Bill (et al),

Thank you for your message, particularly with respect to CFNE
(http://www.cooperativefund.org/). It is an excellent model and one that we
should try to replicate in other areas. Does anybuddy know if there is a
similar organization in the Pacific Northwest? Other areas?

I have my money in a credit union, but I would guess that their portfolios
(i.e. home, auto, consumer loans) are somewhat different than a CDLF such as
CFNE.

My idea, in addition to a loan program, are local/regional equity unions
(www.yahoogroups.com/group/MUNSCCDO), sort of a mutual fund which is
dedicated to the development of community (consumer) and worker cooperatives
to improve the equity and goods and services availability situations in
neighborhoods and regions. The return that you get on your investment would
be the improvement of your local and regional environment. Direct  and
immediate financial return on investment would not be the foremost priority.
This may be a hard sell. Perhaps it could be set up as a 501(c)(3) and
investments could be written off. I don't know.

What do folks think of this idea (i.e. equity unions)? Has anybuddy ever
heard of such a thing? Aside from the Yugoslav socialist model and
Mondragon, I'm not sure if there are many models for such. Does anybuddy
know of one? I think it may be a new idea, a variant of the aforementioned
models.


Working for peace and cooperation,


Mike Morin

----- Original Message -----
From: "Bill Ellis" <tranet@...>
To: <Reg_Coop_Comm_Dev@yahoogroups.com>
Sent: Sunday, February 08, 2004 12:03 PM
Subject: Re: [Reg_Coop_Comm_Dev]Re: Investment Clubs


>
> > From: Steve Habib Rose <habib@...>
> > Subject: Re: investment-clubs
> >
> > For those who are interested in general resources on Socially
Responsible
> > Investing, see:
> >
> > http://www.socialinvest.org/
> > [snip]
>
> BE:
> Its time to move beyond SRI (Social Responsible Investing).
> Its time to create a fund for loans to community owned corporations and
> cooperatives by tithing capital.
>
> Many middle and lower income people cannot afford to GIVE much financial
> support to alternative organizations.  But many of us have savings we've
put
> away for a rainy day or our old age.  We don't need it now but are not in
a
> position to GIVE it away.
>
> I for example have savings of some $100,000 or so.  From its income I can
> afford perhaps $200.00 a year for worthy causes.  But by 'loaning' 10% of
my
> capital ($10,000.00) I can support a good deal more. And still have the
> money in reserve should I get old or sick.   But I would like to share the
> risk by making loans as part of a much larger fund.
>
> There are many Community Development Loan Funds (CDLFs).  But nearly all
> that I've found are concerned with making loans to low income
entrepreneurs
> to make them part of the economic system.  They do not limit their loans
to
> community ownership.
>
> "Community ownership" was spelled out in "Going Local" by Michael Shuman.
> He used the The Green Bay Backers as one example of a locally owned
> corporation the stock of which could be sold only to citizens of the
> municipality.  The Corporation served the city so the "bottom line" was a
> false measure of its value.
>
> Currently I have all my saving in SRIs (of which I was a founding member
> back in the 1970s).  Capital tithing goes beyond SRIs.  I have found one
> loan fund, The Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE), that comes close to
> meeting my criteria for capital tithing.  So 10% or more of my saving is
> invested in CFNE.
>
> CFNE, makes loan from money loaned to it to cooperatives -- food co-ops,
> housing co-ops  learning co-ops, and any other co-ops that is owned by the
> people it serves.
>
> I see a movemnt for tithing capital as the major next step in socially
> appropriate investing.  It could free billions of dollars for social
> transformation.
>
> Why not start one,  or establish co-op "windows" in exist CDLFs?
> Members of this list could decide which co-ops to finance.
>
> A Coalition for Self-Learning
> Bill Ellis, General Coordinator
> POBox 567
> Rangeley, ME 04970 USA
>
>     <www.CreatingLearningCommunities.org>
>
>              PEOPLE ARE NOT THE PROBLEMS, THEY ARE THE SOLUTIONS
>                 IF THE PEOPLE LEAD, THE LEADERS WILL FOLLOW.
>
>
>
>
> ---------
>
>
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>

----- Original Message -----

From: Deb Marois

To: abcd@...

