Collective Work for the Great Turning by Marcia Bourne

    The greater Brattleboro area is fortunate to have an exceptional array of nature's gifts, and many citizens who care deeply about preserving them. A year ago the steering committee of the Vermont Earth Institute in this area brought together nearly thirty environmental organizations for a day of sharing.  We found a beautiful meeting space in the barn at the Famolare Business and Agricultural Center where we listened with appreciation as each group's representative spoke, shared food, and made new friends and connections. 

    We've been meeting monthly ever since and call ourselves the Windham Environmental Coalition.  Our mission is "to inspire, educate, and lead our communities in adopting sustainable practices that promote environmental health and community well-being."  This column will provide an opportunity to hear from members of the coalition and others in the local community who are proposing creative solutions to environmental problems brought about by the unsustainable practices that have been pursued for more than a century. We realize that one of our biggest challenges is to "walk our talk," and we are grateful that there are those among us who remind us of this task on a regular basis. 

    Many of us remember the moment at that first gathering in October, 2004, when Misha Golfman of Kroka Expeditions began his presentation by asking why, when daylight was streaming through the windows of the meeting room, we had turned on all the ceiling lights.  When it was time to travel to the Manitou Project land in Williamsville for our retreat last spring, Spoon Agave proposed that there should be a twenty-five dollar fee for each driver, which would go down by five dollars for each passenger in the car. We have come to understand that each organization in the coalition is a unique expression of concern and caring, and that like trees in a forest our roots are overlapping and connected.  We know that we are but one of the thousands of groups emerging around  the world that are working collectively to turn away from the long-entrenched industrial paradigm towards what renowned ecologist Thomas Berry calls the "Ecozoic Era," when people will finally learn how to live in harmony with the earth's systems. Joanna Macy, Buddhist scholar and student of general systems theory, believes that the work of this "Great Turning," as she calls it, takes three distinct forms. One is to create "holding actions" to prevent further harm to the earth.  The bold actions of the Rainbow Warriors of Greenpeace or of Julia Butterfly and her friends high in their threatened redwood trees are well-known examples.  Those involved in this kind of work stand bravely on the front lines of resistance, and may use demonstrations, boycotts and even civil disobedience to slow down the destruction of what they care about so deeply.  The boycott demonstration at Exxon Mobil and the call for "buying local" at the Home Depot opening are recent initiatives in our own back yard.    
   
    Another kind of environmental work addresses the underlying structural causes of the breakdown of natural systems, creating new ways of meeting our economic and social needs while remaining accountable to the limited resources and waste absorption potential of the planet.  We have many examples of these transformations in Windham County, including Brattleboro Climate Protection initiatives, farmers' markets, Community Supported Agriculture, "green" building practices, and an "Eat Local" campaign. The third kind of work for the Great Turning Macy describes focuses on examining and strengthening the fundamental values from which change arises. 

    New ways of thinking and understanding can be nurtured in a discussion group, an academic course, a wilderness adventure program, a nature museum, or even on a hiking trail.  Once values are clarified and people feel supported by meeting and getting to know others who believe as they do, they are usually eager to become involved in some kind of action for positive change. All three kinds of work are represented in the year-old Windham Environmental Coalition, and all are of equal importance.  As we celebrate this diversity by listening to and learning from one another, we seek to build and strengthen a community that will go forward together to face the challenging times ahead.  We do this for ourselves, for our children, and for the offspring of all species.
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Marcia Bourne convenes the Steering Committee of the Brattleboro Chapter of the Vermont Earth Institute, a Sustainable Living Network, and the Windham Environmental Coalition.  She can be reached at  HYPERLINK "mailto:justmart@sover.net" justmart@sover.net.  The Windham Environmental Coalition meets at 8:00 a.m. on the last Wednesday of the month in the Community Room of the Brattleboro Savings and Loan.
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A six-month journey by ski and canoe through Vermont
by Lisl Hofer;  journal excerpts by Ilene Price and Tom Rosenberg

"The moon shines brightly on trodden paths, which weave in and out of birches, bridges, yurts, and tents.  Ski boots, socks and long underwear are drying by the heat of the wood stove. A pot of pine tea is steaming on the table.  We sit around the circle during our
nighttime 'hula,' tired from the day's activities, happy, with full bellies and smiling faces and share how the day went.  Our six-month journey has finally begun.  The big yurt acts as our main place of gathering.  It is filled with Vermont and Maine organic vegetables, pickled this and canned that, homemade medicinal remedies, dried herbs and spices, homegrown teas, and other delicious treats . . . all of which have been generously contributed by Vermont Semester families.  Our bodies are being nourished by this beautiful land which surrounds us, as we consume a diet of almost all local foods."

The above journal entry was written by one of the students of the Vermont Semester Program of Kroka Expeditions.  Twelve students between the ages of 17 and 21, with their three teachers embarked on this adventure last winter and finished in June.  January was spent at base camp in Newfane, Vermont.  There the group prepared for their skiing expedition from Somerset Reservoir to the Northwoods Stewardship Center in East Charleston, Vermont, near the Canadian border.  Students learned how to live simply, how to ski, how to cut logs and chop wood, how to cook nourishing meals and much, much more. They worked outside adjusting to the cold of winter.  Their bodies got used to waking up early for chores; their thinking was engaged in processing the new experiences they encountered, their hearts were filled with joy and love for an exciting life they were creating with each other every day.

