Sustainability Rhizomes

Rhizomatic Learning

Rhizomes are a collection of Sustainability related initiatives that assemble our Exploration educational courses syllabus. We analyze these global initiatives to evaluate what to incorporate into a Sustainable Future and what we propose to do without.

Learning what we can do in our dire situation steers us to study Systems and how they are Designed. The material covered in our selected Rhizomes below are provided from public legislation or publications.

Business Organizations

Business organizations are defined as bodies that operate with their primary base in the economic domain and have a significant proportion of their activities directed towards a market of some kind.

1. Small and Medium Enterprises

2. Corporations and Large Enterprises

3. Co-operatives and State-run Enterprises

4. Non-profit and Social Enterprises

Civil Society

Civil society is defined as the many forms of public associational life that exist beyond the spheres of the state or the market, not including personal and familial relations. The formation of civil society depends upon the distinction between the private and the public. In being in the public sphere, civil society thus does not encompass personal or immediate genealogical relations. Civil society organizations cross all four domains of social life: ecology, economics, politics and culture.

1. Individuals and Communities

2. Community-Based and Faith-Based Organizations

3. Social Movements and Networks

4. Non-government Organizations and Foundations

Governance Institutions

Governance institutions are defined as the many different forms of legitimated bodies that have a designated responsibility in relation to a defined territory, constituency, community, and/or regime of activity. Here the concepts of ‘institution’ or ‘having designated responsibility’ do not just include modern bodies with formal juridical power. For example, ‘elders and councils’ includes customary or traditional elders — informal but critically important political leaders in tribal or faith-based communities. Governance institutions have their primary base in the political domain.

1. Elders and Councils

2. Municipal and Provincial Governments

3. States and Government Organizations

4. International and Global Governance Organizations

Research-Based Institutions

Research-based entities are defined as those bodies that have enquiry and learning as their primary purpose. Such entities can be based in institutions and organizations across any of the other three spheres of public engagement. However, even if they are initiated, funded or hosted by other entities, their primary purpose should be systematic enquiry in specified fields. In other words, even if they are researching economic, political or ecological questions, research-based entities have their primary base in the cultural domain. Complicating issues arise when enquiry is completely harnessed for instrumental ends. For example, when, for a particular organization, market-based performance indicators overwhelm the task of enquiry and the applied commercial outcomes become more important than the research itself, then this entity might be better described as a ‘business organization with research tasks’ than a ‘research-based entity’.

1. Individual Researchers and Research Groups

2. Research Centres and Institutes

3. Universities and Colleges

4. Think tanks and Research-based Foundations

Feeling

The first form of knowing is sensory experience: feeling things. This is the phenomenal sense that something exists in relation to us, or has an impact on us. The concept of ‘affect’ attests to this kind of consciousness, as does ‘sense data’. But sensory experience is less technically conceived than those abstract expressions. It is embodied experience. It is felt, but not necessarily reflected upon. How we feel about our cities and homes is critical to how we act upon them.

1. Sensate knowing: knowing based on being attuned to one’s senses: sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste.

2. Perceptive knowing: the cognitive apprehension of having experienced a sensation.

3. Emotional knowing: the somatic feeling of affect, including the feeling for someone else’s situation; for example, the blush of shame; the clenched fists of anger.

4. Revelatory knowing: a visceral response to a particular scene or sound paradoxically experienced as ‘out of body’: for example, the experience of the sublime or ‘being touched’ by the transcendental.

Pragmatics

The second form is practical consciousness: knowing practically or pragmatically how to do things; knowing how to ‘go on’. Practical consciousness is basic to human action in the world. Writers as different as Wittgenstein and Marx have elaborated upon this theme. Often we just know how to do things without reading instruction manuals. This way of knowing comes from long-term practical experience. Such experience is fundamental to generating good practice and remaking our cities in positive ways.

1. Experiential knowing: knowledge based on doing things many times: for example, craft knowledge.

2. Intuitive knowing: knowing through projecting possibilities; ‘conscious embodiment’ before it comes to reflective or articulated understanding; sometimes called ‘being savvy’.

