Eco Vista Project Sourcebook

Eco Vista Project Sourcebook – Michael Bean – January 2020

• • •

We’ve got to start looking at what we pretend we can’t see

it will save us, or it will break us

and you’ve got to stop telling yourself what you don’t know

’cuz you know what you know

–Ali Dineen

What You Know

on Light Comes In

published by Bandcamp 3

• • •

Outline –-

– Climate Chaos

– Equipping Ourselves to Participate in the Climate Solutions Debate

– Adaptation – Visualizing Local Consequences of Sea-Level Rise

– Adaptation – Acknowledging Other Effects of Climate Chaos

– Carbon Reduction – Calculating Methane Release at Tajiguas Landfill

– Carbon Reduction – Combining Package Delivery & Trash Hauling Functions

– Communicating

– Installing Public Telephones

– Community – Gathering Places

– Collecting Placemaking Ideas in Portland and Other Cities

– Gathering Places – Designing a Mini-Piazza(~)

in Anisq’Oyo’ Park across from Markets

– Culture & Aesthetics

– Music – Revitalizing IV’s Music Scene

– Sculpture – Beautifying IV’s Downtown Loop

– Beautifying IV’s Student Residential Zones

– Celebrating

– Restraining IV’s Dysfunctional Festivals: Deltopia & Halloween

– Dwelling

– Houselessness

– Opening a Drop-in Day Center

– Articulating Housing Strategies

– Retrofitting Buildings

– Writing a Sustainable Retrofit Guide for Apartment Owners

– Redevelopment & New Construction

– Writing a Sustainable New Construction Guide for Apartment Owners

– Minimizing Use of Concrete

– Reorienting Buildings along North-South Axis

– Land Use Planning

– Establishing an Experimental Zoning Designation and Test Site(s)

– Economy

– Recognizing and Supporting Parallel Economies

– Understanding Poverty and Wealth at UCSB and in Isla Vista

– Instituting Universal Basic Income

– Energy

– Greenhouse Gas Reduction – Employing Peer Pressure

to Reduce Personal Carbon Use

– Encouraging SCE Customers to Choose Renewable Electrical Utility Option

– Environment

– Planting Fruit, Nut, & Shade Trees

– Studying the Blue New Deal Proposal

– Forming Temporary Sculptures with Natural Materials

– Governing

– Pressing CA Legislature to Make PG&E a Public Utility

– History – Articulating a Cohesive Narrative

of How We Landed in this Predicament

– Healing

– Addiction – Offering a Smoking & Vaping Cessation Program

– Disposing of Toxic Chemicals and Materials Safely & Responsibly

– Minimizing Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields

– Toughening Municipal Water Standards

– Infrastructure

– Rethinking the Sewer System

– Learning

– Establishing an Earthling FYI Training

– Expanding Tenure Criteria

– Media

– Promoting Reliable Sources of News and Analysis

– Understanding Our Relationship to Phones and Other Devices

– Nourishing

– Permaculture – Converting IV’s Lawns to Food Forests

– Building a Certified Community Kitchen

– Preparing for Emergencies

– Planning for Deep Resiliency

– Water – Drilling & Maintaining Emergency Wells

– Recycling

– Cultivating a Deep-Rooted Zero Waste Ethic

– Rethinking June Moveout

– Reducing Contaminants in IV’s Recycling Stream

– Fostering Recycling Literacy

– Reducing Litter

– Opposing Reliance on Single-Use Plastic Water Bottles

– Repairing Public Trash Receptacles

– Installing Pocketed Skirts around Public Trash Receptacles

– Opening a Repair Workshop

– Creating a Makerspace

– Safety

– Training Riders and Calming Traffic

– Mapping & Marking Accident Sites

– Closing Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant

– Transportation

– Optimizing Transportation & Parking

– Water Conservation –

– Irrigating – Installing Graywater Systems

– Irrigating – Collecting Rain Water

– Saving Some for the Fish

– Working

– Organizing a Tool Library

• • • • • •

Projects –-

• Climate Chaos – Equipping Ourselves to Participate in the Climate Solutions Debate –- Climate activists (e.g., Fridays for Future, Extinction Rebellion, Sunrise Movement, etc) are clamoring for government leaders to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, but what evidence do we have that the decisions they reach will be at all helpful, appropriate, humane, or just? Based on past experience, it seems likely that what the US Federal government will deliver will be ineffective and expensive boondoggles that serve primarily to enrich giant consulting, engineering, technology, and fossil fuel companies like Bechtel, United Technologies, Monsanto, Exxon Mobil (~), etc. We need to become literate in pertinent disciplines that bear on climate science and climate science skepticism. We also need to get acquainted with the wide variety of methods being proposed including greenhouse gas reduction, conservation, carbon sequestration, geo-engineering, resilience, adaptation, and retreat so we can advocate effectively for the kind of world we want to live in. Recommendations: List the disciplines we need to know our way around in. Start enumerating the “solutions” being floated. Begin articulating criteria for acceptable responses to the crisis. Get to know our congressional representatives and senators. Outline a curriculum for equipping activists, students, and the public to participate intelligently in this discussion.

