Creating A Preferred Present and Future

Jan Spencer

These podcasts are all about creating alternatives to capitalism and the consumer culture. Land use, economics, lifestyle, reducing eco footprints, allies and assets in the community, the wisdom of the world's great spiritual traditions and much more. The ideal - a society and economy that exist withing the boundaries of the natural world and brings out the best in positive human potential.

Episodes

  1. 3 Conversation With Ole Ersson, Founder, Kailash Eco Village, Portland, Oregon

    06/12/2021

    3 Conversation With Ole Ersson, Founder, Kailash Eco Village, Portland, Oregon

    Conversation with Ole Ersson is an episode from my radio program Creating A Preferred Future.  Creating A Preferred Future describes principles, ideals plus real life  people and projects that point the way towards a preferred future where  humans live within the boundaries of the natural world and the primary  goal of society is to bring out the best in positive human potential.   Creating A Preferred Future is a convergence of economics,  permaculture, sociology, urban land use, personal and community uplift  and care for the natural world.  Topics of interest include economics,  allies and assets in the community, wisdom of the world's great  spiritual traditions, social and economic literacy, pushing back on  cars, eco villages and much more.  Best to listen to the podcast in  order,, 1, 2, 3, 4,,,,,,,thanks. Kailash Eco Village, in Portland, Oregon  is an outstanding example of repurposing a run down urban  property. The cute Hawaiian themed 32 unit complex from the 60's had  degenerated into poor infrastructure conditions with bad drug deal  shootouts in the parking lot . Ole and wife Maitri saw great potential  ten years ago. Now the site is a thriving market rate eco village, the place has  become pioneer of social/economic/environmental paradigm shift. This conversation touches on life at Kailash - aspects of resident self management,  depaving, affordability, reducing eco footprints, engagement with the  surrounding neighborhood, food production, social cohesion, personal and  community benefits and much more. Kailash Eco Village points the way towards a preferred present and future.  You can find more related info on my website, suburbanpermaculture.org with links to youtube presentations, video of my quarter acre property and much more.  Feel free to contact me via my website.

    58 min

  2. 06/12/2021

    2 Critique of Capitalism and The Consumer Culture

    Critique of Capitalism and The Consumer Culture is an episode from my radio program Creating A Preferred Future. Creating A Preferred Future describes principles, ideals plus real life people and projects that point the way towards a preferred future where humans live within the boundaries of the natural world and the primary goal of society is to bring out the best in positive human potential.  Creating A Preferred Future is a convergence of economics, permaculture, sociology, urban land use, personal and community uplift and care for the natural world.  Topics of interest include economics, allies and assets in the community, wisdom of the world's great spiritual traditions, social and economic literacy, pushing back on cars, eco villages and much more.  Best to listen to the podcast in order,, 1, 2, 3, 4,,,,,,,thanks. The Critique of Capitalism is a deconstruction of the myths of capitalism. Capitalism is  described as a cargo cult and the consumer culture is explained as one  of history's most successful examples of social engineering.  The magic  hand, economic efficiency, informed choice and the market place are discounted as shallow myths that are all part of an economic system that  is hard wired to be dishonest because of the reality of external  costs.  The price we pay does not tell an honest story about how the great majority of the products or services we buy damage public health and the natural world regarding how they are produced, used and disposed of. You can find more related info on my website, suburbanpermaculture.org with links to youtube presentations, video of my quarter acre property and much more.  Feel free to contact me via my website.

    58 min

  3. 05/12/2021

    1 The Permaculture Transformation Of A Quarter Acre Suburban Property - Food, Energy, Water, Aesthetics, Education

    Transforming a suburban property is an episode from my radio program Creating A Preferred Future. Creating A Preferred Future describes principles, ideals plus real life people and projects that point the way towards a preferred future where humans live within the boundaries of the natural world and the primary goal of society is to bring out the best in positive human potential.  Creating A Preferred Future is a convergence of economics, permaculture, sociology, urban land use, personal and community uplift and care for the natural world.  Topics of interest include economics, allies and assets in the community, wisdom of the world's great spiritual traditions, social and economic literacy, pushing back on cars, eco villages and much more.  Best to listen to the podcast in order,, 1, 2, 3, 4,,,,,,,thanks.  This episode, Transformation of a Suburban Property, describes 21 years of making big changes to a quarter acre suburban property in Eugene, Oregon.  The grassy front and back yards are now all garden.  There is edible landscaping all over, 15 fruit and nut trees, brambles, grapes, kiwi and more.  The driveway is gone.  The garage turned into a living space, the south side patio is now a 350 ft sq sun room that helps heat the house on sunny cool days, there is a 6500 gal rain water system and a 400 ft sq passive solar ADU in the back yard. Literally thousands of people have visited over the years to see what a suburban property can become with a purposeful combination of time and money.  The place is an educational resource for the entire community, a preview of what a preferred future might look like with much smaller eco footprints and the ideal of building community cohesion and taking care of more basic needs closer to home. You can find more related info on my website, suburbanpermaculture.org with links to youtube presentations, video of my quarter acre property and much more.  Feel free to contact me via my website.

