June Saturday Market Favorites

All the vendors at the Salem Saturday Market (and the Wednesday Market) are worth a look and merit your support. Even if what they're selling isn't to your taste, they are strengthening the fabric of our community by coming and offering their wares directly to us.

Last week I bought a belt at the Saturday Market and, while I was finishing my purchase, I heard one woman who was looking at some of the beautiful handcrafted belts in the stand -- all made by the man selling them, right here in Salem. She said "Aren't these pretty?" and her friend replied "You can get them cheaper at Wal-Mart."

Well, yes, you can. But then you get a belt that certainly did not help a real craftsman live a decent life. Instead, most of the price of a Wal-Mart belt goes to support a corporation that cheats and oppresses its workers, that destroys community businesses for miles around, and that has built a totally unsustainable business model that is entirely dependent on using and wasting copious amounts of cheap energy.

Luckily, we have the Salem Saturday Market offer us an alternative to this kind of (un)thinking. This month, two vendors have really stood out for quality:

First, Matt's Eggs. Matt is apparently the next generation at Polska Farms and he sells wonderful eggs. Yesterday, he sold us a dozen huge, wonderfully flavorful eggs for $4.50. The yolks look like little bright yellow suns they are so intensely colored. Beautiful.

Second, Rose Valley Butter. This is, simply put, the best butter I've ever had -- and that includes four years enjoying some great food while at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, where great dairies abound. A pound of their salted organic butter is $6 at the Salem Saturday Market, and cheap at that price. On some homemade wheat bread, Rose Valley butter is out of this world.

Interesting for ex-cons and people who want to help them

One of the most difficult issues we will face in the coming years is how to deal with the aftershocks and unintended pernicious effects of the tremendous "tough on crime" wave that is so expensive and so counterproductive that it can't be maintained, especially after rising energy prices act as a continual "bubble buster" and prevent any of the usual games from working. Salem, home of the state prison, needs to get smart fast on how to reincorporate people leaving prison --- that is, we need to learn how not just to tolerate ex-cons but how to reintegrate them into society as productive, healthy people. We cannot afford any other outcome.

Book Recommendations

See other reviews on Amazon.com

Going Straight: An Ex-convict/Psychologist Tells Why and How (Paperback) by Paul Fauteck (Author) ISBN-10: 0595155707 Somehow we must do more to rehabilitate offenders, especially now that we are looking at releasing them early. Dr. Fauteck also has an excellent DVD on his website at http://www.going-straight.com/ ... I highly recommend both if you have a friend in need... Jack 5.0 out of 5 stars GOING STRAIGHT, November 30, 2004 By Matthew Brandon (Illinois) - See all my reviews GOING STRAIGHT is a comprehensive and exceptional self-help manual for criminal offenders who want to build a respectable life after punishment. This book was written by a uniquely credible and knowledgable author-mentor, whose straight-forward advice can be of value for both pre-release and post-release rehabilitation. Prisoners, parolees, ex-convicts need a role model, a mentor-- someone who can teach from similar life experiences. Someone who can help them overcome not only society's dismal image of offenders, but also their own low expectations and self loathing. The author, Dr. Paul Fauteck, was an ex-con who, after doing four years of hard time, eventually became a successful and highly respected forensic psychologist. In his book, he shows the offender how to adapt, to network, and succeed in a world that few criminals hardly know exists. Unlike some experts, Fauteck doesn't cut offenders any slack or responsibility for making the most out of the rest of their lives. His book teaches how to begin building a worthwhile life day by day with practical coping skills, self awareness, and lifelong principles. His writing contains both humor and great insight into the hearts and minds of recovering criminals.

A sustainable wonder: The library

Bookmooch has been great -- give away books you're read, get books you want to read. Free, open to all. Image via Wikipedia

It's a tough year when it comes to books -- LOVESalem HQ is just about overrun with books, books, and more books, shelves bowed in the middle, piles on top of shelved books and on top of the shelves themselves.

It's all gotten to be a real weight, so it was time for drastic measures: the New Year's Resolution for 2009 was to only obtain books through trading (like Bookmooch.com, a wonderful sharing system) or buying books with money earned from selling books. Naturally, the necessitates a lot more use of the library -- and what a wonder. I often use Powells.com and even Amazon.com to read reviews to help select books. Tonight's list would cost a bunch if purchased -- all were available in or with the help of the Salem Public Library, which will let me get a look at them and see which ones are really essential to own and which ones would be "read once, take a few notes, and never read again." A timely reminder that the public lending library is one of the sustainable wonders of the world.

	All new square foot gardening / Mel Bartholomew.
	How to grow more vegetables : and fruits, nuts, berries, grains, and other crops than you ever thoug
	Four-season harvest : organic vegetables from your home garden all year long / Eliot Coleman ; illus
	The vegetable gardener's bible : discover Ed's high-yield W-O-R-D system for all North American gard
	Carrots love tomatoes : secrets of companion planting for successful gardening / Louise Riotte.

Car Exhaust -- or Poverty? Can the two be separated?