Once February came, the real expedition began.  For two months they skied north at a steady pace following the Catamount Trail. They carried heavy packs loaded with their few essential belongings and the food they needed on the trail.  They pulled a sled with their tent and titanium stove. They had layovers to repair gear, write letters, create schoolbooks and sometimes even to relax.  They met many special people along the way.

"I'm sitting at a round table, papers spread all around me, like a newspaper reporter trying to meet a deadline for an article on a cross-country skiing expedition.  But what we are experiencing is much more than these words can tell.  The feeling of skiing for six hours each day, carrying all that we need on our backs or in sleds behind us is changing something inside of us.  We are learning to ask questions, search inside and outside for answers, live together as a community, put the needs of others before our own, see the wilderness around us in a different light.  We are learning to listen to what the Earth is telling us."

April was spent at the Northwoods Stewardship Center, building a 24-foot canoe with a master canoe builder from Maine.  Pack baskets were woven out of brown ash and each student made his/her own paddle. 

"And so I bid you farewell. We are off, on a grand voyage in two huge canoes, the Kasha and the Chaga.  Our pack baskets are filled by the necessities of our simple life and we carry all we need back down the length of Vermont. We will eat knotweed pie, we will laugh, we will work and we will live the good life. And so I bid you farewell, we are off, the river beckons, and we will listen."

In June the group finished their journey.  They said goodbye to one another, filled with love and a new respect and understanding for the Earth. "I don't think there is any combination of words in the English language that will evoke in you the feelings we felt when we completed our journey.  But perhaps you can understand if you put yourself into
our shoes and think back in your life to all the amazing things that have happened to you, and just feel.  We are happy.  Happy beyond what I can possibly articulate."

The Vermont Semester is a program of Kroka Expeditions, an Earth Living Skills School based out of Newfane, Vermont.  Starting January 2008, it will be offered again. In addition Kroka Expeditions is offering a fall semester, the Vermont-Ecuador Semester of 2007.  Both programs are for high school students.  For more information please call 802-387-5397.
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Lisl Hofer is Semester Coordinator at Kroka Expeditions.  Ilene Price and Tom Rosenberg were participants of the Vermont Semester Program 2006.  This monthly column is sponsored by the Windham Environmental Coalition.
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The Nature Connection by Bill Pearson

    When I was a kid growing up in northeastern Massachusetts, I was fortunate to have access to a variety of outdoor activities. There was the family garden to weed, lawns for playing croquet, fields for bike riding, and the Creaking Forest for making forts. Nearby was Duck's Pond where my pals and I cruised our homemade rafts, and Reedy Meadow where many an adventure of exploration was launched. When all the fun got too tiring I could seclude myself in one of the huge white pines in our backyard. I grew up with ring-necked pheasants, towhees, bluebirds, cedar waxwings, green herons and American bitterns; with concord grapes growing wild around our compost pit, and succulent blackberries beckoning from behind the neighbor's garage; with woodchucks, rabbits, and the occasional deer. I developed a sense of awe and appreciation for the natural world. That experience provided an appetite for Brattleboro's natural attractions when I moved here in 1975. Brattleboro had its own fields and woods, ponds and marshes. It also had the West and the Connecticut Rivers and a mountain named Wantastiquet conveniently located right across the bridges to Hinsdale, New Hampshire. My childhood territory encompassed many square miles.

    Today things are different. Children typically stay closer to home, if they venture outdoors by themselves at all. Many spend hours each day plugged into TVs, computers, and other electronic gadgetry. Some may even fear what lurks beyond the back door: germs, viruses, wild animals, biting insects! As less and less time is spent outside, there comes an erosion of knowledge of, and affinity for, the natural world. It becomes difficult to interest kids in a neighborhood game of kick-the-can, much less Earth Day, when they're not used to paying attention to their natural surroundings. The motivation to protect and preserve nature may fall on deaf ears. Too bad, because right in our area there is a lot of natural world to love and cherish.  There are bald eagles soaring overhead, a beaver's handiwork below the new bridge over the Whetstone Brook by the Brattleboro Food Co-op Plaza, nighthawks patrolling the evening skies, and sundogs accompanying the setting sun.

    My latest discovery was a red-bellied woodpecker, a species from the southeastern U.S., fairly new to this area. An emissary of global warming, I suspect. What we don't know, we don't love. And when what we don't love is our irreplaceable natural support system (the air, water, soil, trees) and its attendant sentient beings, we are asking for trouble. Ignorance fosters neglect, disrespect, pollution. Chief Seattle, a wise Native American, put it well some 150 years ago: "We are all part of the web of life. What we do to the web, we do to ourselves."

