This coming Saturday (Nov. 29) we'll be videotaping a Peak Moment Conversation with Jennifer Gray, who's conducting the Transition Initiative trainings in San Francisco and Portland. It's our first show introducing TI. If you have topics or questions we might cover, please reply.

Janaia Donaldson, producer & host
Peak Moment Conversations
online at Global Public Media and www.peakmoment.tv

A month or so ago Robyn put the final touches on a Peak Moment Conversation we videotaped last summer on our 2006 "Peak Moment Travels" in the Pacific Northwest. Once again we were with the "The Worm Guy" giving us a tour of his Vashon Island operations converting food waste into nutrient-dense worm poop.

We smiled and felt a twinge of longing to be back on the road, remembering how we wound our way through Oregon, Washington and British Columbia videotaping more than 80 programs organized by relocalization group coordinators and supported by the Relocalization Network. This blog chronicled that journey.

Back home producing a Peak Moment Conversation program each week, we are revisiting many people and places we taped. There's Sharon Abreu and Michael Hurwicz singing about the End of Oil, and Errol and Kathleen demonstrating the hand tools at Smith and Speed Mercantile (Orcas Island). Karen Biondo and Joe Walling of Vashon giving us a tour of their K-Jo farm, including the cute goats who kicked off the project. Sally Lovell exults about her electric-assist bike (Pt. Townsend). Otmar Ebenhoech's hot electric Porsche conversion created a stir in the electric vehicle online community.

That trip set some wonderful things into motion and kept us full-tilt busy, from a Peak Moment website to new presentations like David Korten's popular and accessible "The Great Turning." You can read about everything in our July 07 newsletter at www.peakmoment.tv/newsletter/0707.

We loved our adventures on the road, and want more. On that trip we started dreaming of purchasing a used motorhome that would let us take longer trips, editing and producing shows along the way. It showed up last May. It's a "Walkabout" model -- isn't that a perfect name, fitting with our purpose? We'll be modifying her to put Robyn's editing bay in back, and a little office for me in the front. We dream of putting solar panels on the roof for extra electricity capacity. So getting her prepared is our big project for this fall and winter. I dream of a trip starting spring 2008 and heading East. Stay tuned.

But for when we can't travel, we just tried something new: we taped our first bi-local, transcontinental Peak Moment Conversation. It was with the filmmakers of "What a Way to Go: Life at the End of Empire." The idea came by email from someone we've never met -- Charles Allen of Asheville, North Carolina. He arranged for a videographer to tape Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson in Asheville, NC while Robyn taped me at home. We used a speakerphone to hear one another. Robyn edited all the tapes into one Conversation, which came out quite well, despite the strangeness of not being able to SEE one another. You can view the Conversation at www.peakmoment.tv/conversations/72.htm when it's online in a week or so.

Synchronistically, our "information warrior" friend Mary Nelson had a preview copy of the film, so we watched it beforehand. We were stunned. And moved to tears. Framed within Tim's personal story of awakening, this film brings together all the big topics of the unsustainable empire/civilization "story" in a personal way. It's visually rich, drawing from lots of archival films, cartoons, and even home movies; the music track underscores the moods perfectly.
You'll hear from Richard Heinberg, Daniel Quinn, Derrick Jenson, Thomas Berry, Chellis Glendinning, and many other articulate big-picture thinkers.

The film does not provide the "happy chapter" at the end listing "what you can do" to save the planet, but rather asks people to first be with their feelings of despair and grief: to sit with these before “doing” anything (jumping into action can be its own form of denial).

I think it's a film mostly for the choir, people who are already awakened to the serious events unfolding and ready to go deeper than intellectual understanding. Where other films have given us facts, this one slips in deeper -- to our core, to our feelings.I suggest you see it with at least one friend so you can talk about it later.

Right now Tim and Sally are on a Northeast tour, and are coming to the west coast in Fall. DVDs will be available soon. Go to www.whatawaytogomovie.com for more info.

Robyn and I have been reading aloud James Lovelock's The Revenge of Gaia. This planetary physician's prognosis for humans and the planet is more dire than we'd imagined. We feel an increasing urgency to continue in the awakening and lifeboat-building, given the accelerating news of climate change, again rising oil prices, and stock market meltdown. Watching the movie "Zeitgeist" a few nights ago stunned us into another bout with hard realities. Watch this one with friends, too. (www.zeitgeistmovie.com).

Late in September, we videotaped several Peak Moment conversations in San Francisco after the meeting of the regional Post Carbon groups--with
*Post Carbon folks Dennis Brumm, Richard Katz and Alyse Heartwell
*SF City environmental program folks Melissa Capria and Cal Broomhead
*Jan Lundberg, just coming off a cold
*Michael Shuman, author of The Small-Mart Revolution
*Don Shaffer, Executive Director of BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies)
And more. So this is a placeholder for more news about that journey.

And then in November we journeyed to Pine Mountain Lake (north of LA, east of Santa Barbara), invited by relocalization organizers Sarah and Paul Edwards, to make a presentation about localization based on our Peak Moment conversations.

We headed west to Santa Barbara where we videotaped
*Tam Hunt, with Community Environmental Council on their "Fossil Free by '33" plan
*permaculturist Larry Santoyo
*landscape architect Owen Dell with his visionary "neighborhood foodshed" project
*Larry Saltzman, permaculturist with a food forest in his backyard
*Russ Teall, owner of Biodiesel Industries
*Karen Flagg and Don Hartley with Growing Solutions, who are restoring a landfill
*students in the sustainability club at Santa Barbara Community College
*and several more folks

And then in San Luis Obispo, we videotaped
*SLO Smart Energy Summit
*Bob Banner of Hopedance
*Tylor Middlestadt a Cal Poly student environmental leader

And finally in the Monterey Bay Area
*Deb Lindsay, Peak Oil activist in Pacific Grove
*David Blume on ethanol

There are stories abundant around all these people and places. I'm hoping to fill them in...when I have a moment. For now, this is a bookmark in my blog journal of Peak Moment Travels.

Preface

Over a year ago, a man quietly commented after a public showing of "The End of Suburbia," "Where are the women? All of the Peak Oil voices here are men."

I'd noticed that too, and not just in the Peak Oil movement. Everywhere in our culture, women were often in the trenches doing the work, while men were ably articulating what was going on. Men's voices are given more credence. They're the authorities. Women have to be really assertive, and still are usually not given equal credence. I think that perhaps the changes we need to rebuild our communities in the face of peak oil and climate chaos will be the very skills that have been undervalued in our patriarchal, hyper-individualized culture-- women's personal and social skills.

In our travels videotaping Peak Moment Television shows in about a dozen communities this past summer, I saw that some of the most functional relocalization groups were being led by women, or by women and men sharing leadership roles.

I wondered: How could we raise awareness and articulate women's form of leadership and values to rebalance the leadership models in our male-dominated culture? My answer came when I had a Peak Moment conversation with Anne Oliver of Ukiah. A facilitator, coach and mediator, Anne was on the same page. I promptly invited her to facilitate this conversation, which occurred the evening of a day-long networking meeting of northern California Post Carbon and related groups and individuals in September 2006.

Notes from "Women in Peak Oil" conversation
September 30, 2006, San Francisco

Facilitated by Anne Oliver (Ukiah)
Circle of Women
DL: Deborah Lindsay (Pacific Grove)
EB: Ellen Bicheler (Petaluma)
MM: Melissa Moss (Pacifica)
IS: Ingrid Severson (Oakland)
JD: Janaia Donaldson (Nevada City)
RM: Robyn Mallgren (Nevada City) (

This transcription begins partway into Anne's opening remarks. [bracketed text are my edits. JD])

AO: In times of crisis, people tend to regress. When they get scared, they fall back on traditional patterns to feel safe. In times of crisis: we feel we need a man.

When I went to Willits and saw Jason and Brian running WELL, [I wondered where the women were to balance that male leadership.] I coach women wanting to assume power, especially in the political arena.

I think there's a call in the world. The women are gathering. Indigenous women are gathering. What are we being called to do? Where are women's [skills in] relationship being recognized as leadership?

As a professional mediator I notice the best mediators are women. Why? What makes women leaders? What would women's leadership in a progressive movement look like?

Is gender equity going to be a primary value in GULP (Greater Ukiah Localization Project), for example? Interesting that not everybody assumes "of course." If we espouse a return to more organicity, than why wouldn't we have gender equity? The sexes are 50/50, after all.

In the research, almost everything that comes up is rights-based. We need our rights. It's a Victims Story. The story we tell ourselves matters a lot.

Appreciative Inquiry is a way to re-imagine ourselves. Men have traditionally had leadership roles in the public domain; women in private. Where those roles intersect is community. This tends to be where we have the most equity--in public roles like mayors.

The unregulated male impulse is what got us the way we are. The Seneca and Ogananda knew the women were needed to declare war.

What do we see as leadership? What are the models? How do we build it? Not from a Victim position. I think Women's leadership is difficult. All the research on stress hormones and brain activity and instinctual responses in crisis and under stress, was all done on men. When they studied women, they found that oxytocin is also found. Women Tend and Befriend. Men gravitate towards Flight or Fight. Because women haven't had power in the public domain, we've gotten power by linking horizontally. Women have gotten their strength by women grouping together. It's the inclusive, relational way that women are.

So when a woman gets promoted, women are threatened. We take pot shots, get jealous. That woman breaks the mold in a male model. If she rises, she must take special care to keep relationships with the women she's risen above.

What I've been doing with groups of women is to tell each other stories. The narrative mode is more naturally female. Male language is more instrumental [results-oriented]. That's Appreciative Inquiry. How do we do this in a way that isn't reactive? At a recent event, all the awards for selfless awards went to the women. All the great thinking awards went to the men.

Where our attention is and what we gain insight about, is what we're likely to have more of. So what would shared leadership look like in our Peak Oil movement? What are our best experiences of shared leadership? Shared leadership of the kind we want to see in the world. What can we do to make women's leadership normalized in the world?

Deb's Story

Deborah: I do monthly outreach groups. My counterpart is Mark Folsom. He answers all of the very technical questions. (The instrumental questions). I do the inspirational, we-can-do-this mode.

Ellen: Have you talked about that, your roles? Deb: No we haven't talked about it, but afterwards we both feel vitalized. We're never in competition. We give each other space to talk. We agree to disagree but are respectful. Men nod when he talks, women nod when I talk.

Anne: You share equally the space to talk, and offer [information of different types.]

Deb: We're both solid on our understanding of the problem. I heard David Cobb make a presentation, and had a much younger woman speak also. I wanted to uphold the idea of a female and a male presenting; trying to get age difference as well. We haven't broken into the Latino community yet.

Anne: Before we go further, let's clear the center of the table--so the center we hold is clear. (We moved away our books and purses, etc. Anne placed an heirloom tomato at center, and a stone and a grapefruit. Honoring gifts from Mother Earth).

Anne (to all): Working with Deborah's story, what was most compelling to you?

Melissa: It may have been a more intuitive process to create the teamwork.

Deb: It's not just about results, it's also about making it a bigger (personal) experience for everyone involved. It's tiring and rewarding at the same time.

Anne: Notice that in telling her story, then she got closer to what makes for shared leadership.

Melissa: Inclusive.

Robyn: The sense of comfort in both of the roles. Each person's role was fallen into or carefully chosen, but they fit the two players. A naturalness. Each coming from their gift.

Deb: For me, the work of studying peak oil and global warming is so depressing. Lovelock says if the Kyoto protocols go through, we're actually speeding up our global warming. I said to my husband, "We're just managing our process to hell." But finding those little human moments makes it so worthwhile. I had one of those moments today. Somebody said some little thing, and I got "that's why I put on these [Northern California Post Carbon Network quarterly networking meetings].

Janaia: I observe that you are process-oriented, not about results.

Ingrid's Story

Ingrid: It is hard not to be depressed. I'm still processing this kick-off meeting I hosted last week. I've been organizing, gathering interest, checking in with other professionals on this Rooftop project. I sent out a big email to everybody inviting them to this meeting. It was a make-it or break-it moment; I finally had funding for my position.

There were about 15 people, a decent number. [I was] in the leadership role; it's more of a facilitation than "leadership" role. This project is going to be implemented by volunteers. I gave a PowerPoint overview of the project of Roof technologies, then opened it up to the group. I tried to recruit volunteers. I said I was looking for people to research building codes, policies, etc. [and wasn't getting much response.]

So I tossed the ball out and then it occurred to me to form the group as a round, to make a circle, have them say what they were willing to do or what interested them. Everybody wanted to plug in in some way, though not necessarily the one role I had put out.

Anne: What made that a successful example of leadership?

Ingrid: Humility, receptivity to how people want to respond. Get their input before trying to make a lead. I'd had everyone introduce themselves first. Didn't try to shove something done their throat. Got their involvement.

Ellen: Forming the circle. Anne: Not preplanned, it came out of the moment.

Ingrid: Right, like finding light in a dark room.

Deb: You made a shift, and suddenly you had people want to sign on. That was affirming to you.

Anne: I noticed that you were comfortable with ambiguity of not knowing. When they didn't do what you'd first conceived, you saw what needed to happen. You respected their freedom. Gave them an invitation. Out of their own self-interest, they signed up. Like Carolyn Casey: invite them to the opportunity.

Deb: True leadership is quiet and humble.

Melissa: Humility. A trust process.

Anne: If quiet and humble, how does it get recognized as leadership?

Robyn: That's part of the problem: it often doesn't get recognized when it's quiet.

Deb: You have to go in with the intention of being the leader. You can be quiet and humble without being a leader.

Ingrid: I've done things like this before where it's been co-opted, somebody wants the spotlight. It's amazing that this didn't happen. There was a lot of respect in the room. There were strong leaders but they didn't grab the spotlight.

EB: A lot of respect in the room. Your self-respect was there, too.

AO: Your respect for them. Like a leader, you outlined the desired outcome (people understand what was needed). You had an end in mind (people to sign up). You left them free as to the how.

JD: You invited others to participate, not to just do it the way you wanted.

