08161 Tools for Economic Sustainability

This is a plan for creating the Open Source Economy. The program begins with developing the open source Global Village Construction Set (GVCS). The GVCS is defined as a minimum set of technologies necessary to create advanced civilization from locally available “dirt and twigs” with 12 people and 1 year of time starting with a container-load of GVCS tools. In the process of developing the GVCS, we will be developing a scalable, open source product development platform — the Distributive Enterprise platform. . . The goal is to create economies capable of being powered by local resources. The intended sociological effect is to allow people the autonomy to pursue mastery consistent with higher purpose — as a possibility for the next step of humanity’s evolution. The current state of OSE is transition from vision to institution, fed by learnings about the need for solid organizational and development infrastructures as immediate priorities. — The Executive Summary of the draft strategic plan for Open Source Ecology.

Economic action requires tools. In the globalized economy, control of tools translates into control of economic destiny. That’s why one of the most important sustainability initiatives in the modern world is the Open Source Ecology project, found online at http://opensourceecology.org/.

Its present focus is to design and build the Global Village Construction set, a “modular, do-it-yourself, low-cost, high-performance platform that allows for the easy fabrication of the 50 different industrial machines that it takes to build a small, sustainable civilization with modern comforts.”

See the list of machines they plan to design and produce at http://opensourceecology.org/gvcs.php.

View a TED talk about the project at http://youtu.be/d-D8FGZi0qc.

This is not somebody’s pie-in-the-sky dream. It’s a “them that’s doin’” project that produces useful tools for local economic activities. These people have actually designed, tested, and produced some of the machines on their list, with others in various phases of active development. The four machines thus far in the “implementation” phase are:

  • Compressed Earth Block press
  • Soil Pulverizer
  • Tractor
  • Power Cube

Details about these projects are at http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Civilization_Starter_Kit_DVD_v0.01.

Plans and construction instructions are downloadable for free!

One of their interesting projects is the development of a sustainable design for houses based on a hybrid of straw bale and the Compressed Earth Block technologies. The goal is a low cost, low energy, self-sustaining, and comfortable habitations that care for people, care for the planet, and have a care for the future. This could fulfill the role of the “pod” which is such a critical aspect in the Unplugged scenario. Instead of being manufactured and shipped to a site, it would be built onsite.

See http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/OSE_Microhouse and pictures at

http://opensourceecology.org/w/images/3/30/Microhouse04.pdf.

The group is presently testing the CEB/straw bale hybrid during construction of the Hab Lab, a 3,000 square foot building to house the members of the community living at their site (known as Factor E Farm) in Missouri. The design and construction page for that project is at http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Hab_Lab.

Everyone interested in economic sustainability should network with and support these design projects.