Prosperity for Rhode Island

Since the January 15 meeting things have speeded up.  First I collected the notes and got them out to all of the attendees and interested parties. Then I started convening the committees.   Policy and pilots have been the most active, so the pilot committee, as well as the completely intertwined ( mission overlap and membership overlap) committees related to Current conditions and Feasibility are being convened  Policy has received quite a bit of information relating to rules and putrescibles so I can delay them a bit.  The three committees (Pilots, Current  Conditions, Feasibility) will meet together and separately on February 24.  While I was at it I have been trying to instigate a few pilots including URI and Aquidneck Island.  The Aquidneck Island effort seems to be gathering a bit of steam, so several of us are convening a meeting on February 25 in Newport to judge interest.  I am getting some very interesting and productive introductions and hope to include the restaurant industry in the effort as well as farmers, recyclers, town officials, and interested activists.

The strategy continues to be talk to people and see where it leads, while trying to figure out how to start pilots with no money.  That is going to take putting the right partners together, so I continue to probe for opportunities and people who have already been demonstrating interest who may be positioned to help make something happen.

Other work includes talking to Converted Organics in more depth to understand their project better, seeing a demonstration of RISD’s new desk top Naturemill composter, talking to Brown students about putting together Carbon Budgets, working to develop something in Providence, and beginning to think about funding.  I am not applying for congressional earmarks this year. The deadlines are too soon and i really do not have enough substance to make the right presentation yet.  With only a week to the deadline I have begun to familiarize myself with the process and opportunity but it seems that ripening a bit more might be useful there.  If next year it will be a more fruitful choice, I can focus on that in 10 months.  But it is time to do something substantive about funding.

Two days ago Governor Carcieri in his State of the State called for more jobs, without saying where they will come from.  Last night President Obama in his State of the Union did the same thing.  The reason neither man was able to offer suggestions as to where the jobs will come from is that they continue to believe in the same failed model of economic development.  They believe that on this small finite planet we can have infinite growth.  Not going to happen.

The road to prosperity and job creation is in using less stuff and more people power.  Dramatically reduce fossil fuel use, use clean renewable energy, grow food locally, compost all of the organic materials that we now throw away, build fish ladders.  In other words heal our ecosystems and use more people intensive ways to do it rather than continually innovate our way to no jobs.

Another supposed source of jobs is the bio tech industries.  The agricultural part of bio tech is designed to put small farmers out of business and replace soil with poisonous chemicals.  Genetically engineered foods have not stopped hunger, and have lead to millions of farmers losing their farms.  On the medical side of bio tech, the more biotech jobs you create, the less affordable health care is, so it defeats the purpose of job creation by harming many other businesses.

I am not holding my breath waiting for RI to create jobs using the old methodology and based on the old ideology.  When our politicians start to understand that healing ecosystems is the road to prosperity I will believe we are beginning to turn the corner.

Greg Gerritt

My name is Greg Gerritt.  I am the founder of a small think tank, Prosperity for RI, which focuses on the ecology economy interface, and the difference between prosperity and growth.  Its tag line is: You can not end poverty without healing ecosystems, you can not heal ecosystems without ending poverty.

As a public policy think tank our approach  is that the role of government is to give voice to those who can not afford to buy a voice, the poor and the planet.  Anyone who can pay a lobbyist to get the government to do things that make them richer, give them a larger piece of the pie, does not need the help of the government. The job of representatives is to listen to all, but give voice and vote to the needs of the voiceless.

In looking for how to achieve a greater prosperity for Rhode Island there are several key  things I think you should focus on. I can only give the bullet point version in my three minutes, but would be happy at any time to discuss this further with any of you.

1. Health care.  As long as we try to use health care as a tool of economic development health care will become less affordable.  More of our money will be tied up in producing profits in health care, fewer people will get health care.
2. Housing.  A big problem for RI has been the unaffordability of housing for young people seeking to come here to work.  But we continually hear people cheerleading for higher housing prices.  Housing prices need to come down significantly in order for housing to be affordable for people making RI wages.  It appears the powers that be want housing prices to go up so as to prop up the financial industries, but in doing so it tears down the productive part of the economy.
   

3.  You can not have infinite growth on a finite planet.   As peak oil and climate change become more and more                        apparent each year the smart approach is  to equitably and intelligently shrink the economy so that it fits what                   the earth can actually handle.

