Archive for May, 2011
Novella Carpenter’s getting the zoning laws changed in Oakland, California
Novella Carpenter farm
My here Novella Carpenter is back in the news today. If you recall, I wrote about her troubles with the Oakland, California authorities on April 1, 2011. They were asking her to buy a $2,500 permit to sell vegetables she grew on her lot in a gritty part of Oakland.
She raised the money and got the permit, as I predicted she would.
What I didn’t predict is that she would continue further to try to get the laws changed in her city so that a permit would not be required. I am proud of Carpenter, and frankly inspired by her.
Oakland urban farming prompts plan to redo rules
I wonder if my life’s work is going to be changing zoning laws worldwide to allow people to live in small, efficient homes where ones food is grown on site, at a cost so low a mortgage won’t be required. That Carpenter is turning her modest fame into being able to be the catylist for getting the laws changed in Oakland makes me think more than ever that I will be able to get laws changed as well. I have years of work ahead of me to even reach the stage Carpenter is at today, but today’s zoning laws are out of touch with the current reality of the planet, where we are running out of resources at an alarming rate, and the current western lifestyle is in grave danger over the coming centuries. A century will pass quickly, and it’s not fair to squander the earth’s resources in a blink of time like we have been doing for the last century.
We should be saving petroleum so that it lasts for thousands of years, since I presume there are some products that really do need genuine petroleum. To waste it on things that don’t ‘need’ it, like heating our homes, should soon become criminal, say in 10 years or 20 years time. Most every home on the planet can be 100% solar heated. Yes, perhaps the house would have to be much smaller to free up the money to pay for the solar heating infrastructure, but so what? In the US, we lived in houses half the current size just a few decades ago, and nobody thought anything of it at the time I suspect. Why not go back to that size house but ditch the entire heating bill forever? Is that not a great trade off?
