[SustainableTompkins] ESW Conference Notes

[John Miller]

My notes from last week's "Envisioning Sustainability" conference in
Iowa City conference- hope you find something useful in them.  Glad to
try to answer questions, direct you to people as needed.  I attended
outreach, education and energy sessions that best related to my 5 year
ESW program for engaging youth at risk. Full speaker agenda:
http://www.uiesw.org/conference/
 
Overall, I was impressed that virtually all of the speakers said "things
have really accelerated in the past two years"  and general feeling that
we are really entering a new age of cooperation (for our survival).
Dianne Dillon -Ridgley (keynote speaker) feels sustainability and global
cooperation is taking on the importance of prior movements in civil and
women's rights. Plenty of emphasis throughout the conference on
designing for people (health, motivation, societal impact) vs function.
 
Clarifying Sustainability
Stu Hart covered his 2X2 matrix (anyone who has these slides, please
forward to me) into which he fits all the sustainability concepts and
buzz words to help clarify a complex, emerging area.  Currently,
sustainability is "tribal" and participants are often talking past each
other- the matrix helps to frame conversations (determine which quadrant
is the subject of the conversation for more productive discussion).
Emerging markets better target for new technologies as US has so much
existing infrastructure.
            
*         Y axis is time: today at bottom, tomorrow at top and X axis is
perspectives: internal (to org) at left and external (society) on right
*         Quadrants as follows:
o        Lower left: Cost and Risk Reduction   energy conservation,
waste minimization
o        Lower right:  Reputation and Legitimacy   corp governance, life
cycle analysis, stakeholder engagement
o        Upper left:  New Skills and Repositioning   disruptive,
leapfrog technologies and services
o        Upper right:  Growth Path and Trajectory     sustainable
development,  disruptive tech in new markets- base of pyramid
 
Stu had a question about proprietary rights, patents and his view is
that the trust and networks built when working to innovate in poor
villages will be the best means of staying competitive- keeping the
competitors out.  This is also true at the top of the pyramid- customer
relationships are best means of holding business and learning about new
needs.
We are moving from "take and make waste" to a new capitalism focused on
what is good for people.  The private sector-obviously needing plenty of
pressure from civil society- will move us into sustainability much
faster than civil or public sectors.  My long term project on citizen
participation is help strengthen democracy to better harness the power
of the private sector by providing the values and rules for sustainable
practice (anyone interested in this work- contact me. I continue to make
steady progress, but much to do!)  For those not familiar with Base of
the Pyramid- see website below
            http://www.brinq.com/about/bop.html
 
Related to the upper right, new tech, new business quadrant: Regina
Clewlow and Ryan Legg presented on BE (Business and Engineering)
Sustainability Workshop collaboration at Cornell between Net Impact
http://www.netimpact.org/ and ESW
 
Energy
*	Lester Brown:  combination of plug-in hybrids and wind for
electrical generation seem to be the right top level focus.  Need energy
tax and lower income tax- like Sweden.  Business must (be made to) to
tell the truth about hidden costs. We all need to be politically active
to hasten change.  
*	Dan Kammen from Berkeley pointed out that peak oil is being
presented wrong   we have used 0.8 trillion bbls, 2.16 conventional in
the ground and 17 non-conventional (oil sands)- not to mention large gas
and huge coal reserves.  Got plenty, just matter of cost/demand  so,
climate change is area to focus on.   Cellulostics much better than
ethanol from corn/soy at reducing CO2 emissions  90% vs 15% nets
respectively.   Look at combining vehicles and distributed stationary
power- such a fuel cell powered pick ups in La for emergency power.
*	Mark Kresowik form Sierra Club focused on reducing number of new
coal fired plants (that last 50 years and not easy to convert).  We need
to go for combined heat and power sites as done in Denmark.
Alternative energy new business generates 2-3X more jobs than
conventional power systems.  Need to create rules that penalize coal
fired plant owners/shareholders for environment costs, increased costs
passed along to users.
 
Agriculture
*	Joel Burken (UofMissouri Rolla) presented on biogas systems and
"closed loop" agricultural park (grain, ethanol, distillers grain animal
feed, biogas- energy input to ethanol production). Lots of lab work on
biocides and disinfectants impact on digestors, optimum operating temps
and monitors/controls to prevent kill.  For large CAFO, investment is
$100-200K.  This does not improve nuisance odor. Problem is that farmers
designing their systems to produce meat/milk and not create power with
complex systems- need a shift in ethos, successful pilots and
regulations.  This brings up questions around use of corn vs cellulose
for ethanol.  Lester Brown indicated that private money has already
invested in Iowa for ethanol plant that already exceed 100% of corn
produced in Iowa!  What about corn for food- we export 70% of our corn?
Consider pooling wastes and creating a power generating
company/consortium.  Anheuser Busch has large methanol power generation
site in St Louis- 10-15% of their power needs met.   China individual
households using hog poop to run stove for heating and cooking- very
simple, proven distributed power example. One hog= 2/3 liter of methane
per day. 
See website http://www.methanetomarkets.org/ag/index.htm
*	Riicardo Salvador (I only caught part of his session)
http://www.agron.iastate.edu/personnel/userspage.aspx?id=192  Lots of
details on creating more yield through crop diversity (short and tall
plants to make best use of sun).  I cant find my hand notes, but recall
he is heavy on details/data in the sustainable agronomy area.
 
Green Buildings
Brendan Owens of US Green Buildings Council (standards, metrics for
whole buildings, sites, shells, interiors, operation, maintenance, etc)
presented.  Staff, member orgs (6100!) increasing rapidly.
*	Going mainstream with developers like Larry Silverstein
*	High on the list of green building benefits are people issues:
less sick days, better retention, more productivity (2-16%)  these
outweigh the energy savings.
*	Life Cycle analysis (true costs) difficult, custom in each
situation but making progress towards consensus
*	Walmart and DOD each use 1.8% of US electricity and are
collaborating on green buildings/new energy/conservation!!
*	Retrofitting focus/applications lagging new buildings by 5
years- much inertia against change from current operators 
 
 
Education
Jamie Cloud from Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education presented.
Much discussion about framing: we must learn how to think about
sustainability and do sustainability.  Begin with a discussion of what
is unsustainable and people start to get it.  Current paradigms: 1) we
humans are in control and 2) we don't depend on nature to survive .  Key
sustainability models: 1) ecological literacy 2) there is enough to go
around if we do it right 3) interdependence and systems thinking  4)
reciprocity, relationships, cooperation and 5) responsibility,
intergenerational leadership, responsible citizenship.  In 100% of the
cases she does a one day overview presentation, the school system moves
forward to add sustainability education. Students feel disconnected,
lack hope- need to provide new frames, learn how to think and act
sustainably.  Kids stay in school if they can see hope and see that can
do something.   
Increased requests for home schooling courses- but no funding (anyone
that has a possible source- contact Jamie or me)
 See website   the fish game is great tool.   Rae- look at this for SC
programming.
http://www.sustainabilityed.org/TheCloudInstituteAdvancedSummerTraining2
006agenda.html
 
Chris Brus (Women in Science and Engineering  Univ of Iowa)    Focused
on rural kids at risk around the area of environmental health.  Key to
program success:
*	Involving, building community
*	Mentoring over period of years
*	Helping kids to bond with each other
*	Providing hands on work in labs
Chris has measured at risk youth engaging in science and math and has
not seen a correlation (yet) with these program investments but she has
observed that good mentoring/role modeling  has given these kids lots of
motivation to study and work hard.