4. The only real growth available to RI that will help us prepare for peak oil, climate change, and the shrinking of               the  global economy is local oriented agriculture, a field in which the number of people employed has grown 42%             in  the last   7 years.  Further development of our agricultural potential will require us to produce much more                     compost, which we can do by stopping the landfilling of our food waste.  Compost is likely to be the most useful               field  RI can invest  in if it wants to take care of its people in the coming years.

Greg Gerritt  Compost 12/19/09

Compost, the product of the transformation of organic matter into the something a bit magical that renews the world has always been of critical importance on the planet.  Humans have had a special interest in compost once they began practicing agriculture, and the communities that were  better able to  manage well the process of replenishing the soil were able to thrive better than those who watched their soil erode and fertility fade.

The hilly country of New England is a place that lost much of its top soil and fertility in its agricultural heyday. In the big oil age of agriculture Southern New England returned to forest and regained some fertility.  Now we reach the crossroads of climate change.  A place of great danger.  Might be time for us to stop wasting our organic matter and focus a bit  more on the nearly miraculous substance that renews the planet, compost.

The Providence Urban Agriculture Task Force is centered by the Southside Community Land Trust, and as a small part of the overall project to increase the number of people growing and the amount  of food grown in our neighborhood there is a partnership with the Environment Council of Rhode Island Education Fund to pursue the idea of  turning all of the food waste in the community into compost so that it could be returned  to the soil and our neighborhood could grow more of its own food.  Buying and transporting compost for community gardens is getting to be a big chore and an increasingly expensive one, so we started thinking more about the local potential for compost.  We think holistically about our community and how this work fits, including the need to reduce waste going to the Central Landfill and the expansion of recycling efforts in communities throughout Rhode Island in recent years.

The initial strategy was to start a conversation about compost in the community beyond the usual suspects and to raise the idea that composting all of our compostables for return to the soil was doable and would benefit to the community.  This work coincided with the ever deepening recession, a recession I believe is at least partly the result of ecological collapse, so while transitioning my focus more towards compost than other aspects of the Green economy  I was talking to people at organizations like the Small Business Administration about the economic problems and how compost might be a part of the solution. Talking to folks beyond the usual suspects during the transition from previous projects confirmed the view that this is an idea who’s time has come.  Often my conversation partners were not quite ready to commit to wholesale ecological restoration as the panacea for what ails us, but they could see real advantages in their world if composting became part of the fabric of the community.

The Urban Agriculture Task Force does not have the the ability to transform the management of waste in Rhode Island on its own.  The only way this transformation is possible is if all of the potential partners, all of the organizations that deal with our waste stream, realize composting is in the best interest of the community and economically feasible.  Therefore a key strategy of the project has been to build relationships and share the vision with those who actually collect, process, and manage waste as well ass those who produce large amounts of compostables.

Early on conversation and research was focused on collection and separation issues.  A variety of communities around the country are collecting organic materials and composting,  and every day more communities are waking up to their need to compost rather than bury their organic materials.  Given our current state of affairs, our need to repair ecosystems and farmlands, the need for compost is essentially infinite. I thought the most difficult issue might be collection, but within a few months it was obvious that collection could be managed.  San Francisco and other large cities have instituted a mandatory 3 bin system for collection of trash, recyclables, and compostables.  We in Rhode island have the professionals and contractors who can do this as well.  Shake outs can be hard, but it only takes a few weeks for everyone to get with the program once a community institutes collecting in a new way.  Other communities are using bicycles with wagons to collect compost.  Providence will see a neighborhood bicycle collection program in the West End in 2010 with the compostables being composted at a community garden.

The Public agencies, especially the City of Providence and the RI Resource Recovery Corporation have been an important source of support throughout this endeavor.  DEM has been helpful recently providing much good advice. Conversations at the Farm Fresh RI conference got me thinking very hard about the role of institutions, restaurants, and other concentrated food sources in this overall system.  I held several meetings with food service and environmental staff from 4 of the colleges in the city and their support has been much appreciated. Businesses like Converted Organics and Waste Management Incorporated  and several local restaurateurs have been helpful and supportive. I started pondering the idea that there is not just one solution, that we may need to tailor various aspects of a compost system to various parts of the community.  For instance we would NEVER discourage home composting even as we developed collection systems and larger scale composting operations.

Early on I became aware that Converted Organics was considering  expanding into Johnston RI with one of their commercial in vessel composting systems with a business model of focusing on commercial food waste streams.  I had some conversations with employees of the company and learned much that helped me appreciate more of the possibilities. I spend some time pondering what type of compost facility was most appropriate, ( with my limited typology consisting of long windrows of compostables such as is done at Earth Care Farm and In Vessel industrial style composting along the lines of Converted Organics). Then I progressed to what type of facilities would be most appropriate, and how would they best be scattered through the land if we were to create the most efficient system. I have no answer to this, nor can I answer it.  Only we can answer it.

