St. Francis Church Dining Hall

Portland is earthquake country. Three different types of earthquakes are possible in Oregon with two creating big threats for Portland. One is movement on local faults in the Portland area like the Portland Hills Fault. The other is the “Big One’ that could generate a magnitude of 9 along the coast and could last three minutes. Portland would be greatly affected by both.

Dr. Burns will talk about the sources of these quakes and their past history and future chances and specifically will talk about both Haiti and Chile and their relevance to Oregon. Chile is a perfect example of what could happen in Oregon with the Big One.

The Multnomah Food Initiative (http://www.thedirt.org/node/4386) will build on existing efforts to create a shared community vision and strategic action plan. It will mean forging partnerships, setting goals, and working collaboratively. Together, we will create a long-term vision and plan for a city and county that feeds itself – sustainably, healthily, equitably, and prosperously.

In planning for this initiative, Multnomah County is preparing a State of Food Report. This report will synthesize existing regional food system assessments and food policy recommendations. It will present case studies that identify processes used by other communities to facilitate food policy planning, including outcomes and best practices. It will also provide a needs-analysis to determine macro-level conditions necessary to implement recommendations and accomplish goals.

There is tremendous work being done in our community around food system issues. Multnomah County would like your feedback on what will be presented in the State of Food Report, as well as your comments on what may be missing or should be considered.

The Crash Course seeks to help you understand the nature of some extremely serious challenges and risks to our economy and your future prosperity. Chris Martenson weaves together a number of seemingly disparate topics into a single story, discussing the Economy, Energy, and the Environment... For it is where these fields overlap and intersect that the greatest story of any generation will get told.

Chris Martenson is an author and obsessive financial observer who has made profound changes in his lifestyle because of what he sees coming. He runs a popular website devoted to advancing awareness of the Three“E’s"--the Economy, Energy and the Environment, although most of the focus is on tracking the economy.

Chris is not an economist. He is trained as a scientist, having completed both a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral program in Neurotoxicology at Duke University. Chris’s extensive scientific training guides how he thinks. He gathers data, develops hypotheses, and continually seeks to accept or reject them based on the evidence at hand. He lets the data tell the story.

In addition, Chris has a solid business background, with an MBA in Finance from Cornell with ten years experience in corporate finance and strategic consulting, becoming an executive of a Fortune 300 company.

The main body of Chris' work, The Crash Course, is a dynamic web-based video presentation, bringing together the threads of the “Three E’s,” and explaining why and how the next 20 years will be completely unlike the last 20.

Shown in Three Parts

All 20 sections take 3 hours and 23 minutes to watch in full, with chapters are between 3 and 20 minutes in length.  

To allow for plenty of time for discussion we will be showing this DVD in three parts, on the following days. Please note that we will be flexible in how far we get each night, but the dates listed below are not going to change.

September 30th

1. Three Beliefs   (1:46 minutes)
2. The Three "E"s    (1:38 minutes)
3. Exponential Growth    (6:20 minutes)
4. Compounding is the Problem    (3:06 minutes)
5. Growth vs. Prosperity    (3:40 minutes)
6. What is Money?    (5:55 minutes)
7. Money Creation    (4:19 minutes)
8. The Fed - Money Creation    (7:13 minutes)
9. A Brief History of US Money    (7:14 minutes)
10. Inflation    (11:48 minutes)
11. How Much Is A Trillion?    (3:28 minutes)
12. Debt    (12:32 minutes)
13. A National Failure To Save    (12:06 minutes) 

October 28th

14. Assets & Demographics (13:41 minutes)
15. Bubbles (14:10 minutes)
16. Fuzzy Numbers (15:52 minutes)
17a. Part A: Peak Oil (17:52 minutes)
17b. Part B: Energy Budgeting (12:15 minutes)
17c. Part C: Energy And The Economy   (7:05 minutes)

November 18th

18. Environmental Data  (16:22 minutes)
19. Future Shock   (8:02 minutes)
20. What Should I Do?  (19:48 minutes)

At Multnomah County we are asking the question “what is next for the local food movement?” There’s no doubt that Mult Co and Portland region are at the epicenter of a growing national interest in local food. Currently, we have over 20 farmers’ markets, approximately 65 community-supported agriculture farms, and a plethora of restaurants and grocery stores that feature local food.