    A new way to conceptualize our relationship to Nature is provided by Richard Louv in his 2005 book Last Child In The Woods: Saving Our Children From Nature Deficit Disorder. Several months ago, searching the Internet for "nature deficit disorder" would have elicited zero responses. As of this writing, we're up to 2,160,000. All this attention is understandable. For thousands of years humans lived lives intimately involved with nature. Its sights, sounds, smells, colors and rhythms were hardwired into our brains. Now we live in predominantly man-made environments. We're losing the nature connection. We're becoming estranged from a vital source of well-being.

    Everyone benefits from a healthy dose of the natural world, not just kids. Hospital patients do better when their room has a window with a view to the outdoors. The same goes for office workers and teachers. Job stress diminishes. Anxiety lessens. Blood pressure and muscle tension subside. Even a realistic nature mural on the wall helps when you can't get outside. And anyone can gain appreciation for nature by placing a bird feeder outside a window. Expect a variety of birdly visitors in no time: juncos, black capped chickadees, white breasted nuthatches, tufted titmice, cardinals, blue jays, and goldfinches in their winter attire. You'll discover that they each have their own personality.   Tuning in to nature may be just what the doctor ordered for unjangling nerves, addressing obesity, reversing gloom and doom, and jumpstarting creative juices. And it's now being linked to alleviating the symptoms of attention deficit disorder.  

    Here are a couple of ideas for cultivating your own nature connection: The Vermont Agency of Natural Resources publishes an excellent pamphlet titled "Children and Our Environment." Call 1-800/ 974-9559. The Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center is a great local source for educating kids about nature. They also sponsor Sunday morning ambles for adults to local natural attractions .
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Bill Pearson is on the steering committee of the Brattleboro Chapter of the Vermont Earth Institute, is a member of the Windham Environmental Coalition, and chairs the Environmental Stewardship Council at Landmark College. He can be reached at bill129@surfglobal.net.
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Disappearing Mountains by Janisse Ray

    In October I was among a group of writers invited to tour the coalfields of eastern Kentucky. Appalachian people are desperate for America to know what's happening there.   We arrive at a tiny hangar in Hazard, Kentucky, where pilots from SouthWings are waiting to fly us over the landscape. SouthWings is an environmental flying service based in Asheville, North Carolina, whose motto is "I Had No Idea." I will go up in Susan Lapis's immaculate Cessna. She is dressed completely in black, a long black dress with black tights.  

    When I first met Lapis a few years ago, I called her an angel who watches over the world. I called her a wind goddess, and she laughed. Now, teasing, I call her a flying nun.   "I'm wearing black for Kentucky," she says. She straps us in and points out headphones. "Truth is, this hardly needs any words."   Within seconds we are rising above the soft slopes of the Appalachians, burning with fall colors, a wild spectacle.   But soon we are high enough to see a coal strip-mine, a massive gray gouge in the earth, raw and spreading. It covers miles. On peak after peak, trees have been removed, and mammoth machinery has begun to take down the slopes.   Mountaintop removal uses heavy machinery to remove summits of West Virginian, eastern Kentucky, and Tennessee in order to reach low-sulphur coal beneath. As much as 600 vertical feet may be removed, and a mine often encompasses multiple peaks and thousands of acres of broadleaf deciduous forest in between.   Imagine leveling a mountain range.   Lapis explains the process as we fly. First, forests atop the mountains are bulldozed. Often coal companies don't take the time to log the trees, but simply pile and burn them. Then miners drill deep into the mountain with augers and drop in explosives; earth-shaking blasts send up geysers of earth and rock. Drag lines, whose buckets can scoop 100,000 pounds at a time, come and dump what's called "overburden," the rocks lying atop the coal, over the side of the mountain. Trucks haul the coal away.  

    This method of strip-mining surfaced in the late 1980s, but within a decade lawsuits had slowed the industry. Then, during his bid for office in 2000, George W. Bush promised to ease the bureaucratic process for the coal industry, which has raised $9 million for Republicans since 1998.   Mountaintop removal is a flagrant violation of the Clean Water Act in that the overburden fills the valleys, where streams run. The federal government reports that over 700 miles of streams across the central Appalachians have been buried, although environmental groups estimate the figure at twice that.   One word allows the Bush administration to condone this abuse. In May 2002, in what's now called the "fill rule," the EPA officially reclassified coal debris from "waste" to "fill." Fill can be dumped into streams, although coal-mining produces runoff contaminated with sulfuric acid, selenium and other toxins.   In these last three years of the Bush presidency, coal companies have stepped up mountaintop removal. In West Virginia alone, 500 square miles have been stripped for coal. A federal study estimates that 2,200 square miles of Appalachian landscape will be destroyed in the next decade.   "If you flew a space shuttle and looked down, Appalachia would look like someone with the measles," Lapis says.  

    Here in Brattleboro our "energy portfolio" does not include coal. "Utilities in Vermont take a much different view of the environmental costs of coal," said Steve Costello of Central Vermont Public Service Corporation. About 38 percent of Vermont's energy comes from hydroelectric dams, with nuclear providing another 33 percent.  But we need to know what's happening in Appalachia. As Taylor Barnhill, executive director of SouthWings, said, "We must realize that our national energy policy is killing people."  

