HappyBlackSheep Japan

Our friend Momo organised a cool  benefit concert to raise money for Japanese quake/tsunami victims. She did a truly  wonderful job (thank you Momo!), organising a school choir to participate, plus having a number of musicians, including herself, perform. Great day, great community spirit, and hopefully some more funds raised to help kids in the worst affected areas. Our little contribution was to have a stall with booklets explaining the issues around nuclear power (produced by the Sloth Clu b in Japan). All the stall holders donated the money raised on the day. 

Chatted with a girl there whose family comes from Fukashima. They are worried about the radiation of course, but will not be leaving - that's the way it is, people are tied to their land there very strongly. It is sad that they now have this burden thrust upon them, a problem that will be around for such a terribly long time.

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I have been reading some philosophy to try to find a way forward with the troubles of the world. From recent readings I've distilled some of the great thinkers words down to a few points that I can relate to. Maybe you will too....

Happiness and a Good Life:

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So as you can see, nothing has been happening here since that horrible day in March. I'm afraid that there is very little to be happy about at the moment, and its looking hard to see much reason for optimism either. We are currently no very happy black sheep at all. Nothing much to add at this point. Maybe things will look better after the September trip. We shall see I guess.

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"You are you, I am I; still we are friends."

That is the title of the image to the left. And here is a site with information about  Atarashiki-mura , interesting as an example of one intentional community that lasted a very long time in Japan.

Mushanokoji (1885-1976) was a key member of the Shirakaba literary group, together with Shiga Naoya and Arishima Takeo . He originally created the " New Village " in 1918 in  Hyuga  ( Miyazaki Prefecture), but in 1939 they were warned that much of their land was about to be submerged by the construction of a dam, so they searched for a new home and found it in Saitama . There are still a few members at Hyuga . Mushanokoji worked at the village for a while, but later found that he could help it more by working outside and supporting it with the income from his novels, plays and paintings. There has always been a strong artistic bent at the Mura and many well-known artists lived there or supported it as "external members", but most of the community's income now comes from agriculture.

Many people in Japan seem to think that Atarashiki-mura ceased to exist long ago -- even Kodansha's "Encyclopedia of Japan" claims that the " cooperative management [of Arishima Takeo's tenant farm in Hokkaido] ... lasted until recent times. Its survival was...Read More

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This site has some useful information for people caught up in the Japanese Earthquake and Tsunami disaster. Might be helpful for people in Japan during and after this disaster.

https://sites.google.com/site/minnadewiki/home/foreigner

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After reading this book, I can't help but feel a little more despondent about the world actually taking the path we need to take to acheive this. The psycological programing of the last couple of hundred years will be hard to overcome and redirect. Still, there was a quote that I thought very applicable for our discussions here: (bold added)

"But from at least the time of Aristotle, it has been clear that something more than material security is needed for human beings to flourish. Prosperity has vital social and psychological dimensions. To do well is in part about the ability to give and receive love, to enjoy the respect of your peers, to contribute useful work and to have a sense of belonging and trust in the community . In short, an important component of prosperity is the ability to participate freely in the life of society."

A TED Video of Tim Jackson is here if you'd like to watch it. Great quote from it... "... people being persuaded to spend money we don't have, on things we don't need, to create impressions that won't last, on people we don't care about."

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Looks like another game-changing technology.  Note to self: obtain reliable source of biomass now

http://www.mpg.de/974909/F001_Focus_020_025.pdf

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Thanks to Ken for spotting this article. Its something that has been going around in my head for a while too, if Japan crashed so bad, and is an economic basket case, how come things seems to be fairly stable there still after 20 years of stagnation? Sure, things are a bit run down in places, there was way to much spent on stupid mega-projects, and the government owes its people, well a kings ransom really, but for all that, it seems that life without growth has not been too bad for most people. There are still some nasty crunch times ahead for Japan, due to its dependance still on external inputs to get by, but when those disasters have played out, maybe the scalled down Japan will be not so bad after all. The 'Just Enough' will be a lot less than now, but there is no reason it has to be the end of the world either. Interested in your thoughts. Food and energy will always be a bit of a problem, but... not entirely unmanagable unless the energy tap gets turned off faster than adaption can occur, which is still very much a possibility. Thats the only real black cloud I see really. So do you agree that Japan is the future setter, or is this wishful thinking? I'm trying to get though the book " Prosperity Without Growth " at the moment, so it will be interesting to see if Japan comes up as a poster...Read More

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If you are like me you have a real soft spot for old Japanese Minkas, the wonderful old houses that are rapidly disapearing from the Japanese landscape. I think finding and old Minka and restoring it could be a very viable strategy for getting a home in Japan, and with a few refinements, they could make very comfortable and sustainable homes for the future. 

