Going Local Through Permaculture

A Special Message from Our Chair

Dear friends,

Achieving sustainable development is the most important challenge facing all humans on this planet today. Going local is the most important solution I can see for facing the challenge.

From the community gardens of West Oakland and Alameda, to the downtown L.A Ecovillage, to the Big Sur exclusive retreat center of Esalen, I am witnessing communities of ranging economic and cultural diversity across California go local by utilizing permaculture design and practices.

Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments. On one level, permaculture design deals with plants, animals, buildings, and infrastructures like water, energy, and communications. The aim is to create systems that are ecologically sound and economically viable, provide for their own needs, do not exploit or pollute, and are therefore sustainable in the long term. On another level Permaculture is a process of thinking, living and practicing ethics and principles, new economics, holistic health and education, and governance, and of creating regenerative culture itself.

Everything depends on your local site, culture, climate and relative location. Understanding and connecting within your local bioregion is key. Clearly, our consumer growth-oriented economy is reaching its limits.

A new permaculture based society that respects all people and lives in harmony with the earth's natural cycles is up to us. It is our privilege and responsibility to midwife its arrival. I am honored to support Bay Localize in this growing movement of cultural renewal and creation. Please join us!

Yours for community self-reliance, sustainability, and justice!

- Kat Steele

Chair, Board of Directors, Bay Localize
Founder, Urban Permaculture Guild

TABLE OF CONTENTS:

• Help Us Stabilize Our Climate by Going Local!
• Joint Campaign Forwards Local Energy & Food Initiatives
• Rooftop Project Assessing Local Potential, Creating Resource Guide
• Stop the War and the Iraq Oil Law
• SpaceShare, Bay Localize To Launch Faith Community Carpooling
• Events Roundup: Upcoming and Recent Gatherings
• Support or Get Involved with Bay Localize!

Help Us Stabilize Our Climate by Going Local!

The verdict is in: according to the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, we must slash global carbon dioxide emissions by two-thirds by 2100 to avoid "intolerable impacts" on human society. To have a fighting chance of stabilizing our delicate climate, we'll need to tackle head-on growing fossil fuel use in the global economy.

Going local can make an enormous impact toward this goal by reducing the distance required to feed, clothe, and power our communities; boosting local generation of renewable energy; and bringing where we live and work closer together.

Support our efforts to localize the Bay Area economy today!

Joint Campaign Forwards Local Energy & Food Initiatives

Our collaborative Campaign for Bay Area Localization has moved into high gear over the past several months, yielding increasing media attention and advancing new initiatives in local energy and food.

In January, the San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote a feature-length piece on the Campaign, and called on the S.F. Supervisors to "create a formal policy that sets sustainable local economics as a standard for all city business." Bay Localize's Network Coordinator Aaron Lehmer was featured on KRXA radio’s Tomorrow Matters with Deborah Lindsay and Programs Coordinator Kirsten Schwind was interviewed on KZYX's The Party’s Over with Jason Bradford (see Interviews and Presentations).

In an effort to reduce our region’s over-reliance on fossil fuel energy, Bay Localize has held two gatherings of nonprofits, public officials, and solar companies. The meetings coincide with a new effort in the East Bay to advance what's called "Community Choice" energy – an option under California law that allows cities to invest in energy generation and pool consumer buying power to meet economic and environmental goals.

San Francisco is already well on its way to forming its own system (see Local Power for info). The cities of Berkeley, Emeryville, and Oakland are also studying the possibility, and predict that they could purchase 50% of their electrical energy from renewable sources by 2017. Bay Localize is forming a coalition of groups to ensure that a locally-focused, green jobs-generating, renewable energy system develops in the East Bay.

Bay Localize is also participating in the Oakland Food System effort to increase citizen involvement in building a healthy and equitable local food economy. We are partnering with area food security experts, community-based organizations, and concerned citizens to help establish a Food Policy Council for the City of Oakland.

At this June’s Business Alliance for Local Living Economies conference, Bay Localize is working with our partners to convene Bay Area public decision-makers, business leaders, and nonprofit pioneers working on localization. Participants will share best practices and highlight successes, identify working models of localization in practice that can be applied in other regions, and spur the development of new initiatives.

