Author: jennynazak

(Example of building community and inviting beneficial connections by 1) creating amenities for the public at the “sidewalk edge” (now there’s an urban ecotone for ya!) and 2) publicizing it to one’s neighborhood watch group — both online and in person. You can see the original post with photos and captions here, in my neighborhood watch’s Facebook group.)

Greetings Neighbors!

As I have mentioned in my “jenny’s corner” talks at the BNW and Midtown Neighborhood Watch meetings, jenny’s corner is an actual physical location that you can visit.

I consider myself a freelance, grassroots, volunteer public servant of the City of Daytona Beach, and I’m here to serve you with information, resources, and encouragement. 

501 Harvey Ave.
On the beachside, one block south of Main Street, at the northeast corner of Harvey and S. Oleander. 

IMPORTANT: If you visit, please come to the FRONT door! You’ll see a trellis archway and a lavender-pink mailbox. That is the front entrance. You can walk up and knock on the front door, or you can try just calling out to me. If you don’t get an answer right away, text me.

Please do NOT walk up the driveway or call out there; that area is personal space and quiet area for my housemates.

If you stop by and don’t see me, and/or you want to talk in realtime, call/text 512-619-5363 (text tends to reach me more quickly, and I can respond more quickly).

Photo captions:

(You can see the photos by visiting the original post; link above.)

• 501 house is a demonstration site for solar cooking and pasteurization. We also are a demo site for rainwater harvesting, heat mitigation, stormwater absorption, and other essential features of a sustainable, resilient urban community.

• 501 House is a demonstration site for what I refer to as “puffy landscaping”: Native plants and other environmentally friendly plants, mulch, and other elements that provide shade, food, pollinator sanctuary, wildlife habitat, beauty, and other benefits. Recently I have been helping my neighbors ensure that their puffy landscaping looks deliberately maintained, so that Code Compliance knows it is not a neglected yard. There are many ways to show that a yard is deliberately maintained. For example, as shown here, you can make borders using rocks or logs. Stepping-stones are also a nice indicator of a loved yard.

• Example of a driveway and garage that are freed up for uses other than car parking. (Note, the driveway is a residents’ entrance, no public access. Thanks for respecting our personal space.)

• UPDATE: LITTLE FREE LIBRARY #9278 IS REOPENED AS OF AUG 16, 2023!!!
Literacy activism: From 2013 till early 2023, I operated a curbside Little Free Library at my residence. A few months ago I finally shut the library down because it had become exhausting. (Mainly because of two things: book-hoarding, and the other extreme, huge unwanted bulk donations that blocked the sidewalk, left books out in the weather, and just generally created a neighborhood nuisance). However, today I felt strongly called to re-open the library, and will simply be insistent about asking for the help I need. Warning: if you open your mouth to complain about the library without offering help, as so many people have done in the past, I am likely to give you a task to do. I do not mean to sound grumpy. Books and literacy are a great passion of mine, and I consider it more important now than ever to offer books to everyone. This Little Free Library is truly a ministry. But I cannot do it alone; no one can. By the way, there are tens of thousands of Little Free Libraries in countries throughout the world. Little Free Library at 501 Harvey is charter #9278. For more information, including info on how to set up your own library, visit littlefreelibrary.org

• Example of calling on neighbors for help managing the library. This notice is intended for people who are on foot, and who live in the neighborhood, and who regularly pass by the library on foot. I have learned that these are essential attributes for a neighborhood library maintenance team.

(My response a while back to a new person who asked this in a permaculture group. The group is Florida Permaculture Community (on Facebook). I’m no longer a member over there — it and other public groups have become overwhelming — but it is a huge “wisdom database” of publicly accessible posts, including many posts/comments by me.)

