Kathryn Milun

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I am the founder/director of the Solar Commons Project (SCP), which is co-creating community trust ownership of solar energy as a new model of equitable community solar. We are prototyping Solar Commons in the US with the aim of establishing a free, open source "toolkit" of legal and digital dashboard/peer-governance tools that allow underserved communities to transparently partner with a solar host and receive solar savings as a dedicated 20 year revenue stream to support their reparative justice community work. Solar Commons also use public art as the community's "deed of equitable title" showing how the sun's common wealth is accessed for common good. In 2023, Solar Commons received a US Dept of Energy "Sunny Award for Equitable Community Solar" and students on the "Solar Commons Team" at the University of Minnesota won first place in the National Renewable Energy Lab's US Solar District Cup Collegiate Design competition for their 500kW Solar Commons carve out on a 3MW university campus rooftop solar micro grid design. Solar Commons (SC) are a community economy tool for a just energy transition. Over the next ten years, SC can keep billions of dollars at work in local communities. You can see more of our work at https://solarcommonsproject.org/ and https://www.solarcommons.org/ We are part of the great, experimental "commons" work needed to demonstrate how appropriate technology can combine with community ownership and public art to empower just, local sustainability solutions.

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Noel B. Salazar

KU Leuven

Mariya Ivancheva

University of Strathclyde, Glasgow

Andreas Umland

National University of "Kyiv-Mohyla Academy"

Javier Díaz Noci

Pompeu Fabra University

Armando Marques-Guedes

UNL - New University of Lisbon

Martin O'Neill

University of York

George Lawson

The Australian National University

Gary Feinman

Field Museum

Simon Springer

The University of Newcastle

Carlos A. Scolari

Pompeu Fabra University

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Papers by Kathryn Milun

The Northland Solar Commons: An Industry, University and Tribal Community Partnership to Use the Sun’s Common Wealth for Reparative Justice in Northern Minnesota

Springer eBooks, 2022

The Political Uncommons

Contents: Introduction An emergent global commons: biodiversity - a case study of how culture bec... more Contents: Introduction An emergent global commons: biodiversity - a case study of how culture becomes law and nature becomes empty space Part I Res Nullius/Terra Nullius and the Epistemic Imaginary of International Law: Terra nullius, res nullius and res communis: a conceptual confusion of terms Res nullius - the tragedy of the (modern global) commons: from Grotius and the high seas to the internet Covering res that move: theory and practice: whales as res divini juris The law of the seas extended vertically into the law of outer space and the law of outer space reterritorializing the Earth. Part II Two Cases of the Revocation of Terra Nullius: the Western Sahara case: genealogies captured by the census Negotiations and the Mabo case: comparative epistemic imaginaries. Conclusion: beyond empty space - expanding the epistemological repertoire of the global commons through biofigural and technological imaginaries Bibliography Index.

Breathing Space: How Allergies Shape Our Lives and Landscapes

Environmental Justice, Mar 1, 2008

... Copyright ∫ 2007 by Gregg Mitman. ... heat, ﬁlth, and dust of the cities in mid-August each y... more

Solar Commons: A “Commons Option” for the 21<sup>st</sup>Century

The American Journal of Economics and Sociology, May 1, 2020

Dead Voices: Natural Agonies in the New World

Ethnohistory, 1994

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Designing Diversity, Service, and Active Learning For the Common Good in an Undergraduate Computer Science Course

2021 International Conference on Computational Science and Computational Intelligence (CSCI)

Konstrukcija jednodijelnog kupaćeg kostima za žene sa urostomom

Sveučilište u Zagrebu. Tekstilno-tehnološki fakultet. Zavod za odjevnu tehnologiju., Jul 16, 2020

Osobe kojima je izvedena urostoma imaju posebne potrebe i vrlo često problema s pristalim odjevni... more Osobe kojima je izvedena urostoma imaju posebne potrebe i vrlo često problema s pristalim odjevnim predmetima. U radu je prikazana konstrukcija jednodijelnog kupaćeg kostima za žene sa urostomom. Kupaći kostimi su oblikovani i konstruirani na način da ženama s urostomom omogući neometano kretanje u uvjetima male prekrivenosti tijela odjećom. Tjelesne mjere su uzete u sjedećem i stojećem položaju s praznom i punom vrećicom (urostome). Funkcionalnost kupaćeg kostima postignuta je konstrukcijskim elementima koji ne narušavaju estetsku komponentu odjevnog predmeta

The Twentieth-Century Urban Commons The Urban Freeway

Routledge, Oct 18, 2013

Governing Solar Benefits as a Transparent, Local Common Good: The Solar Commons Dashboard

Springer proceedings in energy, 2023

BRINGING NEW LIGHT TO ONE OF THE OLDEST FORMS OF PROPERTY OWNERSHIP: AN INNOVATIVE SOLUTION FOR BENEFITTING UNDERSERVED COMMUNITIES USING THE SOLAR COMMONS COMMUNITY TRUST MODEL