Related Topics: Climate, Governance, Learning, Organizing

• Climate Chaos – Adaptation – Visualizing Local Consequences of Sea-Level Rise –- We in IV don’t seem to have much sense of how global climate chaos may affect our lives. Yes, we’re experiencing extended droughts, wildfires, urban conflagrations, and storms. But the shape of future consequences isn’t tangible. Several years ago, a group of people in Santa Barbara set out / sought to get permission to paint a blue line on city streets and sidewalks to indicate how much of the city would be underwater given sea-level rise projections. The real estate community freaked, out of concern that it would depress property values. So the initiative failed. Recommendations: Get topographic maps covering IV, the airport, both sloughs, and Goleta. Research well-grounded scientific estimates of sea-level rise for different years. Ask folks at UCSB Geography and the UCSB Library Map & Imagery Laboratory (MIL) for help in plotting corresponding elevations. Collaborate with people in other departments like the Art Department, College of Creative Studies, Department of Theater and Dance, and Film and Media Studies. Host a film series on sea level rise and larger climate chaos issues. Consider organizing a large-scale art installation to help people visualize what may become of IV. Will it become a peninsula, an island, or a popular destination for recreational scuba divers? Explore options for ephemeral, temporary, and permanent performance and design elements, e.g., posters and signage showing the retreating shoreline and ocean intrusion into the slough and airport, street theater, a line of people in blue T-shirts people joining hands around IV Island, blue tape, blue surveyor stakes, blue chalk, durable signage, and/or blue highway paint. Host a town hall to discuss what intelligent adaptation might look like. Where could UCSB go? What would the relationship between town and gown be then? What about residents who aren’t students, staff, or faculty? Could we do a better job of planning this time? Could we create an intentional community grounded in social justice and ecological sustainability? Even if we didn’t have to move, what could we learn and adopt from this exercise?

Related Topics: Art, Climate, Film Series, Land Use Planning, Learning, Street Theater

• Climate Chaos – Adaptation – Acknowledging Other Effects of Climate Chaos –- Questions: What other consequences of cascading climate chaos may Isla Vista and the UCSB campus have to deal with? Recommendations: Compile a list of possible climate-induced or -exacerbated breakdowns. Consider drought, torrential rain, local flooding, salt water intrusion into the water table, death of trees and crops, incursion of tropical diseases as temperatures warm and vectors like new species of mosquitos expand into the South Coast, climate anxiety, debilitating moods, water & food scarcity, economic collapse, martial law, starvation, fascism, epidemics, etc.

Key Distinctions: lost decade, slow onset, Conference of the Parties (CoP), 1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C, major emitters, frontline communities, climate science skeptics, deniers

Related Topics: Mood, Preparing for Emergencies, Planning

• Climate Chaos – Carbon Reduction – Calculating Methane Release at Tajiguas Landfill –- Over time, as organic waste deposited in the landfill decomposes, it releases methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Recommendations: Research and calculate IV’s contribution to methane production through the waste it sends to Tajiguas landfill. List and map the various food waste collection, composting, green waste collection, chipping, and mulching operations in IV. Calculate how much kitchen waste, uneaten table scraps, and spoiled produce is generated from IV restaurants, markets, and houses. Survey some households, co-op houses, sororities, and fraternities to gauge how much food is consumed and how much wasted. Consider siting a green waste dumpster in downtown IV (perhaps at the Park District?) for public use to divert more yard waste from the landfill. Talk with processors to learn what materials are suited and unsuitable for the process they use. Articulate the different methods or technologies being used, e.g., hot composting, vermicomposting, industrial composting, the chop & drop method of turning prunings into mulch on the spot, chipping, and the County’s rotating shredder(~)* and heat sterilization method. Develop signage to help sensitize people as to what items belong in what or whose bins. What kinds of organic waste are still getting sent to the landfill? Design programs to capture and process them.

[* Call South Coast Recycling and Transfer Station at 805.681.4345 &/or Joey, the mulch guy at 805.681.4981.]

Related Topics: Composting, Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Recycling

• Climate Chaos – Carbon Reduction – Combining Package Delivery & Trash Hauling Functions –- Isla Vistans receive lots of packages and produce a lot of waste. Swedish researchers(~) made a intriguing observation: package delivery trucks arrive full and leave empty, meanwhile trash and recycling trucks arrive empty and leave full. They wondered if it would reduce fuel consumption to have the trucks bringing packages also pick up landfill or recyclables (?) at the same time. [Fact check.] This question calls for some sophisticated mathematical modeling. When is it more efficient to take parcels to distribution centers (?) and when is it better to deliver them directly to recipients’ addresses. The branch of mathematics known as operations research could provide this sort of logistical analysis. Recommendations: Ascertain how much fuel (and what kinds of fuel) do delivery services and trash / recycling pickups currently use? Who uses gasoline, diesel, bio-diesel? How much carbon does that represent? What plans do different outfits have for implementing electric-, hybrid-, or hydrogen-powered trucks? Study the Swedish program. Have they designed special trucks? How far have they gotten? How is the program working so far? Assuming that several commercial package delivery services operate in Sweden, which delivery services are participating? How did they work out which delivery services would be included this? As this proposal would require the development of infrastructure outside Isla Vista, open conversations with the United States Postal Service, MarBorg Industries management, County of Santa Barbara Solid Waste Division (?), and City of Santa Barbara (~) Department of Public Works (?). Identify operations research authorities at UCSB and ask their thoughts on design issues, choices, and tradeoffs they see for such a project. (Source: BBC 191222n)

Links: https://www.bbc.com/news/av/stories-50828056/the-delivery-driver-who-takes-away-your-rubbish

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04grdbc/episodes/downloads?page=1

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p07y1vjy (?)