    In the distance I see more mines. "We could fly for six hours and see mine after mine," Lapis says.   I have fought clearcutting all my adult life, have seen the largest clearcut in the eastern United States (thirty miles wide) from the air. Now here are clearcuts to the tenth power. Not only are the forests gone, and all they held, but so is the topsoil. So are the streams, the valleys, the oldest mountaintops in the world. So are the people.   Remember these people, would you, Vermont, when you think about energy? And remember those mountains, much like our own.
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Janisse Ray is the author of Ecology of a Cracker Childhood, Wild Card Quilt, and Pinhook, published by Chelsea Green of White River Junction. She lives in Brattleboro and is a member of the Windham Environmental Coalition which sponsors this monthly column.
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Front Yard Gardening    by Raven Burchard
  
    You can call it a Victory Garden, Independence Garden, or a Yard Garden, but make sure you call it delicious. Having a lifelong aversion to unnecessary work, which in my mind includes mowing grass, I have set out to make my work pay off. Yard gardens pay off in a big way. Nothing is fresher or better tasting than fruits and vegetables seconds after being harvested. Take corn, for example. As soon as the ear is picked the sugars start turning to starch. Many of my vegetables never make it to the picking basket let alone into the house. And there is no transportation cost or pollution from trucking our vegetables from Florida or California.

    When I pass some peoples' houses on a Friday afternoon, I see them spreading chemicals and fertilizers on their lawns. I think to myself: first, those chemicals will end up in the groundwater and second, why would you promote the growth of grass so that you can spend your Saturday mornings mowing it? You lose both the time it takes to mow and the ever-rising cost of fossil fuels.  When people drive by my house and I happen to be out picking my delicious beans,  tomatoes, or maybe a cucumber or yellow crookneck squash, I take a big, obvious bite so they may see how rewarding  front yard gardening can be.

    For many years I have lived in the country, but circumstances have me in town for this portion of my life. When my wife and I picked the house we occupy, the fact that it had an already established garden in the backyard was a huge selling point. The garden at this house had been well cared for by several sets of previous homeowners. The garden had a nice mix of flowers and vegetables. When our first spring rolled around we were eager to get started with our garden. We removed grass and expanded the garden in the backyard. We removed more grass in the front yard and started beds there. In one we planted herbs- lemon grass, oregano, thyme, chives.  People may think to themselves, I don't have room for a garden. Some yards may not have space for a big garden, but if you have any sun and you take good care of your soil, you can grow quite a few delightful vegetables in a small area. Some yards may indeed be totally unsuitable for a garden; not to worry,ask a neighbor to use his or her yard. Think of the neighbor who has trouble mowing his or her lawn and think of the tremendous bounty of vegetables you can share, and think of the friendships you can create.

    This past fall we decided that our growing season was not long enough, so we put up what our English neighbor friend calls a polytunnel. We called it a plastic greenhouse. I have seen others in town. We enjoyed spinach and leaf lettuce very late and very early in the season. Even if you don't go to the extent of a polytunnel you can enjoy some edibles well into the winter. We had company for New Year's Day and we harvested more kale than we could eat from under several inches of snow.

    When we sit down to a meal in the evening we speak of the many things we are thankful for. One of the best is when we can say we grew 50 percent, 75 percent and, once in a while, 100 percent of our meal. I can also tell you I'm thankful to get some of my exercise growing flowers and vegetables instead of pushing a lawnmower.  Bon Apetite!
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  Raven Burchard is an artist, potter and activist. He is also a volunteerEMT with Rescue, Inc, where he serves on the Technical Rescue Team. He is amember of Post-Oil Solutions.
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Water Quality Monitoring Program Prepares to Get Wet in 2006
by Clay Houston

For the past three years, determined and dedicated volunteers from the local area have spent the quiet mornings of summer wading into our streams and rivers, collecting water samples and monitoring our favorite swimming holes, helping the West River Watershed Alliance’s (WRWA) Water Quality Monitoring Program keep track of the health, well being and safety of our beloved waters.

There are three phases to the Water Quality Monitoring Program.

The first phase involves sampling the waters at nineteen “high-use” swimming holes on the West, Williams and Saxtons Rivers. Water samples are collected to be analyzed for Escherichia coli (E.coli), total phosphorus, nitrates, total suspended solids, turbidity, conductivity, pH, and temperature. During its third season in 2005, volunteers for the Phase 1 program sampled water quality at these sites every other Tuesday morning between 8:00 am and 10:00 am June through September.

 E.coli data results were published in the Brattleboro Reformer as they were received and were posted at kiosks located at the Retreat Meadows, and the Dummerston Covered Bridge. The E.coli sampling results are also furnished to the Town offices as they are received. The swimming hole sampling and results reporting were also coordinated with the current US Army Corps of Engineers beach sampling program, which monitors public beaches at Townshend Dam and Winhall Campground for similar parameters.

In the second phase, volunteers sample and monitor selected sites where little or no water chemistry information had been previously reported, or where suspected problems might exist and long-term sampling would be needed to determine actual impacts on the rivers. Samples were collected once monthly at sites on the West, Williams and Saxtons Rivers and their tributaries with analyses being conducted for all above-mentioned parameters except E.coli. 

