Last updated 4.16.24. 

Prologue

Review this specialized membership application page only if you are seriously interested in joining the Universe One Bellingham urban or rural CSV or if you want to create a local CSV version of your own modeled after the Universe One CSV. 

To apply to Universe One Bellingham be sure you have read this page first!

If you are new to CSV, please click here to go to our new, far less complex ClimateSafe Village website to start exploring the many positive possibilities.

Introduction

After discussing this with other CSV team members, it was decided that each CSV location would create its own membership applications and requirements. The following is what we are using for the unique Universe One version of a CSV in the Bellingham, Washington, USA, area.

We are also in the process of significantly improving the following Bellingham membership application page by creating two additional levels of Bellingham urban and rural community memberships. 

These two new lower-level membership levels are:

• An easy low-level commitment general membership for the Bellingham urban community.
• An intermediate, higher-level commitment membership for the Bellingham urban/rural community.

This page below contains the requirements for the highest-level co-founders' commitment membership for the Bellingham rural community. Each level of Universe One Bellingham membership will have different membership fees, acceptance requirements, and community responsibilities and obligations. This also means that until we can complete upgrading this page, much of what you find below will apply only to the highest-level co-founder's commitment membership.

Welcome to Page 6 of the ClimateSafe Village (CSV) Guide, the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham Application Process

Please feel free to skip directly to the section title below that interests you most. You can return to the other section titles later.

The sections on this page are:

1. Introduction, Why this application process is useful to all ClimateSave Villages models

2. Who We Are Looking for as New Universe One Bellingham Members

3. Our Application Requirements for Only Universe One Bellingham Membership

4. The Steps for Applying for Universe One Bellingham Membership

5. The Universe One Bellingham Membership Disqualifying Issues 

6. Other Pages in the Job One  ClimateSafe Village Master Model Materials

7. Application Process Updates

1. Introduction

Each of the ClimateSafe Village (CSV) model variations will create a unique application process appropriate to the conditions and functions of that model. The application process below is the most complete and comprehensive CSV application process designed only for becoming a ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham member now being created in the Bellingham, Washington area. 

Individuals creating the other non-ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham models may use as many or as few of the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham membership application steps below that would apply to their particular ClimateSafe Village version. For instance, the application process for the virtual eco-community would be relatively short and very different from what you see below.

Likewise, the application process for the urban ClimateSafe Village where everyone lives in separate locations, will be much more straightforward than the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham application below. 

However, by selecting and using appropriate and essential parts from the full Bellingham Washington application process below, each model of our new ClimateSafe Villages will be able to provide a significantly enhanced layer of member safety, security, and stability that should not be underestimated. 

The Bellingham CSV membership application process below is particularly applicable to use in reverse to help you determine if you want to join a specific ClimateSafe Village. Before joining any CSV anywhere in the world, we strongly recommend you use the applicable member application questions below to interview the coordinator/leaders of that village to find out how well and how much they have screened their current members for potential problems or issues. The quality of individuals living cooperatively in any CSV will be a major factor in that CSV's long-term survival.

You could also use the CSV frequently asked questions list or the critical topics in our online guide table of contents to ask how that village will or is handling the issues you are most concerned with because every village is slightly different and runs itself and may or may not follow some of the values, principles, and actions of the Bellingham headquarters CSV. It is entirely in your hands to do your due diligence when investigating any CSV as a possible place to join or relocate. Treat it as one of the most important decisions you will ever make because as climate change and other factors worsen, it may well be. 

If you want to join one of the other four variations of our ClimateSafe Village (CSV) models other than Bellingham, Washington, please first go to this page and find the specific application instructions for the ClimateSafe Village model you wish to join. Next, email us at [email protected] and let us know which model you chose. That will put you in contact with the project manager.

If you are setting up your own independent community, the application processes below will not apply to you. However, this application process below could help you create your own community application process.

Please also note that the membership process below is not the same as becoming a subscriber on the Job One for Humanity website. To subscribe to the Job One for Humanity website, click this link and enter your email address and other requested information. (This Job One website subscriber link will also sign you up for automatic updates on all our ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham and other ClimateSafe Village projects, alerts, and new articles. Of course, we always keep your sign-up information confidential.)

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2. Who We Are Looking for as New Universe One Bellingham CSV Members

The most critical initial areas where members, volunteers, and project managers are needed at ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham are in the areas of law, fund-raising, finance, eco-friendly architectural community design, online and offline education, sustainable (energy efficient) general contracting, construction, plumbing, electrical, administrative management, recruiting and human resources, medical services, wellness services, therapeutic psychological services, internet security, software design, permaculture, organic gardening, animal husbandry, interpersonal conflict resolution and peace facilitation, think tank analysts, and public relations. 

