Posts Tagged ‘ecovillage’
Tuesday, April 1st, 2008
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 Lammas Ecovillage in Wales is seeking approval for their ecovillage under new UK government rules to allow a new form of rural mixed use development. Theirs would be the first ecovillage approved under these new rules which allow a mix a residential, agricultural, and commercial enterprises on much more affordable rural land.
Lammas has been getting a lot of press and exposure on blogs but not all of it has been accurate. EcoWorldly and TreeHugger recently posted a notice saying Lammas had been granted approval but a Lammas member commented to say that they had resubmitted their plans but is still awaiting approval. For more accurate info keep an eye on the Welsh news or on the Lammas site itself.
You can also see videos about Lammas at undercurrents.org:
Living in the Future and
Ecovillage Pioneers
 I for one am certainly envious of their amazing scale model of their proposed village. If every ecovillage could bring together such a clear and compelling plan with models and video and detailed proposals it might shock planning departments into doing something!
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, Lammas, UK
Posted in Blog posts, News Articles, Video and TV | No Comments »
Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
The Wild Goose Bed and Breakfast got some publicity for ecovillages on the Ithaca, NY local news. The bed and breakfast is located in the Ecovillage at Ithaca community just outside of town and draws customers interested in a green lifestyle.
"I don't have to turn on the heat once the sun's shining in 'till late in the afternoon even on a bitter day like today," said Gail Carson, the owner. Thick walls and south-facing windows help make heating homes at EcoVillage more efficient than most houses.
Her business has doubled in the last year, while energy consumption at the inn continues to be minimal. Carson said one of the reasons she thinks her business has increased over the years is because people are simply curious about eco-villages.
See the Ecovillage Video.
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Related Posts Tags: Bed and Breakfast, ecovillage, Ecovillage at Ithaca
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Saturday, February 23rd, 2008
Last week The New Statesman, a British current affairs magazine, carried a story about the LA Ecovillage in its online edition. The blogger, Johnathon Dawson, usually writes about life at Findhorn, an ecovillage in Scotland.
I want to devote my blog this week to an extraordinary development unfolding in a poor, multi-ethnic, working-class neighbourhood some 6,000 miles from here - in inner-city Los Angeles.
Why on Earth would I do that is a column called Life At Findhorn?! Well, first because we are part of a much larger global family, one of whose members, the Los Angeles Ecovillage, is engaged in quite wonderfully distinctive and inspiring work. Second, because I have just returned after spending ten days there, participating in the annual board meeting of the Global Ecovillage Network."
The Threat
"It is great, if all too rare, to see an ecovillage get stuck in in an urban context, really working in cooperation with their neighbours and helping transform and humanise an entire neighbourhood.
Now, however, the initiative is under threat - and this is where you, dear reader, may just be able to help. The LA school department is planning to locate yet another school in the neighbourhood - there are several there already. This would entail demolishing 35 affordable housing units (all to rare in the city) and even more bussing in of kids from other parts of town.
The ecovillagers are fighting it tooth and nail and have set up an online petition asking the authorities to find another site. If you feel inspired, visit http://www.laecovillage.org/ and sign up."
The next meeting with the school district is February 28. For updates and a direct link to the petition go to http://www.laecovillage.org/LAUSD2008.html
Read the whole article
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Related Posts Tags: ecovillage, Los Angeles Ecovillage, urban ecovillages
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Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
 Abundance Ecovillage in Fairfield, IA made the local news with a wonderful piece on their growing ecologically focused community. The piece focused primarily on the ecological aspects: solar and wind power, energy conservation, rain water catchment, waste water treatment, food production, etc.
Co-founder Lonnie Gamble started the project after several people approached him about how to live a more environmentally friendly lifestyle, "Their beer is cold, their showers are hot, but we do it with one-tenth of the energy a conventional home would use."
The Ecovillage has room for 50 to 70 people to make their home for about the same cost as building a new home in Fairfield. But here there are no electric, water, or even sewage bills to worry about. Gamble asks, "If we can build homes like that for about conventional cost, why do we build anything else?"
See the Video on Channel 13's site: click the link in the upper left for the video.
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Related Posts Tags: Abundance Ecovillage, ecovillage, Iowa, solar power, video, wind power
Posted in News Articles, Video and TV | 1 Comment »
Thursday, February 14th, 2008
With grass-roots ecovillages pioneering sustainable living, the mainstream wants in on the action. The Guardian reports that the government in the United Kingdom has plans to build 10 carbon neutral ecotowns by 2020. The towns will have up to 5000-20,0000 homes, 10-100 times the size of most ecovillages, but will share a focus on ecological living.
