Plans for 2013

It’s a new year and time to get to work.  With the streak of extreme weather events last year, I’m hoping that we might take climate change a little more seriously.   Richard Somerville, a scientist with the International Panel on Climate Change, has stated that although the projections by the panel have tended to be conservative, the implications of climate change are very serious and he regrets that what hasn’t gotten across to the public is “a sense of urgency that, to most scientists, is now very clear.  This is an urgency that has nothing to do with politics or ideology," said Somerville. "This urgency is dictated by the biogeochemistry and physics of the climate system. We have a very short time to de-carbonize the world economy and find substitutes for fossil fuels." 
 
By a short time, he is talking about 5 years, maybe 10 at the outside, after which we will be committed to warming greater than 2 degrees Celsius, which is to say more than we can handle and maintain any semblance of the physical, much less the political and economic, world we know now.   Keep in mind that we have been trying (not very hard) to lower our carbon footprint for the last 20 years and have succeeded only in increasing it. 
 
So we are not talking about business as usual or a need to put out a bit of extra effort.  We are talking about the house being two minutes away from being fully engulfed in flame and only our decisive action before that will save it. 
 
Given that level of urgency, what should be our goals for the coming year?  They will need to be very ambitious.  On the global/national scale, we should consider phasing out all use of coal by the end of the year.  For the time being, those coal-fired energy plants could be converted to natural gas.  The coal that, in our folly, we are considering exporting to China should be left in the ground.  To counter that energy loss, we will need a national campaign for radical energy conservation.  We did such things on that scale during WWII and we can do it again.  At the same time, we should at least triple our present energy production from renewables.  If we can do these things and make comparable efforts every year from now on, we will get to where we will need to be in ten years, hopefully sooner.
 
On a community scale, we have the responsibility of learning how to feed ourselves. We have a hugely complex global food system, a climate change contributor, involving the cultivation of all the suitable land area on Earth, billions of people, and a highly complex delivery and distribution system.   Climate change guarantees massive food shortages as production drops off in traditional growing areas and we attempt to reestablish new ones in what will have to be a very trying, if not debilitating, political and economic environment.  Such a disruption of the global food system could take decades to recover from.  Local supplies of food can fill in the gaps and help to stave off starvation on a large scale. I’d like to see us dramatically increase our food growing capacity by the end of the year.  We will need a lot more gardeners.  If you want to garden but know little, you can learn for free by volunteering to work in the food bank gardens or with Julia Lakey at the Community Care Center.  My wife, Elizabeth plans to get her yardshare website up again this year.  It allows would be growers and owners of available land to connect.  Before too long, I think we could be self sufficient in fruits and vegetables.  The other items in our diet, meat, grains, and other field crops, we could get within our region. 
 
I’d like to see us initiate a series of reskilling workshops where we can all become more competent in all the knowledge and tasks that are required to run a homestead.  We will all need to be more resourceful. 
 
I would like to see a coalition of Vashon organizations studying how we should address the challenge of climate change.  We could begin talks with the county to take into account the effects of climate change and the need to lower our energy footprint in all planning and development decisions henceforward. 
 
As to personal new year’s resolutions, I want to become more competent in gardening, build a greenhouse, make my house more energy efficient, and drive much less.
 
Let’s make 2013 the year we started turning it around!
 
In January, Transition Vashon will be facilitating a group to study the latest Transition Network book, The Transition Companion.  We will be meeting once a week for six weeks.  The current group is full, but we will hold subsequent sessions if the demand is there.
 
On January 13, there will be an initial community seed savers gathering at the Land Trust Bldg. at   3:30 pm.  If you want free Vashon grown seeds, want to swap seeds, want to talk about or learn about seed saving, this is the group for you.  If you can’t make this meeting, but are interested in becoming involved, contact Jennifer Williams at jwfarm01@gmail.comor Lotus at Lotus47@live.com
 
Comments?  terry@vashonloop.com