3. Tacit knowing: knowledge that cannot be articulated or translated into written form.

4. Situated knowing: knowledge that is specific to a particular place or time.

Reflection

The third form is reflective consciousness. This is the modality in which people reflect upon their felt experience and practical knowledge. It is the stuff of ordinary philosophy. It is what thoughtful practitioners often do when they get a chance to step back from a project — thinking about what has been done, what is to be done, and how could it be done better. It is the basis of good interpretation. It is necessary to good urban design and project management.

1. Trained knowing: knowledge based on learning supported by teachers and/or curriculum.

2. Contemplative knowing: knowledge that emerges in the saying or the thinking. For example, knowing that comes through linguistic consciousness, such as in the moment of saying ‘I love you’ and realizing in the act that it is true or otherwise; or knowing that comes through trying out ideas and seeing if they sound right.

3. Analytical knowing: knowledge based on breaking things down into their constituent parts: deductive knowledge.

4. Theoretical knowing: theoretical work that makes a claim about the determination, framing or meaning of something.

Reflexivity

The fourth form is reflexive consciousness, or knowledge that comes in interrogating the nature of knowing while seeking to understand the world. Reflexivity requires reflection upon the constitutive conditions of being here or doing things. In the Circles approach reflexivity goes beyond reflecting upon techniques, processes and practices. It involves standing back from and reinterpreting those techniques and practices in the light of the nature of thinking and acting that underlies those techniques and practices. This process of interrogating the conditions of our practice is tenuous, recursive, and always partial. But it is necessary to good practice in a world that is full of both fashionable and commonsense claims about what should be done — some helpful, some not.

1. Recursive knowing: knowledge that bears back upon itself and constantly interrogates the basis of its own knowledge.

2. Epistemological knowing: knowledge about the different forms of knowledge; that is, classic epistemology understood in the sense of the study of knowledge.

3. Meta-analytical knowing: analysis that reflects back on the basis of its analysis. For example, methodology studies, which work through the way in which we make claims about things. Another example is psychoanalysis of the kind that entails its practitioners reflecting on their own reflectiveness as they do their work. In other words, this is a kind knowing in which the subject and the object are brought into constant dialogue.

4. Meta-theoretical knowing: theoretical work that seeks to understand the world while theorizing the possibilities of its own theorizing.

Inner Individual

and the ‘internal’ dispositions and psycho-physiological functioning (‘inner-individual levels’)

Individual Action

which connects individual action and behavior over the life course (‘individual action level’)

Supra-Individual

with the life courses of other people, social networks, and the ‘external’ societal opportunity structure (‘supra-individual levels’)

Prenatal/Infancy

Early years, wondering if meeting developmental milestones.

Early Childhood

Preschool age, getting a diagnosis.

School Age

Everyday life during school years.

Transition

Transitions from school to adult life.

Adulthood

Living life as an adult.

Aging

Getting older and preparing for end of life (parent/family/individual).

Social & Spirituality

Building friendships and relationships, leisure activities, personal networks, faith community.

Safety & Security

Staying safe and secure–emergencies, well-being, guardianship options, legal rights and issues.

Community Living

Where and how someone lives–housing and living options, community access, transportation, home adaptation and modification.

Healthy Living

Managing and accessing health care and staying well– medical, mental health, behavior, developmental, wellness, and nutrition.

Daily Life & Employment

What a person does as part of everyday life– school, employment, volunteering, communication, routines, life skills.

Citizenship & Advocacy

Building valued roles, making choices, setting goals, assuming responsibility and driving how one’s own life is lived.

No Poverty

Zero Hunger

Good Health and Well-Being for people

Quality Education

Gender Equality

Clean Water and Sanitation

Affordable and Clean Energy

Decent Work and Economic Growth

Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure

Reduced Inequalities

Sustainable Cities and Communities

Responsible Consumption and Production

Climate Action

Life Below Water

Life on Land

Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions

Partnerships for the Goals

Goals-A

To achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions through a fair and just transition for all communities and workers;

Goals-B

To create millions of good, high-wage jobs and ensure prosperity and economic security for all people of the United States;

Goals-C

To invest in the infrastructure and industry of the United States to sustainably meet the challenges of the 21st century;

