Re: carbon neutrality post by Conlin aide

[Cathy Tuttle]

While what you say is true Joe, that City and the city need to think outside the box, the silo, and the gas tank, we need to remember Richard Conlin (and Mike O.) are still very much on our team. We're just defining a new game.

All of the carbon neutral groups had fantastic and quite congruent ideas about open governance, local engagement, restructured priorities. Let's press forward. We've got Carbon Neutral Neighborhood meetings scheduled for every 4th Thursday at 5:30 in the Boards and Commissions room at City Hall. Our next gathering is Jan 27. The City's budget and staffing difficulties present new opportunities for innovation. It is up to us.

Cathy

(I copied this to our Carbon Neutral Neighborhoods mailing list. Forgive me people if you get duplicate mail. We might want to continue this discussion on our google group@ www.SeattleNeighbors.org)

“A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.” Winston Churchill

On Tue, Dec 21, 2010 at 8:27 AM, Joe Brewer <bre...@cognitivepolicyworks.com> wrote:

Elaine,

Doesn't surprise me... I'm also fairly unimpressed by the lack of innovative thinking in this piece.  All of the ideas he lays out are standard concepts established more than a decade ago  It's a no brainer that we need to increase energy efficiency, shift to multi-modal mass transit, and be mindful of interconnected systems. 

There's no mention of the open governance practices that will be needed to streamline decision-making processes and increase civic engagement.  Nor is there anything said about restructuring of the regional economy in a "post growth" world of constrained natural resources.  The emphasis is almost entirely on the Energy Efficiency Frame as though the core issue is which energy sources we use and how we use them.  Naturally, this is a major concern but it doesn't get to the core problem of the unsustainable paradigms that must be moved away from and replaced.

The elitism of this birds-eye view perspective feels stale and out-of-touch compared with the vigor and passion we've experienced in all the gatherings throughout the year of a highly engaged and innovative community who are pushing for out-of-the-box thinking and new models for urban development that go well beyond the systems thinking foundations developed in the sixties and standard practice by the late 90's in the sustainability arena.  I say let's shift the frame and dig into those models of engagement, dialogue, and creativity and break open the carbon neutral effort as something truly revolutionary.

Best,

Joe

--
Joe Brewer
Founder & Director
Cognitive Policy Works
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com
--
Founder & Director
Seattle Innovators
http://www.seattleinnovators.org
206.914.8927 (mobile)
--

On Mon, Dec 20, 2010 at 11:52 PM, Elaine Corets <eco...@gmail.com> wrote:

interesting that no mention is made of all of our hard work. 

http://conlin.seattle.gov/2010/12/20/strategic-approaches-for-carbon-neutrality/

[Joe Brewer]

Totally agreed, Cathy!

- Joe

--
Joe Brewer
Founder & Director
Cognitive Policy Works
http://www.cognitivepolicyworks.com
--
Founder & Director
Seattle Innovators
http://www.seattleinnovators.org
206.914.8927 (mobile)
--

[Pennie O'Grady]

Thanks for cc-ing me on this, Cathy, and I appreciate your input on this, Joe.  I'm especially glad to know that community engagement and dialogue, and governance structures that encourage more widespread involvement, are part of the carbon neutral conversations. When that explicit conversation happens, I want to be part of it!

All best,

Pennie 

If we think we can put ourselves first and then fit the natural world into our program, it's not going to work.  We have got to fit the human project into the Earth Project.    Thomas Berry