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 – “The Hand”
Kinny Perot and Richard Czaplinski – Facilitators
Present around the table: Bill Maclay, Kinny Perot, Richard Czaplinski, Bob Ferris,, Carol, Bobbi Rood, Carlene Ramus, Mac Rood, Sue Frechette, John Donaldson
Kinny got us thinking about scale and size with a mental exercise about How big is a million seconds: A trillion ? She read in a recent New Yorker book review:
“take a guess at how long a million seconds is. Now try to guess the same for a billion seconds. Ready? A million seconds is less than twelve days; a billion is almost thirty-two years.” (from John Allen Paulos, Innumeracy in Heroes and Zereos, John Lanchester)
Kinny mentioned that she had received some feedback from previous evenings that people are wondering about VFN’s role and whether VFN should become a TT network. Tonight’s work will be taking a look at action planning: this section of the book is entitled “The Hand” . (Section 1 was The Head, Section 2 The Heart_
Q. Introduce yourself: Per Transition Towns what is already going on around the Valley or what are you doing that parallels or reflects these ideas?
Richard –From Warren, this is my house and I am contributing free consulting to help people build root sellers, along with friend Lee Blackwell
Bob Ferris – Valley – Helping with a project to evaluate sites in the valley for wind production and to promote wind power as an alternative energy source
Kinny Perot- Lives here. VFN Agriculture committee and the Kingsbury Farm project
Bill Maclay – Warren – Energy Plan for the Valley – Weatherization workshops
John Donaldson – Pittsburgh and Waitsfield - VFN – Land Bank not direct connection but in the sense that it provides local housing for people who work in the Valley
Sue Frechette – Board of health center focusing energy on health education, how to help people and kids naturally integrate health into their lives with exercise and finding alternative ways of education
Mac Rood in Warren –Involved in restarting the permitting process for the small hydro project in Warren
Carlene Ramus – Kingsbury Farm – Alternative currency – Onion River Exchange – Kate Plummer and Rob Williams are helping bring this along
Bobbi Rood– Warren – Seed swap happening tonight, food Coop in E. Warren
Carol – Fayston – Localvore movement and personally re-skilling idea growing flax and fibers and re-learning knitting and weaving, relearning hand-crafts
Kinny – remarked and wondered about whether Transitions Town addressed clothing as a category?
Richard – There is a lot more we can add to the list. We have a lot happening in the valley with respect to the ideas and activities explored in the book. Are there any ideas that we left off and want to add regarding local food and local businesses that help foster TT ideas?
Yestermorrow as a center for re-skilling; architects and builders who have this as a basic focus, bio-mass, local wood mill, Richard’s portable mill, hydroponic gardening, Farmer’s Market, Water, conservation/ land trust, carbon shredders, yak meat and fiber, dairy farms and protected meadow lands, maple syrup production, cheese makers, local arts- Arts Festival, Phantom Theater, Valley Players, Film Festival, Local telephone company, local radio, local paper, beef, pork and lamb, chicken, bees, eggs. Closer to the carrying capacity than a lot of other areas. Free air. Mad River Path. The Mad River Community Fund.
Q: Do we know with a certainty that there is enough land here to produce all the food we need. Mad River Sustainability Group, Mrs. G, has taken a look at this.
Q: When was the peak of the valley towns? Some thought it was in the last century, others thought it was in the 1960s.
Q: Is the area the correct scale for grain production? Discussion that local areas would produce what they are scaled best for and that communities could exchange products, like potatoes or beans for grain. Valley is ideal for growing potatoes and there used to be a lot of that here.
Bobbi pointed out that sometimes potato crops failed and people just ate dried beans.
Q. What have we taken from the Transition Town book that is useful in moving these ideas forward or is something we found meaningful?
Bob read a Scientific study that what damage we have done at this point and the effects of our carbon footprint will be with us for 1000 years, even if we stop doing anything. He liked the idea of the reverse graph and changing the paradigm from one of having reached peak oil and flipped it so that we think in terms of climbing out of the pit from fossil fuel use. This is progress and opportunity.
Bill: Reminded of the sidebar about optimism and pessimism, the world is going to go is where it is going to go, but what is the choice about what you want to do
Bill: Carrying capacity question: If we switch to wood just to heat our homes we will end up depeleting the forest resources, but sticter energy conservation could make more efficient use of our current heating systems. We already have the ability t cut our use by 90%. It istotally achievable and not a big deal. Problem of looking at cost now and speculating about the future costs. Exploring how we can deal with using existing buildings and outfitting them for greater efficiency i.e. thicker walls, more insulation, extracting heat from air and heat pumps.
Bobbi thinks that a key issue is raising awareness. Wondering about how to get the word out and to get people on board, not just the people around the table
Kinny The reality of how big this is and the effects is mind boggling and can be overwhelming. She responded to the idea of keeping this fun and not pounding people with a doom and gloom message.
Bob had a cab driver in DC who was taking about the peak oil issue and saying that we really need to make changes, indication that this is becoming mainstream thinking and that people want to make some changes and adjustments.