Related Topics: Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Operations Research, Transport

• • •

• Communicating – Installing Public Telephones –- Public telephones have all but disappeared. (See list of pay phone locations.) Yet public telephones serve real needs: Folks who–for whatever reason–lack a cell phone still need to make calls. Cell phone users frequently experience having their phones run out of charge. Mobile phones get lost, broken, or stolen. People get behind on their phone bills and have their accounts suspended. In large-scale power outages, cell networks may be down while simple landline phones continue to work. There are reportedly still a handful of pay phones sprinkled around the Santa Barbara area. ViewTel(?) based in Portland, Oregon (?), has begun offering free stationary public phones in several communities. Recommendations: Get corporate contact info from one of the remaining pay phones in the area (e.g., at the temporary MTD bus station at Chapalla and Figuera Streets (~), at the 7-Eleven at Storke(ø) Road and ____, (somewhere in Old Town Goleta perhaps?), (somewhere on Milpas perhaps?) and where else?). Contact the company to ask what they would require to install one or more pay phones in IV and how quickly they can make repairs. Contact ViewTel(?) to find out about their mission, the service they offer, and if they would consider serving Isla Vista.

Related Topics: Community, Infrastructure

• • •

• Community – Collecting Placemaking Ideas in Portland and Other Cities –- Portland, Oregon’s City Repair Project has nurtured tons(~) of delightful projects in nearly every one of Portland’s 92(?) recognized neighborhoods and inspired similar efforts in other cities. Recommendations: Check out co-founder and architect Mark Lakeman’s talks on YouTube.com and neighborhood projects on CityRepair.org. Organize a field trip to tour Portland and document cool neighborhood amenities, projects, and groups. Consider producing a video documentary, podcast, article and/or catalog of project ideas.

Recommended Reading: Mark Lakeman’s /A Placemaking Guide/ (~)

Related Topics: Community, Infrastructure, Placemaking

• Community – Gathering Places – Designing a Mini-Piazza(~) in Anisq’Oyo’ Park across from Markets –- There seems to be a lack of convivial, non-commercial gathering places in IV. The west end of the Madrid walkway through Anisq’Oyo’ park used to be more of a gateway and small gathering spot. It widened out a bit, had attractive slipcast(~) ceramic pavers on the walkway, and stone planters on either side. Acoustic musicians would occasionally play there. Unfortunately, the space was too confining. Women often felt unsafe using that entrance because the stone planters constituted a pinch point where certain men would sit on either side and often make unwelcome remarks to women passing through. The space seems to call out to be made into an inviting–and safe–gathering place. If the space was enlarged into a semi-circle without the confining ‘running the gauntlet’ feel, it could be an inviting public space for people to gather and musicians to play. Recommendations: Assess whether this design would jeopardize the nearby pine trees. Solicit sketches and ideas from community members, passers-by, community leaders, Park District staff, and people in the Art Department. Pitch designs to the Park District.

Related Topics:

• Culture – Sculpture – Beautifying IV’s Downtown Loop –- There are no public sculptures in IV. Recommendations: Design a set of uniform bases for mounting sculptures. Write design specifications to guide sculptors in creating vandalism- and graffiti-resistant sculptures for temporary mounting on standardized bases. Interview organizers including the Santa Barbara Arts Commission (?) to learn from their experience with temporary sculpture installations along State Street (e.g., the giant fish sculptures of a few years ago [When?] and the 2019 Tiny Libraries on State project featuring “tiny libraries” in the form of punctuation marks). Invite local art students and community members to submit their designs. Seek grants for the program. Rotate sculptures and change themes periodically.

[Research Resources: https://www.independent.com/2006/02/16/trout-migration/, sbsteelheadfest.org, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Barbara_County_Arts_Commission, https://www.edhat.com/news/tiny-libraries-project-to-enliven-state-street, https://www.sbac.ca.gov/, https://www.sbac.ca.gov/pianos, https://www.independent.com/2019/09/03/artist-call-for-pianos-on-state-street/, https://www.independent.com/2016/01/07/community-arts-workshop-gets-gates/, https://web.archive.org/web/20190825002549/https://pianosonstate.com/en, https://sbefoundation.org/community-programs/pianos-on-state/%5D 

Related Topics:

• Culture – Beautifying IV’s Student Residential Zones –- Despite the area’s abundant natural beauty, a number of forces combine to make the built environment in Isla Vista’s residential zones ugly and visually boring. These include local rental property owners who would rather not deal with the trouble and expense of maintaining large trees, the bark beetle infestation of local conifers due to our warming climate, the toll that partying takes on buildings and landscaping, vandalism, and the rough treatment afforded rental properties by students who resent paying atrocious rents. Consequently little thought or care is given to creating a beautiful environment for people in the areas of town dominated by apartments (i.e., most of Isla Vista). Recommendations: pollinator-friendly flowering shrubs and flower beds, murals, public and private sculpture, street graphics, what else?

