page_title: Albert Bates
section_title: Life and work
hierarchical_section_title: Albert Bates / Life and work
caption_attribution_description: English: Albert K. Bates works on a Kaypro-10 computer from his home at The Farm in Summertown Tennessee in 1981. In the back deck of Laughing Creek Lodge overlooking the Cox Branch of the Swan Creek.
context_page_description: Albert Kealiinui Bates is an influential figure in the intentional community and ecovillage movements. A lawyer, author and teacher, he has been director of the Global Village Institute for Appropriate Technology since 1984 and of the Ecovillage Training Center at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, since 1994.
  Bates has been a resident of The Farm since 1972. A former attorney, he argued environmental and civil rights cases before the U.S. Supreme Court and drafted a number of legislative Acts during a 26-year legal career. The holder of a number of design patents, Bates invented the concentrating photovoltaic arrays and solar-powered automobile displayed at the 1982 World's Fair. He served on the steering committee of Plenty International for 18 years, focussing on relief and development work with indigenous peoples, human rights and the environment. An emergency medical technician, he was a founding member of The Farm Ambulance Service. He was also a licensed Amateur Radio operator.
context_section_description: Bates first came to national prominence in 1978 when he sued to shut down the entire U.S. nuclear fuel cycle from mines to waste repositories. The case, which went four times to the United States Supreme Court and was later profiled in a law review article  and two books, was ultimately unsuccessful but raised troubling questions about the health effects of nuclear energy and the ethical dimensions — and civil liberties implications — of the federal role in promoting power deployment while actively suppressing and concealing public health effects.
  Bates has played a major role in the ecovillage movement as one of the organizers of the Global Ecovillage Network  (GEN), and served as GEN's chairman of the board (from 2002 to 2003) and president (from 2003 to 2004). He was also the principal organizer of the Ecovillage Network of the Americas and served as its president (from 1996 to 2003).  In 1994 he founded the Ecovillage Training Center, a "whole systems immersion experience of ecovillage living." He has taught courses in sustainable design, natural building, permaculture and technologies of the future to students from more than 50 nations.
  Bates' Climate in Crisis (1990) was the first book published on web (rolled paper) press using a 100% recycled product without chemically removing clays or inks. Since then, he has been planting a private forest to sequester carbon dioxide and related greenhouse gas emissions from travel, business and personal activities. At 40 acres under mixed-age, mixed-species, climate-resilient management, primarily being managed for ecosystem services, that forest now annually plants itself as it expands.
caption: Albert K. Bates works on a Kaypro-10 computer from his home at The Farm in Summertown, Tennessee, in 1981
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