Beyond LEED Standards

Contemporary LEED standards are feel-good gestures, by the standards of the 22nd Century.

So I suggest the following standards that expand LEED:

Cities of the future will need buildings which eliminate rather than reduce reliance on fossil fuels and grids, while lowering living costs, promoting self-reliance and social justice.  The closest examples in North America are Earthships, Living Machines, Ecolonies and Rocky Mountain Institute.  Cities will evolve to meet such standards, or civilization will crumble.

DESIGN: Deeply earth-bermed passive solar orientation for heating and cooling without fossil fuels.  Bermsgardened.  Sun tubes and onsite PV for lighting.  Rainwater collection in cisterns on roof and basement.  Edible roof garden.  Trombe walls, garden walls and aquaculture.  Basement food storage.  Maximum three bermed stories above ground.  Upper floors wheelchair access via berm slopes.  No elevator.  

CONSTRUCTION: Disassembly and re-use of materials from existing structures.  At least 80% recycled building materials (particularly from existing building on site) rather than virgin materials.  Maximum employment of physical labor, maximum from within neighborhood.  No extension of existing footprint.  

SURROUNDS: Porous walkways only.  No cement or asphalt paving.  Edible landscaping.  No lawn.  No automobile or truck parking spaces.  Lots smaller than 5 acres: at least 25% orchard.  Six-ten acre lots: at least 50% orchard.  Above ten acres: at least 75% orchard.  Fruits for free harvest and/or local sale.  Recycle leaves and drops.

ACCESS: Located within three blocks of train, trolley, pedicab, or bus route.  Bicycle, pedestrian and wheelchair access.  Solar hot water showers for these commuters.

INTERNAL TECHNOLOGIES: Solar, wind, biogas, hydro and/or pedal electric.  No connection to electric utility other than for reverse metering.  Greywater re-use.  Waterless toilets and urinals only.  No flush toilets: onsite processing and re-use.

NTERNAL PROCESSES: Recycling only. No trash collection.  Biodegradable cleansers only.  No bottled water.  No paper towels or blow dry.  Furniture, carpets, drapes and other accoutrements regionally-made of recycled materials.

CORPORATE FORM: Nonprofit land trust.  Building reverts to neighborhood organization upon extended vacancy.  Stocks not publicly traded, other than on green regional stock exchange.  Equitable development principles.

PURPOSE: Strengthens neighborhood power and affordability. Nonmilitary uses: no building can purport to benefit the planet while preparing to destroy it.

Deep Green Jobs

The green jobs movement parades as many green hues as our national parks, ranging from deep green work to pale green employment.  All green work expands the economy by reducing waste of resources, workers and wealth. Green jobs make life easier for everyone by reducing the costs of fuel, food, and housing. Green work repairs soil, water and air, making these cleaner and healthier.

Deeper green jobs build profound solutions to resource depletion, by expanding use of passive solar HVAC, trains, bicycles, superwindows, deconstruction and depaving, rainwater catchment and solar distillation, earth shelters, cellulose insulation, tree-free paper, compost toilets and greywater systems, urban farms and orchards, edible landscaping, greenhousing, solar windowboxes and solar water heaters, green roofs and white roofs. These humble tools prove that billions of humans can enjoy this planet while repairing it.

Most American cities are today chained to crumbling and costly centralized grids-- sewers, freeways, power plants. Deep green technologies can gradually supplant these grey techs. Reliance on fossil fuel can be reduced toward zero, shrinking taxes by reducing repair fees.

Liz Robinson, whose Energy Coordinating Agency, trains people to insulate and weatherize, says, “You’re going to be shocked how big these efforts are. The tipping point... is very exciting to see. Efficiencies are the cleanest, safest, most labor-intensive, and cheapest sources of energy.”

Yet the deepest green jobs do even more than sharply cut fossil fuel dependence, and provide more than a paycheck. They serve the broader social mission to shift economic power toward lower-income neighborhoods. They replace the Poverty Industry (charity, police, courts, jails) with worker-owned  neighborhood light industries. They enable low-skilled neighbors to employ one another to create work that lowers their living expenses.

Exemplary of such grassroots enterprise are Chicago’s Center for Neighborhood Technology, and the Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland, sponsored by the Cleveland Foundation and the City of Cleveland. They grow fresh hydroponic vegetables, perform brownfield remediation, photovoltaic installation, weatherization, and operate a water-conserving nontoxic laundry.

