“To reinvent the world, the journey begins on the block where you live”. California embraces the Cool Block Project
We’ll have some input into the Big One organised by XR this weekend - and we’re picking up great tips from participants already. This one is Cool Block - intro video above, “About” page blurb below (“block” is obviously American for what we’d regard as our tenement, street or estate):
At the core of "what’s cool” for the 21st century is the cooling of our climate-changing planet.
But in addition, “what’s cool” is an ethos of collaboration, caring, and sharing. You and your household are invited to embark on a journey of discovering and making cool choices in collaboration with other households on your block.
“My block?” Cool Block is all about your block. Moreover, it’s about place-making, community-building, local ecosystems, sharing economies, and developing collaboration muscle with your neighbors who live next door, across the street, or in your apartment building.
“But I don’t even know my neighbors.” Yes. And it’s about that, too. You will learn how to meet and collaborate with your neighbors to create a cooler household, cooler block, and cooler planet. We need one another to create cool choices. Doing it together is twenty-first century cool!
Cool Block offers a vision of what is possible for our cities and planet and the tools to achieve it. The program puts this information into action to increase the quality of life for residents of a block, while also contributing to the viability of our planet’s life-support system.
Thank you for caring enough to want to make the world better on the block where you live! A win for you, your neighbors, your city, and our planet!
More here. In way that might be familiar to those practising permaculture and Transition Network practices here, the Cool Block method moves through eight topics:
Energy Resilient Home - prepare your household for energy blackouts
Disaster-resilient Household - become more resilient as a household in case of natural disaster
Cool Lifestyle - refine daily lifestyle practices to reduce your carbon footprint
Cool Home And Cool Wheels - make your household and transportation systems more efficient to further reduce your carbon footprint
Water Stewardship - reduce your water use and impact on the local ecosystem
Safe, Healthy and Green Block - make your block a safer, healthier, more beautiful and resilient place to live
Resourceful and Community-Rich Block - share resources with neighbours and create a greater sense of community on your block
Living as a Cool Block - continue the programme on your block, expand it to other blocks, engage in broader civic activity and help decarbonise your city.