Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

Sustainable Orcas Island Meeting

pheikki — Fri, 25 Jan 2008 17:06:03 -0800

Start: 2008-02-05 15:30

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

How to organize our group?

pheikki — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 14:02:52 -0800

We're meeting on January 22 at the Orcas Island Public Library to talk about specific projects we can get excited about here. It occurs to me that the Postcarbon Institute website might be a good means of tracking and discussing those projects. Phil Heikkinen

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

Relocalization Network - Sustainable Bellingham

relocalize — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 15:06:46 -0800

Thurs Dec 27, 07
Exploring Relocalization Net and Sustainable Bellingham.
Comparing to other social local networks like facebook and myspace and tribenet.
Comparing useage of site space for flexiblity of designing pages & photos, privacy, spam, quality of users and groups, distractability of ads, and who owns the site, and how fees/income is made to manage site.

Interested in others observations on other social network sites as to quality sites that are stable and not owned by big corportations for purposes of growing network through advertising or gathering users personal data.

Vancouver Area Relocalisation Network

Joining the Running on Empty caucus

DickMcManus — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 18:11:42 -0800

Joining the ROE caucuses

We have started a Running on Empty (ROE) caucus of Washington State Democrats . We have also started a national ROE caucus. The goal of this caucus is to bring more emphasis by our Party to the coming end of cheap oil and natural gas which will result in an extreme disaster.

To become a member of our caucus we require some more information from you. If you agree or basically agree with the following statements and you are a Democrat, then we will accept you into our caucus.

We request you comment on our below listed platform statements.

1. There are no sustainable energy sources that will rescue us at our current population levels.

2. Population reduction must be a part of any plan to rationally deal with peak oil (the end of cheap oil, natural gas, and coal), atmospheric destabilization, biological/species decline, and natural resource depletion.

3. Absent immediate attention to peak oil, our government and/or political system have no chance whatsoever to react soon enough to help us.

4. We need a US Constitutional amendment defining a corporation as not a natural person and therefore, the rights to equal protection under the 14th Amendment do not apply.

5. Whereas, We the Democratic party) think, based on evidence accumulated since these two elections, that the last two Presidential elections were won by the Democratic Party candidate. In 2000, the US Supreme Court stole the election by stopping the recount and in both 2000 and 2004, the Republican Party stole the election by intentional misconduct and illegal acts, therefore be it resolve that the election laws need to be enforced.

I came up with the idea of this caucus after reading the following books, The Party's Over and Powerdown by Richard Heinberg, The Long Emergency by James Kunstler, and Unequal Protection by Thom Hartmann.

Cut and past onto a search engine to visit our websites:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmptyDemocratCaucusWA

and http://groups.yahoo.com/group/RunningOnEmptyCaucusDemocratsUSA

my N&V newsletters: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NewsViewsnolose
my book (a draft) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/SomeUnknownUSHistory/

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

A Proper Connection to Food

David Strongman — Tue, 05 Jun 2007 15:32:53 -0700

Alliance for a Post Petroleum Local Economy - APPLE Shasta

Sustainable Orcas Island Overview - Post Carbon Newsletter #22

Shelby Tay — Thu, 21 Dec 2006 16:37:07 -0800

Article featured in the December 2006 issue of the Post Carbon Newsletter. Click here to view the rest of the newsletter.

Sustainable Orcas Island Overview and update from Phil Heikkinen, Orcas Island Public Library Director, with significant input from SOI members Bob Connell and Guy Peto December 15, 2006

Living on an island makes you feel an extra level of immediacy to the peak oil phenomenon. It forces you to think seriously about what will happen to the ferry service when oil prices quadruple or increase by a factor of ten? As a result a few of us living on Orcas Island in Washington State decided to form the Sustainable Orcas Island, a Local Post Carbon Group that was started in order to network and share information about sustainable living. The goal is to learn to live sustainably to the degree that it would be possible for us to thrive without relying on off-island resources.

We soon learned of several very interesting local individuals who were already demonstrating and even teaching relevant skills in such areas as permaculture, farm cooperatives, and renewable energy. A number of these local people were interviewed by David Strongman, a photojournalist, and Janaia Donaldson, of Peak Moment TV, who both spent the summer traveling along the West Coast in order to document local initiatives. Several Orcas Island initiatives were featured including Rainshadow Solar, the Bullocks' Permaculture Portal, Smith and Speed Mercantile, Maple Rock Farm, the Orcas Island Farmers Market, and OPAL Community Land Trust.

Sustainable Orcas Island has held a variety of meetings and presentations that included film screenings about oil issues, housing and intentional communities, sustainable agriculture, and local economies. One of our most interesting meetings early on featured a local self-taught expert on seed propagation who talked about his experience of learning the hard way to try to grow all his food to meet his needs. Ultimately, the goal of Sustainable Orcas Island is to assemble a group of people trained and on-board to participate in and contribute to communal food production. We would also like to focus on developing housing in areas in close proximity to fields, allowing us to avoid relying on fossil-fuel based transportation.

One of the group’s major challenges so far appears to be trying to pool this expertise effectively and efficiently into a more large-scale island-wide model. It seems the economic and environmental conditions are not yet dire enough to convince people that there really is a long-term problem. Until conditions become obvious and unavoidable to the average person, it will be difficult to motivate them to make the kind of life-altering adjustments necessary to sustain the community. We hope that time is one commodity that we will continue to have!

As a librarian, I see the local public library as an invaluable resource that may be underused in many communities. Along with providing a wealth of books and other information resources, public libraries are becoming more and more that "third place" where people can get together for free to share information and ideas that can further community goals. Local public libraries are the people's university and the community commons. Most public libraries are very responsive to purchasing recommended materials in response to the needs and interests of the community. You need not wait until an official group exists before making these types of requests. It is also always good to develop a relationship with the staff, as librarians can help to facilitate and promote events, and provide space for meetings. Libraries may even become co-sponsors of events, which has been the case on Orcas Island. Funding for events can come potentially from the local library friends group, among other sources. Finally, by maintaining an active website, the library can help with the creation and maintenance of blogs and online networks of local people interested in participating, learning, and/or serving as experts in one or more areas.

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

What kinds of programs or activities do we want on Orcas Island?

pheikki — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:10:28 -0700

I'd be happy to help facilitate sustainability programs of interest here at the Orcas Island Public Library, and/or activities, visits, tours, etc, elsewhere.
Does anyone want to suggest topics of particular interest? One that seems especially important to me is food and all the related topics, such as pest control, plant diseases, seed propagation, growing season, choices of crops, domesticated animals, etc.
Phil Heikkinen

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

Relocalize.net visitors are coming to Orcas Island in Summer06

pheikki — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 18:04:00 -0700

We have a couple of visitors on the way to Orcas Island in July and August:

David Strongman (davidstrongman@relocalize.net) is planning to come on or about July 20 or a bit later. He's doing a blog on http://www.relocalize.net/ about his travels--see the link on the homepage.

Janaia Donaldson (janaia@peakmoment.tv) is visiting for a couple or three days from Aug 2 to 4, and planning to interview some local people doing interesting work related to sustainable living. The link to her Peak Moment TV series is also on the Relocalize homepage.

If anyone on Orcas wants to showcase something in particular, let one of them (or me) know. Also, we are likely to do a program here at the Orcas Island Library during Janaia's visit.

Phil Heikkinen

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

Sustainable Orcas Island (WA)

bobc — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 16:45:54 -0700

For more information about Sustainable Orcas Island, please contact the Site manager, Phil Heikkinen, by email at pheikkinen@orcaslibrary.org.