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Integration is the key to breaking down the barriers of discrimination Photo courtesy Hannahs Learning from each other CREATIVE COMMUNITIES In the UK, over 20% of adults and children live with some kind of disability. That’s a large slice of the population that finds itself marginalised from everyday life experiences that most of us take for granted. Despite legislation designed to overcome discrimination, people who are less able still struggle to find meaningful work or to participate fully in community life. However, there is a place in South Devon that is changing the way we work and learn by integrating people of all abilities in the most imaginative ways. Hannahs at Seale-Hayne is a creative community that sees no difference in the potential of people of any ability. The magnificent buildings of the oncefamous agricultural college now house a vibrant school of learning where artists, craftspeople and musicians hire studios and workshops at a low rent in return for sharing their knowledge and skills with the less able members of the community. Learning from each other through apprenticeships, mentoring and work placements, the vibrant community has a recording studio and live performance space; Camp Mawazo, which runs outdoor experiences on Dartmoor; a sustainable garden project; a sports hall and fitness suite; a hydrotherapy pool for mothers and babies; an excellent bistro and cake shop; a market called The Souk; a retro shop; and even therapeutic horsemanship courses. A percentage of all income from the shops and courses is donated to support the running costs of Hannahs at Seale-Hayne. Writer Nick Stimson was so inspired by his visits to Hannahs that he wrote about it in a new book on the imagination called The Gist. “The cake-makers, the blacksmiths, the artists, the musicians, the technicians and the therapists all share a commonly held understanding that what they are doing is making the future possible for the less able people with whom they work, and in so doing the less able people are making the future possible for them. It’s a two-way thing, this creative commerce at Seale-Hayne: the people you see and meet working there, those who are doing the doing and making the making, are people of all abilities working side by side.” It seems so simple and obvious that integration is the key to breaking down the barriers of discrimination; yet the imaginative response to disability exemplified at Seale-Hayne is the exception rather than the norm. Every community should have a ‘Hannahs’ at its heart – a place of learning by doing and sharing the wealth of right livelihood. www.discoverhannahs.org PEOPLES’ SUSTAINABILITY MANIFESTO Action beyond Rio+20 By the time you read this, the Rio+20 Earth Summit will seem like a long time ago – but the decisions world leaders failed to make will have far-reaching repercussions affecting generations to come. So serious was the lack of vision and commitment that Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director of Greenpeace, put it this way: “Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure. It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy.” That’s why a group of concerned world citizens has drawn up a Peoples’ Sustainability Manifesto for Action Beyond Rio, which outlines the steps that should have been taken by our government representatives (whom we cannot call leaders). Key to initiating a New Ecological Order, a New Economic Order and a New Social Order, through sustainable transition, is the building of a Global Citizens Movement. So founding signatories to the Manifesto are calling on students, teachers, representatives of Indigenous people, local communities 22 Resurgence & Ecologist November/December 2012
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and farmers, fisherfolk, pastoralists, crafts­people, workers, participants in social movements, representatives of women’s organisations and civil society, businesspeople, journalists, lawyers, physicians, parliamentarians, government officials and politicians to join the campaign towards advancing a Global Citizens Movement by endorsing the Manifesto and its associated 14 Peoples’ Sustainability Treaties, which evolved through a consultative process with hundreds of civil society organisations, committing themselves to action, and crafting and proposing additional actions and treaties. “Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day I can hear her breathing” – Arundhati Roy Founding signatory Dylan McGarry says: “The Manifesto draws attention to the need for a collective global response to climate change and environmental decline through the combined efforts of all earthlings. I feel that in connection with the rights of Nature movements, we will see legitimate forms of healing between Indigenous and non-Indigenous people, between wealthy and poorer communities, and between humans and other animals, plants and natural ecosystems. These are the most valuable and important steps we will make in the 21st century.” Recognising that a Manifesto is just the starting point, signatories resolve to come together to build such a movement, to support its evolution and progress and to make it both a cradle and a touchstone for values and actions that lead to a sustainable future. They call upon all ecologically and socially sensitive people in the world to join this movement and make it a reality. www.sustainabilitytreaties.org THE GREAT BIOFUEL DEBATE How to create energy in a warming world Extreme temperatures and drought in the US and Eastern Europe this summer have led to a hike in grain prices, whilst the poorest people in the world face malnutrition as the price of food staples rises. In the US 40% of food-quality corn is being used to produce fuel, as mandated by the US Renewable Fuel Standard, which requires 15 billion gallons of domestic corn ethanol to be blended into the US fuel supply by 2022. But people need not go hungry to create biofuel, says Lars Hansen of Novozymes, a company producing enzymes that can break down carbon-based plant matter to create ethanol. “If you take just 20% of the agricultural and forest residue available in Europe, you can make half of that region’s gasoline demands.” Undoubtedly, it’s far better to create biofuel from waste (the stalks and chaff of cereals and logging waste) than from the crops themselves, but if those crops have been produced unsustainably, then the biofuel is hardly planet-friendly. Hansen neatly dodges this question by stating that “sustainability should have been sorted out before the government mandates were produced” – but that has not been the case. A US company called Bioroot Energy claims to be able to create energy from human and farm-animal waste (or any carbon feedstock) as part of its Envirolene process, which the company claims is a clean, green, high-octane fuel formula produced without incineration or fermentation. Bioroot even claims that it can make clean fuel out of coal-fired power station smokestack emissions. Undoubtedly that is desirable as long as coal-fired power stations are still operational, but ultimately it must not validate the use of coal as a viable future fuel. Almuth Ernsting, co-founder of Biofuelwatch, says: “I have found no evidence to show that anyone has yet discovered a way of turning solid biomass into liquids and producing any net energy. Using processes which involve gasification to produce liquid fuels is hugely energy intensive.” It seems that producing energy in a warming world is fraught with contradictions: biomass is being touted as green energy even though the proposed biomass power stations in the UK will consume more wood annually than is available from all the forests in the UK put together; ethanol-based biofuels use foodquality crops to feed cars instead of people; and even the new wave of ‘secondary biofuels’ made from waste still can’t make a significant contribution to energy production, because the energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) is too low. (Think of all the energy invested in ploughing, fertilisers, and harvesting and processing of crops.) So the sustainable production of energy is still posing plenty of challenges, but we are moving slowly and inexorably away from high-carbon fossilised fuels to lower-carbon renewable fuels, with all the benefits they will ultimately bring. As a footnote, when researching this article I came across a CNN report from 1970 that expounded the properties of nitinol, a metal alloy of nickel and titanium that has unique properties of shape memory and super-elasticity. Shape memory refers to its ability to undergo deformation at one temperature, then recover its original, undeformed shape upon heating above its ‘transformation temperature’. This super-elasticity occurs at a narrow temperature range just above its transformation temperature, so no heating is necessary to cause the undeformed shape to recover. This alternating shape change can produce a solidstate heat engine that will run in perpetuity. Take a look at the amazing YouTube video (Free Energy 1970 CNN News) and ask yourself why we’re still burning coal and oil. Lorna Howarth is Director of The Write Factor publishing agency. www.thewritefactor.co.uk Issue 275 Resurgence & Ecologist 23