Related Topics: Art, Culture, Environment, Landscaping, Permaculture, Urban Forest

• Culture – Celebrating – Restraining IV’s Dysfunctional Festivals: Deltopia & Halloween –- I’m including Deltopia and Halloween in this list of issues because they are both big headaches for a lot of people here // for the community each year and they cost the County a lot of money // millions of dollars [Fact check]. Those dollars could go towards providing more and better services to IV and Santa Barbara County // making IV and SBCo safer and more sustainable and provide a more robust social safety net. Deltopia was low key, creative, and fun when it started. As you may know, it actually began as an event called “Floatopia.” A few dozen local students got some inflatable rafts and some beer, paddled out to the ocean and had a blast. The next year it grew to hundreds of people. Students started inviting their friends from home. The third year saw thousands of participants [Research crowd sizes and costs by year]. Floatopia’s final year saw about 15,000 people packing the beach. Out-of-towners had no reason to care about IV and left tons of trash [Research amount]. The policing and cleanup cost the County a huge sum [Research]. Community leaders, the County Sheriff’s office, and local environmental organizations flipped out [Research what groups were pivotal in suppressing Floatopia] and that was that for Floatopia. The next year saw a huge police presence and virtual martial law. Deputies guarded beach access points to prevent people from reaching the beach. Students adapted by simply holding the party on Del Playa Drive (hence the name Deltopia). Similarly, Halloween in IV also used to be very cool and fun, with lots of creative costumes. It, too, got increasingly out of hand year after year as students invited out of town friends and certain publications promoted it. For the last several years, hardly anyone is goes out on the streets that night, just Sheriff’s deputies and UCPD officers. Boring. When can we stop wasting millions [Fact check] on unsponsored event nobody comes to anymore. Apart from the cliff falls, alcohol poisoning, and other injuries [Research number and types of Deltopia-related incidents by year], these unsponsored events cost the County beaucoup bucks, money that could be going to provide much needed services in IV and elsewhere in the County. I’ve heard that UCSB(?) spends $2 million to put up all the chain link fencing around town [Research]. Since no one individual or group sponsors Deltopia or Halloween, it’s not easy to shut these events down. Recommendations: Please do not invite people from out of town to come to Deltopia–or Halloween. Come up with more skillful (and more honest) social marketing campaigns. Ask student groups to come up with their own messaging asking people to keep it local instead of relying on UCSB’s official messages [Research UCSB’s recent Deltopia and Halloween public service announcements (PSAs)]. Request that whoever came up with the last year’s deceitful PSAs not get the job this year [Research PSA authors]. Let’s see if the folks who produce the excellent local Lucidity Festivals can help keep things calm this year.

Related Topics: Culture, Social Marketing

• • •

• Dwelling – Houselessness – Opening a Drop-in Day Center –- Houseless people need access to safe places to hang out, and have access to services such as drinking water, hot beverages, lockers, a mailing address, a telephone, WiFi, computers, charging stations, bike tools, etc. Several years ago [From when to when?] Isla Vista had a church-sponsored day center that was a huge help to scores of people. It closed when the County bought the property and the church relocated. Recommendations: A drop-in day center can make a tremendous difference for people living on the street. Seek funds. To minimize the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) resistance, look for suitable space in areas that are zoned commercial. For a comprehensive list of recommended day center amenities, see “Houselessness – Housing Strategies, Day Center Services, Local Meals, and Past Efforts.doc” file. [Note: an earlier version this list of amenities and strategies was given to City of Goleta Community Services staff (~) at their Community Open House on Goleta’s Homelessness Strategic Plan at Goleta Valley Community Center on 2019 Dec 11 Wed.]

Related Topics:

• Dwelling – Houselessness – Articulating Housing Strategies –-

[Explain each proposal.]

Recommendations:

– Drop-in Day Center

(See “Opening a Drop-in Day Center” entry.)

– Additional “Housing First” Subsidized Housing

with Supportive Services

– Sheds

– Storage Units

– DIY Tiny Houses

– Manufactured Tiny Houses

– Converted Shipping Containers

– Concrete Culverts or Stacked Culverts

– Carport-Style Shelters

– Pocket Hotel

– 3D Printable Houses

– Safe Parking Program

– Converted Minivans

– Hostel for Travelers

– Supervised Campground

Potential Partners: Jesse, David, Jon L

(See “Housing Strategy Links” for links

for most of the ideas above.)

Related Topics:

• Dwelling – Redevelopment & New Construction – Writing a Sustainable New Construction Guide for Apartment Owners –- The State of California’s mandate to cities to create more housing stock to accommodate a growing population and the consequent pressure on the County of Santa Barbara to ease lot densities, zoning restrictions, and regulatory requirements may make it attractive to property owners // may induce(~) property owners to tear down existing buildings and redevelop their properties, remodel illegal dwelling units and bring them up to code, or erect auxiliary(?) dwelling units (AUDs) in back yards or other areas where there is sufficient space. What if there was // what if we had a new construction guide to assist property owners in designing more sustainable, energy and water efficient housing? How would they find out about it? How could we get it to them early in the design process? Could we partner with the County’s Department of Planning and Development to distribute a flyer, pamphlet, or book to property owners, contractors, and developers? What topics should it cover? Are there already suitable resources we could direct them to? Recommendations: Research helpful texts, websites, contractors, landscapers, consultants, and other resources. Open a conversation with Planning and Development. Talk with property owners to gauge their interest and enroll early adopters.

Related Topics:

• Dwelling – Housing & Commercial Construction – Minimizing Use of Concrete –- The production and use of concrete accounts for up to 8% of US(?) human-caused carbon dioxide emissions. Researchers are working on a number of ways of formulating concrete that produce less CO2, but they currently aren’t available at scale. Recommendations: Follow developments in low-carbon concrete. Explore strategies for reducing the amount of concrete used in new construction. When affordable low-carbon concrete becomes available, lobby County and UCSB to require use of low-carbon concrete in new construction. (See also “Water – Collecting Rain Water” entry regarding applications for permeable concrete.)

