This guy woke me up (First link). I first heard about PO in '72. Other than becoming a hippie organic farmer (totally legal, which is why it didn't work, totally certified organic), didn't do much else until he went to work on Willits by showing End of Suburbia about 50 people, and it just exploded. Now pretty much the north coast of Cal, from and including SF, Portland, Seattle, Vancouver. We started our sustainability thing about 5 months behind them, but they plan and sing, and we just do it; guerilla ops for us. I figured out in about 2 months that nobody was doing anything, so I brought a local solar contractor. That sort of thing. Willits is the big town to the south we love to hate, and beat, in anything; we will. (2nd article; but some of the doomers are so far out there they are learning how to process acorns. Wonder what they will give me for a can of hard red winter wheat? :>).
I figured my family would survive whatever, but the odds would go up if everybody was ready, and I wanted to give my net family a chance. I started burning copies of End of Suburbia and sending them out. Then figured I would start the Nest. But it has gone more peak news and less sustainable, But there are links to everything from worm farming to home brew biodiesel. So there is a little Whole Earth Truck Store there.
Pretty good article. Even talks about the future green hospital. Replaces the one Seabiscuit's owner built. Bipartisan movement. We know what's coming.
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Gluten, Free: Dr. Jason Bradford harvests wheat in front of his Willits home. Bradford belongs to the town's post-peak oil group.
Past the Peak
How the small town of Willits plans to beat the coming energy crisis
metroactive.com
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Laytonville Action is also key for Alison Pernell of Sustainable Laytonville. She said the concept of independent living was nothing new in her agricultural community with off-the-grid electricity. Conscious localization however, has brought people together for area planning. Were unincorporated, she stressed. Theres no official mechanism for local decisions. Unofficial mechanisms included organizing around road maintenance, which evolved into a biodiesel car cooperative; identifying parcels with natural gas to serve as sites for community-wide food refrigeration; development of a skills bank including old homesteading and modern organizing; food parties bringing together hippies, loggers, ranchers, and World War II vets; and bulk purchase of olive trees to determine which variety grows best. Vegetables taste much better with a little olive oil, Pernell explained. A community kitchen to supply restaurants and other local businesses may also be in the works. The most innovative result of Laytonvilles localization action was the creation of a yak cooperative. Dont laugh, Pernell advised the audience. Yaks, she explained, provide rough outer hair for rope making, soft inner hair for clothing, meat, cheese, butter, and a lighter impact on the land than cattle. Turning from food and clothing to energy sources, Pernell said Sustainable Laytonville invited neighbors and officials to a Flip the Switch party when Spy Rock School installed a 1.8 KW solar system: They got to watch the meter turn backwards! Laytonville, however, could use help with drawing up a legal structure for its cooperative enterprises. Ukiah Cliff Paulin of the Greater Ukiah Localization Project (GULP) just happens to be an attorney. Will legal services be traded for yak butter and olive oil?
relocalize.net |
