Helena has been working for decades on the many difficult challenges posed to the environment, culture, agriculture, etc. by the steady march of economic globalization (read: the establishment of “free” trade by removing local barriers to the operation of giant multi-national corporations). It isn’t easy work, but Helena’s successes speak to the power of both the individual and the collective for challenging corporate structures that, as Helena put it, have arms so long they can’t see what their hands are doing.

Many people in this country rail against what they see as welfare, offering a hand to those our economy leaves behind, but very little is said about the billions we spend each year in corporate welfare to prop up giant agribusiness, banks, insurance companies, auto makers, and others. Whether by ignorance or something less genuine, the discussion of economics in the west is weak and shortsighted.

That’s where the movie comes in. The Economics of Happiness aims to create greater economic literacy, to bolster the discussion of alternatives through a greater comprehension of the problem. Ultimately Helena’s vast experience has led her to believe that “local” is the solution. Local food production, local commodity production, local energy, local politics–they contribute to a rich community, healthy community members, a closer tie to the land, and a more realistic way of life. It is happening everyday across the globe: more farmer’s markets, greater reliance on used stuff, more local production of goods and services. And it is easy to incorporate into ones lifestyle–you make those decisions dozens of times everyday.

I appreciated the messages: Education as activism. Dialogue reduces polarization. Localization is empowerment. Corporations are people, rarely evil. We’ve all got work to do, but it is fun work, smart work, rewarding work.

We are in.

The show is free and open to students and the public. There will be a mix of students from the College of Arts and Sciences, the law school, and the graduate school, as well as faculty and interested members of the community. We hope you’ll join us starting around 6:30 p.m. and dwell for an hour in the revelry of word, image, and song.

Here are the details:

SEED and Campus Living host Black Lantern Synergy’s presentation of Cartesian Eco-FemDarkanism.

Monday, February 28, 2011, at 7 p.m.
Lewis and Clark College of Arts and Sciences Campus
Council Chambers, Templeton Student Center
615 S.W. Palatine Hill Road
Portland, OR 97219

For more information, visit the Lewis and Clark web announcement. Questions or comments? Contact us.

We have constructed a new video trailer for our project, and it wouldn’t be what it is without the true nature of synergy. Special thanks goes to Shannon Alexander for his photographs, to Julie Johnson for her videography, and to Russ Wallace and Red Sun Radio for the music.

We hope you enjoy it!

Personal Technology: Photovoltaic-Piezoelectric Fiber

Link: http://www.bolton.ac.uk/News/News-Articles/2010/28oct2010.aspx

Scientists are hard at work guaranteeing that the next generation of portable electronics will not require bulky battery packs. One proposed solution involves using piezoelectric (link to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piezoelectricity) fibers to make fabric that creates a charge when moved. Clothing made of piezoelectric fabric could charge devices simply by walking. Recently, scientists at the University of Bolton (U.K.) have developed piezoelectric-solar fibers that harvest energy both from the sun and from movement. I would like to see roads made out of this stuff.

Social Technology: Efficient Transformation of Greenhouse Gases into Liquid Fuels

Link: http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/21555.aspx

It is currently possible to transform carbon dioxide back into liquid fuels; however, it takes a large amount of energy to do so and is simply inefficient. In theory, if the amount of energy required to perform this transformation can be lowered, it would be possible to use other energy sources, such as solar energy, to create a neutral carbon energy cycle. This seems like a pipe dream, but scientists at Washington University in St. Louis believe that it may be possible to efficiently convert carbon dioxide into liquid fuels. Essentially, the claim is that by using special catalysts, carbon dioxide can be coaxed back into liquid fuel at a much lower energy threshold than currently possible. This technology could also have interesting applications for carbon sequestration.

Until the next,
Will

I have lived in the same spot now for three years. It is fun and interesting to witness subtle differences of a season’s change in one spot multiple times over. This photo-blog explores those beautiful but oft-overlooked subtleties through paired images of fall and winter.

The place is a Bureau of Land Management property a few miles from where I live. It was heavily and repeatedly logged over the past century and is now a public recreation area. It reminds me of mistakes we’ve made, and I often think of such places as merely a gloss, an empty apology for things we continue to do, even in Oregon where people perceive us as green. But I can see the healing going on there. There is something real about the apology to this place, and it is a testament to the part of the human character that understands we have to pull back on the reins.