• How much? Depends how many people, how much you plan to eat etc. And I’ve always heard plant an extra plant or two for our fellow creatures who share the land.
• What do you plant? Plant things that you love to eat. Also, visit your local farmers market and see if there are any unusual vegetables you’ve never heard of that you might like to try eating, and if you like them, you could add to your planting.
• For companion plantings, you might like to check out a companion planting guide. There are various ones.
• To find out what to plant in each season, you can download each month’s Florida planting guides for each part of the state. You can also visit your local nursery.
• And, also great advice is to check out what your neighbors are growing! Microclimate has a huge influence, as we learned in permaculture design class.
• Oh, and don’t forget to visit the website of your local master gardeners and or County extension; they have a wealth of information relevant to each region.
• Join a local food gardeners group in your area.
• Scroll through the posts in this group; there is more of a wealth of stored wisdom that I can possibly mention. There are a lot of people in here who are very talented/experienced at the food-growing aspect of Permaculture.
• And check out Ginny Stibolt’s book referenced in my post yesterday. [Organic Methods for Vegetable Gardening in Florida — Second edition; Ginny Stibolt and Melissa Markham]

Good luck and happy eating!

PS. Welcome to the group. Permaculture encompasses the full range of human needs: food, water, shelter, transportation, energy, and community!

A friend in Transformative Adventures was asking how to get rid of crabgrass that’s taken over a veggie bed. I replied:

When a patch of something tenacious grows, I put some old carpet or other thick material over it and wait for it to die and become a nice brown sponge of carbon-rich organic material. I then remove the carpet, and slash-plant my preferred plants into the brown sponge.

(Works for all other types of grass and other things you don’t want as well.)

Great stuff!! A very thorough taxonomy of Doomers! By Kirk Hall, a leading voice in the Degrowth movement.

And a question, for those of us who identify as a Doomer (or Doomster): Which type(s) are you? I’ll share my answer at the end.

Those of you who know me, see if you can guess my type(s). 😉 I’ll post the answer later.

Thanks always Kirk for your wise words and emotional support to the Degrowth movement.

And now, without further ado, Kirk’s classification of Doomer/Doomsters;

“Many types of people get labelled doomers. What type are you?

“Sadly, many posts and comment adopt a false dichotomy just to get attention. Let’s face it, balanced articles are boring.

“Here is my humble attempt to list the types of Doomers. Many types overlap.

1. The Overwhelmed. An understandable reaction. Like a rabbit in the spotlight frozen in fear. Unable to take action.
2. The Wallower. Seems to enjoy the doom.
3. The Humorous Doomer. Anything for a laugh.
4. The Denier. Previously denied or downplayed climate change in order to carry on their comfortable life. Now they say it’s too late to do anything so they carry on their comfortable life.
5. The Blamer. Puts all the blame on their chosen villain: governments, big business, fossil fuel companies, etc.
6. The Conspiracy Theorist. Similar to the blamer but not only do they have their favourite villain but it’s all a giant plot.
7. The Advocate. Advocates for their particular actions. Those actions will potentially make the predicament better or worse. Covers many types listed below.
8. The Collapsologist. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collapsology
9. The so-called Green Growther. Tech is the ‘solution’. They often aren’t doomers but, quite the opposite, but sometimes get labelled as such by fossil fuel enthusiasts.
10. The Anarcho-primitivist.
11. Deep Green Resistance. Advocates tearing down industrial society. Probably the same as Anarcho-primitivist.
12. JustCollapse. Just Collapse is an activist platform dedicated to socio-ecological justice in face of inevitable and irreversible global collapse. Recognizes that there will be no social justice in an unplanned collapse.
13. The Optimistic Degrowther. Acknowledges collapse while advocating for lots of good policies. Often downplays the problems of Degrowth.
14. The Realistic Degrowther. Acknowledges collapse while advocating for lots of good policies. Happy to admit that the chances of widespread uptake are slim. Is happy to raise the many problems. Often gives the optimistic version of Degrowth to newcomers.
15. The Localist. Focuses heavily on community preparation for collapse.
16. The Prepper. Focuses on weapons and individual actions.
17. The Scientist. Labelled doomers just for telling the truth.
18. Other types of Doomer? What did I miss?”

