Udv minden vila'goszo:ldnek!

A 400-adik u'gyla'tszik u:nnepi sza'm volt: Minden darab-
ja't (amit e'rtettem, mert magyarul volt) nagy, me'lyse'-
ges egyete'rte'ssel tudtam olvasni. So:te'tzo:ldse'g csak
ke'rde's forma'ja'ban fordult elo", ami nem fo"benja'ro'
bu"n. Sajnos, a so:te'tzo:ldek to:bbet tudnak a'rtani a
ko:rnyezetve'delemnek, mint Torgya'n a kisgazdapa'rtnak.

A nitroge'nbuli lelepleze'se aze'rt egy ma'sik ke'rde'st
is felvetett bennem: Vajjon kevesebb energia't fognak-e'
cseppf.-oxige'n e's egye'b levego"-terme'k elo"a'llita'-
sa'ra forditani (argon,kripton,xenon stb.), ha a sok feles-
leges nitroge'nt eleresztik, mint, hogyha eladja'k?

Az olvasottakbo'l egyre nyilva'nvalo'bb, hogy nem minden 
zo:ldse'g valo'di zo:ldse'g, hanem olyik bizony zo:ldse'gnek
a'lca'zott szennyeze's, zo:ldse'gke'nt megetetett biznisz.

(Tala'n nem a'rtana sza'mba venni e's ta'bla'zatba gyu:jteni,
 mik a valo'di e's a csak annak eladott ko:rtnyezetve'do"
 teve'kenyse'gek)

Tagadhatatlan, hogy a 'fogyaszto'i ta'rsadalom' e's a vele
ja'ro' mentalita's ma a fo"oka a jo:vo"pusztita'snak, de ha
o:sszevetju:k a ko:zelmult diktatura'ival....
Ez - legala'bb formailag - to:bb leheto"se'get ad a ve'deke-
ze'sre.


Ma's: (MOKA on)

>Koszonom Lantos Peternek, Meszaros Laszlonak es Laszlo Barnanak
>hozzaszolasat a kimerult elemekhez!

Nem tudom, hogy mi ko:ze lehet elemesnek a kimeru:lt elemekhez,
hiszen hata'rozottan tarto'sabb!
      (MOKA off)                      Bocs:HFeri

CO-HOUSING -- SOMEWHERE BETWEEN NEIGHBORHOOD AND COMMUNE

"So you're planning a commune," my friends say.

"No, co-housing," I reply, and their faces show that I haven't clarified the
matter.  Co-housing is not a household word.  But judging from the interest
that arises when I explain it, I predict it will be.

If there were a scale of community "togetherness," it would go something like
this (from least to most "together"):  Neighborhood, subdivision, condominium,
co-housing, eco-village, commune.

A neighborhood is made up of separately owned lots and houses built one at a
time, not necessarily in the same style.

A subdivision has separate lots and houses designed and built all at once,
usually by a developer, usually in a similar style.  It may look more
"together" than a neighborhood; socially it may or may not be.

A condominium is built all at once too, houses are individually owned, but land
is owned and maintained jointly.  Housing units are often tightly clustered or
attached, which says nothing about attachments among the neighbors.

In all these kinds of settlements neighbors might be friends or enemies or not
know each others' names.  You can sell and move out, or buy and move in,
without asking anyone else.  These are unintentional communities, centered on
the nuclear family.

Co-housing began in Denmark about thirty years ago as a reaction to the
loneliness and expense of unintentional communities.  Why should every family
buy a lawnmower and every teen-ager have to mow the lawn every Saturday?  Why
should 30 mothers all have to come home from work and cook every night?  Why
couldn't we share childcare and meals sometimes, help each other and have fun
together more than we do when we think of our homes as isolated little castles?

Danish families joined together and designed new neighborhoods with shared
courtyards, shared gardens, play spaces, community kitchens.  They called them
"bofaellesskaber," which means "living communities."  There are now more than
200 of them in Denmark.  A book published in the U.S. in 1988 called them
"co-housing."  Since then dozens of American co-housing projects have sprung
up. 

A co-housing community, like a condominium, has privately owned, clustered
houses and shared land.  The difference is that the members take a major hand
in designing the community, and they design it for sociability.  There is often
a "common house" with a kitchen and dining room, meeting room, and maybe a
workshop or library or music room.  Ten Stones Co-housing in Charlotte,
Vermont, has 13 houses in a circle with the road on the outside.  The middle of
the circle is a big shared backyard, featuring laughing children bouncing on a
trampoline.  

Co-housing is not necessarily about living environmentally, though people
attracted to co-housing tend to be into recycling and carpooling and preserving
wetlands.  Eco-villages take the environment much more seriously, as they do
community, because both require transcending small egotistical needs in order
to satisfy larger goals.  

