February 6 & 7: #189: Menu for the Future - Bringing Farmers to the Table

What happens if you create 25 small groups to discuss food values and issues, and include a local farmer or food producer in each one? Innovative organizers Judy Alexander, Dick Bergeron and Peter Bates facilitated the “Menu for the Future” groups to support local farmers and educate eaters. Results? Eaters changed their food choices, and the market for local food products expanded. Winners all around! http://www.nwei.org

February 13 & 14: #185 Claiming the Commons — Food for All on Haultain Boulevard

Rainey Hopewell's crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular veggies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked veggies to passers-by.

February 20 & 21: #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.

February 27 & 28: #121 Helping Local Food Businesses Thrive

Wendy Siporen coordinates The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy (THRIVE), which helps small locally-Peak Moment Conversations 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 cooking a meal made from all-local products from the growers market. Yum!

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

January 2 & 3: #170: Preparing for Disasters & Hard Times

In this animated dialogue, natural resource analyst Sean Brodrick provides a sharp-eyed perspective on what may be coming in this precarious economy and how to prepare for it. The author of The Ultimate Suburban Survivalist Guide, Sean is hip to peak oil and other resource declines as well as the Katrina hurricane lesson - don’t rely on government to save you during disasters. Urging us to prepare for hard times while we’re in good times, he covers smart money moves, food and water storage, basic preparations in case you have to evacuate, and creating bonds with your neighbors to increase home security. More at: UltimateSuburbanSurvivalist.com and UncommonWisdomDaily.com

January 9 & 10: #181: Partners in Preparedness - Neighborhoods and Emergency Responders

The last thing “Dr. Doom” Bob Hamlin expected was citizens offering to help his county Emergency Management Department. But when Deborah Stinson from Port Townsend’s Local 20/20 came to Bob’s office after Hurricane Katrina, they formed a partnership. Citizens are organizing and educating neighborhoods to be more self-reliant in emergencies. And they’re at the table with emergency responders in planning for disasters. www.L2020.org/ep.

January 16 & 17: #166 The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

"The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty... We’ll face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity.” So opens Chris Martenson's much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he tidily sums up our economic problems: Too Much Debt. Chris discusses the implications if we continue the status quo, and ways to prepare. He believes that “if we manage the transition elegantly we can actually improve things.” http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

January 23 & 24: #194: Portland’s Neighborhood Tool Sharing Libraries

Need a tool for a few days? Don’t have it? Neighbor doesn’t have it? Borrow it from your neighborhood tool library! No tool library? Check out Portland, where several neighborhoods have started successful tool libraries just in the last few years. Organizers Tom Thompson, Karen Tarnow and Stephen Couche discuss how they got started, stories of community generosity, and the enthusiastic response of all who stop by. In these neighborhoods, there’s no reason not to grab the tools you need and do that project! More at www.neptl.org and www.septl.org.

January 30 & 31: #200 How the West Has Won

“Is the world a better place because you were born?” asks author Derrick Jensen. He contrasts sustainable indigenous cultures who enrich their habitat with the current “dominant culture destroying everything.” He explores how industrial civilization is inherently violent, turning people into objects and the earth into stuff. His books include A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, What We Leave Behind and Endgame. www.derrickjensen.org

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

December 5 & 6: #201 Local Investing Made Easy

We’re “keeping money flowing locally so we’re more prosperous as a community,” says James Frazier, co-founder of the Local Investment Opportunities Network (LION) in Port Townsend, Washington. LION is a clearinghouse between business owners like Matthew Day and potential investors like Kees Kolff. A business owner presents an investment opportunity to LION members. It’s all based on one-to-one personal relationships, so support can be more than monetary, says Kees — such as interest paid in locally-produced cheese and cider! http://www.L2020.org/LION

December 12 & 13: #202 Collapse of the Titans

Learn from the Soviets — personal relationships are the best currency, says Russian-born Dmitry Orlov, the author of Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. The American empire is following the USSR into collapse, he asserts, with financial collapse happening first, followed by commercial and then political collapse. Dmitry, an America resident for several decades, suggests lowering our needs and expectations and replacing money transactions with barter and exchanges. http://www.cluborlov.com

