Need a Strong Coherent Integrated Vision Statement for a Sustainable Future

One of the things Doug mentioned at the CBSM workshop in Minnesota was the need for a good vision statement of what a sustainable future or sustainable region/community would be that we could all be working toward. Given our current political situation in the U.S., it seems to me that the foundations have to take on the leadership role to gather interested parties together to define these visions, since most of them are relatively insulated from political whims, corporate influence, etc and have the money, time, staff, and other resources to do it. I went to a sustainable development workshop in northern MN last year and was thrilled to learn that the most current thinking replaces the old 3-legged stool model of sustainable development with a new one -- the environment was a box and there were 2 overlapping circles within the box that represented the economy and society. Are other people now looking at sustainable development in this way?

One of the best models I've found on the internet of a community moving toward becoming self-reliant and sustainable is the Tompkins project that Guy described below. It is really exciting and inspiring. I really appreciate all the time, thought, and effort that Guy and others have made in developing this model that the rest of us can work off of. One of the things I'm interested in looking at on GIS is foodsheds, fuelsheds, and watersheds around population centers within my 15 county region. We need to see what agricultural products we are growing within our region for food, energy, and raw materials; what we will need; and then what we will have left to supply to larger metropolitan areas. We also need to understand our limits (water availability) and renewable energy resources. The Leopold Center in Iowa is doing wonderful research around regional food systems that everyone can benefit from. They have produced a Produce Calculator that can be used to figure out how much produce of various types is being grown and consumed in a county. You can use it to figure out the economic development potential for farmers if they grew an increasing proportion of that food for local consumption. Some folks in MN are looking at adding GIS to that model to figure out foodsheds. Ken Meter has done some great work helping regions figure how much food is being grown in their areas, how much money is flowing out of regions to purchase food, and how much money farmers are actually losing to produce commodities. His first study was in SE MN; and he is now going all around the country helping other regions do the same type of thing. This has been the most wonderful list serve; and I've gotten some great ideas from being on it for only a couple of weeks.

Thanks.
Nancy Adams