Sent: Thursday, February 12, 2004 11:52 AM

Subject: RE: Neighborhood Improvement Fund(s) (NIF)

Hi Mike,

I'm wondering if you've had any response to your idea?

 

I've

 I think it's a good one. I'm curious if anything similar has ever been tried before? You mention a number of different necessities that could be available through a NIF. Would this depend on the particular interests of the community? Or, available all in one place? I'm especially interested in the health services idea - though I'm not sure I'm clear on how that would work. Also, as you know, in many communities there are food coops - how does this idea differ or build on those concepts?

 

Thanks for starting an interesting discussion.

 

Deb Marois

MS Candidate, Community Development

University of California at Davis

cell: 916-502-1827

email: debmarois@...

"Holding each other close across differences, beyond conflict, through change, is an act of resistance." ~ bell hooks

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-abcd@... [mailto:owner-abcd@...]On Behalf Of Mike Morin
Sent: Monday, February 09, 2004 2:54 PM
To: Worker Coop; Sustainable Communities; socialism; Sask. Coop Cntre.; revolutionary cooperatives; regions work; OU Ecological Design Center; Oregon Socialist; New Urbanism; New Economics Foundation; Neighborhood Reinvetment; NCBA; Nat'l Fed. CD Credit Unions; National Community Capital Association; Lost Valley Ed. Cntr.; Lane Socialist; Labor Party Praxis; LA Eco-Village; Intl Soc. Ecological Economics; Int Comm Victoria; Inst. for Sustainable Communities; Inst. for Policy Studies; ICA Group; Helios Resource Network; Gund Institute Ecological Economics I; Green Politics; Friends of Eugene; Friends of the Earth; Eugene-Springfield Solidarity; Environment; Communitarian Network; Communitarian; Comm Banking; Comm Dev; CarFree EcoVillages; Car Free; Build Carfree; Bio-Regionalism; BALLE West MA 2; BALLE West MA 1; BALLE W. Michigan; BALLE VT; BALLE Utah; BALLE SF CA 3; BALLE SF CA 2; BALLE SF CA; Balle Seattle WA; BALLE Portland; BALLE Philadelphia; BALLE NY 3; BALLE NY 2; BALLE NY 1; Balle NW WA; Balle Napa Valley CA; BALLE Minn.; BALLE Mendocino CA; Balle Medford, OR; Balle LA 2; BALLE LA; BALLE East Bay, CA; BALLE Chicago; BALLE Boston; BALLE BC; BALLE Ann Arbor; AOCDO; ABCD Discussion; CNU; Sust Eugene; CR Eugene; MUNSCCDO; Riseup RCCD; RCCD
Subject: Neighborhood Improvement Fund(s) (NIF)

What do folks think of this idea?

 

Start in our (and all) neighborhoods, a Neighborhood Improvement Fund.

 

Each adult resident in the neighborhood would voluntarily invest from $10 to $100 a year in a mutual fund to be held in local credit unions. The purpose of the fund would be to create access to necessities (food, household goods, hardware, building supplies, office products, appropriate transportation, health items and services, education services, etc.) at the local level (i.e. within walking distance of all residents). The mutual fund would make investments only in community and  worker owned (hybrid) cooperatives. All decision making would be democratic with a one person one vote system,  democratically elected Board, and a referendum system. 

 

There would be an association of NIFs and we would encourage more wealthy neighborhoods to donate to poorer neighborhoods (perhaps through a 501(c)(3) vehicle). Through the Association of NIFs (ANIF), the NIFs would cooperate to achieve the benefits of economy of scale, (and) bulk buying.

 

What think?

 

Sorry for any cross-posting. Individuals were bcc'ed.

 

Please distribute widely.

 

 

Working for peace and cooperation,

 

 

Mike Morin

Eugene, OR

www.yahoogroups.com/group/Reg_Coop_Comm_Dev

www.yahoogroups.com/group/MUNSCCDO

 

RE: The Blues

Yeah, I have a thought. That sounds/reads like an excuse to not do.

