WORTHY ACTIONABLE LIST OF PROJECTS (The WALOP)
When our charity had its 25th Anniversary, we patted ourselves on the back for making it this far and the chunk of goals we have already met. Then we thought… hmm, what will the next 25+ years… say the year 2050… look like? What do we want it to look like? How do merge these?
At MofT, we love a list and a long-term plan. Therefore, we decided to sit down with the knowledge that we have accrued, the experts we have garnered, and the hopes we have heard from youth, the young at heart, the wise and sage.
We decided that our Research and Executive Teams would devote a large part of 2024 to preparing our most audacious program yet: The Worthy, Actionable List of Projects for 2025-2050 (aka The WALOP). This is correlated with Matter of Trust’s own comprehensive Strategic and Implementation Plan through 2030.
We started listing problems, every global, local, social problem we could think of (we’re at 500+). Currently, we are in triage mode. Just as we’d hoped repeating, overlapping solutions are emerging. Natural, common sense, low-tech, high-tech, practical, multipronged, and doable.
We love to study and work with utopian modelers (if you are one please join us). Next we bring in the Eeyors, naysayers, haters and whiners – ironically, the most helpful of the group. Then, the implementors, fixers, realists, innovators get to work.
At Matter of Trust we lean heavily on a Merlin Exercise. After we have the goal, we know that in order to be there in 2050, we need to work backwards, looking at all that had to already be in place by 2045, 2040, 2035, 2030, 2027 and 2025.
As we chisel away at this block of marbel, chipping away everything that isn’t the statue of the horse, as Michaelangelo would say, some things are becoming very clear.
Most outrageously, we really need to take this idea one step further – and why not do this in the year 2030. Let’s ask humanity – anyone who wants to take part in this Mission Impossible (not just mission very, very hard) to put Planet over Profit for 12 months.
On the 366th day, everyone (corporations, governments, households…) can go back to destructive habits. All we ask is that for one year we pour all of our efforts and extra money (and we have found excellent sources of misspent funds for this) into activities beneficial to all life. This way, we can all look younger generations in the eye and say, “Yes, we knew what to do. When to do it. And, we did it.”
We live in interesting times, as they say. That has a silver lining, if you want to find one. Life would be dead boring and purposeless if there existed obvious ways to solve every Earthly problem. Phew, we’ve dodged a bullet there! Turns out we have more than enough troubles to go around for as far as the mind’s eye can see. Also, our species is excellent at creating new problems all the time.
The WALOP, therefore, is a living document. We may be optimists, but we are pragmatists and reasonable. We understand that this is, firstly, only an exercise in sorting and, secondly, in careful execution of what can and should be done, as soon as possible, working with nature.
How everyone can join in…
This entails the largest of mobilizations (for example COVID’s awareness campaign took 3 months to go global, humans are good spreaders of information – let’s use this to the planet’s advantage).
It will be extremely important to “know thyself” as it were:
Are you a Big Picture type?
Are you happier working with people one on one?
Do you tend to get exhausted by drama or are you drawn to / energized by doom porn?
Do you prefer leading, working in committees, teams or solo?
Are you happier indoors, outdoors, online, elbow deep in mud, by the water, in the desert, forrest, urban jungle…?
Are you most comfortable doing, helping, reporting, documenting, studying, teaching, paying…?
What do you avoid?
Where does time fly for you?
Where does time drag?
What do you do for free?
Do you like beauty?
Are you organized?
Are you comfy in chaos?
Are you generally happy, do you light up a room?
Do you reserve your joy for when it feels true and right?
Are you predominantly protective, dreamy, zen, intense, concerned, driven, overwhelmed, hardworking, most effective in sprints and spurts or fiddling till you get it right?
Does quality time, acts of service, gift giving, words of affirmation, or sensory connection dominent your love language?
Are you a Cassandra? Don’t suffer fools lightly? Can you see though the crap?
When TSHTF are you likely to Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, Flop, Film, Function, Follow…?
Are you most comfortable in the “don’t put me in a box” box?
This last one has long been a favorite of the environmental movement which attracts independent thinkers who ultimately find wonderful connections and community that “think outside the box.”
