2013-10-10 by Dennis Raj of the "South Bay Labor Council" [http://www.calaborfed.org/index.php/site/page/good_local_jobs_prevail_in_mountain_view]:
With
an overwhelming 6 to 1 majority vote, the Mountain View City Council
passed a Prevailing Wage requirement for new affordable housing projects
in the city. Mountain View, like other Charter Cities, was longer
required to pay prevailing wages after a California Supreme Court ruling
last year that made clear charter cities retain the autonomy to decide
prevailing wage for themselves. Make no mistake; this is an important
victory for the local economy, construction workers and the residents of
Mountain View.
A prevailing wage ordinance requires the payment of
an hourly wage, usual benefits and overtime, paid to the majority of
workers, laborers and mechanics with a particular area. The history of
prevailing wage dates back to early turn of the century, when the
Davis-Bacon act was signed into law in 1931. Senator James Davis and
Representative Robert Bacon sought federal legislation to protect local
labor from displacement by migrant workers and competitive pressure
toward sub-standard wages. Since then, prevailing wage regulations have
been a driving force in shaping construction jobs as a pathway to the
middle class.
Staff in Mountain View rightly ended their presentation
with the assertion that including a prevailing wage requirement for
affordable housing is a value judgment, a theme that was touched on by
many members of the audience who spoke in favor of inclusion. Many of
the speakers also touched on the benefits tied directly to construction,
including encouraging a highly skilled labor force, improving workplace
safety, and providing economic incentives for quality construction.
There is also empirical evidence that the economic impact of a higher
wage and more skilled workforce can be substantial, offsetting any
increase in wages in the construction sector that might result from
implementing prevailing wage.
Community members also spoke to the
economic ripple effect of prevailing wage, citing a landmark study by
Working Partnerships USA comparing construction with and without
prevailing wage and the economic benefits brought about by using
prevailing wage. The study links prevailing wage to a significant
increase in local hiring, with upwards of a 59.4 percentage point
increase in the percent of local funds going to local contracts. With
prevailing wage, these are good jobs going overwhelmingly to local
workers, bringing tax revenues and spending back to the community. Sally
Lieber, who represented Mountain View as a member of the State Assembly
made the most salient point of the night; without a prevailing wage,
the workers constructing the affordable housing in Mountain View would
be paid so little, they would be eligible to sign up for the affordable
housing.
Choosing between prevailing wage and affordable housing is
not a zero sum game; including a prevailing wage requirement in local
housing developments is the right thing to do for the local economy.
Last night the community spoke, the leadership listened and good, local
jobs prevailed.
Thursday, October 10, 2013
Friday, October 4, 2013
Bio-Fuels
"UCLA engineers develop new metabolic pathway to more efficiently convert sugars into biofuels"
2013-10-03 from "SPX" newswire [http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/UCLA_engineers_develop_new_metabolic_pathway_to_more_efficiently_convert_sugars_into_biofuels_999.html]:
The paper's other author is Tzu-Shyang Lin, who recently received a bachelor's degree from UCLA in chemical engineering.
---
Los Angeles CA -
UCLA chemical engineering researchers have created a new synthetic metabolic pathway for breaking down glucose that could lead to a 50 percent increase in the production of biofuels. The new pathway is intended to replace the natural metabolic pathway known as glycolysis, a series of chemical reactions that nearly all organisms use to convert sugars into the molecular precursors that cells need. Glycolysis converts four of the six carbon atoms found in glucose into two-carbon molecules known acetyl-CoA, a precursor to biofuels like ethanol and butanol, as well as fatty acids, amino acids and pharmaceuticals. However, the two remaining glucose carbons are lost as carbon dioxide.
Glycolysis is currently used in biorefinies to convert sugars derived from plant biomass into biofuels, but the loss of two carbon atoms for every six that are input is seen as a major gap in the efficiency of the process. The UCLA research team's synthetic glycolytic pathway converts all six glucose carbon atoms into three molecules of acetyl-CoA without losing any as carbon dioxide. The research is published online Sept. 29 in the peer-reviewed journal Nature.
The principal investigator on the research is James Liao, UCLA's Ralph M. Parsons Foundation Professor of Chemical Engineering and chair of the chemical and biomolecular engineering department. Igor Bogorad, a graduate student in Liao's laboratory, is the lead author. "This pathway solved one of the most significant limitations in biofuel production and biorefining: losing one-third of carbon from carbohydrate raw materials," Liao said. "This limitation was previously thought to be insurmountable because of the way glycolysis evolved."
This synthetic pathway uses enzymes found in several distinct pathways in nature. The team first tested and confirmed that the new pathway worked in vitro. Then, they genetically engineered E. coli bacteria to use the synthetic pathway and demonstrated complete carbon conservation. The resulting acetyl-CoA molecules can be used to produce a desired chemical with higher carbon efficiency. The researchers dubbed their new hybrid pathway non-oxidative glycolysis, or NOG. "This is a fundamentally new cycle," Bogorad said. "We rerouted the most central metabolic pathway and found a way to increase the production of acetyl-CoA. Instead of losing carbon atoms to CO2, you can now conserve them and improve your yields and produce even more product."
The researchers also noted that this new synthetic pathway could be used with many kinds of sugars, which in each case have different numbers of carbon atoms per molecule, and no carbon would be wasted. "For biorefining, a 50 percent improvement in yield would be a huge increase," Bogorad said. "NOG can be a nice platform with different sugars for a 100 percent conversion to acetyl-CoA. We envision that NOG will have wide-reaching applications and will open up many new possibilities because of the way we can conserve carbon." The researchers also suggest this new pathway could be used in biofuel production using photosynthetic microbes.
"Solving ethanol's corrosion problem may help speed the biofuel to market"
2013-10-03 from "SPX" newswire [http://www.biofueldaily.com/reports/Solving_ethanols_corrosion_problem_may_help_speed_the_biofuel_to_market_999.html]:
The paper, "Effect of Oxygen on Ethanol SCC Susceptibility, Part 2: Dissolution-Based Cracking Mechanism," written by Liu Cao, G.S. Frankel, and N. Sridhar, appears in NACE International's journal, CORROSION, Sep. 2013, Vol. 69, No. 9, pp. 851-862.
---
Houston, TX -
If we're to meet a goal set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Renewable Fuels Standard to use 36 billion gallons per year of biofuels-mostly ethanol-the nation must expand its infrastructure for transporting and storing ethanol. Currently, ethanol is transported via trucks, trains, and barges. For the large volumes required in the future, transportation by pipeline is considered to be the most efficient method to get it to customers. The integrity and safety of pipelines and storage tanks is crucial, because ethanol is both flammable and, at certain concentrations, can cause adverse environmental impacts.
"One of the most important concerns with regard to the integrity of pipelines and tanks is the propensity of ethanol at concentrations above 20 volume percent in gasoline to cause cracking of steel," explains Narasi Sridhar, vice president, director of the materials program at Det Norske Veritas. "This phenomenon is called stress corrosion cracking."
The Pipeline Research Council International, a consortium of pipeline companies, and the U.S. Department of Transportation's Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration funded intense research to find the cause of cracking of steel in ethanol from 2005 through 2012. "We found that dissolved oxygen in ethanol causes cracking and if oxygen can be removed, cracking can be prevented. This and other engineering measures can form the basis for safe transport of ethanol," says Sridhar.
The fundamental mechanism of how oxygen causes cracking of steel is described in a paper by Liu et al., published in CORROSION journal. This paper is significant because it was extremely difficult to tease apart the fundamental processes occurring in ethanol due to its low electrical conductivity. By developing novel techniques, the researchers found that oxygen has two effects that conspire to cause the cracking of steel.
"The first effect is that oxygen protects most of the steel surface. It may seem counterintuitive that protection can lead to cracking of steel, but by protecting most of the steel surface oxygen channels all the degradation to occur on isolated areas of steel that is highly stressed. Such focused degradation results in rapid penetration of steel," says Sridhar. "The other effect of oxygen is that it pushes the corrosion processes to occur faster in the unprotected portion of the steel. Corrosion is an electrochemical process in which two electrons are emitted into the steel for every atom of iron corroding. Oxygen absorbs the electrons emitted by steel corrosion and propels the steel to corrode faster."
The practical implication of this paper is that it's now possible to prevent stress corrosion cracking without resorting to completely removing oxygen from ethanol, which is expensive to do. Sacrificial metals, for example, can be used to prevent cracking. Inhibitors can also be used to prevent cracking by reforming the protective film on steel faster.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
New Economy Week, October 12 - 18, 2013
Seven Days of Action for a more Sustainable World
message by Mira Luna for "Shareable.com":
The New Economy Coalition (a project of the New Economics Institute) is shining a spotlight on the emerging movement for a new economy with a week of action called New Economy Week. October 11-19th they will be highlighting events, actions, reports, works of art, and other projects across the United States and Canada. By making visible the thousands of things people are doing right now to build a new kind of economy, this event will inspire broader participation and catalyze a conversation for deep, systemic change.
