James Howard Kunstler

Dear Mr. Kunstler, I recall several years ago seeing you deliver a speech at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair. I was still a college youth just coming to understand what a mess our nation was heading for. I remember thinking then that you were the first normal adult who felt as urgent about the problems of fossil fuel dependence and debt based finance as myself. Perhaps now I'm a bit more cynical and realize that there are many others out there who can put together the simple facts, its just very few of them find a way to talk about them so that anyone in our society listens. In any case it is because you have the ear of such an audience that I am contacting you. I am working on an open source project known as Open Source Ecology that aims to utilize global online collaboration for the creation of local sustainable agrotechnology and infrastructure. Although this organization, founded by Marcin Jakubowski, has only been around a few years we have caught the attention of a few well known blogs for our innovative open source approach to tackling some of mans most pressing challenges. For example the recent development of our compressed earth brick press for $1500-$2000 dollars can produce 3000 bricks/day out of dry clay soil aggregate. This dirt cheap method of building caught the eye of Boing Boing and Wired. The scope of the project is of course far larger than sustainable housing, within the next two years we hope to complete a fundamental set of technologies known as the Global Village Construction set. Which when completed will enable small areas to produce all the basic technolgies needed to enable a 21st century sustainable agricultural society to emerge. This technology set will be developed at OSE's land based facility, Factor E Farms. Along with openly available plans and drawings for the technology will also be producing educational videos geared towards spreading the knowledge. Our most recent efforts include a series of videos that help people just learning abou the project catch up on our scope, accomplishments, and future plans. We have a busy year planned with our first Open Source Ecology conference coming up, prototype testing of our low cost metal fabrication lab and solar and biomass energy systems. In summary this sort of method of development greatly benefits from the more people who take interest in it, so if any of this sounds like an appropriate way to start laying a foundation for a post petrol world please do feel free to mention our project or approach on and offline. Thank you for your time. Nick Raaum

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Sounds like worthy work, Nick. I certainly wish you good luck.
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Jim James Howard Kunstler “It’s All Good”