I-WIN Iowa Waste Innovation Network Indexing & Consulting

Nature's genius wastes little and produces much for us to consume as humans,  tiny but fragile seeds and seedlings and soils producing many continuous and infinitely intricate, critical but hidden flows, inalienable and ancient cycles, biological, chemical, geophysical cycles that keep humans alive day to day and minute to minute.....rich, green watersheds that protect entire human cities from their selves...that hold our fragile web for all life intact.

But human cities limit their counts to human cash, mechanical, artificial, privatizing, obvious, immediate, consumptive counts of human cash........cashflow floods that crush the productive, green watersheds of nature that humans need to produce critical flows to survive day to day and minute to minute....

Human systems waste much carelessly, thoughtlessly, destroying nature's fragile, quiet producers,  crushing lands and lives, ripping apart forests and wetlands, stuffing toxic landfills faster than we can consume them, and crushing and burning nature's ability to turn waste into resource.......destroying natures's ability to clean up human messes .....so we are paying overwhelming costs that we cannot afford as persons, as a people or as living beings.......and we are throwing those costs onto the unsuspecting, the many, onto our own childrens' futures, destroying our own futures.

It would be better if we could produce flows that we want to consume, however to keep us healthy enough to find “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” of any definition.  How?

Logical economics can guide us toward that goal.....but we need to count more than cash.

The word root, “eco-“ as in “econ+nomic” as in “number” and as in “eco+logic” as in “logic” and “link” between cause and effect means “house” or “oikos” in Greek…..but not every house nurtures those within.  Some houses hurt and destroy those within.

Houses need nature’s genius to produce positives enough, critical flows enough to balance the budget, to produce the critical flows to keep humans alive and happy enough to fill in hungry voids of the negative.......to produce enough to consume, to consume enough to produce, etc. now and generations from now.

Have we forgotten what we're counting?

Ancient human cities developed artificial and mechanical cash systems such as metal coins, inflexible structures of coins and stacks of paper.... and humans developed cash registers in urban walls as a symbol to represent everyday "goods and services" to exchange in measurable mechanical urban centers of the artificial volumes and numbers for private, obvious, immediate, everyday use and consumption to satisfy human needs....and wants and emotions, blinding emotions of wants winning more often.   

Humans have built great cities and civilizations with structures of metal pieces and stacks of paper....but need more than that to succeed....and needed nature's critical flows to keep humans alive while they were building cities and civilizations.

Humans need nature's hidden genetic potentials, genius to produce critical flows of logic, of qualities and satisfaction for All 100%...even the 1% .....critical flows such as breathable oxygen as O2, drinkable water as H2O and rich, organic soil to grow food and shelter to keep humans alive day to day and minute to minute.

However, nature grows critical flows far beyond the obvious and flows deteriorate in their journey to human cities.

If humans could green their cities, their public infrastructure foundations with nature’s genius of green producers, then many would find safer, more affordable and abundant access to the critical flows of O2, H2O, soil, food, shelter that humans need to find health, “life, liberty (from want and fear) and the pursuit of happiness” of any definition.

Was the Biblical story of Adam and Eve actually a parable about thoughtless consumption without production, destruction of producers and lands that depletes the ability of the land and life to produce supplies enough to consume…turning Eden into desert?

Humans need to count more than human cash to build and maintain great cities into the future....

Humans need nature’s genius to produce the critical flows, critical flows produced far beyond the obvious.......and need civil government to share critical resources and information to keep public infrastructure foundations functional enough to survive.......critical flows hidden from the obvious, immediate, private and public worlds.

Humans need to share resources and information enough to build safe, affordable public infrastructure foundations enough to stand on to find safer more affordable access to safer, more affordable opportunities to succeed privately enough to manufacture a private "profit" and success.

But some just don't get it....and continue to limit their vision to privatized cash-flow in only one private bank account of only one obvious now:   Self-centered manipulators in cities often try to block and hoard the critical flows of resources and information, hoarding deadly cash-flow floods, crushing fragile green watersheds that humans need to find access to critical flows of enough O2, H2O, soil, food, shelter to survive or exist....causing social upheaval that threatens ability of all to survive.

Cash-driven persons and corporations and governments cannot readily see the hidden genius, logic, productivity of forests and wetlands of green ecosystems, ecologies of logic....and have difficulty understanding the value of those producers, erecting walls of urban sprawl that crush the ability of nature to produce critical flows.   Many of the cash-driven have tried to privatize our public schools that were invented to enable the many to reach beyond the obvious...to protect their own children's future, to keep laws of moral reciprocity intact.