Related Topics: Construction, Dwelling, Greenhouse Gas Reduction, Planning

• Dwelling – New Construction – Reorienting Buildings along North-South Axis –- Buildings that are oriented along an East-West axis are significantly more energy efficient than those that run North-South [Research energy savings]. They absorb more warmth from the sun on their long South side (thus reducing heating costs in winter) and provide more extensive shade on their north side (creating a cooler zone in summer). They also allow for better placement of solar photovoltaic arrays and solar hot water panels. Unfortunately, when developers and county planners laid out Isla Vista streets and lots in the 19__s [Research], they employed // their narrow lots imposed a North-South orientation on buildings throughout IV. While it would be prohibitively expensive and impractical to reorient existing buildings, it might make sense for property owners to consider this option when redeveloping their properties. Recommendations: Research advantages of North-South orientation. Find out if other jurisdictions have incorporated this insight into their new construction standards or guidelines. Incorporate N-S orientation in /Sustainable New Construction Guide for Apartment Owners/. Talk with County Planning and Development staff.

Related Topics: Carbon Reduction, Climate Chaos, Construction, Energy Conservation, Land Use Planning

• Dwelling – Land Use Planning – Establishing an Experimental Zoning Designation and Test Sites –- Our current way of constructing housing is two centuries years old, wasteful, toxic, and financially out of reach of the majority of people. We need to explore new concepts in housing and to do so we need places where such experimentation is allowed. Recommendations: Work with progressive design and planning advocates, the IVCSD, appropriate UCSB departments, and the County’s Department of Planning and Development to craft an experimental zoning designation for IV or somewhere nearby to facilitate work with new and old concepts in shelter design such as tiny houses, printable dwellings, geodesic domes, emergency shelters, pocket hotels, fired ceramic houses, indigenous stationary and nomadic dwelling designs, high-tech tents, sandbag igloos, straw bale and straw flake construction, repurposed modified shipping containers, underground housing, etc. Ask people who try out these designs to document their experience via journaling and to give periodic tours so the community can learn about the merits of different designs. As the IVRPD’s Tipi Village park at 6734 Sueño Road was an historical site of a small encampment that included a tipi, and as UCSB’s Art Department has built several novel housing ideas (including a set of modified repurposed shipping containers and a tiny house), explore potential sites with them. Consider lobbying to have such a test site incorporated into UCSB’s Long-Range Development Plan.

Related Topics: Dwelling, Land Use Planning

• • •

• Economy – Recognizing and Supporting Parallel Economies –- When government, media, and corporate types talk about “the economy” they generally presuppose that the market economy is the only way of meeting our needs worthy of consideration. Other ways of systems aren’t mentioned or else they’re tarred by characterizing them as the “black” or “gray” market. Yet a wide variety of other modes of economic activity exist, e.g., subsistence, sharing, barter, mutual aid, scavenging, charity, welfare, etc. Questions: What are the different means by which people, organizations, corporations, and governments support themselves? What are the ways you get what you need? How do you support yourself and your loved ones? By what means do others support you? What relationships are there among these strategies? (For example, the economy of sharing and generosity seems to require protection from market forces: as when a swap meet vendor wants to take all the good stuff from the community free bin and turn it into cash, or someone wants to take large quantities and ship it to relatives in their home country.) Recommendations: Articulate as many categories of means of support as you can. List all the ways you support yourself and your loved ones. Inquire: How can we draw attention to and support some of these other economic strategies? What pitfalls may be associated with different modes? Which of these ‘economies’ would you like to be more invested in, which would you like to rely on less? (Some examples of parallel / alternate / alternative / complementary economies: barter, sharing, generosity / trust / mutual aid, family, scavenging, savings, charity, government welfare, pensions, Social Security, and criminal economies.) [See list in “Economy – Recognizing and Supporting Parallel Economies (notes)”.]

Related Topics:

• Economy – Understanding Poverty and Wealth at UCSB and in Isla Vista –- National media and many national politicians rarely speak of poverty, yet 41.7% of people in the US are poor. How many people here are impoverished? Recommendations: Research poverty and wealth in Isla Vista and at UCSB. How many students are houseless, living in their vehicles, or couch surfing? How many non-students? How do people manage to make it here? What resources are available to students and/or community members? What services are needed? What plans are in the works? What systems, policies, and trends are driving this impoverishment? What can we do about it? How can we make people more aware of this? Generate graphs to help people visualize the economic spread (~).

Related Topics:

• Governing – History – Articulating a Cohesive Narrative of How We Landed in this Predicament –- Politics is made out to seem so convoluted and confusing. Questions: Could we develop a clarifying history that would make this realm easier to understand? What are the key landmarks and inflection points that have led us to our current situation? What authors can we look to?

Resources: videos of Danny Sheehan’s courses at UC Santa Cruz

Related Topics:

• • •

• Healing – Addiction – Offering a Smoking & Vaping Cessation Program –- Although smoking is has declined somewhat in the general population, many people are cutting their lives short, degrading their health, producing secondhand smoke for those around them, and wasting their money on tobacco and vaping products. Recommendations: Research successful smoking cessation programs and social marketing campaigns and implement them in IV. Press the IV Recreation & Park District to design vandalism-resistant smoke detectors and install and maintain them in their public restrooms.

