Neighborhood public-service announcement about the cooling effects of vegetation

(Feel free to use any of this in your own efforts; adapt as needed.)

Public Service Announcement for my beachside neighbors!

Many people have expressed concern about extreme heat, and we are right to be concerned, as the lack of rain especially here on beachside has made this an abnormally hot summer. Besides rain, the best mechanism for mitigating extreme heat is vegetation!!

You can do your bit to ease urban heat extremes by … slacking off and being lazy! By which I mean easing-up on mowing, trimming, and other cutting-back of vegetation. Let things be soft and a bit shaggy!

As a bonus, this helps reduce noise and fumes on our beautiful beachside. Good for tourists and residents alike!

(What better thing to do at the beach than be a bit lazy, right? I actually think that’s why a lot of people move here: to have a slow gentle lifestyle and enjoy the water!)

(Go here to read this post in my neighborhood Facebook group. It’s accompanied by an illustration of how much cooler the temperature is on thick grass and meadows than on close-mowed grass.)

Shadow Work

This post is for those of you who know how to do shadow work and are willing to do it. Especially, shadow work in the transpersonal or collective consciousness. We need to be doing a lot of it right now. See some politician or corporation do something that absolutely horrifies you; shocks you; stops you in your tracks? (Yeah, me too — lots of it.)

There’s your next shadow work assignment. Oh, and of course we need to keep doing “regular old” external activism too. But the inner work is a really key piece that often gets neglected.

Anytime we find ourselves “othering” something or someone (including, say, our “bad” ancestors), that’s an opportunity to do shadow work. Own that shadow and integrate it!

Save Spruce Creek; Don’t Build Pioneer Interchange

I appreciate our County Chairman Jeff Brower’s soeaking out against the addition of an unnecessary interchange on I-95.

Sounds like time for both Taylor Rd and Dunlawton Ave to get some more frequent bus service, as well as bicycle paths and sidewalks if they do not already have them. This will help take the pressure off the roads, for all those who need or want to drive motor vehicles. Maybe a cute little trolley, or retro-trolley-looking bus, would be well received, since the neighborhoods in that area are sort of posh.

Our transportation system here is overly car-dependent, mired in a 1950s mindset. We need to bring our region into the 21st century by alleviating our car-dependent planning which causes grotesque destruction of land, animals, plants, and our own quality of life.

Thank you Ted Noftall for Volusia County Council, District 3!!! And all other candidates and officials who oppose this interchange.

From Ted Noftall posting on Facebook:

“The land surrounding the proposed Pioneer Trail interchange has been mired in political intrigue since development rights were granted to the Stanaki Partnership in 1996.

“The introduction of Mori Hosseini into the mix in 2004 increased the intrigue greatly to where we are today with required federal environmental studies sidestepped in an effort to keep the proposed interchange on track.

“This interchange if constructed will spur development in one of the most environmentally sensitive areas of Volusia county.

“It will not provide any lasting traffic relief as the development it spurs will exceed its capacity in short order as has happened with every interchange from Ormond Beach to Edgewater.

“This interchange, its $100 million taxpayer price tag, and the over development it will spur is odious to the people in the immediate area and throughout Volusia county and it must be stopped.

“I do not know if it can be stopped but i do know the only candidates committed to doing so are the Volusia Values candidates; of myself for County Council District 3, Ken Smith for District 4. David Sosa for District 5, and Doug Pettit for At-Large.”

Thoughts on “The Line”

This 2-minute video shows a vision for a dense, eco-oriented city called the Line, that would be built in Saudi Arabia.

This is akin to the Ecocity Builders concept, which I like a lot, and which has long been espoused by Richard Register et al. Ecocities are envisioned as densely populated settlements with the tallest buildings (4-5 storeys) forming a tight nucleus surrounded by nature and many transport options with an emphasis on human-powered modes.

The Line is different in some ways that I see as not green:

1) Why is it shaped like a monolithic wall — a human-invented structure designed to serve as a barrier — rather than the more natural, organically emergent, plural cluster shape envisioned by Ecocity Builders and more close to the shapes and forms found in a forest or savannah?

2) Besides being shaped like a barrier, the linear shape is also designed to favor mechanized transportation rather than human-powered transport. The video refers to how quick it is to get from one end of the city to the other. Quickness is efficient in a capitalistic industrial sense, but the slower and “less efficient” modes such as walking, bicycling, scootering, wheelchairing, skateboarding, etc., are what build vibrant social connections, social capital, community. (Edit: I assumed they were talking about some sort of train or monorail, but maybe they have walking in mind when they say it’s quick to get from one end to the other.)

3) An economy characterized by heavy dependence on automation rather than healthy reliance on human beings, cottage industries, micro businesses. A healthy community is intricately linked by an interdependent web of services provided by humans living in right relationship with each other and with the rest of nature.

4) The envisioned linear skyscraper-city is seventy-five miles long. Plans call for five million residents. Meanwhile, magnificent Tokyo (one of my favorite cities) accommodates I believe about eight million residents in its roughly circular central area which is about six miles across.

5) As always with techno-green visions like this, the “energy sci-fi” objection comes up. I don’t have the scientific and technical background to know if the “energy math” would work or not, but based on various things I’ve read or watched from knowledgeable people whose assessments I trust, I strongly suspect it would not.

All of that said, any creative efforts that challenge the prevailing notions of what urban settlements can look like, and at least trying to leave nature a lot more space, are worth considering. And hey, it’s a design concept. If some element doesn’t turn out to be practical or feasible, the design can be tweaked.

