Journal Reflection and Chapter 8

I have always disliked writing in journals or tracking my own progress. I was always discouraged by how little I have actually accomplished compared to my astronomically high goals set in my journal. Now, making a journal for class, I wanted to find a way around my hatred toward this method of progress tracking. At first I began naming those huge astronomical goals of which I always did including wanting to try and influence my club, Hotelies Serving Society, to branch off from being entirely about volunteerism regarding hospitality to having a focus on sustainable practices. Of course this didn’t work when I brought up the idea so there was another mark of failure in a journal. Then I began to realize that I, personally, like smaller goals. When I read a book, I like long books with short chapters so that I feel as if I am accomplishing something. With this in mind I began creating separate goals, one environmental and one social for myself. This felt unnatural to separate the two after a couple of entries. Now, I am finding good ways of connecting both social and environmental goals. One key aspect that I have focused on recently is the bringing of unlikely social groups together to discuss an environmental challenge.

An example of this is when I wanted to discuss shutting the lights off with my housemates. We had a pretty high energy bill last month and I only fear what it will be in the winter with electric heating. I decided to take the action step I set for myself of bringing together the people I live with and showing them data (they are engineers) as to why it would be both beneficial to us and the environment if we shut the lights off more frequently. This was both an environmental and socially sustainable action I took as I brought together my housemates – who typically do not talk to one another, and discussed an environmental issue.

Because I have found a new way to use the journal I’ve been seeing it become a very useful tool. I think it is great to not only set goals in it but also be able to track my progression.

Ecocities Chapter 8

Of all the chapters in the books we have looked at so far, I have enjoyed this one most. It was about the economics and planning behind an ecocity. It begins with Register describing Henderson’s “cake chart”. This chart acts like a pie chart yet has layers instead of slices. Each layer consists of one economic societal element which relates to daily governance. This cake chart put the chapter into perspective very well as it dichotomized various economic elements in perspective to environmental analysis.

The cake chart was preceded by “4 Key Steps to an Ecology of the Economy”(page 213). These described how the economy was directly related to ecology. They included 1. a map to determine the layout of an ecocity, 2. a list of technologies that will help build the ecocity, 3. the incentive package to build an ecocity, and 4. the people and outreach needed to create an ecocity.

I found steps 3 and 4 the most interesting of these steps. In step 3 incentive programs were described in relation to oil and how oil is not as cheap as we may think it is or isn’t. It is all about subsidies. Because the government is so wrapped in oil subsidies it is not making an easy transition to alternative resources and creating subsidies for those. Solar and wind powers could be just as cost-effective if not even more so than coal and oil. Step 4 concerned the outreach and getting communities involved. This particularly interested me because this is part of what my project is about for my group. In Connect Ithaca, it is my group’s responsibility to create an outreach program for the community. It is really exciting seeing my group put some of these theories in the book to practice.

What is even more exciting is that in the following section (after discussing the 4^th step) the book mentions Joan and Ithaca as a model for the 4 steps! It was soooooooooo cool seeing that what we are working on is real-life stuff!

One question that the book left me with was how to go about the governmental blocks to alternative energies? If the government is so wrapped up in oil and coal how do you begin to make that transition to wind and solar? The book also mentioned how Green parties in politics often “steal” votes from major parties. The Green parties ideas are often taken in by the major parties after being further developed. How can these “stolen” votes for certain issues be incorporated into the major parities so that the ideas are acted on and the votes are not thrown out? I found this very interesting in general.