Building Green Communities IV: Local Self Reliance Thank You Plan It Green is three years old. We would like to thank all of you who have supported our efforts, participated at our events and contributed to building a greener community. We have accomplished a great deal in improving the opportunities for professionals and businesses to network and develop a green economy over the last three years including: •    Gained tax-exempt status as a 501(c)(3), non-profit, educational organization, •    Organized three conferences in our Building Green Community Conference series, •    Organized and hosted the 2009 Green Business Luncheon series, •    Worked with Redwood Coast Energy Authority in developing a Green Building Program, •    Helped organize the last three Humboldt Solar Neighbors Tours, •    Assisted the County and College of the Redwoods in planning a green jobs program, •    Hosted a wide variety of webinars and facilitated educational events, •    Created a website, put out a monthly newsletter, and provided content for local media. Local Self Reliance What is local self reliance? How would it contribute to building green communities? What are the costs and benefits of becoming locally self reliant? Is this something worth pursuing and is it even possible?  The next annual Plan It Green Building Green Communities Conference scheduled for April 3rd 2010 will tackle this issue. The conference will provide a forum at which interested businesses and community members can learn about this emerging national movement and take back some control of their future. The basic idea behind local self reliance is to provide as many essential goods and services from local and regional sources as possible. This keeps our money re-circulating in the local economy and puts decisions about human and natural resources back in the hands of the local community. The good example of this is energy. Most of the money you spend on electricity leaves the county. If you buy electricity from a locally-owned power provider that is generating electricity from a wood-fired power plant or photovoltaic array your money stays here. The power company is buying the wood from local sources, employing local people to run the plant, and has a stake in keeping their environment and workers happy and healthy.  In addition, the local workers and suppliers are spending their paychecks locally further strengthening our economy. There are many more opportunities for plugging the leaks in our economy through import substitution. There are other benefits to becoming locally self reliant here on the Redwood Coast. We are often cut off from the outside by natural disasters such as floods and earthquakes making essential goods and services harder to import. There is also mounting evidence that our collective greenhouse gas emissions have triggered a climatic shift that will change weather patterns and ocean levels around the planet which could further isolate us. This may be a good time to start planning for a changing planet. For our community to survive and prosper in these changing times, we need to focus on the things we can control. We can start by taking stock of what goods and services can be sourced from within our own region; we can build a network of local supply chains to move food and materials around; we can develop our renewable energy resources; we can reinvest our time and money back into our local economy and workers; and we can share the skills and knowledge needed to create the brighter future that we all envision. Plan It Green is working on the fourth installment in our Building Green Communities Conference series. This years’ event will be all about local self reliance. We will examine the benefits – to our community and the planet – of providing essential goods and services from local and renewable resources. Our focus will be on food, energy, and economic development. We will bring together the ingredients and invite you to come and help develop the recipes for building a robust and resilient, locally self reliant, green community. Friday afternoon April 2nd, we will host an “open space” forum. This is a facilitated process where the participants present their ideas about specific topics relating to the overall theme of local self reliance. The group works to develops strategies to accomplish specific goals. We hope to come away with a series of actionable plans for creating a more self reliant community. This will be the working part of the conference. Please contact us if you wish to participate. We will kick-off the conference Saturday morning with our beloved Farmer’s Market. The day will progress with a series of hands-on workshops about topics ranging from backyard gardening and food preservation to green jobs and local economic development. There will also be a poster presentation room with passive displays and good strong coffee (the stimulus package). The tradeshow-expo will run from 9 am to 5 pm giving you plenty of time to talk with experts and look over the goods and services being offered locally. There will also be music, electric vehicles, and a Kid’s Zone. The day will end with a keynote address from Tim LaSalle, the Executive Director of the Rodale Institute. Tim has been advising President Obama on the benefits of organic agricultural in reducing green house gas emissions. The entire event is free and open to the public.  Volunteer We will need your help in creating this event. Plan It Green is expanding and getting prepared to take on a more active role in building green community. In order to effectively accomplish our mission we need volunteers/interns for a wide variety of jobs including; Media Contact/Publicist, Conference Coordination, Food Coordinator, Sponsorship Drive, Expo/Tradeshow Coordination, and much more. Job Descriptions will be posted at http://www.humboldtplanitgreen.com/ soon.  Hours and level of commitment are flexible. Please email ssalzman@humboldtplanitgreen.org with inquiries.