I took the master composters class from URI.  I started giving workshops on the need to get all the food waste out of the waste stream and the need for and use of compost in the next economy.  I was hoping to bring everyone here together earlier, but with the City of Providence rolling out Green Up, its mandatory recycling program, it was prudent to wait a bit.

About this time Katherine Brown directed my attention to Bruce Fulford and BioEnergy Farms.  The combination of compost facility, methane collection system, electric power plant, and greenhouse or something like that seems to be a reasonable model of where to move to more in depth study.  It seems to fit in with being in a densely populated urban core, the kind of thing we could build to fit different situations in our community.

Green Up had a bit of a rocky start, but is rolling now, with recycling in the city nearly doubled.  We have had more time to expand the network and see other communities across the country move towards compost.  We are reaching the time to put our thoughts and resources together , to find a way to work together to produce something that will  immediately benefit our community economically and ecologically and help build our resilience for the changes ahead.
I am hoping that everyone who attends on January 15 when the Providence Compost Stakeholders Convening takes place is committed to moving forward and together creating a plan and putting it into action.

Today i was reading about how small farmers are a big part of any carbon reduction strategy that is likely to work.  Recently I read about carbon sequestration and organic farming.  Every time we turn around another city has adopted mandatory recycling, compostable collection, or some similar program.  And more and more of them are tied to returning the compost to local farm land to rebuild fertility so that more food can be grown locally, stimulating the local economy and reducing our carbon footprint.

Now we just have to get everyone on board and develop a plan in Rhode Island.  The goal is to use the stakeholder convening on jan 15, 2010 to begin that process.  We want to see who is really interested and who might have resources to bring to the table.

Back when I began looking at this issue I thought the hard part would be to develop a collection system.  I now believe that is totally doable, and now I believe the key factor will be to determine what type of facility or facilities to develop and then figure out how to find the money, find the partners, find the investors.

I am beginning a series of writings relating to the Providence Compost Stakeholders Convening that will take place on January 15 2010.  As a way of getting myself clear on this and what needs to be done, blogging seems a useful tool.

It is pretty exciting, lots of people have already signed up, 48 hours after the invitations have gone out.  I am more worried about a sell out/SRO crowd than an empty room.  I invited the politicians today.  Figured i better do that before it got too late.   I signed the letter going out with the salutory of Life is Round.  Jack DeJonette   Thank you.

My evolution on the issue over the year is interesting, and I am very glad I have stuck to my intent to allow the project to ripen.  This week the big story is that organic agriculture is a good way to shrink our carbon footprints, for the same reasons some of us have been talking about for 40 years.  Healing ecosystems always has a more generalized effect than just at the locale the healing takes place.  And in this case weaving the strands is exactly what is needed.  We were always about compost for gardens, it is just everyone is acknowledging that it is important, whereas a year ago they sort of got it, but it was not front page news.

From beginning thinking mostly about collection systems, these days I am mostly thinking about the creation of a facility for composting, or rather a series of them around the state to reduce transportation of both compostables and compost going back to the land. Thinking about it in a global warming context, an agricultural context, as well as a collection and processing context.

More soon.

Greg Gerritt  12/7/09

The Copenhagen climate conference is this week.  They diddle and fiddle while Earth burns.  They deny, but that is mostly because they are unwilling to give up the oil drug that gives them so much power and control.   750 US military bases around the world.   Most situated to protect access to oil.  Short term thinking, just like a corporate charter.  Just like a document predicated on inequality.

Maybe there will be a forest protection agreement.  I am a true believer in reforestation, but I can not get excited.  Unless we come to see how important the world forest is in any actual restoration of climate plan, heck, any future plan for a livable planet, we are going to pretend to protect.  Just like we pretend about so many issues where the change is really only accomplished by a restoration of community power and an end to the coercion state. Only where governments and the rich can not violently threaten forest communities can we actually protect forests.  With unequal power we get pseudo forests and plantations, Not a forest that actually brings life back, or sequesters carbon as well.

That is what they  are most optimistic about.  For the rest expect nothing.  There is never an expectation of less.  Never an expectation that we shall respect the limits of the earth, that human greed has limits.  Zomia tells us that there are people who respect limits, but the low land civilizations always want MORE.  No wonder the US is willing to kill Mountain People for the oil, they might just let it sit in the ground rather than feed our war machine.  They must be fanatics.