Rooftop Project Assessing Local Potential, Creating Resource Guide

After seven months of work with the Rooftop Resources Project, we've rounded out a comprehensive archive of research that includes case studies demonstrating these systems domestically and abroad as well as a survey of existing rooftop systems relevant to our work here in the Bay Area.

March 10 marks the official launch of the Neighborhood Assessment in the Eastlake district of Oakland. This community survey will give us the information we need to analyze the applicability and potential yield of rainwater catchment, living roofs and solar power systems on buildings in this area.

We are also working with task forces to author and assemble the Rooftop Resources Guidebook. Is research and writing your talent? We encourage you to help materialize this vital project tool! The Guidebook is targeted towards policy makers, developers and anyone looking to design and implement sustainable rooftop systems.

The Guidebook will draw from examples like the Berkeley EcoHouse (at left) -- a flourishing roof garden that is now feeding multiple people in the community, and Robert van de Walle's rainwater catchment system, which this season has collected 770 gallons of water from a 500 square foot surface on his Oakland home. (For more info, check out his blog.)

We are looking for photos and more examples like these to feature on our website. If you have a local rainwater catchment, green roof system, or a green roof combined with solar power, please share them with us! Interested in implementing your own rooftop system, or curious to know more? Check out the Rooftop Systems Resources List on our website. If you have additional items you'd like to see on the list, please pass them on, and if they're suitable for the list we'll include them.

This Spring, Rooftop Resources Lead Organizer Ingrid Severson will be gathering more resources and info at the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Fifth Annual Conference in Minneapolis. The conference will focus on current research in the field, as well as rooftops for urban agriculture, and policy incentives to encourage green roof development. Ingrid will give a presentation to the Green Roofs for Healthy Cities Policy Committee on the project's progress and green roof developments in the Bay Area. Bay Localize thanks Volcano Contruction Inc. for sponsoring Ingrid's participation in this event.

Stop the War and the Iraq Oil Law

From toxic refinery fires to death and pain in the Middle East, a bloated defense budget, and ecological climate chaos, we cannot afford the price of our societal addiction to oil.

March 18 marks four years since the United States invaded and occupied Iraq. Demonstrations are planned in San Francisco, San Jose, Palo Alto, San Ramon, Walnut Creek, San Rafael, and other Bay Area cities. Bay Localize encourages our community to make its opposition to oil wars heard (see Global Exchange's Bay Area events calendar for more information).

Meanwhile, the Bush administration is quietly securing US corporate access to Iraq's oil resources through the passage of a new national oil law in the Iraqi Parliament.  The proposed law would open Iraq's previously nationalized oil system to foreign corporations at every level, including a role in approving their own contracts. The law weakens Iraqi sovereignty by removing jurisdiction over oil contract disputes from the Iraqi judicial system, and endangers Iraq's future participation in OPEC.

The Iraqi government is being pressured to approve the law in order to meet an International Monetary Fund deadline to qualify for debt relief for international obligations accrued under Saddam Hussein. According to observers, the proposed oil law was originally drafted in English, and the draft text was kept secret from the Iraqi parliament during negotiations.

The proposed law is being strenuously opposed by the Iraqi Federation of Oil Unions. "History will not forgive those who play recklessly with our wealth," stated Hasan Jum'ah 'Awwad al-Asadi, head of the Federation. For complete analysis of the Iraqi oil law, go to Hands Off Iraqi Oil.

Did you know that Chevron is refining Iraqi oil in Richmond? An antiwar protest planned in San Ramon for Monday, March 19 at the Chevron World Headquarters is specifically targeting the oil corporation's role in the war in Iraq and the proposed oil law.

Dramatically decreasing our reliance on fossil fuels is the only long-term way to prevent oil wars.  Join Bay Localize in our goal of increasing community livability and local resilience while decreasing fossil fuel use.

SpaceShare, Bay Localize To Launch Faith Community Carpooling

SpaceShare, a social enterprise working to boost community sharing, was recently awarded the Oaklandish Innovator's Award. In partnership with Bay Localize, this grant will be used to build a carpool and neighborhood connections website for an East Bay religious institution, so that people can share rides to weekly services and other events. We are looking for a large East Bay congregation, and we welcome your suggestions.