IS: Reminds me of the process Brian Weller & Jason Bradford have done. What to do when someone tries to throw it off.

AO: What did you do?

IS: Presentations help, esp. with a visual. I covered my background. My vision. I set the stage. I felt like a force spoke to me. I actually had stage fright.

AO: I heard competence. You established competence and strength and something to be respected. RM: An inner strength you didn't know you had.

MM: Resourcefulness.

DL: I have to modify the "quiet and humble." I still need approval. If I don't get it, I feel I haven't done well. I like that you were grounding yourself beforehand. A lot of people ground themselves before doing public stuff. I imagine myself as a vessel, energy coming through the top of my head and out of me. And it's about caring so much that you don't care any more. You care so much about the issues you're on that the other (smaller, personal) issues don't work.

AO: So it's not about egolessness. Women's invisibility. What is it about wanting to be recognized--I'd like to be seen?

Janaia's Story

Janaia: I like to be seen for my contribution. I can see that in my role as host in our Peak Moment Television Conversations. I feel like I'm a facilitator, evoking what people want to share. I want to empower them. So our conversation is a conduit, and I'm the director, the navigator. It's a sacred charge. I/we are holding the people. How does that get recognized as leadership? Yes, we [in this room] see this [facilitative] style as leadership. How do we get it articulated as leadership?

DL: It's important to be seen as a leader.

JD: We're trusting the moment. Letting ourselves be spontaneous with whatever comes up.

AO: Notice that these are conversations, not an interview. [In a conversation] we build something together.

JD: Yes, my point of view does show up.

MM: You multi-task. You're thinking of the viewer, the person you're conversing with, and where you are too.

JD: It's a "We" orientation, not a "Me" orientation.

DL: You have multiple objectives, too: motivate listeners, educate listeners, be with the guest, keep the flow, maintain the objective.

JD: How I focus is that we have an outline of what we'll talk about, a basic structure, but I flow with what comes up in the moment, following where the energy is.

AO: What if we got better at articulating about how we're going to work? We're talking about structures that are human, not about controlling but facilitating the Life that wants to happen. The lone model of leadership is male. Women's model of leadership is WE. Fundamentally about WE. It's a big struggle in our country.

DL: In fact, it's THE issue. When we look at the movie "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" it was because they were from a WE, not a ME. Going from individualist to collectivist mentality is central.

AO: We don't have a lot of models for what that form of governance looks like. I think it's up to women to recognize and articulate about it.

RM: Janaia is spontaneous. We've talked for years about that's being one of her strengths. I'm impressed by the complexity of all that she was tracking. My sense is that this has come almost naturally, even though she has honed it. A real strength of spontaneity is flexibility, responsiveness to life (what's happening right now).

DL: That's a mother thing. Jumping tracks. Switching modes.

AO: How do we articulate this?

DL: Can we be so bold as to create the Women's Postcarbon Leadership Council? Within our own communities. What I'm doing is forming the new leadership there.

AO: I see lacking in Peak Oil movement is a lack of sophistication about these forms of governance. I see a lot of urgency in this movement, and yet using the old forms.

 DL: Actually what we're doing at Sustainable Monterey County is forming the next city council that'll replace the current structures.

Ellen's Story

EB: A couple of weeks ago I learned our Powerdown Project was going to get to do a workshop at the Community Solutions weekend. I felt panic at first. Were the students really ready? They had just done their presentation at SolFest, and they were very empowered by it. There at the event, I began to panic again. Here were 300 people! Even though our workshop was one of the six breakout groups, ours was the best-attended! We practiced a lot. The students didn't go to the dance. It turned out to be more spontaneous than we'd planned. Once they were doing it, it flowed. They received a lot of info to further them on their project.

AO: What made it shared leadership?

EB: I had to convince myself of my worthiness of my leadership. I knew the students were shaky, not quite ready before we left.

AO: What made the difference?

EB: I feel I had empowered the students that whatever happened was okay. That they were grounded in what they were talking about.

AO: What made their workshop so well-attended?

EB: The students' confidence and networking with a lot of people there.

DL: You really hold those students.

EB: Right afterwards, we came together and the students had a card and gift for me. And I received individual acknowledgments from the students.

AO (to all): What do you hear?

DL: You have to be bold.

AO: I heard the commitment to the students.

JD: You were advocating for the students.

MM: You stayed focused on getting what you needed for help.

AO: We are more powerful in negotiations if we're advocating for others (that comes out in the research on women). This was a step up for you. It's not just about you. It's about WE.

DL: In Peak Oil, we're up to bat for someone else. I'm almost inconsequential. Here we are advocating for the future generations, and the planet.

AO: It's a WE. Part of the WE is "I." " I" don't disappear. I'm part of the WE. In the culture that has championed the culture of individuals, that's a concept that hasn't had primacy.

I also heard that having raised the bar (by going to this event), the students had to work for it. They worked, and yet then some spontaneity could happen in the workshop. You were guided by key principles: networking, empowering.

EB: It's becoming more important to me to be seen. I'm wanting to have my voice, to speak out more. I've been timid in the past. Speaking out more. Shepherd and others in my relocalization group are supporting me.

AO: It's okay to ask for support in assuming more leadership.

EB: I felt empowered by what happened there. It's building momentum.

Robyn's Story

RM: My shared leadership happens to be in Peak Moment Television. I'm jazzed about the relationship the two of us have in pulling this off. Not thought of myself as a leader. I have shied away from anything that smelled like leadership. Here we've each found what we love. Behind the camera I am finding an art form, creativity. Being the person who makes those decisions without drawing on someone else is new to me, or at least being in that position has felt uncomfortable. In this adventure, it feels totally comfortable. I look forward to each challenge: I'm loving it. We each have found roles where there's no conflict. Everything gets covered. A comfortable, sharing co-creativity.

EB: I love "co-creative." That's a wonderful word. (To all) What do you hear?

IS: I hear an unexpected level of comfort with this leadership role.

AO: Reciprocity and mutual support. Informing each other's leadership.

MM: Partnership. Within that sense of security you can tread on each other's territory.

RM: We worked together at Xerox, but there wasn't this sense of partnership.

AO: It's in the service of the Creation.

DL: That form of creation is very special and can be overwhelming to very many people. If you get to that point of power, it's strong.

AO: Isn't that what it's going to take to have the leadership? Where most conflict comes from is "it's my way or it's your way." I can smell in a meeting when somebody has an idea that's premature, that comes instrumental thinking, e.g., assigning volunteers. It comes out of my own idea, it causes a reaction against other egos. You're talking about putting it together in a way that is natural. The [question is] HOW [we put it together in a natural way]: we don't know that.

JD: The pre-structured plan doesn't work.

AO: How do we skim it off the top?

EB: I like your talking about this as an art form.

AO: It frees people to feel like co-creators.

RM: I hide the fact that I hide. And Deb caught that. I like that she saw that part of my truth.

MM: The feminine model. As a woman, I am very curious about people, or about experience. Of course, it's not complete until we've all shared.

Melissa's Story

MM: Like what happened at this community feast last August. Before then, we'd done Life Force Cafe events (all raw foods, etc.) and I'd come home starving. I wanted to have a fun, bustling feast. I partnered with a woman doing an e-coop. This woman and I, it was co-creative, it took off, got bigger and bigger. It snowballed, got bigger and better. Took on a life of its own. On the day of the event, there were volunteers who'd come to previous similar (Life Force Cafe) events. I felt I was getting tested: we were doing it differently from that. One volunteer had "this is how we do it" attitude. I found myself backing down. I let go in that moment. I stayed busy in other areas and let her do things as in the past. It was enough to let happen what we'd given birth to.

AO: What represented the kind of leadership?

MM: Collaboration. People tapping into the concept, letting it build. I love it when everybody's two cents is thrown in. More than just one person.

AO: There was common vision, everybody having their role. Very mother-like role. You respected the life of the event. You let it be alive.

EB: I heard fun, celebratory.

AO: So what are we hearing about women's form of leadership?

* Keep the energy moving, but in a shared direction. Letting go is a big theme.
* Leadership isn't micro-management.
* It's faith-based and informed delegation.
* It's important to know what matters (and what doesn't). That's the basis for negotiation. That way you can give up things that don't matter.
*When you know what matters, you're clear on what is important to you. What you're willing to do and not to do.
*Women are graduating from selfless legwork behind the scenes to acknowledging the worth of our time.

Key Themes
*It's about the WE, and that includes the "I."
*Collaboration, co-creative, the common vision.
*Know what matters.
*Acknowledge and honor value of time.
*Structure with fluidity. (e.g., plant model: there's fluids moving within the structures). Have organizing powerful concepts or frames, clear structure, guiding principles that are living and meaningful. But let things unfold organically. That way there's still freedom.
*Have fun!

Anne: How would you tell people about what we were doing tonight? We're developing on behalf of everyone a more consonant model of leadership in the Post Carbon movement. We are balancing male and female modes. It's

* Articulate shared leadership.
* Nurturing
* Vibrancy.

AO: What's different for you now?

RM: I have a sense of this alternative. I also see that where we hit the wall with one individual is the challenge we face.

JD: I feel nurtured. It's moving towards birthing.

IS: Feels like a becoming.

AO: It was a really living conversation. Very relevant topic to us, and to the world. We are opening and listening.

MM: I'm glad I came. Hopefully I can have a more objective view in my role on a project, encourage another's participation. To rearrange my thoughts about male-style leadership. Thank you, Anne, for shining a light on these--they were already there.

EB: I appreciate your leadership in all this. This is a synergy of all of us. We interlap at different places. This feels like a new territory, a new way of thinking. Exciting!

DL: I still have questions about leadership, and why I'm interested in being a leader. I want to think about the next time we're all together. Maybe we could do something really fun like stay overnight in SF, maybe even be luxurious in our deliberations!

Epilogue

We welcome further discussion on women's contributions to leadership, visioning, and the inner and outer changes needed in our world. We plan to meet in person again probably in the fall of 2007.

======================
White Oak Farm & CSA
=====================

Late Sunday, August 28th, we wound our way through the gently curving roads in the dark, at last finding the sign that led us uphill to White Oak Farm and CSA near Williams in southern Oregon west of Ashland. Only as we left in daylight did we see the expansive pastures rising uphill to the gardens, the barn/community building, and further up to the straw bale-cob residence under construction. We parked our van beneath the oaks and fell blissfully asleep, happy to be in familiar-feeling quiet woods.

The next morning we set up our cameras inside the Common House, a two-story barrel-shaped strawbale structure, while several young people set to work plastering an interior wall. The building's exterior wall curves around a huge central tree-trunk. An upstairs loft looks down into the main room and kitchen areas. As we set up our cameras, a few ducks wandered by.

The White Oak Common House

With plasterers working in background, we taped a conversation with Stacey Denton, who along with Taylor Starr and Eli Sarnat formed the White Oak Farm CSA and Educational Center. Stacey wanted to put into practice what she'd been studying in environmental sciences. After taking a Permaculture course with the Bullock brothers on Orcas Island, she and two others found this land, a perfect south-facing plot much of which was already cleared and in pasture.

They worked with a local Land Trust to hold the land while they raised money to pay it off. They've put conservation easements on much of the land, some of which is forested. They formed a non-profit organization and have sponsored educational programs for school children, as well as providing courses in natural building techniques in association with building the straw bale residence. They envision adding photovoltaics for electricity to supplement their grid power.

White Oak formed a CSA farm (community-supported agriculture), planting hundreds of orchard trees as well as a garden of row crops. They keep ducks, chickens, goats and honeybees. Interns work with them in the busy season, and then the farm and its residents take some rest during winter, in keeping with the earth at that time.

Whew! That's a lot accomplished in a very few years! This is still a work-in-progress, as it will likely be for many years to come. White Oak models a small-scale sustainable, intensively-managed, organic, permaculture-based farm that we need multiplied a million-fold across North America. That it's also an educational center harbors the promise there'll be training for many new farmers yet to come

It was hard to leave Portland--so many more Peak Moment possibilities! But we headed south on Saturday, happily eating fresh berries from the People's Food Coop.

=============================
Northwest Permaculture Gathering
=============================

We briefly visited with long-time friends in Brownsville and then landed in Eugene for the Northwest Permaculture Institute's weekend conference at the Dharmalaya center. The large back yard was full of people! We were warmly greeted by friends we'd met the month before when we taped Peak Moment shows with some of them: Doug Black, Jan Spencer, Krishna Singh Khalsa, Ravi Logan, Jason Schreiner, Guy Prouty, Sue Supriano, and Tom Schneider.

The grounds outside were nicely laid out with hay bales for seating, a community bulletin board, literature tables and folks were lined up for a vegan dinner prepared in the outside kitchen. Behind and around the sanctuary building, the grounds are being planted using permaculture design principles, including a bioswale to capture rainwater and fruit trees.

Dharmalaya Center, Eugene OR - view of the back through the gardens

We set up our equipment in the sanctuary to videotape the evening presentations of a number of interesting projects in the area that emphasize LOCAL -- a food packer of local organic produce, a sustainable-business directory, a permaculture educational center, and more.

I spoke about our Peak Moment television programs, our travels and tapings this summer. When I named our vision of taking Peak Moment On the Road throughout the country, taping and producing programs so that we can hand the finished program to our guests before we head to the next community. I got some uplifting supportive responses in the room -- hurrah!

We camped our Vanagon for the night near the home of our hostess Sue Supriano, and were up early in the morning to participate in the first session, a Media Track that Sue had organized. A longtime SF Bay Area activist and media maven, Sue has recently moved to Eugene from Berkeley. For over twenty-five years she's been an independent media producer of audio interviews on a wide range of topics in environmental, political, peace, Peak Oil. You can catch her programs on www.suesupriano.com, including one she did with me later that day.

During the media track, we also heard from independent producer Amy Pinkus Merwin, host of a Eugene radio program and visionary/ supporter of media projects in the central Oregon region. We showed our Peak Moment Highlights video, and Sue showed a video about a low-power FM station installed and running during one rainy week in Nashville.

