Developing A Leader

Hello Stephen,

I would be interested to speak at the series. I have a background in Appropriate Technology and Sustainable Development. I have special interests in Biofuels and renewable energy. [My company] is a renewable energy cooperative which focuses on providing renewable energy products and services to members and then taking members equity and investing it into community scale community owed renewable energy projects. I would be happy to speak about renewable energies or biofuels or the Co-op. I think the workshop series sounds great let me know how I may fit into your vision for it.

Thank You, Jon


Jon,

Thanks for writing. We here do not know what that world may look like, and to help us envision that sustainable world, we are looking for visions of that world, that make the connections between the many ways we must seek sustainability.

Have you seen the blog I use as a workspace? (http://sfworkshop.blogspot.com/) In the posting "Thematic Structure", you will find guidance for workshop leaders in this workshop series. Specifically, "Leaders are asked to explore the vision of the world toward which they are reaching." Does this sound interesting to you? Would you like to try to project your solution into other realms of a future sustainable world? For example, will this fuel source be in competition with food supplies? Is it an appropriate technology for developing countries? What are its health effects? Are its production facilities robust and likely to remain in operation under adverse conditions of weather or poor quality of supplies?

Even if the immediate answers to my questions do not obviously lean toward long term sustainability, we want to know both the pros and the cons of any particular solution. This is the point of this workshop series: to make the connections, to find the strengths and the problems, and to make our solutions even more truly sustainable.

Please lets talk more, I'd like to hear your answers to my questions. Are you up for the challenge of envisioning a sustainable world?

Thanks!
Stephen Alrich Marshall



Stephen,

I would be delighted to project my solutions into the realms of the possible future sustainable world. I think the issue I would especially like to speak about is how all systems in the future will need to be examined as complete systems. By this I mean that right now most systems are designed to produce something but all of the necessary inputs to the system and all of the outputs for the system are often overlooked. I believe systems in the future will have to produce the inputs sustainably and reuse or recycle the outputs. "Closed Loop Design" is what this is often called. I have experience with creating a closed loop bio-diesel facility in North Carolina at Appalachian State University. I believe that all solutions for our future sustainable world will include this sort of thinking and designing. Jon


Jon,

I am delighted to hear from you again. Your enthusiasm is infectious and you are also obviously articulate and focused. I would like to have you on the roster somewhere. Have you perused the workshop topic list and found one you are drawn to? If you don't have the list of topics, you can find it at http://sfworkshop.blogspot.com/, where I have put my thoughts on the workshop series.

I find in your notes the rubric "Closed Loop Design". This seems to me to be a topic of great importance that I have at best alluded to in my topic list. We may need to break up topic 1 (The Full Monte), because your topic would logically address its "Resource Depletion" sub-topic, and I doubt we could pack it all into an hour and a quarter.

Would you like to briefly develop your topic in the general outline for these workshops:
1) Describe the problem (ie., petroleum depletion, CO2 emissions, resource depletion)
2) Describe the solution (ie, bio-diesel, closed loop design)
3)Speculate on the impact of the solution on other sustainability solutions, especially those covered in other workshops.

As we have this conversation, My thinking is developing detail and clarity. Thanks for connecting and I look forward to hearing from you again.


Stephen Alrich Marshall