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.