New resource book for the new reality: Toolbox for Sustainable City Living

Just ordered a copy here. $20 delivered to Salem. Looks fantastic. These skills will be increasingly important in the years to come:

About the book

The Toolbox for Sustainable City Living is a DIY guide for creating locally-based, ecologically sustainable communities in today's cities. Its straightforward text, vibrant illustrations and accessible diagrams explain how urbanites can have local access and control over life's essential resources: food production, water security, waste management, autonomous energy, and bioremediation of toxic soils. Written for people with limited financial means, the book emphasizes building these systems with cheap, salvaged and recycled materials when possible. This book will be an essential tool for transitioning into a sustainable future threatened by the converging trends of global warming and energy depletion.

Topics covered in the book include:

• Aquaculture: ponds, plants, fish and algae
• Microlivestock and city chickens
• Rainwater Harvesting
• Low-tech bioremediation: cleaning contaminated soils using plants, fungi and bacteria
• Constructed Wetlands/ Greywater
• Autonomous energy: bicycle windmills, passive solar
• Biofuels: veggie oil vehicles, methane digesters
• Struggles for land and gentrification
• Humanure and worm composting
• Floating Islands to clean stormwater
• Asphalt removal and air purification
• And much more!

About the Authors:

Scott Kellogg and Stacy Pettigrew are co-founders of the Rhizome Collective, a non-profit organization based in Austin, Texas. Over the past seven years, they have transformed a burnt-out warehouse into the Rhizome Collective: a thriving Center for Community Organizing and Educational Center for Urban Sustainability.

Stacy and Scott both have extensive experience in the fields of ecological design and community activism. Stacy is Rhizome's Program Coordinator and Scott is the Director of the Educational Center for Urban Sustainability. They have designed and built numerous sustainable systems for display as teaching models, including constructed wetlands, rainwater collectors, aquaculture ponds, windmills, passive solar devices, and bioremediation tools. They also created and host RUST, an intensive weekend seminar in urban ecological survival skills. Scott and Stacy have authored numerous articles on sustainability and the Rhizome Collective and frequently give presentations on radical sustainability at universities and political gatherings across the country. They have taught workshops in locations as diverse as the Bronx to East Timor. Scott has also been active in building a community based bioremediation program in post-Katrina New Orleans.

Support Salem Cinema

One of Salem's unsung treasures is Salem Cinema, bravely offering films that speak well of people, complete with the rare options that were once considered standard features in better movies:  plot, characters, intelligence, charm, and a window into the common humanity of other people, people whom you would have thought were completely unlike yourself.  When you only have one screen, you don't waste it on movies you aren't proud to show.

A little independent movie house that shows terrific small movies, week after week, is a rare treasure indeed, especially in a town the size of Salem.  Like running a bookstore, there is more than a grain of truth to the saying that the way to make a small fortune as an independent movie house is to start with a large one.  One of the ways you can help ensure that this little gem stays around is to give yourself and your friends some respite from Netflix and cable --- make a point to support Salem Cinema, far and away Salem's best movie option.

 

At Salem Cinema we passionately believe that while the current economic news is bleak, escaping to the movies is still one of the most inexpensive forms of leisure and enjoyment available in this great country of ours.  We know we are all in this crisis together and are happy to not only continue to provide a sanctuary of exceptionally high quality, thought-provoking entertainment at the same reasonable prices we charged well over a year ago, but to bring back our special annual holiday savings offer as well.
You can once again purchase $30 worth of our CineBucks
for only $25 during the entire month of December!
CineBucks come in $5 increments and work just like cash at our box office or concession stand. Pick some up for friends, co-workers, teachers and relatives...and even pocket a few for yourself!

Good advice for citizens: Establishing the performance-target ethic

How can citizens determine whether their government is performing well?

One way is to compare its current performance with past performance, but this has some obvious shortcomings.

Another way is to compare its current performance with that of similar agencies in similar jurisdiction. This approach, however, also comes with some flaws.

Another possible approach is to compare a jurisdiction's or agency's performance with the targets it has set for itself. For this to work, however, public officials will have to accept the responsibility for setting such targets.