All around the country, people are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work on building an economy that prioritizes people and the planet. From starting cooperative groceries, to implementing citywide participatory budgeting, to municipalizing energy companies, these democratic and decentralized wealth-building strategies are being embraced by communities as a means of systemic transformation. While our political system proves itself incapable of dealing with complex problems, people are creating parallel institutions that meet their needs and lay a foundation for long-term social change.
Right now there are over 40 events listed on the website and counting [neweconomyweek.org/calendar]. Shareable's new Sharing Cities Network is hosting a Sharing Cities Mapping Jam to map the new economy in cities across the country that week [shareable.net/blog/join-the-sharing-cities-network]. In Milwaukee, WI, the Riverwest Cooperative Alliance is throwing a Co-op Fest on October 12th to promote and educate the public about cooperatives [riverwestmke.wix.com/cooperativealliance]. That same day, the Pennsylvania Public Bank Project is hosting a workshop in Philadelphia on public banking for the community and neighborhood leaders [papublicbankproject.org]. Later in the week, in Montpelier, VT, Gus Speth will deliver a speech on “Measuring What Matters” that will be simulcast across the state. Shareable's new Sharing Cities Network is hosting a new economy Mapping Jam across the country that week. While representing only a sliver what’s happening in North America, these events demonstrate the breadth of strategies people are employing to transform our economy.
There’s still plenty of time to get involved. If you’re already hosting an event that falls within New Economy Week, go submit it on their website to get featured on the events page [neweconomyweek.org]. Want inspiration for creating a new event? Check out their action toolkit [neweconomyweek.org/get-involved] and Shareable’s “How To Share” Guide [shareable.net/how-to-share] for ideas about projects and events you can organize with your community. If you are outside the US or Canada, you can still host an event and next year hopefully organize a New Economy Week for your country.
Whether New Economy Week becomes an annual fixture (an Earth Day for the New Economy movement) remains to be seen. This year is very much an experiment. But if the momentum on the ground is any indication, New Economy Week – and all of the incredible work being done to build collective power and healthy communities – is just the beginning.
Join the Sharing Cities Network
Imagine a city where everyone’s needs are met because people make the personal choice to share. Where everyone can create meaningful livelihoods. Where fresh, local food is available to all. Where affordable housing and shared transportation are abundant. Where the poor are lifted up, the middle class is strengthened, and the rich are respected because they all work together for the common good.
Imagine a city where the people decide how the city budget is spent. Where the people own the banks, control credit, and create their own money. Where the people own the utilities that make green energy and internet access available to all.
Imagine a city where all this is possible without relying on the government or big banks. Where we don't have to beg leaders for change or sell ourselves out to “make it” at the expense of others. Where the more we share, the more we have. Where everyone wins.
Our dream at Shareable is that everyone gets to live in such a place. While ambitious, our dream is grounded in reality. Everything that's imagined above already exists. We know this because we’ve written about these pockets of sanity nearly every day for the last five years.
What’s missing is there’s no single city where all these models are brought together. And until now there’s been few efforts to create such cities.
This is a call to change that.
Because there are proven solutions, there’s no need to doubt that it can be done. Because these solutions can be created by ordinary people, there’s no need to ask permission to start. Because there’s great need, there’s no reason to wait.
The time to build sharing cities is now.
So, today Shareable launches the Sharing Cities Network -- a grassroots network for sharing innovators to discover together how to create as many sharing cities around the world as fast as possible.
To kick off the network, Shareable is hosting a Sharing Cities Map Jam October 12-19th. The goal of the Map Jam is to map the sharing economies of 25 cities with 25 local teams.
While there’s no complete sharing city yet, we've found that every city has a much bigger foundation to build on than people think. There are cooperatives, community gardens, tool libraries, timebanks, bike kitchens, coworking and maker spaces, credit unions, farmers' markets, or their ilk nearly everywhere.
We believe that making these oases of sharing visible will be an empowering first step for the network. After the Map Jam, we'll post the maps on Shareable for anyone to use, share, or copy. The network's next steps will be worked out together.
Please fill out the form below this message on the website [shareable.net/blog/join-the-sharing-cities-network] to learn more. We'll be in touch soon.
message by Mira Luna for "Shareable.com":
The New Economy Coalition (a project of the New Economics Institute) is shining a spotlight on the emerging movement for a new economy with a week of action called New Economy Week. October 11-19th they will be highlighting events, actions, reports, works of art, and other projects across the United States and Canada. By making visible the thousands of things people are doing right now to build a new kind of economy, this event will inspire broader participation and catalyze a conversation for deep, systemic change.
All around the country, people are rolling up their sleeves and getting to work on building an economy that prioritizes people and the planet. From starting cooperative groceries, to implementing citywide participatory budgeting, to municipalizing energy companies, these democratic and decentralized wealth-building strategies are being embraced by communities as a means of systemic transformation. While our political system proves itself incapable of dealing with complex problems, people are creating parallel institutions that meet their needs and lay a foundation for long-term social change.
Right now there are over 40 events listed on the website and counting [neweconomyweek.org/calendar]. Shareable's new Sharing Cities Network is hosting a Sharing Cities Mapping Jam to map the new economy in cities across the country that week [shareable.net/blog/join-the-sharing-cities-network]. In Milwaukee, WI, the Riverwest Cooperative Alliance is throwing a Co-op Fest on October 12th to promote and educate the public about cooperatives [riverwestmke.wix.com/cooperativealliance]. That same day, the Pennsylvania Public Bank Project is hosting a workshop in Philadelphia on public banking for the community and neighborhood leaders [papublicbankproject.org]. Later in the week, in Montpelier, VT, Gus Speth will deliver a speech on “Measuring What Matters” that will be simulcast across the state. Shareable's new Sharing Cities Network is hosting a new economy Mapping Jam across the country that week. While representing only a sliver what’s happening in North America, these events demonstrate the breadth of strategies people are employing to transform our economy.
There’s still plenty of time to get involved. If you’re already hosting an event that falls within New Economy Week, go submit it on their website to get featured on the events page [neweconomyweek.org]. Want inspiration for creating a new event? Check out their action toolkit [neweconomyweek.org/get-involved] and Shareable’s “How To Share” Guide [shareable.net/how-to-share] for ideas about projects and events you can organize with your community. If you are outside the US or Canada, you can still host an event and next year hopefully organize a New Economy Week for your country.
Whether New Economy Week becomes an annual fixture (an Earth Day for the New Economy movement) remains to be seen. This year is very much an experiment. But if the momentum on the ground is any indication, New Economy Week – and all of the incredible work being done to build collective power and healthy communities – is just the beginning.
Join the Sharing Cities Network
Imagine a city where everyone’s needs are met because people make the personal choice to share. Where everyone can create meaningful livelihoods. Where fresh, local food is available to all. Where affordable housing and shared transportation are abundant. Where the poor are lifted up, the middle class is strengthened, and the rich are respected because they all work together for the common good.
Imagine a city where the people decide how the city budget is spent. Where the people own the banks, control credit, and create their own money. Where the people own the utilities that make green energy and internet access available to all.
Imagine a city where all this is possible without relying on the government or big banks. Where we don't have to beg leaders for change or sell ourselves out to “make it” at the expense of others. Where the more we share, the more we have. Where everyone wins.
Our dream at Shareable is that everyone gets to live in such a place. While ambitious, our dream is grounded in reality. Everything that's imagined above already exists. We know this because we’ve written about these pockets of sanity nearly every day for the last five years.
What’s missing is there’s no single city where all these models are brought together. And until now there’s been few efforts to create such cities.
This is a call to change that.
Because there are proven solutions, there’s no need to doubt that it can be done. Because these solutions can be created by ordinary people, there’s no need to ask permission to start. Because there’s great need, there’s no reason to wait.
The time to build sharing cities is now.
So, today Shareable launches the Sharing Cities Network -- a grassroots network for sharing innovators to discover together how to create as many sharing cities around the world as fast as possible.
To kick off the network, Shareable is hosting a Sharing Cities Map Jam October 12-19th. The goal of the Map Jam is to map the sharing economies of 25 cities with 25 local teams.
While there’s no complete sharing city yet, we've found that every city has a much bigger foundation to build on than people think. There are cooperatives, community gardens, tool libraries, timebanks, bike kitchens, coworking and maker spaces, credit unions, farmers' markets, or their ilk nearly everywhere.
We believe that making these oases of sharing visible will be an empowering first step for the network. After the Map Jam, we'll post the maps on Shareable for anyone to use, share, or copy. The network's next steps will be worked out together.
Please fill out the form below this message on the website [shareable.net/blog/join-the-sharing-cities-network] to learn more. We'll be in touch soon.
Monday, September 30, 2013
Food sharing networks
Food sharing networks are organized to make sure excess produce grown but which cannot be sold is instead shared with those in need. With modern, and sustainable, food growing techniques, there is no reason for anyone to starve as long as there are people who organize the network for food sharing.
