Barter Organizations?

I just read about a depression organization that did a point system trade for good and visa versa. It kept a list of points.

here is a place for some news on the current reciprocal trade industry

http://www.u-exchange.com/personal-bartering - nothing is implied that I endorse this site but its active on the web

In a related note if you volunteer for a day then Disney will give you a free day pass for one of its theme parks.

http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/disneyparks/en_US/WhatWillYouCelebrate/...

I wonder if we are headed to a world were the cooperate will ask the public to do civic related work in order to keep us busy until a new civic order can be established.

Try to elect people to local office who have some intelligence and education. My favorite question for local candidates is: "How old is planet earth?" Our current batch of commisioners refused to answer this question (and approved new FSPs for law enforcement). Most were elected overwhelmingly!

Also - does your community have this?

http://www.sfenvironment.org/our_policies/overview.html?ssi=20

A peak oil task force report?

a task force report may seem useless - but if does give civic planner an outline of what challenges they face when TSHTF.

Its a language that is being constructed - we need a vocabulary that addresses adaptation efforts

My city does not - but using the SF as an outline I hope to see if there can be one created independently. it may be the only road map your community gets.

Finally - use Google

Most of what is mentioned is being done on some level in your local area

Recycling stuff - Free cycle

http://www.freecycle.org/

Gardening - I entered in "Learn Gardening in Los Angeles" I got this

http://celosangeles.ucdavis.edu/Common_Ground_Garden_Program/

Carpooling

http://www.erideshare.com/carpool.php?city=Los%20Angeles

I am sure family planning networks are on the net and could use help

I would like to see a few more good ideas. In my community, it seems like too many activists get sidetracked by issues such as cloud seeding (40 miles away and in a different watershed) chemtrails and flu vaccinations.
One thing I would like to see locally is an ordinance requiring all gas stations and take out restaurants to provide free tap water, and tax bottled water.

Get off the grid ASAP. Grow own food. Stock up on guns and ammo. Build nuclear bomb shelter.

Alternatively, emigrate to Iceland.

The way things are shaping up, the paranoia of Matt Savinar, Jim Kunstler, Michael Ruppert and others might be justified after all.

I'm reluctant to post this quote I just discovered because the proper place for it is on the post about why governments/people are ignoring peak oil. Nonetheless, the conversation has moved on from there and here is where the action now is. So there you have it.

The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.

The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, Gustave Le Bon

However, in the interest of helping move this conversation forward, I volunteer the following:

1. Organize community food panty stocking events and say it's "in case we get laid off"
2. Hold a "How to feed a family of four with $10 and a slow cooker" evening; say it's because you want to experiment with your slow cooker
3. Hold a bicycle swap; say it's because you're thinking of opening a bike repair shop

You get the drift. But for heaven's sake, do not mention peak oil unless someone has given you the secret handshake first.

If they whisper, "I've got six-months of freeze-dried, how much do you have?" you can also safely discuss gasoline shortages with them.

Alternative currencies are a part of Transition. Some towns have an actual local currency like the Totnes pound, but it takes considerable resources and organization to start one up. Time banks and LETS are easier to start up. The idea is to build community, meet your neighbors, and enable people to share and trade without money. Along those lines, even more informal events could work like potlucks and community swap days. Frugal living in general will be back in style.
This is all friendly, neighborly stuff. No need to talk about Peak Oil and TSHTF unless someone gives the secret handshake. Activist talk tends to turn off non-activist people.

I've been bartering bookkeeping services with a neighborhood vet (holistic).

I've been exploring alternative methods of treatment for myself and my houseful of pets, and the dog got a course of acupuncture, for a hip problem, which would have necessitated extensive treatment with anti-inflammatory drugs, at a regular vet.

There's a lot of vegetable-growing going on around here. We have a local farmer's market garden center, whose owner lives a block or so away from me. In conversation, I suggested he inventory more organic and natural products, and I'd help generate demand, though my newsletter columns.

Last season, he was stocking ladybugs for pest control, as one example, as well as organic seeds, and a lot more vegetable and herb starter plants.