Most important, the whole town has to be carbon neutral. This means the amount of energy taken from the national grid to run the town is less than or equal to the amount put back through renewable power.
There are also groups working on helping ecotowns be car free but its not clear who will be helping the government develop the social sustainability aspects of the "three-legged stool" they mention on their ecotown website:
It is appropriate to start with an understanding of sustainability as a "three legged stool": in addition to environmental considerations there are the less well understood but no less important aspects of social and economic sustainable development to consider.
Perhaps they will be able to learn from the rich tradition of ecovillages and intentional communities in the UK on how to create opportunities for community and create a spirit of cooperation towards their ecological goals.
If only the US government were investing in sustainability at this level...
Guardian article on carbon neutral ecotowns
Ecotown website
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Related Posts Tags: car-free, carbon neutral, ecotown, ecovillage, UK
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Thursday, January 24th, 2008
The city of Ithaca was second on the list of Greenest Cities in part due to the work of the Ecovillage at Ithaca an intentional community with two 30-home cohousing clusters. The Ecovillage was recently featured in Time magazine and is a great example of a community moving towards sustainability.
Move.com profiled Ithaca and highlighted the Ecovillage as a major part of the cities green ranking:
The village is already at work on phase two: future developments are being considered and will likely include more accessible and affordable housing, a charter school, an education center, village-scale wind power, organic orchards, a roadside farm stand, graywater recycling, on-site biological wastewater treatment center, biomass energy crops, shuttle van, carshare, a natural cemetery, onsite biodiesel/vegetable-oil fuel production, and educational programs.
Not surprisingly most of the top green cities on the list are home to ecovillages, cohousing, and other forms of intentional community. Are communities attracted to green cities or are cities made green by community? I'm sure the answer is both.
Read the Article.
See the list of Greenest Cities.
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Related Posts Tags: cohousing, ecovillage, Ecovillage at Ithaca, Green Cities, Ithaca, New York
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Monday, January 14th, 2008
Environtal magazine E has an article on the ecovillage movement.
For some reason they lead off with six paragraphs on Arocsanti before the get into the general ecovillage trend, mentioning LA Ecovillage, Cleveland Ecovillage, the Ecovillage Training Center at the Farm.
According to the study, the 379 "eco-villages" registered with the Global Eco-Village Network (110 of them in North America) are proof of changing attitudes. Eco-villages are defined by Worldwatch as "human scale, full-featured settlements in which human activities are harmlessly integrated into the natural world in a way that is supportive of healthy human development, and can be successfully con-tinued into the indefinite future." The commun-ities can be urban, suburban or rural, and incorporate green buildings, local food production, solar energy, carpooling, and community building efforts. "More and more people are engaged in the idea of local sustainability," says Erik Assadourian, author of the study and a Worldwatch research associate.
Read the Article.
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Related Posts Tags: Arcosanti, Cleveland Ecovillage, E Magazine, ecovillage, LA Ecovillage, The Farm
Posted in News Articles | 1 Comment »
Wednesday, December 12th, 2007
In August Worldwatch published a nice article about ecovillages and cohousing and how they can help reduce one's ecological footprint.
This article is still getting picked up by other media, this time by Natural Life magazine of Canada.
Many ecovillages are reducing energy use, localizing farming and creating more sustainable local businesses. Other environmentally minded communities, including the more than 450 co-housing projects found in North America and Europe, focus primarily on improving the quality of life of residents. Co-housing typically includes clusters of smaller houses with shared dining halls and other spaces, facilitating stronger social ties while reducing the material and energy needs of the community.
Read the article.
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Tuesday, December 11th, 2007
I always love seeing communities in the real estate section. Not when they are for sale, but when it seems they can't figure out where else to put them.
This article is from an online source calling itself "The People's Media" which allows users to post news for distribution. It's not the most accurate article on ecovillages, but there's not bad publicity, I suppose.
Most people have never heard of ecovillages. These tiny rural communities are usually found in the countryside, not too far from town. There are many different types of ecovillage, but all of them are based on two things: community and earth preservation.
Read the article
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Monday, December 10th, 2007
Well travelling bloggers do seem to stop in communities often and its nice to get their first hand descriptions of the place. And if you thought biodiesel or bikes were eco, check out these folks who are walking from Vancouver to San Diego.
They stopped at Rosewind Cohousing and Port Townsend EcoVillage in Washington.
Read the blog post.
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Related Posts Tags: cohousing, ecovillage, Port Towsend Ecovilage, Quakers, Rosewind Cohousing, walkers
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