I suggest listening to Bob Dylan's 'Oh Mercy' album.

'Try, What Good Am I?'

"What good am I if I'm like all the rest,
What good am I if I know and don't do,
And I freeze in the moment like the rest who don't try,
What good am I?
What good am I then to others and me
If I've had every chance and yet still fail to see
If my hands tied must I not wonder within
Who tied them and why and where must I have been?"

Then, possibly 'Disease of Conceit.'

"There's a whole lot of people in trouble tonight
From the disease of conceit,
Whole lot of people seeing double tonight
From the disease of conceit,"

Be well. Be happy:). Be in action. Have fun!

Peace and love, David
www.thecatalystproject.org - 'Empower Democracy!'
541.465.9580

"It's not about preaching to the choir. It's about getting everyone singing
together!"
								 ....Hmmmmm

Greetings,

It is really inspiring to get that there is a strong interest in community
a-brewing!

Be well. Be happy:). Be in action. Have fun!

Peace and love, David - MA-Community Self-reliance, MS-Ecosystems
www.thecatalystproject.org - 'Empower Democracy!'

And, as I am fond of saying, "It's not about preaching to the choir. It's
about getting everyone singing together!"
												 ....Hmmmmm



There are 3 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

       1. Fw: James Howard Kunstler with regard to the Awareness of the
American people
            From: "Mike Morin" <mikemorin@...>
       2. Fw: A Call for Action
            From: "Mike Morin" <mikemorin@...>
       3. Fw: A Promising Website
            From: "Mike Morin" <mikemorin@...>

Acreage for sale next to our Self-Reliant Farm

Our Farm is a Sustainable Technologies Educational Center which has
taught food & energy self-reliance skills since 1990. We're long time
students of Helen & Scott Nearing and have lived and evolved
applications of their examples since the 70's.

Our goal is to form a Cooperative Community to share our lifestyle
and the growing, processing and storage of our mutual year around
food supply, and for the further development of our educational
services to help others achieve the same.

To a couple, family or small group who seek intentional community we
offer to sell 8 acres of undeveloped land bordering our own 8 acres.
This land has a year around stream running through it and its own
deed. Those purchasing this land must have the resources and
abilities to build upon it on their own. Open to those without the
resources to purchase is space on our land to build low-cost
shelters.

For cottages industry there are opportunities to develop and teach
classes related to our educational center. We've also established
infrastructures for CSA and produce stand sales and have an opening
for an experience organic grower. We also need people with building
trade skills.

Land borders county maintained gravel road w/power & phone hookups.
Road dead ends 1/2 mile up road into forests w/hiking, X-country
skiing & recreation).

Area: 16 acres (6.5 hectares) (8 acres for sale is undeveloped with a
year around stream, pure water from mountain). Land Owned By:
Individual community member(s) (Covenants--Right of First Refusal--No
wholesale harvesting of timber--No illegal drugs).

Government
Decision Making: By consensus (Consensus decisions are made on
community projects orientated upon food and energy self-reliance and
the running of the educational center). Identified Leader: No
Leadership Core Group: No

Labor and Money
Financial Style: Members have independent finances. Labor
Contribution: Expected(During food growing and processing season 16
hours per week per person for food self-reliance. If not possible one
may pay another to meet weekly quotas). Join Fee: Yes(Joining fee is
purchasing land bordering our own, or those without the resources to
purchase may exchange labor on lease of their site).
Regular Fees: Yes(Fees/labor exchange to develop and maintain food
and energy self-reliant systems).

Food, etc.
Percentage of Food Grown: We grow, process and store 80% of our year
around vegetarian diet-Can do 100% in community). Share Community
Meals: 1 time/week (Shared meals are voluntary and planned when
convenient).
Dietary Choice or Restrictions: Diet is up to each individual
Dietary Practice: Primarily vegetarian (We raise no animals for meat,
one may on own land).
Alcohol Use: Seldom used (We don't drink, smoke or use drugs).