So the question is: have we arrived or have we just started? Multnomah County believes that we have just started. That is why Multnomah County has launched the Multnomah Food Initiative – a public engagement process that will bring the community together to create a shared vision, shared goals, and the first comprehensive community food action plan in the nation.

Early next year, Mult Co will be hosting a Food Summit to bring together business interests, the health industry, local governments, and the community to create a 15 year roadmap that will do two things: (1) relocalize our food system and (2) make the healthy choice the easy choice for all of us. Multnomah County would like to hear your thoughts on the Food Summit and Food Action Plan.

The Crash Course seeks to help you understand the nature of some extremely serious challenges and risks to our economy and your future prosperity. Chris Martenson weaves together a number of seemingly disparate topics into a single story, discussing the Economy, Energy, and the Environment... For it is where these fields overlap and intersect that the greatest story of any generation will get told.

Chris Martenson is an author and obsessive financial observer who has made profound changes in his lifestyle because of what he sees coming. He runs a popular website devoted to advancing awareness of the Three“E’s"--the Economy, Energy and the Environment, although most of the focus is on tracking the economy.

Chris is not an economist. He is trained as a scientist, having completed both a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral program in Neurotoxicology at Duke University. Chris’s extensive scientific training guides how he thinks. He gathers data, develops hypotheses, and continually seeks to accept or reject them based on the evidence at hand. He lets the data tell the story.

In addition, Chris has a solid business background, with an MBA in Finance from Cornell with ten years experience in corporate finance and strategic consulting, becoming an executive of a Fortune 300 company.

The main body of Chris' work, The Crash Course, is a dynamic web-based video presentation, bringing together the threads of the “Three E’s,” and explaining why and how the next 20 years will be completely unlike the last 20.

Shown in Three Parts

All 20 sections take 3 hours and 23 minutes to watch in full, with chapters are between 3 and 20 minutes in length.  

To allow for plenty of time for discussion we will be showing this DVD in three parts, on the following days. Please note that we will be flexible in how far we get each night, but the dates listed below are not going to change.

September 30th

1. Three Beliefs   (1:46 minutes)
2. The Three "E"s    (1:38 minutes)
3. Exponential Growth    (6:20 minutes)
4. Compounding is the Problem    (3:06 minutes)
5. Growth vs. Prosperity    (3:40 minutes)
6. What is Money?    (5:55 minutes)
7. Money Creation    (4:19 minutes)
8. The Fed - Money Creation    (7:13 minutes)
9. A Brief History of US Money    (7:14 minutes)
10. Inflation    (11:48 minutes)
11. How Much Is A Trillion?    (3:28 minutes)
12. Debt    (12:32 minutes)
13. A National Failure To Save    (12:06 minutes) 

October 28th

14. Assets & Demographics (13:41 minutes)
15. Bubbles (14:10 minutes)
16. Fuzzy Numbers (15:52 minutes)
17a. Part A: Peak Oil (17:52 minutes)
17b. Part B: Energy Budgeting (12:15 minutes)
17c. Part C: Energy And The Economy   (7:05 minutes)

November 18th

18. Environmental Data  (16:22 minutes)
19. Future Shock   (8:02 minutes)
20. What Should I Do?  (19:48 minutes)

The Crash Course seeks to help you understand the nature of some extremely serious challenges and risks to our economy and your future prosperity. Chris Martenson weaves together a number of seemingly disparate topics into a single story, discussing the Economy, Energy, and the Environment... For it is where these fields overlap and intersect that the greatest story of any generation will get told.

Chris Martenson is an author and obsessive financial observer who has made profound changes in his lifestyle because of what he sees coming. He runs a popular website devoted to advancing awareness of the Three“E’s"--the Economy, Energy and the Environment, although most of the focus is on tracking the economy.

Chris is not an economist. He is trained as a scientist, having completed both a Ph.D. and a post-doctoral program in Neurotoxicology at Duke University. Chris’s extensive scientific training guides how he thinks. He gathers data, develops hypotheses, and continually seeks to accept or reject them based on the evidence at hand. He lets the data tell the story.

