Steen and I visited Samsoe Energy Academy with Jay Bragdon and his wife Jeanne, who took part of the seminar 2 of In100Years. We spent most of Saturday together with Søren Hermansen and his wife Malene Lunden. First we got to see the place of the academy, which is build to be sustainable when it comes to building material, energy use and a sense of being close to the nature. Even ancient wisdom about how to build an environment worth living in and modern living was combined by the architecht. For the indians it was the hole in the tippie so the fire smoke could get out, and for us today it’s about light.
Soeren told the story about how he and a few others got the green energy going at Samsoe, and I were kind of surprised to learn that it had nothing to do with sustainability or taking care of the environment – to begin with. It was good business and cool cash, building social relationships and community, education and mindshift – and it is a great example of user-driven innovation that actually works. If you have a goal and a vision and add hard work you can succeed. You can hear the story at seminar 3 on the 2-3 November (or later at this site). Afterwards we had a really nice lunch in the sun at one of the local tourists attractions of the island, the city Ballen, with a beautiful view of the harbour – and a great conversation. Thank you, Søren and Malene, for being there with us! And I know that Soeren has allready visited Jay and Jeanne in Vermont, and perhaps Eddie Sturman, a man about who it is told that he might have just invented a technology with a great promise for a carbon-free future, might come visit Denmark.
Let’s just begin to live the future right now! It doesn’t have to take that many years, we can decide today and get going. Hey, hey, you might think: Get going to where? That’s what the project In100Years is about: Where do you wanna go, what do you need, where do we wanna go (we have to go together as well to speed up things a bit), and what do we need? And what is needed? Welcome to Acorn Falls, I’m sure that you will be making times. It’s in the air!
Photo: Gitte Larsen, House of Futures. Board with notes from a workshop held at Samsoe Energy Academy, and someone from Vermont had allready been there as well. Several hundreds of people visit the academy every year.