Personal Story

I read our professor Dr. Becker's blog post #3 and was moved by her perseverance to make it here in Hawaii with the rats, centipedes and boars. The Finger Lakes workshop is pretty cool looking. I went to the website and looked at the stuff and watched some of the videos and they looked super eco neat for kids. I am a parent and wish I could take my kids to this workshop. The fee is only 30 bucks which is so cheap and looks like there's tons of stuff to do. I was shocked and impressed that it would be an event not for only the wealthy but everyone because of supporters absorbing costs to hold the event. I was thinking about how all this relates to my own story of life and would like to share with whoever is reading this my eco story.

I was a typical American kid growing up in a suburban town and played sports and actively involved with activities throughout my childhood. I became a senior in High school and was thinking about trying out for college baseball teams around the country and maybe even a track team in Europe if the baseball thing did not work out. I had applied at Pepperdine, Ohio state, Indianan State for baseball. I then had been in a fight with a childhood friend and became seriously injured from him assaulting me and then a car passing by, running over me during the fight! It was an unfortunate accident but sparked a change in me for the better. I had to be disabled and wheelchair bound for some time. The process was about a 2 year ordeal and during that I had a lot of time to think about myself and the world around me. I became more interested in life and learning. This road brought me to Hawaii on a scholarship from the Chickasaw Nation and has helped me to see the world with a better informed view about it in certain light. After being in school for some time now I did not need the eco class but, had been drawn to want to learn more about this topic and related studies. I have learned enough to know now that this is our only permanent solution for the global biota. I have always loved nature and have always respected life from when I was a boy scout and cub scout on campouts to being involved in restoration groups in college currently. The more I learned about nature, through Hawaiian Biology, Ethno Botany, Marine Science, Hawaiian Studies classes, the more I was being driven towards eco thinking to preserve, prevent and change our systems to save our animals, plants, habitats and diversity of all life. I would like to never experience species extinction for the rest of my life and everyone that follows after me. I have felt from my experience that life is very short and we should cherish every moment we have been given to really examine our true goals in life and where we want to get to for tomorrow. I will spend my life I know in my soul trying to fix our broken planet for the sake of life itself and all of us having the right to survive. I hope we could all change really quickly and safely to preserve what we still have left from our own ignorance. Please if you have read this respect life, make changes, and go green, do not just sya it or do it for a trend or fad but because it's the only way we will save anything if we have not taken it too far already.

Aloha for Readin Jon M Ellison

Systems Theory prt. 2

I went through the links in the 4,5,6 part and watched the talk with William McDonough the Architect, I also looked at the Management Systems link as well. The video is below for the TED talk about systems integration and intelegent green design. I agree with him we need to rethink how we are living and our current systems of support for society today. His model is so cool and is completely self sustainable for 500 million people with farms on the roof-tops and water plant and solar farm. An interesting thing learned was that their waste treatment plant is actually and natural gas and fertilizer production plant. The city would profit from toilets flushing amazing! Well watch it for yourself It was very informative and interesting. The only question I have after watching the video is if China keeps doing all these groundbreaking things in an eco perspective will they set the trends for the world to model for eco living and integration or pollute us all to death making the stuff to sell us while they make profits to fuel their green growth? We need a solution fast if China keeps growing and integrating Tech into its population. If eveyone in China had a large house and a car they drove daily we would all die probably from natural systems collapse from pollution and waste and lets not forget natural resources consumption. We would be out of oil world wide in a few years probably. Watch it Now......



The link about Systems Management was very interesting it has so much info talk about information overload OMG this site has so much you could spend years to read it all. I did however spend a little time there and looked at information on casual loop diagrams and how to create them: http://www.thesystemsthinker.com/tstgdlines.html Good stuff and very interesting thanks for reading.

Jon M Ellison

Systems Theory

I watched the movie The Story of Stuff recently and was surprised at how much we have designed our systems to ruin everything. The flick was cool had these little cartoon people to show the different scenario's making it not so negative focused on the information even though it was disheartening. The point was great and 10 years of work thats alot of work we learned about in a few minutes very cool. The recycle extra credit website is a perfect beginning for changing our perception of stuff and being responsible for it when it's gone. I am going to use it myself and write a post later about it.