We're starting a "walkability" initiative this week - I've no idea where that's going to go, but a local "shuttle" service stopping at local stores, the library, the community center etc etc could be a good idea, since our regular bus transit caters for people, but not really for loads of goods, or bags.

Edit : we already have a neighborhood garage sale annually. That could expand into a quarterly or even monthly event, where folks trade items they don't want, instead of exchanging for cash.

Edit 2 : I can't take credit for this idea, but what about a tool-share, or equipment-share?

I think at this point in time the most valuable thing you can do is start/join a Transition Town Initiative. Networking with like minded people in your community is inspiring and will relieve some of the isolation and despair that can come with peak oil awareness. Just google Transition Towns and you'll find it. Get a copy of the Transition Handbook or ask your local library to purchase a copy and thoroughly read it.

Our Transition initiative ion our town is just getting started but this is the list that our first get together came up with of things we need to address:

People
People, networks, resilient communities
Look at skills, which can do what and what skills we are short of
Networking – see what’s already out there – internet searches
Visit other Transition Towns, don’t re-invent the wheel, learn from others
Venues for meetings and for storage of literature and resources
Printing (posters, flyers etc) for disseminating information
Education – areas of education should be near the people - generally located at outskirts of town
Wisdom of the elderly and people from other cultures eg refugees
Make use of local government resources plus other community organisations for venues etc
Use local businesses to advertise Transition Towns, particularly traders interested in the concept
Starting capital - investigate grants via people with connections in local and State government
Fundraising events – self-funded by community
Make this a tangible project – people need to make the choice and contribute

Transport
Car-pooling while there’s still fuel
Use trains for local transport between and
Use rail gauge track for running a tram

Food
Provision of land for food-growing
Aboriginal concepts of land division
Ceres in Melbourne useful model - check website for ideas
Lentil as Anything – Melbourne restaurant where you pay what you feel the meal is worth (Ceres)
Community gardens in Melbourne
Stephanie Alexander’s kitchen gardens in the schools
Establish several community gardens
Reverse the trend of big houses and small gardens
Education of children – start them young
Allotments – provision of food-growing area for town residents
Matching up people who have fruit trees who don’t want the fruit with people that can utilise it – simple database
Matching up landholders with available local land with those people who want to farm/utilise it
Different methods of community gardening utilising peoples’ gardens
Rehabilitation of land near city for use producing crops/meat
Education on reducing meat in diets
Domestic preserving- seasonal
Establish local food co-op in area for food swap, production etc
Local farming groups – network with others
Local mowing companies could deposit their clippings near Willowbank Farm
Town planning – need vacant areas of land for growing staple foods
Indigenous communities for bush foods
Allied Mills – working mill in

Water
Water restrictions need to be addressed if growing food in community gardens
Water harvesting and different ways of watering gardens – wick method
Purchase of water tanks or rebate on rates for buying your own tank
Structuring of water pricing – cheaper for less treated water for garden use

As you can see this is quite big list which requires imagination and hard work to bring to reality.
So far we have organised an awareness raising film festival and have a project starting which encorages people to grow food in their backyards, with surplus produce being shared by neighbours and then taken by an emergency relief organisation. We are hoping that neighbourhood co-operatives will form which will allow us to scale things up like bulk purchasing of organic fertilizers, seed sharing and saving but mostly just to build resilience in the neighbourhood.

Many of the people who chose to get involved initially are climate change warriors and have little appreciation of how peak oil will affect them. It has been interesting to see attitudes change when they realise that BAU can't continue and that climate change is not he only game in town.

There are opportunities to move towards sustainability, even with the financial constraints most governments find themselves in. For example, one state was offering "Food Stamps" to recipients which could be redeemed at local farmers markets.

I think there are actually many such opportunities waiting out there. The biggest missing piece is the understanding of the problem and a vision of where we should be headed, both in government as well as the population at large. The food stamps example shows that governments who understand the problem and know what types of economic links will be needed in the future, can do things to encourage and build them.

There is SO MUCH that can be done to live cheaply (and yet confortably).