There is something for everyone in the WALOP and we get that it takes all kinds to make a world. Everyone is all of the above at one point or another in life and part of this project is to (flexibly – as we are big believers in freedom and free will) match the work to who will do it best and happiest.
We don’t reinvent a wheel, unless we are making a tire. After compiling as many methods for categorizing and understanding people as we can find, we now also provide an initial simplified loose methodology to help our own teams find strengths and comfort zones for people joining this endeavor.
At its core The WALOP is about the golden rule. Everyone needs to feel as comfortable as possible in this giant society for it to be made to last.
So where do we start?… Low hanging fruit for the wins! There are so many silly things we are doing that all humans dislike doing and that are bad for the planet. Seems obvious to commence with these. See our Start Smart / Stop Silly column. These can be tackled locally and everywhere, documented on social media and promoted by influencers. When anyone finds places that do things right – they must be heralded, replicated and celebrated far and wide! Examples: Implement Dog poo composters at dog parks so that we don’t bend down to wrap up smelly feces to carry home and trash in plastic where it will simmer for 200+ years.
We’d love your advice, help, suggestions and energy. This interactive program will be IRL (in real life via fieldwork, office work, factory work and lab work) and URL (online via Hum Sum Community Forums). Highlights and updates will be here and on all of our social media platforms.
Alright… roll up your sleeves and let’s dive on in!
Every backyard could have an urban edible garden, tiny home, and chicken coop.
The front doors of the Eco-Home, with our hobbit doors made of 60% recycled car parts and scrap metal.
The Method
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PHASE 1
BRAINSTORMING
First, 2024 is devoted to the process of simply listing every major environmental and social challenge to life on Earth that we can find. A total exercise in doom porn, only recommended for those who are energized by this – usually means you harbor a savior complex. If that isn’t you, please keep reading, there are tasks for everyone. See our list of Modes & Complexes that we have found we (all) have and how we think they are helping us with this project!
We have listed 500+ ecological (study of life in environments) “problems” varying in impact, urgency, remedy… from asteroids to pandemics, nuclear meltdown to solar flare, cluster bombs and landmines to wildfires, broad mental health concerns to self-medicating opioid addiction, digital divide to digital overload, war to ocean plastics, homelessness to food insecurity, big pharma overstep to animal cruelty, siloed education to corporate greed, mining to deforestation, … If you see anything that should be added to our list please discuss on The WALOP – Hum Sum Community Forum or contact us team@matteroftrust.org
Fallin’ for Harvest Time Open House 2019!
PHASE 2
SORTING
Next, we are starting the grouping, researching, compiling, peg-holing, cross-referencing… all that we can… with plenty of room for outliers. We have thousands of articles and papers on eco-solutions to mix and match with the list of challenges. This is our speciality. We love doing this! AND we can use all the help we can get!
What we need to do most is find what nature-based solutions fix a lot problems with one fell swoop. “Gaia has been around for over 4 billion years, we need to ask her first!” (Thanks to our dear friend Janine Benyus of Biomimicry.org for that superb quote!)
Our favorite buckets are the blaringly obvious ones that we call START SMART / STOP SILLY STUFF. For example, who thougth it was a good idea to put plastic stickers on fruit? Or seal lettuce into plastic bags – why not use fruit dye markers and paper bags?
Primary Category(ies):
Fresh Air
Clear Water
Fire (Energy)
Earth (Materials)
Life
& Beyond…
Awareness
Incentives
Perspectives
Convenience Levels
Empowered Masses
Engagement
Greed / Fear of Lack / Greater Good
Empathy / Golden Rule
Art / Sponsors / Ads
Edutainment / Fun / Play / Discovery
Partners & Networks
Hope / Optimism / Trust
Love
The Criteria
This is a living document that fits within our Mission: Linking Surplus with Needs. Our ultimate goals are to encourages optimism and trust in Nature’s abundant cycles.
Organization, connection and direction are key for humanity to thrive in harmony with Earth.