Consequently, Bob has focused the November issue "On why citizens need to establish The Performance-Target Ethic." You can find it at:

http://www.hks.harvard.edu/thebehnreport/November2008.pdf

Survey re: Cherriots Cuts (do before 12/8)

Please take this survey to help us decide what services are important to you!

The Public Hearing on proposed service reductions will be held at the Board of Directors meeting on December 11, 2008, at 6:30 PM, at 555 Court Street NE, Senator Hearing Room, Salem, Oregon.

This survey will help us make the best choice for you.

The last day to take the survey will be Monday, December 8, 2008

Opportunity to Help Shape Cherriots Cuts

Dates and times for four (4) Open Houses to receive input from the community about service cut options. 

These events will be held in the Senator Hearing Room:

·       Dec 1, Monday from 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM 
·       Dec 2, Tuesday from 9:00 AM - 11:00 AM
·       Dec 2, Tuesday from 5:00 PM - 7:00 PM
·       Dec 5, Friday from 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM

The Senator Hearing room is the main meeting room at Courthouse Square Transit Center (Court St. @ High St.)

There will also be a public hearing on December 11.  

(503) 588-2424 x2328

Salem-Keizer Transit

Where was Ted?

Governors' Climate Summit.

The Appalling Crisis

A story about teen pregnancy states that Marion County has the highest teen pregnancy rates in Oregon, a state with nearly twice the teen pregnancy rate of the lowest state.

Here's a brief summary of an excellent book on population and our misconceptions about it (now out of print, available for free download in pdf at the link below):

Misplaced Blame

The Real Roots of Population Growth

Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy.

By Alan Thein Durning and Christopher D. Crowther

"In Misplaced Blame, the authors have assembled the statistical data from hundreds of sources and combined them into a story of how the growing Northwest is growing in all the wrong ways." - Ed Hunt, Tidepool

Note: Misplaced Blame is out of print, but you can download the pdf version for free with registration.

Misplaced Blame argues that much of the population growth overrunning parts of North America originates from five rarely noted root causes: poverty, sexual abuse, underfunded family planning services, subsidies to domestic migration, and ill-guided immigration policy. Along the way, Misplaced Blame uncovers one revelation after another. Some examples:

• The population of the Pacific Northwest is increasing almost 50 percent faster than global population.
  
  
• 83 percent of American teen mothers come from poor families.
  
  
• 62 percent of teen mothers have been raped or molested as children.
  
  
• 36 percent of babies born in the Northwest are conceived by accident.
  
  
• Long-distance moving is subsidized by taxpayers.
  
  
• Excessively high national immigration quotas hurt both the North American poor and immigrants' home countries.

Read Misplaced Blame and you'll see that when we take care of people, population growth will take care of itself.

Here are a few links to key fact sheets from Misplaced Blame.

• Misplaced Blame - Excerpt
  
  
• Ensure Every Child is Wanted: A key principle of sustainability.
  
  
• Make Emergency Contraception Widely Available: The Northwest can curb unintended pregnancies by ensuring easy access to emergency contraceptive pills such as Plan B.

Reducing local government energy costs

http://is.gd/8Dmr

Be Present in Your Own Life

Turn off your TV.

It's amazing how much time you have to participate in your community, to garden, to read, to connect with your family, when you put the box in a closet and only bring it out for things you specifically plan and schedule time to watch.

In the upcoming difficult period we will be experiencing for the indefinite future, one of the most important things you can is your own thinking, something that's next to impossible if you've got the TV on.

If you have kids, getting them weaned from TV is one of the best things you can do for their future, and your own stress levels.

How do we get into that chicken outfit?

What chicken outfit is that?

That's the outfit of cities who have decided, sensibly, that people smart enough to pay taxes are smart enough to be allowed to own chickens.

Like Ann Arbor, Michigan (among others, including Portland, Ore.)

If you read the Must-Read Essay on Our Energy Future, you know what a great idea some food independence and relocalization is. And chickens are about the perfect small animal husbandry project for urban environs. [And if you didn't, please do so now.]