Cropmobster [cropmobster.com], implemented by [bloomfieldfarmsorganics.com]
"Cropmobster: Connecting the Dots Between Farms, Food Waste and Hunger"
2013-09-30 by Dani Burlison [http://www.shareable.net/blog/cropmobster-connecting-the-dots-between-farms-food-waste-and-hunger]:
Perched along the rolling hills of Coastal Sonoma County, Bloomfield Farms spreads out across 50 acres, close to 40 of which are thick with kale, chard, heirloom tomatoes, summer squash, potatoes and more. The foggy gray skies that often hang over this part of the county on summer mornings have not deterred several families from venturing out to the farm where they make their way down rows of greens, picking their own vegetables as a part of the "U Pick" program. Back at the farm stand, several more gather for a Sunday pay-what-you-can brunch. A musician strums his guitar, friends and strangers alike gather around community tables and the sun breaks through the clouds for an idyllic late summer treat.
It's not just the screaming deals through Bloomfield's pick-your-own program, the local, organic meal or the ambiance on these laid-back Sundays that have given Bloomfield Farms a prominent place on the map in the North Bay's tight-knit organic farming community. A new food gleaning and supply-sharing program called Cropmobster, spearheaded by Bloomfield's General Manager Nick Papadopolous, has created simple and effective solutions to address food waste and hunger and increase farmer visibility in a decentralized, community-based way. And it's spreading like wildfire.
“It started in March,” says Papadopolous. “Standing in our vegetable cooler on a Sunday night it finally clicked that, wow, there is a lot of food left at the end of the week that should go to people.”
His response was to mobilize; to get this food away from the compost and onto tables. He began by posting deals on Facebook. He was honest about the situation, letting people know that they had excess food and that they’d love to get this food to people, as well as help cover some of their costs. On the first weekend, someone texted Papadopolous, “I’m in!” The second weekend, the same thing happened.
“Both of those times,” says Papadopolous, “it was people just like you: moms, parents, whoever, driving out the very next day for perfectly edible wonderful organic food and distributing it to their neighbors. Everyone got a really great deal, we recovered some of our costs, we got to meet some amazing people and build new friends in the community.”
Experiencing the quick and relatively simple benefits of his crowdsourcing solution, Papadopolous thought of the benefits local grocers, distributors and anyone with excess food could experience. He teamed up with a friend to build Cropmobster, an instant alert platform that anyone who has excess food can post to. Community members can also make posts asking for donations of plant starts for school or community gardens and even, in the case of several elders who have used Cropmobster, asking for donations of food or garden supplies for personal use. To date, Papadopolous says that anywhere from twenty to thirty school gardens have been planted with seedlings that would have otherwise gone to compost.
“All of these great groups are out there in our community doing awesome work,” he says. “But there is no community exchange or infrastructure to allow folks to communicate and to mobilize and use crowd-sourcing and decentralized systems to really tackle some of these problems.”
Past deals on Cropmobster have included gleanings of four acres of peaches; six acres of premium grapes; farmers selling ten bunches of basil for $1 each; restaurants and bakers offering truck loads of stale bread to pig farmers; and dozens of egg-laying hens finding new homes.
Based in Sonoma County, Cropmombster has reached beyond the county lines and in less than a year is now utilized by hunger-relief organizations, churches, farmers, ranchers, retailers and individuals in 11 northern California counties. It has caught the attention of local and national community leadership, too. From agriculture commissioners, farmer advocacy groups and people like Slipstream Strategy founder Tamsin Smith and Assistant Chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service James Gore, who both serve on the groups advisory committee, groups and individuals are watching closely and stepping in to help. One can hope that the concept can continue to spread to where it is needed the most.
“Our vision with the Cropmobster community exchange,” says Papadopolous, “is to create a community platform to allow folks to exchange excess food and other materials, and we've seen a lot of donations. He continues, “For instance, one of the greatest grocers in San Francisco, Bi-Rite Market, is using Cropmobster to publish donations.”
An independently-owned, family-run grocer based in San Francisco, Bi-Rite focuses on sourcing and selling artisanal and sustainably-sourced food. The grocer has sourced farm-direct produce from Bloomfield for several years and became Cropmobster's first San Francisco-based retailer.
“We’ve used Cropmobster as a way to manage our in-house, day-of food excess at both of our grocery stores, and [to] specifically target and build ongoing relationships with hunger relief organizations in San Francisco,” says Bi-Rite's Community Coordinator Shakirah Simley. “We post online alerts and Cropmobster's staff blasts this donation out through their platform, through social media, and direct e-mail. We generally hear from a non-profit organization within the hour.”
Simley says that within the first two months of using Cropmobster, Bi-Rite donated over $2,000 worth of organic fresh produce and artisanal food to San Francisco hunger relief organizations. They’ve also made connections with organizations like Glide SF, Project Open Hand, Episcopal Community Services and Food Runners, helping feed several hundred food-insecure individuals including the homeless and people living with HIV. Cropmobster posts impact reports so the public can see where the food goes and watch the ripples of positive impact as it spreads through the community.
With roughly 14-15 percent of U.S. households currently experiencing, or at-risk of, food insecurity, and an estimated 40 percent of food being wasted before ever reaching those in need, Cropmobster continues to connect the dots locally. In addition to Bi-Rite's donations, several other Bay Area hunger-relief organizations have reaped the benefits of Cropmobster through donations or through gleaning events that are specifically geared toward nonprofit organizations. On a more basic level, individuals often benefit directly when someone with a few apple trees makes a post offering access to their crop for free. Community members connect and develop friendships and business relationships with one another, and local farmers gain visibility.
“It benefited us with getting a minimal profit and benefited the recipient with getting a high quality product at a cheap price,” says Karen McKenzie of Twin Palms Ranch in Santa Rosa. “It also spread the word about our farm and who and what we are in the community.”
Papadopolous stresses that it’s important for farmers to be recognized more in the community.
“Over 50 percent of small farms in this state lose money,” he says. “We've got to find a way to lift up farms and make them visible. And if there's excess, it should go to the public. I've never seen an industry or a business where there's so much loss and waste.”
Papadopolous says that projects like Cropmobster can help put a dent in the problem and mobilize the community around things that no one can disagree with.
“We really need more projects that tend to inspire people to work together,” he says. “No matter where this goes, it's important to shatter the mindset that it's acceptable for 40 percent of food to go to waste. What's inspiring us at the end of the day are the impacts,” he continues. “It is a really exciting time to look at the systems in our communities and see if there are ways to connect dots differently, and take it to the next level.”
Cropmobster [cropmobster.com], implemented by [bloomfieldfarmsorganics.com]
"Cropmobster: Connecting the Dots Between Farms, Food Waste and Hunger"
2013-09-30 by Dani Burlison [http://www.shareable.net/blog/cropmobster-connecting-the-dots-between-farms-food-waste-and-hunger]:
Perched along the rolling hills of Coastal Sonoma County, Bloomfield Farms spreads out across 50 acres, close to 40 of which are thick with kale, chard, heirloom tomatoes, summer squash, potatoes and more. The foggy gray skies that often hang over this part of the county on summer mornings have not deterred several families from venturing out to the farm where they make their way down rows of greens, picking their own vegetables as a part of the "U Pick" program. Back at the farm stand, several more gather for a Sunday pay-what-you-can brunch. A musician strums his guitar, friends and strangers alike gather around community tables and the sun breaks through the clouds for an idyllic late summer treat.
It's not just the screaming deals through Bloomfield's pick-your-own program, the local, organic meal or the ambiance on these laid-back Sundays that have given Bloomfield Farms a prominent place on the map in the North Bay's tight-knit organic farming community. A new food gleaning and supply-sharing program called Cropmobster, spearheaded by Bloomfield's General Manager Nick Papadopolous, has created simple and effective solutions to address food waste and hunger and increase farmer visibility in a decentralized, community-based way. And it's spreading like wildfire.
“It started in March,” says Papadopolous. “Standing in our vegetable cooler on a Sunday night it finally clicked that, wow, there is a lot of food left at the end of the week that should go to people.”
His response was to mobilize; to get this food away from the compost and onto tables. He began by posting deals on Facebook. He was honest about the situation, letting people know that they had excess food and that they’d love to get this food to people, as well as help cover some of their costs. On the first weekend, someone texted Papadopolous, “I’m in!” The second weekend, the same thing happened.
“Both of those times,” says Papadopolous, “it was people just like you: moms, parents, whoever, driving out the very next day for perfectly edible wonderful organic food and distributing it to their neighbors. Everyone got a really great deal, we recovered some of our costs, we got to meet some amazing people and build new friends in the community.”