Shared Spiritual Path: No(We nurture expansive perspectives on the
nature of reality).
Which Spiritual Path(s): Eclectic (integrates pieces from many
religions). (Co-creation is welcomed of collective rituals and
spiritual meaning which nurtures our interconnecting glue).
Educational Style(s): Public schooled (One may home school, legal in
our state. Or school bus stops on road bordering land, good school
system. Other children in neighborhood).

Visitor Process: There is much we'll all need to learn about one
another and make clear on our compatibilities on goals and other
factors before arranging a visit. We seek people whose response to
our community goal is a strong and clear YES! We need to be inspired
by knowing you are inspired.  Please share with us your bios and
aspirations.  Hope to hear from you.

Best Wishes, Daniel & Patti

PS  We are located In Eastern Washington State.  Please view photos
of our farm at: <http://www.ofoto.com/I.jsp?
c=7367si3.yj7f1or&x=0&y=xa8jr0>
Or try:  http://tinyurl.com/cpmvz

The "Second U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions" will
be held September 23-25, 2005 in Yellow Springs, Ohio.
www.communitysolution.org

Peak oil — the point when world oil production reaches its maximum and
begins to decline, is an event which is likely to occur this decade.
As global demand exceeds supply, oil will become increasingly scarce
and expensive.

The end of cheap abundant oil represents an unprecedented challenge
for humanity. It heralds the end of many things to which we have
become accustomed; the ever growing economy, transportation as we know
it, cheap food and goods from around the globe.

Many react to these coming changes with fear and dread. But we
envision a more cooperative, just and equitable world of small local
communities.

This conference will explore
• The implications of Peak Oil.
• An in-depth look at changes in agriculture.
• The characteristics of a new economy.
• Peak Oil's effect on our financial system.
• Alternatives to oil and our high energy way of life.
• The communities of the future.
• Ways to transition and answers to "What should I do now?"

Speakers
Keynotes
Richard Heinberg: Author, The Party's Over and Powerdown: Options and
Actions for a Post-Carbon World
Michael Shuman: Author, Going Local: Creating Self-Reliant Communities
in a Global Age

Other Presenters
Diana Leafe Christian: Author, Creating a Life Together and Editor of
Communities magazine
Jan Lundberg: Founder, Culture Change and Auto Free Times magazine
Robert Waldrop: President, Oklahoma Food Cooperative and moderator of
online discussion group "Running on Empty"
Steve Andrews: Co-founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil
– U.S., energy consultant and free-lance writer on Peak Oil
John Ikerd: Agricultural economist and author, Sustainable Capitalism:
A Matter of Common Sense
Liz Walker: Director and co-founder, EcoVillage at Ithaca and author,
EcoVillage at Ithaca: Pioneering a Sustainable Culture
Pat Murphy: Director, The Community Solution and Editor of New Solutions
Megan Quinn: Outreach Director, The Community Solution and Project
Manager of its program "Agraria"
Faith Morgan: Board Member, The Community Solution

For conference information including full speaker descriptions and
registration information, visit www.communitysolution.org, call us at
937-767-2161, or email us at info@...

Proposing Plan C: Report on the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions

By Megan Quinn

Yellow Springs, Ohio – Participants at the Third U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions learned how they must use less energy, save and share resources and grow food in their communities.

This response to the coming peak and permanent decline of global oil production, dubbed "Plan C: Curtailment, Cooperation, and Community," was a major theme at the conference last month in this small southwestern Ohio town, the epicenter for a growing national movement.

More than 300 activists, educators and others from 33 states attended the three-day conference at Antioch College to hear from nationally-known experts on ways to meet food, housing, transportation and other needs in an energy-starved world through lifestyle changes – not promised technologies.

At the conference, participants learned energy-saving tips, other practical strategies and new perspectives and visions of a post-peak oil world.

"The food to feed the world is not going to come from farmers – it will come from everyone," said Peter Bane, an expert in designing sustainable food production systems, including food gardens and edible landscapes.