The key thing is sharing. Have a (small) room for yourself, share (almost) everything else, dining area, bathrooms, computers, even phones. In other words, a commune, or as close to it as you can stand, and with time we'll all have to get used to more of it!

Barter, exchange of goods and services is obvious and necessary.

If possible, be where one can get involved with gardening/agriculture of some sort. Start learn how to do it.

Make peace with all your neighbors and start coming to each other's aid. Rebuild and strengthen family ties. Build a sense of community based on mutual aid and benefit, nothing else.

Argue politics, religion, PO, geopolitics, like cats in a bag -- just never fail to shake hands when all done. Build up community libraries. Get everyone to start reading about what's going on, on how to get past the propaganda.

Especially help those who like working with kids. Make sure all the kids are protected against the worst, and teach them to be better than we are at sharing and cooperating.

Compact communities are better where possible. Work toward making your own community more compact so the cars are less needed. And of course carpool, get shared vans and so forth in the meantime.

In a word, act as if industrial civilization is going to wind down, as if the jobs are not coming back, and as if the resources are depleting, etc. Because that's the case.

There is a huge amount of room for comfortable and even fun retrenchment if only the right attitudes can be achieved. Watch TV once a month for a couple of minutes: it will give you nearly perfect guidance -- just go the opposite direction.

Ad-Hoc Ride Share

One of the projects that has been rattling around my head for a few years is the idea of an ad-hoc car pooling system which combines elements of hitch-hiking with traditional bus routes.

In my town of 50,000 people or so we are very poorly serviced with public transport as we just do not have enough people using it to justify a good bus service. Our local bus company survives on the subsidies provided by the state government to run school bus services and operates an inadequate public service between school hours. There are certainly no late night buses provided.

Fortunately, we are a relatively small city which can be driven from one end to the other in about 10 mins and even less if you can utilise the major national freeway that runs through the town. The natural result is that everyone drives everywhere and the majority of trips are single occupant.

At many of our town forums, the number one complaint from our senior citizens is the appalling lack of public transport. There just does not seem to be any way that we are ever going to get an adequately funded PT system for such low densities and short trips.

At the same time we have thousands of empty seats whizzing around our roads every day, many of them passing close by to the people who need to be moved and going to or nearby the desired destinations. Hmmmmm? How to match the demand with the resource without becoming overly cumbersome? Well I have an idea. It's not perfect and I haven't yet tested it even on a small scale (it's one of my Transition Town projects), but to me it feels like it would work and perhaps with your help, we could reduce the drawbacks and enhance to positives.

This is how it works:

1. Survey the Neighbourhood - In most urban neighbourhoods there are generally no more than a half dozen routes to and from external destinations that the majority of households most commonly use. The common feeder roads into a neighbourhood are also usually pretty easy to identify and points along these roads are usually where bus stops are placed. These stops are generally within walking distance from most homes. The first step is to identify where these stops may be in the neighbourhood that are both safe and quick for a car to stop and pick up a passenger, and doesn’t require the driver to go out of his or her way.

2. Establish Destination Routes- Public transport doesn’t get you door to door so why would we expect ride sharing to do the same. Some destinations like local supermarkets will be popular enough to take you right to the car park but others may only get you close enough to walk the rest of the way, like a CBD. The stops at these destination places also need to be established so that drivers can deposit riders at convenient drop off points and the explicit rules are that the driver has no other obligation than to drop you at the designated point. Each of these established routes should be given a unique identifying number or code for ease of identification as outlined below in point 4.

3. Create a Signalling Sytem- The next step is to have some sort of signal system at each stop which identifies the desired destination of the rider. At the moment the best I have come up with is a pole with a sign on it and you either stand to the left if you want to go into town, or the right if you want to go to the university for example. Whatever this signaling system is, it needs to be easy to understand and easily visible to drivers so that they can quickly judge if they can offer a ride.