In Philadelphia, Project RISE facilitates green business starts among ex-offenders and at-risk youth. Says director Bernadine Hawes, “The vision should be based on what the population being served sees, and not just on the standards and traditions of the professional business development community.”

John Churchville, green jobs planner for the American Cities Foundation,  agrees. “The mind switch from seeking a job to creating a green business has the potential to single-handedly bring our entire nation back from the brink of economic ruin. Building a green economy that has the capacity to employ the majority of America’s unemployed and underemployed residents will be critical for our future...”

This is a big job, since our country hosts at least tens of millions unemployed, plus the world’s highest incarceration rate.

Yet Americans are wealthy in this poverty, because deep green jobs that fix the above rise from vacant lots and vacant lives, from Americans hungry for dinner and hungry for respect. Our vacant spaces invite planting, and our abandoned houses need labor-intensive retrofit or deconstruction. There are tons of vagrant bricks and tires, discarded pallets and newspapers that are feedstock for simple energy-efficient neighborhood industry.

Addressing America's loss of millions factory jobs during the previous 40 years, Leanne Krueger-Braneky, Director of the Sustainable Business Network says, "the time is right for a fresh, invigorating and equitable conversation about local sustainable manufacturing..."

Philadelphia's Director of Sustainability, Katherine Gajewski, reports that "most clean economy jobs will require literacy in math, science and computer literacy. The best way to make sure that ex-offenders and unemployed residents can get access to those jobs is for them to upgrade those foundational skills."

These important skills particularly serve the higher-tech corporate green jobs that might some day hire a few hundred thousands jobless. However, as Green For All founder Van Jones says, "There should be a moral principle there that says, let's green the ghetto first. Let's go to those communities where they have the least ability to pay for that retrofit and make sure they get that help, make sure they get that support. And give the young people standing on those corners the opportunity to put down those handguns and pick up some caulking guns and be a part of the solution."

By his standard, the most urgent task is not to employ a few hundred people in solar/wind factories, paying them so well they can become grander consumers, but to create useful work for all idle Philadelphians, so they're warm and fed and respected without resorting to crime.

How do we pay for their green labor? Since investment in deep green enterprise will be less immediately profitable, bolder financial institutions are needed to expand neighborhood authority over money, trade, investment, interest rates and land use. Paths are clearing through which the rich profit by empowering, rather than dominating, the poor.

For example, the Lancaster Stock Exchange (LanX) gathers capital for regional ecodevelopment. Similar plans are drawn for the Philadelphia Regional & Independent Stock Exchange (PRAISE).
- Permaculture Credit Union of Santa Fe, NM, makes loans for solar heating, PV systems, weatherization, rainwater collection, resource conservation, organic farming and gardening.
- Portland, Oregon, sponsors "Financial Tools for Neighborhood Businesses."
- Philadelphia's Community Land Trust Corporation facilitates "equitable development," to strengthen rather than displace long-time residents.
- Lower wages paid by modest start-ups can be supplemented by mutual aid systems, whose members pool small amounts of money to reduce expenses for housing, childcare, medicine, electricity and meals.

Of course, there's more to capital than dollars, euros, pesos or yen. Green jobs can be capitalized by regional credit systems that redirect dollar equivalents toward greening. Great Barrington's Berkshares foster connections that spark new businesses. Ithaca (NY) HOURS assert that labor is the new gold standard -- millions have been traded since 1991. HOUR microloans are made interest-free. Who backs such money? We are the bank, we are the treasury, and we are the treasure.

The deepest green jobs aim to entirely rebuild American cities toward balance with nature. This is the explicit intent of "Deep Green Cities: Fulfilling the Green Jobs Promise," a new book by the California Construction Academy. Ecocity Builders envisions "the global rebuilding of cities and towns based on ecological principles."  The group Carfree Cities declares "We can convert existing cities to the carfree model over a period of decades. Venice, Italy, is an oasis of peace despite being one of the densest urban areas on earth." Deepest imaginable green is "Los Angeles: A History of the Future," which portrays America's car capitol thriving without cars or streets, where millions reside in passive solar earth-sheltered "ecolonies" amid massive orchards linked with bikepaths and rail.

Take your pick. On every scale, there's plenty of green work to be done.