In general, what we are looking for is what you can do for and bring to ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham that is valuable and needed. As conditions worsen outside our eco-community, what we have within this eco-community (safety, security, progressive values, and resources) will become more and more valuable.

You will be accepted to our team if you have a good background and high-level skills, credentials, or experience in the above areas. In addition, you too can also help us innovate better solutions to the many climate and other challenges humanity faces.

As competent, climate crisis-aware individuals show up to help, the faster the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham will accelerate into full existence and grow.

It is critical to see how people will work together as much as possible before giving them permanent status in any physical CSV community. The main reason for carefully reviewing a person's virtual CSV activity history is that if you grant them CSV physical community membership to a high degree, you will also be depending upon them to contribute to the community's future overall well-being and survival consistently. You definitely will want to know if this person will be a dependable and active community contributor and will have your back as things get worse and survival gets tougher. 

If a new individual who joins us in our virtual community, after a certain point of learning about who we are and what we do, does not actively help newcomers to the virtual community with their questions or does nothing in any of the advisory group projects, they are clearly telling us what kind of future CSV physical community member they will be. 

This careful review of an individual's virtual CSV contribution history is even more true for those who want to join a physical CSV in a work-share arrangement where they are not well funded. In this arrangement, the community needs skills they have, and the community, in exchange, would support their housing, food, and other needs in exchange for their essential ongoing work and contributions within the community.

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3. Our Application Requirements for Only the Universe One CSV Bellingham Membership

In their initial launch, our ClimateSafe Village models require competent, interdependent individuals with safe and stable backgrounds who already possess many of the individual values described in our ClimateSafe Villages online guide pages. In addition, the initial co-creators of ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham also need to have a high level of agreement with that community's vision, goals, and social contract for that particular model. 

The reason that carefully selecting your founding and co-founding members is critical is because

a. the initial eco-community model building and start-up challenges for new members will be far greater than if the community has been established physically and culturally.

b. culture building is critical to any eco-community's success. It will be far easier to build the all-important culture of a new community if its first members hold and have already been living many of the values and sustainability actions for that particular model. It will be a long and very challenging educational process if your initial founding members do not already embrace and live many of the values and actions that you are forwarding in your eco-community.

Another important thing must be said about wise culture building. A group's culture holds and forwards that group's values and behavioral expectations. Culture then acts as a strong but invisible, ever-present influence that naturally and continually guides and molds group member behavior in most situations.

Therefore, if new CSV communities do not carefully pre-select founding and co-founding members with values and a history of actions similar to their cultural values and goals, it will be much harder for them to get out of their start-up and culture-building phases with their vision still intact.     

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4. The Steps for Applying for Universe One CSV Bellingham Membership

It is valuable to join one of our new eco-community models, particularly ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham, our first ClimateSafe Village and eco-community. The ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham membership is particularly valuable as the runaway global warming emergency and the world's other 11 global crises are rapidly worsening.

Here is why:

1. ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham seeks to meet the highest standards for safety and security in creating its survive and thrive eco-community. (You have been reading about our high standards on the other eco-community pages.) And,

2. ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham seeks to attract only the brightest, most motivated, and most creative individuals. This is because ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham rural community is the flagship village designed to be much more than any other currently envisioned ClimateSave Village.

The application below is only for applying for membership in the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham eco-community project, where many of us will live together on one large piece of land. Each adult applying for ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham membership must complete the following application process steps.

We will evaluate new ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham memberships using the entire application process and individual information submitted and their online history with CSV, particularly in their history of interactions in the CSV online forum and advisory committees. We realize that no new member application will be perfect, and we will make allowances for different issues as deemed prudent and fair. 

Please note we have all potential new members of ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham do a significant amount of reading about our community vision for three crucial reasons:

a. So new members have informed consent and a realistic understanding of the challenges, difficulties, qualities, work, grit, and sacrifices it will take to build these new resilient eco-communities and be successful. 

b. For us to see if potential members are willing to put in the considerable initial effort to get through a significant amount of reading, thinking, and evaluating. And,

c. For us to see if they will do well in an eco-community firmly grounded in and always prioritizing lifelong education and learning.

ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham has by far the most challenging application process. So, if you are not accepted into the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham flagship village in the Bellingham area, do not worry. You will very likely be accepted in one of the other ClimateSafe Villages in other locations.