In a lecture given in East London in April 2007, Latour focused at length on the definition of the word “social,” which is no doubt an important and oft-used term for sociologists. Loosely, “social” is commonly defined in terms of the human world, as opposed to, say, the natural world. The word often represents a contrast between whatever it represents and other “distinct” aspects of human culture: law, science, economics, psychology. Latour has suggested “social” ought to instead represent the associations between things—rather than a study of any particular link in the chain, sociology should be a study of chaining itself.

In CEFD, we talk a bit about a few forms of logic. We think it is important to consider the “issue” of the environment from a multiplicity of angles. I am becoming more and more intrigued by the psychoLOGICAL, the understanding of the interplay of human thought and the resulting relationship or lack thereof we experience with nature. It is not surprising that as human consciousness was born (not that long ago), our ancestors took a look around at the diverse, gigantic, and amazing world of living and non-living “things” and set out on a long mission of wonder to investigate and name those things. Thus was formed a logic of distinction—the effort, which continues today, to distinguish and classify things, with an emphasis on their differences, from the other things we have seen. In our minds and through our language, we cut the ties between things, defined and divided them to the point that many can’t even imagine the connections between them.

We believe one of the most powerful efforts people can make to start down what will necessarily be a long path toward a more balanced and meaningful relationship between the earth and ourselves is to change the way we think. We need to shift from a logic of distinction to a logic of connection—to look perhaps for what appears to not be there. Certainly modern sciences have begun to show us the delicate interconnectedness of life on this planet, proving some metaphors—such as Leopold’s vision that our existence in nature makes all living things the same—true to a certain degree.

Can we move from the search to define our world to a desire to understand its nuances, its subtle but crucial associations, in which we responsibly investigate and honestly appreciate all those ways in which we and all things on this planet are truly and richly connected?

So, although when not lit the Black Lantern seems a cold, dark object, upon the introduction of flame, the Black Lantern of Paradox emits a shocking, beautiful multicolored light. We light our own black lantern with creativity’s spark, the colorful light that originates in the darkness of the mind, to shed light on the paradox that is the human separation from nature—to reveal our blind flight from darkness. We ask for a bit of your flame, too.

Tenet number one of the Black Lantern Synergy manifesto begins like this, with the words of Bucky himself:

Synergy means behavior of integral aggregate systems unpredicted by behaviors of any of their components or subassemblies of their components. Chrome-nickel-steel has a higher tensile, or integrally self-cohering, strength than the sum of the tensile strengths of its alloyed elements. Synergistic behaviors are commonplace throughout chemistry and biochemistry but so unfamiliar to human’s visible spectrum range events that the word syn-ergy, though equal in age of its companion word en-ergy, is popularly unfamiliar.

The lack of popular and academic familiarity with the word synergy, which in the english language alone denotes the behavior of whole systems unpredicted by behavior of their components, means that humans in their everyday social world have not been in need of this word, which in turn tells us that they lack this fundamental conception in their conscious thinking processes. They ascribe all behaviors unpredicted by statistical probabilities to “luck” or miracle. This particular gap in human’s everyday fundamental thinking and common sense accounts for many fallacies in his spontaneous reflexing and contemporary behavior. Ignorant of the regenerative significance of synergy, human is vulnerable to de-generative feedback consequences in his comprehensive determinations.

-No More Secondhand God [Discussion of the Omnidirectional Halo], 1963

Below are some of our early conceptions of the Black Lantern…

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It is the representative color of the movement, a shiny slogan for corporations, and a simple symbol of life.

Green is a rare color in the cosmos, one worthy of celebration. Green, though, requires a lot of blue (water) and yellow (sun). Mess up one of those colors, and green turns quickly to brown.

Black, too. Every colorful flower on every plant on the planet depends, in part, on the blackness of night to trigger its bloom.

Here’s to the rest of the colors that make up the amazing variations of life.

We have several more shows in the works for the first few months of 2011, so check back for upcoming announcements of additional show dates.