==============================
Looking for the Peak Moment Mobile
==============================

We spent Sunday night parked in Tom and Victoria Schneider's driveway in Eugene. Tom sells RVs for a large nearby RV sales outlet. Last June he spent several hours showing and educating us on the different types and sizes of motorhomes.

We had a warm and nourishing breakfast with Tom and Victoria, including local grass-fed beef, local eggs, and vegies from their garden. We share with them the experience of being nourished by traditional foods including high-quality fats like dairy and coconut oil. Robyn's slender body-type and metabolism especially needs high-energy foods: on the road she has turned to Tahini, almond and dairy butters, meat, eggs, avocado, and Kettle potato chips. Well, we know that last item isn't the best nutritionally, but it worked in a pinch.

We spent most of Monday looking through the new and used motorhomes. Bit by bit we are clarifying what we want: a diesel pusher that is 38 ft. long on the inside, and 25 ft. short on the outside. Hard to find! :-)) Add to that a compactly-sized bathroom, a slide-out with sofa-bed for an on-board studio, highly-efficient space-saving storage. After we put the photovoltaics on the roof, we add electric vehicle capacity. Well, we've found that we don't fit the standard profile they're designing for! Any mechanical geniuses out there that want to help create a prototype biofuel flexfuel electric motorhome?

=========================
BioFuels -- Fill 'er up along I-5
=========================

Speaking of biofuels! On our way out of Eugene Monday afternoon, we stopped to tape a Peak Moment conversation at a new SeQuential Biofuels retail station and retail store that's being built. Ian Hill is one of the founding partners of SeQuential, going back to his student days making biodiesel in the garage. He and partners put together a business plan and began to develop a market for biofuels. Right in time for energy decline!

Their retail outlet will carry both biodiesel and ethanol in different grades. SeQuential's vision is a string of biofuel stations along the I-5 freeway from Canada to southern California. In answer to my question, Ian replied that biofuels cannot totally replace gasoline and diesel, which we consume in such enormous quantities -- but they can assist in a transition towards renewables.

SeQuential Biofuels in Eugene - soon open along with Big Oil

SeQuential is walking their conscious-about-energy talk. During the conversation, solar installers behind us mounted photovoltaic panels on huge racks that'll be the roofs over the pumps. A living roof will be planted on the retail store roof. Inside they'll sell some locally produced food and baked goods. Their refinery in Salem converts used vegetable oils. As the sun dropped in the west, we wished Ian well and packed the Vanagon to head south for our next day's conversation.

Next: White Oak Farm CSA and Education Center in Williams, Oregon.

Saturday was our day to head south. But Portland wasn't about to let us slip out so easily. Or at least Daniel Lerch wasn't! Our packed scheduled hadn't permitted for a moment to sit down and chat with Daniel, so we met for breakfast at the bustling Utopia cafe whose blueberry pancakes were sublime.

===================
At the Women's Temple
===================

Since we had a few hours before our next destination, Daniel seized the moment and led us on a wild and delightful whirlwind tour of special places in Portland. We visited the cob building being reconstructed beside the Women's Temple, a house converted solely as a women's sacred space. While Daniel chatted about persimmons and other gleanable fruit trees with the knowledgeable street man, Robyn and I were welcomed by a young woman to quickly tour through the house painted in dark, rich colors.

Cob building in process

I was intrigued by a small shop in front of the Temple house called Shining Arcana, filled with shiny objects like semiprecious jewelry. I loved the inclusive spirit in their flyer: "goth punk retro rennfaire pagan lovecraftian victorian techno outsider insider queer straight friendly." I don't know what all those terms refer to, but its spirit of inclusiveness seems cosmopolitan and welcoming. Around the globe, can we find our way to do that instead of the "Us vs. Them" fires of tribalism being hotly fanned in so many places, most visibly now in the Middle East?

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Portland Re-Building - Salvaged Materials
===================================

Daniel led us across town to the enormous Re-Building buildings, stock-full of re-usable building materials. We had videotaped conversations at RE Store in Bellingham, the smaller cousin inspired by Re-Building. Mark Lakeman designed the new addition: we delighted in the wall of windows of varying sizes and shapes (all salvaged, of course). And the cob-crafted entryway with tree-pillars extending to steel beams, blending the natural and human-built environment.

Entry to the Re-Building store

A water feature slowed the movement of rainwater to the storm-sewer system. It was fronted by a playful, inventive ironwork fence made of wrenches, pipes, hardware fittings you'd find in the store. Not simply a store, this is a community gathering place. Inside the building were places to sit, and a large set of display boards for a myriad of flyers and community notices. I could've spent hours wandering the aisles of porcelain bath fixtures, lighting fixtures, hardware knobs, cabinets and furniture, paint and tile, grilles and appliances--endless wonders each with stories to tell. 

A playful tool ironwork fence

We have so much wealth we throw into the landfill needlessly! Where are the Re-Building stores in every community?

(Synchronicity note: I'm writing this as we're going through Chico. On our way out of town, Robyn spotted a "Re-Store" sign and whipped back to check. Sure enough, a Re-Store sponsored by Habitat for Humanity. It's happening! Onward to Every Town!).

(Post Note: I'm posting this back home after learning a Re-Store-like business has just opened in our own community. Maybe we're at the tipping point to RE-Store and Re-Build our world!) 

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Natural Foods Coop: built for sustainability
===================================

Portland's Re-Building isn't the only commercial space that's creating community space. Daniel led us south to the People's Food Coop. Located on a corner in a residential district, this new building incorporates some wonderful features: a big open courtyard out front for the weekly grower's market and other gatherings. A living roof. Bioswales to let rainwater percolate before going into the stormwater system. Corner traffic-calmers. A colorful bottle-glass cob wall. A spacious community meeting room upstairs. 

It was sustainably built, as their brochure proudly notes, listing a ground source heat pump, solar chimney, water and energy efficiency, building efficiency both in materials and operational practices.  This "community model of green building and sustainable business practices" reminds me that our own Grass Valley Briar Patch market's new building -- now under construction -- will likewise be such a model. 

We had tried unsuccessfully for days to reach someone to give us a Peak Moment our of Dignity Village. Failing that, we drove there and received a marvelous personal tour that we did not videotape. It was the most moving destination in our journey. This entry was written that same day. Today, on our next-to-last day in Portland, we have experienced community in two different forms that presage, I think, some of the forms community will take in our urban lower-energy futures. One is a village of homes for once-homeless people. The other is a neighborhood community.

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Dignity Village: Home for the Formerly Homeless
=========================================

The sun came out this morning, beckoning us northward to the asphalt-covered Dignity Village site not far from the Columbia River. On one side is the city's composting/mulching operation. On the other, a corrections facility. Fenced in between, Dignity Village is colorful, haphazardly creative, vital, and anything-but-institutional.

Gaye greeted us at the small shack at the driveway to the village, and proceeded to regale us with history, stories, wisdom, humor, personal observations, and political critique. An activist in the '60's, she had been made homeless by health problems. She started our tour by recounting the abysmally inadequate human services provided in the city: shelters with insufficient security, long lines for the food kitchens, the endless wait to get a bed for the night when there are many times more homeless people than available beds.

About 38 people live in this almost one-acre village. The villagers have their own non-profit organization, board of directors, rules (like co-housing, it occurs to me). The city permits them to build a shelter 10 x 12 feet for one person, 10 x 15 ft. for couples.

We toured the Village, passing a dozen college student volunteers removing nails from salvaged lumber. Committed to sustainability, Villagers have tried cob--too much upkeep required--and now mostly build stick-built homes with salvaged materials. They're all built on platforms--high enough to remain above winter rainwaters pooling on the asphalt basin, easy to move with big forklifts. Colorfully painted, with boxes for community gardens--each member has his/her own individual expression. They help each other build, but they each have their own place, plus a large communal building. Together they buy propane for hot showers, several portable toilets, electricity. They pay their own bills, they bought their land.

Provisional prospective members live at least one year in camping tents pitched on a raised platform and covered with a rain tarp. Members have to agree to five basic tenets: no violence, no theft, no drugs or alcohol, everyone has to be financially self-sufficient, and must work a certain number of hours for the common good, the Village.

The ethos behind this Village is respect. Respect for one other, respect for the place. "These are the rules we learned by age three," Gaye quipped, "but a lot of us have to relearn them." Like any collection of humans, they have their squabbles and challenges. But here, they also have their dignity. They are not a drain on society: they work and go to school, pay their taxes. They live modestly; but they live, truly, as a village where everybody knows everybody else. Their goal is to help other tent cities of homeless people, to do as they're doing. Why others haven't succeeded, Gaye said, is when they allow alcohol and drugs. Those breed theft, and violence, and the authorities are only too ready to shut it down.

Perhaps these once-homeless people are paving the way for others with more financial means to learn, to relearn, what it is to build and to be community. They are certainly living with a small footprint and more contact than most of us get with our neighbors. We left with our hearts deeply touched at Gaye's poignant stories of lives reclaimed, land brought alive, of people enlivened with self-respect and dignity.

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A Farm Oasis in Urban Portland
==========================

When you drive down the urban residential street, you turn into the driveway between two apartment buildings, and come to a white gate at the gravel driveway. A friendly barking dog greets you. Islanded in this urban landscape you find huge walnut trees, a three-story farmhouse, and part of an acre of land planted in fruits, vegetables and flowers. Pam and Joe Leitch call this Portland Permaculture Institute, where they teach and put into practice soil-building, growing, preserving, collecting rainwater, closing the loops to end waste. They also call this "Home."

We taped a much-too-short conversation including both of them. Pam described the life-changing effects of Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin's book Your Money or Your Life, which moved them out of corporate America and into reading and studying the state of the world. Led them to working on resource decline, to Pam's working with the Portland Peak Oil group. Last year she and several others conceived of and brought to their city commissioners the Portland Peak Oil resolution, which passed unanimously. Now she's helping to support the Peak Oil Task Force which grew out of that resolution, a group of about a dozen volunteer citizens who are tackling the job of making recommendations to the city about what they could do in the event of chronic energy decline and economic repercussions.

Joe's five-minute verbal tour of their gardens touched on the building of neighborliness. Wanting to cut down poplars that shaded their garden, they met with neighbors at the adjoining apartment house. Out of that, the poplars came down, and that land was planted in fruit trees chosen by the apartment-dwellers. Joe spoke also of other trees in the neighborhood that they've gleaned, making apple juice and other goodies. And he gave the formula for calculating how much rainwater catchment you need. They now have 6000 gallons and calculate they need about 20,000 to irrigate (drip, of course) in the dry Portland summer.

Portland Permaculture gardens and neighboring apartments

====================
Hey Neighbors, let's eat!
====================

After our conversation, we packed up and joined in on the twice-a-week neighborhood potluck on their deck. Sharing tofu and raw-fish roll-your-own sushi, homemade berry cobbler, the neighbors included people of several races and all ages, some from the apartment houses in front of this property, some from down the street.

The conviviality, the easy conversation, felt like neighborhood community as many of us long for. Joe told me later these potlucks took a lot of conscious work: multiple invitations, in many ways and forms. They have a head-start on community building of the kind that we've lost in our fragmented and hyper-individualistic America. May community like this multiply abundantly: meet your neighbors, share some food and talk. Thanks for including us in the fold, Pam and Joe.

Idea for community-building: Eat together!

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A visit to a neighborhood's sunflower-painted street
==========================================

We were scheduled to tape a conversation with Mark Lakeman, the genius behind the non-profit group City Repair on Thursday afternoon. Daniel had worked for City Repair, so on the way to the taping he showed us one of City Repair's projects that helps reconnect people to one another and their place.

Sunnyside Plaza was an ordinary residential intersection. With help from City Repair, the neighbors worked together to paint a huge sunflower in the intersection, with leafy vines extending to the sidewalks. They've placed big flower-filled painted barrels at the street corners to slow traffic. One neighbor's front yard has a stone corner bench and fountain. An ironwork gazebo circles overhead.

Sunnyside Plaza's sunflower intersection

There's another bench down the street. Many of the nearby Victorian houses are painted in bright colors similar to the sunflower. Traffic slows as it comes through the intersection. It has become a more habitable place. People stop to talk with one another. But, Daniel noted, it takes commitment to keep up on such projects -- recoating the paint and maintaining the benches.

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City Repair: reclaiming urban spaces for people
=======================================

Mark Lakeman is an architect by training and a visionary by nature. He describes City Repair as an "all-volunteer grassroots organization helping people reclaim their urban spaces to create community-oriented places." Their work is multi-disciplinary and multi-dimensional, spanning ecology, public development, economy, energy and society.

Mark noted that the city/state creates its own problems. It is inherently anti-democratic, laid out in an unnatural linear grid of streets, socially alienating. Mark says that solutions must be related to one anothe, and that the whole solution begins with civic engagement. Getting people involved working with one another to reclaim their places.

Sunnyside Plaza is one such place. Later we visited a cob building being built beside the Women's Temple, and an altar/bench commemorating a bicyclist killed by an auto. Every May City Repair hosts a building convergence, where many groups of people engage in projects like those listed above. It's not just about the projects, Mark emphasizes: it's about people coming together and building community with one another. City Repair has put together a Placemaking Handbook so that others can engage in reclaiming their urban spaces.

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Peak Oil Task Force meeting
========================

After our taping, we returned to downtown Portland for the Portland Peak Oil Task Force meeting. We sat in to listen in each of the four working groups: Land Use and Transportation (the largest); Food; Social; Economic Change. This citizen Task Force of twelve was appointed after passage of the Peak Oil resolution in May of 2006. Their mission is to bring recommendations to the city council in January.

The first job, of course, was organizing themselves and their approach to the task. Trying to refrain from making recommendations yet, each group was discussing what the relevant questions were. Several began identifying potential stakeholders to contact, such as key businesses, government agencies, educational institutions, and non-profit organizations. We recognized that consulting such leaders widens the outreach about energy decline, as well as gaining perspectives and ideas from those knowledgeable about their own industries.

