ASHA: Gaviotas, creativity & sustainability (fwd)

[Subramanya Sastry <sastry@cs.wisc.edu>]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sat, 09 Oct 1999 11:12:14 -0500
From: "Brian L. Joiner" <bjoiner@bewko.com>
To: ecomda@danenet.wicip.org, ecoteams@usa.net
Subject: Gaviotas, creativity & sustainability

Helping our part of the planet become sustainable will require a lot of
creativity. This is one of the things I find so inspiring about Gaviotas.
For example, here is a partial list of some of the results of their
creativity. Some of these inventions required 50 or more trials before
success!

- high pressure solar cooker 
- solar water sterilizers 
- methane burners 
- hot-water solar panels 
- parabolic solar grain driers 
- self-cooling rooftops 
- cooling wind corridors (like in minarets and ancient Egypt) 
- see-saw pump (and others) 
- corkscrewing manual well digger 
- variety of highly efficient and durable windmills 
- specialized bicycle for the Llanos 
- pedal powered cassava grinder (10 hours work done in 1 hour) 
- rotating drum peanut sheller 
- ox-drawn land graders 
- one-handed sugarcane press

I hope you will come hear about this special place and what they have done.
You can come to either of the following presentations:

(a) Monday 18th at 7:30 PM in room 3650 of the UW Humanities Building,
corner of University Ave. and Park St., enter via the Northwest stairs.

(b) Sunday 17th from 3:00 to 5:00 at the First Unitarian Church at 900
University Bay Drive (Univ Bay Dr. is at the traffic light on University
Avenue just west of the UW hospital). The session will be in the Lower
Meeting House which is at the far end of the parking lot.

If you have a choice, I recommend (b) because it will be a smaller group
and we will have time for more in-depth dialogue about Gaviotas and the
implications for our work here in Madison, soon to be
The-Gaviotas-of-the-North. You will be expected to read a bit about
Gaviotas before you come to (b). Let me know your address and I will post 2
nice articles to you.

Also, some idea of how many we can expect at each session will be
appreciated. Let me know if you think you can make one of these special
events.

Brian Joiner.