Burnin' it up

Wow, that was fast.
I kinda new it had been a while since I posted. No shortage of things to say, just... Well, y'know... Time.

But still staggering to look at the date of the last post and find that over two weeks have passed.

Anyway, just a temporary lapse. One of many, sure, but anyway I'm back. Once again a busy week at Lake Wobegon. There was Thanksgiving, of course, and it was one of the good ones. Won't go into that, though. In addition, I've met with several people, gone to another EWB-SFP meeting, where they had a great presentation by their Appropriate Technology Design Team (ATDT), including a great presentation by Ken on the Darfur Cookstove project.

That one was particularly educational. Here are the highlights. There are about 2.2 million "IDP's" (internally displaced persons, considered distinct from refugees) in Darfur. Nearly all of them cook using the traditional "3 rock stove" technique (see photo, from ATDT Aprovecho blog post), which does not make very efficient use of fuel (i.e. firewood). Food is supplied by international aid. Fuel is supplied by gathering for nearby...except that over time the local area has been denuded of wood, and so now "nearby" means a 7 hour round trip to collect wood. Women and children perform the gathering, under threat of rape or mutilation. It's worse if men do it; the likelihood of murder is quite high. So there is value in reducing the need for collecting firewood. Solar cookers have been developed, but unfortunately the nature of the cookers does not allow for cooking of the traditional meals, and so the IDP's, desparate for a vestige of their lost lives, revert to the cooking they know, and the solar cookers have not been adopted.

ATDT got involved. They took a look at some existing FES's (fuel efficient stoves, yes it even gets its own acronym!) and found that, like the solar cookers, you could not cook the traditional meals. They also were very sensitive to wind, which tends to blow at around 6 mph in Darfur. They also wanted to develop a design for a stove that could be manufacture at a reasonable cost in Darfur itself! (It's hard, but there are lots of benefits to this.) So they made some tweaks and improvements, and have a version that looks very promising, using 1/4 of the fuel of the tradition scheme. This can make a huge difference, especially if the stoves can be made locally. Currently 50 proto stoves are undergoing testing by IDP's on site in Darfur. (Amazingly, this and other aid efforts have been hampered by travel restrictions imposed by the government in Khartoum. Apparently Nicholas Kristof's articles do not exagerate.)

Much of this (including some cool photos) is captured in the ATDT stove test blog post (this is a different post from the one referenced above). When I read this (ages ago), I noticed a comment that had been left. The comment poster essentially said "yeah, but what's this got to do with reality?" This was pretty much my reaction when I read the blog; I thought, well great, they've inched up efficiency another 3%, but airlifting 300,000 stoves to Darfur seems like the wrong priority of investment, and I figured solar cookers would make more sense. I was mistaken; everything was illuminated at the EWB-SFP meeting last week. I'm extremely impressed with the effort to engage the local IDP's in manufacturing, using materials and tools and skills available in Sudan. And there's more. They're even finding clever ways to fund this, such as a form of carbon credits, since the new stove reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by several tons over the life of the stove. Wow.

I also met with Marc, the director of The Clarence Foundation, which is doing some great work on giving circles, including a "traveling giving circle" which will make some decisions in Nairobi early next year (there's still room, I think). I'm very excited by that, and will be joining up in the new year. Also contacted Robin, who is working to improve the lives of villagers near Kilimanjaro via Hope Through Opportunity, as well as Natalie, who recently visited west Africa and wants to help make an impact on education there. Several people have been joining the effort at my favorite wiki, where page views have been skyrocketing, probably as a result of some promotional work, as well as some very successful porting efforts. (Plus, of course, it's just a damn great idea.) We've been porting (with permission, of course) some great material from the Erssons, Practical Action, International Rivers Network (along with American Rivers), and G.P.Baron of Philippine BioDigesters (really). Numerous other contributors are creating some original content as well.

And in the coming week I'm gonna be meeting with Doug, and John, and Ken and...

But I promise to write a post...though it could be a 2 liner. (Did I hear someone say "Is that a threat or a promise?")

