(Not-So-) Brief Description... The Delaware Valley Sustainability Listserve (or simply "DVS", as everyone calls it) is a shadowy community of plotters, schemers, dreamers, visionaries and action-takers, all of whom share a desire to stay richly connected to the breathing, seething, bright-eyed beast that is the greater Philadelphia sustainability community. Where is DVS? On the Internet - as well as in unexplored recesses of the region's fertile, expanding, sustainability mentality.

Who's involved? DVS has always had a gradually rising number of subscribers. We gain some, we lose some, but mostly we grow steadily in number, from about a dozen when the first few logged on in 2002, to nearly 180 today. We are executives, real estate sales people, architects, actors, teachers, consultants, entrepreneurs, fund raisers, students, and some who never quite say what they do. Our passion for sustainability, however, is clear and unmistakable, whoever we are.

Who funds DVS? Nobody. It's free. There are no income, expenses, trustees, bylaws, or bank account. Except for our results (see below) you'd almost have to say we don't exist. Who's in charge? No one1: DVS is a self-organizing, self-managing community arrayed around a single, many-faceted focus. Most of us have never met each other. But this doesn't mean we don't get a lot accomplished. In fact, DVS must be unrivaled in bang-for-the-buck sustainability terms.

Our motivation? DVS is obviously a conspiracy, in the sense of the Latin roots of that word meaning, "to breathe together". Subscribers share a depth of concern for sustainable living, practice, and public policy matters. We wish to be with each other in this modern way to learn, discuss, hatch plans, evolve community, and occasionally ponder the mystery of why such as you, dear readers, who must be as committed to sustainability as we, are not also subscribers...

Sustainability Narrative: DVS is the only network of its kind in the Delaware Valley. Does it make a difference to the region? Nowhere else can an unlimited number of people who care about this issue and our region pose any question or topic, out loud (so to speak), and get reaction, opinion, and authoritative technical support, often in a matter of minutes. We are always in the same place with each other, even though we are never actually together. Imagine the Delaware Valley (three states, ten+ counties, six million people, several mighty rivers, cities, farms, and suburbs) without a direct, reliable, and powerful means for its most well-connected sustainability activists to get and stay together.

Results: Out of the DVS community of mind have come, among other things:

• Organizing support for a campaign to move "Philly Beyond Oil";
• A campaign to save the migrating frogs of Chester County during mating time;
• An organizing team for a summit on a long-term sustainability agenda for the entire region;
• Plans for region-wide demonstrations on climate change;
• An ongoing four-year effort to build an alliance that identifies and promotes a permanent set of sustainability indicators for the region;
• Rich lists of books, articles, websites, videos, and films for sharing, reviewing, and arguing over;
• Countless training programs on a range of sustainability topics;
• Newsletters and several new websites;
• Jobs;
• Connections, movements, alliances, friendships;
• And last but not least, a personal commitment by at least two dozen DVS subscribers to leave their cars at home one day in every seven, thus saving, countless tons of carbon emissions every month.

Accompanying Material: There mostly isn't any. DVS has an archive containing every message ever posted by any subscriber going back to our emergence in 2002. But it's for subscribers only, so we may not share its contents with you now. If you were to get a peek, you'd see a five-year conversational record that includes:

• Technical comparisons of alternative energy strategies;
• Debates about best ways to move greater numbers of greater Philadelphians to sustainable practices;
• Conference announcements;
• Announcements of progress large and small, triumph, bitter defeat disappointment;
• Posting of articles from a wide-range of popular and technical publications;
• Advice on how to find an organic Thanksgiving turkey (and stuffing recipes);
• Comments about better ways to carry on the communications among our growing community of members;
• Policy discussions: city, state, federal and international;
• LOTS of meeting organizing messages and meeting reminders;
• Anger, frustration, fear, celebration, disillusionment, hope, endless questions, gratitude;
• Solid evidence that a new kind of community lives and grows here within DVS, one that believes deeply in this region, its people, and its potential.

1 DVS has an "administrator", an early New Jersey subscriber named Ralph Copleman. His entire responsibility consists of accessing the host server when someone wants to join, and add the name. The host is a computer somewhere in northern New Jersey managed by a small nonprofit called Garden State EnviroNet and managed by a part-time volunteer named "Peter" whom we believe operates somewhere near New Brunswick, NJ.