Today, SpaceShare helps conferences and festivals organize carpooling, hosting and room-sharing. Neighbors can rely on and strengthen their communities, instead of relying on and using up natural resources. SpaceShare's philosophy of greening is to combine community strengthening with resource conservation. This re-localizes national and regional gatherings, connecting people who live in the same neighborhood and attend the same events. We get people who normally wouldn't carpool or share to try it, to realize through experience that living simply and being green leads to more friends and a richer social life.

Faith community carpooling is our next step. We hope that the Oaklandish grant leads to a prototype that can become a national system. Each religious community will be able to rely on themselves and enrich their local community through sharing. With a little luck, we'll soon be working with churches across North America and across the political spectrum. Instead of telling Middle-America what environmentalism is, we'll help people experience the connections between simplicity, community and conservation for themselves.

SpaceShare is a small group of committed citizens working towards "peak sharing" -- the combination of new technologies, new attitudes and peak oil's constraints that will replace much of our individual consumption with sharing. Join us and you will make a difference!

Events Roundup: Upcoming and Recent Gatherings

UPCOMING EVENTS:

Bill McKibben in conversation with Michael Pollan, March 19, in Berkeley. McKibben, author of The End of Nature and Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future, will speak with Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals. Benefits Global Exchange and KPFA. Bay Localize will be tabling onsite.

Peak Oil and Community Life in California seminar, on March 24, in Sunnyvale. This public policy seminar is presented by UCSC Extension. Speakers include Richard Heinberg, Jason Bradford, and Bay Localizers Ingrid Severson and Aaron Lehmer. NOTE: This event was cancelled.

Transportation and Land Use Coalition Annual Summit: Bay Area Solutions to Global Warming, on March 24, in Oakland. TALC's 10th Annual Summit is subtitled "Cooling the Planet with Walkable Communities and World Class Transit," and session offerings range from "Climate Change and Equity" to "How to Lobby Effectively." TALC member Bay Localize will be in attendance.

Successful Community Engagement conference, March 29, in Oakland. Presented by Bay Area Vision, the conference will explore strategies in community-based planning and development. Speakers include Henry Gardner, Executive Director of ABAG, Terry Amsler, Director of the Collaborative Governance Initiative, and panelists from local governments.

Organizing Sustainable Communities workshop, March 31 and April 1, in San Francisco. Presented by the Solar Living Institute, this workshop will by led by Brian Weller and Jason Bradford of the Willits Economic Localization Project. It will cover topics such as fostering public awareness of localization, how to conduct a local asset assessment, and how to mobilize your community. Following the Saturday, March 31 workshop activities, Bay Localize will host an informal round-table discussion on strategies for localization in the Bay Area. NOTE: This event was cancelled.

Hayward Democratic Club, on April 20, in Hayward. Aaron Lehmer will give a presentation to the Democratic Club about the benefits of localization and Bay Localize's work.

Fifth Annual International Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities, Conference, Awards & Trade Show, April 29 through May 1, in Minneapolis, MN. Presented by Green Roofs for Healthy Cities, the event will highlight policies and programs that support green roofs, green roof design and implementation, and technical research on green roof performance. Rooftop Resources Organizer Ingrid Severson will be in attendance.

Business Alliance for Local Living Economies Conference, May 31 through June 2, at UC Berkeley. BALLE's 5th annual international gathering will feature speakers from prominent local businesses, as well as well-known authors and activists. On Saturday, June 2 the Campaign for Bay Area Localization will host a gathering of decision-makers, business people, and non-profit leaders to highlight successes in localization, share best-practices and spur the development of new initiatives.

Look for announcements of other upcoming gatherings on our online Events page.

RECENT EVENTS:

On December 1, 2006, Bay Localize's Kirsten Schwind participated in the Social Equity Caucus (SEC) meeting convened by Urban Habitat. The SEC is a coalition of more than 75 organizations and individuals committed to building a regional equity agenda in the San Francisco Bay Area. December's meeting agenda included a capacity building session on the Port of Oakland Truckers' Campaign, post-election decompression, and action items from the Transportation Justice Group.

