One thing we've learned on this trip is to allow more time in each location. As we get to know people in one locale, they think of other people and places and projects we should connect with. Nowhere was this more evident than in Portland, where our host Daniel Lerch kept expanding the local street maps he printed for us, liberally sprinkling them with stars and arrows and web descriptions of the wonders. Even better, he was able to be tour guide, taking us to places he knew of or worked on when he was involved with City Repair. We'll take you on that tour in our later blogs on Portland.

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Taping about Portland at "The City"
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Early Wednesday morning we found our way to "The City," a sports bar in downtown Portland. Owner Tim Pierce had warmly welcomed us by phone several days earlier. This facility had been located by his friend Randy White, a member of Portland Peak Oil Task Force, and a guest in our first show. We carried our gear to the upstairs VIP room for our day-long set of tapings. Dark brick walls and a comfy sofa provided our basic set, in a room dark enough to make our portable lighting effective.

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Portland's Peak Oil Resolution and Task Force
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Our first guests were Randy White and Brendan Finn, chief of staff for the Portland Commissioner of Public Affairs. These two young men vibrantly recounted how the idea of a Peak Oil resolution was brought to a City Council receptive to this direction. After all, Brendan exulted, Portland had signed on to the Kyoto Protocol and had already exceeded their commitments. Portland Peak Oil group leaders Pam Leitch and Emily Pollard drafted a simple two-page resolution; the group secured over 600 signatures from a diverse supporter constituency. Brendan sounded out each of the City Commissioners behind the scenes. At the hearing, a number of members of the public spoke on its behalf. It was passed unanimously last May, and a Peak Oil Task Force was set up.

Randy is one of the twelve citizen members of the Portland Peak Oil Task Force. This group has a mixture of citizens representing business, education, social services, the environment. The group's task is to bring recommendations to the city next January on what it might do to respond to declining energy supply. Randy noted that the group has broken up the overwhelming task into four categories: Land Use and Transportation, Food, Economic Change, and Social Impacts. We visited one meeting of the Task Force, so we'll say more later.

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What's A Municipality to Do?
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Daniel Lerch is coordinator of the Municipal Project for Post Carbon Institute. Last year Daniel wrote a white paper on Energy Vulnerability for Portland Metro (the greater metropolitan area around Portland). The paper noted what a number of cities and towns are starting to do in response. He noted that "Peak Oil" wasn't an appropriate way to frame the issue because it doesn't address the possible consequences of uncertainty and price volatility. Post Carbon has asked Daniel to expand that research and develop a guide for municipalities.

Daniel's interviews with a score of elected officials, planners and engineers indicate their views that energy vulnerability is a systems problem that can't be viewed as just a resource problem or economic problem. It needs systems thinking. Although higher levels of government should be involved, municipalities need to look out for themselves (the Katrina Lesson). They can react more quickly, as a kind of "first responder" to local problem

Responding to Energy Vulnerability: A Guidebook for Municipalities will be published this fall-winter, and should be a boon to cities of any size in starting to assess their vulnerabilities and to consider actions to increase their security.

Daniel & Robyn

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Social Effects of Peak Oil, especially marginalized people =================================================

Sociology professor Rowan Wolfe has thought a lot about the effects of Peak Oil on our social fabric, and particularly marginalized populations. They're already feeling the effects of increased fossil-fuel prices, she said, noting the increase in heating oil costs in the winter as well as higher food and gasolikne prices. Without the buffer of discretionary income, the poor are being squeezed already. They have fewer options for where to live, particularly as wealthy people--often from outside Oregon, she noted--buy Portland property for investment and raise the rents beyond the reach of Portland wage-earners.

Since many of the poor are working in the service industries, they will be among the first to be laid off when the economy takes a downturn. Social services like welfare and shelter for the homeless, are already stretched beyond capacity. What will happen as the energy and economic declines deepen? Rowan doesn't have all the answers, but I'm glad she's a member of the Portland Peak Oil Task Force so her concerns can be developed into recommendations for the city.

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Portland Peak Oil group meeting
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After breaking our set and pausing for dinner in the Chinese section of downtown Portland, we headed across the river to the Southeast section to sit in on the Portland Peak Oil group's weekly meeting. I was impressed that this group (about twenty that night--which we learned was low because a lot of folks were on vacation) has been meeting *WEEKLY* for several years! That's commitment!

This evening the group was brainstorming recommendations to offer the four subgroups in the Peak Oil task force, which they delivered in time for the latter group's meeting the very next evening. Discussion ranged around food-growing, gardens, gleaning, farmland ringing the city; water, rainwater catchment, local currency, public transit and biking incentives, zoning changes, the challenge for renters, and more. I was impressed at how knowledgeable this group was; the discussion was ably led by Pam Leitch and Jeremy ___. This group initiated the Peak Oil Resolution which passed the Portland city council last May, and they continue to be a relocalization group to watch.