It's all about the content

I have once again disappeared into the Vortex, this time spending most of my web moments porting an excellent document by Elizabeth Brink of IRN (and AR?) called "Beyond Dams" to (yep) Appropedia.

Beyond Dams talks briefly about the various undesirable impacts of dams, especially large ones, on the ecosystems (including humans) related to rivers. (Tracy Kidder repeatedly mentions such a "bad dam" in Mountains Beyond Mountains. The all time biggy must be China's Three Gorge Dam, which was completed after "Beyond Dams" was written.) The doc goes on to talk extensively about alternatives solutions to many of the problems that have motivated dams in the past. Many of the solutions are very valuable and interesting independent of dams. For example, rainwater harvesting diminishes the need for dams in a couple of ways, but is useful technology even if dams are not in the picture.

Porting this doc has been seriously educational, getting me pointed to a remarkable couple, the Erssons, in Portland. Most of us live lives of such large resource impact ("ecological footprint") that if even a modest fraction of the world lived in the same style we'd all be toast in short order. (Check yours here.) But the Erssons demonstrate that a tiny footprint is achievable in an urban environment, and their achievements are inspirational. I highly recommend that you drop by for a visit. It's a delightful site!

So, anyway, I haven't totally disappeared. But you can tell I'm swamped when I miss an easy opportunity to post about Appropedia's new logo. Check it out; I find it totally cool. It's been up for over a week now, I think, and barely seems newsworthy any more, so only rated this brief mention.

But perhaps I can poke around and get some "web buttons" (or whatever they're called) put together for Appropedia, and we can offer them to other sites (like Resolution) for help with promotion.

Kizingo and Kipungani

Almost 4 years ago, my new wife and I spent our honeymoon in East Africa. As a part of that excellent trip, we stayed a few nights at a resort on the southern shore of Lamu island, off the northern coast of Kenya. The resort has changed names (now Kizingo) and hands, now being owned by the folks that were managing it when we stayed: Mary Jo and Louis Van Aardt. It's a gorgeous and primitive setting! The resort is walking distance from the village of Kipungani, and Mary Jo and Louis support the schools there.

I mention all this because I've gotten the idea that someone could use a wiki (which will go nameless for at least one post) to provide information about all sorts of worthy and ready villages that would like some support in different kinds of projects. Some villages (like Ngelenge) are somehow able to establish their own websites, but I expect that's unusual.

So, I got this idea, but didn't really know how to try it out. I scrounged around the web trying to find Mary Jo and Louis (whose names I had forgotten). Got a bit tricky, since the place had changed hands and names, but there aren't that many primitive resorts on Lamu :-). I dropped an email and Mary Jo "promptly" wrote back. (Promptly means within a couple of days when she had a chance to load her small desktop computer into her small motorboat and put-put-put around the island to Lamu Town where they actually have steady power and a phone connection that will allow her to send and receive email. I'm tellin' ya, the place is primitive. But I don't want to make it too attractive. What's something negative? Hmm. Oh! Okay, here goes: There are no shops! No restaurants! No taxis! Heck, no cars! Generator runs just 2 hours a day! Want a newspaper? Sorry! Anyway, you get the idea...)

The long and short of it is, I have now asked Mary Jo if she might be able to help me connect with Kipungani village and use them as the "guinea pig" for this "host village page" notion that I have.

What will she say? Don't know. We'll have to wait for her next boat trip. Stay tuned!

Appropedia gains momentum

I'm excited to see the level of activity at Appropedia at the moment - every day when I check the recent changes, there's new pages and more maintenance being done to improve the site.

I'm not able to spend all the time I'd like to, but I also keep coming across stuff I want to put on Appropedia. So I've been trying to focus, and avoid getting into the discussions too much, only contributing where I've got something to add and leaving much of it to other competent contributors. Not easy for a natural-born schmoozer like me. But I'm still keeping an eye on things, and adding material when I can - I just added Human-powered devices‎ and Washing and drying clothes‎.

I'm very much appreciating the work that Curt, Lonny and others are putting in. It feels so much more active (well, it is much more active) with Curt on board. With more awareness-raising, things will get even better.