Goals-D

To secure for all people of the United States for generations to come—

(i) clean air and water;

(ii) climate and community resiliency;

(iii) healthy food;

(iv) access to nature; and

(v) a sustainable environment; and

Goals-E

To promote justice and equity by stopping current, preventing future, and repairing historic oppression of indigenous peoples, communities of color, migrant communities, deindustrialized communities, depopulated rural communities, the poor, low-income workers, women, the elderly, the unhoused, people with disabilities, and youth (referred to in this resolution as “frontline and vulnerable communities”);

Motivation-A

Building resiliency against climate change-related disasters, such as extreme weather, including by leveraging funding and providing investments for community-defined projects and strategies;

Motivation-B

Repairing and upgrading the infrastructure in the United States, including—

(i) by eliminating pollution and greenhouse gas emissions as much as technologically feasible;

(ii) by guaranteeing universal access to clean water;

(iii) by reducing the risks posed by climate impacts; and

(iv) by ensuring that any infrastructure bill considered by Congress addresses climate change;

Motivation-C

Meeting 100 percent of the power demand in the United States through clean, renewable, and zero-emission energy sources, including—

(i) by dramatically expanding and upgrading renewable power sources; and

(ii) by deploying new capacity;

Motivation-D

Building or upgrading to energy-efficient, distributed, and “smart” power grids, and ensuring affordable access to electricity;

Motivation-E

Upgrading all existing buildings in the United States and building new buildings to achieve maximum energy efficiency, water efficiency, safety, affordability, comfort, and durability, including through electrification;

Motivation-F

Spurring massive growth in clean manufacturing in the United States and removing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from manufacturing and industry as much as is technologically feasible, including by expanding renewable energy manufacturing and investing in existing manufacturing and industry;

Motivation-G

Working collaboratively with farmers and ranchers in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the agricultural sector as much as is technologically feasible, including—

(i) by supporting family farming;

(ii) by investing in sustainable farming and land use practices that increase soil health; and

(iii) by building a more sustainable food system that ensures universal access to healthy food;

Motivation-H

Overhauling transportation systems in the United States to remove pollution and greenhouse gas emissions from the transportation sector as much as is technologically feasible, including through investment in—

Motivation-I

Mitigating and managing the long-term adverse health, economic, and other effects of pollution and climate change, including by providing funding for community-defined projects and strategies;

Motivation-J

Removing greenhouse gases from the atmosphere and reducing pollution by restoring natural ecosystems through proven low-tech solutions that increase soil carbon storage, such as land preservation and afforestation;

Motivation-K

Restoring and protecting threatened, endangered, and fragile ecosystems through locally appropriate and science-based projects that enhance biodiversity and support climate resiliency;

Motivation-L

Cleaning up existing hazardous waste and abandoned sites, ensuring economic development and sustainability on those sites;

Motivation-M

Identifying other emission and pollution sources and creating solutions to remove them; and

Motivation-N

Promoting the international exchange of technology, expertise, products, funding, and services, with the aim of making the United States the international leader on climate action, and to help other countries achieve a Green New Deal;

Projects-A

Providing and leveraging, in a way that ensures that the public receives appropriate ownership stakes and returns on investment, adequate capital (including through community grants, public banks, and other public financing), technical expertise, supporting policies, and other forms of assistance to communities, organizations, Federal, State, and local government agencies, and businesses working on the Green New Deal mobilization;

Projects-B

Ensuring that the Federal Government takes into account the complete environmental and social costs and impacts of emissions through—

(i) existing laws;

(ii) new policies and programs; and

(iii) ensuring that frontline and vulnerable communities shall not be adversely affected;

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Projects-C

Providing resources, training, and high-quality education, including higher education, to all people of the United States, with a focus on frontline and vulnerable communities, so that all people of the United States may be full and equal participants in the Green New Deal mobilization;

Projects-D

Making public investments in the research and development of new clean and renewable energy technologies and industries;

Projects-E

Directing investments to spur economic development, deepen and diversify industry and business in local and regional economies, and build wealth and community ownership, while prioritizing high-quality job creation and economic, social, and environmental benefits in frontline and vulnerable communities, and deindustrialized communities, that may otherwise struggle with the transition away from greenhouse gas intensive industries;