Humans need to value and protect the invaluable, the priceless and critical flows produced and grown by nature's green, productive systems far beyond the obvious ....critical flows impossible to count in human cash.

Nature's fragile but critical green watersheds and wonders far from the obvious of urban walls and barriers produce the critical flows of O2, H2O, soil, food, shelter to keep humans in cities alive day to day and minute to minute.

But some, many blinded by hypnotic cash-flow floods just don't get it.   Thick, impermeable urban walls and barriers of human cities, heat islands of asphalt, concrete, glass, metal, waste and chaos block access for many to find and discover nature’s wonders far beyond the obvious.

But we can bring nature’s genius into our cities to help to heal a broken world and to clean up messes that humans have made….to reverse the catastrophic costs that human emissions have caused, catastrophic climate change bred in human cities in America (and beyond) that produce more waste and chaos and pain than logic and healing and beauty.

Humans want immediate, obvious, privatized, sensory satisfactions and orgasm more than they want to think about the distant future of the many and of life 40 years from now.

Humans want and need linguistic definitions and mechanical numbers and sensory experiences (not electronic substitutes) to understand their world around them, and structural objects in addition to critical flows satisfy that need to count and define, to understand in remedial or advanced terms....to give validity to our 5 senses to verify who, what, when, where, why, how.....to find meaning and links between causes and effects that help us to understand our world enough to function.

But we also need the freedom, ability and will to find access to nature’s wonders and genius to to discover productivity of critical flows and learn how to adapt to changes and to grow a more positive future for All 100% to share….even with the 1%.

This is not a matter of “ownership” ……but a matter of critical flows enabling entire systems, natural and artificial to function enough to produce outcomes enough to consume to survive day to day and minute to minute......critical flows from the cellular level to the self to earth and beyond.

So humans have developed obvious, absolute number systems and languages to understand and organize these factors, children starting with the sensory of pain and pleasure of the obvious, the private, the immediate, the everyday world of that one child's point of view.....and the child adds information to the elementary boundaries between definitions and numbers, gradually able to differentiate between what is the same and different.....and to move onto more complex observations for intellectual growth.

Humans need experiences in nature's wonders to understand that we need more than absolutes to understand science, math, economics, economics, morals and law.......especially the laws of nature far from the obvious and moral laws of reciprocity that equalize critical flows for justice and justify for equality.

Humans need to reach far beyond the obvious of only one, privatizing, obvious, immediate now to develop scientific literacy, to develop the skills to see more accurately, clearly without bias far beyond the obvious and to fill in voids to understand the whole, structures, functions, critical flows enough to produce positive outcomes enough for all to share.

Humans need nature’s genius, nature’s wonders that hide far beyond urban walls and barriers to grow upwards toward the positive……..and this explains why American cities manufacture so much crime and costs shifted onto the unsuspecting.

America could grow an amazing era of economic prosperity by greening our cities enough so that those trapped in our cities could grow what they needed free from want and fear enough to find access to the critical flows they need to consume continually.

Our cities need to count more than cash and structures.   None can survive or find happiness in cash and structures.

Humans need the critical flows produced only by nature’s amazing wonders.   Bring those green systems into our cities to produce a more positive era to share with your children, to heal a broken world.

Humans need leaders of vision and wisdom, ability and will and scientific literacy to reach beyond the obvious to grow a more positive world, rich abundance enough for All 100% to share ....even with the 1%.

Humans need nature's genius hiding in diverse, productive forests and wetlands and prairies and oceans to produce critical flows of photosynthetic, breathable oxygen as O2, water as H2O, soil to survive day to day and minute to minute....

Humans need the infinitely intricate and vast wonders of nature far beyond the obvious.....wonders hiding in nature's forests, wetlands, prairies, lands, oceans, climate, life to hold the fragile but critical web for all life intact....to enable nature to produce enough critical flows to hold integrity intact.

But ironically, human cash counts the most critical flows the least and the least critical the most, the most deadly the most:

Ironically, human cash counts the most critical and hidden flow, O2 the least, photosynthetic, breathable oxygen as O2 the least....even though humans die within minutes without O2.

Ironically, human cash counts the next most critical and hidden flow, H2O the next least....even though humans die within days without H2O.