Further exploration:

• You can also read the above post by Kirk on the public page “Degrowth — it’s urgent.” And if you like this post, you’ll enjoy the other posts on that public page.

• Responding to Rebecca Solnit’s recent article on Doomers, in The Guardian (Renaae Churches; medium.com): “This is the Doomster Way, the Way of Acceptance. We are in #collapse and if we refuse to accept this we risk making a bad situation much worse. … if we accept the reality of climate breakdown, we have a chance to make amends and save as much of the natural world as possible while we still have a relatively intact society with the social order to get things done. Think orderly descent — powering down the global enterprise.”

• PPS. My answers as promised. Which type am I? I’m lots of 3 (Humor Doomer), mainly 12 (Just Collapse), also 14 (Realistic Degrowther) and 15 (localist).

I don’t care if the concept of carbon footprint was invented by a BP or whoever. I don’t care if it was invented to shame us into focusing on our own personal actions as the problem.

It’s our job as critical-thinking humans to understand that both personal and systemic action are needed.

Think about it: The consumption-entrenched governments and corporations of course want to distract us away from pushing for systemic change, so we will be forced (by the overpowering weight of the dysfunctional system) to keep consuming. They want to keep us dependent. So they don’t want system change.

And yet, because of how the system is, it’s very diehard-difficult for those of us who really want to make extreme voluntary personal reductions, to do so. You kind of have to be hard-core. I see myself (with my bicycle and my rain tubs and my uberlow electricity consumption and my voluntary low income etc.) as sort of an experimental lab-rat or shock troops or point person for the middle of the green bell curve.

By middle of the bell curve I mean the genuinely greenminded masses who really WANT to make change but are overwhelmed by the systemic barriers. Plus, the middle of the bell curve also includes the large swath of the population who are not particularly interested in eco-conscious living, but will be automatically living in a more eco-friendly manner as the systemic shifts take place. (As a real life, right-now example, your basic citizen of the UK or Spain etc. has a much much lower footprint than your basic citizen of the USA, all other things remaining the same. Because the default systems in Europe or Japan or Singapore etc. do not enable/force an everyday lifestyle of massive consumption as much as those in the USA. Just one example we can all recognize, the difference in transportation systems between the USA and the other places mentioned.)

Once we tip the balance on the systemic barriers, once we even make a tiny crack in it, the massive green tide will be unstoppable.

What I keep telling people is that our personal actions still DO matter – not in the tiny additive sense, but in the multiplicative or even exponential sense of social influence. I always ask myself and other green minded people, what are we normalizing today by our personal choices?

Fellow Boomers posting on social media about their robber-baron level of decadent travel vacations are broadcast-legitimizing consumerist travel gluttony. We deep-green troops need to do the same for legitimizing walking & cycling & public transport; finding joy in our local areas.

It’s not a matter of pushing for systemic change versus what we do in our everyday lives. Because when those things don’t match, we look like a bunch of hypocrites and no wonder people don’t respect environmentalists.

I’m really done seeing so-called green liberal people drive everywhere, live in huge airconditioned houses, hang on tight to their Wall Street funds, gush with pride when their grandkids join the military-industrial complex, etc. We have the resources; it’s on us to turn the tide.

I always say everything you do makes a difference. Do what you can, but don’t beat yourself up over what you can’t do. And, we can all help normalize anti-destructive choices by sharing a social media post about a beautiful forest, a charming DIY upcycled skirt, a food garden, etc.

Or as Dominique puts it in today’s Antiracism Daily, “While individual solutions can’t fix systemic problems, a mass societal shift in our habits and values can create pressure and change on industries and governments to enact sizable change.”

PS. As I mentioned in my book and have often mentioned elsewhere in this blog: One huge motivation to reduce one’s consumption is that said reductions can have a huge impact on us personally. For example, it can save lots of money. And it can simplify life, allowing us to slow down and relax more and appreciate the here and now. All of which makes a huge difference on each of our individual lives, even if it doesn’t make a huge difference in the planetary scheme of things.