Landscaping letters

Dear fellow beachside residents,
Following is a letter I am circulating to officials & staff of our city, as well as neighbors and fellow activists, regarding our City’s landscaping practices and how they affect the environment. Your comments are welcome, and anyone who wants to join in an effort to promote the use of our tax dollars for more eco-appropriate landscaping is welcome to contact me. Also, anyone reading this is welcome to use any of this verbiage in your own communications with your local government officials, as well as HOAs or other bodies.

************

Hi everyone! Hope you are having a good week. Questions:

  • Who (which person/people, which department) makes the actual decisions as to what gets planted on public property and how it is maintained? For example, the beachside police precinct on Harvey. Does Public Works make those decisions or is it Planning, City Manager’s office or some other department(s)?
  • What would it take for neighborhood residents to have a say in what gets planted on city properties in their neighborhoods, and how it is maintained? For example, at the beachside police precinct, replacing high-maintenance turfgrass with more authentic coastal vegetation such as sea grape and tall dune grasses and dune wildflowers, that supports the local wildlife while radically cutting back on irrigation, and reducing use of noisy, intrusive gas-powered equipment in neighborhoods.
  • Regarding spraying of sidewalks by herbicide trucks: What would it take for a neighborhood to get this sidewalk spraying stopped? Would a group of neighbors need to get up a petition, or just submit a formal request or what?
  • Alternatively, is there an opt-out list where individual property-holders can register their addresses as no-spray zones? (The contractors driving the spray trucks are friendly and respectful, and they know to avoid spraying close to my garden, but I would like there to be a way for any interested homeowners to officially opt out.)

Attaching photo of starved manatee from the front page of today’s News-Journal, to show why our landscaping practices are of utmost urgency. I know this is hard to look at, but it’s important.

Everything we do on the land leads to the waterways. Healthy seagrass and clean waterways are essential not only for our iconic manatees, but for an entire web of life on which we ALL depend.

AND, the ecological urgency aside, we have opportunity to save a LOT of money and labor which can then be channeled to urgent landscaping tasks such as heat mitigation, drought-flood mitigation, pollinator support, ecosystems restoration.

If you need guidance or hands-on help with any of this, never fear! Our region has many extremely knowledgeable public-service organizations (native plant societies, permaculture guild, county soil & water conservation board, citizen experts etc), any of whom would be delighted to support the City or any department interested in sustainable landscaping. Also, I as an individual am always at your service!

Thank you to each and every one of you for the important work you do to keep our city running.

All the best to you,

jenny

💚🌏🦋
Jenny Nazak

Happy House-Sharing

One of the best ways to shrink our eco footprint is to reduce our cost of living. And one of the best ways to reduce our cost of living is to share a house or apartment. Living with roommates: the original “affordable housing”!

Figuring out ways to share space with people can actually get really fun and creative, as well as offering a huge financial advantage over living alone. And an emotional advantage too! In the USA, loneliness and lack of community are causing all sorts of public-health problems.

Nowadays even middle-aged and older people are starting to see the wisdom of sharing housing. In the Craigslist house-share ads you might see reference to “Golden Girls”. And certainly, sharing housing is also a win for young people just starting out.

In my blog I have made various posts over the years offering suggestions such as moving to smaller towns and buying houses together. Sharing housing is a huge leverage point for reducing the stranglehold of consumerist culture.

For the past couple of years, I have had only one housemate. Recently, a second friend moved in. Having two housemates is great! Each of us contributes a unique set of skills and resources to the household.

Now, there are certain factors that make it easier to share housing. The biggest bottlenecks are the kitchen and bathroom. A lot of people in the USA have been conditioned by consumer society to think they need their own personal bathroom and their own kitchen.

At my house, here are some ways that we “stretch” our one kitchen and our one bathroom.

1) Housemate’s little shaving basin in his bedroom. If everyone has one of these, the only time we really need the bathroom is to use the toilet. Also helpful for cutting down on bathroom bottleneck, we added an outdoor shower. Many times, we prefer it to the indoor shower.

2) Housemate’s little dishwashing setup. Also each person has a couple of little appliances in their own room. They each have a little microwave and water kettle in their rooms, for example. They are both welcome to use the kitchen also, but they actually mostly prefer to default to their own little setups in their own rooms. (Myself, I just use the kettle and stovetop in the kitchen.) We share one big fridge.

You can see photos here on my DEEP GREEN Facebook page. And I made a chatty little 1-minute video on YouTube as well.

It’s surprising how simple little things can make all the difference. Creative adaptation of the inside of a house or apartment (which we call Zone Zero in permaculture design) is a major, often overlooked leverage point for increasing our healthy interdependence on each other, while reducing our toxic dependence on hyperfinancialized, centralized, official systems.

Are you sharing housing? If so, what are your favorite tips? If not, what are some of the things stopping you?

Constraint: friend or foe

Constraint can be the seed for great leaps forward. Constraint can be an engineer’s best friend. Constraint sparks innovation. Whereas abundance often sparks replication and growth of wasteful or otherwise harmful designs and practices.

Constraint can thus be used in a very beneficial way.

Or, constraint can be used in a detrimental way, to shut down new ideas, discourage thinking, and put up roadblocks. The favorite bleat and refuge of bureaucrats is “liability” (we can’t plant fruit trees because of liability; we can’t let citizens manage city-owned empty lots because of liability; etc.)

Constraint: liberator or logjam. We each get to decide.