Carlene heard that the InterFaith Council is sponsoring a film showing at the
Big Picture of two of the films mentioned in the TT book– End of Suburbia and An Inconvenient Truth.
Bobbi – We need better marketing of the right stuff. Liked the sample posters and press release information.
MAC and John –Need to raise fuel prices. When people are paying $4-10 a gallon they will change their patterns of consumption.. Denmark doesn’t import oil anymore and is exporting energy (2/7 note from Carlene from Thomas L. Friedman’s 2008 book Hot, Flat, and Crowded where he noted what Denmark has accomplished with gas taxes.
-in 1985 they decided against nuclear, and for energy efficency and renewables through the use of taxation
-in the 1990s they added a CO2 tax to increase efficiency (even though they had discovered offshore oil by then)
-in 2008 gas was $9/gal
-since 1981 their economy has grown 70% and their energy consumption has remained flat
-solar and wind now provide 16% of their total energy consumption (1/3 of all wind turbines in the world now come from Denmark)
-in 1973 99% of their energy came from the Middle East and today 0%)
Richard noted the questions related to oil use at the chapter end. Finland, Sweden and Greenland don’t export oil. TT link to: check out the oil depletion map
www.lastoilshock.com
Q. How do you make a shift further in that direction in a way that is different than today?
Raise Awareness
Important question Energy plan: how do we create energy in the valley?
Bill: Incremental conservation may not pay in the long run, but doing whatever we can do to conserve is important. People need incentives to make the bigger changes, since the numbers today don’t justify more that adopting minimum standards may not be enough in the future.
Q: What do we want to do… do we want to promote developing an EDAP?
Find something and do it.
Bob: Wondering about using the Open sSpace methodology at a local event. Does that work well?
Richard Transition Town meeting in Montpelier. Can go to the web and find out what happened in all of the groups.
Kinny: Three things she is thinking about: Valley Demographics- involving younger people in this discussion, planning for 20 years from now, what will happen with the ski areas?
Bob : Concern if we work our guts off to build energy capacity in the valley and that gets gobbled by development. Need to have a conversation about this, that the point isn’t for the town to sacrifice so that the developers can have what they need. We all need to make shifts.
Bobbi : How do you figure what is the right size for business and infrastructure development? (Concern here about whether small and local makes sense for all functions.. maybe hospitals and schools being centrally located is the most efficient use for those types of activities, we will need to take a look at things like this. Secondarily, use of buildings for multiple activities, like encouraging sharing school space for services like counseling after school hours might make sense.)
Group: We need to start to plan but can’t figure all out ahead of time
Kinny: When we think of energy we talk of fossil fuels. What are
Heating fuel and transportation fuel costs? Public meetings about energy totally about electricity, the smallest proportion of what we are using, what about other forms?
Bill: The state ought to develop an energy plan. Bill. Investing in the future by investing in the past.
Kinny: How do people have fun making this happen?
Sue: observation: evaluation for wind energy at certain sites… projects are formulated based on people’s passions… Really making change is marrying of passion and evaluation to come up with ideas that will work and make things happen. There needs to take place a Marrying of passion and analysis
Do we want to become a TT group, how do we keep the passion alive and build awareness?
Carlene: Join other groups and link events.
Bobbi :Valley wide calendar – like the idea of the Steering committee and then disbanding and reforming as action groups.
Carol: the group that starts it out has to plan their demise There to create a sense of community and spread the information. Rob Hopkins energetic person, people doing Transition Towns very upbeat and bring about community. How do you find out what groups are where and how do you go about figuring out how to get involved, how do you connect?
Discussion about being inclusive and offering meetings and retreats at times when people who work can attend. Mini retreats.
Valley Futures Network, similar to Transitions Town initiative, people at meetings can take excellent notes and get the word out.
Q: How do you get the people who aren’t around the table to come to these things.
Valley futures less clear. Transitions towns more focused.
Carlene read that about 5000 is the ideal size for a transition town and that is about the size of the Valley.
Kinny: Getting the films would be great.
Carlene: how do you utilize some of these psychological models. Guided conversations. Try to pair up with organizations that are already doing it. (Like the Green Sancuary Movement – Richard)
Carol emphasized that we need a Community Center that is inclusive,.. The Big Picture attracts a particular crown and is kind of exclusive. How does building a community work in a place without a center.
Mac: There are a lot of different groups to reach out to, ie. The planning district, a resource, the fire departments, the planning commissions the selectboards, churches, chamber. They can do their own outreach.
Next steps:
Check in with the Montpelier group and learn about what they are doing.
Go to the Legislature
If you are trying to gauge level of interest don’t just look at numbers, these can be misleading. A crowd of 65 around this area is a good turn out.
Transition stuff is already what is going on with Valley Futures. If you just added EDAP to the VFN list it would be a great addition. It would not make sense to re-invent the wheel. Peter Forbes will be offering other retreats over the next few years, but we need to think about how to make this also include one day events at different times to accommodate people’s needs and events that are open to all and don’t require an invitation.
Encourage others to read the book in VFN and revise and reinvigorate focus to
TT.
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