By Tom Braford
The 4th of July is always marked by pomp, circumstance, sound and fury, but this year it will also mark the quiet beginnings of a global “Clear the Air” campaign initiated right here in St. Louis by Irresistible Community Builders, LLC.
Our intention is to expand this into a citywide, then regional and eventually international public/private partnership to Clear the Air. We will focus initially on St. Louis and other cities with dangerously polluted air until everyone on the planet, wherever they may live, can breathe deep.
What makes this possible is a package of patented devices that connect to existing HVAC cooling towers on tall buildings with no new inputs of power. They are able to scrub the pollutants out of large volumes of air.
Preliminary studies show that the air in cities like St. Louis can be substantially cleaned up within a year and kept clean while we go after the sources of the pollutants to permanently solve the problem.
This initiative is all about engaging the community. We are planning tandem pilot projects for both this air purification device and our prototype Ecovillage community in the Central West End.
The plan for the community is to be a negative carbon, regeneration and reconciliation Ecovillage, NCRREV for short.
Together they form our Just Transition to the new green clean economy. It is a strategy which is modelled after the City of St Louis’ Equitable Economic Development Framework that was rolled out a year ago.
What makes it a Just Transition is our commitment to equitable, bold development based on educational training and development opportunities leading to jobs, co-op business ownership opportunities, and affordable, diverse, community-based home ownership within Ecovillages that could soon be created in your neighborhood.
Next month we will explain how these combined initiatives will significantly contribute to the race to zero carbon and why that is necessary.
To learn how you can get involved, contact us at:
braford@sbcglobal.net
www.ArizmendiEcovillage.com