Purchase full book via paulglover.org/books.html

Paul Glover is editor of Green Jobs Philly News, founder of Ithaca HOURS local currency, the Philadelphia Orchard Project, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles and a dozen other grassroots organizations. He consults as Greenplanners.   paul5glover@yahoo.com

Health Democracy: Liberating Americans from Medical Insurance Companies

National Health Insurance Begins at Home

By Paul Glover

click to purchase book

Americans deserve universal health coverage and will get it when corporate insurers, pharmaceutical companies, major media, bankers, investors, and the Congress they own are forced to sacrifice profit. The health-care industry, which today commands about 17 percent of the GDP, is tougher than ever to tame. Roosevelt and Truman could not prevail against that plutocracy; neither could Nixon or Clinton. In short, while demanding single-payer health insurance, we can't wait for politicians or private corporations to enact it. The solution will arise partly from localities.

Even as we rally and march for national health care, we should create and embrace regional member-based health plans, which activate the uninsured and pay at least some of our bills. Such grassroots nonprofit health systems, established nationwide, will reassure American taxpayers that cost-effective nonprofit services work, and would be broadly available were national bills like Medicare for All (HR 676) to pass.

Solution within the Solution

The Canadian single-payer campaign was begun in 1948 by Swift Current, Saskatchewan, a farm town of 15,000. They organized a local plan that became so successful that Saskatchewanians demanded their province adopt that locality's model. The plan was enacted in 1962, despite solid media opposition and a strike by doctors. By 1971 all Canadians followed Saskatchewan, enacting universal health-care access. Even today, while besieged and underfunded by Canada's conservative politicians, the single-payer initiative is endorsed by over 90 percent of Canadians. Only 8 percent prefer the U.S. system (Mendelsohn report, 2001; American Journal of Public Health, 2003).

By 1997, residents of Ithaca, New York, were likewise not waiting for the government to become humane. They began a local nonprofit, member-owned self-insuring system. Ithaca Health Alliance members pay $100 per year (or $50/year/child), entitling them to receive substantial payments for several categories of preventive care (exams, treatments, sterilization) and common emergencies such as broken bones, stitches, burns, appendectomies, and dental repair. The Ithaca Health Alliance locates and pays any healer anywhere to care for a co-op member, usually within twenty-four hours. They operate a free clinic for the entire community; offer interest-free loans to members, local organic farmers, and healers; and have also secured discounts with 120 Ithaca area health providers. In fact, the

Alliance is so successful that the $100 annual membership fee has not increased since 1997, while the payment menu has expanded from two categories to twenty. It's still rudimentary, but if you cannot afford insurance, even this level of security is impressive.

How can the Alliance afford these health services? As more people have joined and renewed annually, both the general fund and size of payments has steadily increased. Were membership to stabilize or decline, so would payments. During the past decade the Alliance has created its own actuarial expertise by graphing the frequency and amplitude of payments, by category. At full scale, the plan is capable of proving that HMOs are not necessary.

Health Democracy

The Ithaca Health Alliance was part of the Health Democracy movement, a network of co-operatives whose members own health systems.

Direct democratic control is strengthened through bylaws that require that all medical payments that are made to members, or declined, are seen on the Alliance website [ithacahealth.org]. Members are invited, via newsletter and listserv, to suggest how coverage should expand, serve on the board and committees, and elect board members. The board meets publicly each month. The maximum salary for administrative staff (about one employee per 2,000 members) is twice the local livable wage, to ensure that top staff are more dedicated to the mission than to money.

The Alliance's co-operative nature is underscored by the fact that membership fees are the same for everyone, since they ally to help one another, rather than exploit weakness for profit. Ithaca's community currency is accepted for membership dues. Love, not marriage, defines eligibility for domestic partner discounts.

Health co-ops support people's preferences for gentler, preventive healing. Were Medicare made universal overnight, the medical technology pills-and-surgery sickness system would keep prices unnecessarily high. Health Democracy stresses changing the basis of the medical health-care system, encouraging healthier living and holistic care.

Most outstandingly, Health Democracy co-ops sponsor public health committees to confront health damage from larger issues: consumerism, which leads to overdoses of sugar and fats; polluted soil, water and air; and war, which is notoriously unhealthy.

