Eco in Norway: Event followup! A Successful Eco Circle.



Group photo of the remaining participating audience at my event, December 18 2010.

A cold winterday the 18th of December 2010 was for some people to celebrate and sacrifice in the name of the obvious Christmas light. Most people went to go shopping in such circumstances, stressed and crowded. Instead, a group of people ready for change chose another alternative of sacrificing and lighting; they chose to enter my ecology event at the end of the autumn roadtrip in Oslo - city of the Tiger and even more; city of the coming greener future with planned urban district Sagene.  The district Sagene was a sponsor of my event.

At the event called "Fornybarfamilien", we came up with alternatives to energy saving, energy consuming, ecology practice, history of danish eco-societies and new economies. A New Year's Resolution is often something we think of as something being persuaded, just like doing the best for your family by buying the greatest stuff for Christmas, while another kind of Resolution could be one to prepare a family meal to the coming generation as in new habits, new environments, new systems of building and restoration, and new matrixes in organizations.

"Fornybarfamilien" (The Renewable Family) showed us that We are the Designers. Here I am trying to use my storytelling for this society's demand of excitement and participation in the age of the cyber nation which is the driving force of today's markets. The advertising industry has used this storytelling strategy for years! Now it is time for us to deliver the same in the sence of green storytelling! The consumers are the end target anyway. And they are driving our cycle in the sentence "what's in it for me". So therefor we are buying what is best told or best performed in the name of what is giving us a quality of life.

Qualities of life have different value in the different ages of time, it was reported. Before, products of high value was a status symbol and a tool to union the like-minded . Today, in our postmodern information society, the value is rather the quality of the products aim to bring us a most sustainable happiness. This way of thinking, is turning our consumer habits upside-down!

Demonstration of how to make your own solar heating from empty cans, by Denmark's engineer specialist on solar power: Ernst Drastrup. The demo was shown at the event.

The main motivation of holding this event, was to stimulate the creative thinking of a greener household and home. Many of the seminar speakers did all of this. The first part of this concept, was a test for upcoming challenges and maybe another event where I would like to bring a greater surrounding and a social experience for the audience to join.

At this event, the participants kept taking notes and asking questions all the time in a very intimate dialogue. The citizen of Samsoe (Samsø / Samso ) Energy Island in Denmark, Stefan Wollfbrandt, told us about all the benefits of his low energy positive house. New economies like ecology and economy in a circular system were also presented in hands-on methods and history of peak oil. We found out that solutions must not consist of only one. Solutions are made to connect , just like any circular system. That is why Denmark, which is a flat country, is a great provider of wind energy, wheras Norway could use alot more fjord or mountain energy.

Each environment has its own solution. We cannot just go blind by the oil prophecies of a greater future because our past was so great and rich, when the resources are running out and as we know it - the peak will come not slow, but fast as long as the rest of the world market expand in a different alternative direction than Norway. We'd have to follow, and we're slow on preparing for its peak. Sweden and Denmark are alot more adaptive.

The vulnerability of not investing in green technologies before it is too late on top of the mountain, was well documented by BI Center of Climate Strategy. The ticking bomb of the green growth was illustrated by a bottle of ketchup being sqeezed like it is now, and suddenly - there will be green all over the place!

At the event, I presented where Denmark is on the map compared to us in Norway. We live in a country with great distance between each other (originally) with mountains separating us, and we are used to an "ownership"-culture where nothing compromises with the mindset of collectiveness. While the danes live flat and connected, they're used to lot more sharing-culture. The challenge for the case of Norway, is that our resources must be rediscovered by ourselves, as it differ from the danish, and we must open up our own eyes to discover our own possibilities.

We usually say that we are lucky to be powered by waterfalls and their engines. And of course it provides us with most of our energy consumption. But even though we can rely on that water power is clean and a good resource for Norway, we also have to ask ourselves whether this is ecologically and holisticly renewable energy or not when it dries our watery ground, cuts off biological diversity, and looks terrible when constructed in our fjords? How renewable is it, then?...

The word holistic, is a part of ecology and the new economy and the new energy politics. The challenge for Norway, is to find our holistic perception again.
Transition Towns Norway was represented at the meeting, as well. They gave us hope on a system of meeting structure that works in plenty other cities and countries, also in a very holistic way of organizing and future-thinking.

The most exciting thing about the "Fornybarfamilien"-event, was that we were able to connect on a grassroot level to exchange views and strategies and telephone numbers for further building, and also coming together for a plot of a "fantasy home!" Everyone was included, and felt included. And as we turned around, we noticed how important it was to get the "inclusion"-factor on, and the "happy-feel-in-an-interactive-moment" on.

