How to Boil a Frog - Meet the Filmmaker

Filmmaker Jon Cooksey is one funny guy, even while presenting the most serious problems facing humanity. In this fast-paced conversation, he gallops all over the map with five big problems, five big solutions, and a playful and heartfelt approach. Wacky, sobering, full of animations, with Jon in dozens of personnas, "How to Boil a Frog" is a film to view and discuss with friends.

1/4 Century of Permaculture

Take a tour with Joe, Doug and Sam Bullock on their Orcas Island homestead, site of a yearly Permaculture design course. Using nature as their model, they create edges and wildlife habitat, move water through the landscape, promote diversity, and raise an astonishing variety of plants from sub-arctic to tropical -- a wise investment in these climate-changing times.
(From Peak Moment TV)

Taking Back Our Lives from the Wall Street Mafia

“Get rid of Wall Street!” says David C. Korten, author of Agenda for a New Economy and The Great Turning. Wall Street is about phantom wealth — real wealth is about happy, healthy families, local living economies in balance with Earth’s resources, and caring, resilient communities that provide life’s basics, like food, shelter, and education. To do that, we must change the rules to reduce the power of corporations, the politicians in their pocket, and a destructive money system. (www.davidkorten.org). (From Peak Moment TV)

The Vision of City Repair - Placemaking - Relocalizing - Reskilling - Re-Villaging

City Repair is an organized group action that educates and inspires communities and individuals to creatively transform the places where they live. City Repair facilitates artistic and ecologically-oriented placemaking through projects that honor the interconnection of human communities and the natural world. The many projects of City Repair have been accomplished by a mostly volunteer staff and thousands of volunteer citizen activists.

City Repair began in Portland, Oregon with the idea that localization - of culture, of economy, of decision-making - is a necessary foundation of sustainability. By reclaiming urban spaces to create community-oriented places, we plant the seeds for greater neighborhood communication, empower our communities and nurture our local culture.

Intro to Placemaking

Placemaking is a multi-layered process within which citizens foster active, engaged relationships to the spaces which they inhabit, the landscapes of their lives, and shape those spaces in a way which creates a sense of communal stewardship and lived connection.  This is most often accomplished through a creative reclamation of public space: projects which take the form of benches on street corners where neighbors can sit, rest and talk with each other, kiosks on sidewalks where neighbors can post information about local events, needs and resources and street paintings in the public right-of-way that demonstrate to all who pass through that this is a Place: inhabited, known and loved by its residents.  In all instances, these projects are undertaken by local communities who come together to discuss what it is they want in their neighborhood – what elements are lacking in the public sphere and how the community can work together with the resources they have to create their own place.
Placemaking touches upon deeper societal issues and contributes to participatory democracy. As the process of developing a community place proceeds; people develop deeper relationships and more energy to create together because they live together. Creating a common ground that transcends the differences among people powerfully addresses this isolation and creates an environment where people feel like they can do anything they set their collect minds to.

Major Elements of Placemaking:

Natural Building: The essence of natural building lies in its inherent emphasis on environmental preservation and social sustainability.  Natural building is a method of construction based in using minimally processed, natural materials that are available locally.  The techniques for most natural building methods reflect the materials themselves in that they are simple, low-tech and ecologically sustainable.  Natural building employs a sense of the human-scale and isn’t dependent on expensive, energy intensive, high-tech equipment.  Natural building materials have low toxicity, are low-tech and local, making them great tools for teaching communities the synthesis of building principles in sustainability and social empowerment.
Permaculture: Permaculture is the conscious design of sustainable human settlements.  It is also about being local: shepherding the resources that enter a place; keeping them cycling within the “system,” be it backyard, neighborhood, or bioregion; and creating beneficial connections between each part.  Community and a sense of place can only be created by the people who dwell together and who have real stake in creating a home.
Public Art: Artwork in our neighborhoods can also create a strong sense of place, whether it is a mural, a sculpture, temporary art such as chalk drawings or functional art pieces like benches or lampposts.  Public art presents an opportunity for a neighborhood to tell its history, express local culture and have a fun project for anyone to get involved.

The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

“The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty… We’ll face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity.”

So opens Chris Martenson’s much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he tidily sums up our economic problems: Too Much Debt. Chris discusses the implications if we continue the status quo, and ways to prepare. He believes that “if we manage the transition elegantly we can actually improve things.” (www.chrismartenson.com).

The Sacred Demise of Industrial Civilization

As a historian, Carolyn Baker has a keen eye for current events that are indicators of the collapse we’re seeing all around us. But she’s also a psychologist concerned about how we personally navigate the turbulence and find meaning within it. The author of Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse, she describes the old story that isn’t working anymore (humans are separate from nature), and the new story we must live by for real sustainability. Her Speaking Truth to Power website is a rich collection of articles reflecting both collapse and preparedness action.

Post Petroleum Stress Disorder

The Waking-Up Syndrome

Ecopsychologist Sarah Edwards, PhD, explains stages people often go through when facing the implications of climate change and resource depletion. She outlines various aspects of Denial, Anxiety, Awakening, Despair, Powerlessness and eventual Acceptance. Differentiating these from the normal grief process, Sarah emphasizes how we can face inevitable feelings of grief and free our energy for positive, practical action in our personal and community lives. (eco-anxiety.blogspot.com)

Bullock Brothers on Peak Moment TV

Bullock Brothers Homestead - A 25-Year Permaculture Project

Take a tour with Joe, Doug and Sam Bullock on their Orcas Island homestead, site of a yearly Permaculture design course. Using nature as their model, they create edges and wildlife habitat, move water through the landscape, promote diversity, and raise an astonishing variety of plants from sub-arctic to tropical — a wise investment in these climate-changing times.