Project Name:
Challenge Triage Buckets:
Low Hanging Fruit:
Start Smart / Do more good stuff you like
Stop Silly / Don’t do bad stuff you hate doing
Multi-Impact Crossovers
Ask Nature First
Trust in Natural Abundance
Cycles
Integration
Self Healing
Rates, Scale, Shape
Self Organizing
Right Sizing
Adaptation
Manmade Surplus
Infrastructure
Alternatives
Systems
Sorting
Deconstruction / Disassembly
Life Cycle Assessment
Quality
The List
Let’s start with the LOW HANGING FRUIT –
START SMART / STOP STUPID SILLY STUFF:
AKA the bad, annoying stuff humans already want to stop and the fun, easy, obvious stuff we are excited to start.
Stop: STICKERS ON FRUIT – They are so annoying to remove. They are most commonly made of petroleum based plastic (thus contributing to our planet’s microplastics problem) and are, somewhat surprisingly, eaten or juiced accidentally by thousands of people daily. They do not decompose or biodegrade. They contain “pressure sensitive adhesives”. These contain surfactants which are toxic for the reproductive system. Fruits and vegetable which are sold in open markets have higher permissibility of migration of chemicals in fruits because of heat and sunlight.
Who: Shoppers please ask your grocers how you can help them so they don’t need to have these stickers (awareness, pilot study, meetings with owners / corporate offices, friendly petition, Hum Sum Polls…). Request they just use natural food based dye marks (made of beet, carrot, blueberry, spinach… e.g., King Arthur,™ Color Garden,™ Watkins™…). While we’re at it, let’s rid ourselves of non-compostable, plastic and metal ties on all of our produce and bread bags.
Stop: PICKING UP DOG POO IN PLASTIC BAGS – Plastic bags can take up to 700 years to decompose. Poo is fertilizer and can easily be composted. Microbes and flies naturally break down the manmade chemicals in flea and heart worm medicines as well as all of the natural waste. The methane quickly off gasses (unlike the harmful plastics). Ideally all neighborhoods should have dog parks.
There should be large dog poo / green waste composting pits all over cities where dogs are allowed to go do their business freely and sniff the deposits to their heart’s content. Dog snouts are clearly doing a lot of data downloading of which humans are not capable. Who are we to stop their flow of information? Dogs are pack animals by nature, yet so many live alone, it’s kindest to let them live and smell a little.
Pet waste compost, like green waste compost, is vital for plants. It plays a vital part in natural cycles in both urban and rural environments. Here is a study that explains more… https://matteroftrust.org/the-fate-of-pharmaceutical-compounds-in-thermophilic-compost/
Who: Dog owners / walkers
Start: EDIBLE CITIES
Plant female trees in cities to counter how governments only plant male trees which produce far too much pollen and inflame allergies. Nature will happily provide food security for people and animals everywhere. Female nut and fruit bearing trees planted all over is a no brainer and helps multiple challenges. Yes these trees may drop ripe yummies onto cars… so nets will be necessary or volunteer pickers. Alternatively, plant them in parks, playgrounds, away from curbs and have dirt below to absorb whatever drops. It’s not rocket science and very doable with a bit of planning and cooperation. Find your inner Johnny Appleseed! Like this Hero – Gene DeSantis https://baltimorebrew.com/2011/10/24/gene-desantis-baltimores-unsung-johnny-appleseed
Many municipalities have old, forgotten laws that allow homeowners and some renters to have chickens, ducks, goats, bees, even horses and, of course, vegetables, nuts and fruits in their gardens.
If neighbors agree, combine gardens ideally with gates or by removing fences so city blocks can have enclosed, interior, safe, private park areas where chickens can run free during the day. Have a designated bee hive area. Ducks are great too, but they need some sort of pond for waterfowl. Goats will naturally mow lawns and control pests. Plant fruit and nut trees. Separately, have gated protected areas for veggie gardens as goats will be a little too interested!
This way a block could have access to eggs, honey, milk, cheese, lots of fruits, nuts and vegetables as well as meat occasionally… Any neighborhoods next to rivers and coast lines have access to fishing – which also needs stewardship of clean waterways (see our Hair Matters Program – Clean Wave Projects and Partners).