The third phase involves collecting macro-invertebrate, “benthic bug,” samples and conducting habitat assessments at eight sites located along the three rivers. Sampling did not take place in 2005, as the 2003 and 2004 samples are currently being processed. Once the sampling is completed, species abundance of macro invertebrates and their population numbers will be analyzed to indicate impacts to water quality.

This type of hands-on program is a critical public education tool. It provides a venue where participants from the local area can become involved and can develop a sense of community.  It will enable the layperson to help recognize threats to water quality and, where feasible, help to spark action to prevent degradation and improve the health of the river system.

We are often asked "How are our rivers doing?" It is difficult to give a general answer since results vary from swimming hole to swimming hole. It should be understood that rain storms raise the E.coli counts at most swimming holes. Discounting for rain events, a few sites almost always exceed the state standards, whereas, a larger number of sites are almost always within state standards. This is why it is important to check the water testing results in the Brattleboro Reformer on your favorite swimming hole.

Through this monitoring effort, the WRWA seeks to develop a general public understanding of river ecology and foster a sense of stewardship toward the area’s rivers and streams. By promoting wide-ranging public involvement, the WRWA program has increased citizen awareness of water quality issues. The program has also increased the participation of other non-profits and local and state agencies. The collaboration of both professionals and volunteers coming together to isolate threats to water quality enables the carrying out of additional actions to prevent degradation and improve ecological health.

For the 2006 sampling season the West River Watershed Alliance has received funding from the Vermont Conservation License Plate Grant as well as gracious donations from seven surrounding towns and municipalities. We look forward to continuing to help keep clean and healthy water in our watersheds a priority.  So if you see someone early on a Tuesday morning wading through the sparkling waters of the West, Williams or Saxtons Rivers with strange looking bottles, that’s probably one of our dedicated volunteers helping us meet that goal.

If you would like to get involved too, or would just like to ask a few questions, please contact me. Annual reports are also available upon request.

Clay Houston is the Program Director for the West River Watershed Alliance’s (WRWA) Water Quality Monitoring Program. She grew up on the banks of the West River in Newfane and has frequented many of the popular, and quieter swimming hole sites along it. Currently she resides in her childhood home overlooking the beautiful West River Valley.  She can be reached at (802) 254-5323 x109 or Clay.houston@vt.nacdnet.net
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Dare to be a Localvore
 by Tim Stevenson

What is a localvore, you might ask? Well, in the same vein that a carnivore is a being who eats meat, and a herbivore is one who eats plants, a localvore is a person who eats only locally grown and produced food.

A localvore challenge is sponsored by Post Oil Solutions (POS) and is an activity where participants pledge to eat only food products from their region. The POS Challenge will include the State of Vermont and an area within a 100 mile radius of Brattleboro. It will take place in August, at the height of the growing season, when local produce is plentiful.

As part of the stated mission of Post Oil Solutions to build the infrastructure necessary for sustainable communities in our region, we have placed a special emphasis on local food production and consumption during the first year of our existence.

The reason for this is no mystery once the connection between petroleum and our food supply is understood. For the most part, the American diet is imported, with the average meal traveling some 1500 miles before it is consumed. Industrial agriculture has replaced local farmers as the source of our food, which means that our diet is heavily dependent upon petroleum. From fertilizers, pesticides, and diesel machinery, to processing, packaging, refrigeration, and transportation, the basic ingredient in our food is oil. It has been estimated that it takes 10 calories of fossil fuel to produce one calorie of the food we eat.

This situation becomes especially problematic as we enter the age of peak oil, when petroleum--and the countless items (including our food) that are dependent upon it--become increasingly expensive. That is why POS has initiated a number of projects around this basic need of being able to feed ourselves. The projects include: starting a community garden on the Retreat property on Upper Dummerston Road (hopefully the first of many); conducting workshops in bio-intensive gardening, permaculture, and putting food by; organizing an "Eat Local" pledge campaign that culminated in a full-page ad in the Reformer’s May 30 special supplement, "Scene and Herd: A Celebration of Rural Life in Windham County"; initiating "A CSA in Every Town" project, in which we hope to bring together and help organize interested farmers and potential shareholders into CSAs throughout the county; working with the Brattleboro Food Co-op in its efforts to expand their selection of locally-produced food items; and conducting preliminary investigations around organizing a winter farmers market in Brattleboro.

Perhaps no project, however, captures the spirit of Post Oil’s "Eat Local" campaign better than the one we are about to undertake this coming August: the Localvore Challenge!

A special feature of the Localvore Challenge is that it will offer three options for participation. The Basic Challenge runs for one week, from July 29 to August 4. It will kick off on Saturday, July 29, with a pancake breakfast for all registrants at the West Village Meeting House. During these seven days, we are hoping to have pot luck dinners of local fare at different homes.  The week will conclude on Friday, August 4, during Gallery Walk, where we will have tables of appetizers made from locally produced food for people to sample set up in front of Amy's Bakery.

The Challenge will also include two other ways to participate, one for people who want to "Go Local" the entire month of August, and another for folks who agree to eat at least one local item at each meal. We have designed it this way so as to encourage as many people as we can to increasingly "Eat Local."