    58 min
  4. Pushing Back on Cars

    08/05/2021

    Pushing Back on Cars

    This podcast is focused on reclaiming  public space for bikes, pedestrians and community culture. Cars and  their highways, roads, streets and parking infrastructure occupy up to  half the land surface in an urban area. Cars create pollution, noise,  they run over people and cause immense levels of property damage. They  are a large part of climate change. They degrade community culture. Cars  are the perfect example of economic super sizing. The more the excess,  the more the profits. Trillions spent on cars and car infrastructure  mean lost opportunities for healthy investments in green and resilient  homes and communities.  We will take a look at 3 aborted freeways in the  US and then a "menu" of actions for pushing back on cars in the US  ranging from critical mass bike rides and "parking day" to Sunday  Streets in Eugene, San Francisco's Parklet Program and the Community  Plaza Program in New York City with its banner project - making much of  Times Square car free.   The image illustrates a super block in Barcelona, Spain.  An industrial scale approach to pushing back on cars now in use in Barcelona.  For more related paradigm shift podcasts and links to youtube videos, go to suburbanpermaculture.org

    1 hr
  5. Interview with University of Oregon Prof. and bike advocate, Mark Schlossberg

    06/05/2021

    Interview with University of Oregon Prof. and bike advocate, Mark Schlossberg

    This is a high performance interview with University of Oregon Professor Marc Schlossberg. Marc has a keen interest in "active transportation." Thats biking and walking. In the interview he identifies the many benefits to be gained by moving away from cars. The interview touches on social engineering - our car culture is a virtual essential part of our lifestyles and leaves most people with a difficult time imagining life without a car. Marc describes taking his classes to Holland and Denmark to see what life can be like with far less reliance on cars and also rhapsodizes the joy of safe and social biking even in the middle of large cities such as Utrecht and Copenhagen. Marc describes how his students took classroom learning into the community to design a new protected bike path to be built in 2020 from downtown Eugene to campus. The interview contains many anecdotal stories and reveals the strong passion Marc has for transforming our communities.  The foto is taken in southeast Arizona.  The view in the distance includes Montezuma Pass, 2 miles north of the border with Mexico, 20 miles west of Bisbee.

    1 hr

  6. 06/05/2021

    Panel Conversation With Cultural Creatives - Bob Randall, Lois Arkin, Jim Schenk, Jan Spencer

    This panel includes Bob Randall, a permaculture well known in Houston, Texas; Lois Arkin, founder Los Angeles Eco Village; Jim Schenk, founder, Enright Ridge, Urban Eco Village, Cincinnati; Jan Spencer, suburbanpermaculture.org, Eugene, Oregon. The panelists describe their thoughts of the greatest challenges facing humanity and then, what they are doing in their own communities on behalf of paradigm shift.  Finally, the panel has lively discussion with each other. The content touches on urban food systems, eco villages, transforming suburbia, climate change, "changing rather than shifting", Joe Biden's agenda, turning an auto repair property into a community center, the proposed Climate Corp, moving paradigm shift ideas out to a wider audience and much more.  The conversation focus is on real life actions for creating a socieity and economy that fits within the boundaries of the natural world and brings out the best in positive human potential.

    57 min
  7. Two Interviews - Onandaga Earth Corps and Permaculture in Houston

    27/04/2021

    Two Interviews - Onandaga Earth Corps and Permaculture in Houston

    This episode contains two interviews. One is with Yvonne Chu and Tay Stenson of the Onandaga Earth Corps in Syracuse, New York and the other is with Bob Randall, a permaculture icon in Houston, Texas. The OEC is a local non profit with focus is to  empower young people to engage in community service and learn life  skills. Yvonne and Tay explain projects and partners for OEC and the  benefits OEC has delivered to the community. Both Yvone and Tay  elaborate on the how OEC has changed lives for the better. The  conversation describes a variety of projects OEC has taken on in  Syracuse such as tree planting, garden building and creek restoration.  Other items touched on are the prospects of a new national Climate Corp  as well as how OEC might partcipate in the reclamation of a possible  removal of an 1 1/2 miles of elevated interstate highway in central  Syracuse. Bob describes his work in Houston building urban food systems. He starts at home, certainly a pioneer of suburban permaculture, starting his own sub tropical food forest in the mid 1980's.  Bob describes his years with Urban Harvest, and its many projects to start gardens and farmers markets all over Houston.  Bob  has been a main teacher and facilitator for Permaculture Design Courses  in Houston. Bob is currently on the board of the Permaculture Institute  of North America.  Bob is also known for research and documentation of climate change and its effects on food  production, with focus on Southeast Texas.

    1 hr
  • 7 Episodes

About

These podcasts are all about creating alternatives to capitalism and the consumer culture. Land use, economics, lifestyle, reducing eco footprints, allies and assets in the community, the wisdom of the world's great spiritual traditions and much more. The ideal - a society and economy that exist withing the boundaries of the natural world and brings out the best in positive human potential.

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