Other experts included simple living guru Vicki Robin, author of the best selling "Your Money or Your Life," who talked about living fully on far less energy; Oberlin College Professor David Orr, who discussed the obstacles posed by corporate power in confronting peak oil and climate change, and peak oil educator Richard Heinberg, who talked about his latest book, "The Oil Depletion Protocol," a plan to avert oil wars and economic collapse.

The conference, subtitled, "Beyond Energy Alternatives," was organized by The Community Solution, a non-profit organization based in Yellow Springs which promotes local, low-energy solutions to peak oil and climate change.

Pat Murphy, the non-profit's executive director, spoke about Community Solution's Plan C, contrasting it to more traditional efforts which focus on competition over remaining resources and more technology as a way to try to maintain increasing energy consumption and economic growth.

"We are no longer attracted by the siren singers of breakthrough technologies that promise us we can continue living in a manner that denies a future for our children," Murphy told conference participants.

"The solutions are not going to come from the same people who created the problem," Murphy said. "The answers are not in the corporations of technology but in the villages and neighborhoods."

Murphy's theme was echoed by Bane, who zeroed in on the need for local, low-energy food production and consumption to replace energy-devouring long-distance transport of processed and packaged food. "Who feeds you and who do you feed will be the central questions for the next few decades," said Bane, publisher of the quarterly magazine, Permaculture Activist.

"Going beyond conserving, permaculture aims to turn people who are now consumers into producers, making them independent of a centralizing authority that is increasingly derelict," Bane said.

Bane estimated that lawns in the U.S. could feed 70- to 150-million people, and would "pull the guts out of agribusiness." He emphasized "top-down thinking and bottom-up action" to take the economy back into the household and become domestically self-reliant.

Bane expounded on the tremendous opportunity to use the remaining finite fossil fuels to build a sustainable low-energy infrastructure, and give a lasting gift to future generations.

Sharon Astyk, a back-to-the-land activist known through her posts on the Yahoo internet discussion group "Running on Empty," shared Bane's vision of a local agricultural revolution.

"Before the industrial revolution it took six people farming full time to support one person doing something else. If fossil fuels and industrial agriculture aren't going to feed the world ... how are we going to feed them?" Astyk said.

"I felt if not me, who? If not now, when? And if we need a 100 million new farmers, I guess I'd better be one," said Astyk, who runs a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription farm in upstate New York which delivers vegetables weekly to its members.

Astyk called on participants to see themselves as part of a revolution. "Most revolutions start with many fewer people than are gathered in this conference hall," she said. Coming out from behind the lecturn, she said, "I am not thin, I am not athletic. If I can do it, every one of you can do it!"

"We can't just consume our way out of this one. You can't just join the CSA, you can't just buy organic. More is going to be asked of every single one of us," Astyk said.

Simplicity movement leader Robin encouraged participants, in the words of Mahatma Gandhi, "to be the change they wish to see in the world."

"Simplicity is about having enough and living frugally with a high joy to stuff ratio," Robin said. "It is living a life that is outwardly simple, and inwardly rich and where we live simply so that others may simply live."

Of those in the peak oil awareness movement, Robin said, "You are the people who are engaging the conversation of our time. Even though the critique is very severe there is a background sense of delight that we're up against it, that we can do better than before."

"Some people call this the doom-and-gloom crowd, but I haven't seen that. I call it the `creative engagement with the ultimate limits' crowd," Robin said. She described limits as the shaping tools of freedom, even though many Americans think that freedom is having no limits.

Robin claimed that 25 percent of Americans want to live a more simple life. She suggested that those in the peak oil awareness movement appeal to people's desire for self reliance, not be afraid to talk about values with them, and work to solve systemic problems in such sectors as the "sickness care industry," that hinder efforts to live simply.

In the conference's opening talk, Professor Orr, a pioneer of environmental literacy and ecological design at Oberlin, focused on the risks of inaction in the face of peak oil and climate change. He discussed the melting glaciers and ice sheets that foretell of rising global sea levels by up to 20 feet in the next few decades and the rising global temperatures that suggest a rapidly unstable and unpredictable climate. He cited a World Health Organization statement that global climate change now causes more than 150,000 deaths per year.