Another feature of our Challenge is that each registrant may purchase at cost a special starter kit. This will include 10-15 hard-to-find, non-perishable, local items (e.g., cooking oil, wheat flour, dry beans, etc.); literature about where to obtain locally produced food, including those found in the starter kit; one "wild card" for that certain item (coffee? spices?) that cannot be located in the region, but that a person cannot live without; and, finally, special surprises for localvore registrants from places like the Brattleboro Food Co-op, the Farmers Market, and Riverview Cafe.

So take the Localvore Challenge. Join us in August—and beyond—in eating food that is grown by local and regional producers…including ourselves!

Anyone who is interested in signing up for the Challenge, or who would like further information, should contact Rebecca (257-2731, bex_golden@hotmail.com) or Slug (348-6335, riverrocks@hotmail.com).

Tim Stevenson is a local activist and community organizer with Post Oil Solutions which is a member of the Windham Environmental Coalition.
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LESSONS FROM GIANTS by Maggie Bartenhagen
 
I really love old trees. There’s something magical about their gnarled limbs, the rough and deeply grooved bark, the sheer size of these entities that awes and inspires me.  Where I live, there are several dirt byways lined with trees of great age.  As one walks or drives along these roads, the image of cathedral is hard to dismiss.  For me, also, these ancient giants represent constancy, perseverance and connection.  

I've heard others refer to old trees as "grandmother" or "grandfather."  There's something to be said for that since, for many of us, our grandparents or elders offer us connection to the past, constancy and "rootedness."  Ideally, they also offer us the wisdom gained from living a long time and experiencing many things.  After all, you don't achieve a ripe and wise old age if you haven't learned how to cope with all the storms life throws at you over time!

These days, with all that's happening on and to our planet, it seems especially important to pay attention to the wisdom that’s out there, regardless of where it comes from, or in what form it appears.

From my perspective, one of the voices of wisdom currently speaking out is that of David Korten, certainly an "elder" in the most respectful sense of the word.  Korten is the author of a new book entitled The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community.  In a recent article in Yes! magazine (Summer, 2006, available at Brooks Memorial Library), Korten speaks of the difference between two contrasting models for organizing human affairs, calling one Empire and the other Earth Community. 

Korten defines Empire as being "organized at all levels by domination, from relations among nations to relations among family members."  Empire's hallmarks include fortune and ease for the few, while all the rest end up ultimately serving their needs.  This version of organization tends to "suppress the creative potential of all, and appropriates much of the wealth of human societies to maintain the institutions of domination."

Earth Community, on the other hand, is inclusive.  Its hallmarks include "…organizing by partnership, unleashing the human potential for creative cooperation and sharing resources and surpluses for the good of all…” 
 
As we are buffeted by all the storms raging around us, both figuratively and literally, it seems clear which world model we're currently dealing with. 

Korten explains that wise choices rest on a foundation of truth, and in particular, awakening to deeper truths long denied.  As the roots of the aged tree go deep into the soil and supply it with nourishment and stability, so we too have what we need to understand and respond to the challenges we face.  We know deep down that our differences are superficial and that our strength is really in our diversity.  We know deep down that we need to shift our cultural values from the pursuit of money and excessive consumption to a reverence for life and spiritual fulfillment, however we each define that.

The effect of this shift from Empire to Earth Community would be to redefine wealth, measuring it in the health of our families, our communities, and our environment rather than in the number of things we own (or that "own" us!) and the balance in our bank account. We also know on a deep level that we need a "sea change" in our democracy: from competition to cooperation, from representation primarily for the "haves" to representation for all, and from passive observation to active engagement for each citizen. 

Korten emphasizes that we have the power to choose which of these paths to take, and states that "the Great Turning is not a prophecy.  It is a possibility."  On most days I cling to that possibility, indeed (dare I say it?) the likelihood, that we are currently in the process of making this turn toward Earth Community. 

I like to think that, if they could speak, these majestic old giants, with their crowns moving in the air and their massive roots firmly embedded in the earth would be urging with all their wooded, sap-blooded, might, "Yes, you're on the right path: Choose Earth! Choose Community!"

Maggie Bartenhagen lives in Halifax and is a member of the Windham Regional Commission and the Steering Committees of the Brattleboro Chapter of the Vermont Earth Institute and the Windham Environmental Coalition.  The Earth Matters monthly column is sponsored by the Windham Environmental Coalition.  Maggie can be reached at pelbar@sover.net
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Idle Talk  by Ned Pokras

It's not always easy being helpful. I vividly remember a talk by the Director of the U.S. Geological Survey while I was a grad student in geology.  He was musing about how people often don't like geologists, because we tend to give bad news. Geologists rarely hold news conferences to exclaim, "Great news, everybody! Ninety-five percent of Arizona is not sinking because the removal of ground water is making the land subside."  No, we wave our hands and shout, "Omigod! Five percent of Arizona is subsiding because of the removal of ground water."

This may not be the way to make everybody love you.

Others have pointed out that as environmentalists we can fall into the same trap. Most of us are well-meaning people, very concerned for our friends and communities and the whole world.  And we actually think about ways to make that world better for us all. Sometimes, though, we get so eager to help that we just can't help jumping up and down to tell everybody our latest, greatest idea on what we all need to do to keep our global ship on an even keel.