Experiencing the quick and relatively simple benefits of his crowdsourcing solution, Papadopolous thought of the benefits local grocers, distributors and anyone with excess food could experience. He teamed up with a friend to build Cropmobster, an instant alert platform that anyone who has excess food can post to. Community members can also make posts asking for donations of plant starts for school or community gardens and even, in the case of several elders who have used Cropmobster, asking for donations of food or garden supplies for personal use. To date, Papadopolous says that anywhere from twenty to thirty school gardens have been planted with seedlings that would have otherwise gone to compost.
“All of these great groups are out there in our community doing awesome work,” he says. “But there is no community exchange or infrastructure to allow folks to communicate and to mobilize and use crowd-sourcing and decentralized systems to really tackle some of these problems.”
Past deals on Cropmobster have included gleanings of four acres of peaches; six acres of premium grapes; farmers selling ten bunches of basil for $1 each; restaurants and bakers offering truck loads of stale bread to pig farmers; and dozens of egg-laying hens finding new homes.
Based in Sonoma County, Cropmombster has reached beyond the county lines and in less than a year is now utilized by hunger-relief organizations, churches, farmers, ranchers, retailers and individuals in 11 northern California counties. It has caught the attention of local and national community leadership, too. From agriculture commissioners, farmer advocacy groups and people like Slipstream Strategy founder Tamsin Smith and Assistant Chief of Natural Resources Conservation Service James Gore, who both serve on the groups advisory committee, groups and individuals are watching closely and stepping in to help. One can hope that the concept can continue to spread to where it is needed the most.
“Our vision with the Cropmobster community exchange,” says Papadopolous, “is to create a community platform to allow folks to exchange excess food and other materials, and we've seen a lot of donations. He continues, “For instance, one of the greatest grocers in San Francisco, Bi-Rite Market, is using Cropmobster to publish donations.”
An independently-owned, family-run grocer based in San Francisco, Bi-Rite focuses on sourcing and selling artisanal and sustainably-sourced food. The grocer has sourced farm-direct produce from Bloomfield for several years and became Cropmobster's first San Francisco-based retailer.
“We’ve used Cropmobster as a way to manage our in-house, day-of food excess at both of our grocery stores, and [to] specifically target and build ongoing relationships with hunger relief organizations in San Francisco,” says Bi-Rite's Community Coordinator Shakirah Simley. “We post online alerts and Cropmobster's staff blasts this donation out through their platform, through social media, and direct e-mail. We generally hear from a non-profit organization within the hour.”
Simley says that within the first two months of using Cropmobster, Bi-Rite donated over $2,000 worth of organic fresh produce and artisanal food to San Francisco hunger relief organizations. They’ve also made connections with organizations like Glide SF, Project Open Hand, Episcopal Community Services and Food Runners, helping feed several hundred food-insecure individuals including the homeless and people living with HIV. Cropmobster posts impact reports so the public can see where the food goes and watch the ripples of positive impact as it spreads through the community.
With roughly 14-15 percent of U.S. households currently experiencing, or at-risk of, food insecurity, and an estimated 40 percent of food being wasted before ever reaching those in need, Cropmobster continues to connect the dots locally. In addition to Bi-Rite's donations, several other Bay Area hunger-relief organizations have reaped the benefits of Cropmobster through donations or through gleaning events that are specifically geared toward nonprofit organizations. On a more basic level, individuals often benefit directly when someone with a few apple trees makes a post offering access to their crop for free. Community members connect and develop friendships and business relationships with one another, and local farmers gain visibility.
“It benefited us with getting a minimal profit and benefited the recipient with getting a high quality product at a cheap price,” says Karen McKenzie of Twin Palms Ranch in Santa Rosa. “It also spread the word about our farm and who and what we are in the community.”
Papadopolous stresses that it’s important for farmers to be recognized more in the community.
“Over 50 percent of small farms in this state lose money,” he says. “We've got to find a way to lift up farms and make them visible. And if there's excess, it should go to the public. I've never seen an industry or a business where there's so much loss and waste.”
Papadopolous says that projects like Cropmobster can help put a dent in the problem and mobilize the community around things that no one can disagree with.
“We really need more projects that tend to inspire people to work together,” he says. “No matter where this goes, it's important to shatter the mindset that it's acceptable for 40 percent of food to go to waste. What's inspiring us at the end of the day are the impacts,” he continues. “It is a really exciting time to look at the systems in our communities and see if there are ways to connect dots differently, and take it to the next level.”
Friday, September 27, 2013
Communities for Resilience - Map Your Future Project
Join us in launching this exciting new program!
Contact -
* Program Director Kirsten Schwind [kirsten@baylocalize.org] [510-834-0420]
* If you work with a youth group in the Bay Area and would like to collaborate on developing and testing this program, contact [corrine@baylocalize.org]
* "Map Your Future" Blog [baylocalize.org/communities-for-resilience/program-news/map-your-future-blog]:
"Our Vision for 2013: Map Your Future Project"
2013-05-21 message from Bay Localize:
[baylocalize.org/map%20your%20future%20project]:
In 2013, Bay Localize is excited to launch the Map Your Future Project to prepare young adult job seekers (age 18-25) to find their first jobs in building local climate resilience.
The project trains youth to document efforts to prevent and prepare for the local impacts of climate change that also create job opportunities, and map them on online. The project captures the stories of what kind of investment and policy change it would take to ramp these efforts up to create even more jobs. Youth leverage this research process to explore job opportunities and build professional networks to build careers serving their community.
Bay Localize is partnering with youth organizations around the Bay Area to host trainings to prepare their members to become resilience mappers. Trainings also feature a special emphasis on low-income communities of color and low-income youth with barriers to employment (e.g. no high school diploma, history of incarceration, at-risk), who suffer the highest rates of unemployment.
Youth mappers will be trained in:
* Impacts of climate change locally and what we can do about it.
* Identifying community efforts that are building climate resilience.
* Interview and research skills.
* Following up on job opportunities they are interested in.
Based on the research findings from our mappers, we will develop action recommendations to ramp up local resilience jobs and livelihoods in the Bay Area. Bay Localize will document training curriculum, web tools, and program methodology for replication worldwide.
"Communities for Resilience: Map Your Future with Ma'at Youth Academy"
2013-09-17 update from Corrine at Bay Localize:
We're excited to announce that Bay Localize recently tested our Map Your Future curriculum with the outstanding Ma'at Youth Academy (ages 16-21). The curriculum was very well received by the youth, who were eager to bring their lived experience, knowledge, passion and innovative ideas to the table.
Our vision for the Map Your Future project is to make it easy for local planners and community organizations, especially youth groups, to work together to map out community resilience assets.
Our test curriculum with Ma'at began with introducing the concepts of "Climate Impacts" and "Vulnerable Communities" and had youth map out relevant examples in Richmond. We then shifted to concepts of "Climate Resilience," "Climate Action" and "Assets," which had them identify some of the solutions to address climate impacts and vulnerabilities. Each of the youth performed a skit on the climate solution of their choice, mapped out assets, and identified jobs that would be created as a result of investment. We wrapped things up with a letter from each youth to a decision maker about their recommendations to address climate change, how they are impacted, and how they'd like to be involved. "The skits helped me think critically about what needs to be done, " expressed one of the youth.
2013-08-15 update from Corrine at Bay Localize:
What an amazing day with the youth at Ma'at Academy. We sought out to test our Map Your Future curriculum, and needless to say we were blown away by the consciousness, knowledge, passion and innovative ideas that these youth (ages 16-21) brought to the table.
Over the course of several weeks this summer, these youth learned about the history of Richmond, CA, wetland ecosystems, watershed, landuse planning, changes in global average surface temperature, food justice, environmental justice and climate justice. Walking into the room I found myself not only inspired by what they knew, but the urgency in their presence to want to do something about it to improve their communities. For most of these youth, there was no question that climate change is real. They along with their families and communities feel the impacts of limited access to clean air and water, healthy food, transportation, housing and jobs.
We began by introducing the concepts of "Climate Impacts" and "Vulnerable Communities" and had them map out relevant examples in Richmond. We then shifted to concepts of "Climate Resilience," "Climate Action" and "Assets," which had them identify some of the solutions to address climate impacts, vulnerabilities, how to make them better, and think about alternatives. Each of the youth performed a skit on the climate solution of their choice, mapped out assets and identified jobs that would be created as a result of investment. "The skits helped me think critically about what needs to be done, " expressed one of the youth.
As we wrapped things up for the day, we asked the youth to take action by writing a letter to a decision maker about their recommendations to address climate change, how they are impacted and how they'd like to be involved.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Worker owned factories & Co-ops
How to Start a Grocery Co-op [link]
There is so much ferment in the worker co-op sector in the US right now, you should check your assumptions about co-ops at the door and look into it:
* US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) [usworker.coop].
* CECOPA federation of worker co-ops world wide [www.cecop.coop].
* Shift Change documentary film, [shiftchange.org], about the incredible new activity in the worker co-op sector in the USA.
