Only a shift in collective awareness will save us.

[Editor's note: The following is excerpted from the new book Ecological Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, published by Broadway Business, an imprint of The Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc. Reprinted with permission. Copyright © 2010 by Daniel Goleman.]

For over a thousand years Sher, a tiny village in Tibet, has clung to its existence despite its dire location, perched on a narrow shelf along a steep mountainside. This site on the dry Tibetan plateau gets just three inches of precipitation a year. But every drop is gathered into an ancient irrigation system. Annual temperatures average near freezing and from December through February the mercury can hover below that mark by 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.

The region’s sheep have extra-thick wool that holds heat remarkably well; locally spun and woven wool makes clothes and blankets that help villagers endure the excruciatingly cold winters with little heating other than a fire in the hearth.

The stone-and-wattle houses need to be reroofed every 10 years, and willow trees planted along the irrigation canals provide the roofing. Whenever a branch is cut for roofing, a new one is grafted to the tree. A willow tree lasts around four hundred years, and when one dies a new one is planted. Human waste is recycled as fertilizer for herbs, vegetables, and fields of barley — the source of the local staple, tsampa — and for root vegetables to store for the winter.

For centuries Sher’s population has stayed the same, around 300 people. Jonathan Rose, a founder of the movement for housing that is both green and affordable and a builder himself, finds instructive lessons in the clever ways native peoples have found to survive in perilous niches like Sher. Says Rose, “That is true sustainability, when a village can survive in its ecosystem for a thousand years.”

Read on: http://thetyee.ca/Books/2010/03/11/SmartenUpOrDie/?utm_source=daily&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=110310

A new housing development in Lathrop in 2006. One in eight houses in the town are now in some stage of foreclosure. (Photo by Jim Wilson/The New York Times)

Dirty flags advertise rock-bottom discounts on empty starter mansions. On the ground, foreclosure signs are tagged with gang graffiti. Empty lots are untended, cratered with mud puddles from the winter storms that have hammered California’s San Joaquin Valley.

Nobody is home in the cities of the future.

Read on: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/slumburbia/?th&emc=th

Cisco's Wim Elfrink and developer Stan Gale plan to standardize many elements of New Songdo (rendering above) in other cities. (Photograph by James Whitlow Delano)

The world is bracing for an influx of billions of new urbanites in the coming decades, and tech companies are rushing to build new green cities to house them. Are these companies creating a smarter metropolis — or just making money?

Stan Gale is exultant. The chairman of Gale International yanks off his tie, hitches up his pants, and mops the sweat and floppy hair from his brow. He’s beaming like a proud new papa, sprung from the waiting room and handing out cigars to whoever happens by. Beckoning me to follow, he saunters across eight lanes of traffic toward his baby, delivered prematurely days before.

Read on: http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/142/the-new-new-urbanism.html

by John Bentley Mays | The Globe And Mail | January 22, 2010

Fritz Haeg in his LA dome residence/headquarters

For millions of Americans and Canadians, the front lawn is a sacred place. It symbolizes home ownership quite as forcefully as the house itself does. Kept vividly green and neatly clipped throughout the summer months, the open space between front door and street expresses for all to see the pride and care of its owners. Most importantly, it advertises a dream of prosperity and stability.

But the lawn has its enemies. One of them – a gentle, thoughtful foe, indeed – is Los Angeles architect Fritz Haeg, who was in Toronto yesterday to speak at the World Without Oil symposium held at the Design Exchange in conjunction with the Interior Design Show. (The trade fair continues through Sunday at the Metro Toronto Convention Centre.) For the past five years, Mr. Haeg has been teaming up with museums in several regions of the United States, and in London, to transfigure carefully selected front lawns into kitchen gardens. The results of this gesture have been written up admiringly in Time Magazine and The New York Times, and numerous design magazines in the United States, Europe and the Far East.

Read on: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/real-estate/way-out-front-changing-lawns-to-gardens-to-save-the-world/article1439096/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+TheGlobeAndMail-Front+(The+Globe+and+Mail+-+Latest+News)&utm_content=Google+Reader

Hands-on approach: Maker Culture.

By Pia Bahile, Curtis File and Kevin Young |  TheTyee.ca | Today (as good as any day)

[Editor's note: The Tyee is proud to co-publish with Rabble.ca a multi-part, multi-media investigation of Maker Culture -- the do-it-yourself movement fast evolving in North America and beyond. In this first episode, the authors, who are Canadian student journalists, explain what Maker Culture is and look back on their journey as writers and unwitting makers. And they give you a small taste of what you can expect here on The Tyee on Fridays to come.]

What is a Maker?

In Austin, Texas Cathy Wu is making jewelry out of dried fruit. In London, Ontario Brian Frank is educating himself in digital media. John Hammel, in St. Jacob’s, Ontario, owns the last handmade corn broom plant in Canada. In the U.S. Rustbelt ordinary citizens are dropping by a community college to use laser cutters and 3D printers. And in homes all over the world, people are connecting to the Internet to discover galaxies or unfold the secrets of Alzheimer’s and Parkison’s Disease. What do they all have in common? They’re all part of the same movement: Maker Culture.

Read on: http://thetyee.ca/Life/2010/01/15/MeetYourMakers/

Full series here: http://thetyee.ca/Series/2010/01/15/MakerCultureSeries/