'sustainability' videos 
Upcoming PBS show: "Design: E2" trailer
A trailer for an upcoming PBS program, "Design: E2" is a series that will explore "the most complex issues facing our environment: from green architecture to water culture to organic farming to recycled clothes - challenging us to live smarter, greener lives."
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage: an introduction
Located in northeast Missouri, Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community devoted to ecological sustainability. This video describes how members strive to lead sustainable and more eco-conscious lives in this off-the-grid community.
TEDTalks: Jeff Skoll (2007)
Jeff Skoll made his fortune as the first president of eBay. Now he's spending it at the movies. His company, Participant Productions, makes entertaining, issues-driven films that inspire real change -- Murderball, Syriana, An Inconvenient Truth ...
Peak Momnt #126 - School Garden Brings Learning to Life
Come along on a tour with team-teachers Glenda Berliner and Jeralyn Wilson, as they show us their elementary school garden bearing many fruits. It’s an important part of the curriculum: children make mason bee boxes, grow colonial medicinal plants, learn of other cultures, and put science to work. It builds community: parents work together, students form a bucket brigade to transport wood chips. It’s a site for celebrations like a pumpkin harvest or a play. Whether it’s the flower and vegetable beds, or the restful Zen garden, the garden is a favorite place to be, and to grow from.
Peak Moment TV #125 - An Engineer Examines a Town’s Energy Future
How much energy does a town consume? Brian Corzilius sleuthed that out for Willits, California, and got a big surprise: in this community of 13,000 people, nearly 25% of personal after-tax earnings (about $30 million annually) leaves town to pay for energy - gasoline, diesel, electricity and natural gas. His inventory grew into an energy independence report which identified opportunities for local energy sources to replace external inputs. His local “energy mix” considers solar, wind, hydro, biomass, wood gasifiers, co-generation, and sewage plant methane to create electricity. A model for any community, his energy report is online at www.willitseconomiclocalization.org.
Peak Moment TV #124 - Creating Our Own Neighborhood - Bellingham Cohousing
Kathleen Nolan was a co-creator (with 5 others) of Bellingham Cohousing, based on a neighborhood design of private homes and shared buildings, managed by residents in participatory decision making. Their 5.74 acre plot originally had one farmhouse, which they modified to become the shared community building with dining, kitchen, laundry, craft, office, guest, and other rooms. The individual townhouses make a small footprint, leaving open space for gardens and a natural wetland. She stresses the importance of agreeing on shared values, and how the social connections enhance and challenge personal growth. [www.bellcoho.com]
Peak Moment TV #123 - Cultivating a Suburban Foodshed
Landscape architect Owen Dell has a vision: transforming suburban neighborhoods into shared “foodsheds” with food-bearing and native plants, and even chickens. Neighbors can start by finding edible plants already growing in their yards, maybe remove fences, plant what works best in each location. Best of all, share the resulting food abundance with one another (”Hey, it’s lemon time. Come and get ‘em!”) and build the social network with shared food potlucks. Tour Owen’s own edible landscape yard, including a rooftop container garden complete with visiting cat. [www.owendell.com, www.mesaexchange.org]
Peak Moment TV #122 - An Inside Look at an Emergency Survival Kit
If an emergency forced you to evacuate your home, would you be prepared? Matthew Stein, author of When Technology Fails, shows what to pack in your 72-hour emergency survival kit — and why. Check out the first aid kits, sleeping bag and space blanket, LED flashlight, hand-crank disaster radio, portable stove and cook set, freeze-dried food, multi-tool, compass, water holder, and essential water treatment items; plus sewing, repair, and health items. The packing list is on his website, www.whentechfails.com.
Peak Moment TV #121 - Helping Local Food Businesses Thrive
Wendy Siporen coordinates The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy (THRIVE), which helps small locally-owned businesses not just to thrive, but be more sustainable as well. A “Food Connection” directory enables local businesses to buy from one another. Their “Rogue Flavor” campaign helps consumers find locally produced food at farm stands, restaurants, and markets. Tasty ideas from the one-week “Eat Local Challenge”: cooking classes, films, and a meal cooked from all-local products from the growers market. Yum! [www.thriveoregon.org, www.rogueflavor.org]
Peak Moment TV #120 - Go-Getter Gets Governments Going on Sustainability
Energetic Kris Holstrom is the first Sustainability Coordinator for Telluride and a smart Colorado county. The action plan she developed encompasses energy efficiency and renewables, green building, food and water security, economy, and recycling/resource recovery. She enlightens us about green codes, incentives and rebates, a household energy audit program, public education speakers and conferences, even farm tours for schoolkids. For Kris, what’s at the heart of sustainability is building relationships within the community and with the land, wherever we live.