Land Use and Transportation was discussing transportation for core needs like food, Columbia River transport, and zoning. Food discussed city incentives for gardens, rainwater catchment, preservation and distribution issues, food banks. Social discussed the health care system, the increasing numbers of poor and marginalized people, free transit passes, the already severely limited social services. Economic Change underlies everything. This task force is paving the way for many municipalities: I hope their work is broadly disseminated so others need not reinvent the wheel.

The Task Force's website is www.thecrashcourse.org. Check it out, again and again. Use them as a model. 

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.

=============================
Taping about Portland at "The City"
=============================

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
======================================

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.

========================
What's A Municipality to Do?
========================

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

=================================================
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
===========================

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.

I'd planned our trip to give us several days to visit the Olympic Peninsula. Robyn was raised in Olympia, and the highlight of each childhood summer was her family's camping trip to Graves Creek, on the south fork of the Quinault River in the Olympic National Forest. So we made the pilgrimmage, this time coming from the north. From Port Townsend and Port Angeles we headed west through tree-covered mountains beside the emerald-turquoise waters of Lake Crescent.

At the far northwest of the Olympic peninsula, fog rolled in over Ruby Beach and the town of Forks. We headed inland to camp overnight on the North Fork of the Quinault River. After so many weeks of city-ness and social activity, we both were ready for the deep refreshment of wild nature.

The next morning we drove to the Graves Creek campground, stopping first at "The Fountain of Youth," so named by Robyn's mother Dorothy. And following the Mallgren family custom, we drank from it, dipping a cup into the white water spilling down the steep black rock wall.

From our campsite, we took a several-hour hike up Grave's Creek along what Robyn called the "Sundown Trail." Here we were greeted by berries of many kinds--blueberries, salmonberries, blackberries, watermelon berries, red huckleberries. The canyon walls are quite steep, though heavily wooded.

After several miles we came to a huge rock-slide carved out the mountainside. Earlier in the season it would be filled with snow, and on several occasions, it was the spot where Robyn's family decided to turn back. On the return she showed me sites holding memories for decades -- the cement pad where the campground "Community Kitchen once stood, and the site of Graves Creek Inn, demolished by the Park Service in the 1950s. We were happily tired when we tucked into bed that night, and for Robyn it was a welcome coming-home.

=============
On to Portland
=============

We left Tuesday morning for Portland, stopping in Hoquiam's library to catch up on emails, but only after we'd eaten the fresh local "little wild blackberry pie" at Duffy's Restaurant. That restaurant has been a favorite since Robyn's childhood, and is one of the few places she can find local oyster stew.

As we drove south, I was a little anxious about where we might stay that night, because we hadn't heard back from my appeal to Portlanders for a place to park our van. To my relief, Daniel Lerch took us out of the lurch by offering for us to park opposite his apartment. When we arrived, he made arrangements with the neighbor across the street, and we found a parking place workable on all counts. An unusual way to get to know your neighbors, but hey, that's part of building community!

R&J Van in Portland

We had met Daniel last May at the Energy Vulnerability Summit in Petaluma, and he became our primary Portland contact, providing us with maps and directions, and becoming our knowledgeable guide for much of two days. With all the fine places Daniel thought up for us to visit, we could've easily stayed another week (and enjoyed it thoroughly).

Next: Does Portland live up to its environmental-leadership reputation?

Another First! We slept in our van in the ferry line in Victoria harbor. It was remarkably more quiet than we expected.

Despite sleeping quite well, 5:15 was way too early in the morning for the alarm to ring. A customs officer knocked on our van window while I dressed and hurried into the cold morning air to purchase our tickets. I dropped our Vanagon's pop-up top and we drove aboard just before six am. I sleepily tucked back to bed as Robyn went upstairs to watch the crossing, especially as the ferry entered a thick fog bank near the mainland.

After breakfast in Port Angeles, we got connected with our Port Townsend host Steve Hamm, who's the communications coordinator of their Local 20/20 group, affiliated with Post Carbon Institute. Steve met us in his biodiesel-powered Mercedes and led us to our first Peak Moment taping site on this peninsula.

Thus Saith Steve Hamm's Mercedes

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An Architect's Environment-Friendly House
===================================

As we drove uphill approaching the house, I noticed the large gleaming galvanized pipe extending two stories high from roof to ground at the back of the house. Another shorter pipe was at the front of the house. Architect Chris Stafford explained during our Peak moment conversation that these rainwater collectors were culverts set in a concrete base, his experiment with a widely available, non-plastic material.

Catching rainwater in a culvert pipe

Chris has long been interested in sustainable building; he helped found and lead the Northwest Sustainable Building organization. He designed his home and studio buildings to be small, compact, using non-toxic materials where possible, and built on 2-foot modules to reduce material waste. Clear glass tubes on the house's south-facing wall create hot water for domestic and space heating, and a heat exchanger is used to ventilate the home.

Chris installed a 2.2 kilowatt photovoltaic system on a pole separate from the buildings. His eyes twinkled as he talked about his power staying on when the entire peninsula was in a blackout for several days. Maybe that outside porch light's gleam could be a beacon to others about what they could do for electrical self-reliance or resilience!

In his short "nugget" after our conversation Chris spoke about our need to think in an expanded way about what are really needs versus our wants. Some of his clients balk at investing in solar electricity or solar thermal systems in their house design, where they don't think twice about adding another bedroom or bathroom. We are not accustomed to thinking of our homes as energy-providers, or resource-collectors--utilities have always been at the ready and plentiful. The emerging wisdom is to include energy-production in our buildings, as Chris's home demonstrates.

================================
Julian Darley presents to City Officials
================================

Steve Hamm gave us a delightful quick tour around town, and then we shared a light dinner and wi-fi in historic Port Townsend. Our Victorian-era restaurant overlooked the Sound, where white sails dotted the smooth blue-green water. Steve whipped a few Peak Oil witticisms our way ("we don't mean to scare ya, just want to prepare ya" ) and we were off!

Historic downtown Port Townsend

After dinner we stopped briefly to meet the Local 20/20 Steering Committee. The next morning we were up *very* early to tape Julian Darley's breakfast presentation to local elected officials and candidates. He presented facts about Peak Oil and Natural Gas, and what some municipalities and even nations are doing in response, as for example Sweden's commitment to be fossil-fuel free by 2025, or cities like Portland Metro evaluating their energy vulnerability.

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A Joyous Experiment in Backyard Permaculture
========================================

Judith Alexander obviously delights in her beautiful and productive garden "experiment." Inspired a few years ago to take personal responsibility for the planet's worsening condition, she has transformed her garden plus half her neighbor's unused lot into a verdant paradise with sixty-some varieties of productive plants. We saw several young fruit trees, two long raspberry walls, four huge boxes of already-harvested potatoes, the happy hen house and the wiggly worms compost bin.

She is keeping bees in partnership with a bee-keeper, she told me as we squatted near the bee boxes while taping that segment. I can personally vouch that the bees were busy, plentiful and heavily-laden with bright-orange pollen. Having read The Secret Life of Bees earlier this summer and delighting in the wisdom in this novel (highly recommended!), I calmly moved among the bees without incident as the story's heroine learned to do.

One ingenious aspect of Judith's garden is her rainwater multi-story catchment and multi-stage distribution system. Crediting her brother's inventiveness, she showed the rain barrel positioned up near the eaves, and pipes running from it along the fencetop to fill other rain barrels at the other end of the yard. My favorite is the rainbarrel sitting on top of the outdoor refrigerator, feeding both the outdoor sink and pipes leading across another building's eaves to fill a set of rainbarrels farther on! Playful and practical at once! Drip irrigation tape in the garden ensures maximizing this precious resource in a region averaging only 17 inches rainfall per year.

Rain from roof to barrel to more barrels

=======================
Julian's Public Presentation
=======================

We scheduled our Port Townsend visit to coincide with Julian's speaking engagement so we could videotape it. Arranged by Local 20/20, the Port Townsend area relocalization group, the talk was held in a theatre at Fort Worden Park, a military site that's now a verdant spacious park (would that this could be the fate of all military sites.) After Julian's presentation on Peak Oil & Natural Gas, Post Carbon Institute's projects, and what other communities are doing, the audience plied him with thoughtful questions about possible scenarios and responses.

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Water, Water: Preserve this Precious Resource
=======================================

Our hostess and companion all day Friday was Sally Lovell, coordinator of the Water action group for Local 20/20. We headed south of town to a Washington State University (WSU) building at Port Hadlock. We set up in the reception area near the WSU media coordinator, with whom we compared notes briefly about his work and ours. Here, the set-design challenge was to dim but not entirely block the sunlight behind our couch, which we resolved by hanging two matching sets of curtains. Robyn is enjoying the creative challenges of set and lighting design, proving that creativity and resourcefulness isn't limited to the editing phase!

Our first conversation was with Pat Pearson, WSU Natural Resources and Water Quality Agent. With her presentation grounded in the natural water cycles, Pat educates the community to conserve and protect their water resources. She showed us the Puget Sound Climate Change report, which indicates reduced snow pack and thus reduced water resources. This region seems to be leading the way in this area of concern: being in the rain shadow of the Olympic Mountains makes it incumbent upon them to do so.

Pat described a variety of educational programs: Water Matters, Beachwatchers, and Shore Stewards, including an in-depth course on local water issues for community leaders (where Sally Lovell met her, I'm sure.) Programs are aimed variously for new homeowners, ocean shoreline landowners and volunteers, and school children. She also works with other organizations to develop regional water policies, and there is also a low-cost rain barrel program for residents, like the barrels we saw in Judy Alexander's garden.

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The Power of One: Conserving Water and More
======================================

Sally Lovell was brimming with well-honed practices and good ideas for stewarding resources without feeling deprived or burdened but actually feeling more fulfilled. Since I delight in such "Franny Frugal" practices myself, we had a rollicking, fast-paced conversation about conserving lots of things. Water--from low-flow shower heads to saving "gray" water (water from the shower or laundry rinse) for irrigation or toilet-flushing. She has chosen to live in a small homes, use salvaged materials where possible, and she recycles assiduously. She makes it sound fun--and it is! By living in a smaller home and using fewer resources, Sally has freed up a lot of time to volunteer for many organizations and projects that matter to her.

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Electric-Powered Bicycle Power
===========================

Sally is especially pleased about her recent purchase of an electric-assist bike, which she uses to bike 5 miles to town. In fact, her enthusiasm led us to hatch the idea of doing a Peak Moment conversation later that day, so she got on the phone looking for people who might be available to participate. After we finished taping our show with her, she directed us back to Ft. Worden Park, where we taped a segment with Port Townsend city councilor Scott Walker.

His bike is a simple conversion, he explained: an electric motor and small battery have been added to an ordinary bicycle. We talked about his work over the past decade or so expanding bike trails through undeveloped portions of the greater Port Townsend area, and the increasing number of bikers using those bikeways. I got a chance to ride his bike, and *loved* the electric-motor assist! It would make all the difference in being able to bike in our hilly Nevada county landscape. Whee!!! A door of possibility has opened!

We went back to Sally's house to videotape her segment, which became its own full show. Sally's bike works differently. It's an electric-assist bike. She wanted the pedaling exercise, so the bike's electric motor cuts in only when she needs the help for steep uphills. She showed the removable battery, the gauge showing battery level, the extras that make biking comfortable and safe: rain gear, lights, reflectors, and even a modest trailer outfitted with two storage tubs for carrying home bigger loads. She got me enthused about the possibilities: I can envision many more of us on bikes with options like the electric-assist, or three-wheeled versions for stability, or trailers to carry our groceries.

============================
A Trip to the Edge of the Universe
============================

When we chatted with Ann Raab after Julian's presentation, I mentioned wanting some time "with just us gals." She promptly replied, "Let's do it Friday night. Let's go to the Edge of the Universe, bring a bottle of wine, get a little dinner." Totally intrigued, and ready for a break, I said yes. So after our tapings, Sally, Robyn and I met Ann, Deborah Stinson and Holly __ at the far north end of the peninsula. We parked in a wooded area with dirt paths and a couple of roads. At Ann's suggestion we newbies closed our eyes, and they led us by the hand for a short distance.

When we arrived, our guides stopped us and stood behind us and held us around the waist. Opening our eyes, we gasped. We stood near the edge of a cliff overlooking the northern Puget sound--a vast expanse of sea, setting sun, and islands in the distance--and the sea perhaps thousand feet below us meeting a rocky shore. I was glad for my guide's hand holding me on terra firma; that vast expanse had a magnetic pull drawing my energy into it.

Come to the Edge, she said

We watched as a tugboat hauled a huge set of logs through the smooth waters. To our west lay Victoria, on Vancouver Island. To our north lay Orcas and the other San Juan Islands we had traveled through so recently. To the east, Whidbey Island. Truly, this place was rightly named "The Edge of the Universe."

So we chatted at The Edge, drank lovely wine, enjoyed crackers and other nibblies before caravaning to town for a fine Thai dinner. A most restful and energizing evening that far exceeded my imaginings.

==============================
P.S. with a Visionary Town Councilor
==============================

We had originally planned to do some "catch-up" on Saturday and then drive to the Olympic Peninsula for several days. We took up Ann Raab's gracious offer and came to her lovely B&B, where we ran a load of laundry, caught up on emails and blogging. But, as we found in every place on our journey, there were more tapings we wanted to do. This busy lady also does sustainable housing-design. Next trip we tape Ann with all of her natural-material samples! But on this day, we phoned Scott Walker, who joined us for another 15-minute segment to round out his electric-bike story.

Scott told me he had realized decades ago that cheap oil and transportation were responsible for most of the ills in our society--wars, the loss of nature, overpopulation. He discussed his work towards a walkable, bikable town. He reminded us that town councilors like himself will do what the people want--it's with the people that leadership needs to happen.

=================
More Food Here Now
=================

Permaculturist and educator Jenny Pell had contacted me before we left on our trip, and it looked like we might not get to tape her because she would returning from Europe about the time we'd planned to leave Port Townsend. But synchronicities intervened: We decided to delay our departure a day. We met her partner Chuck Estes just as we were leaving O.U.R. Ecovillage on Vancouver Island several days earlier. And Jenny was leaving the Thai restaurant just as we arrived the night before. When the third synchronicity arrives, you don't argue with it!

