulses don't have an easy way to access lethal weapons and unlimited ammunition. But if you want to kill large numbers of people and you happen to be an American, you'll find it easy to do.

3. If only everybody around was armed, an ordinary civilian could take out a mass killer before he got too far.
If that were true, then how come it never happens? The truth is that in a chaotic situation, even highly trained police officers often kill bystanders. The idea that some accountant who spent a few hours at the range would suddenly turn into Jason Bourne and take out the killer without doing more harm than good has no basis in reality.

4. We don't need more laws, we just need to enforce the laws we have.
The people who say this are the same ones who fight to make sure that existing laws are as weak and ineffectual as possible. Our current gun laws are riddled with loopholes and allow people to amass enormous arsenals of military-style weapons with virtually no restrictions.

5. Criminals will always find a way to get guns no matter what measures we take, so what's the point?
The question isn't whether we could snap our fingers and make every gun disappear. It's whether we can make it harder for criminals to get guns, and harder for an unbalanced person with murderous intent to kill so many people. The goal is to reduce violence as much as possible. There's no other problem for which we'd say if we can't solve it completely and forever we shouldn't even try.

6. The Constitution says I have a right to own guns.
Yes it does, but for some reason gun advocates think that the right to bear arms is the only constitutional right that is virtually without limit. You have the right to practice your religion, but not if your religion involves human sacrifice. You have the right to free speech, but you can still be prosecuted for incitement or conspiracy, and you can be sued for libel. Every right is subject to limitation when it begins to threaten others, and the Supreme Court has affirmed that even though there is an individual right to gun ownership, the government can put reasonable restrictions on that right.

And we all know that if this shooter turns out to have a Muslim name, plenty of Americans, including plenty of gun owners, will be more than happy to give up all kinds of rights in the name of fighting terrorism. Have the government read my email? Have my cell phone company turn over my call records? Check which books I'm taking out of the library? Make me take my shoes off before getting on a plane, just because some idiot tried to blow up his sneakers? Sure, do what you've got to do. But don't make it harder to buy thousands of rounds of ammunition, because if we couldn't do that we'd no longer be free.

7. Widespread gun ownership is a guarantee against tyranny.
If that had anything to do with contemporary life, then mature democracies would be constantly overthrown by despots. But they aren't. We shouldn't write laws based on the fantasies of conspiracy theorists.

8. Guns are a part of American culture.
Indeed they are, but so are a lot of things, and that tells us nothing about whether they're good or bad and how we want to treat them going forward. Slavery was a part of American culture for a couple of hundred years, but eventually we decided it had to go.

9. The American people don't want more gun control.
The truth is that when public opinion polls have asked Americans about specific measures, the public is in favor of a much more restrictive gun regime than we have now. Significant majorities would like to see the assault weapons ban reinstated, mandatory licensing and training for all gun owners, significant waiting periods for purchases, and host of other restrictions (there are more details here). In many cases, gun owners themselves support more restrictions than we currently have.

10. Having movie theaters and schools full of kids periodically shot up is just a price we should be willing to pay if it means I get to play with guns and pretend I'm Wyatt Earp.
OK, that's actually an argument gun advocates don't make. But it's the truth that lies beneath all their other arguments. All that we suffer because of the proliferation of guns—these horrifying tragedies, the 30,000 Americans who are killed every year with guns—for gun advocates, it's unfortunate, but it's a price they're willing to [have others] pay. If only they'd have the guts to say it.

Postscript: The other vital conversation we should be having in this country that goes beyond guns.  This is a heartbreaking story, 'I Am Adam Lanza's Mother' - Let's talk mental illness.

Update: 12:30 pm, Sunday - Add your name to ask the Obama Administration to immediately address the issue of gun control through introduction of legislation in congress.

Climate 101

Sometimes just keeping it as simple and direct as possible - for our children, our contrary friends/family/neighbors and for ourselves. For that we have the Science Guy, Bill Nye.

Exxon Hates Your Children

How many of you scream at the Exxon Mobile commercials claiming "to care about the children" when we know it is their public relations arm messing with people's heart and mind disconnects to distract and confuse?  Big lies from the big guys - daily, all day.