Let's face it; this can make us sound like know-it-alls and nags. And who likes know-it-alls and nags?  I sure don't.

So, in this column I promise not to nag you about idling your car, truck, school bus, or whatever you drive.  I've been reading up on what happens when I idle my car while I'm waiting at an ATM, warming up the car's engine, vacuuming my car or whatever.  I found some information that I think is interesting and even important, and you just might think so too.

For instance, I always thought my car needed to warm up for a minute or so before I drove it, especially in winter.  Maybe that was true when I first learned to drive, but back then gas had lead in it and cost 33 cents a gallon.  Turns out my engine will be warmed up after half a minute, tops, so I can start driving sooner, save some gas, and get where I'm going quicker.  Even better, it'll be easier on my engine.  If I'd thought about it I'd have realized for myself that the engine is designed to drive, not to idle. Unnecessary idling causes extra wear on my old Civic's cylinders, plugs and exhaust system. 

With regard to my stops at the ATM:  I can still listen to the radio while I'm sitting in my car with the engine off, and the car will start up just fine when I'm ready to move again.

I was also surprised to learn that an idling car puts more pollutants into the air than one driving at 32 mph.  And I had no idea that even my little car will waste 30 gallons of gas or more in a year if I idle it for just ten minutes a day.  Avoiding that means even more cash in my pocket, and even less junk in the air. I don't know about you, but that's a deal I'll take. And idling for just ten seconds, believe it or not, burns more gas than turning off my engine and restarting it.  I win again if I don't idle.

So, that's a quick look at what I found out. And at least as important as the gas I've saved is the fact that I'm putting less noxious emissions into the air: less carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide, fewer nitrogen oxides, fewer of those nasty organic compounds that don't get talked about much but that are also intensely unhealthy.  And, since I'm doing the same with our diesel tractor, I'm spewing lots fewer particulates, which are really bad for the lungs.  The same would hold if I drove a truck or a school bus, and I can't imagine it's good for school kids to be standing right next to idling buses.

Is it just my imagination, or does this all make pretty good sense?
         
Ned Pokras is the author of original research on the history of the Earth's climate. He is a writer and teacher, and is a member of the Windham Environmental Coalition and a board member of Southeastern Vermont Audubon and the Bonnyvale Environmental Education Center.  Ned can be reached at nedpokras@adelphia.net
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Beginning to See the Light     by Jennifer Gilbert
 
All I wanted was a reading lamp.  You know, uses light bulbs, plugs into the wall, maybe has a dimmer switch if you get really fancy.
 
A simple purchase morphed into an all-consuming odyssey after I decided to be environmentally conscious while buying.  Soon I was lost in a neurotic labyrinth of competing pros and cons, no lamp in sight, still cursing in the dark. 
 
Oh, and I learned a thing or two.
 
My lamp quest began in late November when I moved into a new apartment with a poor overhead light in the bedroom. I debated adding "floor lamp" to the items--shower curtain, mop and doormat--on my shopping list.
 
Lately, I've been reading about the daily contributions we can make to living more sustainably.  Thus, my first question was whether I needed the floor lamp at all.  I passed a few nights squinting in the dark and then dismissed as ridiculous my idea of moving a lamp from the living room into the bedroom every evening.  This lamp qualified as a "need" rather than merely a "want."
 
Emboldened to buy greenly, I slipped into the maze of nagging questions.  Should I go for wood?  Was plastic absolutely out, even if partially recycled?   About the only thing I concluded was that my lamp should use energy efficient bulbs. 
 
I next turned to where to buy.  I reproached myself for considering a drive to the big-box behemoths in New Hampshire and Massachusetts and searched local retailers.  There was precisely one floor lamp in my price range among the stores on Main Street.  The lamp wasn't my taste, and my desire to be eco-conscious smacked against my desire to buy something I actually wanted in my home.  Hate me.  I didn't buy it.  Please be aware that I did walk to all the shops.
 
Feeling guilty, I realized finding a used lamp would be the green ideal, creating no additional environmental impact.   I scoured several sources:  the Ferry Road SWAP, thrift stores and the Craigslist online classified ads.
 
After a couple of weeks, I glimpsed the holy grail.  Hovering before me, a Craigslist posting advertised a "perfect condition" two month old floor lamp at half the retail price. The owner was moving to L.A.  A link to the original retailer's website showed a handsome wood and metal lamp with a dimmer switch.  My spirits soared.  I'd buy green.  I'd read in style.  I'd pump up my karma helping someone moving cross-country.
 
If you are waiting for the happy, green-hued ending, just stop here.
 
Upon inspection, I noticed the lamp was dented hard in two places and broken at the mid-joint.  Leaving the lamp behind, along with my equally dented will to continue my quest, I drove to the chain store that sold it new, plunked down my credit card and emerged with a still-in-the-box floor lamp.  I can't say much in my defense except that my lamp uses energy efficient bulbs. 
 
The other thing I can say is that my quest, though a failure in outcome, was a success in learning.  First, I found that buying green for some products is far easier than for others.  Things like organic cotton bedding, environmentally harvested wood furniture and fairly traded clothes are more readily available than "green" floor lamps, if there are such things.
 