Peak Moment TV #119 - Little House on a Small Planet
Builder and author Shay Salomon finds that the happiest home builders are often the ones with the smallest houses. They’re less costly to build and maintain, more likely to be finished, use fewer resources and help people simplify their lives. One version of “smaller” is to share a house, which can ease our loneliness while building our social network. Co-founder of the Small House Society, Shay notes that scaling down can enable a ratcheting up of our whole lifestyle, as we revalue quality over quantity. Declaring “Enough”, she says, is the most ecological thing one can do. [www.littlehouseonasmallplanet.com]
Peak Moment TV #118 - Protecting Your Money in a Declining Economy
Are we in the perfect financial storm? Marc Cuniberti, a market analyst and host of “Money Matters” on our local community radio station KVMR, thinks so. Marc talks about the cause of inflation (rising prices are just a symptom) and how you can stop it with a candy bar! He discusses strategies to protect and even make money in a weakening economy. Like getting out of debt, and investing in physical things you really need. In the stock market, he suggests dividend paying stocks, stressing the importance of using interest compounding in your favor: $100 saved today with an 8% return will grow to $200 in 9 years. [www.kvmr.org/programs/moneymatters]
Peak Moment TV #127 - Middle Class Lifeboat - Careers and Life Choices for Staying Afloat
Paul and Sarah Edwards are authors of a timely book “Middle-Class Lifeboat: Careers and Life Choices for Navigating a Changing Economy.” In a world of decreasing resources, they ask, how do we financially support ourselves while moving towards sustainable lives? Emphasizing independent income sources, they consider dozens of possible careers from basic services to local-scale technologies. Life choices include lowering costs through simplifying, getting out of debt, and demonetizing (e.g., bartering). Or one can consider an “off-the-map” lifestyle like living abroad, off-grid, or an intentional community. This downturn is not just a cycle, they emphasize: it heralds a sea change. [www.middleclasslifeboat.com]
Peak Moment TV #117 - The Bicycling Horticulturalist
Ryan Nassichuk builds food gardens for people. His bicycle and trailer are the sole transport for himself, tools, and materials - including soil and plants! This horticulturist also builds container gardens and composters. Tour a backyard garden in which a 6-week class of students filled raised beds with soil, compost and fertilizer, did succession planting, and built a low-cost composter. Recently Ryan has added free seed-sharing to his wisdom-sharing, while continuing to propagate food gardens throughout Vancouver. This man has a low ecological footprint — or should we say bike tire tread? [www.ryansgarden.com]
Peak Moment TV #116 - Looking at The Big Moral Question
“What’s going to happen to our kids?” When Bruce Anderson read “The Limits to Growth’ in the 1970s, he learned that nothing in nature grows forever — including the human economy. As we rapidly use everything up, we’re now reaching those limits and entering a crisis of adaptation. Bruce raises the moral, ethical and emotional aspects of a challenge humans have never faced before. He feels we’re up against limitations of thought, of the heart, almost at a mythic level. He asks: Can we mature from our childish consumerist narcissism to compassionate adulthood? Will our ingrained caring for our children propel us to take action so they can have a future? While facing what’s before us, how can we keep our spirit and heart alive, and not succumb to denial or despair? [www.forthefuture.org]
Peak Moment TV #115 - Calm Before the Storm
Richard Heinberg, author of “Peak Everything”, reviews the accelerating events since mid-2007, including the credit crunch and fossil fuel price volatility, noting that we’ve missed most of the best opportunities to manage collapse. He asks, “how far down the staircase of complexity will our global civilization have to go until we’re sustainable?” His answer: when managed properly, with deliberate simplification, not as far as we might otherwise. In addition to long term efforts to relocalize our economies, he advocates developing community “resilience” to withstand short-term catastrophic events like food shortages or extreme weather. Noting that healthy fear can move us into action, he encourages an attitude of clarity, concern and informed action in this “calm before the storm” that he feels is soon coming to an end. [www.richardheinberg.com]. An English language transcript of this conversation is here. That evening we videotaped Richard’s presentation on Peak Everything, titled “Kiss Your Gas Goodbye.” DVDs are available here. Read Janaia’s reflections on her conversation with Richard at Janaia’s Journal.
Peak Moment TV #114 - “Team Fate” - Under the Hood of a Next-Gen Plug-in Hybrid
Take a tour of a plug-in electric hybrid modification of a 1996 Mercury Sable, with UC Davis graduate students Patrick Kaufman and Bryan Jungers (interviewed in episode 113). Under the hood you’ll see modifications and some interesting new components. Unlike commercial hybrids — primarily combustion engines with an electric-motor assist — theirs is primarily an electric vehicle with a small combustion engine to extend its range beyond the all-electric 60-70 miles. Batteries recharge in 6-8 hours with electricity costing about 75 cents per gallon of gas equivalent (2006 prices). Don’t miss Janaia’s first-time drive of an electric vehicle. [www.team-fate.net]
Peak Moment TV #113 - “Team Fate” - Designing the Next Generation Hybrid
Students at UC Davis Hybrid Vehicle Research Center have been creating plug-in hybrids for national competitions for some time. “Team Fate” members Bryan Jungers and Patrick Kaufman describe how they “gut” the drive train of a standard vehicle, replacing it with an electric motor, a bank of batteries, continuously variable transmission, and some smart electronics. The resulting vehicle runs on electricity, assisted by a much smaller flex-fuel internal combustion engine only when needed. Bryan and Patrick also enlighten us on topics ranging from battery technology to hydrogen fuel cells. (They work with Professor Andrew Frank, who was profiled in Episode 107.) [www.team-fate.net]
Peak Moment TV #129 - Meeting the Energy Challenge
Richard Heinberg, author of Powerdown, makes plain the dire situation we’re in as declining oil supplies fail to meet demand. He notes there are no easy “supply side” solutions (like substitute fuels): we must reduce demand, initially through conservation and efficiency. Julian Darley, president of Post Carbon Institute observes that while person action is important, individuals can only do so much. A deeper response must come at the municipal level — to change infrastructures on how we heat, transport, and power our society. Sharing, he notes, can bring enormous energy reductions almost immediately: after all, two people rather than one in a car cuts energy use per person in half. Bottom line: Americans love rising to a challenge. And this IS a challenge! [www.postcarbon.org]
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