4. Security Protocols – The biggest deterrent to both drivers and riders is the stranger factor. Personally, I think we are going to have to get to know our neighbours much better anyway and this will happen naturally, the more this system is patronized. In the beginning however, there needs to be a way for people to establish trust and record who was with who. The way I propose to get around this is to use the SMS capability of the mobile phone network. The standard protocol would be for drivers to have a notification on the dashboards of their cars stating the drivers name, car registration number and mobile phone number. The rider, immediately on entering the car, should send an SMS message stating their own name, the registration number of the car and the route number to the drivers mobile phone. If they want they could also cc this to a friend or parent for extra security. I have avoided the idea of any centralized co-ordinating date base as it is costly and complex and only duplicates the phone companies records, which are available to the police anyway if anything goes really wrong.

5. Establish some basic rules – This is mostly common courtesy but I would insist on no eating, drinking smoking if you are a rider unless invited to do so by the driver. No asking the driver to go out of their way – stick to the designated drop off point. Drivers prerogative to deviate for the riders convenience. Basically the same rules as if you were a guest in anyones private space.

When I was growing up in the 80’s, me and my friends would regularly hitchhike from our suburban homes down town and back again. It usually didn’t take long to get a ride and I never had any trouble. However that is not necessarily always the case and there are plenty of stories about hitch-hiking gone horribly wrong because the people involved are basically evil and the confines and mobility of a car create the ideal circumstances for abductions, rapes and murders. Still the vast majority of riders and drivers are decent people going about their business and would be happy to utilize an otherwise wasted resource.

Closer knit neighbourhoods are one way to weed out the undesirables or help to modify their undesirable behavior. The way most of live suburban lives is to not know our neighbours or only very few of them. I would hope that one of the side benefits of this ad-hoc ride sharing program is that people get to know their neighbours and find other ways to pool resources and create resilient communities.

My favorite single easy step remains: plant a fruit or nut tree.

While I was in Germany, I noticed a robust local composting system.

Ideas are fun and easy, implementation is hard work. WWII measures provide a guide.

Insulation programs to insulate homes, build solar hot air collectors, simple ground source cooling systems, bike lane lobbying, lobbying for showers at work for bikers, community gardens, lobby for neighborhood micropower, modify building codes so that utility costs are factored into every home loan and payed similarly to the way homeowners insurance is now, create local energy efficiency codes for high efficiency construction, promote efficient windows, open-source architectural plans for area-appropriate home designs, promote engineering degrees, find some electric monitors that can be retrofitted to allow simple monitoring of home electric usage, start businesses in any of the above areas.

It will take some development but dynamic ridesharing is necessary and inevitable
http://wiride.org/ or ithumb.org
We need to deploy real-time, trusted ridesharing using GPS/WiFi location tracking. The wireless rideshare services in place today can adopt a standard service that would be interoperational among wireless providers. Government agencies, large companies are starting to actively support ridesharing. The friends tracking using Google Latitude is easy, although the system stores only recent locations, the next step for ridesharing is to plot the route, paths and pick-up points and offer them automatically to trusted riders, all in real time. Then it must scale to larger populations.

Actually is more just a matter of resource sharing and time optimization - but the UI needs to be very friendly and trusted.

What the community should do is make sure they build sufficient Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) filling stations for cars. And individuals should get their cars retrofited (which is a lot cheaper and quicker than buying a new electric, or hybrid) to be bifuel. Transportation fuel redundency is what's going to give a community resiliency and survive better from peak oil.

Behavior changes aren't going to happen until there is a shock to the system. You can plan to start carpools, jitney service, bus service but they won't be used by most people unless they are forced to use them (we don't give up convienence easily). Get your county commissioner/city council going on that, great. But I most want her/him to do is to see to it that if the private sector does not step up, then float a bond to get some stations built (and convert important emergency and government vehicle to be bifuel, maybe all government vehicles). Maybe create some low interest loans for people in the community to retrofit their cars, thus take advantage of the behavior want to save money immediately.

Support the Natural Gas Act of 2009, write your congressperson, its in committee now. The Act will subsidize retrofits 50%, fueling station installations $100K, and allow local government float bonds to build CNG infrastructure. I think this Act can really make a difference, and can empower individual communities with good leadership to take on peak oil.