The Cornell website talks about three main views that are their pursuits toward a better future for everyone. These 3 main systems are subcategorized by a breakdown of each system. Here they are right from their website: http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/about/ · Energyo New Sources, Efficiency and Conservation, Global Climate Change, Mitigation, New Businesses· Environmento Biodiversity, Water, Resource Management, Agriculture, Buildings to Cities, Adaptation· Economic Developmento Poverty, Sustainable Development, Water and Food Systems, Infrastructure, Education

The correlation to culture for me when I watched this movie was easily identifiable seeing that America has no culture and so this behavior seems to be logical for filling that void of being cultureless. According to an earlier communication class I learned about how America is made of all cultures among the world and that they all come here and shed a majority of their culture after a few generations of Americanization. This results in a void in the American mind that has to be filled by something and this something is partly consumerism like the film indicated and a perception of value based on this behavior.

I see Americans evolving away from this system and becoming health driven for benefits to our natural systems and our own physical system as a person. Until then each of us have a responsibility to change because we know we should and can. With ultimate knowledge comes ultimate responsibility.

The slideshow clip was kind of cool and a neat way to get people to read something instead of using dialogue. I feel the same about our current systems perspectives and regulation mechanisms we have in place currently. The pesticide stats were surprising and scary because those are sprayed on our food, community’s and even in our homes! I never use any form of bug spray or chemical to advert natures little pests. I use a natural mechanism if available or just deal with it, because I see the stress from the bugs of whatever are less then stress from cancer or a debilitating illness latter in life from exposures. We have to wake up and change for ourselves and all other life on this earth a responsible stewards of this planet.

Thanks for reading

Jon M Ellison

Part A Conflict

Passive Conflict Resolution is what I wanted to talk about from the links and other sources I have read through. I think that using passive means to create a change for eco movements through the encouragement and recognition of peace. This will make people have a behavioral change for recognition of other living things and have a greater value for our interconnectedness and codependency we have on each other in the world. This perspective will according to gaia reading help people develop a sense of freedom to think and reduce stress that inhibits our true self being from fear and stress from making choices. We would in affect be able to truly choose without being punished like buying an EV car for 35k and a gas car for 8k both new because of the manufacturer's choice to only supply gas cars for cheap. These things would change and we could be able to freely make a collective choice to embrace all things living by doing something to prevent damage to our natural systems. We would use passive conflict resolution to achieve a more collective among people. Sweden and Switzerland are both really good countries to look at for eco modeling. I think open forums would be more popular and egalitarianism would be normal. We would not have crime and other stresses that change our societal behavior negatively inducing stress. Thanks for reading my post Jon M Ellison

Group 3 Minutes #2

COM494: Sustainability, Culture, and Communication
Group 3 Project
Hawaii Eco Village Network (HEVA)
Minutes
October 15, 2009

Members present:
Jon Ellison
Ashley Ann Meija
Jesse Potter

Called to order: 8:30 P.M.

Discussion:

The group further discussed it’s intention to make on online hub of sustainability through three different internet sites. Jon is going to go through with creating a web page specifically for the group. Ashley is going to create a MySpace page that will allow users to join as and stay connected with updates and resources we post on the page through “announcements” and such. Jesse will create a facebook page similar to Ashley’s MySpace page with more updates and resources.
Through these three pages, information pertaining to sustainability in Hawai’i and co-living will provided to users and site visitors. Articles, information resources, links, videos, and any other information possible will be posted and updated to users through Facebook and MySpace. Especially on Facebook, we hope users will join as a friend and comment on anything posted.

Contract Group 3

COM 494
Assignment 3.3:
Group 3 Contract

Our main mission is to spread “green” through a variety of communication channels, such as MySpace and YouTube. Our goal is to educate the public on sustainability and bring awareness that it is possible to contribute and start making changes, and that it starts with the individual. Our project will include a brief history on how the ancient Hawaiian’s way of living In order to stay on task and make sure that each group member is doing their part, we agreed to meet online on Thursday nights. Also, we have agreed to keep an open communication between all members so that we can succeed at achieving our project goals. Members:

Jon EllisonJesse PotterAshley Mejia

Group 3 Minutes #1

Minutes for Group 3, Meeting #1Meeting called to order at 8:30 p.m., October 13, 2009.