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Integration is the key to breaking down the barriers of discrimination Photo courtesy Hannahs

Learning from each other CREATIVE COMMUNITIES

In the UK, over 20% of adults and children live with some kind of disability. That’s a large slice of the population that finds itself marginalised from everyday life experiences that most of us take for granted. Despite legislation designed to overcome discrimination, people who are less able still struggle to find meaningful work or to participate fully in community life. However, there is a place in South Devon that is changing the way we work and learn by integrating people of all abilities in the most imaginative ways.

Hannahs at Seale-Hayne is a creative community that sees no difference in the potential of people of any ability. The magnificent buildings of the oncefamous agricultural college now house a vibrant school of learning where artists, craftspeople and musicians hire studios and workshops at a low rent in return for sharing their knowledge and skills with the less able members of the community. Learning from each other through apprenticeships, mentoring and work placements, the vibrant community has a recording studio and live performance space; Camp Mawazo, which runs outdoor experiences on Dartmoor; a sustainable garden project; a sports hall and fitness suite; a hydrotherapy pool for mothers and babies; an excellent bistro and cake shop; a market called The Souk; a retro shop; and even therapeutic horsemanship courses. A percentage of all income from the shops and courses is donated to support the running costs of Hannahs at Seale-Hayne. Writer Nick Stimson was so inspired by his visits to Hannahs that he wrote about it in a new book on the imagination called The Gist. “The cake-makers, the blacksmiths, the artists, the musicians, the technicians and the therapists all share a commonly held understanding that what they are doing is making the future possible for the less able people with whom they work, and in so doing the less able people are making the future possible for them. It’s a two-way thing, this creative commerce at Seale-Hayne: the people you see and meet working there, those who are doing the doing and making the making, are people of all abilities working side by side.”

It seems so simple and obvious that integration is the key to breaking down the barriers of discrimination; yet the imaginative response to disability exemplified at Seale-Hayne is the exception rather than the norm. Every community should have a ‘Hannahs’ at its heart – a place of learning by doing and sharing the wealth of right livelihood. www.discoverhannahs.org

PEOPLES’ SUSTAINABILITY MANIFESTO

Action beyond Rio+20

By the time you read this, the Rio+20 Earth Summit will seem like a long time ago – but the decisions world leaders failed to make will have far-reaching repercussions affecting generations to come. So serious was the lack of vision and commitment that Kumi Naidoo, International Executive Director of Greenpeace, put it this way: “Rio+20 has turned into an epic failure. It has failed on equity, failed on ecology and failed on economy.”

That’s why a group of concerned world citizens has drawn up a Peoples’ Sustainability Manifesto for Action Beyond Rio, which outlines the steps that should have been taken by our government representatives (whom we cannot call leaders).

Key to initiating a New Ecological Order, a New Economic Order and a New Social Order, through sustainable transition, is the building of a Global Citizens Movement. So founding signatories to the Manifesto are calling on students, teachers, representatives of Indigenous people, local communities

22

Resurgence & Ecologist

November/December 2012

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