Welcome
Welcome to our Powerdown Project Website. The Powerdown Project is a Post Carbon Institute Fiscal Sponsorship and New College Student Project.
We would like you to participate with our website. Please send us your powering down suggestions and participate in our forum.
New College students are currently completing their portion of Part One of our Municipal Template. The Municipal Template will assist communities in identifying their energy vulnerabilites and provide responses to reduction of energy use. Students have spent the last three months consulting with municipal officials, municipal staff, relocalization group leaders, and renewable energy companies.
Scroll to the bottom of our website to view student, Hank Flannery's interview with Sebastopol, California's Police Chief, Jeff Weaver. "Chief Weaver is fully aware of peak oil and Powerdown and the repercussions that they may have for his department and Sebastopol."
How has your community powered down? Please send us your most innovative community or municipal powering down practices.
Please remit any suggestions, feedback, or comments to Ellen Bicheler, Powerdown Project Coordinator.
Cheers,
Ellen
Hello,
My name is Amber, I am a New College student and part of the Powerdown Project. I wanted to share an experience I just had as part of an assignment to eat locally, within 100 miles, for two weeks. This was a great challenge, but also very empowering to know that for many meals I ate completely local, sometimes within 15 miles supporting local farmers and taking a load off my ecological footprint.
The importance of eating locally based on the issue of peak oil and global warming is to eliminate the long distances food travels using endless amounts of fossil fuels and CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. Usually when you are eating locally you are also eating fresh cutting out the packaging and processing most foods go through these days. On a sustainable level you need to know your farmers and hopefully you find ones that grow organically. By supporting them, you are keeping the economy local as well. If we support the farmers, they can support us with healthy fresh foods.
So, how did I do on my two week trip to locavoures diner? Well, fortunately I live in the bounty of mother earth's garden. I have two pear trees in my yard, an apple tree, a grapevine, and a small garden. I am in the ecological agriculture program and we have a good size garden to fest from and most importantly, I am friends with three amazing farmers from which I feast with always. There is also a wonderful farmers market in Sebastopol where I got my peaches and watermelon groove on and the friendly fisherman that provided me with smoked salmon. Yummy....(much love and many blessings to the salmon kings and queens that offer their life so I may get my omega 3's and a spiritual breakthrough in the form of a chair dance whenever I eat it!) We also have local eggs, local yogurt and local rice that may or may not be more than 100 miles. Maybe 110-115, I ate it in any case.
With all this localness did I do it 100%? No. I had two weddings a bachelorette party, a work party, and I'm in school (that has to count for something with stress and a pizza craving).
I urge you to try this. This is the perfect time of year, harvest a plenty, with so much good food around. You can save some money, support some farmers and eat really really healthy. And of course, you will be Powering Down!