Community Power Segment #6: Neil Larson

Airing on WGXC 90.7FM Acra, Wednesday, September 16, 2015, the sixth segment of Commuity Power, in which I talk to Neil Larson of Larson Fisher Associates about the process of historical resource surveys and the current state of the Community Resource Survey of Livingston. Tune in at 6:15 PM or listen online.

Free e-boook on measuring the impact of cooperatives on communities

Co-operatives and Sustainable Communities: Tools Book | Measuring the Co-operative Difference, a free e-book being made available by Cooperative Difference. From the link:

The Measuring the Co-operative Difference Research Network and the Centre of Excellence in Accounting and Reporting for Co-operatives joined forces to organize an international conference, focused on how and why co-operatives assess their performance and their impacts on society.



Academics and practitioners gathered to share their research and experiences with a variety of accounting and reporting tools and practices. The event offered an unprecedented opportunity to recognize and debate various reporting needs and practices, to hear from practitioners regarding the purpose and methods of reporting in their co-operatives, and to identify the building blocks for the establishment of key supports for co-operatives engaged in performance measuring and reporting.



Over a period of 3 days co-operative practitioners and researchers from Europe, North America and Latin America discussed the strengths and weaknesses of the various tools used by co-operatives, and considered how best to obtain and share reliable and accurate information on co-operative performance and impact. Participants agreed that in addition to being useful for co-operatives as part of their self-evaluation and strategic planning processes, the sharing of information resulting from use of various tools and reporting practices can help co-operatives in the implementation of the strategy for sustainable growth of the co-operative movement, outlined in the Blueprint for a Co-operative Decade.



The key questions posed by the conference organizers were: What do co-operatives report and why? What tools exist and what is missing? Which tools set co-operatives apart from other business forms (and do they measure the co-operative identity)? Which tools are standard in respective industries and are co-operatives leaders or followers in those efforts?



The conference was exploring five interconnected themes:

1. Statistics and data collection
2. Putting co-operative principles into practice
3. Community impact
4. Member and stakeholder engagement
5. Reporting practices (co-operative identity and sustainability)

The chapters in this book are organized according to these five themes. They offer an international snapshot of the work being undertaken in these areas, with the intention of sharing the knowledge and experience obtained thus far. The authors advocate a critical analysis of these materials, and suggest ways forward as practitioners and researchers address the reporting and dissemination challenges identified during the conference.

Good news, everyone! Being a sociopath is not immoral!

This editorial by Harry G. Frankfurt, writing for Bloomberg View, caught my attention. Especially the following paragraph:

Exaggerating the moral importance of economic equality is harmful, in other words, because it is alienating. It separates a person from his own individual reality, and leads him to focus his attention upon desires and needs that are not most authentically his own.

In other words, if you "exaggerate" the moral importance of of economic equality, you run the risk of veering away from sociopathy. So, beware! More basically, the whole editorial seems to be arguing against the strawman argument that people concerned with economic inequality on moral grounds want equality of outcomes. That is not a widely held position by people who argue about the importance of economic inequality.

Community Power Segments 01 - 05 now available here!

Community Power #5 has now aired, and I'm putting the first five segments up so you can listen to them here. As I finish the remaining segments I'll add them. The theme music is the "Apple Pickers' Reel", performed by Larry Hanks, from the Folkways Records' 1972 release Berkeley Farms: Oldtime and Country Style Music of Berkeley.

• Community Power 01 - Will Yandik, Farmers and Families for Livingston, Hudson Valley Smart Energy Coalition, and Deputy Supervisor of the Town of Livingston. Also, co-producer of this series.
• Community Power 02 - Erin Tobin, Director of Preservation at Preservation League of New York State
• Community Power 03 - Joe Gatti, Livingston Town Historian, and Will Yandik
• Community Power 04 - Pam Kline, founder of Farmers and Families for Livingston.
• Community Power 05 - Hayley Carlock, Director of Environmental Advocacy for Scenic Hudson, and Daniel P. Duthie, a lawyer representing four towns and three organizations before the Public Service Commission.

Community Power Segment #5 airing this week on WGXC 90.7 FM

This week on Community Power, I talk with Hayley Carlock, Director of Environmental Advocacy for Scenic Hudson and Daniel Duthie, a lawyer representing several towns in the Transmission Line project process. We discuss the current state of affairs in the process of approving bids for Transmission Line expansion in the Hudson Valley and the NY State Public Service Commission's technical conference: what the technical conference is for, what happened and what remains to be done. We also discuss prospects moving forward of preventing the project from happening. The interview will air in segments beginning on Wednesday, at 6:15pm on WGXC 90.7 FM and streaming online at wgxc.org. Don't miss it!

Panel in Athens NY, 8/15/2015

I'll be participating in a panel discussion with three artists and two environmental educators. It should be a pretty wide-ranging discussion of the relationship between art and advocacy, the impact of changes in our ecology on our economy, etc. Come on by if you're in the area.


Shifting Ecologies II - Panel Discussion
Aug 15, 2015: 5pm - 7pm
Athens Cultural Center
24 Second Street
Athens, NY 12015
(518) 945-2136
The panel will present and discuss the interplay between art and science on the subject of environmental change, and will conclude with a group manifestation by the river with multidisciplinary artist and activist Carrie Dashow.

Publlic Service Commission AC Transmission Cases Technical Conference, part I

The Public Service Commission has posted video of the webstream from the first part of the technical conference on the various transmission line proposals that are part of the governor's energy superhighway. I'll be talking to Hayley Carlock of Scenic Hudson and Dan Duthie of Strategic Power in the next installment of Community Power which will air on August 19th. LInks to the videos (or webstream if you catch the last one as it's happening) are below.

• Day 1, July 20, 2015.
• Day 2, July 21, 2015.
• Day 3, July 31, 2015.