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.

Happiness and a Good Life:

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 in sharp contrast to the short-lived communal experiment of Mushanokoji Saneatsu". Maybe they ought to visit the mura sometime! It is however true that Atarashiki-mura is as susceptible to economic problems as anywhere else, and particularly to the risk of an ageing population, with too few young entrants. Just over a decade is left until its centenary, and it would be a great shame if the community did disappear, but I am not sure whether it is flexible enough to change with the times.

I particularly like the first three points from "The Spirit of Atarashiki-Mura". Its an interesting contrast to the usual "group think' mentality that dominates Japan, with a focus heavily on individuality, but unlike Western style individuality, it still contains the concept of respect for others over total individuality, something I feel we have lost sight off.

• Our ideal is that all the world's people should fulfil their own destinies, and that the individuality residing in each one of them should be allowed to grow fully.
• One must not therefore allow the promotion of one's own individuality to infringe upon the individuality of others.
• Hence one must promote one's own individuality in a correct manner. One must not harm the destiny or just demands of other people merely for the sake of one's own pleasure, happiness or freedom.

Still the reality of intentional living is highlighted by these observation in an article on that site.  

The main problem with pure idealism seems to be that it ignores the fact that all people are different. In the mura, inter-personal relationships are certainly the biggest cause of disputes. No matter how much the mura's principles stress individualism, and no matter how much everyone will re-utter the words at the meetings, some people still have a desire to be leaders, and use the fact that they have been in the mura longer than other people to get their own way. Many of the people who do not turn up to the meetings say that it is because there is no point, as nothing ever changes anyway.

Even with this focus on individuality, it still comes down to compliance to core personalities to drive the community. And this point around economic survival...

Everybody works inside the mura, although if you want to work outside in your free time that is entirely up to you. The work is basically agriculture, with a 6-day working week of 8-12, 2-5 with two half-hour tea breaks ... compared to most salarymen, a quite idyllic existence. This is mainly thanks to starting egg-farming 13 years ago -- there are at present 50,000 battery hens in the mura, with 20,000 chicks. I found the cages repulsive, and this was one of the main reasons I hesitated about entering the mura, but it must be said that most of the people dealing with that side of the work do not enjoy it, and see it simply as an evil necessary to keep the mura going. For example, the turnover produced by four people doing organic vegetables for one year is less than the profit generated by one person working on eggs for one month and is not even enough to keep one person fed, clothed and housed for a year.

And this is ultimately the point. Reality makes the average intentional community a pretty hard slog. Its a story you hear over and over again with these communities. It takes a couple of very strong personalities to hold them together, and more often than not, its compliance to those key personalities that makes it hard for other to find their place. 

All this is really just a rambling way to bring me back to the idea of the semi-intentional approach, where we build the community from within the conventional community, using the structures of the existing model as the framework for building our own future community, one that can find the best of both approaches and minimise the worst of each. Or is that too idealistic? :-)

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

"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."

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

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

"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 establish a long-term high numerical target and political commitment as well as the inclusion of external costs such as those caused by climate change. In order to achieve this vision, JREPP is creating policy recommendations, to help establish a transparent and stable “renewable energy market” which can reduce the financial risk of renewable energy business for the long term by introducing feed in tariffs. 

Read the policy Exec Summary here in English. The gulf between policy and reality remains though. The full site is here in Japanese.

As always, renewable energy remains "potential" until the government embraces this vision....

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 know if you think this is a better approach?

Read more on the Policies page.

Additional clarification around the idea of Trusted Members: Trust can be built many ways. One way in though your input on this site, another is though your input on the forums we link to, and a third is though your existing contributions to the online community. People who maintain their own online blogs and other sites, who are honestly expressing their opinions and thoughts, are already showing a level of trust in others by putting this information out there to share with others. These are sources by which you are judged, and establish your credibility with the online community. If you have a blog you share with the world, then you are nine tenths of the way to earning the trust of members here, and its a really good way to become part of this community, assuming your views are in harmony with those on HBS. :-) 

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

===============

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. 