Orr said the challenge is to reduce global carbon emissions from 8.5 billion metric tons of carbon per year to less than 3 by 2050 – which he described as a daunting task for a growing global population with an ever-increasing appetite for energy.

Still, according to Orr, there remains another major challenge in dealing with climate change and peak oil: confronting corporate power. He quoted Thomas Jefferson as saying, "I hope we shall crush in its birth the aristocracy of our moneyed corporations which dare already to challenge our government to a trial of strength."

As Orr sees it, despite Jefferson's hope, today's corporations, now blessed with personhood and citizenship rights granted by the U.S. Supreme Court, have immense power over government and society. With nearly total control over the major media, corporations, Orr said, manipulate the public to overconsume through advertisements which appeal to infantile self-gratification.

Orr proposed to re-frame political dialogue from liberal and conservative. "The real dividing line is how we relate to future generations," Orr said. "Those on the left and right of the political spectrum need to work together."

"The challenges of peak oil and climate change aren't just a matter of technology or politics," Orr said. "They are a test of our heart and our goodness. When we get to the post-peak world after we've stabilized carbon and protected the rights of future generations, it needs to be a world of compassion and joy, a lot better than it has been."

Murphy, Community Solution's executive director, said in his talk, "Plan C: Curtailment, Cooperation, and Community," that the solution to peak oil is to conserve, share and save resources – not compete for them, hoard them and overconsume them. He contrasted "Plan C" with what he described as Plan A and Plan B.

"Plan A is to find alternative fuels like clean coal, tar sands, and oil shale. Plan B is to use wind, solar, and biofuels," Murphy said. "Both assume technology will save us and that we must increase economic growth by increasing energy consumption."

"Yet the results of an economic model based upon increasing consumption aren't good," Murphy said. "With high crime rates, record high incarceration, continuing environmental degradation, soil depletion, growing inequity, deteriorating health, and the loss of civic engagement and community, we need a better way."

Murphy gave strategies for a Plan C lifestyle in the key areas of food, housing, and transportation. For food, he suggested participants eat less, avoid manufactured food and industrial meat, and grow, prepare, and store their own food. For transportation, he recommended buying more efficient cars, including hybrids, and sharing rides. Housing strategies included living in a smaller space, retrofitting homes by increasing insulation and replacing or covering windows, and upgrading to more energy-efficient lighting and appliances.

Peak oil educator Heinberg noted that oil production is now in decline in 33 of the 48 largest oil-producing countries and that Chris Skebrowski, editor of the highly respected UK Petroleum Review, now says it is his gut feeling that worldwide oil production may peak in 2008.

Heinberg then criticized the much-touted anti-peak oil argument that there have been many incorrect predictions of oil production crashing throughout the 20th century. "In fact, false predictions of abundance have been much more common," Heinberg said.

Heinberg cited as an example the U.S. Department of Energy's International Energy Outlook 2001 which stated,  "The United Kingdom is expected to produce about 3.1 million barrels/day by the middle of this decade (~2005), followed by a decline to 2.7 mb/d by 2020." But, Heinberg said, the actual production peak was in 1999 at 2.68 mb/d, which fell to 1.65 mb/d by 2005.

Heinberg dismissed the idea that peak oil is a fringe concept, noting recent comments by former President Bill Clinton on peak oil and a New York Times associate editor stating, "The concept of peak oil has not been widely written about. But people are talking about it now. It deserves a careful look—largely because it is almost certainly correct."

Heinberg also talked about his most recent book, The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse. "We need an agreement to gradually reduce oil consumption in order to discourage competition, stabilize prices, aid with planning and preparation, and protect the resource base," he said.

Heinberg compared the emphasis today on developing alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power to heroin addicts lining the shelves with methadone instead of reducing their heroin use.

"How about if we just start using less oil? That's the only thing that's going to make any difference, because as long as we're lining the shelves with alternatives we're going keep increasing our oil consumption," Heinberg said.