There really is no reason technically or financially that we can't reduce our oil imports nation wide in by 5 million gallons a day in 3-5 years, and maybe 10 million in 5-10 years, by utilizing CNG as a transportation fuel on a massive scale. Nothing else will get that done that quickly, short of an embargo or economic collapse. What are the other benefits: less CO2, moderated fuel prices, more local jobs and better economy, reduced trade imbalance...

If by "mitigating peak oil", we mean reducing energy consumption, there is a bit of conundrum that is almost impossible to overcome, but we can and should still do some sensible things to reduce energy consumption (and in particular energy waste) for the sake not so much to mitigate peak oil, but to make more sensible and humane living conditions...

The conundrum is the one I have pointed to before: We simply cannot conserve our way out of the peak oil crisis by way of conservation, if you accept the consensus scenarios discussed daily here on TOD. The depletion scenarios based on the work of Hubbert, Campbell, Deffeyes and other scenarios discussing so called "Export Land" models would indicate a drop in oil supplies dwarfing any attempt to reduce consumption fast enough to make any difference, in particular in the developed nations. Oil consumption in the U.S is relatively flat, and shows signs of dropping. Oil consumption in Japan has already dropped by noticable amounts even before new technology breakthroughs are introduced, and Europe is on the same path forward. The is means that as a percentage of world oil production and consumption, the developed nations of the world are already declining, and as the developing and third world energy consumption rises, this will become even more pronounced.

At this time, the U.S. is using only about 10% of world oil supply to power it's entire fleet of automobiles and trucks. Even with absolutely no improvement in efficiency, this number will drop in upcoming years due to increased use in developing and third world nations. If even small gains in efficiency and fuel economy are made, the percent of world supply used for American vehicles will fall even faster. The point will come when American vehicles would consume perhaps 5% of world oil supply, and with any effort at all even less. This is surprising to many, but American vehicles are even now only a marginal issue in regard to world oil supply and soon will drop to an area than can only be considered miniscule.

The conundrum then is this: Almost every depletiona and "export land" model discussed on TOD sees a much faster drop than only a few percent in oil production in outlying years. So if we were to stop every vehicle in America and burn it where it stood, it would have a shocking, even devastating effect on the American economy and lifestyle so great as to be hard to describe, but almost no noticable effect on world oil consumption! Or to put it another way, what if we wiped out the American economy and no one noticed (except Americans, that is?) By the way, all the above applies equally to carbon release...the percent contribution by the wealthiest and most developed nations is already dropping as a percentage of world output, a trend set to only speed up in the upcoming years. If we adopt any type of mitigation effort it will only speed the developed nations along the path from marginal to miniscule impact.

So we should do nothing, right? Well, no. We should make efforts to reduce waste not to mitigate peak oil or world carbon release (which we cannot mitigate...it is somewhat as Quixotic (Quixotic defined by Mariom Webster dictionary as "1. foolishly impractical especially in the pursuit of ideals; especially : marked by rash lofty romantic ideas or extravagantly chivalrous action ...") as let us say Liechtenstein deciding to save the world through conservation. The developed world and in particular the United States has a romantic attachment to a belief in it's own importance.

But we can and should make our own nation more humane and livable, and reducing waste can have a real effect on this. Many folks here have discussed the methods, including more walkable and humanely scaled cities, more fresh and healthy locally grown food, less wasteful buildings.

One thing communities could do is to incentivize the use of abandoned buildings in cities to humanely enhance local use. We could put many of these buildings back into service as community centers, local craft and shopping areas, and places for performance and arts activities close to the people they serve, allowing for activities near enough to where people work and live to reduce driving distances. This would not only be cleaner and less energy consumptive, it would reduce unwanted congestion and traffic problems. It would have no real effect on world energy or carbon issues, but hopefully a very positive effect on local lifestyle.

Another issue that must be addressed at the community level is water. Changes in zoning and building law to allow for use of grey water recycling and rain water capture can have real local effects locally.
http://www.greywater.com/

Do community compost piles make sense? If we believe that locally grown food is safer and provides better nutrition, we could use local grey water and compost to keep the amount of chemical imput low or perhaps none at all. These are things that may work best not when organized at household scale but at neighborhood or community scale. Again the goal is not to save the world, but simply to make your own community more livable and humane.