Ironically, human cash counts the next most critical and hidden flow, soil the next least..rich, organic soil that grows food for humans to eath....even though humans die within months without food.

Ironically, we fail to ask if our cash-driven economy is logical.

Ironically, human cash counts the least critical flows of structures and artificial symbols the most, the most deadly the most, bloody diamonds and gold, dirty energy, dirty oil and dirty oil wars, dirty tar sands, dirty fricken fracken and addictions to urban sprawl that disintegrates and devalues our lives......even though many have discovered that "the best things in life are free'.....or "the best things in life aren't things".....

Ironically, humans need critical but hidden flows of breathable, photosynthetic oxygen as O2....and only as O2....but our cash systems slaughter fragile trees and forests and watersheds that produce O2 to keep humans in cities alive minute to minute.

Ironically, humans need critical flows of water as H2O.....but human cash systems crush the fragile green watersheds, trees, forests, soils, oxygenation and filtrations that clean our water to keep humans in cities alive day to day.

Ironically, humans need rich, organic topsoil and soil makers to grow forests and food for humans to eat.....but human cash systems rob and smother soil with asphalt and concrete to cause floods and hunger.....to destroy the ability of humans to grow food to keep humans alive month to month.

We can green our cities to enable the many in our cities to find safer, more affordable, more abundant and more direct access to the critical flows that they need to satisfy their many demands….to let nature do the work….to free our systems from the stress and costs of manufacturing supplies artificially, as the Garden for Eden also produced ready access to supplies Adam and Eve needed.

We can easily:

* count more than cash....value the invaluable impossible to count in cash by writing human laws that protect life's producers, life and land, nature's logic and genius far from the obvious from abuse...

·      * plant gardens in empty lots and urban wastelands to increase both economic and ecological values of those urban spaces….and turn those places into pleaseant parks

·      * turn empty rooftops into greenspace with soil and plants that absorb CO2 and other carbon molecules (such as CO) from the atmosphere to clean the air

·      * turn wasted space such as empty lots, urban wastelands, rooftops into green producers + renewable energy producers, solar farms/gardens to harvest the free flows of energy from the sun……..and possibly wind farms/gardens to harvest wind (though this is more difficult in the city), cutting energy costs for many by much to

·      * plan our urban spaces more logically ……without thoughtless, careless sprawl……to reduce the chaos and costs of urban sprawl that wastes too many resources for too many for too great of costs ….throwing too many costs onto unsuspecting, neighbors, our selves and future generations……….to invest in more logical planning for our cities, so we can:

o  live close to work or school, within walking distance and make the walks pleasant, green and clean

o  greened neighborhoods to increase productivity of critical flows of O2, H2O, soil, food, shelter, Eden to clean up human messes and fill in hungry voids of the negative that cost too many too much exponentially

o  change the course of history from a deadly tailspin into costs and consequences of global climate change caused by carbon emissions of the last 150 years….into a more positive future of renewable energy and green in our cities to power the many in a more positive direction to lift millions, billions out of poverty

o  redefine our word “economy” as more than artificial, mechanical counts of cash…..enough to value the invaluable, the priceless of nature’s genius impossible to count in human cash, cell to self to globe to produce wonders and miracles for All 100% to share….even with the 1%

o  think about the whole in addition to parts, wholes for parts, parts for wholes, structure for function, function for structure and critical flows to enable each whole, cell or self or globe to produce positive outcomes enough for others to consume enough to produce to consume, supply for demand, demand for supply forever in a living system

o  enable and encourages opposites that attract to produce energy to power the system…..hence life needing diversity to function, to find energy enough to lift us up

·      sort our “waste” more logically….because we are smarter and have the abilities to think before tossing……to understand that the world does not stop after simple consumption of simple boxes of simple commodities labeled for sales and consumption and trash to burn to fill private pocketbooks with cash and urban lands with toxics that kill.

o  Break our addiction to fossilized, dead fuels that have caused carbon emissions and global climate change that threatens the livability and survivability of cities and millions around the world, more frequent and intense megastorms that threaten to destroy the fibers that hold civilization intact and ruin lives for millions, billions

o  Divest and transition from dirty fossil fuels to a safer and more affordable and clean Renewable Energy Economy that will free millions, billions from harm….invest in a renewable energy infrastructure to lift millions, billions out of poverty asap now yesterday

o  Think beyond the simple walls of the box:  Think continuums that connect everything intricately…and it is our job to anticipate where the flow that keeps us alive comes from….and where it is going…. That we need more than boxes and stones to survive…..

