At this year’s educational conference in July, Preservation Maryland had the pleasure of welcoming as our keynote a speaker and author whose work is leading the way for partnerships between preservationists and environmentalists, Storm Cunningham and have published to YouTube a high-quality video of his enlightening preservation:
Storm Cunningham is the publisher of Revitalization News and the author of The Restoration Economy, reWealth, and the forthcoming, Planetary Renewal: A Strategy To Reverse Our Decline. As a regional partnership planner he has facilitated comprehensive revitalization processes, not just a vision, project or plan which help places enhance their economy, boost quality of life and increase climate resilience by repurposing, renewing and reconnecting their natural built and socioeconomic assets.
Storm joined our group of preservationists, planners and heritage tourism and museum professionals to show the group how they can think differently about who they partner with and what benefit comes from those partnerships. If we want to make the world a better and more sustainable place, we need to breakdown the silos each discipline has wedge themselves. One example Storm shared was a potential relationship between water people and solar people. Instead of saying we have nothing in common, think about your goals and how they overlap. Solar people want to solar panels to make clean energy and water people want to get safe and clean water long distances. Water evaporates unless it is covered, so why not cover the water channels with solar panels? This is a win win. More energy and less water loss.