Stop unwanted phonebook dumping! Save a forest or two . . .

Urgent -- call or email your Oregon legislators and ask that they SUPPORT HB 3477 to STOP unwanted and wasteful phonebook distribution and make companies only give phonebooks to people who request them. This is a great and long overdue idea. (h/t to bojack for noticing this.)

To find your legislators.

US public health institutions start pondering peak oil

Hat tip to the ever-excellent "Energy Bulletin" site for this:

Insights pertaining to the public health implications of peak oil
became the focus for the remainder of the day. . . .

* Awareness: The public health community has barely begun to address peak oil; ignorance of the problem is today's norm; the health system takes for granted long-term resource availability, and has made minimal preparation for disruptions in supply.

* Scope: Peak oil has the potential to significantly disrupt each of the three essential pillars of sustainable well-being—economic, sociopolitical, and environmental

* Disruption Potential: Peak oil will have its public health impacts in the United States on a medical care system that is natural resource-intensive, cost-intensive, and neither encourages nor supports saving resources; peak oil will intensify known public health hazards, create new hazards, and impact the entire public health preparedness system.

* Regional Vulnerability: Especially in rural regions, delivery of health care is highly dependent on private vehicle transport to get health care providers to their centralized locations, to bring critically ill patients to service facilities, and to meet the clinical care and outpatient needs of widely dispersed populations.

* Trend: Public health services in the United States have already experienced increasing demands coupled with decreasing ability to meet them; fewer people can afford private health insurance; most officials surveyed expect further funding cuts ahead.

* Sector-specificity: The public health system is highly vulnerable because of its deep dependence upon oil for transport of patients and providers, for the disposable plastic supplies which are the foundation of modern antiseptic hygiene, as well as for energy-intensive hospital operations and for pharmaceutical feedstock.

* Limited Mitigation Options: Public health planners can undertake scenario planning, and set up hospital-level committees to make decisions about scarce medical supply allocations

* Scarce-resource Allocation: Peak oil can be expected increase the duration and severity of disaster events, and of post-event responses; public health officials are accustomed to planning for the allocation of scarce resources during emergencies, but have not yet factored peak oil into such planning.

* Triage: Peak oil disaster preparedness is inadequate or non-existent; there is a significant risk of a mental health "surge" overwhelming the minimal surplus capacity of hospital emergency departments; it is crucial that allocation of finite petroleum- based healthcare be perceived as fair to preserve trust and adherence to other policies (e.g., quarantines).

The series of conclusions above paints a picture of a nation under-prepared for the impact that peak oil will have on health. As Brian Schwartz of the Bloomberg School concluded, "It is probably now too late to mitigate all the threats." Yet the conference also provided grounds for encouragement. There was broad agreement, for example, with the CDC's Jeremy Hess that "Public health workers have a responsibility to let people know that peak oil is a very real and imminent public health issue." Peak oil education, he argued, must become part of the job of insuring public health. As this happens, the field's professionals will draw on their experience in framing threats
to health care in ways that reach the public effectively. They will also call on their expertise in allocating scarce resources through procedures that people can perceive as fair and transparent, and therefore oriented towards maintaining public trust and social cohesion. As Bloomberg's Stuart Chaitkin suggested, "What is needed is a global energy revolution with three platform planks: end denial; change behavior (retrofit, travel less, eat low on the food chain, develop a preventative healthcare system); and plan for likely shortages."

A Honey of an Idea

Keep bees. Two of the folks who showed up last night to demonstrate support for Chickens in the Yard brought their two darling young daughters and talked about how they were all (including the young girls) having fun keeping honeybees here in Salem -- an outstanding idea. They took a "Beekeeping 101" class at Chemeketa and, for just a few hundred dollars, got the gear and training they needed to get into beekeeping. Not only will they enjoy some home-produced honey, their fruit trees will thrive.

It is impossible to overstate the importance of pollinators like honeybees to humans
No pollinators = no food.

Simple as that.

Great news not so great after all -- staff proposes to make hens for the elites only

Well, here at LOVESalem we've never been one to bash government or to join the chorus who insist that government folks can't be trusted to run even something as simple as a two-car parade without screwing it up.

That's why it's so disconcerting to find how the proposed ordinance to allow some urban hens in Salem has been disfigured by the staff recommendation:

The city staff has recommended that chickens be allowed only on single-family residential lots larger than 10,000 square feet, or about 0.23 acres. No roosters would be allowed, and coops would have to be kept in back and side yards at least 20 feet from the property line.