In addition, Chris has a solid business background, with an MBA in Finance from Cornell with ten years experience in corporate finance and strategic consulting, becoming an executive of a Fortune 300 company.

The main body of Chris' work, The Crash Course, is a dynamic web-based video presentation, bringing together the threads of the “Three E’s,” and explaining why and how the next 20 years will be completely unlike the last 20.

Shown in Three Parts

All 20 sections take 3 hours and 23 minutes to watch in full, with chapters are between 3 and 20 minutes in length.  

To allow for plenty of time for discussion we will be showing this DVD in three parts, on the following days. Please note that we will be flexible in how far we get each night, but the dates listed below are not going to change.

September 30th

1. Three Beliefs   (1:46 minutes)
2. The Three "E"s    (1:38 minutes)
3. Exponential Growth    (6:20 minutes)
4. Compounding is the Problem    (3:06 minutes)
5. Growth vs. Prosperity    (3:40 minutes)
6. What is Money?    (5:55 minutes)
7. Money Creation    (4:19 minutes)
8. The Fed - Money Creation    (7:13 minutes)
9. A Brief History of US Money    (7:14 minutes)
10. Inflation    (11:48 minutes)
11. How Much Is A Trillion?    (3:28 minutes)
12. Debt    (12:32 minutes)
13. A National Failure To Save    (12:06 minutes) 

October 28th

14. Assets & Demographics (13:41 minutes)
15. Bubbles (14:10 minutes)
16. Fuzzy Numbers (15:52 minutes)
17a. Part A: Peak Oil (17:52 minutes)
17b. Part B: Energy Budgeting (12:15 minutes)
17c. Part C: Energy And The Economy   (7:05 minutes)

November 18th

18. Environmental Data  (16:22 minutes)
19. Future Shock   (8:02 minutes)
20. What Should I Do?  (19:48 minutes)

The Transition Initiative in Portland invites you to meet with us to begin planning and organizing an effort to build community resilience in the face of climate change, rising energy costs and economic decline.  Building on work started by many organizations, we will put into action energy descent planning around a variety of aspects; neighborhood organizing; coalition building with partner groups; and a holistic vision of how we can cope with major changes in our lives.  In the process we will create stronger communities and more satisfying lives based on sharing and cooperation. 

You’re welcome to come whether you are already committed or just curious about the possibilities.   If you’re working with a neighborhood or a group with a related mission, we invite you to come and explore how different groups and communities can network and link together in a shared effort to build a lower-carbon future.  Also, we urge you to circulate this notice to your group and anyone else you think should be there. 

Here’s the program: 

• Keynote speaker Friday evening, September 25, 7:30 pm.  Karen Lanphear s a co-founder of the Sandpoint Transition Initiative in Idaho.  She believes that within each community there lies an enormous pool of power that can be unleashed when people start working together on a common vision, and that education and building strong community coalitions can change the world.  Her presentation will include what is unique about the Transition model, Sandpoint’s experience in developing it, and their main challenges and how they came up with solutions.  Karen’s talk will be followed by a social in the church dining hall downstairs.  $10 donation, no one turned away.

• How Can We Build a Resilient Portland?  An Open Space Day, Saturday, September 26, 9:00-5:00.  Bring your ideas, passions and enthusiasm and participate in designing the movement – suggesting what is needed and discussing how to make it happen.  This powerful process will enable us to walk out at the end of the day with a road map for creating our future.  Coffee, tea and snacks will be available.  Lunch will be brown bag or at nearby cafes.  No charge for the day but donations appreciated.  

What we choose to focus on is up to you.  The Open Space format enables the people who come to create the agenda.  Anyone can suggest a topic to discuss on Saturday based on the theme of creating resilience.  If people choose to show up and discuss that topic, and to create an action team, it will become a part of the overall project. Some examples of projects that have emerged in other Transition Towns are  

• Food
• Transportation
• Housing
• Health and wellbeing
• Arts and Music
• ReSkilling - (re)learning the low tech skills of our forebears
• Neighborhood organizing and support
• Outreach and publicity
• Heart and soul - learning and helping others to cope with the psychological, spiritual and social sides of change
• Local currency
• Working with local government
• Administrative tasks such as Training and Finances 

Later Saturday you will have a chance to sign on for any projects you have energy for and begin work toward crafting and implementing Energy Descent Action Plans.  There will also be an opportunity to connect with others from your neighborhood.  