Second, I reinforced my suspicion that we can't have it all all of the time.  It's akin to the fast/cheap/good trifecta.  You can have something fast and cheap but it probably won't be good.  Likewise, there's the good and fast combination which usually doesn't come cheap.   Finding something green, within my budget and suited to my taste proved quite difficult, particularly within a limited time.  Had I been more willing to compromise or even just wait, a reasonable floor lamp might have appeared in a Brattleboro thrift store.
 
If nothing else, the payoff of my odyssey was the educational experience of sorting through the competing goods involved when bringing environmental awareness to a straightforward purchase.  I confess to loving my new floor lamp.  The dimmer switch is a revelation.  However, I'm chalking up my lamp quest to a practice run.  The next time, I may be making a bigger ticket purchase--a car or household appliance--with a far greater impact.  My lamp-quest got me puzzling over the right questions.  Next time, I hope to get to a better resolution.
 
Jennifer Gilbert is a community development consultant, writer and documentary film producer.  She wrote this article at the invitation of the Windham Environmental Coalition which sponsors the monthly Earth Matters column.
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Stepping it up for Planet Earth    by Kiah Coble

When a lot of people with a lot of ideas all come together, great things happen.

Bill McKibben, a leading environmental thinker and a Vermont resident, has called for a national rally of concerned citizens on Saturday, April 14.  The rally is called Step It Up (http://www.stepitup07.org/). Activists are going to be sitting on the levees in New Orleans, on top of the melting glaciers on Mt. Rainier, even swimming underwater around the endangered coral reefs off Key West.

"If we're going to make the kind of change we need in the short time left us," McKibben writes, "we need something that looks like the civil rights movement, and we need it now. Changing light bulbs just isn't enough."

So what is the message of this day of action? It’s really quite simple: "Step it up, Congress! Enact immediate cuts in carbon emissions, and pledge an 80% reduction by 2050. No half measures, no easy compromises--the time has come to take the real actions that can stabilize our climate."

As part of the many events that will be taking place around the country on this day, students from the Preservation of Our Planet (POP) group at Brattleboro Union High School, as well as others from the Compass School in Westminster, Marlboro Elementary School, and the School for International Training (SIT), are planning a multi-event global warming festival. They are doing so with the assistance of Tim Stevenson, a community organizer with Post Oil Solutions, and Jason MacArthur, a Marlboro resident, who wanted to start a youth-run event.

The event will take place between 11:00 AM and 2:00 PM at Pliny Park and The Church in downtown Brattleboro. It will include a variety of informative, and entertaining activities, including speakers, live acoustic music, a mini farmers market, local green businesses—even a real snowman who will represent the diminishing Vermont winters that so many of us are sad about.

The details for the event have not been finalized, but we can whet your appetite with a preview of what we have lined up thus far. Beginning at 11:00 at Pliny Park, there will be the following: 

• Live, acoustic music provided by local musicians, Megan and Dan MacArthur, and Breeze Verdant, as well as two students from Compass School, Zach and Jacob.

• Katelin Wilton, from Hampshire College, will speak about global warming and how it impacts our generation. We’re also hoping to have an international speaker from SIT talk about how global warming affects Third World countries, as well as student speakers from local high schools.
• There will also be a mini farmers market, including farms that do Community Supported Agriculture (CSAs) in the region. The latter will provide a display about their CSAs, and an opportunity to talk with and possibly sign up potential shareholders. They've also been invited to bring a sample of whatever seedlings or produce they may have. So far, the farms that have agreed to attend are Picadilly Farm of Winchester, NH; Fertile Fields Farm of Westmoreland, NH; and Circle Mountain Farm of Guilford, VT.

Activities at our other venue, The Church, located just down the street from Pliny Park next to the Post Office, include the following:

• Booths from local green businesses and organizations, including Building Green, Friends of the Sun, Brattleboro Climate Protection, and Post Oil Solutions.

• Brown and Roberts will be selling compact fluorescent light bulbs, and will also advertise for the event.

• Francis Wilson, a student from BUHS, has planned a T-Shirt booth where environmental-friendly shirts will be sold. Participants will be welcome to create a shirt of their own.

• A collaborative art project where participants will create a pictorial representation of what global warming means to them.

• A table with a variety of information about global warming and how it’s impacting our lives

• FOOD! Especially yummies featuring local ingredients like Vermont maple syrup and honey.

One other possibility for the day is a screening of either An Inconvenient Truth or The Great Warming at 3:30 PM at the Hooker-Dunham Theatre. Please visit the Post Oil Solutions website (www.postoilsolutions.org) for a complete schedule of events as we get closer to April 14, or write info@postoilsolutions.org for information.

The Step It Up rally is sure to be a one-of-a-kind, not to be missed event for the people of Brattleboro and surrounding towns. Please plan to join us on April 14 as we call upon Congress to do its part in stabilizing our climate.

Kiah Coble is a junior at Brattleboro Union High School, and is co-president of the student group, Preservation of our Planet (POP). She lives in Brattleboro.  This monthly column is sponsored by the Windham Environmental Coalition.

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