Related Topics: Healing, Social Marketing

• Healing – Disposing of Toxic Chemicals and Materials Safely & Responsibly –- People seem so careless about disposing of toxic and hazardous ingredients and materials. This ignorance puts their–and others’–health at risk and harms animals, plants, soil, and the ocean. Recommendations: Compile a list of helpful reference books, web sites, and apps on food ingredients and common toxic household, industrial, and environmental toxins. Research common toxins and other hazardous materials and start a list of them, along with where they are found, their dangers, how to avoid them or protect yourself from them, and how and where to best to dispose of them. List local resources. [Split this entry between Health and Recycling sections.]

Related Topics: Environment, Healing, Recycling, Safety

• Healing – Minimizing Exposure to Electromagnetic Fields –- We are increasingly surrounded by electronic devices. These devices emit invisible electromagnetic fields (EMFs) which can have biological effects including cancer. Recommendations: List common sources of EMFs including cell towers, WiFi, cell phones, cordless phones, laptops, tablets, desktop computers, televisions, large-screen displays, Bluetooth devices, and smart meters. Ascertain what research has been done about EMF health effects, particularly in Europe. Compile a list of resources including researchers, authors, books, articles, conferences, web sites, podcasts, etc. Outline steps people can take to mitigate or eliminate EMF exposure. Find out what’s happening in IV, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara County, and the United States in terms of new technology and political resistance to EMFs.

Related Topics:

• Media – Understanding Our Relationship to Phones and Other Devices –- People are walking around with their eyes glued to their smart phones and spending hours browsing, playing video games, watching television, etc. Do we know where folks are going in the media landscape? What propaganda, distortions, distractions, and misdirection–and/or truth telling–are people getting exposed to? What are the implications of these media choices? Recommendations: See if there’s any research on what percentage of time the good residents of the United States and others spend on small screens, tablets, laptops, etc, and what apps, platforms, and sites we use. What do you use and where do you go? What sites or apps do you find particularly valuable that you think others should know about? What percentage of time do we Isla Vistans spend on our phones? What percentage of that time is spent on what apps or sites? How does this differ by group (UCSB & SBCC students, Latinx families, elementary and high school students). Who choses to use older technologies such as flip phones, landlines, sneakernet, snail mail, etc, and why? Research the psychological stratagems media companies use to catch, retain, and exploit our attention, e.g., connections to family and friends, comparisons with others, algorithms that promote the most emotionally engaging postings, controversy, rapid changes from one image to another (~), sex, chained(~) videos, the possibility of making anonymous comments, etc. Enroll Sociology, Communication Studies (~), and/or Psychology professors and students in picking this as a research topic.

Related Topics: Communicating, Culture, Media

• • •

• Nourishing – Permaculture – Converting IV’s Lawns to Food Forests –- The presence of grass lawns around most IV apartments and houses constitutes an absurd waste of space and water. The year-round growing season and good soils of the South Coast support most food plants, yet much of our food comes from remote sources such as central valley mega-farms, Pacific Northwest orchards, Mexican and Chilean agribusinesses, and deforested tracts of the Amazon basin. The practice of planting lawns instead of vegetable gardens and fruit trees around our homes may derive from the efforts of the European aristocracy and later, the middle class, to flaunt their affluence [Research this]. Permaculture is a design movement established by Australian biologist Bill Mollison and his student ____ Holmgren(?). The central insight of Permaculture is that we can create ‘food forests’ with a wide diversity of food bearing plants (including fruit and nut trees, shrubs, vines, herbs, vegetables, fungi, and soil organisms) and beneficial animals in a stable ecological web. We can grow a riotous abundance of food all over IV; create jobs; conserve water; keep the community cooler in summer; be much more prepared for emergencies; minimize carbon emissions from industrial agriculture, factory food, and shipping; eliminate food insecurity; improve our nutrition and health; and convert from economies of extraction, domination, and exploitation economy and foster a regenerative culture. Recommendations: Ensure core Eco Vista organizers get Permaculture training. Attend talks organized by Santa Barbara Permaculture Network. Tour area Permaculture sites. Prepare flyers promoting SBCC’s Permaculture course (much less expensive than most Permaculture Design Courses) and distribute them to related(~) classes, students, community members, and food & housing co-op members. Encourage UCSB, SBCC, and local high school students to get their Permaculture Design Certificate (PDC) from SBCC or other Permaculture teachers. Organize a Permaculture & regenerative food production film series. Hold more orchard care work parties at IVRPD’s Sueño Orchard and UCSB’s Greenhouse & Garden Project. Look for a departmental home for a Permaculture program at UCSB. Enroll housing co-ops, home owners, and apartment owners in hosting demonstration sites. Organize “Grow Food Party Crew”-style two-day food forest installation parties with music, great food, and hands-on training.

(See also “Environment – Building Rich Soil while Sequestering Carbon”

and “Water Conservation – Irrigating

– Installing Graywater Systems” entries.)

Related Topics: Carbon, Climate, Dwelling, Film Series, Food, InfoShop, Landscaping, Learning, Organizing, Transformation, Water Conservation

• Nourishing – Building a Certified Community Kitchen –- California State Health Department’s (?) stringent commercial food preparation regulations (?) require certain foods be prepared in a certified kitchen (?). Constructing a certified kitchen is expensive and beyond the reach of many co-operatives, collectives(?), church groups, non-profit organizations, and small businesses. A certified community kitchen can be a key resource for supporting local non-profit groups, etc, and incubating small food businesses. Recommendations: Research California State and Santa Barbara County Health Department (?) regulations as they pertain to local meal servings and startup businesses. Be ready to hang up or leave if officials’ questions get too invasive. Talk with IV Community Center staff, IV Community Center Advisory Board members, Isla Vista Food Co-op board members and management, and area food entrepreneurs. Check Santa Barbara Independent and Santa Barbara Sentinel (~) tabloids for articles on area food startups.