Step A. Become a Job One for Humanity website subscriber and fill out your user profile information.

Do this by clicking the Sign In link in the upper right-hand corner of every webpage and then creating a new account for yourself using the sign-up boxes on the right side of the page. Be sure to use the same email address to subscribe as you did if you have signed up elsewhere for our website alerts, news, etc.

Once you have become a new website subscriber and are logged into our website, at the top right of the page, you will see your name and Account Setting link. Click the account setting link, and it will take you to your user profile. Please fill in all the applicable profile information so we can connect you to the right team and support. 

Step B, We want you to have realistic expectations and informed consent concerning your Bellingham CSV membership. 

1. Be sure you have read all six pages of our community overview linked at the bottom of this page.

2. Please click here on our article for more about what will happen within these new communities to be successful and what people will need to be and do within these eco-communities. This new, slightly emotionalized, more free-form description of some of the functions of these new eco-communities will also be helpful. We believe that you will be surprised, and your spirit will be lifted by what you read in this article.

3. Read our Club of Rome three-article series on the recently adjusted time frames for global collapse in crucial areas, including population loss (mass extinction.) By about 2025, various critical global systems will begin steep downward declines and move toward eventual collapse. This collapse process then gets much worse from 2030-2040. Click here to start article one of the three critical collapse timeframe verification articles covering five different collapse and collapse verification studies.

4. We are not trying to create a Utopia but four new types of eco-communities that will learn, evolve, survive, grow, and thrive through the hard times and many severe consequences ahead. We can do this by living successfully and modeling necessary new practices and ideals intended by example to create a more sustainable, equitable, and just eco-community. Hopefully, this will also make our eco-communities "beacons of light" and living examples of the new worldview, behaviors, values, and goals that the post-mass extinction and post-collapse world will desperately need. 

Please click the following link to read, Is the Universe Eco-Community (our old name for the CSVs) Anything Like Traditional Survivalist Community? This page also includes our inspiring attitude about how we feel about humanity's future.

Here are several books we strongly recommend reading something during your application or provisional member process. The first two books speak to some of the most profound causes behind the world's 12 major crises that our new eco-communities will eventually be forced to deal with. We believe the more you understand what is coming and why it is happening, the better you will be as a team member in these new eco-communities. Also, when read, all the books below will help build a healthy, strong, well-aligned, shared culture at ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham.

a. Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change by William Catton. This is the one book that everyone seeking a more sustainable life must have in their library!

b. Read the new book, An Inconvenient Apocalypse, Climate Crisis, and the Fate of Humanity, by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen. This book will help you understand much of the thinking and reasons behind our new eco-community vision; it will also help you develop new attitudes, beliefs, and expectations about what is realistic, needed, and possible for our shared futures. Here is a short review of this must-read book if you are still seriously considering joining our eco-community or creating one of your own. This review contains "Cliff"s" type notes on the book's contents.

c. To help you understand the extensive preparation and adaptation challenges for the Bellingham community at a profound tactical and psychological level, we strongly recommend everyone wanting to be part of Bellingham or any other CSV for that matter, get and read a book called Spiral Dynamics: Mastering Values Leadership and Change by Don Edward Beck and Christopher See Cowan published by Blackwell publishing. This book is required reading for advanced-level membership or management in the Bellingham community. 

This must-read book is an accessible summary of 50 years of research by a Syracuse University professor, Claire Graves. This professor spent 50 years of his life focused on answering just one question. Why do people change?

His powerful layered answer is simplified in Spiral Dynamics. 

Understanding his answer is essential because it will help every CSV member realize what will happen as things worsen and how we as a community will have to be willing to adapt and evolve to the changing Bellingham situation while still maintaining our humanity. 

If you are worried about how we defend the Bellingham community, this book will help you understand what we must deal with. And, even if you're not concerned about the climate change future security issues, this is a must-read book for everyone trying to live the best life they can.

In our strongly recommended book list, there are also several must-read Clifi fiction books (2 by an award-winning writer,) that will humanize the intimate details of the approaching global climagee (climate refugee) social, economic, and political catastrophe and meltdown.

A. Here are two of the best spellbinding fiction books on the horrible consequences of global warming.  It is about individuals who waited too long to prepare for the climate emergency or migrate away from it. These books are by an award-winning black female writer, Octavia Butler. They are:

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Sower. Four Walls Eight Windows, 1993. This is part one of the two sequential novels. It is set in 2024.