o  Think potentials….that produce kinetics

o  Connect the disconnected to produce energy enough to use

o  Think positive

o  Share

o  Think creatively, about new uses for old objects and old uses for new objects, recombining, etc far beyond the obvious to connect the disconnected to repair brokens….to produce the impossible, miracles impossible in old, stagnant systems

o  Value critical flows that cleans systems, nourish systems and keep systems and All 100% healthy, alive, happy

o  Value structures and genetic structures for functions

o  Value functions and genetic functions for structures

o  Value adaptation and ability to flex, change, to find vision and wisdom enough to adapt and survive and grow

o  Think beyond the private world, the private self of only one obvious point of view now:   Think public infrastructure foundations that enable the many to find safe, affordable access to cavemen and cavewomen could not find……that humans need to find safe, affordable access to the critical flows such as O2, H2O, soil, food, shelter that nature has produced for us as “blessings”…..as humans destroy the forests, wetlands, prairies, watersheds that produce those flows…Think web for all life that nurtures all, that cleans all….

o  Think beyond the obvious, reach beyond the obvious of thick, dense, impermeable urban walls and barriers to discover nature’s wonders and genius that we need to learn scientific literacy enough to survive…

o  Think beyond the immediate and shortterm enough to reach into the future to anticipate links between causes and effects, obvious or not……positive actions causing positive reactions slowly through time to lift all up to light enough to produce abundant riches of earth enough for All 100% to share….even with the 1%....and negative actions causing tailspins downwards to suck all down into gravity easy, cheap, quick.

o  Think inalienable structures and functions and critical flows to produce more positive outcomes for All to share….sharing the key word…..all living organisms sharing and filtering, selecting parts of ancient air and water and chemical cycles that all life filters, reorganizing those chemicals, structures, functions to pass on to the next.

o  Help each urban city develop a “fix-it” shop to repair usable objects enough to funnel back into the marketplace…..such as appliances and other electrical objects, furniture, broken but repairable objects that can be repaired with innovation, imagination, art and science, efforts and infrastructure to enable that rescue.   Iowa City, Iowa has a world-class university with world-class departments, including an engineering department, art department, department of urban and regional planning, business school and students from many nations who have probably learned to repair objects that would be tossed in the US’s “throw away society”.

o  Nature wastes little because nature’s currency is the critical flows invisible to human eyes that include all living organisms, exchanging supplies and demands logically with genius…..to clean up human messes as in “phytoremediation”…..a method of cleaning up human toxics and meeting clean water standards by planting poplar trees and other vegetation to prevent runoff from entering streams.

o  Human economies need to get with it and redefine their words “waste” and “resource”  as more than structures and thnings….so that we break our categories and definition into smaller units….into more digestable pieces instead of huge, unconsumable chunks and boxes……so that “waste” becomes “resource” by breaking it into smaller, more usable parts (as nature breaks huge/toxic molecules into smaller/healthier units)……by redefininig it so that more can  recognize and use it more successfully….But many of our current urban systems fail to recycle at all ….or limit the recyclable types to just a few definitions such as “cardboard”…”mixed papers”   “clear glass”….”colored glass”….plastics of several types…..metals of several types….or collect all recyclables in only one container….or worse, turn all categories in a careless trash can into fire to produce “energy” irresponsibly, releasing too many toxics into our atmosphere

o  Think fun and humor to help to heal the sick and wounded…..to help the child to distinguish between good and bad and other definitions difficult to understand….to see points of view of the other and the self

·      Nature’s genius and abilities to produce critical flows for survival, satisfaction and happiness can potentially pull millions, billions out of poverty to enable the many to find time and energy and resources to spend on creative, positive and productive activities/recretion/hobbies that enable us to grow a more  positive civilization to help to lead the world toward a more positive future together……..but we need to count more than simple, obvious, privatizing numbers of human cash systems…..and learn to value and protect the invaluable, the priceless impossible to count in human cash.

Can we redefine our word “economy” as more than mechanical, artificial, homogenous numbers of cash to save our own childrens’ futures?

Yes.

Ironically, solid, strong human made steel looks strong.....but it rusts and cracks through time....and a spider's web is stronger than human-made steel unit per unit.   Nature knows.