An edible Statehouse lawn? Montpelier group looks at life without oil
|
|
Toolbox
By Thatcher Moats Staff Writer - Published: January 11, 2009
MONTPELIER – The times they are a-changin', and some area residents plan to be ready for them.
About 70 people gathered at a meeting of the group Transition Town Montpelier at the Unitarian Church on Saturday to explore the steps they can take to make the adjustment from a society based on cheap petroleum to one where food, energy and currency systems are more localized.
Transition Town Montpelier is the sixth Transition group founded in the United States, according to the group's Web site, and just the second on the East coast.
Transitions groups have formed in response to the notion of "peak oil," the point at which the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction has been reached, after which the rate of oil production enters terminal decline.
Without cheap oil, the thinking goes, most of the systems that modern society relies on simply won't work.
So what systems do we replace them with? Well, that's what Saturday's meeting was all about.
After an introduction, the large group of attendees broke down into smaller groups.
One group talked about food systems. Other groups examined different forms of currency, different ways to produce and conserve energy, and the psychology of the transition.
"The whole idea is how do we transition off oil?" said Annie McCleary, a member of a committee that launched Transition Town Montpelier. "It's going to happen anyway," the key is to be ready, McCleary said.
The end of oil can sound apocalyptic, but McCleary said Transition Town Montpelier is all about being constructive.
"It's grassroots. It's positive," said McCleary. "This says, 'OK. We're in a pickle, what can we as a community do?' There is a lot we can do. It's a we-can-do attitude."
The group that discussed ways to localize the food system was the largest one Saturday morning, with 17 people sitting in. Many were gardeners or farmers. Most agreed that Vermonters will need to produce more of their own food.
"Right now we import 90 percent of our food, and that's going to change," said Lee Blackwell, who owns Blackwell Roots Farm in Cabot. "We're going to need much more food than we grow locally soon."
Members of the group discussed the difficulty of finding inexpensive farmland and accessing markets. They also talked about influencing people who could affect change — such as state leaders and the University of Vermont.
Another popular topic was efficient use of "stale" land, as one person called it, for growing food.
The expansive statehouse lawn would be perfect, according to Glenn Scherer.
"I walk around town and see a lot of empty garden space," said Scherer. "One thing that drives me crazy is the Statehouse lawn. How do we convert that into an edible landscape?"
In general, organizers said the Transition movement entails re-educating residents. Many skills long taken for granted – how to create and effectively use a root cellar or how to make baskets and clothes for example – have been lost.
"Part of it is about helping people get those skills their grandparents knew," said Carl Etnier, a member of Transition Town Montpelier's initiating committee.
Gwendolyn Hallsmith, Montpelier's Director of Planning and Community Development, led a group that looked into alternate currency systems.
Montpelier already has the Onion River Exchange, a network of individuals, organizations and businesses that exchange services.
Another alternative to greenbacks that Hallsmith is planning to organize for the Montpelier area is based on a Swiss system that was created during the Great Depression.
It's called the "WIR" system, which means "we" in German. It still exists in Switzerland and has 75,000 members, she added.
It's a credit-debit system that businesses in Switzerland established in response to the credit crunch of the 1930s. Under the WIR system, the currency does not accrue interest so organizations don't hoard WIR credits, like they do with traditional currency, Hallsmith said, making it an ideal currency during a credit crisis.
It would not replace the normal currency, Hallsmith said, but complement it and help local businesses.
Hallsmith said new systems appear spontaneously when things get really bad, but it's best to plan for it.
"If we plan it well now, we can do something creative that will be helpful for the local economy for a long time to come," she said.
Saturday's meeting was the second for Transition Town Montpelier, and the group is just getting going. A course will be offered in March in Montpelier called "Training for Transition" and there is a discussion group that is meeting weekly in Montpelier to study "The Transition Handbook," written by Rob Hopkins.
For more information go to www.transitionvermont.ning.com
42