Further exploration:

• “My carbon footprint is broken”; YouTube video by Kurtis Baute. The very engaging narrator gives a good overview of their household footprint, and what we greenminded people are up against as we strive to reduce our footprint. (It’s still a worthy battle though, and don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.) I will be watching other videos in his channel too, because he’s really good at explaining things in a commonsense and compassionate way.

(The following comment applies only to a subset of the population. People who think the blue states are terrible and communist, but they spent their entire working life in those blue states earning big bucks, and then move down here like carpetbaggers to take advantage of the low taxes, etc. Of course not everyone who moves to Florida is like this. And I did not mean to imply such.)

Prompted by comments I’ve seen over the years from right-wing retirees on Nextdoor who just love the boot of an authoritarian regime, and are so glad they moved away from their terrible communist blue states to Florida, because Florida is such a “fReE sTaTe of LaW aNd oRdER”:

I just love how some people manage to endure an entire lifetime of working in blue states. Yes, they manage to endure an entire lifetime of those $40 and $50 an hour union jobs. How hard that must’ve been to endure the labor protections, access to health insurance, etc., in those blue states.

And now they get to come retire to maximize the stretch of their dollars in a nice red-meat, low-tax state. Very very interesting, the level of self-serving that I see in many of my fellow white Boomers who came from “Blue” states to live a cushy old age here in this anti-labor, racist govt regime of authoritarian overreach.

An excellent presentation by Acreage Farms of Daytona Beach, at today’s 1 Million Cups Daytona Beach. (I attended online. Kudos to the 1MC organizers for continuing to offer Facebook Live.)

Various thoughts that it sparked in me, from a permaculture perspective:

• Great example of how technology can be used to improve the human-built environment, and increase abundance.
• Great example of how permaculture is about so much more than just the immediate operation of growing food! It’s about optimizing processes and maximizing resources.
• Colin mentions that although they use low-energy LED lighting, the expense does add up. I think they could reduce their overhead significantly by using skylights for lighting. Also, there may be opportunities to use passive solar design elements to save money & fuel on cooling. At the very least, the sun’s free energy could greatly supplement the energy needs of an indoor growing facility and help shift the overhead equation in a sustainable direction.
• In this group we tend to prefer 100% outdoor growing. And we turn to look askance at systems that require a lot of manufactured elements such as plastic containers etc. But the fact of the matter is, field agriculture is chewing up too much acreage, water, nutrients, and biodiversity; plus the climate is changing super fast. So we all kind of need to be a giant laboratory for various techniques. Vertical indoor growing is one option that can be just the right thing in some settings.
• The topic of Terroir came up. It’s fascinating to me that growers have been able to replicate the Terroir to grow a Japanese strawberry in New York for example.
• Also, if we can locally grow cacao and coffee and other high-demand crops, that would be a huge win. The industrialized world’s high demand for certain crops has caused a lot of hardship and ecological degradation in many parts of the world.
• It struck me that the vertical growing industry might potentially be a good market for recycled single-use plastics (or better yet reused, upcycled plastics).
• Our focus, within the permaculture movement, on mainly the food-growing aspect of permaculture has done our movement and the general public a grave disservice. Many of us simply are not cut out for growing food. However all of us are cut out to be involved in some aspect(s) of growing food, which can include space design, engineering, robotics, process optimization, plumbing, electrics, monitoring, transportation, processing, hospitality businesses, the cultivation of sales channels, not to mention the design and making of comfortable and functional work clothing, tool design and making, etc. etc. etc. and so much more. To examples of the huge range of skills that can help with the growing of food, just look at the profiles of the Acreage Farms team members.
• I love that this company is in my local area, and I will be seeking to support them in cultivating beneficial relationships in our region.
• 1 Million Cups, itself, is a prime example of Permaculture. We are literally creating the local business ecosystem; local economic resilience. This is an aspect of permaculture that merits much more attention.