“Ethical Markets is happy to report all this latest news from our partner, World Business Academy. Congratulations!
~Hazel Henderson, Editor“
Happy Friday to all our Fellows! It has been an exciting month of February for the Academy.
I am happy to start this update with tremendous news for the Academy. As you may know, we have been in the process of being gifted the Deer Ridge property in Brentwood, CA that will allow us to implement a green re-envisioning project of the former golf course. We are thrilled to announce that the transaction has officially been completed and the gift deed was recorded earlier this month!
The re-envisioning project will primarily create an 100% green microgrid pilot project that utilizes hydrogen for both storage and generation (for more information on the plans, see the attachment to this email). Our next steps will include creating a budget for the project. In terms of funding, we are seeking $375,000 for the planning phase, and up to $10 million for buildout depending upon the final scope of the project. With that being said, we invite any ideas for funding sources and would appreciate your insight.
In other Academy news, we have been engaging a few projects in the local Santa Barbara area. It is exciting to be in talks with Carbon Neutral Isla Vista, led by Academy Fellow David Gershon. The project aims to bring a microgrid to serve the UCSB community and surrounding areas. We are also participating in an advocacy group in Santa Barbara that is pushing the city to adopt all-electric reach codes banning natural gas for future developments in the city. We look forward to what these opportunities may bring for us to help move our local community into a net-zero carbon future.
Now, we are happy to share some updates on what some our Fellows have been up to recently. Yul Anderson and The African American Future Society have had a great start to 2021 with projects such as a World Social Forum webinar on the “Social Global Impact on George Floyd” at the end of January. We can look forward to more Futures workshops in the months to follow, so make sure to keep updated on the African American Future Society Website. Take a look at our recent Fellow Spotlight on Yul for more information!
In more great Fellow news to share, Richard Barrett was recently hosted by the World Consciousness Alliance in their Renaissance of Humanity (RoH), Conversations for Change. Richard discussed the role of conscious leadership in transforming our world. We encourage you to read more of this inspiring conversation on The Ethical Transformation of Business With Conscious Leadership in the AwakeningTimes, and take a look at our recent Fellow Spotlight on Richard here.
Jerry Brown is excited to be teaching a course on psychedelics at Florida International University (FIU) at the moment, and came out of retirement from teaching to do so. Check out this great interview from FIUS’s newspaper, PantherNOW, on his course here. We are looking forward to hearing how it goes!
In other news, Rinaldo S. Brutoco’s Perspectives column in the Montecito Journal had a diverse range of topics in February. He completed the “Escaping Minority Rule” series with a feature on Voter Suppression. In “Let My People Go,” Rinaldo examined the broken two-party system in America, and called for an elimination of the system that disenfranchises the power of voters. With the Valentine’s Day holiday this past month, Rinaldo wrote a reflection on the meaningfulness of the relationships we share in our lives in the “Happy Relationships Day!” installment. Finally, in the latest article, Rinaldo discussed the “Grid Lock” plaguing both Texas and California, where their power grids are in need of an upgrade. It’s time to start replacing outdated power lines with a network of resilient, greener, and economically preferable renewables+storage based microgrids.
That’s all for now! We look forward to reporting on what March brings for everyone in our next update.