Asking "wouldn't it be wonderful if our city could feed itself?" Joe Leitch ponders everybody in Portland planting a chestnut tree. Pam Leitch relates how they both left the corporate world after reading the book "Your Money or Your Life". As educators on sustainability and resource depletion, permaculture and social justice, they soon learned of Peak Oil. Pam initiated bringing a Peak Oil resolution to the Portland City Council, who passed it unanimously in 2006 and set up a citizen task force to make recommendations for city action. See a bit of the permaculture farm Pam and Joe are creating in residential Portland, cultivating fruit trees, vegetables and compost, rainwater catchment, and innovative neighborhood cooperation. If every city were full of such projects, maybe they really could feed themselves! (www.portlandpermaculture.com) See the video
Yuba Gals Independent Media production partners Robyn Mallgren and Janaia Donaldson have been producing local video programs for community access television since 2002.
The Yuba Gals live in rural Nevada City and their business is named for the nearby South Yuba River, a part of the Wild and Scenic river system in California. They live on 160 acres of forest land, in a 1500 square-foot off-grid home using about 10% of the electricity of the average American home (including home office). Their home is heated by a wood stove using deadfall wood from their property. Propane heats the cookstove, on-demand water heater and backup generator (needed only during gray-day periods in winter). Not yet energy independent, but moving in that direction!
Fossil Fuel
peakmoment