And just think, then the US would not be able to support the 750 bases (support on borrowed money) that we use to protect all these places that do not want our protection for their oil .

Is it any wonder that Copenhagen is not looking good.  Stopping global warming means stopping the war machine, and the powerful are not ready to give that up.

o

I heard it on the radio again today. Concern that the median price of housing is going down.  Sales are up they say cheerfully, but prices are down they say glumly.  What they fail to get is that house prices are still too high, and that prices need to come down a lot so that people will actually be able to afford housing, and afford to live in it and invest in making it greener.

We got ourselves into this big mess or a recession partly due to over use of natural resources, leading to ecosystem collapse, and partly due to the pumping up of housing prices as a way to create yet more wealth for Wall St when there  was nothing else they could do, partly due to ecosystem collapse.  House prices could be manipulated, the entire housing market could be manipulated, and folks were taught that house prices will rise forever, so buy NOW, even if you can not afford it, you can always refinance later, borrow against the ever rising value of the house, etc etc.  The whole bill of goods.

This effort to raise house prices just feeds back into the Wall St craziness.  The speed up of society to make up for the loss of community. The need to keep feeding growth so past debts can be repaid.

But the reality is that most Americans can not afford decent housing under these conditions.  They pay prices that put everything at risk only because the alternative is sleeping under a bridge.  It is time for the news media to realize the propaganda they are being fed and to understand that only if house prices continue to sink shall we be able to put our nation’s house in order and match economy and ecology properly.  If we continue to create monetary value that is unshackled from the real economy, we continue our downward spiral of ecological collapse followed by greater poverty.

An Open Letter to the Providence City Council

Greg Gerritt:   ProsperityForRI.org

Dear City Council,

More and better recycling is one of the more important efforts Providence has undertaken in recent years, one that will save the city considerable money and contribute to its further development.  Everyone is aware that the roll out of mandatory recycling has been a bit bumpy.  But the roll out of mandatory recycling has been a bit bumpy in every city.  But other cities stayed the course and the bumpiness went away in just a few weeks, as it will in Providence.

Rolling back mandatory recycling will be a huge waste of money and resources, setting back this effort by years, and will bring you nothing but shame.

I want to know why you waited until now to act?  All of you are astute politicians, and if you were paying attention you would have known that city efforts to publicize the program were a bit weak.  So where were you and your ward committees and block captains?  Why were you not organizing neighborhood meetings throughout October preparing your wards and neighborhoods for this change?  I see now that some council members are distributing recycling bins in the community, but why did you not do this in October?

The resolution to roll back recycling can only bring you shame.  You should vote it down.  And any council member who is not out this weekend with their ward committee distributing recycling bins ought to be ashamed of them self.

Sincerely,

Greg Gerritt

37 6th St

Providence RI 02906

401-331-0529

To the editor,  The front page of the November 10, 2009 Providence Journal has another headline on how poorly the RI economy is doing, now using the term Code Red to describe it.  Yes it is likely that the RI economy will continue to fall apart.   All the kings horses and all the kings men can not put Humpty Dumpty together again.

We get experts in government telling us what to do, we get professors at URI telling us what to do, we get think tanks telling us what to do.  But they fail, fail, fail.  The reason they fail is that the prescribed wisdom is to do whatever Wall St wants us to do and to appease the rich.  Lets be very clear.  Wall St looted the country, and doing what they want us to do will only get us looted again.  The prescriptions by the experts to appease the rich have been the standard potion for 50 years and they have been nothing but failure.

You can not fix the economy of Rhode Island from the top down.  It must be fixed from the bottom up.  If we are to fix the RI economy here is what we ought to do.  Recycle a lot more, and get to zero waste.  Compost everything that can be composted and use it to build soil fertility.  Grow more food.  Make our rivers fishable and swimmable, and return fish to abundance in them.  Eliminate the use of all fossil fuels, make sure every building is fossil fuel free and actually affordable, use mass transit instead of autos, and stop confusing the depletion of the natural world with income.  Using the medical industrial complex to grow the economy only makes healthcare more expensive and puts it out of reach of the poor.  Focus on primary care.

I doubt the so called leaders of RI are ready for such an endeavor, but I also know that if they stick with the usual prescriptions they will fail to revive our community.  If any of our leaders or candidates are ready to stop being stupid, they can find me at ProsperityForRI.org and I would be happy to help them develop an economic plan that will work.  They can also stop by and see me at the Buy Nothing Day Winter Coat Exchange on Nov 27 outside the State House.

Greg Gerritt