Whole Eco Vista Catalogue Edited by John Foran, with Kimberly Lim, Eduardo Medina-Ramirez, Elena Salinas O’Toole, Bethesda Sandoval, and Julia Samuel Isla Vista: Eco Vista Climate Justice Press, 2021 2 | P a g e Whole Eco Vista Catalogue Table of Contents Introduction 5 Maia, “Eco Vista: Roots and Seeds” (February 2021) 8 Daniel Berchenko, “Building Eco Vista: a Prefigurative Praxis with Historical Grounding” (Summer 2019) 11 Mikala Butson et al., The World in 2050: Systemic Alternatives (August 2019) 56 Photo Essay on Resistance, compiled by John Foran 121 Eco Vista Green New Deal (November 2019) 127 Michael Bean, Eco Vista Project Sourcebook (December 2019) 158 John Foran, “Eco Vista in the Quintuple Crisis” (June 2020) 198 Eduardo Ramirez-Medina, “Black Lives Matter Canva” and “Positive Psychology Interventions/Practices” (July 2020) 204 Andrew Dao, Isla Vista Photo Essay, with Eduardo Ramirez-Medina 206 Geordie Scully, What role can student-led transition play in place-based sustainability? An investigation into Eco Vista using strategic niche management theory (August 2020) 210 Bethesda Sandoval, “Self-Care for Quarantine & Activists (affordable, accessible, sustainable)” (September 2020) 262 “A Collective Ethnography of the Summer 2020 Eco Vista General Assembly” (September-December 2020) 268 Maia, “Echo (for Rachel Carson)” 293 Interview with Ash Valenti (October 2020) 298 Sierra Emrick, “An open letter to the young people of the United States: We still have time to avoid devastating climate change … if we vote” (October 13, 2020) 302 John Foran, “Election of the Decade? Why We Need a New Kind of Party” (November 2, 2020) 306 About the Editors 312 3 | P a g e Dedication For Michael Bean, beloved first citizen-mayor of Eco Vista, With love, for you and everything you stand for Artwork by Katie Holten, “Forest” 4 | P a g e Introduction John Foran The title of our catalog is meant to bring to the reader who knows about it echoes of the original Whole Earth Catalog from the 1960s. That volume was a compendium of advice and images on the general theme of unplugging from the capitalist, war-making society that the United States was (and still is) and to inspire folks to start off in their own fresh directions and create the kind of society in which they wanted to live. Eco Vista today is not so different. We want a different, a better, a more just and less violent society, economy, culture, and politics. This first – will there be more? – Whole Eco Vista Catalog presents our thinking on these questions as compiled in the work of some of the many people who are taking up the challenge. The voices here are richly diverse and passionately engaged with creating solutions and approaches to the problems the world community faces in our century of decision, for the well-being of the planet, people, creatures, and places we share with each other on the basis of the survival and thriving of all. Of everything. It is worth pointing out the obvious: we are just starting out on this path, still becoming aware of the possibilities for systemic transformation of the worlds we inhabit, only beginning to try to create the most life-affirming ideas, resources, alliances, and actions that we can as we go. This is an unfinished, doubtless never finished, adventure. All are invited to join in. We look forward to finding out what we might do together if we Connect the dots Learn to love Act, together Eco Vista, February 2021 A note: many of the images sprinkled throughout this book have been chosen for their precise fit with the text, others more randomly there simply to express the Eco Vista ideal. We have tried to use our own images, as many as possible of the images of others with their permission, some with the best attribution we could find, and a few we have no doubt simply found where they lay so beautifully. We trust that the originators of all the images in the book will in the non-commercial spirit of Eco Vista allow us to use them. If any can be attributed further or granted permissions where they have not been, we would be happy to immediately change and update the credits at the originators’ requests. 