CAUTION: Be discrete when speaking with Health Department personnel. Speak in generalities and avoid naming specific programs or groups. If you are careless, you may trigger inspections and the closure of valued local services that people depend upon. This happened here some years ago when County Health (~) found Catholic Charities // Santa Barbara Rescue Mission (?) was distributing past-date packaged salads donated by Trader Joe’s at a weekday lunch program at St Mark’s University Parish (~). Afterward, the only thing County Health (~) allowed the group to serve was tasteless overcooked prepackaged slop in styrofoam clamshells. The lunch program closed soon afterward.

[Research new relaxed regulations that allow people to prepare commercial food in their homes.]

Related Topics: Community, Food, Infrastructure, Entrepreneurship / Startups

• • •

• Preparing for Emergencies – Planning for Deep Resiliency –- When thinking about emergency preparedness, we tend to think of the standard recommendation that we set a few [how many?] days of supplies aside. But what if the emergency is a regional, national, hemispheric, or global one, e.g., a tsunami, earthquake, or volcanic explosion; a solar electro-magnetic pulse or one from a terrorist or military attack; cyber attacks on critical infrastructure, war, economic or civilizational collapse, etc? What if we consider that no outside help may be coming? Should we prepare for that? What would it take? When Permaculture teacher _ _ (?) moved to Santa Cruz, he proposed to city emergency planners that they switch from a 5(?)-day preparedness standard to a 6-month one. Note that he 5(?)-day plan is based on the economic model of exploitation, extraction, industrial manufacture, shipping, consumption, and disposal (and don’t forget capital accumulation!). Well, for most people it’s impractical to store and maintain six months of water and packaged food, so his proposal pretty much necessitated that the community switch to a more deeply sustainable model, i.e., supporting a subsistence economy in which residents harvest and store rainwater and grow food locally. And–he succeeded in persuading the local Red Cross to adopt this new standard! Freaking brilliant! (Gee, why don’t we hear about stuff like this in the news? Oh, maybe because it doesn’t help with the all-important project of capital accumulation.) Recommendations: Brainstorm what deep resiliency would look like for our town and for the wider area. Contact _ _ (?), the Santa Cruz Red Cross chapter(~), and others in Santa Cruz to learn from their experience. Convene a town hall discussion to explore how we might build deep resiliency for Isla Vista and beyond.

Related Topics: Permaculture, Preparing for Emergencies

• Preparing for Emergencies – Water – Drilling & Maintaining Emergency Wells –- In a severe emergency, if our municipal water supply stopped working for an extended period, IV could become unlivable. Recommendations: Consult with a hydrologist to find out how the water table beneath and around IV is structured, how deep it is, how it flows, and how vulnerable it is to salt water intrusion. Research appropriate water filtration and purification strategies. Ascertain where toxic plumes are likely to exist by checking historical archives, old phone books and newspaper ads, and historical photographs and by interviewing people who have lived here for decades or who used to live here to find probable sources of contamination. [Notes: At least four gas stations and/or auto repair shops were located around the Embarcadero Loop (one repair shop still is). The Santa Barbara Airport was a Marine Air Base during World War II and what is now UCSB was the site of a lot of barracks (and what else?). (Military bases are frequently sources of groundwater contamination.) The Community Hazardous Waste Collection Center (~) and UCSB’s Facilities Management yard (~) west of the Rec Center constitute two more likely sources of contamination. Also, be aware that there’s a repository of nuclear research materials near the campus, too.]

Related Topics:

• • •

• Recycling – Initiating a Zero-Waste Campaign // Cultivating a Deep-Rooted Zero Waste Ethic (~) –- Isla Vista generates prodigious quantities of waste. Recommendations: Identify resource people, partners, and communities that are active in the zero-waste movement [See separate list]. Research what other communities and universities have done and how it’s working for them. Explore greenhouse gas ramifications of a zero-waste campaign. (Include carbon dioxide, methane, and refrigerants in your inquiry.) Consider how we might support households, agencies, groups, and businesses with waste audits, lists of low-hanging fruit, and waste reduction targets. Catalog who’s currently fulfilling what waste management & move-out functions in IV and at UCSB. Compile an IV waste management resource directory. Map reuse, second-hand, resale, sharing, repair, scavenging, recycling, composting, and waste management resources in IV, UCSB, Goleta, and Santa Barbara. Convene a town hall to solicit ideas and enroll support. Learn which IVCSD powers are relevant to this endeavour. Brainstorm what’s missing and what new community facilities and institutions are needed (e.g., scrap yard, repair workshop, workspaces, storage, expanded and/or extended GIVE Sale or second-hand store). Speculate on strategies: where to start, who to enroll as key partners, what would be happening at different points in the school year. [See zero waste notes.]