Projects-F

Ensuring the use of democratic and participatory processes that are inclusive of and led by frontline and vulnerable communities and workers to plan, implement, and administer the Green New Deal mobilization at the local level;

Projects-G

Ensuring that the Green New Deal mobilization creates high-quality union jobs that pay prevailing wages, hires local workers, offers training and advancement opportunities, and guarantees wage and benefit parity for workers affected by the transition;

Projects-H

Guaranteeing a job with a family-sustaining wage, adequate family and medical leave, paid vacations, and retirement security to all people of the United States;

Projects-I

Strengthening and protecting the right of all workers to organize, unionize, and collectively bargain free of coercion, intimidation, and harassment;

Projects-J

Strengthening and enforcing labor, workplace health and safety, anti-discrimination, and wage and hour standards across all employers, industries, and sectors;

Projects-K

Enacting and enforcing trade rules, procurement standards, and border adjustments with strong labor and environmental protections—

(i) to stop the transfer of jobs and pollution overseas; and

(ii) to grow domestic manufacturing in the United States;

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Projects-L

Ensuring that public lands, waters, and oceans are protected and that eminent domain is not abused;

Projects-M

Obtaining the free, prior, and informed consent of indigenous peoples for all decisions that affect indigenous peoples and their traditional territories, honoring all treaties and agreements with indigenous peoples, and protecting and enforcing the sovereignty and land rights of indigenous peoples;

Projects-N

Ensuring a commercial environment where every businessperson is free from unfair competition and domination by domestic or international monopolies; and

Projects-O

Providing all people of the United States with—

(i) high-quality health care;

(ii) affordable, safe, and adequate housing;

(iii) economic security; and

(iv) clean water, clean air, healthy and affordable food, and access to nature.

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Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 4

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

(1) Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.

(2) No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Article 13

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of movement and residence within the borders of each state.

(2) Everyone has the right to leave any country, including his own, and to return to his country.

Article 14

(1) Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

(2) This right may not be invoked in the case of prosecutions genuinely arising from non-political crimes or from acts contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 15

(1) Everyone has the right to a nationality.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality nor denied the right to change his nationality.

Article 16

(1) Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

(2) Marriage shall be entered into only with the free and full consent of the intending spouses.

(3) The family is the natural and fundamental group unit of society and is entitled to protection by society and the State.

Article 17

(1) Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others.

(2) No one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his property.

Article 18

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Article 19

Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

Article 20

(1) Everyone has the right to freedom of peaceful assembly and association.

(2) No one may be compelled to belong to an association.

Article 21

(1) Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.

(2) Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.

(3) The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

Article 22

Everyone, as a member of society, has the right to social security and is entitled to realization, through national effort and international co-operation and in accordance with the organization and resources of each State, of the economic, social and cultural rights indispensable for his dignity and the free development of his personality.

Article 23

(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.

(4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

Article 24

Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay.

Article 25

(1) Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services, and the right to security in the event of unemployment, sickness, disability, widowhood, old age or other lack of livelihood in circumstances beyond his control.

(2) Motherhood and childhood are entitled to special care and assistance. All children, whether born in or out of wedlock, shall enjoy the same social protection.

Article 26

(1) Everyone has the right to education. Education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Elementary education shall be compulsory. Technical and professional education shall be made generally available and higher education shall be equally accessible to all on the basis of merit.

(2) Education shall be directed to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. It shall promote understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace.

(3) Parents have a prior right to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children.

Article 27

(1) Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits.

(2) Everyone has the right to the protection of the moral and material interests resulting from any scientific, literary or artistic production of which he is the author.

Article 28

Everyone is entitled to a social and international order in which the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration can be fully realized.

Article 29

(1) Everyone has duties to the community in which alone the free and full development of his personality is possible.

(2) In the exercise of his rights and freedoms, everyone shall be subject only to such limitations as are determined by law solely for the purpose of securing due recognition and respect for the rights and freedoms of others and of meeting the just requirements of morality, public order and the general welfare in a democratic society.

(3) These rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.

Article 30

Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.