Ready NW Eugene to share preparedness, resilience, permaculture resources at Bethel celebration May 31

Presenter: Preparedness can range from low to high effort and from short to long duration. Jan Spencer takes the long-term view and sees preparedness moving towards local sustainability. He’ll be part of the Ready NW Eugene booth at the ‘We Are Bethel‘ celebration May 31 at Petersen Barn. Here’s Jan Spencer.

Jan Spencer: A growing number of people are becoming interested in preparedness, resilience, and sustainability because social, economic, political, and environmental conditions are looking increasingly uncertain.

[00:00:35] I see preparedness as a wonderful portal for people who are concerned about disaster preparedness but don’t know so much about permaculture or believe that we’ve got big problems and we really need to be serious about trying to mitigate.

[00:00:52] And in my thinking, the causes of the fires and the floods and the more severe hurricanes, many of the circumstances driving refugees: It’s human-caused, and permaculture can be a big help. And what else is there to do, but to try to make where we live a better place to live?

[00:01:12] So the actions of just common sense: to be growing what food we can at home; making use of different kinds of forms of solar energy, active or passive. Of course, if you’re making electricity, it’s nice to have some batteries. And edible landscaping, catching rainwater.

[00:01:35] These are just commonsense actions people can take to improve their level of preparedness and resilience.

[00:01:44] The River Road / Santa Clara neighborhoods action plan has something to say about this issue: prioritize time and money, and neighborhood associations could step up for your gardens, permaculture trainings, block planning.

[00:02:03] Personally, I’m a very optimistic person, but I don’t see any easy way out of the condition that the humans created here on this planet, with the capitalism and the consumer culture, as we know it. No easy way out.

[00:02:22] So I’m on the board of my neighborhood association and it’s just been an awesome experience. The neighborhood organizations are the nursery of civic culture. And by civic culture, I mean where people take the time to participate in the life of where they live. Just could not be more important, knowing our neighbors and working together to make our neighborhoods better places to live, no matter what one’s particular thoughts are of politics and economics.

[00:02:56] Here in River Road and our next-door neighborhood Santa Clara, we worked together for years to create something of a guideline for how we want our neighborhoods to evolve into the future.

[00:03:12] So it addresses a lot of issues, of course, it’s traffic and development and it’s crime and it’s the environment, parks, transportation, all kinds of stuff.

[00:03:24] But Goal 18 has to do more with social community and by extension, permaculture types of topics as well. I’ll just read a few of these.

• Green infrastructure. What we are calling for in our neighborhoods and it’s kind of up to us to make this happen. but invest in infrastructure development that is resilient to and enhances food, water, and energy stability and preserves ecosystem functions.
• Promote home and neighborhood food production and storage through community education and outreach programs.
• Promote renewable resources and energy conservation.
• Educate and prepare for natural disasters.
• Plan for a transportation system that is future-oriented, environmentally responsible, and transitions to zero carbon.
• Encourage actions on residential, commercial, and public properties that enhance food and energy production, water storage, and conservation.
• Build community support and participation in small-scale resilience networks that help neighbors and businesses communicate, share resources, and prepare for emergencies.

[00:04:51] It’s up to the people in our neighborhood to bring these ideals into reality. So this is of course a challenge, but it’s just interesting that even into the realm of working with the city and a more mainstream kind of context that these same ideas show up right here.

And my interpretation of these ideas might not be the same as some people in my neighborhood, but this does create an absolute common ground for more discussion as we’re able to have those discussions and turn some of those discussions into action.

[00:05:36] And then building community, many of the neighborhood organizations in Eugene have community events and these are wonderful to go to and participate in as well because this brings people together. And this is part of the act of building civic culture, is being involved with your neighbors and it’s a lot of fun too.

[00:06:00] Another realm I am very fond of, to look towards for guidance, the wisdom of the world’s great spiritual traditions: the wisdom of how to behave; care for the natural world; modesty of lifestyle; service to the community; uplift of the spirit; accountability.

[00:06:23] I think we can’t really do a whole lot better than that. Faith communities could play an enormous part in the realm of resilience and sustainability, and some already do, but they could be key players.

[00:06:38] There are city programs like Neighborhood Watch, Map Your Neighborhood, Community Emergency Response Teams. These are all city programs in Eugene and many cities have similar programs too to teach people how to more look after their best interest where they live and to connect with their neighbors too.

[00:07:02] These are all very good programs, but they could go even further once you break the ice with Map Your Neighborhood, the people involved can make any types of plans they want. So these are important programs that can migrate towards a more ambitious set of outcomes than what they are presented by the city programs.

[00:07:30] Preparedness is a very useful point of departure. There’s no need for some tech breakthrough. The breakthrough we need is our own consciousness. How we do manage our own time and money is a huge issue. We have many allies and assets to work with.

[00:07:49] Moving towards sustainability will not be easy, but it’s a whole lot better than current trends. A paradigm shift and moving towards sustainability is the logical destination of preparedness. And positive human potential is our greatest renewable resource.

[00:08:10] Presenter: Visit with Jan Spencer and Ready NW Eugene at the ‘We Are Bethel’ celebration, May 31 at Petersen Barn. For site tours, see his website, SuburbanPermaculture.org.

This story produced by John Q for Whole Community News, on KEPW 97.3, Eugene’s PeaceWorks community radio.