From Local to National

Propelled by the faliures of the public and private sectors, the co-op sector intends to weave a national health system that is democratic, nonprofit, efficient, preventive, holistic, and generous.

Here's where the top-down relies on the bottom-up. The United States Health Alliance will link co-op health plans to one another, creating a movement both practical and political, which heals the nation. This is the infrastructure universal coverage needs and deserves.

Paul Glover is founder of the Ithaca Health Alliance, PhilaHealthia, Ithaca HOURS local currency, Citizen Planners of Los Angeles, and author of Health Democracy [healthdemocracy.org]. He appeared on several Green Party 2004 presidential primary ballots. He is a "consultivist" for community economic development: paulglover.org.

Health Democracy: Liberating Americans from Medical Insurance Companies book explains how to start and expand a locally-controlled, self-financing health co-operative.  Based on the Ithaca Health Alliance, founded by the author.

Real Patriots: Cooperative Medicine: Ithaca's Model of Health-Caring

Recipe for Successful Local Currency

A Recipe for Successful

Community Currency

by Paul Glover

Printing local money sets the table for a feast provided by your city or town.  Here are my suggested ingredients for spicing local trade with local cash.

1. HIRE A NETWORKER.  

During the past 15 years, nearly 100 American community currencies have come and gone.  Ithaca’s HOURS became huge because, during their first eight years, they could rely on a full-time Networker to constantly promote, facilitate and troubleshoot circulation.  Lots of talking and listening.

Just as national currencies have armies of brokers helping money move, local currencies need at least one paid Networker.  Your volunteer core group-- your Municipal Reserve Board-- may soon realize that they’ve created a labor-intensive local institution, like a food co-op or credit union.  Playing Monopoly is easier than building anti-Monopoly.

Reduce your need to pay the Networker with dollars, by finding someone to donate housing.  Then find others to donate harvest, health care, entertainment.

2.  DESIGN CREDIBLE MONEY.  

Make it look both majestic and cheerful, to reflect your community’s best spirit.  Feature the most widely respected monuments of nature, buildings, and people.  One Ithaca note celebrates children; another displays its bioregional bug.  Use as many colors as you can afford, then add an anti-counterfeit device.  Ithaca has used local handmade paper made of local weed fiber but recently settled on 50/50 hemp/cotton.  Design professionally-- cash is an emblem of community pride.

3.  BE EVERYWHERE. 

Prepare for everyone in the region to understand and embrace this money, such that it can purchase everything, whether listed in the directory or not.  This means broadcasting an email newsletter, publishing a newspaper (at least quarterly), sending press releases, blogging, cartooning, gathering testimonials, writing songs, hosting events and contests, managing a booth at festivals, perhaps a cable or radio show.  Do what you enjoy; do what you can.

By 1999, Ithaca HOURS became negotiable with thousands of individuals and over 500 businesses, including a bank, the medical center, the public library, plenty food, clothes, housing, healing, movies, restaurants, bowling.  The directory contained more categories than the Yellow Pages.  We even created our own local nonprofit health insurance.

Imagine millions of dollars worth circulating, to stimulate new enterprise, as dollars fade.

4.  BE EASY TO USE.  

Local money should be at least as easy to use as national money, not harder.  No punitive “demurrage” stamps-- inflation is demurrage enough.  No expiration dates-- inspire spending instead by emphasizing the benefits to each and all of keeping it moving.  Hungry people want food, not paper, so hard times can speed circulation.

Get ready to issue interest-free loans.  The interest you earn is community interest-- your greater capability to hire and help one another.  Start with small loans to reliable businesses and individuals.  Make grants to groups.

5.  BE HONEST AND OPEN.  

All records of currency disbursement are displayed upon request.  Limit the quantity issued for administration (office, staff, etc) to 5% of total, to restrain inflation

6.  BE PROUDLY POLITICAL.  

Local folks from all political backgrounds find common ground using local cash.  But local money is a great way to introduce new people to the practicality of green economics and solidarity.  I enjoyed arguing with local conservatives, then shaking hands on the power we both gain trading our money.  Hey, we’re creating jobs without clearcutting, prisons, taxes and war!

You can make it likelier that your money is spent for grassroots eco-development by publishing articles that reinforce these values.  By contrast with global markets, our marketplaces are real places where we become friends, lovers, and political allies.

Glover is author of the book "Hometown Money" and consults for community economic development. paulglover.org