Valley Futures

Note: As part of the emerging Valley Futures Network conversation, we extended an open invitation to anyone interested in reading and discussing Rob Hopkins’ new Transition Handbook to attend a three Thursday potluck dinner and conversation, hosted and facilitated by Kinny Perot and Richard Czaplinski. We hope to see more of these conversations in the months ahead!

Transition Handbook Dinner Potluck and Conversation
Tuesday, January 22, 2009
Kinny Perot and Richard Czaplinski – Facilitators

Present Around the Table: Alex Maclay, Bill Maclay, Kinny Perot, Richard Czaplinski, Peter Forbes, Jared Cadwell, Sue Frechette, Mac Rood, Carlene Ramus, Kate Williams, and Rob Williams

Interested in attending a Valley Futures potluck? Contact hope@valleyfutures.net.

“One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time.” - Andrew Gide

TRANSITION HANDBOOK Part 1:
How did reading it make you feel?

Richard: I felt hopeful reading part 1.

Alex: I felt overwhelmed by the technical aspects of the presentation, but the charts were useful. “Resiliency” was a concept that had “legs” for me.

Jared: I felt skeptical, feeling a bit of “been there, done that” in reading the opening chapters. Second reaction – so many systems seem to be breaking down – “Rome is burning.” Third reaction – Reassurance – there is opportunity in the midst of crises we seem to be facing – the opportunities we have to grasp can be addressed locally.

Kate: My first reaction to crisis is to “light a candle” and plant an extra garden row. Secondly, the idea of “resilience” has power. Thirdly, as a select board member, there seem some good ideas for visioning a better future for the Valley.

Sue: I am going around an around here – the book may allow us to find more balance and move towards a more re-localized future for the Valley.

Mac: Consider a “carrot and stick” approach – any moves made towards reducing oil consumption here relieves the pressure from someone else to do less to make changes. Fossil fuel energy has to be more expensive for people to make the adjustments necessary to move towards a post-carbon lifestyle. Frustrating to read it.

Carlene: I felt relief after reading the book. The concept of “resilience” seems vital, and the book is hopeful after reading Richard Heinberg’s work and feeling depressed.
Bill: Appreciated the inverted “peak oil” graph, after feeling like the beginning of the book was a bit old hat/boring, having read much of this stuff before. Conclusion: the time is nigh for us to create an infrastructure for a world that will work, or we die. How do we put together a community energy structure for “real life” to happen? If we can get hold of some money/investment capital, we can leverage them for building local community energy generation. Peak Oil is here – fossil fuel energy costs will continue to go up, so how do we leverage it.

Kinny: I got the book a while ago, and read it rapidly when I realized that this dinner was happening. Ha. There wasn’t much new stuff here for me, but I like the word “resilience” and maybe this time we really have to deal with the consequences of peak oil. Three concepts related to resilience: diversity, modularity, and “tightness of feedbacks.” I love the fact that the book’s author, Rob Hopkins, studied permaculture and taught permaculture. Can the US move from “rugged individualism” to “interdependence”? I learned a bunch of stuff. Beyond Peak Oil and climate change, we have to add the financial crisis and other stuff to the list. I felt sad that Warren wise man (now gone) Rupert Blair wasn’t here (last depression, he said – we lived here, and produced everything we needed). I was also grateful for this Valley, grateful and optimistic, for the fact that the Valley is already looking at these issues. There is openness here to try stuff. What will happen in cities?

Peter: There is a big difference between “information” and “transformation.” I gobbled up the book, and I did feel something significant three years ago when I saw THE END OF SUBURBIA – that was the moment that would change us. Close to signing a contract to put in a 10 KW PV array to power Knoll Farm, etc. – lots of exciting changes on the horizon, and if this book helps us move forward, this is great. Let’s move from information to transformation.

Rob: The book makes me feel hopeful, because it is a text that is accessible, informative, and hopeful, telling the story of communities in transition, who are beginning to figure out how to re-invent themselves in the face of some fairly serious dilemmas.

Part 2: Free Wheeling/OPEN to Discussion

Kinny: What about population? The elephant in the room. And how do we wrestle with this? More awareness of this in the 1960s…

Rob: Throw in fossil fuel energy and our energy-intensive ag situation, and we’ll need more willing hands to grow food in the face of Peak Oil and food going forward.

Kate: How do we grow a movement to educate people about transformations ahead of us – emotional responses, intellectual responses, different people learn differently. My work in regional network-building – what is the right scale for food, energy, water? Localvores throw out the 100 mile radius – is this the right number?

Mac: Cost of energy – if the “true costs” of say, eating a banana showed up, we would appreciate the costs of eating locally versus eating globally. What about a gas tax, for example, as a way to discourage energy over-use and shift over to non-fossil fuel energy sources?

Kinny: Where would the action take place? State? Local? Federal?

Mac: This is a single collective action we could support.

Kinny: Phil Hoff supported a 5-cent gas tax back in the day.