* Cooperative Grocers Information Network [cooperativegrocer.coop/]
* International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) [http://ica.coop/]
Many of the more than 300 worker co-ops in the US right now are committed to social transformation and ecological accountability, in addition to creating good jobs and democratic workplaces. The commentators who simply dismiss worker co-ops as no better than predatory consumer capitalism are missing what is happening at the grass roots in the movement. The discussions are not about outsourcing, minimizing input costs and maximizing consumer sales, but about social transformation, social justice and ecological accountability.
The fastest growing sector of worker co-ops in the USA is in Latino/a immigrant communities, where workers especially women are creating stable decent-paying work in businesses they own and control, primarily in housecleaning using non-toxic chemicals but also in other sectors.
Mondragon Cooperative Corporation is working long-term so that workers at factories in the "outsourcing" countries get support to reorganize their work lives to become worker-owners in their own cooperatives.
Also MCC has worked with the United Steel Workers Union to get the Union movement in the USA to look seriously at taking direct control of factories and workplaces instead of stagnating in a permanent adversarial relationship of contract negotiation with a superior owning class. This has led to the new Union Co-op model, and USW will be working over the next few years to launch worker-owned industrial enterprises in the USA.
King Arthur Flour, a worker owned company in New England [link]
Worker-Owned business is subsidized in Bolivia [link]
"A Decade after the Take: Inside Argentina's Worker Owned Factories"
2013-09-25 by Nora Leccese [http://www.shareable.net/blog/a-decade-after-the-take-inside-argentinas-worker-owned-factories]:
The economy is pretty untrustworthy in Argentina right now - the economy’s 30% inflation will eat away at your paycheck till there is nothing left and it’s not wise invest with Argentina pesos. It is very difficult to conduct business at all given the frustrating lack of transparency of most monetary transactions. Which is why it’s incredible that worker-owned businesses have flourished in the rubble. In Argentina, worker ownership requires trust against all odds. As a student of economics and a young activist, I have held the worker-ownership model in Argentina up as a beacon I could orient towards, an alternative and a method of resistance that might be widely applicable.
The Spark for the Movement: Economic Crisis in 2001 -
For the past two months, I have been visiting, interviewing and working with the worker-owners of Argentina's empresas recuperadas, or taken factories. The movement of taken factories gained enormous momentum after the Argentine economic collapse of 2001, when foreign investors saw Argentina's strong industrial sector crumble, and closed up shop. The economy lost thosands of factories that supplied millions of jobs. Workers at some of these factories saw the lunacy in letting their former workplaces lie cold and vacant while they were out of work and already knew how to run the businesses and operate the machines. One by one, they began to occupy their factories and demand the right (protected under Argentina’s constitution) to work, and to re-start production as a worker-owned cooperative, resulting in more than 180 cooperative factories employing over 10,000 workers.
The workers' logic was that since their labor produced all the added value for the products, and their employers had walked away from their businesses, that it was their only option and also their right to run the factories themselves, under horizontal direct democracy. Once workers decided to take over their factory, a long and often complicated judicial process awaited them. They camped out for months in or near their workplaces to ensure the former bosses didn’t gut the factory and sell the machines in the middle of the night.
Early in the process, many occupations turned violent as police tried repeatedly to evict the entrenched coop members. But the process has now become more streamlined and normalized. I met one group of workers in the middle of the recuperation process. Their little camp on the street was filled with laughter, music and homemade empanadas delivered by other members of the movement, worker owners who already won their battles for the right to produce.
This movement provided immense hope for many around the world who saw factory occupation and recuperation as the beginning of a paradigm shift; a chance to build a new system within the broken shell of globalized capitalism. The flood of energy and idealism was undoubtedly released in the US by a film by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis called The Take [thetake.org], documenting a successful factory recuperation. I gained a window into the maturation of this dream in Buenos Aires now 11 years after the first factory take over, of a movement that through its institutionalization process has held fast to some fairly radical principles, while beginning to access mainstream markets.
The stories of the workers I've interviewed are filled with contradiction, with relentless struggle against oppression and with degrees of triumph. My time in Buenos Aires helped me to redefine the meaning of dignified work, and provided a frame for the global struggle for worker self-determination. Studying the coop movement in Argentina and identifying pieces that could be translated for the movement in the US, we have so much to learn from our friends in the South.
La Matanza: A Coop With Very Old Problems and Brand New Solutions -
We turned onto a side street of a dirty industrial district on the edge of Buenos Aires and parked in front of a warehouse belonging to La Matanza, a worker owned cooperative since 2003 that makes screws. At the time of its factory take over, the workers hadn't been paid for ten months, so they staged a fifteen day occupation of their factory to ensure that the owner couldn't ferry the stock away and sell it off. The nine current members (or socios) of La Matanza are aging, most close to sixty years old. Some have worked in the dim, cold interior of La Matanza for forty years and now are building new relationships based in horizontal authority and collective decision making with the men they worked next to for so long.
Business is pretty good at La Matanza with a stable client base and higher than average returns (they're not called wages in a coop). They feel secure in their work. The biggest problem, everyone said was the delays they experience when the machines break down. “Well, how old are the machines?” I asked. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said casually, "Around one hundred years old." This factory started producing screws before the dictatorship, Juan Peron, and the Falkland Islands War and nearly everything that has shaped the face and the fate of Argentina today. When these centenarians break down, the workers take them apart, honing new parts out of scrap metal and coax them back to life. But it takes a couple days, and that's their biggest impediment to production.
They display intimacy, the men and their machines. One member was showing me how a compressed air pump stamps the Phillips-head imprint onto the head of a screw and stuck his smooth calloused fingers so close to the pumping mechanism that I began to wince, bracing for the yowl of snagged flesh. But he knew he was safe. He knew the cadence of the rotation, showed me with pride how his craft works. Some of these men have spent more time with these machines, inside this dim cold warehouse where everything is covered in eerie, shimmering dust, than they have with their families, their friends. Than they've spent outside in the open air. This is the price of industry.
Flexible Politics at Cooperativa SG Patria Grande -
My next stop outside the city was a coop called SG Patria Grande [labase.org/index.php?action=loan&id=346]. As soon as we stepped in from the bright sunlight I was surprised by a flurry of color and activity. Boxes were flying around the warehouse, being chucked from the loft and unceremoniously corralled into the open doors of a truck. Everyone working was young, under thirty-five, and was bustling around, whistling and cracking jokes. The boxes flew through the air with such ease because this coop distributes a wide array of intentionally lightweight disposables. Every imaginable extrusion of Styrofoam and cardboard and wrapping paper and Kleenex lay carefully ordered in yet another layer of packaging, in a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with what amounts to pre-trash.
The coop has a dream of using funds from their distribution business to open a responsibly produced bulk food store and restaurant, and seem very serious about making the transition, but know they will rely on revenues from pre-trash for the next ten years at least. They’re trying to offer more corn-based compostable products, but they are not confident that these products are a viable long term alternative.
I began chatting with Julio, one of the founders of SG. He is 35, super alert, casual and bounced around on the soles of his bright red converse as he spoke with us. He started SG with more than a dozen friends when they were in their late twenties. They are all from middle class backgrounds, much younger than other coop socios I've met, and very concentrated on building cooperativism as a social movement. SG would like to host a coop summit to get all movement leaders together to share stories and create both business and personal connections. They hold workshops in cooperative business management and are a great resource for their fellow worker owners to access legal and technical information.
He said that when they first started, there were just a few stacks of boxes at the back, and now they've crept forward so that the room is nearly bursting. The huge back stock is a measure of the good health of this growing cooperative. On one wall of the warehouse there is a huge colorful mural of a masked Zapatista warrior with a baby on one hip (also in a black mask) and waving the rainbow checked indigenous flag. In the US, it would be unthinkable to see such a blatant representation of a clearly subversive group like the Zapatistas in any sort of capitalist business establishment.
Even odder, is that this Zapatista mama was flanked on the wall by a life sized cut out of Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina's current lady president. This is the type of small business her rhetoric is intent on supporting, although in practice she strongly favors supporting massive (Argentine, not foreign) corporations. More importantly perhaps, she represents a distinctly mainstream “business as usual” attitude with regard to capitalism that clashes with the chants of “que se vayan todos” (“get them all out”, with regards to the power elite) that rang through the streets in 2001 when the empresas recuperadas movement was born. That was a time where people were desperate enough to imagine what a more radical shift might look like.
The empresas recuperadas movement helped people to envision what an economy based in solidarity and horizontal decision making might be, how that would change their daily lives and their relationships to their neighbors. But small gains for people clawing their way back towards middle class have tempered that vision, and many social movements in Argentina have once again set their sights on reform and not revolution. Julio saw me staring in bewilderment at the two women on the wall, he just smiled again and said mischievously, "We like a little bit of everything at SG.”
The socios at SG are doing admirable work through their plans to supply more sustainable products and continue hosting cooperative workshops. They, and the rest of the worker-owners I spent time with, are building new networks together of good and services, providers and clients, producers and consumers based in socially responsible economic principles that provide mutual benefit. The challenges they face are an aging industrial landscape and a weak currency, however their struggle has weathered 11 years already and shows no signs of going away. Their success will lead to the success of their children and their communities.
