Proposal to Present at Bioneers 2008

Hello Folks,

I sent this proposal to the Bioneers folks. I'm sharing it with you because I need your support. I've submitted several proposals to them in the past hoping to be able to present these ideas at their annual conference. But, so far, they haven't been accepted. It's time that arcology become part of the debate about what we need to do about global warming. If you would like to see this workshop happen at Bioneers next year, please write them an email regarding this.

Bioneers
Attn: Kelli Webster
1133 NE 64th Ave
Portland, OR 97213

or email to: conference@bioneers.org

We are all Environmental Refugees: Our Quest for Sacred Arcology

Over the last few years, the world media has finally given attention to the problem of global warming. Many ideas on how to curb the effects of a warmed planet have been presented. Green top roofs, green buildings that recycle water and generate their own electricity, and alternative powered cars are a few suggested solutions to the global crisis that have been demonstrated to work. If implemented on a massive scale, I have no doubt that these measures could improve the quality of life as air quality, noise pollution, and water begin to clean up.

But are the measures enough? On the TED website, in an inspiring lecture by Alex Steffen he says, “We don’t know how to build a society which is environmentally sound, sustainable, which is sharable with everyone on the planet, promotes stability, democracy and human rights, which is achievable in a time frame that makes it through the changes we face. We don’t know how to do this yet.” He goes on to state that every seven days a new Third World mega shanty city the size of Seattle grows. Steffen predicts that by 2020 there could be up to 200,000 million refugees because of global climate change and political instability.

What I would like to say in my speech for the Bioneers 2008 is that green buildings throughout the world are only small scale models of the greater model we need to create. I am suggesting that it is time now to engage on a level of building a completely new design of cities, what architect Paolo Soleri calls “arcology,” the fusion of architecture and ecology. Arcology is evolutionary architecture that exemplifies a changing archetype in housing, transportation, agriculture, education, communication technologies, political and economic systems that work from a holistic, gaia, morphic field--a sustainable energy field--that is radically different from the fossil fuel paradigm.

Visualizing arcology designed with “cradle to cradle” industries, recycling, and solar power provides an infrastructure for the arcology to biomimic nature. Building arcology requires a new relationship with nature that has reverence for it and seeks to work with it in a collaborative venture. Basing arcology on sacred geometry allows us to pattern ourselves from a perspective of cosmic alignments. Such patterns create sacred space needed to build the democratic spirit within the social architecture of an arcology.

My lecture is a call for concerned people to come together in the cause of advancing this new urban model so that we can start to implement the design on a world-wide level. In our current cities, we are all environmental refugees on the edge of an apocalypse. Building a network of arcologies manifest the vision of a new political reality and planetary distribution system needed for humanity to achieve greater freedom, complexity, and order. It is time to fully imagine a world of arcologies as the saving grace of humanity and as a way for us to protect all the other precious ecosystems and life forms that thrive under our wisdom.