Report of the Prosperous Way Down (PWD) Committee

We have two initiatives to report. The first is that we are organizing another PWD workshop for the day before the emergy conference. We have received comments from a number of members who were disappointed that we did not have a workshop at the last Gainesville meeting. And we feel that given the current state of the world (climate change, fracking, growing inequality, migration, poverty, and a Trump presidency) all need discussing and evaluation in light of PWD, and other initiatives like Degrowth, Transition Towns, etc. PWD, as we all know, was a passion of the Odum’s and we believe that passion should be honored and extended into the future. We think that calling for a PWD workshop can be a step in that direction.

Our current plans are to expand on past workshops that were half-day-long events, to create next year a full-day workshop, with probably four 90-minute sessions. This would include in the morning a number of more targeted and structured presentations. We are asking any members who have experience or personal knowledge on initiatives related to PWD to give brief reports. These could include social and scientific movements such as Degrowth, Eco-Socialism, Sumak Kawsay (Sustainable Wellbeing), Decolonization, Epistemological Change, Climate Change Challenge, Transition Cities, Global Ecovillages Network, International Peasants Movement (Via Campesina) etc. In the afternoon, we will hold open discussion, but with the specific aim of organizing working groups of volunteers (task forces) who are interested in specific issues and would like to cooperate to pursue together solutions, activities, etc. While our past PWD workshops were educational, we feel that they were lacking in organization and in results. We hope that this larger format will produce better outcomes.

Second, in cooperation with the Website Committee, we will be announcing both past and future initiatives for PWD on a PWD webpage, linked to our Emergy Society website. We know that some of you have been actively engaging in this kind of work, and probably reporting it on your own websites. We feel that the Emergy Society should be collecting together the reports of that work, either by creating announcements on our new PWD webpage, or by linking your reports from our webpage. To that end, we would like to request that any member who has been engaging in this type of work, please send us information about past or future initiatives (including photos, which are very welcome). And please note, the Prosperous Way Down blog run by Mary Odum will continue to operate, and it will be a featured link from our new PWD webpage on the Emergy Society website. You can send any information about PWD efforts to Tom Abel, at tabel1005@gmail.com

Last, by announcing the workshop now, we are attempting to notify members earlier than we have done in the past. Travel arrangements must be made well in advance, and we wish to accommodate the needs of our society travelers.