So on Saturday afternoon we drove out to the farm where she has an edible plant nursery. In the late afternoon sun we talked about permaculture's solutions in the face of Peak Oil, and its development over the past decades. Her edible plant nursery makes it easier for people to plant the fruit and nut trees that can build local food self-sufficiency.

She wants to begin a gleaning project, mapping abandoned trees and finding people to harvest them. Her international teaching work has shown her how far we've come, and how much farther we have to go, in caring for this planet. From Jenny's perspective, we have more than enough arable land to feed the planet's 6.5 billion people--it will require more intensive cultivation. Her irrepressible enthusiasm and youthful spirit left us feeling inspired by possibility.

Next: Visiting Robyn's most-loved place on the planet in the Olympic Mountains

Our VW van joined the dozen lanes of private vehicles awaiting the ferry at Tswassen to go to Vancouver Island. The skies turned to apricot while the islands dissolve into misty slate blue-gray. Across the waters to our north there appeared to be massive dredges and piles of dredged material. "What will happen to all these low-lying areas as the seas rise with global warming?" I wondered. Vancouver, Los Angeles, Europe, India, Japan--the majority of our human populations live near coastlines.

The skies deepened to peach color. Gulls cried overhead. We were delayed an hour by an "incident" aboard our ferry. People stood around, began to chat with their neighbors. Perhaps we will come together like this as needs arise. Let us hope we come together to build community bonds now, so they're sturdy if the needs deepen. And because it feels so good to be connected.

==============================
Guy Dauncey: our Island connection
==============================

Hours later than planned, we opened the gate leading to Guy Dauncey and his wife's home and her organic plant nursery. The refreshing fragrance of fir trees welcomed us to a deep-home sleep. The next morning Guy greeted us as he and his wife raced to pack her car with plants for the next ferry. Our self-guided tour of the gardens was a delightful wander among well-labeled bean plants, lettuces, nicely-staked tomatoes, and our pre-breakfast berries off the bushes. Guy had a pressing writing deadline to meet, so we headed into Victoria.

============================
DVD: The Great Energy Revolution
============================

We had met and interviewed Guy for Peak Moment last May in Grass Valley, when he presented for an event sponsored by Alliance for a Post Petroleum Local Economy (APPLE of Nevada County) and Town Hall Institute. Author of Stormy Weather: 101 Solutions to Global Climate Change, Guy's energetic and inspiring show relayed strategies and technologies for our New Energy Revolution.

We videotaped Guy's presentation, and have shown the resulting DVD to several of the relocalization groups on this journey. The response is a universal enthusiasm -- so welcome to see possibilities moving forward, after viewing End of Suburbia or reading other material about Peak Oil. You can purchase a copy of "The Great Energy Revolution: Practical Solutions to the Climate Crisis and Peak Oil" from us for $17. (Sales of this and other DVDs help fund our work). Contact me at janaia (at) peakmoment.tv for info.

==============================
Green Building in Victoria: Big Scale
==============================

Guy referred us to Joe Van Bellegham, a partner in Dockside Green, with whom we had a wonderful Peak Moment conversation. Joe had grown tired of ordinary development, but was inspired by the book Natural Capitalism. He and partners are transforming a brownfield site near the harbor. Dockside Green is mixed-use combination of retail, commercial and residential high-rise buildings which employ sustainable and efficient materials and processes.

For example, graywater supplies some space-heating: warm water from showers and laundry going down the drain is recirculated to partially warm up the living space. This enabling them to eliminate electrical baseboards, thus reducing electrical demand, a boon to the electricity utility. A long moving stream-like water feature in front of the buildings captures stormwater downspout and slows its path to the harbor, as well as providing a refreshing connection to the natural world. We loved Joe's heartfelt passion about employing the triple bottom line as his guide--is it good for environment, society, and economy? -- because it reaches beyond the standard business single bottom line of finances only.

=================================
Green Building near Victoria: Small Scale
=================================

Guy also suggested we meet Ann and Gord Baird, whose ecologically-sensible home is in the early stages. This enthusiastic young couple are building their cob tool shed right now. We learned from them that cob isn't about corn cobs, but is short for "cobble" as in street cobblestones--hardened small material that still lets some of the rainwater permeate the soil. Their planned cob home--made of clay and straw--will house three generations and has lovely curving forms. Thick walls provide thermal mass--keeping the house cooler in summer, warmer in winter.

They're planning a "humanure" system for using human wastes in the garden (it's composted very hot to kill pathogens). Photovoltaics for electricity. Graywater systems to irrigate the permaculture orchard and gardens. A low-energy, ecological, small-footprint homestead. We'll want to visit them in a few years to see how it has progressed.

==============
Two Wise Women
==============

A few days after we left Bellingham, Washington, I got an email message from our hostess Lynnette Allen, which led to our finding Diana Leafe Christian, editor of Communities magazine, visiting O.U.R. Ecovillage with co-founder Brandy Gallagher MacPherson. They'd been on a speaking tour, and we were fortunate to be on Vancouver Island at the same time they were. We love such gracious synchronicities -- they affirm how our journey and our work is part of a larger flow.

===============
O.U.R. Eco-Village
===============

After we left the Bairds, we traveled north and west through Vancouver Island's forested mountains towards Shawnigan Lake, and stopped at O.U.R. Ecovillage (O.U.R. = One United Resource) in a rural suburban region. Co-founder Brandy Gallagher MacPherson told us that O.U.R. Eco-Village deliberately used the acronym O.U.R. so that everybody naming it was implicitly a partner, an owner, a member of it. One of their goals is to be and educational and demonstration center for sustainable building and living practices. What did we see here?

On several acres of land we toured the "original" stick-built house where Brandy lives, a small office building behind which lay an outside covered kitchen and long tables where some people were cleaning up after lunch. Nearby several plastic-covered greenhouses sported healthy big vegetables. A group of folks were building a cob artisan's studio. Others were taking a class on using clay as an art form.

We peeked in at the "Ch'illage", the children's village, a curving cob space decorated with playful colors and flower forms. Beyond the barns and chicken yard and salvage yard with re-usable building materials lay a large pasture and ponds. Some of the forested land has been protected with the local land trust. Beyond the kitchens were the solar showers, and downhill was the roundish cob building with a playful curving roof--a space with a teaching room, healing rooms, and bathroom. A workparty was happening beside the building.

We set up our video gear in the shade of this building. Brandy had worked with local government before, and one of her claims to fame was getting the Ecovillage recognized in local land use policy--and thus paving the way for other such communities. It only makes sense for us to come together to use fewer resources--including automobile trips--in the times ahead. Brandy's emphasis was on partnering, on listening to one another, on cooperating together with all the players--be they governmental agencies, lending institutions, neighbors.

===========================
Intentional Communities Wisdom
===========================

My Peak Moment conversation with Diana Leafe Christian was full of wit and wisdom and experience. A compelling speaker, Diane is the editor of Communities Magazine and author of the book Creating a Life Together, on starting Intentional Communities that showed up several times on our journey. More and more people are drawn to this idea.

Diana's aqua-blue eyes danced as she passed along what she learned from the 10% of intentional communities that succeed--be they co-housing, eco-village, cooperative, or other forms. It all boiled down to shared values, clear agreements in writing, and communication, communication, communication. The same things that make things work among people in the "outside" world. Having written about starting intentional communities, Diana's next book will be about living in them and making community work.

===============================
A Chocolate-Lover's Wistful Good-Bye
===============================

Our visit to Vancouver Island was too short. We had arrived with only one confirmed Peak Moment show on our schedule. We left with four very rich programs. Once again we learned to leave more unscheduled time at each destination, allowing us to connect with "somebody else you should meet" or "a great place you should see."

Our Vancouver Island trip was so closely packed that we didn't even get to visit Robyn's favorite shop in the whole world--Roger's Chocolate Shop--during its open hours. After dark, we parked our Vanagon in line for the 6 am ferry to Port Angeles. We walked past the grand Empress Hotel beside the calm harbor whose lightpoles held brightly-colored flower baskets. Skilled street musicians and an impressive fire-tossing juggler drew large crowds of tourists.

Rather magicially we found ourselves walking up Government Street and suddenly! There we were, peering into the windows of Roger's Chocolate Shop. "They still have pink paper wrappers for their chocolates," Robyn commented, pointing at glass-encased shelves of sweet condiments. The Victorian-era decor only added to the long-bygone yet still-present magic of a shop that's been here since the late 1800's. Lovely chocolate molds shaped like flowers and beads and honeycombs were artfully displayed in the front windows.

We didn't get to buy one or two of Robyn's favorite chocolates, but we did get to say Hello to Roger's before saying Good-Bye to Victoria.

===========================
City Strategic Planning for Peak Oil
===========================

We scuttled our plans to scoot out of Vancouver on Saturday when we learned that Julian was speaking at a Strategic Planning Event that day. We whipped out our cameras and taped a fascinating event masterminded by Rick Balfour, chair of the Strategic Sustainable Plan Committee of Vancouver City Planning Commission's. Deeply concerned about the effects of fossil fuel decline globally and especially locally, Rick titled this seminar "Peak Oil Impact on Cities, Survival & Culture." It was co-sponsored by the New City Institute and Post Carbon Institute--hence Julian's presentation on Peak Oil impacts on society.

This seminar was organized as a "gaming session" involving participation from everybody. Bryn Davidson laid out four possible futures as fossil fuels decline: If a shallow, extended, slow decline we might see either (1) Techno Markets or (2) Burnout. If a sharp peak, we might see (3) A Lean Economy or (4) Collapse.

People formed groups looking at 6-8 major areas in the greater Vancouver area--from city center to suburbs to exurbs to rural farmland. Then they brainstormed results based on possible conditions--like oil price shocks, shortages, etc. The goal was to find preferred futures by identifying major vulnerabilities and opportunities.

At the end of the day, their report-backs revealed a lot of reflection and, along the way, education about their local resources and vulnerabilities. Rick intends to make this process widely available. I believe this is a practical tool for every community to become aware of their situation, and begin discussing their responses. You can reach Rick at balfourarch (at) telus.net.

===========================
Post Carbon's Energy Farm at UBC
===========================

On the sunny Sunday, Post Carbon director Julian Darley led us on a tour of their Energy Farm at the University of British Columbia. The goal of this demonstration farm is to grow plants for food, fuel and fiber. "We need to locally grow a large percentage of our food, fiber and fuel, Julian said, in combination with decreased consumption. Julian is also a strong advocate of growing and planting trees--for food, and fuel, to combat desertification and global climate change, to maintain soils, and much more.

This is the farm's first season, and so it's prime trial-and-error time. We wandered rows of food crops like corn and beans. Fiber foods like kenaf for paper and flax for rope and textiles and oil. Oil-producing crops like rapeseed (canola) for bio-diesel. Sorghum for bioethanol. Julian told stories of -- and we saw -- some ambitiously invasive plants. The project hasn't had time yet to develop highly nutritious soils, and they're learning which plants do better in this soil and climate.

In addition to providing food- and fuel-stock, the Energy Farm intends to produce electrical energy directly. A wind gauge is providing information for the future wind turbine (to be completed soon). They are exploring designs for a vertical axis wind turbine, claiming they'll be able to generate electricity at much lower wind speeds. The photovoltaic panels from Day4Energy had arrived but were not yet installed. These panels, built in a nearby city, use a modified cell interconnection design that increases output from a given area.

Julian also showed us some equipment for making biofuels. In our Peak Moment conversation, Julian spoke of his vision of a network Energy Farms everywhere -- and also asked that those with experience in these realms to please contact him. I'm impressed by the scope of this ambitious project start-up, and the far-reaching vision of the man behind it.

==================
Sunset over Vancouver
==================

We spent our last evening in Vancouver picnicking at Jericho Beach Park, a short walk from Julian and Celine's home. Celine graciously fed us all with her homemade bean salad, potato salad, pickled beets, and other yummy foods--their first picnic here, she said. Knowing how full-tilt busy they are, we were appreciative they stopped to share the sunset west of English Bay, whose east side was studded with hundreds of white masts in the marina and tall mountains behind to the north. Baby Raphael joined the nearby lawn bowling(?) players, merrily picking up balls that didn't quite make it to the designated hole--oh well, the good-natured players weren't really keeping score anyway.

===================================
Monday, August 7: Coming into Vancouver
===================================

The late afternoon sun was dipping towards the horizon as we entered British Columbia from Sumas, northeast of Bellingham. We headed to western Vancouver, and were greeted in the warm evening dusk by Celine Rich and baby Raphael at their front steps, about to take a walk. We parked our van beside the berry bushes behind their house, and joined Julian Darley finishing dinner on the front porch. We fired up our laptops for a bit of wi-fi catchup on our emails. Later, Celine showed us her canvas model for a vertical-axis wind turbine, whose lovely spiral form will be part of the Energy Farm experiments in "mining" energy in many forms.

Celine and Julian generously hosted us for our week-long stay in Vancouver. Their Post Carbon motto is "Reduce consumption. Produce locally." We are impressed to see how they walk their talk. They live in one flat of a multi-story house, which contains 4 households. Not owning a private vehicle, they get around mostly by walking, biking, and their membership in a car coop. The Post Carbon Institute headquarters is two blocks away; the Energy Farm at University of British Columbia is a hefty bike-ride away. They are vegetarian; their organic groceries are delivered by an urban delivery service. The Energy Farm project (more later) is an experiment in producing energy locally.

The next morning we walked to the Post Carbon offices, met all the young women supporting PCI in various roles, and had a lively talk with Sarah Smith and Shelby Tay, the Relocalization coordinators, about our visits with relocalization groups so far. Late in the day we set out for a one-day "holiday" along the sunshine coast north of Vancouver. We visited placid glacial-melt-green Alice Lake. After a deeply restful night in the foggy green-covered mountains, we visited Brandywine Falls, whose spectacular waters roar down a huge bowl carved over eons from volcanic rock. We returned to Vancouver Wednesday evening in advance of two very full days of videotaping.