We are very excited about moving toward a more cooperative and joyful future.  The knowledge of what to do already exists; it’s just scattered throughout the community.  This is the beginning of our tapping and integrating that knowledge, making it available to everyone, and putting it to work in a plan for resilient communities.

So please pass this on to anyone you think should be there.  There’s a lot needing to be done to create a resilient future in our region for ourselves and our children.  Please join us and help shape that future. 

And thanks to our cosponsors: 

• Bright Neighbor
• Center for Earth Leadership
• City Repair
• Common Good Finance
• Portland Permaculture Guild
• Portland Peak Oil
• ReCode Oregon
• St. Francis of Assisi Church
• Transition Sunnyside
• TLC Farm
• Washington County Peak Oil

The evening will start with a potluck to which neighborhood groups are especially invited. Then Jeremy O'Leary will be showing how the 20 minute walkable neighborhood model works well with a variety of emergency response scenarios. The presentation will be based on the term project for his recently completed GIS graduate certificate.

Sustainability, Permaculture, Climate Change, Peak Oil… it is surprising how many interests intersect with Emergency Management. Diverse disciplines from Sociology to Geology play a role in disaster preparedness, mitigation, response and recovery. Reaching out to audiences who may not otherwise be engaged in Citizen Corps programs is as easy as focusing on our shared goals.

20 minute walkable or bikeable neighborhood communities, have been the determinant for CERT Teams. This model corresponds very well with sustainable development, the ideals of Permaculturalists and Peak Oil/Transition Town participants.

Incorporating research and a broad based approach to presentations and other outreach activities is an excellent way to increase your community’s receptiveness to preparedness and mitigation efforts. With the concept that disasters will occur, managing the impact and improving the resiliency of the communities we serve will take all of the tools in our tool box.

Alice Lasher has a Bachelors Degree in Communications from Northern AZ University and has been in the fire service for 18 years. An EMT, Public Information and Education Officer, Critical Incident Stress Manager, Peer Counselor, CERT trainer, Inspector and former Investigator, Alice teaches extensively across the region. Alice also currently serves as the Clackamas County Citizen Corps Co-Chair and the Urban Area Securities Initiative (UASI) representative as well as a UASI Public Information Officer representative. Alice is a true advocate of working within the ICS/NIMS and firmly believes in the pivotal importance of citizen involvement/engagement in all aspects of Emergency Management (mitigation, preparedness, response and recovery).

Climate change and other ecological limits are increasingly clear as we approach the limits of growth on a finite Earth. exhaustibility of fossil fuel has been apparent for decades.

Why have we not responded? Why is our culture so blind to ecological limits? Humans as individuals are capable of intelligent planning, but America blunders along as if there were no tomorrow. Why is our culture so blind to its own future? Many large societies seem to share the same lack of vision. Why is this, and what can be done about it?

What if the solutions to our environmental crises were apparent? Are the solutions difficult, or simply outside of our current range of vision? Real solutions mean moving beyond corporate greenwashing and politics. We need to create a citizen's movement that can fundamentally restructure our economy and our culture. Alexis Zeigler, author of the new book, Culture Change: Civil Liberty, Peak

Oil, and the End of Empire will conduct a presentation and discussion of these issues.

Contact: conev.org, [email protected], 434-409-6006



From the back cover of Culture Change:

While we are daily witness to the powers of progress manifest in the extraordinary mechanical technologies we have developed in the industrial age, we remain woefully unaware of the most basic causes of social change in our society. Our lack of social awareness does not result from the difficulty of understanding social problems, it results from the active repression of such awareness.

The political resistance movements that developed in the twentieth century were adapted to conditions of economic growth. When an economy is growing, petitioning through political and legal means to assure increasing access to rights and wealth for traditionally disenfranchised groups met with a measure of success, and that success was the foundation for further movement building. Those movements cannot, as they are currently structured, guide us through the coming age.

Many of the problems that we see as having purely political roots are strongly influenced by economic and ecological factors. Social issues that may seem far apart, such as ecological stress and women's rights for instance, have common roots. In the modern context, much of the political unraveling that we are witnessing can be understood in terms of the limitations of growth of modern industrialism.

