Whether your community is FYI - The Emergency Resource Guide can help you plan and prepare for emergencies in the broad sense...prepare for terrorism - bomb threats, radiation exposure, and chemical agents, prepare for biological agents - anthrax, botulism, pneumonic plague, smallpox, tularemia, and viral fevers, and prepare for nature - earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, floods, landslides, mud flows, hot weather, the West Nile Virus, windstorms, and winter storms (like the one we had this past winter of 2006-2007 in Washington State). Such preparedness may facilitate finding ways to reduce energy dependency and consumption! From DOH Publication #750-115 Revised January 2007.
geographical (a neighborhood, town, or peninsula),
organizational (a club, union, or society), or
philosophical (with an interest in spirituality, arts, or academics),
a dynamic exists in the relationship of community to the rest of the world.
The rest of the world is changing, particularly in terms of economics, energy, and environment. This forum invites all communities and their members to participate in a populist movement toward balancing the local with the global, the popular with the corporate, and one community with another. Solar energy will be the central theme, as you will see.
Jumping to the community at large - the Earth - may we recommend reading Oliver Morton's "Eating the Sun" - How Plants Power the Planet" c.2008..."Eating the Sun is a call to arms. Only by understanding photosynthesis and the flows of energy it causes can we hope to understand the depth and subtlety of the current crisis in the planet's climate. What's more, nature's greatest energy technology [photosynthesis] may yet inspire the breakthroughs we need to flourish without such climatic chaos in the century to come."
Bottom Line: Global Heating will mean a food crisis
Despite climate changes affecting the ocean levels and rain patterns, the fundamentally worst impact to life is a crisis in food supply, as the cycles of nature - Carbon, Nitrogen, Hydrological, and more - will change, impacting the evolution, production, and nutrition of plants we eat. Hmm.
Sol Ecole at Solar Motive in Port Townsend opens its 2010 workshop series...
January 9 Solar PV (Residential & Commercial Aspects)
January 16 Electric Bikes
January 23 Wind Power
January 30 Solar Thermal
Stop by once in awhile and check out the following links, which will be active soon:
LOCAL NEWS COMMUNITY PROGRAMS TESTIMONIALS TRIPS TO ESOTERICA
On the subjet of "resources", we should all know and understand the Jevons Paradox....
The more efficiently we use a limited resource, the more of that resource we will use.
This applies to one of the biggest trends today - scrapping old clunkers and buying fuel efficient cars. The result of our nation's push toward fuel efficient cars will actually result in our further consumption of oil, the very well known limited resource of the modern age. The company's founder thinks of this paradox every time he "fills up" his electric vehicle with free solar energy. The electrification of the US transportation system can not occur fast enough.
 Port Townsend, WA |
The E.F. Schumacher Society has a commitment to local economies. Review their website, www.schumachersociety.org, and know the universality of the issues we face here locally, in our communities, while realizing that sustainability is just as much about our relationship to others as it is about our relationship to the earth.
OES' Jonathan Clemens returned from Massachusetts, where he was photographed in Hull, MA, in front of their very own wind turbine.
Jonathan in Hull, MA (near Hingham, south of Boston, MA)
Is this a form of Community-Supported Energy, or CSE? If Renewable Energy is to really have an impact on sustainable communities, there must be strong community support and local ownership. An organization that knows that quite well is Community Solutions of Yellow Springs, Ohio. Jonathan's philosophy, and that of Olympic Energy Systems, is community-oriented. Jonathan does not "push" or "hard sell" solar energy products (which are mostly made in distant places), as he is trying to 1) build local solutions and local know how, and 2) grow the local solar energy industry on the North Olympic Peninsula using the existing contracting community and with a wise use of our, and individual's, limited resources.
Throughout the OES website you see references to LOCAL businesses the company is working alongside. Ultimately, we need to relocalize our basic necessities of food, shelter, and energy...themes OES is already developing...the role of Grange and local food education, SIP buildings and the potential of Zero Energy Buildings, and local solar energy systems sized appropriately and developed after first establishing energy savings and conservation.
Ever see a strip mine for COAL? Our founder saw this in Gillette, WY...
A relevant ANNOUNCEMENT...
Foster Pepper PLLC (Seattle, WA) recently sponsored an important event: "HARVESTING THE SUN: COMMUNITY SOLAR SEMINAR"
at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, WA. Keep an eye on this subject. The Amish (of Indiana) already get the idea of harvesting the sun...
Many thanks to local artist Marty David, who answered a commission to paint the office of Olympic Energy Systems...
308 - 10th Street
We have a retail store in Port Townsend, Washington, near the Boat Haven entrance, with electrical components, solar equipment, books, parts, electric bikes and more. Solar Motive has been a significant player in support of the solar movement in the region, offering a collaborative network of solar owners, enthusiasts and professionals. The store is evolving into a Solar Design Center. So stop in or call, (360) 385-7477.