Larry Santoyo on Peak Moment TV

Permaculture for Humanity

The future is abundant, asserts permaculture designer Larry Santoyo. His vision of living in the present provides a wonderful antidote to fear about uncertain futures. People need to rediscover that we’re part of the ecosystem, and apply permaculture design principles to the many problems we face. Larry teaches sustainable permaculture design as a discovery of the world around us. He notes that trying to be self-sufficient is really anti-permaculture. Instead, we need to develop self-reliance skills. Then as we find others in our communities to interact with, everybody gets to play!

The Archdruid Speaks...about Peak Oil

In his book, "The Long Descent", John Michael Greer observes that our culture has two primary stories: "Infinite Progress" or "Catastrophe". On the contrary, he sees history as cyclic: civilizations rise and fall. Like others, ours is exhausting its resource base. Cheap energy is over. Decline is here, but the descent will be a long one. It's too late to maintain the status quo by swapping energy sources. How to deal with this predicament? He lays out practical ideas, possibilities, and potentials, including reconnecting with natural and human capacities pushed aside by industrial life. [www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com]

Peak Moment Television

Peak Moment: Community Responses For a Changing Energy Future are weekly 28-minute programs featuring host Janaia Donaldson's conversations and on-site tours with guests. It highlights practical solutions and responses towards a lower-energy, more connected, sustainable life. How can we thrive, build stronger communities, and help one another in this time of transition?

Peak Moment: Economic Localization - A Community Rediscovering Itself

In this freewheeling conversation, Jason Bradford and Brian Weller, co-founders of Willits Economic LocaLization (WELL), discuss local food security, creating a farm at a nearby grade school, being rooted in community, urban / rural friction in wealth and land use, regional trading partners, reinventing local public transportation, and more. Episode 95.

Peak Moment: A Sustainability Renaissance Man

Earth needs humans to figure out our shared destiny, says Alan Seid, whose interest is both the outer and inner dimensions of sustainability. Outside there's ecology, social systems and economics (e.g., in Permaculture). Inside is the psychological dimension of personal and group values and intentions. How do we meet people where they are, engender respect, promote crucial information-sharing, and motivate change? Episode 91.

Peak Moment: Practical Tools to Grow an Intentional Community

Communities Magazine ex-editor Diana Leafe Christian concisely spells out what the successful 10% of intentional communities do: common vision and purpose, fair participatory decision-making, clear agreements in writing, good balance of right and left-brain knowledge, methods of staying accountable to agreements, criteria for new members, good communication and processing skills. She also discusses peak oil effects on the wider community. Episode 83.

Peak Moment: Alcohol Can Be a Gas, Part I

The first automobile fuel was alcohol, which could be produced by most farms. Permaculturist David Blume discusses the history, production and properties of alcohol. He notes that plants are more efficient in producing sugars (used for alcohol) than oils (biodiesel). If corn were first fermented, its starch could be used for alcohol and the remainder fed to cattle -- far more efficient for food, fuel and land use. Episode 78.

Peak Moment: Alcohol Can Be a Gas, Part II

Permaculturist David Blume discusses alcohol's low emissions, and producing alcohol as a biological complex in which wastes become raw materials for other processes. He claims that with one year of the U.S. Defense budget, the entire world could be set up to produce alcohol and permanently replace oil for transportation. He discusses vehicle conversion, and how citizens can undertake alcohol fuel distribution. Episode 79.

Peak Moment: City Repair - Permaculture for Urban Spaces

What happens when citizens apply permaculture principles to a city grid? They create friendly places within the grid that invite people to come together. Mark Lakeman, co-founder of Portland, Oregon's City Repair Project describes these "creative intervention" projects as placemaking at its best. People learn to work together, build trust and have fun. The results, from painted intersections to cob benches and other organic structures, invite people "to inhabit the planet on our own terms" rather than the grid-locked culture imposed by the city. Episode 76.

Peak Moment: Post Carbon Cities - Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty

Smart municipalities are planning and preparing for energy vulnerability and climate change. Daniel Lerch, manager of the Post Carbon Cities project, has prepared a guidebook including case studies of cities large and small planning how to maintain essential services in the face of energy and climate uncertainty. Episode 73.

Peak Moment: Bullock Brothers Homestead - A 25-Year Permaculture Project

Take a tour with Joe, Doug and Sam Bullock on their Orcas Island property, site of a yearly Permaculture design course. Using nature as their model, they create edges and wildlife habitat, move water through the landscape, promote diversity, and raise an astonishing variety of plants from sub-arctic to tropical -- a wise investment in these climate-changing times. Episode 68.

Peak Moment: Peak Oil, Peak Coal and Beyond

Hot topics from Richard Heinberg: record-high U.S. fuel prices; the ethanol big-business boondoggle; coal projected to peak about a hundred years early (around 2020); what the climate change discussion is missing; and enjoying ourselves as we "go local." Episode 63.

Peak Moment: A Defining Moment in Human History

The planet is rapidly confronting us with limits to the exploitative, dominator system of the past 5000 years. David Korten, author of When Corporations Rule the World, and more recently The Great Turning: From Empire to Earth Community, implores us to replace the old dominator-control stories with new stories -- affirming life values of cooperation, community and interdependence. Episode 48.

Peak Moment: Learning from Cuba's Response to Peak Oil

Megan Quinn of Community Solution discusses her visit to Cuba, and the movie "The Power of Community." This young woman sees Peak Oil as an opportunity to create the communities we want, but notes that we must reduce our consumption despite environmentalists' assurances that biofuels will save us. Episode 27.