The following ad has been created to refute the big lie.  *LOLsob*



From Grist:

There are two groups behind this genius ad: Oil Change International — an advocacy organization that’s fighting for clean energy and against fossil fuels — and The Other 98%, which calls itself “a grassroots network of concerned people fed up with the status quo in Washington.” There’s actually a policy agenda behind the ad — eliminating subsidies for fossil fuels. Here’s the argument the two groups are making:

Imagine if your government gave a company a sweet deal to build your local playground. Then, that company dumped toxic waste underneath where your kids play everyday, just because it was the most profitable thing for them to do.

What would you do? Obviously you’d protect your children and demand that the company fully pay to clean up their mess … you’d demand that your government immediately stop sending your tax dollars — subsidies — to that company.

That company is Exxon, the playground is our planet, and the sweet deal they get is by way of massive government handouts.

The groups are raising money for an ad buy next week; “the locations and scope will depend on the online fundraising campaign,” Oil Change International’s director told The Hill. But it looks like one of the audiences they’re looking to reach is Fox News viewers … and I would pay good money just to see how they try and defend Exxon against this argument. “Exxon loves your children! They make it possible for them to drive cars!” “They’re just trying to make money … oh wait …”

Well, this commercial -- brought to you courtesy of Oil Change International and The Other 98% -- answers them. And guess what: ExxonMobil really hates it. Why? Because it tells the stark, horrible truth about how Big Oil and ExxonMobil harms children in real ways, far more than having a bad score on a standardized test. It has them so aggravated that they're pushing to have the ads removed.

Via The Hill: 

“The campaign is offensive to the thousands of ExxonMobil employees and contractors who work hard every day to deliver an essential product in a safe and environmentally responsible way,” the company said in a statement Wednesday.

Via Crooks & Liars:

Well, shoot. I'm sorry, ExxonMobil, but it simply tells the truth about what you're really doing.

The company and oil industry more broadly are battling proposals to end tax deductions, arguing the efforts unfairly single out the industry for punishment and would stymie energy development.

Oil industry critics say that the tax code should not reward fossil fuel development at a time when scientists are increasingly sounding the alarmabout runaway global warming.

In this day of real-time news, it's really impossible for Big Oil to disguise their malfeasance and greed with slick education reform PR campaigns. That's what they really hate.

Let Dave Roberts explain it to your Uncle Charlie

No, not that Dave Roberts, our newest San Diego County Supervisor, Dave Roberts of Grist.

by digby

"It's a stale trope that these family holiday gatherings are fraught with political arguments. But .. they often are. We may choose to live in our tribal encalves most of the time but for an awful lot of us, the family that hatched us isn't all of the same tribe.

Anyway, for the climate change argument, get out your nifty IPAD and show this to Uncle Charlie:"

How many of us used the temperatures given in Fahrenheit are lulled by seeming low number of 2 degrees Celsius?  In reality a 2 degrees Celsius rise means 35.6 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit.  That is a horrible temperature rise, even for mild San Diego coastline temperatures. Update: Fixed math error.  This is horrible for ecosystems, tide and weather patterns, agriculture and lots of other interconnected things.  Plus it will be uncomfortable.

One can start today by changing the attitude that no waste in your life means deprivation.  This is on the personal level.  We can demand it of our new council on a local level (16 days, but who's counting?). There will be more climate change posts with email addresses and other thought provoking ideas from around the world and all over the net.

For the rest of your life make the impossible possible. Dave Roberts

Dogs & Cats Living Together . . . Mass Hysteria.

Thanksgiving for millions of us prompts the un-fun aspect at the heart of dysfunctional family gatherings.

This being a political blog, it is no great stretch to simply point out the hysteria within the national and local county Republican party with the recent election results, the proverbial War on Christmas O'Reilly rants and the utter madness of demanding consumerism means success amidst deep indebtedness of U.S. families.

Or another whole movement of people who can't grasp gratitude or thanksgiving while appalled at the horrendous realities that the US of A is supporting in domestic and foreign policies. Realities show the staggering gulf between the rich and the rest of us or the horror that is Israel's U.S. supported attacks on Gaza and other foreign wars (declared and undeclared).

My deep and abiding thanks is to the voters of this community for toppling the power structure and voting in Lisa Shaffer, Tony Kranz, Dave Roberts . . .  And for ousting Stocks and Bilbray.