Related Topics:

• Recycling – Rethinking June Moveout –- The period when UCSB’s spring quarter ends, seniors graduate, leases end, and most students move out or leave for the summer is referred to as June moveout. This is a stressful period for tenants, students, parents, property managers, contractors, workers, property owners, refuse workers, and long-term residents. Many tenants have to rent a storage unit and move their belongings to storage when their leases end, then move them again when the lease at their new apartment begins a few days or weeks later. People come from far away to gather moveout discards. Scavengers from outside IV frequently trespass to pick through any items they can see from the street as though anything not tied down is up for grabs. It’s also a terrifically wasteful time with tons of furniture, lumber, bicycles, electronic waste, and toxics crushed and carted off as landfill. This moveout chaos is an externality created by the UC Regents and County’s failure to plan comprehensively for the student bedroom community that the UC created when it established the UCSB campus. There have been a few changes over the years: MarBorg Industries trucks now scour the streets for furniture, mattresses, and e-waste and empty trash bins daily for two weeks. The point of this seems to be to reduce the mess that parents of UCSB students encounter, thus safeguarding the UCSB brand. Unfortunately, drivers are under orders to discard everything and show zero discernment regarding the many items that could be reused instead of destroyed. Note that UCSB does collect a small percentage of the tons of discarded items and sells them to benefit IV nonprofit groups and agencies. Recommendations: Rethink June moveout as a multi-faceted “green new deal” and zero waste project. Consult with various stakeholders for their perspectives, complaints, and ideas. Consider how the trend toward unfurnished apartments contributes to the annual waste of cheap furniture. Explore opportunities for worker co-ops and job creation. Articulate categories of materials that call for separate treatment, e.g., green waste, compost, litter, runoff, clothing, rags, bedding, furniture, mattresses, lumber, appliances, scrap metal, junk bicycles, abandoned and non-operating cars, toxic waste, electronic waste, landfill, recycling, and redeemable containers. Research regulations governing reconditioning, reselling, and disposing of mattresses, bedding, upholstered furniture, clothing, appliances, toxics, etc. Research equipment, materials, and supply costs for steam cleaning, containment, etc. Brainstorm what new community facilities and institutions are needed. [See “Eco Vista June Moveout Notes.doc” for further steps.]

Related Topics:

• Recycling – Reducing Contaminants in IV’s Recycling Stream –- The stream of recyclable materials collected in Isla Vista has the most contaminants of any community in Santa Barbara County. The level of ignorance and thoughtlessness regarding recycling among students and residents here is ridiculous. People collecting redeemable containers sometimes empty bags of trash into the blue recycling carts to make it easier to pick out cans and bottles. How could we change this? Recommendations: Find out what’s happening with the recycled materials market, state subsidies, and other contextual issues. Go on a tour of MarBorg Industries’ and Santa Barbara County’s materials sorting facility, the transfer station, and Tajiguas Landfill. Incorporate recycling in UCSB’s Gaucho FYI orientation for new students. Inquire into whether SBCC has a civic orientation program. Consider how we might develop an Eco Vista FYI orientation that includes recycling. Train a cadre of recycling evangelists to increase recycling literacy. Target households with one or more people who want to recycle more skillfully and wish to enroll their housemates; bypass households that show no interest. Consider developing an offer to MarBorg to help make their recycling efforts less costly or more profitable. Consider whether switching from commingled recycling to source separation would make more sense.

Key Distinctions: recycling stream

Related Topics:

• Recycling – Fostering Recycling Literacy –- The three ‘Re’s of recycling–Reducing, Reusing, Recycling–don’t provide much insight into how to recycle materials // prevent waste skillfully. We can enrich these moves by distinguishing more choice–some of which even begin with ‘Re’: Restraining oneself, Refusing, Borrowing, Sharing, Making It Yourself, Buying Used Items, Repairing, Repurposing, Parting out, Scavenging, Downcycling, and Reprocessing. Note that there’s something of a logical hierarchy among many of these moves. For example, it’s such a waste when scrap metal collectors toss discarded bikes into their truck to melt down (i.e., downcycling); many of these bikes could easily be fixed and see years more use (i.e., repairing). The lesson here is that repairing consumes far less energy than downcycling and wastes very little material. The scrap collectors weren’t ‘thinking downstream,’ i.e., weren’t considering the consequences of their actions for others or for our planet. Recommendations: Research what other ‘Re’s have people come up with. Rank these moves according to energy and materials saved or wasted. Tease out cyclical, dependency, linear, heirarchical, and cascading relationships among these steps. Inquire whether the term “recycling” has any specific meaning or should it be reserved as a name for this class of actions. Develop an outline or graphic depicting the relationships among the ‘Re’s, including cyclical and linear progressions / stages. Introduce these distinctions into Cool Eco Vista 1 or 2 and Earthling FYI. Develop an educational campaign to help people exercise discernment in minimizing waste. [Themes to develop: ‘thinking downstream,’ nuances, relationships among ‘Re’s, hierarchical / cascading order, how to rank them, embodied energy, delusion of disposal, no such thing as “away”]

Related Topics:

• Water Conservation – Saving Some for the Fish –- Having just come out of a multi-year(~) drought [Fact check], how many of us are back to treating water carelessly? Lots of people take excessively long showers. Recommendations: Research simple water conservation tips. Ask Goleta Water District what steps they’ve taken to educate, advocate, or require users to save water. Find out if they’ll perform water audits, i.e., checking for leaks and offering water saving tips. Incorporate their insights in Cool Eco Vista I or II water modules and Eco Vista FYI orientation. Talk with your housemates and landlord and install a timer on your shower(s). Require 3-minute shower timers be installed on all bathroom remodeling projects and new construction in IV. Lobby County supervisors or State legislators to subsidize cost of water saving measures for property owners and/or tenants. Orchestrate a “Let’s Leave Some for the Fish” social marketing campaign.

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