An Advancing Global Movement -
While the economic conditions in Argentina have been incredibly precarious, the consciousness that evolved as a result of the crisis provided fertile ground for a vibrant movement. Similar conditions are ripening in parts of the US as well. Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis and Chicago are all looking to new economic models. Chicago is the home of the first worker cooperative takeover of a factory in the US, New Era Windows [newerawindows.com/about-us/our-story] and Detroit unions are seriously considering replacing the corporate auto industry that fled with their jobs with worker-owned industries. Despite the movement’s contradictions, Argentina is still a priceless window into a new path and economic paradigm of worker’s dignity, mutual aid and trust that can provide tangible inspiration to struggling workers and communities around the world.
The Working World [theworkingworld.org/us] is now helping to turn those dreams into reality in other countries and helped New Era purchase their factory from its previous owner. Working World is a non-profit organization that provides investment capital and technical support for worker cooperatives. Upon return, all investment money is reintegrated to a locally-based revolving loan fund, overseen by the cooperatives and the community it serves. According to Working World, "We support worker cooperatives using a finance model that puts money at the service of people, not the other way around. We help design, fund, and carry out productive projects, only requiring that cooperatives pay us back with the revenues the investments generate. As active partners, we are more motivated to ensure that these projects are successful, or in other words, that finance is only used as a tool to create real, lasting wealth for those that it serves."
There is so much ferment in the worker co-op sector in the US right now, you should check your assumptions about co-ops at the door and look into it:
* US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) [usworker.coop].
* CECOPA federation of worker co-ops world wide [www.cecop.coop].
* Shift Change documentary film, [shiftchange.org], about the incredible new activity in the worker co-op sector in the USA.
* Cooperative Grocers Information Network [cooperativegrocer.coop/]
* International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) [http://ica.coop/]
Many of the more than 300 worker co-ops in the US right now are committed to social transformation and ecological accountability, in addition to creating good jobs and democratic workplaces. The commentators who simply dismiss worker co-ops as no better than predatory consumer capitalism are missing what is happening at the grass roots in the movement. The discussions are not about outsourcing, minimizing input costs and maximizing consumer sales, but about social transformation, social justice and ecological accountability.
The fastest growing sector of worker co-ops in the USA is in Latino/a immigrant communities, where workers especially women are creating stable decent-paying work in businesses they own and control, primarily in housecleaning using non-toxic chemicals but also in other sectors.
Mondragon Cooperative Corporation is working long-term so that workers at factories in the "outsourcing" countries get support to reorganize their work lives to become worker-owners in their own cooperatives.
Also MCC has worked with the United Steel Workers Union to get the Union movement in the USA to look seriously at taking direct control of factories and workplaces instead of stagnating in a permanent adversarial relationship of contract negotiation with a superior owning class. This has led to the new Union Co-op model, and USW will be working over the next few years to launch worker-owned industrial enterprises in the USA.
King Arthur Flour, a worker owned company in New England [link]
Worker-Owned business is subsidized in Bolivia [link]
"A Decade after the Take: Inside Argentina's Worker Owned Factories"
2013-09-25 by Nora Leccese [http://www.shareable.net/blog/a-decade-after-the-take-inside-argentinas-worker-owned-factories]:
The economy is pretty untrustworthy in Argentina right now - the economy’s 30% inflation will eat away at your paycheck till there is nothing left and it’s not wise invest with Argentina pesos. It is very difficult to conduct business at all given the frustrating lack of transparency of most monetary transactions. Which is why it’s incredible that worker-owned businesses have flourished in the rubble. In Argentina, worker ownership requires trust against all odds. As a student of economics and a young activist, I have held the worker-ownership model in Argentina up as a beacon I could orient towards, an alternative and a method of resistance that might be widely applicable.
The Spark for the Movement: Economic Crisis in 2001 -
For the past two months, I have been visiting, interviewing and working with the worker-owners of Argentina's empresas recuperadas, or taken factories. The movement of taken factories gained enormous momentum after the Argentine economic collapse of 2001, when foreign investors saw Argentina's strong industrial sector crumble, and closed up shop. The economy lost thosands of factories that supplied millions of jobs. Workers at some of these factories saw the lunacy in letting their former workplaces lie cold and vacant while they were out of work and already knew how to run the businesses and operate the machines. One by one, they began to occupy their factories and demand the right (protected under Argentina’s constitution) to work, and to re-start production as a worker-owned cooperative, resulting in more than 180 cooperative factories employing over 10,000 workers.
The workers' logic was that since their labor produced all the added value for the products, and their employers had walked away from their businesses, that it was their only option and also their right to run the factories themselves, under horizontal direct democracy. Once workers decided to take over their factory, a long and often complicated judicial process awaited them. They camped out for months in or near their workplaces to ensure the former bosses didn’t gut the factory and sell the machines in the middle of the night.
Early in the process, many occupations turned violent as police tried repeatedly to evict the entrenched coop members. But the process has now become more streamlined and normalized. I met one group of workers in the middle of the recuperation process. Their little camp on the street was filled with laughter, music and homemade empanadas delivered by other members of the movement, worker owners who already won their battles for the right to produce.
This movement provided immense hope for many around the world who saw factory occupation and recuperation as the beginning of a paradigm shift; a chance to build a new system within the broken shell of globalized capitalism. The flood of energy and idealism was undoubtedly released in the US by a film by Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis called The Take [thetake.org], documenting a successful factory recuperation. I gained a window into the maturation of this dream in Buenos Aires now 11 years after the first factory take over, of a movement that through its institutionalization process has held fast to some fairly radical principles, while beginning to access mainstream markets.
The stories of the workers I've interviewed are filled with contradiction, with relentless struggle against oppression and with degrees of triumph. My time in Buenos Aires helped me to redefine the meaning of dignified work, and provided a frame for the global struggle for worker self-determination. Studying the coop movement in Argentina and identifying pieces that could be translated for the movement in the US, we have so much to learn from our friends in the South.
La Matanza: A Coop With Very Old Problems and Brand New Solutions -
We turned onto a side street of a dirty industrial district on the edge of Buenos Aires and parked in front of a warehouse belonging to La Matanza, a worker owned cooperative since 2003 that makes screws. At the time of its factory take over, the workers hadn't been paid for ten months, so they staged a fifteen day occupation of their factory to ensure that the owner couldn't ferry the stock away and sell it off. The nine current members (or socios) of La Matanza are aging, most close to sixty years old. Some have worked in the dim, cold interior of La Matanza for forty years and now are building new relationships based in horizontal authority and collective decision making with the men they worked next to for so long.
Business is pretty good at La Matanza with a stable client base and higher than average returns (they're not called wages in a coop). They feel secure in their work. The biggest problem, everyone said was the delays they experience when the machines break down. “Well, how old are the machines?” I asked. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said casually, "Around one hundred years old." This factory started producing screws before the dictatorship, Juan Peron, and the Falkland Islands War and nearly everything that has shaped the face and the fate of Argentina today. When these centenarians break down, the workers take them apart, honing new parts out of scrap metal and coax them back to life. But it takes a couple days, and that's their biggest impediment to production.
They display intimacy, the men and their machines. One member was showing me how a compressed air pump stamps the Phillips-head imprint onto the head of a screw and stuck his smooth calloused fingers so close to the pumping mechanism that I began to wince, bracing for the yowl of snagged flesh. But he knew he was safe. He knew the cadence of the rotation, showed me with pride how his craft works. Some of these men have spent more time with these machines, inside this dim cold warehouse where everything is covered in eerie, shimmering dust, than they have with their families, their friends. Than they've spent outside in the open air. This is the price of industry.
Flexible Politics at Cooperativa SG Patria Grande -
My next stop outside the city was a coop called SG Patria Grande [labase.org/index.php?action=loan&id=346]. As soon as we stepped in from the bright sunlight I was surprised by a flurry of color and activity. Boxes were flying around the warehouse, being chucked from the loft and unceremoniously corralled into the open doors of a truck. Everyone working was young, under thirty-five, and was bustling around, whistling and cracking jokes. The boxes flew through the air with such ease because this coop distributes a wide array of intentionally lightweight disposables. Every imaginable extrusion of Styrofoam and cardboard and wrapping paper and Kleenex lay carefully ordered in yet another layer of packaging, in a warehouse stacked to the ceiling with what amounts to pre-trash.
The coop has a dream of using funds from their distribution business to open a responsibly produced bulk food store and restaurant, and seem very serious about making the transition, but know they will rely on revenues from pre-trash for the next ten years at least. They’re trying to offer more corn-based compostable products, but they are not confident that these products are a viable long term alternative.