Butler, Octavia E. Parable of the Talents. Seven Stories Press, 1998. This is part of two of the Parable duology. It is set in 2032

These two books are absolute must-reads to see the day-to-day ordinary and extraordinary suffering that our current runaway global warming will impose upon our future. These two books are emergency preparation must-reads! Even back then, she pretty much got the global warming consequences right.

These two books will educate you in detailed ways we at Job One for Humanity have not yet been able to do with the many climate facts and consequences found on our web pages. Frankly, our website lacks the finely detailed, phase-by-phase emotional power and astute psychological and character insights into what happens to and between people, families, and communities in deep crisis as things keep getting worse with the climate.

Franky, we are baffled as to how Octavia Butler could so accurately depict the tortuous lives of individuals who waited too long to get prepared and migrate because of global warming and then suffered horrible consequences. She skillfully compels the reader scene by scene with a brilliantly written cast of families trying to migrate up the California coast through crisis after crisis. It is impossible not to be drawn into the painful personal lives and details of what happens to these decent, regular families when societies break down at every level because of the consequences of late-stage global warming.

b. For those of you who do not like reading a lot of science and want to be entertained about this difficult subject. Get On Vestige Way by David Spielberg at Amazon.

It is an emotion-packed novel about how global warming affects the future and fate of the world’s Millennials, generation Z, corporations, and the political alliances we take for granted. It is the most scientifically accurate of all of the climate fiction books. It is so hard to put down you will be missing work and sleep wondering what happens next to the story’s heroes and heroines struggling with the very real future climate challenges the younger generations will face most of all.

Not only is it exceptionally well-written with compelling characters and elegant descriptions that seamlessly take you in and through every fast-changing scene, quite surprisingly, it also follows real global warming science more honestly than you will find almost anywhere else except in the newest global warming science books such as Climageddon.  

Step C. Please email us about you, your values, your worldview, and your current situation.

If you have completed the required reading in 1-4 above and you are still interested in joining our new communities, please let us know as much as possible how your current worldview aligns with our worldview, at least in part. The more you share about your current worldview, the better we can understand how you think and feel and how that aligns with what we are doing.

Include your skills and what you would like to do and contribute. If you have one, include your work resume or anything else that you think would be helpful in our getting to know you. If it is not the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham eco-community soon to be in Bellingham, Washington, please let us know which model of our four eco-community variations interests you and which location you are considering as applicable.

If you have children you will be bringing, please tell us as much about them as possible, particularly health or behavioral issues. (Our community always holds all membership application information strictly confidential.)

Keep in mind that you can do the strongly recommended book reading anytime during the application and provisional member process 

Step D. Make a donation to our non-profit organization that you can afford. 

This helps us buy more land to expand our communities worldwide and supports new members' application and education process if those members are underfunded and in a work trade relationship with us. Click here to make this donation. (If you can, make an automatic monthly donation when you donate.)

Step E. At the end of your worldview and other information email, list any questions you want to ask us during our first phone or Zoom call.

Step F. We will review it and schedule a first phone or Zoom call to get to know each other better once we have your emailed information.

Before we have this call, please also review our eco-community exit procedures for members who want to leave or are asked by the eco-community to leave. It is always important to know your exit procedure before you make an important decision.

Our exit policies are being finalized and will be available to potential members to review before final membership acceptance. These policies will include the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham eco-community purchasing homes at fair market value that a leaving Universe community member may have built or purchased on the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham eco-community land.

Step G. If all goes well for both parties on this call, we will ask you to apply formally for membership by doing the following.

If you have not done so already, this will involve you providing your:

a. employment history or resume,

b. work and social references,

c. educational background, and

d. a complete list of your current skills.

e. a. complete medical history (Including all current or past addictions like alcohol, drugs, gambling, sex, etc.)

Step H. If all goes well after we review the information submitted in G above and in your application reference checking and fact verification process, we will then independently engage the following professional services.

a. a criminal history search,

b. a credit history search and 

c. we will ask you to take a psychological or other test relating to your personality qualities and type as a final step to help us determine your compatibility as a potential community member.

When we get to step F, you will be required to pay only the actual costs of the criminal history search, the credit history search, and the price of taking and evaluating relevant psychological or other tests. (We currently estimate those costs to be about $300 - $400. If you are applying in a work trade program, we may waive these charges based on your online action history with CSV.

Once this step is done and everything looks good, we will invite you to meet other members on the eco-community site, where the urban or suburban eco-community group meets, or we will set up a collective Zoom call if you are a distant or virtual member. This process may last one or more sessions. Then, if everything continues forward, we will have you start step I.