"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:

1. Simple is Enough
2. Simple is Thrifty
3. Simple is Flexible
4. Simple is Timeless
5. Simple is Sustainable
6. Simple is Refined

I think we could apply that to life in general, and thus to our communities as well. We seem to be so busy making everything in life more artificially complicated, but I don't think its really working out, do you? Our social and economic structures grow ever more complicated, and this seems to dis-empower people, taking away their ability to make sense of the world we are living in, and thus growing more and more dysfunctional.  Its not a problem with complexity itself, nature is gloriously complex, but with artificial complexity, complexity that goes against the natural flow, designed to channel and control decisions that were previously made though our natural commonsense and good judgement. There is that famous quote, something like "Commonsense is not that common". I would hope that within any community we could imagine, the need for lots and lots of rules would be replace with commonsense and the basic premise of "Respect". Then we could live a little simpler maybe.

Maybe I could add one more to the list: "Simple Pleasures".

350.org were promoting a day of action on climate change for 10/10/10, so we felt this was a good day to try our own local community building exercise.  We were not able to prepare for a big event, and the weather forecast was not good, so we opted for a simple meet and greet with the locals, to talk about food, gardening and getting to know each other. So we letter dropped the two streets that make up our little corner of the suburb, about 40 houses, inviting them to our back yard for a morning tea.

Considering we had an absolutely terrible day with weather, it was a better day than we expected! Its been raining solid for the last three days, everything is soaked through, plus the wind has come up and its cold and miserable, back to winter! We really didn't expect anyone to turn up, but they came. A dozen households came, people we've not met before, some we've just said hi to on the street, a couple we knew. Two lively ladies in their nineties who were a treasure trove of local history. A good first experiment with a very localised community/street gathering, worth the effort.

It got me to thinking about what community is.

What is "community"?

I often wonder why I'm spending time here, starting to talk about building communities. I'm not qualified to do so, I've not studies any social sciences, I'm no expert on psychology, I'm not even a very social person. I hate being the center of attention, awkward at gatherings, always lost for words - certainly not leadership material, never understood why anyone would want to be a leader. And I'm not even sure I really know what being in a community really means.

But I have read a lot, and worried a lot, about the future. Time and time again a thread emerges for me from those readings, and it has to do with interconnections and interdependence. And often this is expressed as community. If we were talking about natural systems I guess you would call it ecology. But defining "what is community" is like all definitions a little tricky sometimes, because there is the "point of view" clouding things. So I started thinking, what isn't community, and what might people mistake for community. So lets try that.

'Myself' is obviously not 'a community' other than in the biological sense of all the living things that make up me. I'm quite happy with my little world, my little world view, and the beliefs I hold dear. Its totally myopic, but fairly benign. Its also singularly selfish, which is just the way ego must be unfortunately. My responsibility is just to me. Sometimes that is not so benign.

'My Family' is not 'a community'. Its something much more contained, with just a couple of relationships that have very strongly biased bonds. There are strong implied responsibilities and dependencies that cannot be ignored, which means you can be 'yourself' within 'your family' and mostly be tolerated. But your family is not a community, and I think that is why intentional communities based on a "family" concept can be successful, but pretty restrictive and isolated. The responsibilities and dependencies are extremely tight and cannot be ignored. 'Family comes first' it is often said.

'My friends' are not a community. They have been selected based on various criteria that suit me. There is some variability, but many commonalties, which are needed for the bond of friendship. There are shared responsibilities and dependencies too, but mostly voluntarily entered into. Mostly though I choose my friends because they are reasonably compatible with my ego, my sense of self. But friends can come and go, fall out or lose track.

