To Woodinville Neighbors

Hello from Transition Woodinville! I have a "light bulb" idea to share with you after attending the City Council meeting last night. For those of you who are new to this email list I have initiated Transtion Woodinville which is a global movement based on permaculture principles. (www.transitoinus.ning.com, www.transitionseattle.ning.com)) A group of us are beginning a six-week discussion course using The Transition Handbook by Rob Hopkins. Rob and this movement is upbeat, solutions based, inclusive, intelligent and very creative. If there is enough interest I am willing to hold a second orientation and discussion group. The more leaders of this local initiative the more synergetic which for me means productive and fun!


Let’s create “the other” City Hall where members do not have deep pockets that control planning and development and where members agree that less is more rounding out our individual quality of life and our collective planetary system.

Let’s
· create a Transition Woodinville City Hall with a Mayor, Deputy Mayor and a council of members

· invite the citizens of Woodinville to make public comment addressing ways to build a resilient city and developing citizens that are self-reliant

· meet once a month (at the Grange?) and build a network. This will not be “politics as usual” but rather politics Transition style that is inclusive with natural whole systems in the forefront of our consciousness and proceedings

· plan, help coordinate and promote projects and events organized by Woodinville citizens/groups/organizations

· establish Gross National Happiness (GNH) as our compass. GNH measures wellbeing rather than consumption. By contrast the conventional concept of Gross National Product (GNP) measures only the sum total of material production and exchange. Basic happiness can be measured since it pertains to the quality of nutrition, housing, education, health care and community life.

The following is what I planned to say at the City Council meeting last night. After a false start I chose not to because of the choices that were being made regarding design standards for the downtown corridor. I begin to feel that I am speaking to people who cannot see Transition vision nor hear its holistic language. We need an alternative “governing” body that is visionary, creative and robust (enlightened and fun-loving -- happy)!

The evolving concept of Gross National Happiness could well be the most significant advancement in economic theory over the last 150 years, according to Frank Dixon, a Harvard Business School graduate who is currently managing director of research at Innovest Strategic Value Advisors. Innovest is the largest international financial services firm catering to ethical investment funds.

"GNH is an endeavor to greatly enhance the sophistication of human systems by emulating the infinitely greater sophistication of nature," says Dixon.

Just what would it mean for economic structures to emulate nature? Dixon and others explain it as follows. At present individual companies and entire countries are compelled to keep growing indefinitely. The only parallel for this in the natural world is cancer cells, which by growing exponentially destroy the host body and themselves.

Today it is widely acknowledged that the human economy cannot keep growing at the cost of its habitat. Yet even after two decades of expanding environmental regulation we are still losing the race to save the planet. This is partly because production systems and consumption patterns are out of sync with the carrying capacity.