At some point, we may have RV sites, tiny home sites, or available open housing where you can live temporarily in a member apprenticeship, and both you and the community can see how the relationship might work. This "try before you buy" option may be best if you have doubts about the major life changes involved in becoming a part of a CSV.

Near the end of our application process, potential adult members will be quizzed to see if they understand the most critical aspects of the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham community model, vision, worldview, and values.  

Step I. If everything looks good from all of the previous steps, we will invite you to become a provisional member.

Once granted provisional membership, you will be asked to sign our social contract. It is a set of basic and common sense written eco-community rules. After 6-12 months of the community getting to know you as a provisional member, the eco-community permanent members will vote on giving you permanent membership status.

If you are ready to apply, begin the process above, complete steps A, B, and C, and email us at ([email protected]). Put "New Bellingham community Member Application" in the subject line.

Return to Section Index

5. Our ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham Membership Disqualifying Issues 

The new ClimateSafe Villages are more vulnerable to possible member problems because they are just getting started. In their beginning phases, these communities will have many internal growth challenges and have to deal with a worsening outside climate, economic, political, and ecological environment.

This steep start-up level of the combined challenges necessitates certain conditions disqualifying a small number of individuals from joining our eco-communities. Therefore, even if you create an independent eco-community using only parts of our ClimateSafe Villages model, you would be well advised to carefully consider the ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham membership disqualifying issues listed below. 

Our membership disqualification issues are:

1. a serious criminal history, 

2. serious medical problems or illnesses requiring extensive or advanced medical care (the early-stage eco-communities may not have group medical insurance or onsite medical facilities to care for individuals with serious medical issues.)

3. serious or unmanaged mental illness or issues such as delusions, schizophrenia, narcissism, sociopathic behavior, etc. (Early-stage communities will most likely not have group medical insurance or the medical facilities to care for individuals with serious mental health issues.)

4. the applying member is financially destitute or deeply in debt with bad credit and without the needed community work exchange skills. (In their early phases, our new communities will not have a surplus of essential resources to be a financial support network for impoverished individuals. However, disadvantaged individuals who can work full time with the needed community skills in exchange for housing, food, insurance, and transportation costs will be considered and welcomed.)

5. the individual does not understand our fundamental eco-community values or does not demonstrate a sincere commitment to our values.

6. the individual does not understand the urgency (the climate change emergency and our other worsening 12 global crises.) Therefore, they do not truly understand either the critical reasons for the urgency for wisely creating these new survive and thrive eco-communities.

7. the falsification of membership application answers or the failure to fully disclose all relevant or requested formation during the membership application process. 

All new Universe or independent communities will have little chance of surviving their difficult and energy-intense start-up phases if they do not carefully screen all potential adult members in their initial membership application process for the above disqualifying issues. However, once a new community is firmly established with the needed facilities and team members and with adequate reserves, it may be able to take in individuals with one or more of the above issues, but it is not advised in the start-up phases.

Return to Section Index

Receive Free Global Warming Info!

6. Other Pages in the Job Cne ClimateSafe Villages Master Model

Page 1: Introduction, Overview, and Goals

Page 2: ClimateSafe Village Qualities, Processes, Income Sources, and Safeguards

Page 3: The Four ClimateSafe Village Models and Their Operations

Page 4: Our New Personal Democracy ClimateSafe Village Management Model

Page 5: About ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham, a Unique Rural ClimateSafe Village

Page 6: Our ClimateSafe Villages Bellingham Application Process

7. Application process updates

A. (4.16.24) The Bellignham Universe One CSV vision now includes partial veganism as a qualification for new members of the Universe One CSV vision. What we mean by this is that we will try to be mostly vegan, but may allow eating some of the fish when they reach maturity from our aquaponics facility. The movement towards near or complete veganism and away from large scale animal consumption aligns well with re-balancing our world's ecosystems and away from the mono-cultures that have taken over so much of the world.

It is also my feeling that in general, vegans or near-vegans will align more easily with many of the other goals, purposes, and directions of the Universe One version of a CSV in Bellingham Washington.

Appendix Materials

The ClimateSafe Village Social Contract Page

Online Rules for Our Virtual ClimateSafe Village

Procedures and Policies for Exiting Our ClimateSafe Villages or Applying for Membership 

Personal Democracy White Paper

The ClimateSafe Villages Issues FAQ of frequently asked questions for only issues directly relating to ClimateSafe Villages issues

The ClimateSafe Villages Climate FAQ of frequently asked questions for every question you have about climate change

Click here for our ClimateSafe Village online guide master table of contents

Sign up here to learn more about ClimateSafe Villages