Who: Civic planners for urban forestry, home owners, gardeners, renters with green thumbs, fishermen, goatherds, beekeepers…
Stop: MAKING / ACCEPTING PLASTIC SINGLE USE SPOONS / FORKS / KNIVES / SPORKS / STRAWS
You know you have an overflowing drawerfull. And you feel guilty throwing them away. An estimated 40 billion plastic utensils per year are disposed of in USA alone.
Plastic cutlery can take up to 1,000 years to decompose naturally. However, over decades they break down into toxic microplastics that get into the environment. They are made of petroleum based BPA and when you put them into the dishwasher and reuse they break down releasing BPA (Bisphenol A) which is linked to issues such as infertility, diabetes, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Be sure to check the box that says No Cutlery when ordering food for delivery to your home.
Use reusable metal cutlery at home. You can buy new or 2nd hand, it can be reused and disinfected easily and forever. Carry your own set with a napkin / bag in your pocket, purse, backpack, car… Offer sets as a gift… e.g.,
https://sustainability.ucdavis.edu/zerowaste
Prosumer Choice – Amazon
Who: Fast food eaters, delivery orderers, party planners, everyone…
Start: SAVING WINE CORKS – SORTING NATURAL CORK FROM SYNTHETIC CORK
Check out our projects that work with restaurants, liquor stores and wineries collecting used wine corks. We use these as natural floatation material in our hair booms for oil spills. The synthetic corks are mixed with laundry lint (which full of microplastics) and encapsulated in our insulation cubes project for tiny homes.
Who: wine drinkers, wineries, restaurants, bars, party planners…
Stop: USED MOTOR OIL DUMPING INTO STORM DRAINS – Every liter of illegally dumped used motor oil can contaminate up to 1 million liters of fresh water. There are many places you can get your motor oil changed inexpensively and cleanly. Also, most hardware stores and mechanics have hazardous material disposal collection systems. Call your local government to locate the best drop off location near you.
Who: Car owners (non-EV), DIY car lovers, Boat Owners…
Stop: LANDMINES & CLUSTER BOMBS Manufacturing & Laying
5 Million new landmines are laid per year. They cost $30 to make and $1000 to remove. The 110M current landmines would already cost $100B to remove. Annually @ 200,000 are removed or intentionally set off with @ 200 / year “De-miner” deaths . The only people who don’t have the incentive to stop landmines are people who make landmines, and they can make something else.
Landmines hurt indiscriminately and destroy the environment causing 5,000 deaths & 20,000 injuries / year. And nooo.. they should not be used to surround protected areas as animals can also set them off. Toxic explosive chemicals, soil erosion, and wildlife destruction for decades after the political conflict is forgotten.
Who: Governments & Manufacturers
General Public: Be aware, engaged, speak up, discuss and point out the obvious. Politics and war are uncomfortable topics, however, if you’re looking for a way forward through diplomacy and common ground start by stopping money flows to this where clearly nobody wins in the long-term (people nor planet).
Start: Connecting
Network like-minded, local entities on a global scale (restaurants / bars, hair salons, pet groomers, mechanics, plumbers, repair shops, community gardens, refill stores, recyclers, composters, volunteer centers, makers fairs, artisans, green builders, green products… find which WALOP topics interest them the most.
Meet–ups Hold community Hum Summits, to review local WALOPs quarterly, at local libraries, fire stations or polling sites (which are already established with funded local government departments at convenient locations and only activated around elections).
Create neighborhood exchange nooks for tools, books, kids items, senior items, crafts materials for teachers etc. using thehumsum.org to save money and reduce waste.
Organize “Peace of Mind Kits” as ecological complements to disposable disaster relief kits and set up in schools and senior centers as a way to build connections, bring down fears and empower the general public.
Who: Seniors, students, concerned citizens, everybody…
Check back soon… more to come…
Why this matters?
You may encounter personal and global challenges in your lifetime. The bigger the opportunity for change, the better it is to have clear ideas of the obstacles and opportunities. The WALOP is simply a roadmap of all the most crucial work we can find and a methodical breakdown into manageable tasks, solutions and networks of supportive teams for this and future generations.
What can I do?
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We are always evolving and welcome new ideas, partners, contributions and emails. We have a very optimistic view of the future and love meeting others who are very fond of this lovely planet!
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“When you give, you get back tenfold.”
Now, that’s a great exchange rate!
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