Image via Wikipedia

Interesting study here positing a link between a new mother's residence, the amount of traffic-generated pollutants in that area, and premature babies and preeclampsia. Having read only the blurb and not the study, can't say for sure, but they don't seem to have had the ability to separate the effect of poverty (which also leads to a plethora of natal health issues).

Although that's a problem from a scientific point-of-view, it's not much of a practical difference, because there is one thing that is true in every city in America: it's the poor who get to live near the busy roads, thick with autosmog. Bad air quality from car and truck exhaust is something that we carefully protect wealthy neighborhoods from.

Just like with the proposed "Salem River Crossing." The object with this boondoggle is provide an even greater subsidy for driving to the wealthy, mainly white commuters in Polk County and beyond by giving them yet more lane miles ---although at the cost of carving a huge chunk out of several NE Salem neighborhoods and turning them into blast zones for a torrent of cars that will zip through, leaving only pollutants, the occasional hubcap, and the odd maimed pedestrian behind. Nobody in ODOT or any of the local governments give a rip about the people in NE Salem, many of whom are Hispanic -- perfect targets, in other words, for yet another sprawl project built atop the homes of the poor, as is the American way.

Want to stump a Senator?

It's increasingly hard to stump politicians; when they don't know something, they drop back into campaign buzzword blather and drown the question in a torrent of content-free words. But if you want, you can go see Jeff Merkley and ask him why Congress keeps pumping money into propping up carburbia and highways, as if there's no rush to prepare for a much lower energy future. Dollars to doughnuts says you get some kind of non-responsive blather about biofuels, hybrids/ electric cars, "energy independence," and green jobs.

U.S. Senator Jeff Merkley
Salem Town Hall Meeting

Monday, June 29, 2009
7:00- 8:00 P.M.

Chemeketa Community College
Bldg 2, Student Center, Rm 176
4000 Lancaster Dr. NE, Salem

This will be Senator Merkley’s first town hall in Marion County.
Bring your issues, questions, and suggestions.

Please join us! Questions: Call 503-362-8102

More bikey wonderfulness

Image via Wikipedia

Summer's here, and we're seeing more riders out on the roads! Check out some of the bicycling events and news in the Salem area! (h/t to Eric L. for this.)

Friday, June 26th

Breakfast on Bikes – East side of Union Street Railroad Bridge
Between 7am and 9am enjoy free coffee, fruit, and pastries on your bike commute! Thanks to Cascade Baking, the Coffee House Cafe, and LifeSource Natural Foods.
For more information, including summer schedule

Sunday, June 28th

Fairview Circuit Races
Bike racing right here in Salem! For complete details see link.

Wednesday, July 1

The Downtown Vision 2020 Bike & Ped Workgroup meets between noon and 1:30pm in the Pringle Community Hall.

Saturday, July 11

Special Bike Commuter and Safe Bicycling Workshop At the Salem Saturday Market. For more information see link.

Sunday, July 12

Trike and Hand Adaptive Bike Clinic Learn about hand-cycles, tricycles, recumbents! There are great bikes for everybody now, and a diamond-frame two- wheeler isn’t right for you, check out some of the options here.

Here’s a story on a three-wheeler club at a retirement community!

Every Saturday between 9am and 2pm

Salem Saturday Market Valet Bike Parking Ride your bike to the market and leave it with the bike valets while you shop! Friends of Salem Saturday Market hosts secure bike parking. Volunteers are also needed. Contact mikebikesu2 [at] gmail [dot] com

Every Sunday at 1:30pm

Salem Bicycle Club Introductory High Wheeler Rides
Check out Club riding! Every Sunday at 1:30 the Salem Bicycle Club offers "high wheeler" rides of approximately 25 miles and few hills. No rider left behind!

Every Thursday at 6:30pm

Salem Bicycle Club Family Rides
Every Thursday the Salem Bicycle Club offers a short ride of 10-12 miles for families. Bring the kids, the tandem, the tag-along!

Throughout July and August

Second annual Bicycle Count Project! Ring your bell at counters when you see them around the city. We still need volunteers! Help gather the data to inform planning, funding, and assessment. Click this to send an email if you're interested.

Sums it up

And these guys are the optimists! These are gross production estimates -- not accounting for increased domestic usage by exporters or the increased energy cost of extracting the tougher-to-get oil. Image via Wikipedia

Jeffrey (Westexas) Brown notes (at about 1:30 p.m. in today's Drumbeat comments):

Peak Oil is like a commercial airliner doing a gradual descent for landing. Peak Exports is more akin to an airliner doing a near vertical dive into the ground.

Meanwhile, let's talk about the new third auto bridge for Salem!

A try to get Congress to set priorities for transportation

The ODOT building: Where billions are committed to making it impossible to get around without a car. Image by OregonDOT via Flickr

Hi-

As you read this, Congress is working on the new transportation bill, released just two days ago. It's a good start, but as the bill stands today, it leaves out something crucial: Clear national priorities.

