Transitioning from Less Solution-Oriented Employment to More

[Stefan Pasti]

Transitioning from Less Solution-Oriented Employment
to More Solution-Oriented Employment

This post provides some excerpts from an approximately 3,700 word article of this title which has been published (on December 21, 2008) at the website of The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative. The article can be accessed there (at www.ipcri.net) or through the following link: http://ipcri.net/images/Transitioning-f ... oyment.pdf

The article begins with the following quote:

“The transition from an unsustainable fossil fuel-based economy back to a solar-based (agriculture and forestry) economy will involve the application of the embodied energy that we inherit from industrial culture. This embodied energy is contained within a vast array of things, infrastructure, cultural processes and ideas, mostly inappropriately configured for the “solar” economy. It is the task of our age to take this great wealth, reconfigure it, and apply it to the development of sustainable systems.” (David Holmgren, from “Energy and Permaculture” article)

The 8 sections of the article are:

Introduction
The “1000Communities2” Proposal
What are Community Visioning Initiatives?
What are “Community Teaching and Learning Centers”?
How would the “sister community” concept work?
Transitioning from Less Solution-Oriented Employment
to More Solution-Oriented Employment
Problems that may arise
Concluding Comments


The complete text of the section of the article with the heading “Transitioning from Less Solution-Oriented Employment to More Solution-Oriented Employment” is included below.

Transitioning from less solution-oriented employment to more solution-oriented employment

Section 6 of the “1000Communities2” document is titled “A 15 Step Outline for a ‘1000Communities2’ Version of a Community Visioning Initiative”. Step 12 of this 15 Step Outline begins as follows:

Step 12 Summary Presentations and Job Fairs

(Approximate Time Required: 4 weeks)

A. Goals

1) Steering Committee members (with help from volunteer Advisory Board members, etc.) will summarize the Community Visioning Initiative (CVI) process
2) Steering Committee members-- and key community leaders who were very much involved in the CVI process—will make presentations based on the summaries
3) Specifically, information will be provided on how residents can deliberately focus their time, energy, and money so that their actions
a) can have positive repercussions on many fields of activity relating to solutions
b) can result in an increase in the “ways of earning a living” which are related to solutions
and action plans
4) Job Fairs will provide a forum for organizations and businesses working in solution oriented fields of activity to describe employment opportunities and future prospects, to discover local talent, to hire qualified prospects, and to build knowledge bases and skill sets for the future

The following passage is also included as “Special Commentary” for Step 12:

“Special Commentary: By now, there will have been sufficient public discourse for those people with understanding about high level shifts in investment portfolios to have learned something about what directions future shifts will be leaning towards. The job fairs which come at the end of the Community Visioning Initiative process provide opportunities for all key stakeholders in the community (businesses, organizations, institutions, government, etc.) to demonstrate their upgraded awareness—and their interest in the welfare of the community—by offering and facilitating new employment opportunities… and thus helping with a just transition from patterns of investment which in only limited ways represent solutions to prioritized challenges to patterns of investment which in many ways represent solutions to prioritized challenges.”

As mentioned on p. 125 of the “1000Communities2” document, one aspect of this just transition can be that people who do deliberately focus their investments of time, energy, and money towards solutions identified by the Community Visioning Initiative being carried out in their community may receive, as encouragement, local currency. And then such local currency can, in its turn, be redeemed in ways which will be particularly helpful to people transitioning from less solution-oriented employment to more solution-oriented employment.”

Especially important to this kind of transition will be a community’s capacity to identify local specific “engines of economic stability”. The 15 Step Outline for a “1000Communities2” version of a Community Visioning Initiative (mentioned above) includes Step 3 “Preliminary Surveys”. One question which is recommended for such “Preliminary Surveys” is as follows: (for all of the questions, see Section 9 of the “1000Communities2” document)

Question #5: Identifying Engines of Economic Stability

Many people seem to be worried that “the economy” will collapse if some form of “voluntary simplicity” philosophy becomes more and more accepted… and yet many of the challenges of our times have chronic elements (see Appendix 1), suggesting that it may require decades, generations, or even centuries to overcome such challenges. (There will be work to do….)

a) Please name as many engines of economic stability and methods of economic conversion as you can which you believe would result in communities that

minimize resource requirements
maintain ecological sustainability
maintain a high level of compassion for fellow human beings

and which represent what a significant majority of community residents surveyed would describe as a high quality of life.

Important Note: Having responses to the above question (and many others, through “Preliminary Surveys”) from 150 key leaders from a significant variety of fields of activity in the community will, by itself, be a significant contribution to the “(reconfiguring) the embodied energy from the industrial age, and applying it to the development of sustainable systems” (see quote at the beginning of this article).

[end of excerpt from the complete “Transitioning from….” Article]


I invite readers of this Powerswitch discussion forum to access the whole article “Transitioning from less solution-oriented employment to more solution-oriented employment” at http://ipcri.net/images/Transitioning-f ... oyment.pdf (The article is also accessible on the homepage of the website of The IPCR Initiative, in the section “Highlights from the IPCR Community Journal”).

If there was sufficient public discourse along the lines outlined in the article, it is possible that a greater percentage of the “economic stimulus packages” currently being considered would focus on activities with the highest potential for a positive “multiplier effect”.

[Note: In light of the urgent need to increase collaboration between diverse communities of people, anyone may access all IPCR documents (including the above mentioned 161 page “1000Communities2” document) for free, at the website of The Interfaith Peacebuilding and Community Revitalization (IPCR) Initiative (www.ipcri.net).]


With Kind Regards and Best Wishes,

Stefan Pasti, Founder and Outreach Coordinator
The IPCR Initiative