A 'church group', 'political party' or 'club' is not a community. These groups have a particular world view that demands a loyalty to that group, and these form a dependency based on an ideology. It is selective in nature, based on some arbitrary criteria. Sometimes its a belief system that tries to dominate others, sometimes a world view that places preference on one group of people over another, sometimes its just a belief that one sort of thing or way is better than another. It is often by definition and design not inclusive, but exclusive.  It can feel a bit like a community when then size is large, but its not quite. Which is why I feel intentional communities based on an ideology could be unwelcoming for many people. They can work, and do, as a family based group can work, but its not really a true community in my mind.

So, what is left then to call 'a community'. We often would use that word with some of the above. I think the definition is in what is left out. I think what makes 'a community' is simply the people who live around you, those that you interact with on a daily basis, or ignore on a daily basis, but they are there. And the difference is that on the whole in our westernised worlds, there is very little truly shared responsibilities or dependencies, except maybe in times of emergency. If you don't talk to the person two house down the street, it really doesn't have much impact on either of you does it? The person five doors down that plays thrash metal at 3am, you're quite happy to have nothing to do with them, but they are part of your community too.

Which brings me to why defining "what a community is" as so hard, because to do so it has to included everyone around you, especially the ones you might not like, or that have different world views, or that are part of some select club, cult/religion or political party. The single most difficult part of dealing with 'community' is that it includes the ones you'd rather avoid! That's a bitter pill to swallow isn't it. I think I've talked myself around to having to rename this site! But maybe not. Maybe I'm just defining it from one narrow perspective, and its all in the semantics.

But the thrust of this ramble is to point out that 'a community' needs to be inclusive of everyone physically in it, like it or not. That doesn't mean we have to invite the thrash metal guy to dinner, but just that when we talk about community we have to try to remember its bigger than us, our families, our friends, or our groups. Our 'semi-intentional communities' are really 'semi-intentional-clubs-for-like-minded-people-interesting-in-sustainability-and-simple-ethical-living' located within a community. :-) And managing those edge interactions seems to be a big aspect of success or failure maybe.

So I'm thinking that community is a bit like 'the edge' in permaculture. That is where a lot of the interesting stuff happens, where the really authentic interactions occurs because its the place where predefined responsibilities and dependencies are at their weakest, which means it also takes a lot of extra effort to control how things work at this level, but the possibilities are much greater too maybe. Its also the most complex set of interactions, and the least within our control. In our modern lives we don't really need to commit to these interactions, which was once not a option if you wanted to survive. Now we can mostly avoid these inconvenient interactions, but at the price maybe of a strong community?

Community is certainly a tricky subject to pin down. We all have a bit of a view of what we think it might look like, some romantic notions, but that is almost always our personal view, and it tends to leave out the awkward bits around interacting with those you don't necessarily want to interact with, or dealing with these elements when things don't go our way. I know who I want in 'my group' but I can't apply this same logic to 'my community'. They are there, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and that is why I think the success of community is underpinned by respect for each other over everything else. Of course, that is easier to say than implement, but that's another story.

Also, I could be wrong. :-)

More Japanese Transition Towns...

http://www.energybulletin.net/stories/2010-09-24/cooperation-law-sharing-economy

Cooperation law for a sharing economy

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Tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties (COP 10) for the Convention on Biological Diversity.

.... will be held in Nagoya, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, from 18 to 29 October 2010.

Introduction

The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) entered into force on 29 December 1993. It has 3 main objectives: 

1. The conservation of biological diversity
2. The sustainable use of the components of biological diversity
3. The fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources

Issues for in-depth consideration

• Inland waters biodiversity
• Marine and coastal biodiversity
• Mountain biodiversity
• Protected areas
• Sustainable use of biodiversity
• Biodiversity and climate change

 And we are loosing it...

Some related reading:

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety

The Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety to the Convention on Biological Diversity is an international agreement which aims to ensure the safe handling, transport and use of living modified organisms (LMOs) resulting from modern biotechnology that may have adverse effects on biological diversity, taking also into account risks to human health. It was adopted on 29 January 2000 and entered into force on 11 September 2003. More »