A group of people living in a neighbourhood in Oslo asked for more information from Samsoe on how to continue their work, and no outcome is better than that! - The inspiration to a greater action.

Slow Food Oslo also wanted to get more team members to continue their growth in Oslo - ironically for a slower consumption, but faster developement. See , this has turned upside-down! The past organizations of "slow structure/business as usual" has been replaced by fast organization and further own a slow, circular growth.

Seminar programme in Norwegian:
http://fornybarfamilien.origo.no/-/image/show/1620982_program-side1,
http://fornybarfamilien.origo.no/-/image/show/1620983_program-side2

Eco in Denmark: Another album

Here is another album from ecovillage "Fri og Fro" in Odsherred, uploaded by Mette Petersen (www.okoliv.dk) living in this ecovillage. Pictures of the homes. Added to the pictures are nice descriptions (in danish) of the building material:

Eco in Denmark: The cheapest and most practical house

At the support concert for Pakistan, tiny ecovillage Friland collected 10,000DKK whereas an earth quake resistant straw bale house to be built in Pakistan will cost about 700DKK to implement, by strong hands and local material in Pakistan. This only event will shed 14 families, usually consisting of more than 4 people. So this proves.. little help matters.

Eco in Denmark: Support concert for Pakistan

Yesterday, the ecovillage Friland arranged a support concert for the flood victims of Pakistan, and the previously mentioned housebuilding-project where my previous host flying to Pakistan this week are already starting to teach new building instructors in the area on how to build with the delivered material. The support concert collected a lot of money, by having volunteers working and musicians playing. I participated making ecological drinks in the bar which we sold, and played a few of my compositions on the piano. The other musicians were a singing duo with folk songs, a violin player, an irish flute player and a drum player. There was singing, dancing and lots of pakistani food made by my prev host and his father. Alittle taste of another world, and we came closer to their reality by seeing how wonderful their food and music culture really is. Seeing the dresses hanging on the wall, made me sence there should be persons wearing them..

selling fabrics and tickets

Eco in Denmark: Odsherred.

Arriving in Odsherred on August 1-9, there was a little village in the middle of the yellow fields. 16 families with children live here, the ecovillage established at a parking lot where the public road ends. In Denmark it is not called "ecovillages", though rather eco society. This is because ecovillages do not only appear in the middle of yellow fields, but also nearby the towns. Because they are so integrated as local contributors, that they are not separated from the average citizen and not seen as anything "exotic". 


Welcoming me at the community, were two parents who were architects from Copenhagen and little girl. Sun was shining, and the garden smiling at my willing hands to take a big deep dig into its soil. Like a village, these houses do have quite big gardens. The biggest investment they probably had to make, was acres of space and field to build their sustainable home. The rest of the upwards - and widely constructed area, costed them the minimum of money.

To understand how cheap it is to build this home and how much they gain from its sustainability, to create yet more freedom and yet more flexible activities in everyday life, one has to know its ground philosophy and ground fundament which I'll try to explain through some of these blog posts. This is not something new in Denmark. In fact, Norway where I come from, is estimated 15 years behind - both in the infrastructure and development of societies like this. 

But the interesing part, is that all industrial countries seem to move towards ecological balance as a result of consumer needs and consumer's deadly health from functional lifestyle, so therefor Denmark and Germany are frontiers of life style whereas countries like Norway do have a lot of peace development across borders and energy research. The sad thing, is that we seem to group ourselves as "they do this" and "we do that" , instead of looking at the society as one building and developing board where we need the eco balance as the pre-fabricated lifestyle seem not so much in balance at all. I'd avoid saying commercial lifestyle, as ecological lifestyle can be super commercial when given a chance, like we have proves in Denmark. So there is no separation between earning and slow consumption here.  

In fact, slow consumption and models given thoughts to profit the society and planet just as much as yourself, seem to be the winning gain in the end. And this we must not forget; our future and now is dependant on each other both ways. So if you want a good now, look at coming aspects so that you can relax. Knowing that your future will be a good one is surprisingly healthy for stress and concentration it seems here at the ecovillage. And the only "stressful" thing you really need to worry about, is to dedicate time for creativity and social meetings to develope the common ground where your house lives. 

Yes, lives. The house lives. And by building breathing straw bale houses, external air conditioning is a no buy and no use. The more natural material, the more they figure out how the elements work with each other to get all the resources we normally just copy from nature in the other synthetic way anyway.