If we accept locally grown food as a good idea, we simply must address the issue of seed. A huge silent crisis is the destruction of biological food source diversity. If the hobbyist gardener can do ANYTHING meaningful right now, it is to save heirloom seed.
http://www.seedsavers.org/
At this time, there is no shortage of food in the developed nations and to try to compete with the commercial agribusinesses on price is hopeless. The needed crusade is to salvage seed variety, this is among the most important things the small gardener can do for the future. When the day comes that food may become short in supply or high in price, the seed sources will be ready and available.

Seed variety, water conservation, local arts and activities...these will make the community a more human and humane place even if they have little or no effect on mitigating peak oil...and have the side benefit of reducing or holding down energy consumption and carbon release as well.

Of course, this is not new...one thinks of Mike and Judy Corbett's "Village Homes" development in Davis CA, built in the 1970's as a low consumption but beautiful and human scale small community
http://www.villagehomesdavis.org/

Yellow Springs OH, the home of Antioch College and Community Solutions organization, intellectual home of our old friend Megan Quinn Bachman (and yes, I am greatly troubled by Ms. Bachman's vocal opposition to large scale renewable energy but I won't let that stop me from crediting the important intellectual work she does and the beuty and class of her home base, Yellow Springs OH,
http://www.yellowspringsohio.org/
http://www.communitysolution.org/index.html

I think we must divorce ourselves from the goal of "saving the world" or "mitigating peak oil", because those are not realistic goals given the changing world. The United States simply no longer has the impact on consumption of world resources we once did, and our impact is declining with each passing day.

Our goal must be to create humane and human environments in our nation for the sake of having decent and enjoyable places to live with good food, clean water, and enjoyable and rewarding artistic and recreational activities. In many ways, peak oil and climate change will have to be handled in other places in the world, if they can be handled at all. All the numbers indicate that we cannot hope to conserve our way out of this problem unless we are willing to consign billions of people to horrific suffering. All we can hope to do is provide decent living communities at the local level, and allow the technicians to do their work. If we value anything like the world we live in, we must pray they succeed. If we disavow and renounce the world we have known for our whole lives, we can simply let the future develop as it will and refuse to support any alternatives. But either way, the bigger trends and issues are out of the hands of the Americans...we can only attempt to look out for our communities and make them as civilized as possible and let things fall where they may.

RC

The Transition Town model seems to me a very good way at the moment. See what you can do in a very short time: http://transitionculture.org/2009/12/04/what-it-looks-like-when-a-local-...

It's funny that so many people mentioned "transition towns" and so few people mentioned transit. But 2/3 of our oil is used in transportation. Here are some zero-budget (as in "free") things that communities could do:

1. Fix the pro-auto laws to promote walking, biking, and transit instead. This doesn't cost anything. If we slowly moved our motor vehicle laws closer to those of the UK or other countries that don't cater to single-occupant commutes, we would be weaning our transportation system off of oil at the same time. Require pedestrian signals to give pedestrians higher priority. Make sure all laws/ordinances use the current "stop and remain stop" wording for crosswalks. Change all of the passing laws to require a minimum 3' passing distance (5' for trucks) from a cyclist like some states have done. Make it a misdemeanor to drive in bike lanes. Require insurance companies to pay into hazard funds for larger vehicles. Increase the fines and penalties when a vulnerable road user is injured. Explicitly allow cyclists to treat any signal that doesn't explicitly detect cyclists as a stop sign. Give buses priority at signs and signals. Increase fines for traffic violations. etc.

2. Change federal gas tax sharing laws WRT toll roads, then turn more roads into toll roads. Just take an existing interstate, bid it out as a toll-road, and hand over operation/maintenance to the toll operator. This would save the state money, though it might slightly deter lower utility trips. The gas tax bit is because any state that does this loses a share of federal gas tax revenue when they do it. They shouldn't.