In other words, in the close-in neighborhoods where hens were kept for decades without a problem, few homeowners will be allowed to have hens, because of the arbitrary lot-size and setback restriction. Thus, under this proposal, high-income McMansion owners in Sprawlville sections of South and West Salem will all be allowed to have hens, but many people in modest, working-class neighborhoods of NE Salem will not.

How about this? Instead of trying to micromanage urban hens, why doesn't Salem just go back to the status quo ante of 1970? There was no ban on hens then, and I can't find a single person who recalls a problem.

UPDATE: Here are the key items in the staff recommendation:

Staff's Recommendation – Staff has revised our original proposal somewhat. Here's what it currently says:

1. No roosters
2. Up to three hens allowed
3. Minimum lot size 10,000 square feet
4. Coops must be 20' away from any property line
5. Chickens must remain in an enclosure at all times (your yard is not an enclosure)
6. Chickens allowed as a special use in single family residential zones
7. Chickens must be maintained in a sanitary condition

Obviously 3 and 4 are the killers that basically make urban hens only possible for suburban sprawl development areas. The core of Salem, where chickens were allowed without incident until the 1970s, would be excluded.

Great news! Public Hearing On Allowing Urban Hens in Salem May 26!

Plan to come back from your long Memorial Day weekend by late afternoon on Tuesday, May 26, because that will be the date for the long-awaited, long-overdue

Public Hearing on Urban Hens in Salem!

This is it! Come one, come all! If you have any interest whatsoever in sustainability, local food, home economy, better gardening, and relocalization, please attend --- and, if you live in Salem, plan to testify in support of Chickens in the Yard (CITY).

New books of note at Tea Party Bookshop

Bookseller and STIR member JoAnne notes some interesting new titles at Tea Party:

Gaia's Garden - Revised Edition - A Guide to Home Scale Permaculture - very well done, beautiful illustrations

A Nation of Farmers - Sharon Astyk - written by the same lady who wrote Depletion & Abundance. How growing food, raising chickens, etc. can overthrow industrial agriculture

Presidential Energy Policy - Michael Ruppert - author of Crossing the Rubicon, heard recently on KBOO. More on the end of oil, from a political/economic/military perspective

End of Money & the Future of Civilization - Thomas Greco - more on the economy and how to re-humanize it.

And some more practical books as well, home energy efficiency, cooking green, gardening.

We have seen the future --- and it has pedals

Europe considers car-free future. As must we.

Excellence in Punditry award for week of May 11, 2009

James Howard Kunstler:

We've digested the so-called "stress tests" for now with nary a burp and in a few weeks General Motors will step into the dark cave of bankruptcy. All the ancillary businesses linked to the US car-makers face contraction and annihilation. A couple of things occur to me which have not even entered the national debate on these matters:

1.) the US will still need to manufacture engines and chassis for military vehicles. Do we intend to send out to Mitsubishi for those things in the years ahead?

2.) the US will need rolling stock (i.e. choo-choo cars and engines) for a revived passenger railroad system. Do we intend to buy all that from the quaint peoples of other lands? (While the US workforce instead focuses on updated releases of Grand Theft Auto.)

At the moment, there is tremendous hoopla and jubilation over the start-up of so many "shovel-ready" highway projects around America -- as if what we need most are additional circumferential freeways to enhance the Happy Motoring lifestyle. How insane are we? Is this the only thing we know how to do?

Once more into the breach! CITY @ City Hall this Monday!

Update: SJ story on tonight's meeting.

Urgent - Please attend City Council

Mon., May 11, 6:30-8:30 pm

City Hall, 555 Liberty St SE, Rm 240
(Room 240 extends over the parking lot)

Let’s fill the City Council Chambers with C.I.T.Y. supporters!

C.I.T.Y. and other supporters of hens in Salem will be giving presentations. Supporters of this cause will be asked to stand and we want to show City Council that our support is growing and we are stronger and more determined than ever!

Bring your family, friends, neighbors, co-workers . . . anyone you know who supports our cause. We're on the City Council agenda, so we need a good showing to remind City Council that there are plenty of voters who want the opportunity to keep a few hens for eggs and as pets.

Unsolicited Plug 3 -- the most delicious one yet

Willamette Valley Fruit Company has a new store just far enough out in Marion Co. from Salem to make it a terrific bike ride where you can reward yourself with an amazingly delicious scone or other treat, while you pick up a pie or two to bring back home (bring an insulated bag or cooler on your bike). Riding out Sunnyview is also quite beautiful, although there is no bikelane for much of it :^(

The wonderful WVFCo. not-yet-baked frozen pies are also available at the Fresh Start Market on Center St, which gives you an outstanding way to support a worthwhile effort and get your pie jones satisfied too.

But no matter where you get them, they make a dessert that is out of this world.