=======================================
Thursday August 10: setup at the SPEC building
=======================================

Sarah Smith walked over to help us set up our studio-for-the-day at the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation building. We moved chairs and solar panels around the room to get the angles just right for the three cameras, Sarah hauled endtables from her house, set up plants, and we covered windows with foamcore board. Every site is a new adventure in setup! We had a chance to grab a quick bite at a local coffee shop before walking back along the community gardens in the now-abandoned railroad spur. Such beauty! and what a brilliant use of this land. Sarah told us she has a plot in a community garden not far from here.

=====================
Cooperative Auto Network
=====================

Our first conversation was with Tracey Axelsson, founder and executive director of CAN, one of the earliest and largest car share enterprises. If my memory serves, they began over thirteen years ago and now have 137 vehicles of all types--small cars, pickups, vans--whatever serves member needs. Tracey emphasizes this being a cooperative, thus engendering a feeling of ownership: "these are our cars" and thus people care for them in a way that may not happen with a rental-car business model. During its startup phase, CAN was helped financially by VanCity, a large credit union, setting the precedent for cooperation and partnering. Vehicle scheduling, begun with Tracey's telephone and paper, has evolved to sophisticated software available online to all members. CAN makes this software available to other carshare cooperatives.

==========================
Vancouver Food Policy Council
==========================

Vancouver is a city thinking ahead about food security, Spring Gillard told us. Author of Diary of a Compost Hotline Operator (isn't that a provocative title?) Spring is a member of the VFPC, whose volunteers hail from a wide range of city agencies and non-profit organizations. The VFPC is drafting policies for food security, and will host a North American conference this fall on that topic.

VFPC wants to ensure access to food for everyone--via local growers, local grocery stores, local gardens. A wise direction for any municipality, but especially an urban center. One VFPC project is a plan to have 2010 food garden plots in the city by 2010, when Vancouver hosts the Olympics. We saw many of the existing gardens as we traversed the city: in front yards, backyards, balconies, private gardens, and community gardens even alongside the unused railroad tracks.

In fact, a lush "City Farmer" demonstration garden flourishes behind the SPEC building. How we wished for yet another day to tape this garden! A small greenhouse, rainwater catchment and composting systems, a delightful small cob (clay and straw) structure, colorful flowers, uprising beans and tomatoes, artfully-welded front gate: the whole enterprise bespeaks creativity and love. A model for what we'll expect to see blossoming all over the city.

===============================
Post Carbon's Relocalization Network
===============================

How could we not videotape a conversation with Shelby and Sarah, whose support for Peak Moment travels extends beyond this blog space? Now you can meet these two women "in person" in our Peak Moment conversation. Both recent university graduates, Sarah and Shelby offer a fresh energy and gratitude to be working in something purposeful. We talked about the Network, their newly-created information and application process for those desiring to join, and their support both technical and project based, for local Post Carbon groups.

I see the Relocalization Network as a powerful infrastructure as we move towards a lower-energy, sustainable society. It is crucial to know we are not alone: we can find others near us, form or join a group, and share insights and best practices. Our "Peak Moment on the Road" feels like a physical extension of this network. Although not everyone we've visited is formally a member of the Relocalization Network, we feel all are part of "The Great Turning," as Joanna Macy calls it, towards a sustainable society. Shelby and Sarah, working smoothly together like the right and left hand, are thrilled to be helping build the Relocalization Network.

===================
Post Carbon Initiatives
===================

Our last conversation for the day was with Celine Rich and Julian Darby, respectively Executive Director and Director of Post Carbon Institute. We talked about their projects in addition to the Relocalization Network:

* the Energy Farm at University of British Columbia (which we videotaped several days later);

* the forthcoming Citizen's Toolkit being prepared by Ellen Bicheler to empower people to connect with their civic leaders around responding to Peak Oil and Gas;

* the forthcoming “Responding to Energy Vulnerability: A Guidebook for Municipalities" being prepared by Daniel Lerch, whose whitepaper for the Portland Metro provides a basis for understanding what can and is being done in municipalities

*Global Public Media, whose of audio and video interviews on complex subjects such as Peak Oil and Gas and much more, provides a valuable resource for the international community. And, we add gratefully, is home for our "Peak Moment" programs. If you haven't seen one yet, go to globalpublicmedia.com, type "Peak Moment" in the search box. You'll need Real Player to view the shows.

=================================
A Quick Tour of Urban Farmer's Garden
=================================

We couldn't leave the SPEC building without a quick tour-by-camera of the mature and well-loved gardens in the back yard, the Urban Farmer. Well-labeled compost demonstrations, enchanting cob building playful iron fence, plants luxuriating and abundant. Ah, a Peak Moment show for another visit. 

The Urban Farmer's lush garden

===================================
Friday, August 11: Gardens around the city
===================================

Map in hand, we set out across the city to tape two onsite tours, two very different garden projects.

=========================
Green Cycle Urban Agriculture
=========================

Ryan Nassichuk met us at home whose backyard was the site of a recent multi-week class for backyard gardeners. Ryan's longtime love of plants was evident as he shared botanical names as we walked to the back yard. He and his partner Max Thaysen provide garden services, especially helping to get gardens started--and they do it all without motorized vehicles. Ryan's blue eyes danced as he described his personal counter-cultural choice to not own a car. So they bicycle to their jobs, even pulling trailers full of soil and tools. So their name "Green Cycle" has multiple meanings--green for plants, bicycle "cycles", and their work expanding the green cycle of growing plants. Ryan's talk and tour covered the experiential class -- filling the raised box beds with soil from onsite, successive plantings, seed saving, many varieties for biodiversity, composting. Students have indeed gone on to create their own backyard food gardens: the green cycle turning again and again.

===================================
MOBY: My Own Back Yard, and proud of it
===================================

"You'll hear us," said Jason O'Brien after giving us exact directions to their community garden project. How right he was. We drove up the side street just off Commercial in central Vancouver, and crossed under the SkyTrain rails. The catchy music of Michael Franti boomed from speakers in two upstairs balconies of the adjacent apartment. In the large garden space below, children young and old danced to the music while squishing clay, water and straw beneath their feet to make "cob." Such celebration! The music bonded everybody with such good vibes. Project manager Jason O'Brien lives in the apartment beaming the music. With an ever-ready smile, he tells of getting use of the land plus funding from the City of Vancouver and the Transit.

It took a couple years to go through the red tape, but now this area frequented by drug users lolling by the dumpsters has been supplanted with urban garden projects bringing the local community together. Enclosed by a low split-cedar fence, the garden sports hexagonally-shaped raised beds, planted only a few months ago. He calls this project a counter to NIMBY ("Not In My Back Yard") His email address is at moby_lize. Great words! Their next project is to turn an adjacent abandoned lot to be a playground. Vancouver considers MOBY a pilot project for what they hope will be many more such community garden projects. If they have the vitality and esprit de joie of this one--they'll truly be blossoms in the urban landscape.

Next: Vancouver II: A Peak Oil strategic planning forum, and the PCI Energy Farm

Early Friday morning August 4th, we left the old growth firs on the Orcas mountainside, boarded the ferry and crossed the smooth Sound waters back to the Washington mainland. After stopping for some local Marion berries, loganberries and cherries (oh yum, this is the perfect time to be here!), we skimmed the fir-covered coastline above the Sound northward to the amiable city of Bellingham.

Over the next three days, we discovered how much forward-thinking and -acting is happening in this city of 70,000. Bike trails, greenbelts and parks, natural food cooperatives, a community carshare, local currency, one co-housing and a second being planned, a sustainable business network whose "buy local" programs are posted around town. Some Bellingham folks reminded me to tell everyone not to move there--just follow their example in your locale!

====Re-Store, full of Re-Usable Re-Sources====
We drove directly to the marina area west of downtown. Our destination was the non-profit-run Re-Store, an impressive retail building supply store and expanded thrift shop--entirely comprised of used, re-usable goods and materials. Erin Marden heads up a de-construction team that dismantles buildings as an alternative to demolition--bringing the materials to Re-Store. Re-Store manager Nate Moore described the operations in their huge buildings housing windows, doors, flooring, lumber, molding, plumbing and light fixtures, cabinets, hardware, paints, furniture--anything usable, even freebies and electronic "waste." RE-Store is one expression of Resources for Sustainable Communities, whose future vision is a Sustainable Living Center that educates while reducing the waste stream, watchdogging to protect the local environment, and much more. Every community needs to keep things out of the waste stream as admirably as these folks!

===We Show "Peak Moment Highlights" & Guy Dauncey====
After a quick bite of dinner at the Natural Foods coop--nice deli cafe and free wi-fi--we walked to an educational building of the Washington Education Credit Union (notice all of these cooperative-style institutions?).

Our coordinator Lynnette Allen of Sustainable Bellingham had spoiled us utterly by making all the preparations for our visit: she deftly and persistently lined up Peak Moment guests, found us lovely accommodation, two facilities to tape in, and even arranged for food during our day-long taping. She and her partners on the Vision Team, Sandy Hoelterhoff and David set up the Friday evening presentation for us.

We met with a friendly group of about three dozen folks who were already familiar with Peak Oil and Climate Change. We showed our "Peak Moment Highlights" video and Guy Dauncey's uplifting presentation on Solutions to Peak Oil and Climate Change. We noticed this evening, and last night on Orcas Island, how people are eager to see examples of activities that are moving towards sustainability and giving them ideas of what they might do. Still, as Dauncey points out, we need to reduce our consumption levels a great deal to then meet our energy needs through efficiency and renewables.

====Community Car Share======
Early Saturday morning we set up to tape two programs. Lorraine Wilde is the initiator and general manager of the Bellingham Community Car Share, proudly starting with six members and one vehicle. She described receiving support from other car sharing enterprises from Seattle and beyond, plus funding support for their first car. Car sharing is going to be an important replacement for the privately-owned vehicle in a post-oil world. As she pointed out, not owning a car frees up a significant amount money for a family or individual to put elsewhere. I've read that for most people, owning a car is second to mortgage or rent for financial outlay. I hope this Car Share will flourish here in this city which is walkable, has a lot of bike lanes, and reasonable public transit.

====Local Currency: swapping values with regular currency====
We noticed that the locals referred to him as "Frahn-cis." We learned why when he came to chat about Fourth Corner Exchange, his local currency enterprise. Francis Ayley first created local currencies in his native England over twenty years ago. He noted how extensive local currencies are in the UK and elsewhere outside the U.S. He pointed out that money is not value free. Our existing national currencies promote competition, distrust and scarcity. Local currencies promote trust and cooperation. How?

Francis explained that national currencies are based on scarcity: money is issued in the form of loans, and there is not enough money to pay back both the principal AND the interest. Scarcity. So we compete for the scarce money, rather than cooperating.

In the local currency model, trust is substituted for interest. How does that work? Simply this: you can spend credits as soon as you join the system. Since there is no such thing as a loan, the other members trust that you'll contribute into the system with your goods and services at a later time. And interestingly, it works. Francis reported that in his twenty years of experience abuses are a rarity. What would our world look like if we replaced trust and cooperation for scarcity and competition? My mind revels at the possibility.

Francis's Fourth Corner Exchange uses the internet for the accounting, and members input the credits. This overhead is much lower than paper-based accounting, which may have swamped or stalled prior local currency efforts. His software is available for other groups; there can be Fourth Corner Exchanges everywhere. I look forward to its starting up in our community and many more.

====

Saturday night we had a small potluck at our hostess Cyndy Sheldon's lovely southwest-decorated home with its view across green hills to the majestic snow-covered Mt. Baker volcano. I am heartened that Sustainable Bellingham has a young person involved in this group--David is in his thirties. It is his generation that will be feeling and dealing with the impacts of so many changes. David lives with a light footprint--biking everywhere, living in a very small mostly-outdoors dwelling. But he has a video camera--showing his interest in becoming the media. He expressed interest in "shadowing" us on some of our journeys--but traveling on bicycle!

Early the next morning David helped us set up our equipment in the large community room at the Bellingham Co-Housing. Given our use of three cameras, setup makes an interesting challenge--we need three workable backgrounds, and have to set up 3 lights so there are no deep shadows on anyone's face--and no light poles showing in the backgrounds. I'm glad Robyn has a mind for geometry, because it's pretty complex!

===Sustainable Bellingham===
Lynnette Allen, Sandy Hoelterhoff and David are members of the Vision Team of Sustainable Bellingham. Together they talked about the group's beginnings, their activities in the community, including an energy fair, and their desire to do serve as a connector among groups and activities on the sustainability wavelength in Bellingham. They have a public film series--ours was one among many. Lynnette described their "Acorn" model of governance, in which the four compass directions and natural cylical processes are used in decision-making and allocate tasks. Maybe they'll teach this to other groups--I think many are groping with ways to honor various inputs yet get things done without burnout.

====Alan Seid=====
Even before we began our on-tape wide-ranging conversation, energetic young Alan Seid and I discovered a meaningful shared touchpoint. His life, like ours, was transformed by the work of Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin. After doing Joe's course on Financial Independence late in 1988, we chose to move out of the Bay Area and to the Sierra Nevada while telecommuting for Xerox. Living frugally with the goal of saving enough money to not have to work gave us a focus--and enabled us to leave the corporate world in 1998.

in the early '90's, Alan undertook the same course (which became the book became the book "Your Money or Your Life"). He embarked on a seven-year exploration with various teachers and practices before settling down outside of Bellingham with his wife Tricia. His studies included Marshall Rosenberg (non-violent communication), philosopher Ken Wilber, and Permaculture, among others. He now works as a facilitator and teacher for groups, and is on the board of the New Road Map organization begun by Dominguez and Robin.

He and Tricia, and their lovely young daughter live at Bodhi Creek Farm and Learning Center, which we visited on our way out of Bellingham the next afternoon. They showed us various structures hugging the sides of a densely-wooded hillside bowl: a garden, teaching yurt, rustic kitchen, large pond, complementary plantings, their home, and their superb bucket-box system for collecting human wastes for the hot compost bins. They are walking their talk, setting down roots and putting in a lot of hard work.