I began chatting with Julio, one of the founders of SG. He is 35, super alert, casual and bounced around on the soles of his bright red converse as he spoke with us. He started SG with more than a dozen friends when they were in their late twenties. They are all from middle class backgrounds, much younger than other coop socios I've met, and very concentrated on building cooperativism as a social movement. SG would like to host a coop summit to get all movement leaders together to share stories and create both business and personal connections. They hold workshops in cooperative business management and are a great resource for their fellow worker owners to access legal and technical information.
He said that when they first started, there were just a few stacks of boxes at the back, and now they've crept forward so that the room is nearly bursting. The huge back stock is a measure of the good health of this growing cooperative. On one wall of the warehouse there is a huge colorful mural of a masked Zapatista warrior with a baby on one hip (also in a black mask) and waving the rainbow checked indigenous flag. In the US, it would be unthinkable to see such a blatant representation of a clearly subversive group like the Zapatistas in any sort of capitalist business establishment.
Even odder, is that this Zapatista mama was flanked on the wall by a life sized cut out of Christina Fernandez de Kirchner, Argentina's current lady president. This is the type of small business her rhetoric is intent on supporting, although in practice she strongly favors supporting massive (Argentine, not foreign) corporations. More importantly perhaps, she represents a distinctly mainstream “business as usual” attitude with regard to capitalism that clashes with the chants of “que se vayan todos” (“get them all out”, with regards to the power elite) that rang through the streets in 2001 when the empresas recuperadas movement was born. That was a time where people were desperate enough to imagine what a more radical shift might look like.
The empresas recuperadas movement helped people to envision what an economy based in solidarity and horizontal decision making might be, how that would change their daily lives and their relationships to their neighbors. But small gains for people clawing their way back towards middle class have tempered that vision, and many social movements in Argentina have once again set their sights on reform and not revolution. Julio saw me staring in bewilderment at the two women on the wall, he just smiled again and said mischievously, "We like a little bit of everything at SG.”
The socios at SG are doing admirable work through their plans to supply more sustainable products and continue hosting cooperative workshops. They, and the rest of the worker-owners I spent time with, are building new networks together of good and services, providers and clients, producers and consumers based in socially responsible economic principles that provide mutual benefit. The challenges they face are an aging industrial landscape and a weak currency, however their struggle has weathered 11 years already and shows no signs of going away. Their success will lead to the success of their children and their communities.
An Advancing Global Movement -
While the economic conditions in Argentina have been incredibly precarious, the consciousness that evolved as a result of the crisis provided fertile ground for a vibrant movement. Similar conditions are ripening in parts of the US as well. Detroit, Cleveland, St. Louis and Chicago are all looking to new economic models. Chicago is the home of the first worker cooperative takeover of a factory in the US, New Era Windows [newerawindows.com/about-us/our-story] and Detroit unions are seriously considering replacing the corporate auto industry that fled with their jobs with worker-owned industries. Despite the movement’s contradictions, Argentina is still a priceless window into a new path and economic paradigm of worker’s dignity, mutual aid and trust that can provide tangible inspiration to struggling workers and communities around the world.
The Working World [theworkingworld.org/us] is now helping to turn those dreams into reality in other countries and helped New Era purchase their factory from its previous owner. Working World is a non-profit organization that provides investment capital and technical support for worker cooperatives. Upon return, all investment money is reintegrated to a locally-based revolving loan fund, overseen by the cooperatives and the community it serves. According to Working World, "We support worker cooperatives using a finance model that puts money at the service of people, not the other way around. We help design, fund, and carry out productive projects, only requiring that cooperatives pay us back with the revenues the investments generate. As active partners, we are more motivated to ensure that these projects are successful, or in other words, that finance is only used as a tool to create real, lasting wealth for those that it serves."
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
Vehicles powered by H2O (Water)
Sovereign technologies [link]
"Water Powered Car Unveiled: Yes It’s Real"
2013-07-28 by Arjun Walia [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/07/28/water-powered-car-unveiled-yes-its-real/]:
Everyday the world becomes aware of technologies that have the potential to halt the unnecessary damage we continue to create using fossil fuels. We’ve been talking about it for years, transitioning our way of life to be more harmonious with the planet and its natural systems. I’m not talking about solar or wind power (although great), I’m talking about clean and green technology that render fossil fuel burning technologies inferior and obsolete. One of these “new” technologies is a water fuelled car, and it has been unveiled on a number of occasions. It’s an automobile that derives its energy directly from water, and water alone. It is not hard to see why it’s not available to the masses. An engine powered by water would wipe out a large chunk of the fossil fuel industry and change the way these companies do business all together. The oil and gas corporations combine to bring in trillions of dollars every year. Inventions like these are a direct threat to the industry.
JAPANESE COMPANY UNVEILS WATER POWERED CAR -
A Japanese company called Genepax [http://www.genepax.co.jp/en/] unveiled their water powered car in 2008 in Osaka, Japan [http://www.reuters.com/video/2008/06/13/water-fuel-car-unveiled-in-japan?videoId=84561] [http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=JP&NR=2006244714&KC=&FT=E] [http://www19.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1DETAIL] [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130403104104.htm].
It doesn’t matter if it’s tap, bottled, or lake water, any type of water can make this car run. An energy generator splits the water molecules to produce hydrogen and this is used to power the car. They use a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) to split the Hydrogen from the Oxygen through a chemical reaction. The cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high pressure hydrogen tank.
This isn’t a conspiracy! The reality of this device has been verified by patent offices all over the world. To search a Japanese patent, you have to go through the Industrial Property Digital Library (IPDL). This organization makes patents available to the intellectual property department of the Japan Patent Office. The IDPL provides over 60 million documents and their relevant information as published since the end of the 19th century. The fact that these are even published for patent pending says a lot.
Click HERE [http://www19.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1DETAIL] to view the water energy system patent. You can also visit the Industrial Property Digital Library itself, do a “PAJ” search. Type in the publication number **2006-244714**. Documents are also on file with the European Patent Office, you can view them HERE [http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=JP&NR=2006244714&KC=&FT=E]. Reuters also did a brief report on the vehicle as you can see in the video below.
So what happened to Genepax? Approximately a year after revealing their device, the company shut down. They stopped displaying their device as well as promoting it. The only explanation given was a lack of monetary funds.
STANLEY MEYER’S WATER FUEL CELL -
Genepax isn’t the only group to have come forward demonstrating that we can turn water into hydrogen fuel and use it to power cars. Stanely Allen Meyer is another one who invented a water powered car and it received very little attention when it came to making the news available to the masses. Today, it’s a fairly well known story due to the mass awareness that has been created around the story. Stan’s invention was picked up very briefly by a local news station in Ohio.
You can view his patent HERE, it also describes the whole process [http://www.google.com/patents/US5149407]. You can view the entire collective of his documents here [http://www.waterfuelcell.org/documents.htm].
Here is another brief clip of Stan as he demonstrates his technology. Water contains a lot of hydrogen, as we know, which is a very efficient type of fuel. Converting water into hydrogen is 100 percent clean!
So what happened to Stanley Meyer? He was sued by potential investors, it was determined that his device was nothing revolutionary and simply uses the process of electrolyses. His claims were determined fraudulent, and his technology was under investigation by a number of investors, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense. It was patent pending, all of a sudden Stan Meyer died suddenly in 1998 after dining at a restaurant. Many close to him, including his twin brother, believe Stan was intentionally poisoned. Stan claimed,, just before he died in he restaurant parking lot, that he was poisoned.
USING WATER AS FUEL -
Water makes the perfect fuel source. It’s comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one atom of oxygen. When the water molecule is separated into its two component atoms and oxidized as fuel, the result is equivalent to an energy output that is two and one half times more powerful than gasoline. The byproduct of the combustion is water vapour, totally pollution free, returning water back into the atmosphere. The process used is known as electrolysis, which is a method of separating elements by pushing an electric current through a compound. Various techniques for water splitting have been issued in water splitting patents all over the world. You can click here to look at a few from the United States [http://www.waterfuelcell.org/] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=ttl%2F%22water+splitting%22&d=PTXT].
Not to long ago, researchers at Virginia Tech extracted hydrogen energy from water. They discovered that the energy stored in xylose splits water molecules as-well, yielding high purity hydrogen. You can read more about that here [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/05/clean-energy-breakthrough-scientists-extract-hydrogen-gas-from-plants/]. There are multiple examples of creating hydrogen by splitting the water molecule (2).
Another existing technology that can replace that entire industry is the Free Energy Device [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/12/04/free-energy-device-yes-they-are-real/]. Implementation of these two technologies alone would create one of the biggest technological changes in human history. The same group of people that own the big oil companies also own the mainstream media, so it’s not surprising that we don’t hear about these technologies. Scientists have been murdered, labs have been burnt down, and prototypes have been taken.
Alternative technologies are great, and obviously have tremendous implications. We must remember that the human race cannot create from the same level of consciousness that created this system in the first place. A change for planet Earth coincides with the change of heart more people are experiencing everyday. The key to move forward and enter into a new paradigm is simple, it’s love. With love, we’d already have these technologies implemented Because of greed, hate, fear and ego, they remain suppressed, but only for now.