Japan Minka Revival Association (JMRA)
"Minka" is a form of traditional Japanese housing that was once the primary form of Japanese residence. Translated directly from the Japanese, minka means "peoples' house." This term is used most frequently to refer to the traditional houses of Japanese farmers.

Japan Minka Revival Association

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I guess this report is a bit behind the curve as the data is only up to 2008, but still, its a start. Percentage of renewables is still very low in Japan, but at least there is some realisation that without a large percentage of renewables, Japans energy needs are in dire straights. 

"However, Japan’s renewable energy market has remained in a grounded state due to market policies for renewable not been sufficiently examined or implemented."

The long term scenario is something to hope for, though I can't help be feel the timeline is still too little too late. The energy crisis that is coming will bite hard decades before then.

“Renewable energy vision in 2050” which adopts Japan’s long term energy vision was published by “Japan Renewable Energy Policy Platform” (JREPP), an organization established in July, 2008 among renewable energy related organizations. This vision examines the potential of renewable energy, particularly as a center of “innovation” in regard to the possibility of Japan establishing its own targets as well as contributing toward climate change measures. For the study, a goal of 75% reduction in CO2 emissions originating from energy use (based on 2000 levels) and the domestic development of 50% of Japan’s energy needs by 2050 was assumed. The results of the study showed the potential for renewable energy to be responsible for 67% of domestic electric demand and more than 50% of primary energy supply. In order to achieve this long-term vision, it is essential to...Read More

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After much consideration over the last few months it has dawned on me that to achieve the goal of building a community of people who trust each other, this web site cannot be a open resource. Peoples privacy is the most important thing, and must be protected. Few people want to share private information with untrusted and unknown people. So I have decided to make HBS as closed site where people can only access other peoples information, thoughts and ideas via their shared consent. If this means no-one uses the site, well so be it. I'd rather have a core group of trusted friends here than a wide group of unknowns. All existing members are by default set to level 1 membership, with restricted access. Then I will invite people I have personally met or corresponded to privately to be trusted members, and then together we will extend trusted status to the network of folk on here that we feel are deserving of that trust. All new members will be set as standard members with limited access, and no access to other members profiles, and will need to demonstrate they are trustworthy before being ungraded to trusted member status. This will be a decision made by the existing trusted members. I hope we can make this a fair an reasonable system.

I really hope that this will provide the environment where people are truly comfortable to share openly and honestly with each other, feeling safe in doing so. Let me...Read More

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Update3:

Well it appears that Spruz have had a change of heart, and will allow free sites for US, Canada, Great Britain, Belgium, Ireland, and Australia so we have won a reprieve, which is good as gives me more time to work on other options, all in good time, if at all. Looks like for the foreseeable future we can continue here. That is a relief!

gecko

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Sustainable Futures, that is what its all about. So this document makes interesting reading. At just over 250 pages it will take a little while to work though it, but I thought I'd share the intro so you can get a feel for it. I just don't know how to sell the idea of degrowth  to those that need to do it to make the difference.  It presents some suggestions, but I'll need to read it carefully to see what to make of it. I am sure there are some worthwhile concepts to take away from it though to apply to the ongoing research on community.

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The starting point for this project, Sustainable Futures, has been a search for sustainable cultures past, present and future. For more than four decades, there has been an intense, ongoing search for a balance between modern industrial development and the environment. However, the results of this search are far from impressive: complex environmental problems, such as climate disruption, impoverishment of ecosystems and toxification, are still threatening the future of humanity, more than ever before. There is a clear need for reassessing the cultural foundations of the present modes of industrial development. The search should be for agendas for transformation. 

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If you would like to read an account of David Holmgren's 2004 trip to Japan to teach some permaculture courses, I stumbled across it today by accident. Interesting to read his observations. You can download it from his site  http://permacultureprinciples.com/  and also look at photos here .

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Excerpt from " The Simple Home: The Luxury of Enough "  

"The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus was a sage of modest pleasures and simple abundance. He believed that anxiety about status, wealth, and having more was the single greatest obstacle to human happiness. No matter how wealthy we are, we can't be happy if we crave more riches. No matter how much fame and pleasure come to us, we won't enjoy them if we hunger for greater thrills. Epicurus understood the good life as a simple life where the modest pleasures of home and hearth - good foods, gardens, and conversations - are the ultimate luxury. Contentment arises when we feel a gratitude for what we have, when we revel in the "luxury of enough".

The luxury of enough stems from knowing what you love and how you want to live at home. When you think about it, the modest pleasures of living - winter sunlight, the small of coffee, the feel of moss - are surprisingly easy to bring into your home environment and daily routines. The journey is to find your own modest pleasures. The luxury of simplicity start with understanding your own true tastes and throwing out notions of what you should have and like."

Here here, that rings so true, you know its got to be right. :-) The books concepts are based around 6 themes:

The 6 Paths to Simplicity:...Read More

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