A personal treat for me was touring the "UV" the Ultimate Van that Joe and Vicki and others designed, built, and lived in during the late 1970's-early '80s. Alan is its inheritor. When I read about it at that time, it resonated with my desire to create the same thing a decade earlier. What a wonder to see this small aluminum van outfitted with every inch carefully used! Joe was a genius with design and metal fabrication. Pockets and shelves, fold-out hideaways, even a hydraulic lift to make an entire fold-out second story sleeping loft. This vehicle also resonated with our vision of creating a Peak Moment-mobile for longer tours like this one.

====Bellingham Co-Housing====
But back to Sunday afternoon. We taped a conversation with Kathleen Nolan about Bellingham Co-Housing, right where we were situated. When we arrived among the circular parking area, we saw multiple two-story apartment-style buildings. At the large community building, a group of men were making beer on the side porch. Inside at the dining hall, people chatted and looked at clothing and household items on the tables--part of their monthly living lightly practice encouraging people to put out things they no longer need, and to pick up what they could use. Besides a cozy living room with fireplace, the community shares a laundry, office with computers and printer, two guest bedrooms and a crafts/hobby room, entertainment/fitness room, and a well-outfitted wood workshop.

Kathleen told us this is one of the largest Co-Housing communities, with 33 units of varying sizes. The legal model is a condominium. She discussed the importance of members sharing what their values are as they establish a Co-Housing group, because they would draw upon those values to guide decisions down the road. For example, this co-housing group saved the original Victorian-era house, adding to it to create the community house. They also clustered housing to protect the wetlands beside the nearby creek. I can see Co-housing centers springing up everywhere: a fine model for conserving land, building social networks, sharing resources.

Next: Vancouver Canada, home of Post Carbon Institute

===Music with an Environmental Story====
If the medium IS the message, as McLuhan says, then I'll take the catchy tunes and lyrics of Sharon Abreu and MIchael Hurwicz (Her-wich). They regaled us with several songs live in the library meeting room, which was our studio-for-the-day (everybody in the library got to enjoy the songs, too!) Several songs came from their musical, Penguins on Thin Ice, about the effects of climate change. Sharon and Michael hosted us at their home overlooking Puget Sound looking towards the Olympic mountains. The forest quiet was a refreshing coming-home for us.

====Affordable homes: A Community Land Trust ===

Like many lovely places we've visited, there are many wealthy people moving to the island, and affordable housing is hard to come by. I chatted with Michael Sky, one of the founders of OPAL, the Orcas Community Land Trust. He explained that their community land trust owns the land on which homes are built (or already exist). Homeowners must agree to resell at a price affordable to someone in their equivalent economic status. So it keeps housing affordable by not reselling at market prices. This looks like one promising way to keep housing affordable in many communities, so that teachers and hospital and other workers can live near where they work, and thus serving their community.

====Renewables in the San Juan Islands====

Eric Youngren installs micro-hydro, photo-voltaic, and wind systems both to folks who are on-grid and off-grid. Many of the outer islands in the San Juans don't have grid electricity, so Eric keeps busy. I love the image of his piling up a boat with photovoltaic panels and other materials, and heading out over the water. Not your typical installer! On Orcas we visited a 115 foot-long PV array that feeds a lot of power back into the grid.

Next: Bellingham: a city ahead of the sustainability curve

"This feels like fairyland," Robyn commented as we passed picturesque farms, silvery driftwood piled along Crescent beach edge, flower boxes in walkable Eastsound village, dark green firs climbing mountainsides above the blue sound waters. The human footprint feels about right for the scale of this place--a possible vision of what a sustainable future will look like nearly everywhere.

The Orcas people we're meeting have an island consciousness that localization groups could learn from. They've begun some bartering, many of the restaurants feature local produce, renewables are catching on, particularly in nearby islands without grid electricity. Our three days here were packed and very rich. We did notice one amusing peculiarity, though: nearly every time we headed for a restaurant, it was closed --just for that day, mind you. Anniversary or such like. Maybe this is an Island living outside of time?

====Hand Tools and Homestead Supplies===
We met our amiable coordinator Michael Greenberg for our first taping with Kathleen Smith and Errol Speed at Smith and Speed Mercantile. The beautifully inviting store features well-crafted hand tools--some forged by local blacksmiths--for garden, fuelwood and woodworking. Plus a Japanese wood-fired hot tub, organic hemp and cotton clothing, natural paints. Their store is an outgrowth of their off-grid homestead lifestyle. Both talked about enjoying the rhythm of scything--cutting grasses with the sharp-edged, well-balanced scythe--far less assaulting than a noisy, noxious gasoline-fed weed-whacker!

====The ART of Creative Re-Use====
Islanders are keenly aware of the high cost of bringing materials to the island, and now the high cost of exporting the trash. We taped a conversation with George Post, a leading founder 27 years ago of the Exchange. Sited right between the Recycle bins and the transfer station, the Exchange is a thrift store with a lot more--salvaged building materials, appliances, sporting goods, and just plain fascinating stuff (I liked the old mangle and wringer-washer). A village of tents and tarps, roofs and a few walls, the Exchange lets buyers leave what's of value and pay what they think things are worth. George calls the Exchange "Appropriate Recyling Technology" - ART, and really, the whole place IS a work of art, where the orderly chaos of industrial "compost" invites creativity.

====Bullock Brothers Permaculture Homestead====
Joe, Doug and Sam took time out of teaching their 3-week Permaculture Course to give us a grand tour, complete with some Permaculture principles. Edges, for the most diversity. Between a freshwater marsh and the steep rocky hill lay the best soil. Twenty-seven years earlier, they hacked out the brambles and planted fruit trees, and now have productive vegetable and flower beds. Diversity: Their plant varieties come from various climate zones everywhere to provide more resilience. They're using solar to power a simple pump to move water back uphill, so that it moves through their landscape more than once before being lost to the salty sea. A landscape managed but not over-controlled, working with nature, comfortably providing for humans along with the wild creatures.

Next: Orcas II: Live Music for the Environment, a community land trust working with housing, and renewables in the San Juan Islands.

Side note: A fully-packed schedule at Orcas, and now we're in Bellingham for three full days. Will continue when I can grab a moment to write, and then find wi-fi!

The Pacific Northwest is a region of rich natural abundance. Plants grow abundantly in the plentiful gentle rains, and gardens grow happily in the rich soils. We have feasted on locally-grown fresh raspberries, blueberries, goat cheese, eggs, greens, and more.

====Vashon Island--Small Scale Growers====
One connection leads to others: the joy of networking among good folk working towards sustainability and community. We taped two "unscheduled" Peak Moment shows on our last day on Vashon. Karen Biondi and Joe Waling's KJo Farm was a sheer delight of outbuildings which Joe had made almost entirely from salvaged materials, happily painted by Karen in purples and sunshine. We taped among rows of hearty-sized vegetables, four goats and their small kids, the thirty-odd chickens, and the truly-hot compost. Karen and Joe regaled us with stories hilarious and heart-rending. What they've done with one acre is miraculous and a model for small-scale farms.

We taped Dana Illo and Catherine Johnson in the garden beside the fragrant lavendar beds. Dana owns Crow's Fee Lavendar Farm, and Catherine is on the faculty of Leadership Institute of Seattle. Dana spent a month in Australia with Joanna Macy, whose vision that this is the time of The Great Turning uplifts many, many people. There Dana met John Croft with his "Dragon Dreaming" process. She brought him to work with Edible Vashon in envisioning food security for the island. Everyone's ideas fit somewhere within a four-stage process, which becomes a kind of blueprint for action--and a connecting validation of all the ideas, each in their own time. The four steps: To Dream, To Plan, To Act, To Celebrate. Consider those for your own group or project--and don't forget to Celebrate, as you return to re-envision the dream.

====Bainbridge Island: Ideas for the Coming Times====
We ferried the placid waters of Vashon to the mainland, crossed the bridge to Bainbridge Island just west of Seattle. Our had met Neva Welton at the Relocalization Network gathering in Willits last April, and at her invitation we videotaped David Korten's presentation of his new book, The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community last May in California. Neva welcomed us to her charming home surrounded by close green woods. For Robyn, a native of Olympia, Washington, it felt just like her childhood home.

We taped two superb interviews with wise women at the forefront of the new society. Sarah Van Gelder is the editor of Yes! A Magazine of Positive Futures. Celebrating ten years of publication, this independent media magazine carries no advertising, and brings the good news of world-changing, grassroots activities in environmental and social justice arenas. From her unique "catbird" seat, Sarah is excited to view and report on the new sustainable society being built from the ground up.

Jill Bamburg is the dean of Bainbridge Graduate Institute, whose MBA programs in sustainable business are growing by leaps and bounds. Structured for working adults, the programs teach a triple bottom line: not only financial sustainability, but also environmental and social. The students meet each month for several days, and work online between-times, so they develop the bonds of a learning community. We expect them to be entrepreneuring and intrapreneuring sustainable business practices for a sustainable future.

====Sustainable Ballard=======
Our friends at Vashon told us about Sustainable Ballard, so we hopped on the internet and emailed them. To our delight, David Wright responded and invited us into his freshly painted new apartment for our taping. We took over the room with cameras and mixer and microphones and studio lights, and taped a lively conversation with David, Vic Opperman and Andrea Faste. Ballard is a neighborhood area of Seattle with about 70,000 residents. The Sustainable Ballard approach is to communicate and work with existing organizations, seed ideas, and partner with others. They see their work as a Blueprint for Everytown, USA. In 2005 they co-sponsored a technical forum on Electric Vehicles to Grid (if I understand it right, the idea is to use EV batteries to store renewably-generated energy, which can be fed to the grid when needed.) We're pleased that Vic will be working to get Peak Moment shows on the Seattle community-access TV station.

===Rest Days===
Overcast skies swept through Seattle on Sunday, people flooded into the Ballard streets for the weekly growers market (lush local berries, sea-fresh fish, beautiful vegetables and fruits, colorful floral bouquets) and their annual Seafood fest with vendors and booths galore. We sequestered ourselves under the electro-magnetic wi-fi spell in the grass-roofed public library to catch up on emails and business.

===Coming: Orcas Island and Bellingham, Washington===
Stay tuned!

In the sunny spacious
Co-housing Community Room
We taped two Peak Moment shows

===A SUSTAINABILITY ROUNDTABLE=====
Three women
Articulate and heartful
Multiple activities and ventures
in Sustainability

Merrilee Runyan
An sprightly veteran peace-worker
whose Sustainable Vashon
gives "Green Seed Grants"
to incubate good projects

Lisa Mathias
A CSA farmer and President of the
Vashon Island Grower's Association
appealing to their diverse
and independent community
to come together in alignment
working towards one thing
all can agree on

Hillery Crocker
A coordinator of their 10-year old
annual Island Earthfair
with more than 5000 attendees(!)
Who used a "Green Seed Grant"
to study permaculture and
sacred activism with Starhawk

===ENERGY INDEPENDENCE===

Rita Schenck, prime mover of
Institute for Environmental Research and Education
bringing facts to the fore
A comprehensive Energy Study on Vashon
Showing they have more than enough
Energy for sustainability

How?
Building energy use could be reduced 70%
With easy measures like insulation
and compact fluorescent bulbs
Yup, 70%
And a template for other communities
To do their own Energy Study.

So Dierdre Grace is leading the citizens
to form a Public Utility District
that'll finance individual conservation efforts
give energy audits
do the work--insulating, whatever
AND guarantee that work.
Their PUD is the ballot in November:
a model for many communities.

Looking at Energy as a Community

===APPRECIATIONS====
Such a sense of community here
Dan Schueler videotaping
us while we videotaped everyone else
Helping to get Peak Moment on
Voice of Vashon TV

And our Executive Producers
Meg who took gazillion digital pictures
and Janie the floor manager and
food supplier

===WHY DO THEY DO THIS WORK?===

More than once it was voiced...
These women do this work
out of love for the children.
One said: I do this
so twenty years down the road
My son won't say to me,
Why didn't you?

There are deep hearts in Vashon.

The first leg of our Pacific Northwest journey started on Vashon Island in Puget Sound. Even before our arrival, Janie Starr and Meg Gluckman have already set a very high bar for hosting us. They arranged for the guests, found a location to videotape as well as our accommodations, scheduled tapings plus a potluck. AND sent us a thorough schedule with directions and guest bios! Their work makes our visit so much easier than if I were trying to do this myself from afar. Gratefulness abounding!

After spending the night at the lovely Vashon Cohousing, today began with a get-acquainted lunch with Janie, who's with Sustainable Vashon and Meg, who works with the Institute for Environmental Research and Education.

====THE WORM MAN======
We drove out to videotape a tour with The Worm Man. You got that right. After working for big oil and gas for years, Mark Yelken settled down and began "giving back" to the earth. He showed us all the steps in producing worms--essential for revitalizing our soils. He has also begun a composting project, taking vegetable scraps from restaurants and grocery stores, combining it with his worms and well-aged horse manure, and is creating wonderful rich compost. This is really "giving back" to the earth.

His newest project, funded by a "Green Seed Grant" from Sustainable Vashon, is for neighborhood composing bins. You and your neighbors put in your kitchen scraps. The worms do their good working breaking things down. You turn the crank, and voila! Good compost (in time.) Can you imagine meeting your neighbor and having a chat over the compost bin? Community building and earth rebuilding all at the same time.

=====SCHOOL GARDEN======
Our second on-site taping was with Geri Wilson and Glenda Berliner, teachers at Chautauqua Elementary School. Their wonderful story unfolded of a garden begun, then abandoned, then brought back to life after the students wrote letters for a contest telling about why they wanted a greenhouse for their school--and they won! Inspired by Alice Waters' school garden project in Berkeley, Glenda imagined bringing the garden to the cafeteria. Parents, students, others in the community pitched in, money, plants and the garden became part of the curriculum. Students learned about bugs and mason bees, and about working together. They carefully packaged their seeds and sold the hand-lettered packets themselves--and donated the money for Katrina relief. Their flower-filled fence exudes riotous color; their big tables are gathering places for classes. The new rainwater collection building is also a little stage for plays. This garden is growing and along the way, it's building a community.

