Vermont
Peak Oil Network Newsletter
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What's New?
Well, practically everything! It's our first edition.
Spend
a little time getting acquainted with the different sections. And let
us know if you don't see an important Vermont event, resource or group
listed;
we'll get it out in the next newsletter.
A newly introduced bill in the Vermont House presents strategies for
food supply planning, renewable energy, and emergency preparedness,
anticipating a reduction in fossil-fuel availabilty. Take a look,
and ask your representatives to support H-654
(pdf).
There is
an on-line,
state-wide open PO
discussion group up. You'll find
it listed
in both the Regional Groups and VT Rescources sections of this site; a
link appears in the navigation bar as well.
On the Regional Groups
page, you'll learn about our Featured Group, Post Oil Solutions.
POS members have
offered to meet or otherwise chat with groups in other parts of the
state to share
the
progress they have made in organizing their communities, the strategies
that helped them do so, and lessons learned along the way.
Our Guest Editorial is
offered by Abe Collins of Cimarron Farms. Can we rebuild
topsoil and stabilize
climate change through ecological - and prosperous - farm management?
Abe's article brings hope to the discussion. It follows the
Editorial, below.
Be sure to check out the Calendar section.
Lots is happening in Vermont!
Editorial
Creating The New Normal
"Our
greatest responsibility is
to be good ancestors." - Jonas Salk, MD
I wanted to share
with you the news
of Post Carbon's soon-to-be-released book, Relocalize
Now! Getting Ready for Climate Change and the End of Cheap
Oil (Spring 2006, New Society Publishers), co-authored
by Julian Darley, Richard Heinberg, Celine Rich, and David
Room. I've seen
the initial draft; excellent
suggestions for
relocalization efforts - the "whats and hows" of projects small groups
and communities
can
work on right now. And this is just what we need, something
to do NOW.
The next step after awareness and acceptance is action.
As more people
recognize the
implications of Peak Oil, they (we) yearn for something useful to do.
We educate ourselves, dig up the lawn and plant potatoes; we
look
at our neighbors with new eyes. We write letters to our
legislators,
revision transportation systems in our communities, research energy
efficiency for our homes and businesses. We look around, and see the
place we are in "as if for the first time."
This is the gift (and the
challenge) of change.
Our need to be involved in facilitating a "graceful descent" is not
only practical and reasonable, it is life-affirming. It is also a way
to cope with grief, anger, and loss. The oil-subsidized
lifestyle
of which we may soon be bereft may never have been good for the planet,
but it was all we knew; it had become familiar, and a lot of what we
thought predictable in life depended on its continued existence.
Moving through the fear and grief (not to mention anger) that
such a loss engenders requires having a positive
direction in which to go: a life-affirming vision of an
attainable new
normal. As we work to build sustainable
communities and the infrastructure to support them, we are midwifing
that vision: we reach beyond ourselves into the future.
At the same time, our work is
self-preserving: the world we leave our grandchildren
tomorrow is
a world
we, too, will enjoy for having made the effort to be good ancestors
today.
Increasingly, I realize that it falls almost entirely to us to ensure
that future. Very few of us anticipate thoughtful, concerned
intervention from the federal government - lessons learned from
Katrina, if not before and since. And we will have to do
battle
with whatever remnants of a selfish society we have internalized.
We have all, at one time or another, benefited from the
mechanisms of capitalism; will we be able to resist its Siren call when
precious local resources seem up for grabs to the highest
bidder?
This is clearly not a task for the faint of heart. It is a
challenge for the great of spirit.
You may want to check out Relocalize Now.
You will certainly want to get to know your neighbors.
And may we will all stay hopeful, keep busy, and support one
another; we've
got a long ways to go.
With appreciation,
Annie
Dunn Watson.
Guest Editorial
Holistic Management and Keyline
Soilbuilding
Abe Collins
"I
spent much of my summer on my knees, with my arms up to my elbows in
our pasture soils,
and what
I found there gave me a
lot of hope."
Hello farmers and eaters,
We hope winter is treating everyone well.
I would like to pass on a few ideas and websites for people to read and
ponder
the implications of. They concern Holistic Management and
Keyline
soil building. It is my hope that the information contained
there
stimulates discussion about our role as farmers and conscious eaters in
leading
society from the age of cheap oil and environmental degradation into
ecological, solar economics.
The overall subject of this letter is rapidly building new topsoil and
stabilizing climate change as by-products of prosperous, fulfilling
ecological farming. I am a proponent of
Holistic Management, the decision-making framework and planning
procedures (financial, grazing and land planning) developed by Allan
Savory and many thousands of ranchers and farmers over the last fifty
years. Allan has long held that grazers are the front line in
reversing desertification, restoring biodiversity, creating new
topsoil, stabilizing global weather change and ushering in a new era of
solar economics. The
grazing and animal impact of our livestock, along with our
thoughtful creativity, are primary tools at our disposal to do
this. The grazing planning procedure (planned grazing) that
Allan
developed is a singularly simple, comprehensive aid in profitably
restoring the topsoil that sustains us all. The
planned