| Support Green Mass Group! |
|
|
Towards a just & healthy democracy in the Commonwealth... and beyond!
|
| Username: |
robc |
| PersonId: |
404 |
| Created: |
Fri Feb 26, 2010 at 16:04:27 PM EST |
robc's RSS Feed
 |
|
Thu Jul 22, 2010 at 17:26:25 PM EDT
|
(Important considerations in how we prioritize our transportation funding. Will we continue to worship and subsidize the almighty car, or begin to re-prioritize more sensible modes of transportation? - promoted by eli_beckerman)
"The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city. Its appetite for space is absolutely insatiable; moving and parked, it devours urban land, leaving the buildings as mere islands of habitable space in a sea of dangerous and ugly traffic."
~James Marston Fitch, New York Times, 1 May 1960
We have written about the "friction of distance", explaining why travel was more challenging-and communities therefore more compact-in the time before humans discovered the enormous energy sequestered in ancient carbon sinks. Alas, those sinks are not infinite so we must contemplate the return of the friction of distance to the level of the pre-oil days. Fortunately, humans can look to past experiences to reduce the height of the learning curve.
|
|
There's More...
:: (4
Comments, 565 words in story)
|
|
Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 10:12:32 AM EDT
|
(Another Amherst Is Happening - promoted by eli_beckerman)
The Age of Reptiles ended because it had gone on long enough and it was all a mistake in the first place. (Will Cuppy, How to Become Extinct, 1941)
What makes the town of Amherst what it is? First, it is the presence of UMass and the two colleges. That is what makes the area the largest source of employment in western Massachusetts, bread and butter for many households, and that is what makes it a culturally stimulating life style desired by many-some fleeing urban anomie. Students clamoring for living space make it a landlord's paradise. Adding the bucolic remains of a previous agricultural setting has attracted gentrifying upper middle class families and retirees, turning it into a real-estate bonanza for banks, invested property owners and overrated Wall Street securities. Finally, the town's well-regarded public schools attract many.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 562 words in story)
|
|
Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 10:08:09 AM EDT
|
(PVRP is ahead of the curve on climate and oil depletion... will Amherst catch up? - promoted by eli_beckerman)
Between 1790 and the Civil War (the early republic) the people of New England (and much of the US) lived mostly scattered about on small farms. The miles between town centers would increase with Western expansion. But what has been called the "friction of distance" was, from the start, a much greater challenge to travel, location and commerce than it is now-in the era of carbon-fueled vehicles. In fact, hundreds of thousands of people traveled primarily by foot ("shank's pony"), not horse and wagon, increasing this friction even more. In the 1840s, tax records and household inventories make it clear that horse ownership was then less equally distributed than automobiles are among Americans today.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 595 words in story)
|
|
Thu Jun 24, 2010 at 10:02:17 AM EDT
|
(Where the rubber hits the road in Amherst - promoted by eli_beckerman)
In our recent columns we questioned whether the historically inherited political structure of our existing towns with their existing borders remains relevant for addressing the looming energy and climate crises we face and suggested the benefits of a regional approach to economic production and services. We also introduced the logic of relocalization, which would make towns more energy and food self-reliant and more carbon-conserving by shortening the distances of people to work and crops to market. We now examine as case studies in relocalization two plans under review for Amherst: a corporate R&D project that has been proposed for land zoned "professional research park" or PRP in the very north of Amherst, and a redevelopment project that would bring a mix of housing and commercial/retail space to an area between the downtown and the UMass campus called the Gateway District.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 547 words in story)
|
|
Thu Mar 11, 2010 at 11:44:22 AM EST
|
(Interesting thoughts on the utility (or is it uselessness?) of artificially defined geographic/governmental boundaries. - promoted by eli_beckerman)
 The historical roots of Amherst go back to the 17th century with the founding of Hadley. It would seem odd, therefore, to ask: "Does Amherst exist?" Quite clearly it does. Wind the tape of history back to the beginning, however, to discover that Amherst did not have to come into being as a town. The district of Amherst, for example, split apart from Hadley as a result of a petition to the General Court in Boston, which did not necessarily have to assent. Both Amherst and Hadley were the products of political deals that did not have to occur. Why, then, should any particular town exist? Is the existence of a Town necessary for the sustainable future of its people? These questions must now be contemplated.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 929 words in story)
|
|
Fri Feb 26, 2010 at 16:31:14 PM EST
|
(where the rubber meets the road... town-level planning for a post-carbon future is no easy task, and sadly our current town governments don't appear up to the challenge. - promoted by eli_beckerman)
In support of the recent adoption of a master plan by the Town of Amherst, the Pioneer Valley Relocalization Project submitted this essay to the Amherst Planning Board to highlight a critical issue confronting community planners and town executives everywhere: the looming crisis of peak oil and climate change. These are civilization-threatening processes caused by human action and must be confronted now - not later - by all planners sharing the goal of a sustainable economic and social future. Scientists throughout the world, including James Hansen of NASA and Rajendra Pachauri of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, have reached fundamental consensus regarding the climate threat while Richard Heinberg of the Post Carbon Institute and others in the academy and in the oil industry have articulated the same with regard to peak oil. Because the crisis is imminent, far-reaching, and human-caused, it can be avoided only through planned action, and must be a first-order objective at every government level - municipal, state, and nation.
|
|
There's More...
:: (0
Comments, 674 words in story)
|
|
|
|
|
| About |
|
Green Mass Group is an online forum for Green thought and collective action in Massachusetts. It is a community forum for justice, sustainability, democracy and health in the Commonwealth and beyond.
Read more
|
| Quotes |
Only one species on earth does not have full employment and that is Homo sapiens.
--Paul Hawken (Blessed Unrest)
|
|
Then and Now
|
Then...
We built what history will record is the broadest and best-organized grassroots organization this Commonwealth has ever seen... We didn't build up this grassroots just to win an election. We built up the grassroots to govern in a whole new way, to make change real, and lasting, and meaningful.
Deval Patrick acceptance speech
Nov. 7, 2006
and Now...
We had this incredibly rich relationship that we built with the grass-roots network the last time. And then we got in, and we let it go. And there are reasons for that. But I think it's a terrible thing. We missed it. I missed it personally. And I think a lot of the folks in the organization missed it.
Governor Deval Patrick, to a room of supporters, trying to reignite the grassroots
February, 2010
|
|