=====POTLUCK==local food, local folk===
Our evening ended with a lovely potluck of many locally-grown foods--goat cheese, fresh vegetables pesto, chard souffle. The conversation with this group of about a dozen Islanders was as beautifully seasoned as the meal: rich in wisdom, deep questions, heartfulness, listening.

Some observed how even the most conservative of relatives or friends are changing values--third generation auto workers buying a Prius so it could be passed along to the next generation, who value conserving energy. We spoke of being models to those around us who aren't yet awake to the need to get off the "more, bigger, better" wheel. One farmer prepares sumptuous monthly "Slow Food" feasts for 16 from his own gardens, noting to his mainland guests the stark comparison between the quality of food they get and what he has. Some get it, he said, some don't.

We talked of the need for new stories. That peak oil and climate change ask us not just to change our habits, but to change values. And how hard it is if you've spent your life going to school, getting a good job, buying a house, expecting to retire comfortably -- following the American story of the good life -- only to find it isn't working. The planet running out of resources--and I have to limit my dreams? What do you do with feelings of failure? Or betrayal? What if there's not a story to replace it?

So that's part of our job now--to find the new stories. One woman had spent a month in Australia with Joanna Macy, who is sharing part of the story: not knowing what the results will be, we must move forward with compassion. Linking arms. Trusting that a new story is being born.

The people we met today in Vashon are doing just that--modeling and shaping the new story for their island, and asking the hard questions. We're grateful to be welcomed by their generosity of spirit and their work towards this time of transition.

Global Warming has arrived with a big wallop in North America, with the heat breaking records everywhere. Perfect timing to underscore Al Gore's documentary film "An Inconvenient Truth." The news media aren't connecting the dots, but I'm sure more and more people are. This sign outside the (cool) Hillsboro library says it all (Sizzling Sidewalk Sale--moved inside due to the heat!)

====HOT BABY HOT==========================
The heat hit us in western Portland metro region. It felt like being in Thailand--hot and humid. We slept in the van Saturday night, and I barely slept--no fans, no air conditioning. I'm not surprised that California set a record for electricity use these days--all those air conditioners. Since California's electrical-generating capacity is basically at the max, we will have to begin conserving. This is gonna get interesting as climate change deepens in the months and years ahead.

==NATURAL OASIS=====
We spent Sunday night in a cool green campground at Battle Ground Lake campground in southern Washington. The lake is a miniature "Crater Lake" but ringed with dense lush conifers. The tiny winter wren, Robyn's totem birds, serenaded us with its complex melody of 100 notes in about 6 seconds.

====FOLLOW OUR JOURNEY====
I'll be trying to post on our blog every night or so.
Our mostly-solid itinerary:

Vashon Island, WA - July 25-26
Bainbridge Island - July 28
Shoreline - around July 30
Orcas Island - August 1-3
Bellingham - August 4-5
Vancouver, BC - August 7-10
Vancouver Island - around August 11-14
Port Townsend, WA - August 16-17
Astoria, OR - August 21
Portland - August 22-25
Salem - August 26
Eugene - August 27
Williams - August 28
Ashland - August 29

====LOOKIN' FOR THE PEAK-MOMENT MOBILE=====
We stopped to look at motorhomes as our research continues for a Peak Moment-mobile. Our trusty 16-year-old VW vanagon is just too tight to live and work in. The new Winnebago Vista with Mercedes diesel engine gets good gas mileage and can run on biodiesel :-), but is too small to live and work in :-(, and has a pricetag of $91,000 :-@. I just sense our vehicle belongs to a friend, is For Sale by Owner living near someone who reads this. It'll come through some fascinating path.

Low mileage
class C (bed over cab)
28-30 ft long
bedroom in back (to become the video editing studio)
Lots of storage
Sturdy roof for solar panels
well-loved and cared for.
Keep our need in mind as you move
through your days and byways.

===TOMORROW: VASHON ISLAND====
Our first Peak Moment stop on this journey.

See you along the way!
Janaia & Robyn

Al Gore's stunning movie on Climate Change has opened here in Nevada City over the Fourth of July weekend. A very appropriate time: 220 years ago our forefathers launched a new experiment in governance. Now, we are called to launch a new experiment in how we live on this planet. The stakes are high, very high. Planet-sized.

This is a must-see film. Peak Oil is a whack that many will notice in their wallet, but Climate Change is the biggest whack of all. No one on the planet will be unaffected.

If you follow the curves in Al Gore's presentation, you watch CO2 levels over thousands of years suddenly spike in only the last few decades. You watch world temperatures spike right along with the CO2. Population numbers likewise. Species extinctions ditto.

He did not include the graphs, but oil production also spikes--and is a prime cause of the other spikes. Oil fueled the green revolution, which fueled the population increase, which compounded fuel usage, which raised the CO2 output and temperatures and resource depletion.

We're in our planetary "Peak Moment": peak population, peak production, peak consumption, peak resource depletion.

Al Gore's message is that we have the technology *right now* to solve global warming. The Chinese already produce cars with greater emissions efficiency than the U.S. automakers protest they can't do for another 10 years. Give me a break!

Lack of solutions is not the problem, he says. It's political will. It's our willingness to roll up our sleeves, pitch in together, embrace efficiencies, reduce our use, tear down the isolationist walls that keep us cocooned in our metal identity-extensions, our automobiles--as one perceptive young college woman said tonight at the movie. Willing to brush shoulders with other folks again, on the bus or the train. Never know, it might break our isolation and loneliness. Start us back on the way to community.

This young woman is concerned about transportation--stunned by the contrast of seeing our majority of single-drivers in cars here in Nevada county, after spending her school year in Portland, biking and taking the bus. I told her I share her concern, because it takes a real effort to even organize car pools for our APPLE meetings, and that's just a small start.

We need young people like her to tackle the transportation challenges on the social level, the vehicle-design level, the rural-area mass transit level. At every level.

We need the young people who'll be shaping their future, while we boomers need to give back in return for such plenitude we have been given in our half-century on this planet at its peak.

Friday June 30, 2006
Ashland, Oregon is a lovely town set against the Siskiyou mountains. We are here during the "Shakespeare Festival" summer season when the town is dressed up for the festivities--banners hung, flower pots full of vibrantly-colored blossoms. The heat was broken by a thunderstorm yesterday, cooling the streets and greening the parks.

This afternoon we set up to tape two Peak Moment conversations at Southern Oregon University (SOU). On the floor just below us, a 250-instrument concert band serenaded us with Star Wars and military anthems. Synchronistically, they took a break while we taped and resumed awhile after we finished. Thank you, universe!

Megan Quinn
==========
Our first Peak Moment was with Megan Quinn, a lovely 24-year-old who simply radiates--charming everyone she meets. DIrector of Outreach for The Community Solution, a project of Community Service of Yellow Springs, Ohio, Megan participated in videotaping in Cuba for the new film "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil."

Megan and I talked about what she's inspired by -- she sees Peak Oil as a great opportunity to create the kinds of communities we want. To be more connected. She also feels that 25-50% of us will need to be involved in food production post-peak. We talked about taboo topics in the broader Peak Oil community, about the need to get environmental groups from sending us astray by assuring us we can just fill in with biofuels and not have to change our consumption. Nothing will fill the petroleum gap, Megan points out: we have to reduce consumption.

The Cuba film is showing tonight at SOU. We returned to videotape Megan's wise and inspiring opening presentation, and the Q&A after the film. This film is making the rounds of relocalization and sustainability groups. It's a positive and uplifting model of how people responded to Peak Oil. If you've seen "End of Suburbia," you owe it to yourself to see this side of the picture.

The Cuban culture has a stronger sense of real community, and you'll see examples of people working together, helping each other, growing urban gardens and giving food to the handicapped, elderly, pregnant mothers. As one questioner pointed out, we're not used to doing that here in our individualistic culture. The Latino cultures are better prepared for Peak Oil and climate change events because of their community-orientation.

Megan's talk was co-sponsored by Mike Ruppert, who moved the offices of his "From The Wilderness" publishing business to Ashland about five months ago.

Mike Ruppert
==========
Mike and I had great fun during our Peak Moment conversation! He acknowledged his gratefulness that young people like Megan are coming up, readying themselves to take the reins from "old guys" like himself who've been on the front lines for decades. Quoting his statement, "until you change how money works, you change nothing," I asked for specific to-do's. Disengage from the corporate world, he said. Get out of Bank of America. Invest in your local bank or credit union that themselves invest locally. And more. Particularly in light of the imminent collapse of the U.S., and perhaps world, economy. Said by a man who's been watching that closely for a long while.

He spoke of the spiritual force that impels him to do this hard work of uncovering and telling the truth around Peak Oil, 9/11, the geopolitics of empire. His caring for future generations is absolutely palpable. This is a man with a huge, huge heart. I was so moved that I simply had to give him a big hug as we ended our conversation.

Recently we've begun asking our guests to give us a one-minute "nugget" after the 30-minute conversation. Often the passion that motivates them is what pours out: their love of gardens, or learning how to work in community, or green building. Mike's nugget felt totally inspired: the kind of message we've heard from Martin Luther King or other inspiring figures at their best. Just you wait to hear this!

=========================================
Sustainable Backyard Gardens, Community Gardens
=========================================
Saturday July 1
It was a serendipitous call several weeks ago from Matt Sheehan of Jackson County Sustainability Group that helped bring us to Ashland. Matt had partnered with Mike Ruppert to bring Megan to Ashland, and he paved the way for us to tape Mike and Megan.

Matt recommended a number of folks for Peak Moment, several of whom were unavailable. But the two conversations we taped today were gems. We were generously hosted by Kayla and Scott McGuire (and bountifully and beautifully fed!).

Patrick Marcus
===========
The McGuire's backyard garden was the backdrop for my conversation with Patrick Marcus, who worked with the Ashland Parks and Recreation Department to create a "temporary" community garden on undeveloped park land. Even more importantly, he worked with them to incorporate community gardens in their parks policy, which includes a plan to have a park within 1/4 mile walking distance for everyone.

Patrick cited studies showing how gardening ranks as the number 1 or 2 leisure-time activity for Americans. He also talked of gardens as community-builders. As people of different social strata work side-by-side on their garden plots, their shared enjoyment of gardening erases the boundaries between them.

Scott McGuire
===========
Scott's passion for sustainable backyard gardens is infectious! In the last five months he has transformed the large backyard of his family's rental home into a bounty of annuals: flowers for the soul, food and medicinal plants. A lot of his plantings are for seed saving: we could have water and land, but where would we be without the seeds?

This is not permaculture, he points out, because this "permanent culture" is for people who own their land. Scott has a deep relationship with the plant kingdom, and he also is creating insect habitat for these creatures we've been warring against.

His garden is full of experiments. He wants to know what feeding ourselves locally would look like: how much grain can be grown in a small plot, compared with how much his family of four eats? He is restoring the soil under the old fruit trees, fixing nitrogen with clover. I will be delighted to visit in another year to see what Scott the explorer has learned!

============
Heading Home
============

I sit in the back of our trusty vanagon as we turn south, towards home. Mt. Shasta looms before us. This has been an incredibly rich journey. We have met heartful, caring people doing important things. We've met localization groups just getting started, bumping along with issues of leadership and follow-through and critical mass and outreach. Here are groups of volunteers working part time to build lifeboats while the well-heeled crowd aboard the Titanic parties on.

I asked Robyn, my often-invisible partner who absolutely loves being behind the camera (and mixer and headphones) what she loved about this trip?

"The Adventure," she replied. You can count on it--adventure is her biggest dream. Travel, seeing how people live in other places and in other cultures. Seeing the world from different perspectives. Isn't that part of what Peak Moment is about?

The high points?
For Robyn, it was meeting such a dedicated person as Mike Ruppert, whom we both have a great deal of respect for for. This man is totally in his heart, we agreed. "Maybe painfully in his heart," Robyn mused, "feeling the pain in this world". What may seem like anger to some is really a deep anguish for what we're doing, for the impoverished world we're leaving to the younger generations.

I laughed uproariously watching Mike Ruppert impersonate Alvin singing "The Chipmunk Song" (takes us right back to our childhoods in the 1950's.) "Allllllllllllllviiiiiiiiiiin!" I hollered right back. Here's Mike "Alvin" Ruppert surprising Megan.

Fun. This trip has been SUCH FUN!

And oh so rich.
Pockets of tapes to edit,
packets of inspiration in our hearts.

The huge triangle of Mount Shasta imposes a presence everywhere hereabouts.

Including the College of the Siskiyous on the plateau to the north, where we videtaped two APPLE Shasta folks at their local community access station MCTV--the third station airing Peak Moment. Using their studio equipment, we taped Molly Brown, the energetic coordinator of APPLE Shasta, and wonderful woman who arranged for us to be so welcomed here. We also taped Todd Corey, solar installer. Todd advocates first reducing your energy usage (easy to conserve 50%, he says), then install solar hot water, only then consider solar electric.

From the studios we came to the Back Stage Studio, a cabaret-coffee house where we showed a Peak Moment Highlights that Robyn had whipped together yesterday on our "day off." It included a little humor with Rick Hartmann's energy news about the pet-poop-power-plant in San Francisco (for real!), excerpts from Brian Weller of WELL (Willits), Tree Bressen and the Eugene Car Coop, Janet Brisson, a local grower, the O'Brien sisters responding to Peak Oil, and Guy Dauncey telling us "We Can Do It" (make it through this carbon energy transition.) Yes we will!

We shared our vision to take Peak Moment on the road, and this wonderful group passed the hat and contributed over $100 to our dreams. Thank YOU!

I presented our APPLE-Nevada County slide show, talking about what we've done in this past year. The wonderfully receptive group had great questions and good spirit. Inspiring to be with this relocalization group--had such a sense of cousins getting together.

John Roshek suggested APPLE Shasta come up sometime to visit APPLE Nevada County--yes! Really, relocalization is all about community, isn't it?

So tonight we drive to Ashland, catch some sleep, tape two interviews in the morning. Stay posted!!!