DIYNGO

One of the general barriers to doing the kind of ‘work’ we wished to be doing at DIYNGO has been the apparent sloth-like progression of institutional reform currently inherent in British society at least (and I suspect this is even worse elsewhere?)

The following serve to illustrate the kinds of issues we have had to deal with:

1. Dominant economic system (Capitalism) – has no notion of ‘social value’, tending instead to commodify all aspects of the ‘human experience’. It doesn’t work for anything like the kind of thing we have been trying to do. Noble people are attempting to rectify this but we have a long way to go yet…

2. (Related) banking system – pretty much collapsed over here and didn’t do so well elsewhere, having been propped up by the tax payer. Again, we found it impossible to open a bank account. Not sure why but people ‘in the know’ told me that the banks fear “money laundering” as we are international. Also my personal ‘credit rating’ could have been better. Whatever. Not really open for doing business with anyone other than those with loads of money already.

3. Intellectual Property – no offence to the good people at the IP Office in the UK but that whole system – indeed, the very notion of this form of ‘property’ – is archaic? The current system stymies progress, witness the many technological lawsuits consuming valuable R & D time around the planet. I guess its a good time to be an IP lawyer but not a great one to be an ‘innovator’…

Depending upon one’s definition of what an ‘institution’ actually is – e.g. do we have time to consider the family unit an institution – then this list could be endless. However, that will do for now. You hopefully get the point. We were attempting to point out that there are some real solutions to the kinds of problems people all over the planet are now experiencing. On the plus side we did do this hopefully – we championed these ideas which was our raison d’etre – sadly though the times and the status quo were kind of ‘against’ us. Its quite simple, we either begin to reform some of these institutions at a far faster rate than we can currently manage or we start to demise as a nation state/region/world populace.

Finding myself thinking about wrapping up DIYNGO operations. As our Mission Statement says we were only ever supposed to be championing some of the issues we have touched upon (which led to many, many more). To me championing simply means popularising the ideas particularly in context. We seem to have achieved this – do take a look at our Blog posts and newsletters?

On a more personal note it has been a difficult three years or so in so many respects which have finally kind of reached a conclusion. It therefore seems appropriate to be drawing a line under the work of DIYNGO and moving on to the many other projects I have in the pipeline including writing up DIYNGO in a more academic format plus a much more general writing project (and even, possibly a whole new ‘organisation’?). We have learned a whole lot of lessons which could be of great benefit to those attempting similar enterprises in the future.

We have experienced untold barriers while attempting to promote our ideas. Some of the ideas seem to have simply been too far ahead of our time to be of practical relevance. We have also been overtaken by the pace of calamities now facing the planet. Something of which we were aware upon commencement but which have had an incommensurate effect upon our trajectory…

I am reluctant to state “MISSION ACCOMPLISHED” for recent history (and my own other research enterprises) teaches us that this is NEVER the case! However, I myself feel satisfied that we almost did what we set out to do which, to be honest, in a far from perfect world is rather satisfactory.

So, I have put this idea to our Secretary and Champion, both in Kenya. We will no doubt inform all of progress with regard to wrapping up.

Cheers,

Tim

I was out walking around the Staffordshire Moorlands in the UK today. It was quite a gruelling hike mainly due to the threatening weather conditions. My, was it really quite blustery at times. Plenty of evidence of rain too. The area actually sometimes gets cut off during the Winter as snow can make the roads inaccessible. By contrast, the summer on the moors can be very sunny. So, this got me thinking…

I wondered why all of the little cottages and farms, etc. scattered across the landscape are not harnessing the power of this elemental energy? One could easily imagine each building housing a few solar panels and small wind turbines – utilising that powerful resource that this part of the world seems to have in abundence? So I entered the coffee shop (bottom left) and asked the owner why people are not evidently using renewable energy to power their homes? Apparently, I was informed, the mains electricity is supplied to all homes and businesses out there but can at times be unreliable, presumably due to the harsh environmental conditions.

Basically, allegedly, the local authority will not allow people to use renewable energy, i.e. will not grant planning permission for some reason. I don’t know exactly why this is but can only assume that it may be considered not to be in-keeping with the natural beauty of the area?

So, its an interesting dilemma: do we consider the present to be more important than the future? In other words, should we be forfeiting our childrens’ chances for an easy life on this planet for the sake of being able to enjoy our own time on here? I believe, generally, we would do better to realise the potential of these technologies to address some serious issues, in this case the very sustainable existence of rural communities. We see the same in Kenya minus the planning permission (or whatever) issues. People there just ‘get on with it’ as they realise the life-changing capabilities of the utilisiation of renewable energy. They are also, generally, closer to the front of the current climate change crisis besetting our home and so realise the necessity of this innovation.

To conclude, I think we in ‘developed’ nations really need to be re-considering our priorities when it comes to combatting climate change and associated matters. Your children will thank you for it.