Written by Rachel Stern Ithaca Journal rstern@gannett.com

Instead of blue jeans and green Greater Ithaca Activities Center Conservation Corps T-shirts, Susan Cosentini thought they should wear red capes and blue shorts like Superman.

She suggested this wardrobe change to eight 13-year-olds who were taking apart two old barns on Aurora Street Monday afternoon. The barns, which Cosentini owns, were being dismantled and salvaged to make way for three new sustainable homes to be built on-site.

“Basically, you people are the change agents in the world,” she said to the group of students. “I will be dead when the benefit of all this starts to happen, so hopefully you and your children will benefit from it. By working here today, you are saving the world.”

Finger Lakes ReUse teamed up with the GIAC Summer Conservation Corps to take down the barns and salvage the building materials. Then, Cosentini’s New Earth Living LLC will build The Aurora Dwelling Circle in place of the barns. (more…)

If everyone on Earth lived as Americans do, we would need 5 Earths to sustain us.

In fact, we only have this ONE perfect little blue miracle we live on.

The ™ initiative asserts that through our combined efforts, intention and creativity we can reduce the ecological footprint of 5 people or 5 households down to that of one person or one household.

The aim is that all 7 billion of us, as well as generations to come, live respectfully and sustainably on this precious, staggeringly beautiful planet. (more...)

By Anne Marie Cummings in Tompkins Weekly

Susan Cosentini and Rob Morache at the communal garden of the Aurora Dwelling Circle.

The Aurora Dwelling Circle
(ADC) brings the principals of
EcoVillage to downtown Ithaca.
Susan Cosentini, of Cosentini Construction and New Earth Living
is at the helm of  ADC, a pilot project located
at 519-523 N. Aurora St. She will receive $25,000,
a portion of the federal grant, for energy modeling
and monitoring equipment .
Cosentini expects the groundbreaking
for the pilot project, with a total estimated cost
of $800,000, to happen in late summer or early
fall.
As the founder and owner of New Earth
Living, as well as the developer of the ADC and
future dwelling circles, Cosentini is thrilled.
“Dwelling circles are small, urban eco-villages
of five to eight households, supporting neighbor
relationships and resource sharing, while
respecting privacy and individuality,” she
explains. Dwelling Circles offer complete, individual
dwelling units, with shared indoor and outdoor
spaces for social gatherings, recreation,
and other uses such as a bike garage, workshop,
yard and garden, root cellar, basement storage
area and a large kitchen and entertainment area
available for community dinners.
One of eight advisors on New Earth Living’s
board is James Howard Kunstler, an expert in
suburban and urban development and peak oil,
as well as the author of “The Geography of
Nowhere” and “The Long Emergency.” “New
Earth Living is doing a great job of re-thinking
the way we live in the U.S.A. as the fiasco of suburbia
becomes more and more self-evidently
crazy,” he says.
Riane Eisler, another New Earth Living board
member, is a social scientist and the bestselling
author of “The Chalice and the Blade” and “The
Real Wealth of Nations.” “This paradigm shifting,
comprehensive approach to living offers a
new model for people to live in partnership with
each other and the earth,” she says. (more…)

Expert in suburban and urban development and Best selling author, of The Geography of Nowhere, and The Long Emergency, J Howard Kunstler: “NewEarthLiving is doing a great job of re-thinking the way we live in the USA as the fiasco of suburbia become more and more self-evidently crazy.”

Riane Eisler: Eminent social scientist.  Bestselling author of  The Chalice and the Blade and The Real Wealth of Nations and president of the Center for Partnership Studies.  “I enthusiastically support New Earth Living and the Dwelling Circle concept, this paradigm shifting, comprehensive approach to living offers a new model for people to live in partnership with each other and the earth!”

When Brian and Colleen Ducey’s two adult children moved out, their large empty home on a quiet dead-end street in Seattle suddenly lost its homey feel.

They looked for something smaller, but their only options were condominiums — until they saw an ad for an unusual new development just across city limits in Shoreline, Wash.: Eight cottages around a central garden. The first view from the access drive was the gable of a commons building and colorful rooftops jutting up behind it.

One look at the charming cluster of small homes (less than 1,000 square feet) and the Duceys put money down, sold their house and moved in five weeks later. (more…)

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