For this writer it prompts the dark humor of the Bill Murray character's quote about chaos from 1984 Ghostbusters dialog:

Dr. Peter Venkman: This city is headed for a disaster of biblical proportions.
Mayor: What do you mean, "biblical"?
Dr Ray Stantz: What he means is Old Testament, Mr. Mayor, real wrath of God type stuff.
Dr. Peter Venkman: Exactly.
Dr Ray Stantz: Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling!
Dr. Egon Spengler: Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes...
Winston Zeddemore: The dead rising from the grave!
Dr. Peter Venkman: Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!
Mayor: All right, all right! I get the point!

There is evidence every year that there are those out of their minds with "buying hysteria".

The clip suggests spending time with family. Another approach, practiced here, is to simply make Thursday (and Friday) about what matters to you and your loved ones. Sometimes that means skipping it altogether, because choice matters in a deliberate life. It may just be that imposing thanks and fellowship can be hurtful to the most vulnerable.

Scientists! Not Just FIRE (Financial, Insurance, Real Estate)

Our community is filled with scientists, with many being internationally recognized leaders in their respective fields.  Most often this rich resource is not utilized by the Encinitas council majority, city manager, city attorney and city staff.  Councilwoman Teresa Barth has long made this point.  This is all going to change with a new city council made up of curious, engaging and open minds.

During this campaign, both Lisa Shaffer and Tony Kranz have made it a priority to engage this resource of expertise and international experience for the benefit of the community. Having the benefit of Shaffer's own credentials in the scientific community are part of this opportunity. Of course, simply having scientific knowledge doesn't necessarily ensure there is no controversy.  In fact, the scientific method demands testing, challenging and pushing the limits.  Our city government is not so fragile it cannot tolerate pushing the boundaries of the status quo and the outdated or no longer valid assumptions.

At the last city council meeting, Oct. 10 the agenda held the long awaited visitation by the San Diego Department of Environmental Health.  One of the key issues requested by Russell Levan and Teresa Barth 10 months ago was a full staff report on bioremediation of contaminated florist nursery soils so prevalent in Encinitas.  

Sadly, the presentation, council deliberations and vote were tightly bound to the Hall Property timeline and budget questions.   

Nonetheless, Councilwoman Barth tenaciously confronted all of the negatives, stressed the continuous improvement and the future freedom of healthy soils demanding no monitoring or maintenance.  She needs to be supported by more voices and votes on the dais with reality of nature as a focus rather than simply Realty®.

Month after month Russell Levan spoke up to the council and asked that this environmentally friendly approach to cleaning the soils of corrupted agricultural land be agendized and discussed openly.  He got part of his request. 

For those interested - Paul Stamets' TEDtalk on 6 ways mushrooms can save the world.

Diversity in our community's makeup could stand this healthy, real attention.  The scientists are just one group that have as much value as the short term thinking and fixation on risk, fiscal outcomes through commercial, insurance, development and real estate.  This latter group and financial criteria, risk factors have been the only framework to judge any and all deliberations.  Don't take our word for it, watch clips and check out the posts.  

SANDAG Workshop

Shaffer snapshot of Barth by the flag.

Councilwoman Teresa Barth and Lisa Shaffer attended SANDAG's event on Friday. There were 6 people from Encinitas total. Mayor Stocks (SANDAG chairman) was a no-show, as was the rest of the Encinitas city council or any other city council candidate in the upcoming election.

Barth was promoting participation and linking to the story in her newsletter, Facebook and emails. The themes are those of highest interest to Encinitas citizens.

"SANDAG is seeking the public’s input on everything from affordable housing to public health, transportation, economic prosperity, social equity and environmental sustainability as it combines two large regional blueprints into one. 

Those two documents are the Regional Comprehensive Plan and the Regional Transportation Plan. The first provides incentives to steer growth toward areas with existing roads, transit and other infrastructure. 

The second outlines more than $200 billion of mass transit, road and freeway improvements scheduled over the next four decades."

Scheduling a meeting for public feedback on a Friday morning is typical of big expensive projects that require public input by law.  Working people will not be there.  Period. At least we can count on Lisa Shaffer and Teresa Barth freely sharing what they learned, what they contributed at this event.

Updated at 11:40 am to acknowlege the other Encinitas participants.