"So the Oil Depletion Protocol goes straight to the problem and says that each nation shall aim to reduce oil consumption by at least the world depletion rate," Heinberg said. He explained that the protocol can be implemented by organizations and individuals who assess their current oil consumption and plan to reduce the total by three percent per year.

"I realized the best way for me to feel less fear about the coming crisis is to follow the ideas of the Oil Depletion Protocol as an individual," conference attendee Kelley O'Connor of Sterling, Massachusetts said. "In a way, I have already been following it, I just haven't been measuring it," she continued, "and if I can see a number, I can feel like I'm making progress towards using less energy."

Julian Darley, founder and director of the Vancouver-based Post Carbon Institute, offered strategies at the community level for "global relocalization" as a response to peak oil. Darley summarized his strategy as "Reduce Consumption: Produce Locally."

"All civilizations are built on surplus." Darley said. "What happens as that surplus reduces or even becomes non-surplus?" he asked. He described humanity as being in ecological overshoot of the earth's carrying capacity, and suggested that relocalization will help humanity return to a "safe carrying capacity" well within its ecological limits. "We need to move from great surplus to sufficient – from, abundance to enough," Darley said.

Post Carbon's Relocalization Network, with 122 "outposts" throughout the world, offers support, knowledge, and tools for communities to produce more food, energy, and other necessities locally, move from a fuel to a foot economy, and relocalize currency, governance, and culture.

Darley highlighted other Post Carbon initiatives, including an energy farm, its internet broadcasting station Global Public Media, a proposal for community supported manufacturing and energy, and a citizens toolkit to work with municipalities to pass a peak oil resolution, form a peak oil task force, and sign on to the Oil Depletion Protocol.

Going deeper into the details of Plan C, Community Solution board member and University of Dayton physics professor Bob Brecha described his recently-built straw bale house. The Yellow Springs house has a solar hot water heater, radiant floor heating system, earth plaster, and passive solar features. "Straw bale construction has low operating energy use, low embodied energy because of using waste, local and recycled materials, and involves the community," Brecha said.

Brecha gave participants practical tips for saving energy in housing. Along with building low-embodied energy buildings such as straw bale houses, he suggested, "Insulate, insulate, insulate, use renewable energy, build smaller and fewer houses, change lighting, and heat and cool to less extreme temperatures."

"Setting back by 2°F during the day and 10°F during the night would save approximately 15 percent on heating energy," Brecha said. He urged participants to get a home energy audit from a growing field of "home energy doctors" to help them retrofit for energy efficiency.

Housing expert Jeff Christian of the Building Technology Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee explained his experience with five "zero energy" homes and dozens of different kinds of construction materials. "Each home has a simple house plan, is 50 percent more energy efficient than the typical home, includes a two-kilowatt solar array for electricity, and is constructed using structurally-insulated panels," according to Christian. Other energy saving features include geothermal heat pumps, high performance windows, and air-tight houses.

For retrofitting existing homes, Christian encouraged participants to get a home energy inspection. Because the largest energy use in a home is space heating, which uses 30 percent of the total energy, Christian suggested adding insulation in the attics, walls, and floors, caulking and weather-stripping windows, sealing all ducts, setting back thermostats and considering window replacements. He also suggested upgrading appliances to energy-efficient refrigerators, front-loading washers, and compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Richard Olson, an environmental studies professor at Berea College in Kentucky, shared the energy- saving strategies of the Berea College Ecovillage which include a community-wide sewage processing plant called an "ecological machine," an underground rainwater collection cistern and community composting. The homes were built with structurally-insulated panels utilizing a passive solar design. One residence, the Sustainability House, has an attached greenhouse to treat water from the sinks and showers, maintains a composting toilet, and gets all of its electricity from solar photovoltaic panels. "If we're to have a future economy, the primary energy source will be the sun," Olson said.

Olson talked about other sustainability initiatives at the college, where, he said, "students, staff, and faculty are transforming their campus into an institution that can survive the coming perfect storm of peak oil and climate change." He said they are retrofitting campus buildings for energy efficiency, developing a local food initiative to promote a sustainable food system in Berea, and creating educational programs on sustainability.