Kate: Montpelier’s BERC (Biomass Energy Resource Center) tells us that higher fossil fuel costs change consumers behavior overnight.

Sue: This is a great community, and we can become more resilient than we already are, but who will come and spend money in the face of higher oil prices?

Here, much engaging conversation ensued about the RR and the viability (or not) of this.

Kate: Let’s rethink the creative tension between private property and “the commons” – we grow corn in the Valley to feed cows here that produce milk that leaves the Valley – is this sort of thing all that sustainable?

Peter: NH has a much lower per capita income than Vermont does. When oil prices were higher, the state of NH opened up the publicly-owned state parks to permit-driven wood-cutting for folks who needed wood for heating etc. Is this something that might have lessons for us here in Mad River?

Carlene: That sounds like desperation in some ways.

Peter: When families have kids who need warmth, I’m OK with that. I might be able to pay for PV cells, many folks cannot. (Class issues are a vital part of the conversation).

Kinny: Energy profile for the MRV – How much energy comes in? How much goes out?

Jared: Talking with the Center for Rural Studies and Josh Schwartz and Caitrin Noel, we are recalibrating our info-gathering activities for MRV.

Richard: FRAMING QUESTION – How resilient is the Valley?

FOR EXAMPLE: What if the power goes out? What if no gas comes in? What if no food comes in? (Three hypothetical scenarios.)

Mac: We’re not all that resilient.

Kinny: CDC story-pandemics-are we prepared to not leave our house for three weeks? (Wood, heat, power, water…)

Peter: Can we do this sort of scenario planning without being alarmist?

Sue: Health Center conducting an emergency preparedness survey – Taking names of people to volunteer to get this group off the ground?

Kinny: Who has a plan?

Discussion ensued about plans, which towns have them, different houses with people who need help in case of fire or flood, etc.

Sue: Within the next 4-6 weeks, plan being pulled together to consider this.

Carlene: How do we make this sort of scenario fun?

Kate: MRV is full of creative people – how do we temper the seriousness of our situation with having fun and working together?

Kinny: Building a bomb shelter – as kids, this was fun and creative.
Richard: Where do I put my efforts, right livelihood wise? Is the work I am doing increasing our resilience, or not?

Sue: MRV seems relatively resilient, compared with other places. We can become more resilient, and become a model for other places. (We can’t change Boston, Hartford, etc.)

Peter: And the examples create change. Examples DRAW one towards change, rather than PUSH one towards change.

Sue: Tweak, build the future.

Alex: When Boston, Hartford, etc implode a little, folks will come here to find refuge, solace, hope, etc.

Mac: But remember, urban areas use much less energy than we do.

Kinny: Ditto.

Jared: The USSR’s market garden concept has been working for a long time – squirreling away carrots, beets, potatoes, week-ends working on the dacha. But this was the market dictating behavior.

Kate: What is the forecast in our own minds shaping our sense of the future?

Peter: Reality check – historically, people flock to cities, they don’t flee from them to the countryside. Just visited a CSA in NYC with 40,000 members and millions of dollars of investment.

Jared: What about Obama? It is possible that our national leaders get on the right path with regard to renewables, etc.

Bill: The argument used to be – don’t buy renewables until you totally insulate your house. Cuban model – “Power of Community” grassroots model for transforming communities into more renewable centers.

Peter: On the “pull” side – find the small doable projects that give glimpses of what resilience looks like, set examples by doing the “next right thing” (Carlene’s phrase). Can we do a wind project that takes care of 10 or 20 homes, rather than powers the whole Valley? Try different smaller strategies – if I had 5 cows, wouldn’t it by nice to have a local bottling plant where I could pasteurize my milk?

Kinny: Raw milk laws changed. (Political point – see www.ruralvermont.org).

Peter: Consider small projects where change ripples outward.

Alex: Focus on small “sexy” working projects.

Kinny: Vermont Family Forests in Bristol (David Brinn, LLC, working model).

Kate: What is our plan from here?

Two more weeks of hosting.

Richard: On a personal note, I built a 30-year-old root cellar that seems to work well (in Adamant), so we’re offering free root cellar consulting for anyone interested in designing and building root cellars.

Larger point: you can enjoy fine produce and food without fridges in Vermont all year round.

Tools – teach people how to use ‘em.

Rob: Hands-on workshops are key. Let’s do more of them.

Kinny: What about kids? How do we get them more involved?

Kate: Check out the Waitsfield school garden.

Alex: The “community garden” concept is wonderful.

Richard: FoodWorks in Montpelier does cool stuff.

Carlene: That “hunger for community” – let’s tap into it.

Richard: Being a kid on the farm, before we had machines to harvest corn, we get all the neighbors together for “husking bee,” and my dad would throw in a few red corn pieces, and you got to kiss the woman or man of your choice.

Sue: Part of a resilient community is to be “health oriented” – we ought to create a health group.

More kissing. Done.
THE END – UNTIL NEXT WEEK!

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