What's the problem?

Looking at Facebook this morning, I just read the the African Black Rhino has been declared officially extinct, which makes me very sad. A friend commented, "take a ticket, our turn is coming," or something to that effect.

I thought about it for awhile and a thought that has been floating around for a long time in my mind crystallized, so I thought I'd share it: What is the problem here?  From what I've been able to tell, most of the native cultures were not headed toward over exploitation of resources, and self annihilation, (it may have happened locally, but at least not on a global scale), so the problem is the culture that we have developed.  Cultures can change, so we CAN change our culture, and we MUST change it, since everything and everyone that we care about depends on it.  Please change, mindfully.

YCORE and its first Energy Raiser

YCORE is reducing the cost of installing renewables, including solar hot water, solar electric (photovoltaics) and solar hot air by virtually eliminating the cost of installation.  The way that we do this is by using the old time barnraising, pay-it forward model, where neighbors come together to help each other get it done! So if you help install three other systems, you learn all about how the systems work and then you become eligible to hold an Energy Raiser at your place.  If you are just learning about the different types of solar setups, don't worry, within the organization we have experienced people - some of whom do this for a living.

I first heard of this concept via Seacoast Area Renewable Energy Initiative
(SEAREI), an organization that was started by a few of the people with whom I had done Transition Town Training in Portland, Maine, the previous year.  Instead of trying to start a Transition Town in Portsmouth, where they live, they figured that the necessary projects were already happening to help create a resilient, self-reliant community, but saw a need for the type of organization which they went on to create.  SEAREI was originally modeled on Plymouth Area Renewable Energy Initiative (PAREI).  I've long been interested in getting solar hot water installed at my place, but the cost was a deterrent, so SEAREI seemed very attractive. Initially, I joined SEAREI and participated in a couple of energy raisers but in that same time period, I met Steve Thomas, and he and I started meeting with the idea of getting a similar organization started here in Southern Maine.  We held the first meeting in late Fall of 2010, and here we are - our first Energy raiser held this past Saturday, with the installation completed on 1:00 on Monday, with the panels warming up the large 116 gal storage tank.  By Tuesday at 11:00 the tank was over 130 degrees!

Later this Summer we plan to do a couple of installations of solar hot air panels, and another solar hot water installation - this time evacuated tube (the first one used flat plate collectors).

Staging

First panel on its way up.

Introductory Post

As a society, we are facing some serious challenges related to our overuse of resources, which can probably be traced back to the number of people that currently exist on the planet – 6 Billion and counting – more than at any other time in the history of the planet.  The Transition Town Movement (more on that in a later post) is an effort that allows communities to become self-empowered to meet the challenges we all face with respect to energy and environment.  Although we here in York County, in Southern Maine don’t currently have a formal Transition Town Project there is a lot going on here with respect to building our local resilience and self reliance as a   community.  This blog is intended to function as a virtual Transition Town  for Arundel and the Kennebunks until such time as we can form an actual one  – perhaps by some other name.
I intend to write about the local  resilience and local self reliance activities in which I am involved – and hopefully this blog will lead me to become involved in others of which I am currently unaware.   I see this blog as fostering a web of connections between community members which hopefully, will foster a more tight-nit community and help to develop a largely self reliant local economy which can sustain the people who live here.