Bay Localize's office warming party on December 7 was a fun-filled coming together of dozens of advocates for environmental and social justice. We were honored to celebrate our organization's new-found home in downtown Oakland with our friends and allies. Notable attendees included People's Grocery Co-founder Malaika Edwards, Art in Action Founder Alli Chagi-Starr, Rainforest Action Network Zero Emissions Organizer Nile Malloy, Urban Accords Director Parin Shah, and Circle of Life founder Julia "Butterfly" Hill (at left with Bay Localize's Aaron Lehmer and Parin Shah).

Building on the work of the Oakland Food System study last year, the City of Oakland held a series of public hearings on creating a Food Policy Council on December 12 and 19. Bay Localize showed up in support of establishing the body as a vehicle for building a more socially and environmentally sustainable local food system. At the December 19 meeting, the council passed legislation authorizing the formation of the Food Policy Council, which has a mandate to increase the amount of locally grown food available in Oakland, reduce hunger and food insecurity in the community, and promote economic opportunities within the food
sector.

In collaboration with Green Sangha, Bay Localize co-sponsored "The Great Turning" on January 6 at the Lakeshore United Methodist Church in Oakland. Joanna Macy, renowned Buddhist author/activist, and Randy Hayes, founder of Rainforest Action Network and director of the International Forum on Globalization, described their visions of the world today and what we can do to reverse the trends of environmental degradation and loss of life by healing the planet as we heal ourselves.

Bay Localize's Aaron Lehmer, Kirsten Schwind, and Ingrid Severson attended the opening of the Ecological Farming Conference on January 24. This annual forum is the world's foremost sustainable agriculture conference featuring prominent keynote speakers and more than 50 workshops on the latest advances in ecological agriculture. Richard Heinberg and Miguel Altieri gave keynote addresses outlining the challenge and imperative of shifting from a fossil fuel-dependent, global agricultural system to less energy-intense, localized organic farming.

On February 28, as part of CounterPULSE's Shaping San Francisco panel series, Bay Localize's Brian Holland (at right) presented a vision of a localized city that integrates urban life with local nature, while reducing fossil fuel use. Other panelists included Peter Berg of the Green City Project/Planet Drum, Peter Brastow of Nature in the City, and Bonnie Sherk of A Living Library. Additional topics included smart growth, ecological restoration, zero waste manufacturing, and building a green, diversified economy.

The Roots of Change Fund, a collaborative working to achieve a sustainable food and farming system in California by the year 2030, held a stakeholders meeting in San Francisco on March 2. Bay Localize's Kirsten Schwind participated in the gathering. Food justice and ecological farming advocates discussed strategies to improve the health of our communities, enact sound agricultural and food policy, create viable jobs, increase market opportunities, and effect positive change in the environment in California.

Support or Get Involved with Bay Localize Today!

Support Bay Localize!
We would be honored to count you among our growing range of supporters. Your contribution will help us to forward localization projects and initiatives in the Bay Area.

To make a tax-deductible contribution, please click on the online donation link below, or write a check or money order made payable to Center for Sustainable Economy (our fiscal sponsor) with "Bay Localize" in the memo and mail it to:

   Bay Localize
   436 14th Street, Suite 1218
   Oakland, CA 94612

Thanks for your support!

Get Involved with Bay Localize!
Bay Localize is a largely volunteer-run organization. There are many volunteer
opportunities ranging from working on our various projects and initiatives, to
helping with promotions, events, media, fundraising, research, and community
outreach. For more info on volunteering, contact Aaron Lehmer at aaron@baylocalize.org.

About Bay Localize News
Bay Localize News features regular news and updates from Bay Localize,
a growing network of nonprofits, businesses, and municipal leaders working to
build a more self-reliant, sustainable, and socially just Bay Area.

EDITORS: Allyse Heartwell, Aaron Lehmer

CONTRIBUTORS: Stephen Cataldo, Allyse Heartwell, Aaron Lehmer, Kirsten Schwind, Ingrid Severson, Kat Steele

For more about Bay Localize, please visit our website at http://www.baylocalize.org.