5 | P a g e Mural in Oakland, California, 2019 6 | P a g e Eco Vista: Roots and Seeds Maia, January 2021 Eco Vista’s “deep roots” lie in the history of Isla Vista itself. Which in turn lies and relies on Chumash land… In the 70s when I arrived, not so long after the bank burning and at the tail end of the War in Vietnam, IV was alive with creative energy. As a UCSB work-study student and single mother of two young children, I was galvanized by this “Pre-Eco Vista Climate Justice movement,” and became an active “particle,” volunteering for IV Federal Credit Union, taking my young son to draft-card burning rallies, helping with the transition of the Whole Wheat Buyer’s Club into the actual Food Co-op still thriving in IV today. Almost literally, out of the ash of protests, we Isla Vistans created the Food Co-op, Housing Co-ops, Open Door Medical Clinic, Park District, People’s Orchard, Community Gardens, free food programs, and much, much more –passionately creative responses to the injustice, war, and eco-terrorism. Of American business as usual. Later on we passed legislation to protect and preserve parks and open spaces “forever,” for the flourishing of us all in this crowded little university town. I hope you all can explore IV’s many green spaces – each one is unique and precious. In 1977 when I graduated from UCSB, I discovered I couldn’t leave. I’d fallen in love with the Community. By “community” I mean the human/social AND the more-than humans, the mountains and ocean, trees and crows, everybody! In 1979, three women (Terry McMains, Eva Anda, and I) with inspired energy and few economic resources, incorporated as a (very small) business, and opened Womankind Books and Records. We were located first on Trigo (upstairs and down a dark hallway!), then in 1981, on Seville Road right next to the original Food Co-op. Co-opers browsed our shelves, Womankinders bought yogurt or a sandwich for lunch. We lasted four years with the help of UCSB history professor, Patricia Cohen (and a few others) who ordered texts through us. Somewhere, I still have our card with its logo of 4 moon phases (Dark, Waxing Crescent, Full, Waning Crescent) inside 4 scientific symbols for “female,” all the O s joined at the center. While we cultivate and repair green justice projects, let’s remember this— along with water, soil, air, and sunlight, our more-than human community members are literally weaving our breath and our lives as we humans meet here together. In a literal sense, they “invented” us. :) We ‘ve got to carry this in our bones, know this in all our actions. 7 | P a g e Our part is to protect and preserve, to find and encourage the inflection points. By the power of this mutually-nourishing spiral, our “beyond-sustainable” regenerative enterprises contribute to the healing of The Earth Community. This is the “fractal power” of seemingly small movements, small changes. And if there is such a thing as Spiritual-political Activism, this is it. The word spirit is rooted in breath, in cyclical movement. But the cycles don’t simply repeat. They have an overall long-run direction: valuing and protecting diversity (bio, social, political, spiritual), while simultaneously moving ever closer to an all-embracing collaborative harmony. What comes of diversity and harmony, arm in arm? Maybe something of that long-curve-always-bending, as MLK Jr. says, toward Justice. Justice of every kind. And for all kinds. All our kin. Eco Vista is one green, local off-shoot of many older seedings: a vision of transforming anger, betrayal, and tragedy into cooperatives, social services, and green refuge spaces we all need to thrive. This is radical/radicle! Why not explore some of Eco Vista’s many, already thriving, “seedlings,” such as the Eco Vista Climate Justice Press on the Eco Vista Community website? https://ecovistacommunity.com/ . I am immensely grateful to EVCJP for choosing to publish as their first book, See You In Our Dreams, which I started writing in 2005 and finished just before the covid-19 pandemic began. There’s a free PDF available to all: https://ecovistacommunity.com/see-you-in-our-dreams-maia/ For a paperback copy, email: [email protected]. And speaking of “radicle,” check out The Radicle: The Eco Vista Zine! It’s inspiring! https://ecovistacommunity.com/radicle-zine/ And then, please, contribute your creative energies, contribute your artwork, poems and stories! [email protected] Maía [email protected] 8 | P a g e Judy Ann Seidman (South Africa), Capitalism, 2020 9 | P a g e Building Eco Vista: a Prefigurative Praxis with Historical Grounding* Daniel Berchenko, University of California, Santa Barbara June 2019 Madart Megan Duncanson: source. *Daniel Berchenko can be reached at [email protected]. The website for the Eco Vista project can be found at Eco Vistacommunity.com. I do not claim to speak for the Eco Vista project team or the residents of Isla Vista. I thank Professor John Foran for promoting Eco Vista and making this paper possible. In a way, this is the culmination of all his teachings. 10 | P a g e Summary Replacing the “student ghetto” of Isla Vista with a sustainable ecovillage requires cooperative ownership and financially viable local institutions based in community participation.