Hopefully this article inspires more to further their research on water powered cars. There are multiple stories with very similar endings for the parties who came forward with this ground breaking technology. Why do we continue to speak about change when we already have the technologies to implement change? One reason is because a large majority of people have yet to become aware of these alternative technologies. They are not marketed, publicized or given much attention. It can be hard to accept that there are people on the planet actually engaged in the suppression of such information, but unfortunately it’s a reality. We are living in the age of transparency, many of us are waking up to thoughts and ideas we never thought we would ponder. In some cases revealing these technologies can cost you your life, that’s how much opposition exists against it -for now. When a new technology becomes so evidently clear, the implications are far reaching and can threaten multiple corporate interests.
"Stan Meyers water powered Buggy"
2007-04-09 upload by "Mokdo68" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74uarqap2E]:
Stan Meyer's Dune Buggy that ran on water. Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel in an ICE motor. On board electrolysis, no hydrogen tanks, no bombs on-board, just water.It ran 100 miles per gallon! It was a shame to hear that he was poisoned (March 98') and no longer with us. He died in the parking lot of a restaurant in his home town of Grove City, Ohio. Sharks came a week later and stole the the dune buggy and all of his experimental equipment, according to his brother, Steve. Stan said while he was alive, that he was threatened many times and would not sell out to Arab Oil Corps. (Stan Meyers was threatened and eventually poisoned, Andrija Puharich mysteriously fell down a flight of stairs. Carl Cella died in prison!!! Get the picture yet - the OIL picture!!!)
"Water Powered Car Unveiled: Yes It’s Real"
2013-07-28 by Arjun Walia [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/07/28/water-powered-car-unveiled-yes-its-real/]:
Everyday the world becomes aware of technologies that have the potential to halt the unnecessary damage we continue to create using fossil fuels. We’ve been talking about it for years, transitioning our way of life to be more harmonious with the planet and its natural systems. I’m not talking about solar or wind power (although great), I’m talking about clean and green technology that render fossil fuel burning technologies inferior and obsolete. One of these “new” technologies is a water fuelled car, and it has been unveiled on a number of occasions. It’s an automobile that derives its energy directly from water, and water alone. It is not hard to see why it’s not available to the masses. An engine powered by water would wipe out a large chunk of the fossil fuel industry and change the way these companies do business all together. The oil and gas corporations combine to bring in trillions of dollars every year. Inventions like these are a direct threat to the industry.
JAPANESE COMPANY UNVEILS WATER POWERED CAR -
A Japanese company called Genepax [http://www.genepax.co.jp/en/] unveiled their water powered car in 2008 in Osaka, Japan [http://www.reuters.com/video/2008/06/13/water-fuel-car-unveiled-in-japan?videoId=84561] [http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=JP&NR=2006244714&KC=&FT=E] [http://www19.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1DETAIL] [http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130403104104.htm].
It doesn’t matter if it’s tap, bottled, or lake water, any type of water can make this car run. An energy generator splits the water molecules to produce hydrogen and this is used to power the car. They use a membrane electrode assembly (MEA) to split the Hydrogen from the Oxygen through a chemical reaction. The cell needs only water and air, eliminating the need for a hydrogen reformer and high pressure hydrogen tank.
This isn’t a conspiracy! The reality of this device has been verified by patent offices all over the world. To search a Japanese patent, you have to go through the Industrial Property Digital Library (IPDL). This organization makes patents available to the intellectual property department of the Japan Patent Office. The IDPL provides over 60 million documents and their relevant information as published since the end of the 19th century. The fact that these are even published for patent pending says a lot.
Click HERE [http://www19.ipdl.inpit.go.jp/PA1/cgi-bin/PA1DETAIL] to view the water energy system patent. You can also visit the Industrial Property Digital Library itself, do a “PAJ” search. Type in the publication number **2006-244714**. Documents are also on file with the European Patent Office, you can view them HERE [http://worldwide.espacenet.com/publicationDetails/originalDocument?CC=JP&NR=2006244714&KC=&FT=E]. Reuters also did a brief report on the vehicle as you can see in the video below.
So what happened to Genepax? Approximately a year after revealing their device, the company shut down. They stopped displaying their device as well as promoting it. The only explanation given was a lack of monetary funds.
STANLEY MEYER’S WATER FUEL CELL -
Genepax isn’t the only group to have come forward demonstrating that we can turn water into hydrogen fuel and use it to power cars. Stanely Allen Meyer is another one who invented a water powered car and it received very little attention when it came to making the news available to the masses. Today, it’s a fairly well known story due to the mass awareness that has been created around the story. Stan’s invention was picked up very briefly by a local news station in Ohio.
You can view his patent HERE, it also describes the whole process [http://www.google.com/patents/US5149407]. You can view the entire collective of his documents here [http://www.waterfuelcell.org/documents.htm].
Here is another brief clip of Stan as he demonstrates his technology. Water contains a lot of hydrogen, as we know, which is a very efficient type of fuel. Converting water into hydrogen is 100 percent clean!
So what happened to Stanley Meyer? He was sued by potential investors, it was determined that his device was nothing revolutionary and simply uses the process of electrolyses. His claims were determined fraudulent, and his technology was under investigation by a number of investors, the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Defense. It was patent pending, all of a sudden Stan Meyer died suddenly in 1998 after dining at a restaurant. Many close to him, including his twin brother, believe Stan was intentionally poisoned. Stan claimed,, just before he died in he restaurant parking lot, that he was poisoned.
USING WATER AS FUEL -
Water makes the perfect fuel source. It’s comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one atom of oxygen. When the water molecule is separated into its two component atoms and oxidized as fuel, the result is equivalent to an energy output that is two and one half times more powerful than gasoline. The byproduct of the combustion is water vapour, totally pollution free, returning water back into the atmosphere. The process used is known as electrolysis, which is a method of separating elements by pushing an electric current through a compound. Various techniques for water splitting have been issued in water splitting patents all over the world. You can click here to look at a few from the United States [http://www.waterfuelcell.org/] [http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-adv.htm&r=0&p=1&f=S&l=50&Query=ttl%2F%22water+splitting%22&d=PTXT].
Not to long ago, researchers at Virginia Tech extracted hydrogen energy from water. They discovered that the energy stored in xylose splits water molecules as-well, yielding high purity hydrogen. You can read more about that here [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2013/04/05/clean-energy-breakthrough-scientists-extract-hydrogen-gas-from-plants/]. There are multiple examples of creating hydrogen by splitting the water molecule (2).
Another existing technology that can replace that entire industry is the Free Energy Device [http://www.collective-evolution.com/2012/12/04/free-energy-device-yes-they-are-real/]. Implementation of these two technologies alone would create one of the biggest technological changes in human history. The same group of people that own the big oil companies also own the mainstream media, so it’s not surprising that we don’t hear about these technologies. Scientists have been murdered, labs have been burnt down, and prototypes have been taken.
Alternative technologies are great, and obviously have tremendous implications. We must remember that the human race cannot create from the same level of consciousness that created this system in the first place. A change for planet Earth coincides with the change of heart more people are experiencing everyday. The key to move forward and enter into a new paradigm is simple, it’s love. With love, we’d already have these technologies implemented Because of greed, hate, fear and ego, they remain suppressed, but only for now.
Hopefully this article inspires more to further their research on water powered cars. There are multiple stories with very similar endings for the parties who came forward with this ground breaking technology. Why do we continue to speak about change when we already have the technologies to implement change? One reason is because a large majority of people have yet to become aware of these alternative technologies. They are not marketed, publicized or given much attention. It can be hard to accept that there are people on the planet actually engaged in the suppression of such information, but unfortunately it’s a reality. We are living in the age of transparency, many of us are waking up to thoughts and ideas we never thought we would ponder. In some cases revealing these technologies can cost you your life, that’s how much opposition exists against it -for now. When a new technology becomes so evidently clear, the implications are far reaching and can threaten multiple corporate interests.
"Stan Meyers water powered Buggy"
2007-04-09 upload by "Mokdo68" [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a74uarqap2E]:
Stan Meyer's Dune Buggy that ran on water. Hydrogen/Oxygen fuel in an ICE motor. On board electrolysis, no hydrogen tanks, no bombs on-board, just water.It ran 100 miles per gallon! It was a shame to hear that he was poisoned (March 98') and no longer with us. He died in the parking lot of a restaurant in his home town of Grove City, Ohio. Sharks came a week later and stole the the dune buggy and all of his experimental equipment, according to his brother, Steve. Stan said while he was alive, that he was threatened many times and would not sell out to Arab Oil Corps. (Stan Meyers was threatened and eventually poisoned, Andrija Puharich mysteriously fell down a flight of stairs. Carl Cella died in prison!!! Get the picture yet - the OIL picture!!!)
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