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Bright Neighbor
Peak Oil Hausfrau, blog
What's a common mantra of peak oil preparers, climate change activists, and environmentalists? Go local, go local, go local. But until now, there have been few tools to help us do so. We don't know our neighbors. The food and consumer goods in our stores come from thousands of miles away. And the places we live are hard to get around by walking or biking.

So as we try to re-localize, how do we find what we need? How do we collaborate when we don't know who's who? How do we garden when we don't know how? How do we buy local when all we see on the streets are big-box stores? It's kind of a difficult slog sometimes, isn't it?

But help is here! Bright Neighbor is an online tool designed for cities or towns to help their residents weather the peak oil and financial storms currently brewing. It helps citizens connect, share and barter items, rides, and knowledge. By facilitating community involvement and local networking, this tool can help increase the liveability and sustainability of our cities.

Bright Neighbor is the brainchild of Randy White, a key member of the Portland Peak Oil Task Force. As usual, Portland is in the vanguard of sustainability and environmentalism. Part of their plan is the Portland Bright Neighbor site, where residents can:

• Find local businesses and resources

• Meet local people with the same interests
• Swap and share items, goods, and services
• Search for and offer rides and car-shares
• Find community events and news

I first read about this site at Lawns to Gardens, and I contacted Randy White to find out more. He called me back within five minutes and gave me a guided online tour of the Portland Bright Neighbor site (available to community members only - otherwise I would link it here). Simply impressive! Although I have only seen the tool for 20 minutes, the potential of this thing is HUGE.

I mean, how many grain mills does a neighborhood need - couldn't we share one? And wouldn't it be great if people knew where the local water wells were in an emergency? And wouldn't it be nice to be able to find the Master Gardeners in your neighborhood to ask about the best plant varieties? To find a local business that sells what you want? Even find a local knitting or quilting group?
(7 October 2008)
Peak Oil Hausfrau is a: "31 yr old Hausfrau preparing for the coming peak oil energy descent. In Oklahoma City. With insomnia and a toddler."

The Gathering Inn: bed, breakfast and beyond (part 2)
Carolyn Baker, Speaking Truth to Power
[In Part Two, Sally Erickson and Tim Bennett share their vision for and current activities at the Gathering Inn, in Hancock, Vermont, not the least of which is creating a nurturing space for awake individuals or families who would like to join them in sharing conversation, food, and the glorious beauty of the Mad River Valley in autumn.--CB]

... CB: I notice that the sub-phrase on your logo is "a next-paradigm inn." Can you say more about that?

TB: I notice that everyone talks about the next paradigm, but nobody does anything about it. It became really clear on our screening tours that we have to move beyond talking about that different level of awareness that Einstein pointed to, taking some steps and kind of feeling our way into what that might be by planting some seeds. Future generations will certainly have more to say about it than we will, but we can plant those seeds and start some movement in that direction. So we're trying to do that.

We're trying to ask: How does it feel to move beyond control and hierarchy and domination from a culture that is essentially a huge, dysfunctional ego structure to find some other way of being that isn't about domination and control? How do you get along with your partners? How do you make decisions? How do you conduct yourself in the world? How do you relate to the land and the larger community? We're feeling our way through that, and we stop and ask ourselves, for example: What would be a new way to think about money? What would be a new way to think about the energy exchange of a tribal member or how we're going to relate with other local folks.

SE: Tim mentioned that we might be a resource to individuals, couples, and families, and one of the things we've run across a lot is that often people who become aware of Peak Oil and other issues, often their spouse is hesitant to look deeply on the issues, and it's putting a lot of stress on couples. At the inn, we call ourselves the "inn-mates", and two of the "inn-mates" are psychotherapists, and we can see that the Inn is a place where we could do a couples' retreat or a couple could come for a weekend and do some intensive work around that.

One of the things that people who work with couples know is that it's very common for couples' to become polarized on issues, whether it's how clean or messy the house is going to be, how are we going to do money, or some other issue. One person in the couple will spend hours and hours diving into the information on the state of the world, glued to the computer screen to get alternative news, while the other member of the couple is completely blocking that out, and neither couple is living a very healthy life, and there may be a huge breach between them. So we may be in a unique position to offer some real compassion and a resting place for families and couples that are in that situation where both spouses could be deeply seen and heard, and the strength of each of those positions be seen and heard. Then they can stop polarizing and start to come back together again. It's another example of being of service to a rather unique group of people-people who are waking up to how incredibly serious and impending the current ecological, environmental, and economic situations are.
(23 September2008)

Pint-Size Eco-Police, Making Parents Proud and Sometimes Crazy
Lisa W. Foderaro, New York Times
Sometimes, Jennifer Ross feels she cannot make a move at home without inviting the scorn of her daughters, 10-year-old Grace and 7-year-old Eliza. The Acura MDX she drives? A flagrant polluter. The bath at night to help her relax? A wasteful indulgence. The reusable shopping bags she forgot, again? Tsk, tsk.

“I have very, very environmentally conscious children — more so than me, I’m embarrassed to say,” said Ms. Ross, a social worker in Dobbs Ferry, N.Y. “They’re on my case about getting a hybrid car. They want me to replace all the light bulbs in the house with energy-saving bulbs.”

Ms. Ross’s children are part of what experts say is a growing army of “eco-kids” — steeped in environmentalism at school, in houses of worship, through scouting and even via popular culture — who try to hold their parents accountable at home. Amid their pride in their children’s zeal for all things green, the grown-ups sometimes end up feeling like scofflaws under the watchful eye of the pint-size eco-police, whose demands grow ever greater, and more expensive.
(9 October 2008)