The growth of fundamentalism and militarism, the decline of civil liberty and the environment, all of these problems are going to get worse if we do not find a new means to address them.

There are real solutions to these problems, but they are going to involve a quantum leap, both in thought and in action, beyond our current methods of political engagement. The solutions themselves are not even terribly difficult, they are simply well outside of our current range of vision and will.

         

Renowned oilman T. Boone Pickens is talking openly about $300/barrel oil. Oil industry insiders are saying we face a peak in global oil production as early as 2012. What's the future of oil global oil supplies, and what does it mean for government policymakers?

Post Carbon Institute's 'Peak Oil for Policymakers' DVD includes timely presentations by four leading experts on peak oil (the all-time high point of global oil production) and what it means for local, state and national governments:

Peak Oil for Policymakers - is an executive summary of the peak oil problem and its implications for the global and national economies. By world-renowned peak oil author and lecturer Richard Heinberg and Post Carbon Institute founder Julian Darley.

Post Carbon Cities - explores what peak oil means for leaders at the local level and how some cities in the U.S. and elsewhere are already responding. By Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, the first major guidebook on peak oil for local government officials and staff.

Scenarios Planning for Government - gives an elected official's perspective on peak oil, with the story of one state legislature's recent decision to establish a task force on energy scarcity. By Connecticut State Representative Terry Backer.

Welcome to a grassroots response to this time of "crisis". Here's a quick summary of what's happened so far. We hope you can join us.

1. . A group of process-oriented facilitators and organizers, meeting in an ongoing collective called A Circle Group, sensed that many people were feeling rocked by the "crisis", and wanted to do something.
2. . Four of us sent out a survey asking people how they felt, and what they'd like to do.
3. . Based on the responses, we sent out a call for a community gathering to explore grassroots, relationship-based action to support each other.
4. . We created a process intended to address the expressed need for building connection with others at a personal level, learning more about what others are doing, and sharing skills for trust-building and facilitation.
5. . For a variety of reasons, far more people came than anticipated: over 100, and we had to turn some away for lack of space. This meant the space was cramped, but also that energy was very high. Clearly, lots of people are ready to act in this way. Our process seemed to work for some people and in some ways, but not others.

Now, our goal is for people to have the skills and confidence to help their networks become circles of trust-based sharing and support, and to link those together in a growing ecology throughout Portland.

We want this to take off far beyond anything we (or anyone) could ever coordinate!

If you have similar goals, please join us on Nov 14. We will be using feedback from the first session to figure out how different people -- from new folk feeling scared and seeking help, to experienced organizers; from action-oriented alphas to relation-oriented tenders; across diverse issues, and race and class and gender divides -- how we can support each other to step forward from where we are, asking questions all the while.

If you are especially interested in sharing and spreading facilitation and other process skills (including Tech), please come to the Che Room in St Francis at 5:30pm on Friday the 14th, before the larger gathering. To get to the Che room, walk up to near the Red & Black and cross in to the park and look for 1131 on the right hand side, head up the stairs, through the double doors.

We know that tracking our personal energy use and carbon emissions is critical to reducing needs for imported energy, our impacts on the climate, and on the environment. As Lord Kelvin so famously said, "That which cannot be measured, cannot be improved."

As of today, we have to figure out our own ways to measure our energy and carbon footprints. Some parts are fairly easy--for example, our utility bills can tell us a lot about our energy use. But what about food? What's the embodied energy and carbon emissions of our diet? Did you know a meat-eater could reduce their CO2 as much by going vegetarian as by switching to a Prius?

And how does your carbon footprint compare with others in the US and aceross the world? Where do you stand? What yardsticks can we use to make comparisons?

Join with Mike O'Brien, Green Building Specialist from the City's Office of Sustainable Development, who will walk us through some ideas and useful tools for tracking our progress as we make choices and changes in our lives. This should be interesting and, at the very least, offer some insights into the impacts of our lifestyles.

We'll start with a reading of your utility bills, so bring your last year's electric and gas bills (October 2007 to October 2008). Here's where to call for copies:

* PGE 503-228-6322 or 800-542-8818
* Pacific Power 1-888-221-7070,
* Northwest Natural 503-226-4211 or 800-422-4012.