Hi Owen & Fossil Free Group-
Just a thought for consideration, I wondered if you might hold your
meeting on
Monday, Jan 22, somehow creatively in conjunction with the Little House on a
Small Planet booksigning & slideshow event we are doing with author Shay
Solomon
on that same evening.
What Shay is talking about is everything the Fossil Free group has been
considering deeply for the last few years. Since housing contributes
approximately 40% emissions that are linked to global warming and climate
change we have a big responsibility as designers, builders, or occupants of
our
homes. She talks a lot about retrofiting, so this isn't just for folks who
are
building new structures. She weaves in a strong social justice component,
something I have noticed most natural builders do, they can't help but see the
connections.
I'm thinking the FFL mtg could be held prior to the event somewhere informally
in the library or maybe the Copy Cat coffee house across the street, take care
of business there, then come over for the event, which doesn't start until
7:45. There is always time for meetings, but rare chances to hear these
lesser
known, but important authors, who come through like troubadors, minstrels,
with
their most recent experiences, share all they have learned the last few years,
and tie you to the other communities they have traveled through and heard
from. That has been the intent of our organization, Santa Barbara
Permaculture
Network, in organizing these booktours that go up and down the coast of Calif
and sometime to the rest of the Southwest, to support these authors and the
work they do, and what they've learned along the way. Shay was in Los Angeles
yesterday at the Audubon Center at Debs Park, a LEEDS Platinum certified
building. Not only did we get to see the building, we met so many ordinary,
but extremely extraordinary active people from the LA basin, can't believe
what
everyone is up to. Networking absolutely the key, this will only become more
so in future times I'm thinking.
Again, just an idea for consideration, I'm sorry I thought of this possiblity
so late, Contact us if we can be of any help. I know how busy the whole group
is so realize it may not be possible. We have been interviewed by Pacific
Business Times, and a reporter will be in the audience that night, so we will
make sure there is a few minutes in the introductions for local organizations
to make some announcements. Fossil Free could speak about the project by the
Train Station if you felt the right moment, or anything else you thought
important. Adam Green, of the Environmental Studies Program at SBCC will be
making an announcement about some exciting developments at City College around
Solar power and a proposed Sustainability Center.
Below I have included the press release for Shay Solomon that has gone out for
those of you who have not already seen it. If you are not able to attend,
we'll send out info later about radio interviews you maybe able to hear
online. If you want to get the book, another great way to support these
authors is to buy directly from them. You can do this from their website, or
send someone to buy it for you at the event. These tours are one of the few
ways an author has an opportunity to make some return on all the years it took
to write their books, so if we want to hear some other voices than the Richard
Heinbergs' who manage to get bestsellers, need to support them with our
dollars.
Best,
Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
<<<
Press Release/Contact: Margie Bushman
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571, email: mar...@sbpermaculture.org
SANTA BARBARA PERMACULTURE NETWORK
Presents:
Little House on a Small Planet
Slide Show & Booksigning with
Shay Salomon and Photographer Nigel Valdez
Monday, January 22, 2007, 7:45 pm
Santa Barbara Public Library, Faulkner Gallery
Live in less space but have more room and enjoy it. Does that sound
like a contradiction? Smart readers will discover that on the contrary, living
small can free up your mind, your wallet, and your soul. With the cost of
living rising, the environment suffering from excessive building, now is time
to scale back. Join the small house movement.
In Shay Salomon's newly published book, with a foreward by Francis
Moore
Lappe, Little House on a Small Planet ( www.littlehouseonasmallplanet.com)
is a
guidebook and an invitation, with floor plans, photographs, advice, and
anecdotes. Discover how to build, remodel, redecorate, or just rethink your
needs. Live close and simple and apply spiritual and social needs to your
material desires. Pockets of people all over the continent are realizing the
benefits of scaling down. You too can build a joyful, sane life that
emphasizes
home life over home maintenance.
Little House is split into three sections; building small houses,
altering existing
houses, and the politics of housing and lifestyle choices. The book is
informative and hopeful, even empowering. Salomon takes a refreshing
approach,
instead of focusing intently on the problem of current housing trends, she
provides the data needed to understand them, then spends her energy on drawing
out solutions that each one of us can choose to follow through on.
In fact, the politics of housing is a theme threaded throughout the
entire book.
Reading news coverage after Hurricane Katrina, Salomon learned that in
Houston,
where many of the refugees were headed, 14% of all housing units (homes,
apartments, duplexes, etc) were vacant. Salomon did some research on how this
compares to the rest of the country. She found that in the year 2000 there
were
10.4 million vacant units and 250,000 people sleeping in homeless shelters.
This meant there were nearly 45 homes that were completely empty per person
sleeping in shelters. Salomon asks, "How is it that we have a housing crisis?
Maybe a homing crisis, or a sharing crisis, but this isn't a housing
crisis. "
Shay Salomon is a carpenter and construction manager who coaches
owner-builders towards a mortgage-free life. She has taught at least a
hundred
courses in carpentry, straw bale building, solar design, and women’s building
courses. A cofounder with Greg Johnson, Jay Shafer, and Nigel Valdez of the
Small House Society ( www.smallhousesociety.org), she wrote Little House on
the
Small Planet , which chronicles the small house movement and offers advice to
people who want to improve their life by living in far less space. The
photographer for Little House, Nigel Valdez, chose pictures of real people on
average days in their little houses. Nothing appears staged. People are
relaxing with their kids, their feet up on the coffee table, or shaving in the
bathtub, which happens to be in the kitchen. Shay Salomon and Nigel Valdez
have worked on this project for 7 years.
The evening lecture takes place at the Santa Barbara Public Library,
Faulkner Gallery, 40 East Anapamu St, in downtown Santa Barbara, on Monday,
January 22, 7:45-9pm. No reservations are required, admission donation $5.
The
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network sponsors the event. For more information
please call (805) 962-2571, or email mar...@sbpermaculture.org,
www.sbpermaculture.org.
Quotes about Housing from the book:
“The Union of Concerned Scientists ranks housing third among destructive human
enterprises, just after transportation and agriculture. But our housing need
not be destructive. Again we can chose ! We can chose human scale, enhancing
our connections with those we love. We can chose eco-scale, reducing our
demand
for the kind of energy that is disrupting life now and for future
generations.”
“Construction has some alarming effects on the environment. Forty percent of
all the raw materials humans consume, we use in construction. Building an
average house adds seven tons of waste to the landfill! New house
construction
is arguably the single greatest threat to endangered species, even in areas
where human population is on the decline, animals and plants are threatened
each day, due to the construction of new houses. Might our houses feel more
comfortable if they weren't so destructive.”
“Throughout North America building has been influenced by "green thinking",
and
houses have improved, but despite major advances in insulation and design, the
typical house built today requires as much energy to heat and cool as one
built
in 1960. Why? Because it's bigger. House size and location are the greatest
determinants of a home's effect on the environment. The challenge is to build
a single family housing as efficient as a New York City apartment, which, on
average uses a fraction of the energy of a typical detached house.”
-end-
Santa Barbara Permaculture Network
(805) 962-2571
P.O. Box 92156, Santa Barbara, CA 93190
mar...@sbpermaculture.com
www.sbpermaculture.org
"We are like trees, we must create new leaves, in new directions, in order to
grow." - Anonymous
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