Vermont Law Review, 2023

This Article presents a new ownership model for distributed solar energy in the United States: th... more This Article presents a new ownership model for distributed solar energy in the United States: the Solar Commons Community Trust Model (SCCTM). Designed and realized by the authors, the SCCTM uses trust law to create an ownership vehicle to hold solar energy assets and distribute their benefits to low-income communities. The Solar Commons model is contrasted with current "community solar" models, which pass on to individual households the monetary savings from a remotely located solar energy array. The SCCTM passes the solar energy savings of a remotely located solar energy array into a Solar Commons trust and makes those trust funds into a "common good" benefiting a whole community through the charitable purposes of the Solar Commons trust agreement. This Article lays out the practical steps of creating low-income community benefits using the SCCTM. We address legal ramifications and policy barriers that can be overcome, drawing on details of Solar Commons prototypes designed by the authors in Arizona and Minnesota. This Article also describes how the SCCTM fits into the historical framework of trust law as a tool of legal reform thanks to the use of trusts as practical solutions to equity issues arising in dominant property regimes. Based on the historical evolution of trust law, this Article evaluates why features of trust ownership such as equitable title, fiduciary duty to beneficiaries, trust protectorship, and intergenerational equity are appropriate tools for solving equity issues facing 21st-century technology and policies underlying solar energy as a common good. In placing the

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Returning to Eastern Europe

Perilous states: conversations on culture, politics, and …, 1993

KATHRYN MILUN"""""" RETURNING TO EASTERN EUROPE I first went to Hun... more KATHRYN MILUN"""""" RETURNING TO EASTERN EUROPE I first went to Hungary on a student scholarship in 1979. A wannabe Marxist, I had just started straining my uncritical faculties on Gyorgy Lukacs's History and Class Consciousness. It was time, I thought, to live in a ...

A Scoping Review Examining Governance, Co-Creation, and Social and Ecological Justice in Living Labs Literature

Challenges

Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly being used as an approach to address complex sustainability-re... more Living Labs (LLs) are increasingly being used as an approach to address complex sustainability-related challenges. Inspired by existing knowledge and practice gaps, calls for further examination of governance and co-creation in relation to LLs work, and our experiences in the Lake Superior Living Labs Network, we conducted a scoping review of the recent (2015–2019) LLs literature. This review focused on peer-reviewed LLs literature aimed at addressing sustainability-related challenges and involving universities as key collaborators specifically. This scoping review addressed the research questions: how are LLs conceptualized, described, and applied? how are LLs governed? How is co-creation supported in LLs work? and, are social and/or environmental justice considered in LLs work? From the 729 citations gathered in the electronic database searches, 48 papers were identified as relevant through the screening and eligibility assessment. We found that this literature is growing rapidly,...

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Artist's Statement: Warli Village Solar Trust

Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

Artist’s Statement for the cover art of IJPS volume 8, issue 2: Warli Village Solar Trust, rice p... more

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Solar Commons: Designing Community Trust Solar Ownership for Social Equity

In the United States, the sun shines for everyone, but many are left out from the economic benefi... more In the United States, the sun shines for everyone, but many are left out from the economic benefits of the renewable energy transition. Community solar, meant to provide ownership and subscription options to those without the means, often stretch the imagination in how they use the word “community.” Is an investor-owned utility that offers its customers the opportunity to subsidize the utility’s solar-generated electricity with a higher price on their electricity bill really an example of “community solar”? What do we mean when we say “community solar” in the United States today? And how can we build a model of community solar that serves low-income communities and “the common good”? This study introduces a new model of community solar called “Solar Commons.” Solar Commons are solar energy systems that use community trust-ownership to deliver commonwealth benefits to low-income communities. Using the cultural history of community land trusts and the creative potential of trust law a...

Terra Nullius, Res Nullius and Res Communis: A Conceptual Confusion of Terms

The Art of Wrought Ironwork in Hungary

Pathologies of modern space

The Role of Public Art in Solar Commons Institution-Building: Community Voices from an Essential Partnership among Artists, Community Solar Researchers, and Activists

Interdisciplinary Journal of Partnership Studies

In this urgent decade when American democracy faces the challenge of decarbonizing the U.S. elect... more In this urgent decade when American democracy faces the challenge of decarbonizing the U.S. electric grid and assuring that the economic benefits of our energy transition are equitably shared, many solar energy researchers and activists are searching for new ways to partner with the civic sector. Instead of treating energy users as passive customers, experts understand the importance of engaging community as active decision-makers, beneficiaries, and communicators for a just energy transition. Distributed solar technology offers more democratic potential than small savings on individuals’ electric bills. Energy experts working on the Solar CommonsÔ community solar model at the University of Minnesota are piloting demonstration projects with community partners in Arizona and Minnesota. These solar commons aggregate savings through power purchase agreements that create 25-year peer-governed revenue streams to support mutual aid and reparative justice work in neighborhoods. This articl...

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Res Nullius—The Tragedy of the (Modern Global) Commons: From Grotius and the High Seas to the Internet

Solar Commons: A “Commons Option” for the 21 st Century

American Journal of Economics and Sociology

The Northland Solar Commons: An Industry, University and Tribal Community Partnership to Use the Sun’s Common Wealth for Reparative Justice in Northern Minnesota

Springer eBooks, 2022

The Political Uncommons