Present were: Jon Ellison (group leader) and Ashley M.

Ÿ Our group project is about sustainability in Hawaii and the Hawaiian culture, and the Economy.

Ÿ Ashley shared her idea on incorporating the ‘aha moku system into the project. Her idea will be presented through MySpace. It will focus on how Hawaiians came together as a community and lived pono. How each community used their resources wisely: mahi’ai, lawai’a, and la’au lapa’au. Building this project on MySpace will allow other members of group 3 to include their own personal story of their connections to Hawai’i or talk about their culture on the blogs. This site will display pictures to enhance the quality and creativity of our project.
Ÿ Jon likes the idea of social networking via the internet, such as using MySpace, Facebook, and YouTube. He would like our group to develop a website with connectivity through multiple IT communication channels, as it would be informative to people who finds our site. It’ll be like an “ecospace”. Jon will work on a YouTube channel.
Ÿ Other members are encouraged to start work on their topic using Facebook, blog, or other means of communication channels. Please keep our leader informed and contact him if you have any questions. It’s important to keep an open communication.

Ÿ Next meeting will be on Thursday, October 15, at 8:30 p.m.
Ø At our next meeting we will present the progress of our assignments we’ve each made so far and discuss the next steps for our project.
Ø We will discuss further actions we need to take in order to achieve our project goals.
Ÿ Meeting adjourned at 9:33 p.m.

Ashley says:
a hui hou e malama pono.
jon says:
thats sounds sensible to show findings and discuss further actions towards our goals.
aloha

Leadership

I watched the Bill gates talk on TED.com and he talks about the education systems in America and cures for Malaria worldwide. A valuable thing learned from watching his lecture was that our current state of being can always be improved to create a better tomorrow even when it seems unlikely to affect us immediately. He talks about world problems that indirectly affect us on a level concerning all humanity. The idea that malaria is not in our country and so we should ignore it or let others solve the dilemma was his focus and how infections rise and fall over time and to help us ultimately we have to help everyone to eradicate malaria to assure we will never have to deal with it again. Bill Gates also talked about education and what makes upper cortile teachers and lower cortile teachers and what is the difference between the two. HE said that if we could make all teachers the best we could effectively rise above poverty and a lot of social problems related to education in people of our society. The talk was interesting and really made me feel drawn in and want to help through feelings of inspiration.

A community goal of mine that's eco related requiring leadership is to start the first electric vehicle conversion business in Hawaii. The goal is a realistic goal and to take a stretch further maybe after establishing a business then trying to develop a industry for this type of work. With these processes then lobby the state for law changes to make gasoline powered transportation illegal in Hawaii. This could truly make Hawaii an independent state from all imported energy requirements to sustainability for itself.

Barriers I see would be the existing petroleum businesses power hold and influence to prevent oil from being outlawed in Hawaii for everything but airplanes which I would like to be electric but probably won't happen soon. I see shipping materials a huge challenge and requiring a lot of energy to help change to a renewable energy source. I am not sure if the carbon footprint created to get everyone here off gasoline would be able to be countered by the effects of no fossil fuels in a short period of time. This problem is a serious issue for residents of Hawaii and the environment here. We have to start somewhere and why not here first to start a movement or set a example for others to follow.

I see allies with green and eco related organizations and state support concerning aid to community and our biological systems from federal funded programs as well as community support to become sustainable and cleaner for life here in Hawaii. I also see alignment with world organizations to create a model for the world with Hawaii for sustainability and independency. We could easily get aide from others worldwide who believe in our cause and want to offer advice knowledge and energy contribution and not in the form of oil! We can make changes for a better tomorrow if we apply ourselves to the problems and work through them to see the other side.

Thanks for reading,

Jon M Ellison

Garden Update growing a salad!

The garden is in full swing and things are looking good! I have harvested several tomatoes from the early girl hybrids and everything else is thriving! I have added a few additions to our garden with a coreander cutting and some green onions I bought from the store I threw in the ground. The okra has been put into the ground and is perking up and the carrots are just starting to sprout up. The strawberries are looking vigor and the lettuce in ground is starting to get bigger and the potted are getting bushier and turing red but not getting larger. I may put them all in gorund to get a bigger crop still waiting to see hwat happens over time.



Well thanks for reading the update. Go gardening!