Eco-villages orient buildings to the south to make use of solar energy. 
Insulation is a higher priority than hot tubs.  The common land bears organic
gardens and is permanently protected from development with conservation
easements.  Eco-villages wouldn't think of dumping their sewage without
reclaiming its nutrients -- they build composting toilets or constructed
wetland wastewater treatment systems.  These are communities with a mission:
"creating a model [of communal and environmental responsibility] which can be
replicated," says the newsletter of the Ithaca EcoVillage.

Thanks to the 1960s, when you start talking about any kind of intentional
community, everyone assumes you mean a commune.  Communes share land,
buildings, vehicles, tools, food, sometimes clothing, often income,
occasionally spouses, which is the part that attracts the unfailing interest of
the press.  Any commune that lasts, however, including religious orders that
have lasted for thousands of years, has to learn a remarkable degree of
discipline and selflessness.  It's too bad the word "commune" has come to
signify either clueless flower children or peasants herded together by atheist
dictators.  The real communes I know anything about are models of practical
productivity and deep spirituality. 

I'm not sure I'm good enough for a commune.  I'd like to live on the
togetherness spectrum somewhere around co-housing or eco-village.  A lot of
other people seem to want something like that too.  Pioneer Valley Cohousing in
Amherst, Mass., has a waiting list of 20 families.  Ithaca EcoVillage in New
York, has finished its first cluster of 30 homes and envisions five more
clusters.  Some architects and developers are specializing in helping
co-housing groups bring their dreams to reality.

Of course architecture does not make community.  Nothing prevents folks from
cooperating in any kind of neighborhood.  Spats can break out in a common
kitchen as well as across a backyard fence.  But clustered, shared spaces can
save families time and money and save the planet materials and energy at the
same time they make it easier to get together.  Seems to me it can only help,
in a culture that has swung too far toward individuality and competitiveness,
to build our homes in a way that announces, in wood, brick, or stone, to those
who live there and those who don't, "We honor community, and we're going to try
to make it work."

(Donella H. Meadows is an adjunct professor of environmental studies at
Dartmouth College.)

(Bocsanat, angolul, mert ugyis anglolul lesz az eloadas is)

INVITATION

The Central European environmental community welcomes

DR. ASHOK GADGIL

*  Winner of Pew Fellowship in Conservation and the Environment, 1991
(often referred to as the alternative Nobel-prize for the 
Environment) 
*  Winner of  the DISCOVERY award for environmental innovation, 1996.
*  Member of the Balaton Group

The public is cordially invited to his presentation on:

**************************************************************
Projects towards energy sustainability in cities and rural 
communities in the developing countries.
**************************************************************

Place: Auditorium,  Central European University (Nador u. 9)
Time:  August 21, 5 - 7 PM.  
Reception to follow.

Abstract:
The talk illustrates the technical potential to capture large 
energy efficiency gains in the developing countries with 4 examples. 
(1) Factories of Compact fluorescent lamps (CFLs) supplying CFLs to 
utility sponsored dissemination of residential CFLs for saving energy 
and peak demand. (2) Factories of superwindows supplying to utility 
sponsored programs to install superwindows in air conditioned 
commercial buildings in hot climates. (3) Cost-neutral energy 
planning to maximize use of renewables and energy efficiency in a 
city in Amazonian rainforest. (4) Disinfecting drinking water with UV 
light using a low-cost rugged device that is 20,000 times more energy 
efficient than boiling the water over a cookstove. Contribution from 
social participation in each of these examples is discussed. 

***************************************************************
Dr. Ashok Gadgil
Energy and Environment Division, Lawrence Berkeley National 
Laboratory

Biography:
Dr. Gadgil's research has focused on programs in renewable energy,
electric end use efficiency and accelerating its implementation in the
developing countries, and indoor air pollutants. Born and raised in
India, he received a Ph.D. in Physics from University of California,
Berkeley. He has worked at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory -
University of California from 1975 to 1983, and then again from 1988
till now. From 1983-88, he was a Fellow at Tata Energy Research
Institute (TERI), New Delhi, and in 1981 he was a visiting research
scientist with the Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique
(CNRS) in Paris. Dr. Gadgil serves as a consultant to a number of
non-profit organizations and multilateral agencies, has published more
than 50 archival journal papers and 60 conference papers, and holds
several patents. In 1991 he was awarded a Pew Fellowship in
Conservation and the Environment for his work in energy efficiency in
the developing countries. In 1996 he was awarded a Discovery
Award for the best invention of the year in the category of the
Environment. 

(labjegyzet:  a Meadows-rovatot is pl. Ashok reven kapja a Kornyesz. 
D)