Stunned Silent

This past weekend I had the opportunity to attend Bioneers. Which is a nation wide conference that stems from California. There are satelite conferences that gather all over the US and are fed the morning lecture through internet links, after which they break into there own workshops and such.

"Bioneers is a nonprofit organization that promotes practical environmental solutions and innovative social strategies for restoring the Earth and communities. BIONEERS OFFERS PRAGMATIC SOLUTIONS THAT HONOR THE LIVING WEB of the natural world as the most fertile source of inspiration and models. Everyone and everything around you shares this web of life." (Source: Bioneers.org)

And yes, as some of you are guessing, there are a fair amount of "crazies" at these conferences. What you may not know is that these "crazies", while they may or may not be Christians and may or may not believe that George Bush is the worst thing that ever happened to our politics, they have a passion and concern for this earth unlike anything I have ever seen in Christian circles.

On Friday night I heard Mary Wood (Founding Director of the U of O Environmental and Natural Resources Law Program) explain how we can, and should, treat the environment like a financial Trust and how legally there is validity in using Trust laws when arguing conservation. It was very stilling and made me wonder if I was taking any responcibility for what is being done to the land that I live in.

Saturday was even better. Joseph McCormick is a nationally recognized player in the goal of getting our hyper polarized parties back to the same tables. He has a goal of the "people" organizing and drafting a document that 80%+ of the american people can agree on and then slamming it down on the desks of the politicians and making them listen. That is over simplified and dramatized, but he really effected me and I am still processing what I heard from him.

There is more but I think I'll stop there. In short, you should attend Bioneers if you ever get a chance. And if the closest city for you to attend is Eugene. I promise that Brielle and I will make some room for you in our Airstream. Pictures to come. No promised about Jackie though.



P.S. For those of you that asked "Yes, the picture from my last post was from a website that sells rubber snakes. Snakes that they stuggested could be used to practice religious snake handling. As depicted in the picture."

P.P.S. No one asked.

Come on preacher man, shoot me with your poison arrow. . .

School update:

best overheard comment of the week: "ok, here is what you do: meet as many people in the class as you can, then figure out which ones are the smart ones. . ."

best new stat: LCC is the only school in the country that has an Energy Management program (there are approx. 6 that have Alt. Energy Technician programs)

best new fact: the earth is going to hell in a hand basket



So, I have survived two weeks of classes along with working whenever I can get the hours in. Last week that amounted to almost 25 hours. Not bad since I do say so myself.

I am currently enrolled in three classes: Into to Spreadsheets and Databases, Blueprint Reading, and Energy 101. Spreadsheets is exactly what you would expect with a little bit of personal agendas sprinkled on top (i.e. for some reason anything that appears unusual at first glance in Excel has something to do with Bill Gates and the price of tea in China).

Blueprint reading is taught by a very interest character that runs his own contracting/design business. He built and lives in an intentional community just north of town and runs a crew of five. This community has 10 houses on it that roughly face each other and share six acres of common land on the west end of the property. They have a few rules (i.e. no power lawn tools, no renters only owners, etc.) and were sold as they were built. Each house was constructed with as many natural materials as possible (so no vinyl or fiberglass shingles) and they all look very cool. I’ll try to get some pictures up here soon and explain a little more about it.

Energy 101 is about what I expected and a little more. We began by talking a little about how energy is produced today and who uses it. Then went on to talk about oil and how many people believe that we have reached “peak oil,” which means that human beings are currently taking oil out of the ground at the highest rate that will ever be possible. This spells trouble, assuming it is true, since our consumption (as well as foreign consumption) continues to increase. This can only mean that prices will begin to increase soon and never go back down. Yeah, don’t want to go into that now, but I imagine I will in the future. The amount of George Bush jokes is a little annoying. I wish we could talk a little more facts instead of assuming that everyone in the class despises him and “knows that the country would be better off without him”. I have written to the Oregon GOP to ask for more information about the energy plan and their disbelief in Global Warming, among other things, but have not heard anything back as of yet. I’ll keep you up to date.



Tallyhoe.