Olson also emphasized personal responsibility. "We need to start looking at what we can control and how our actions as consumers impact other people," he told conference participants. "Unless you translate what you learn here into action, then it wasn't worth the fossil fuels used to get you here."

Olson left participants with a quote from 19th century nature writer Henry David Thoreau as they contemplated returning to their communities to integrate the conference's lessons into their lives and work: "Though I do not believe that a plant will spring up where no seed has been planted, I have faith in a seed. Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."

Megan Quinn is the outreach director for the Community Solution, a nonprofit organization in Yellow Springs, Ohio which educates about peak oil and community-based solutions (www.communitysolution.org).  She can be reached at megan@... . To order DVDs of the conference, visit its website, contact her by email or call 937-767-2161.

Greetings Communitarians,

We're announcing a new group for people who are attempting to start
up intentional communities. We have named this new group " Initiating
Intentional Communities". Here is the URL to the group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/InitiatingIntentionalCommunities/

This group is open to all those who wish to, are or have initiated
intentional communities. At this group people can meet, support,
network and discuss with others of like mind whatever problems and
needs people have along their journey toward initiating their IC.

We encourage free discussions and sharing of information and support
with all those who wish to initiate ICs. The members of this support
group will be sharing with other group members what they are working
on or have worked on toward their goals of developing their IC, on
what problems and issues they may be facing or have faced as they
attempt or attempted to implement their plans for their IC, and on
what successes they have enjoyed in their efforts to initiate their
IC.

In addition to opening this group to aspiring IC initiators we'd like
to outreach to established ICs to see whether there would be anyone
in these which would be interested joining in and adding their input
into the mix toward helping the IC initiators. We also feel there are
many individuals, counselors, process facilitators and authors out
there in the communities movement whom we could contact who might
help us if they would join in...if people here know of any please
invite them to join the group. Also, if people have any suggestions
on where we could network this group please share this with us.

To join this group people will need to write up an introduction to
the group on their vision, values and goals for their IC, and
something on the effort they have made in forming one, and submit
this introduction to the group owner before their request to join the
group is approved. The new group member introduction will then be
posted as their first message to the group, and also posted in the
files section of the group for all members to read without their
having to search the message archives.

This is not a group to lurk in as it will require a high degree of
involvement of it members. Let's bring our passions together for our
IC initiating goals so we might benefit many others who share this
goal with us.

We hope to meet you there.

Best Wishes, Daniel & Patti EarthStewards

The Odyssey of an Intentional Community Initiator

I woke up this morning with images floating around in my head about
what the job of initiating an IC is like, and what it requires of an
IC initiator.

Picture going to Home Depot and getting one of those metal carts with
the short stubby wheels that they provide for transport of heavy or
bulky materials to the check out counter, and then to your car.  Pile
the cart with bricks.

Now picture yourself pushing or pulling that cart with bricks from
the Pacific coast of Peru to the Atlantic coast of Brazil, and you
are the sole source of power that moves that cart with bricks from
one point to the next.  Maybe, if you are lucky, there are roads to
push this cart with bricks.  However, you soon run out of roads and
you are pushing or pulling it through dense jungle, in mud, over
rivers and up and down mountains.

Yes, one would have to physically carry each and every brick
individually, and then the cart across the worse areas, and in only a
few place would one be able to push the cart with the bricks loaded
upon it.  The cart will be a cart, and the bricks, bricks, and
neither can or will help you to get to your destination.  The task
will take all your lifetime to accomplish.

The cart is an analogy of the IC you want to initiate, and the bricks
its members.  Still want the job?  How many of us would even try?

However, there is something called "incentive" which will change the
nature of the job of an IC initiator totally, and help greatly in
getting that cart with bricks from one coast to the other, and this
will only take one a few years to do.  That "incentive" is called
culture collapse.  Then the cart sprouts legs, and the bricks,
wings.  All you have to do then is to walk the miles while the cart
walks with you, or at times carries you, while the bricks fly the
distance.

Let's hope for "incentive".

Daniel

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