3. Don't require so much parking. Most zoning ordinances require enough off-street parking to ensure that motorists won't park in adjacent residential areas. Often, the developers don't want so much parking, and can make a case that it won't be needed, but the zoning ordinance requires it anyway.

4. Tax parking lots at the rate of their adjacent developed land. In MI at least, parking lots are taxed at their developed value. In the case of a parking lot, that's the value of the land plus the cost of the asphalt. The parking lot may be next to a multi-million dollar building, but the parking lot is assessed at the land plus pavement. If we assessed that valuable land at its alternative use, developers would be less inclined to build expansive parking lots, and would be encouraged to put in denser development, transit stops, and bike parking instead.

5. Require the provision of transit accommodations and bike parking in new developments.

6. Ban the use of cellphones by the driver of a moving vehicle and the sale or use of any device that visually distracts the driver while the vehicle is in motion. I would include visual GPS navigation units in this ban. This seems small, but it improves driving safety, improves safety for other road users, and slightly discourages solo driving.

7. Require planning organizations to demonstrate current need for expanded roadways before they can plan for expansion. Now they use projections to determine future need, and plan and often build before there is congestion. This is a key transportation planning support for sprawl development.

8. Change annexation laws to allow cities to annex significant developments within a mile of their borders. Now development often happens just outside cities, in townships where taxes are lower. Allowing cities to immediately annex any such developments would discourage sprawl based on property taxes.

9. Require all land/transportation planning organizations to have representation by population, not by jurisdiction. Right now, in many places, these organizations have representation on their decision-making boards by jurisdiction. So each jurisdiction gets one vote, even if one of the jurisdictions has 90% of the population. That tends to allow small jurisdictions, usually rural/suburban townships, to control the organization and direct funding to their areas, at the expense of the population center.

10. Allow private maintenance agreements of public roads. Many areas are facing cut-backs in road maintenance from their road commission or municipality. Right now, for legal and union reasons, most places just have to deal with reduced maintenance. But there's no reason people who can afford it couldn't pay someone to do a better maintenance job. It would just require that the government extend their liability protection to the company doing the maintenance. If the government unit set the standards for the road work, and the company demonstrates that they meet them, the local residents should be allowed to pay for better service. This simultaneously reduces funding problems, taxes willing residents more, improves road safety, and discourages sprawl.

Everybody garden like mad. It all helps. Check out chickens and if they aren't legal, work on that.

For an example of a thriving local exchange system, check out the Fourth Corner Exchange: fourthcornerexchange.com

Support local transportation networks. Municipalities are having to cut back bus service. They need to hear that the buses are important, and voters are willing to let some roads be returned to gravel instead giving up buses on the arterials.

Support local small producers: farmers and food processors. They are just hangng on by their fingernails and yes, they need customers to give up that Chinese take out and boxed pizzas so that real food fits in the budget.

Certainly many fine ideas here - but I suspect we need to think more basic. Speaking with friends living in Ireland where they are having extremely unusual weather - very cold with snow and ice - rarely seen in Ireland and not for such long periods of time. While things have slowed down - they are still getting by because for many in Ireland old ways still survive. My friends gas line froze hence no heat but the majority of homes have fireplaces or stoves. His wood pile also froze making it almost impossible to pry wood but he can burn peat to keep warm. Homes are much smaller too so a good peat fire can warm most of the house.

Most American homes do not have fireplaces or wood burning stoves. Most people live in apartments - multiple dwelling buildings. It seems to me that very basic needs - such as the ability to keep your home warm in the event of power or fuel disruptions is a priority. Perhaps retrofitting and financial aid to assist in such or even changes in building codes to require an alternative heating system would be an important step in preparing for the future.

Barter and chickens are helpful too - but - when the power shuts off and it is freezing outside - one needs heat.

Incidentally - he told me that Irish farmers - expecting typical Irish weather - have a potato crop in the ground now - which has frozen. Thousands of tons of potatoes and other root crops grown at this time of year have been destroyed. A good foretaste of what climate change may bring to us in the future.

Please elaborate on the comment "Another issue that has been mentioned at The Oil Drum is the need for more attention to the population issue . . ."

What exactly are you advocating here?