There’s no way to be sure billions of dollars in transportation spending will deliver clean, safe and smart transportation without accountability measures built-in.

I just called my member of Congress about the need for real reform. Can you call too?

1. Call the Congressional Switchboard at 202-224-3121 and ask to speak to your representative’s office.
   
   
2. Tell the staff member answering the phone where you're calling from, and that you'd like to urge the representative to support the National Transportation Objectives Act of 2009 (H.R. 2724). You can add:
   
   
   • You are a constituent and a supporter of the Transportation for America coalition.
     
     
   • You want to make sure the billions spent on transportation help us cut down on emissions, give us real energy security, and provide you with more affordable options for getting from A to B.

Tell Congress that we need reform first, money later.

Your car: Powerful enough to tow the continent southward

Enjoy it while it lasts. Image by pete4ducks via Flickr

Good article from Alan Bates on the change in climate in Tennessee and the repercussions for growing food.

Here in the verdant Willamette Valley, a food lover's paradise, we are seeing a surge of wineries as we become the "next Napa Valley" -- but think about what that means. In the time since the Napa Valley was a little-known place and then THE chi-chi spot for wine snobs, much of what made Napa Napa has moved north, to be replaced by even hotter consistent weather.

It's like your car was capable of towing the continent southward, bringing Salem into the climate that once prevailed in Napa.

Sounds sweet, right?

Except for one thing -- we've still got a few more decades of warming coming even if all the carbon emissions stop today. It's built in, thanks to the lag time for climate response to greenhouse gas emissions. (And that's presuming that we don't trip one of the natural features that amplify climate instability, like massive permafrost melting or thermal-induced release of the methane hydrates on the sea floor.)

So while it might be nice to grow wine near Salem today we need to recognize that, as we tow North America towards the sweltering Equator with our every gallon of gas burnt, we don't have any good way to stop. We're only going to enjoy this period for a short while before the Skagit Valley becomes "The Next Napa" and Salem wine grapes die off from excessive heat. And what else will we lose? Will we still be able to produce cherries in The Cherry City?

The "Export Land Model" in English: NET is what matters, not gross

The most significant graph you're likely to see all year. Image via Wikipedia

A commenter to the prior post mentioned Jeffrey (Westexas) Brown's "Export Land Model," which is a very, very important concept that I think everyone needs to be familiar with.

It's actually quite easy to understand, although I think the terms used are off-putting and confusing.

In a nutshell, the ELM says that, when it comes to oil exports, the only thing that matters is NET exports (the oil that crosses the borders, rather than the oil that comes out of the ground).

As people who live in a valley with no fossil fuels in a state with no fossil fuels in a country that is rapidly exhausting its fossil fuel endowment (particularly of oil), that's pretty easy for us to understand. It's like the old investment ads touting tax-free bonds: "It's not how much you make that counts, it's how much you keep," only here it would be "It's not how much you pump, it's how much you export that counts."

In the imagination of most people, oil exporting countries are lightly populated and use little of their own oil. Reality is quite different: fueled by the wealth garnered from oil, populations are exploding in the oil-producing nations. Moreover, the per-capita oil consumption is climbing as these countries seek to attain the same comforts and conveniences of the rich, oil-importing countries.

In other words, the difference between what they pump and what they use for their own needs (the amount they can export to people like us) keeps shrinking, and it shrinks much faster than new fields can be brought on (in those few countries that still have not already peaked and entered the decline in total production).

CORRECTED PARAGRAPH:
Post-Carbon Oregon has a nice post on a related phenomenon with graphics, taken from The Oil Drum, the indispensable site for those who want to understand the major force propelling history right now. Both the declining yield curve (less oil out for each unit of energy/oil invested) and the ELM mean that we are going to be able to access a lot less oil than a straight reserves divided by annual use rates might suggest. As many people have noted over the years, peak oil is a RATE problem.

As for me, I wish the "Export Land Model" (you can Google that and Jeffrey Brown to learn how that obscure name came to be) was better understood, particularly by those in jobs where an absence of leadership has serious consequences (elected officials, planners, etc.).

I think we need a grabby name that explains the concept in the name itself: I propose that, instead of referring to the "export land model," we talk about either the

• Oil Producers' Export Contraction curve ("the OPEC curve"), or, if you prefer, the
• Oil Exports' Continuous Decline curve ("the OECD curve")

(where OPEC is, of course, the acronym for the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries -- the ones who are exporting a smaller and smaller share of a smaller and smaller total production each year -- and OECD are the initials of the group of rich countries that are going to be hammered by this inexorable process, the Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development.) Both terms make the point that, on the whole, the amount of oil flowing from the first group (exporters) to the second (importers) is going to decline even faster than the decline in the amount coming out of the ground.

And, given the centrality of oil to our lives, this means that a "return to a growth economy" is probably a fantasy from here out. What we can expect significant growth in is in the number of economic charlatans and fakirs who pretend that growth can continue without growing oil imports -- but, like Wily E. Coyote -- these characters can only suspend the laws of physics for a brief moment before they fall to the floor of the canyon far below.