December 19 & 20: #203 Soccer Mom Prepares for the Unexpected

“I have a ball preserving food with my friends!” And at the same time Kathy Harrison is making sure her kids can eat if storms knock out power or roads. The author of Just in Case: How to Be Self Sufficient When the Unexpected Happens gives practical tips on storing food without getting overwhelmed. She looks at dehydrating, canning, and root cellaring; finding and preserving local food, and buying food at discount. For Kathy, preparedness is an empowering, community activity. justincasebook.wordpress.com

December 26 & 27: #204 Oil Puts the Squeeze on the Economy

This turbulent, troubled global economy is precisely what Chris Martenson predicted in early 2010, “When Exponential Meets Reality” (episode 166). He asserts that we can no longer look at the economy without factoring in the terminal decline of its master resource — oil. The author of The Crash Course: The Unsustainable Future of Our Economy, Energy and Environment believes that, as “the generation that gets to deal with hitting up to resource limits,” we first need a new cultural story to inspire appropriate action. www.chrismartenson.com

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

October 31 & November 1: #122 An Inside Look at an Emergency Survival Kit

If an emergency forced you to evacuate your home, would you be prepared? Matt 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

November 7 & 8: #186 Your Money, Your Life, Your Happiness

Published 20 years ago, Your Money or Your Life was written for these times, asserts co-author Vicki Robin. Following its nine steps has transformed our own lives and those of some of our Peak Moment guests. People examine their assumptions about money, decide what is "Enough," get out of debt, and free up life energy to invest in what matters most to them. Vicki discusses applying these same tools to relationships with our time, opportunities for creativity and exchange, building community, and her ten-mile food diet.

November 14 & 15: #191: The Vegetarian Myth

What we eat is destroying both our bodies and the planet, according to author Lierre Keith, a recovering twenty-year vegan. While she passionately opposes factory farming of animals, she maintains that humans require nutrient-dense animal foods for good health. A grain-based diet is the basis for degenerative diseases we take for granted (diabetes, cancer, heart disease) - diseases of civilization. Annual grain production is destroying topsoil and creating deserts on a planetary scale. Lierre urges the restoration of perennial polycultures for longterm sustainability. lierrekeith.com

November 21 & 22: #192: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises

“There are no real solutions, there are only responses.” So say the expert contributors in The Post Carbon Reader, pointing to society’s complex, interdependent systems squeezed by growing demand and declining resources. Co-editor Daniel Lerch tells us renewable energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels. Thus resilience — the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance while retaining its fundamental integrity — needs to replace sustainability as a guide to action. http://www.postcarbon.org/reader

November 28 & 29: #200 How the West Has Won

“Is the world a better place because you were born?” asks author Derrick Jensen. He contrasts sustainable indigenous cultures who enrich their habitat with the current “dominant culture destroying everything.” He explores how industrial civilization is inherently violent, turning people into objects and the earth into stuff. His books include A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, What We Leave Behind and Endgame. www.derrickjensen.org

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

October 3 & 4: #195: This Old House - Rethink, Reuse, Remodel

Turn a century-old Seattle house into an efficient, energy-producing home using repurposed materials. Owner-builder Jim Bristow’s creativity extends to reclaiming dead spaces, jacketing his house with exterior insulation, and modernizing the kitchen with sleek previously used cabinetry and low-power LED lights. But he’s not stopping there. Along with maintaining a prolific front yard vegie garden, this green-minded guy is working with neighbors and the city to construct a storm water drainage and traffic circle at the nearby street intersection.

October 10 & 11: #197: Portable House, Simple Life

Embarrassed by her middle class affluence after a visit to Guatemala, Dee Williams grabbed her hammer, built a tiny house on wheels, downsized to less than 400 possessions, and parked her house in a friend’s yard. Her living arrangement then blossomed into a multi-generational family / community. Dee shows us her warm and comfy 7×12 foot house, how she meets city codes, and some unusual ways this life has affected her. Her advice to wannabe tiny home builders: Take on the experiment. Just do it! http://portlandalternativedwellings.com

October 17 & 18: #198: How Many Community Gardens?

Having learned “How Much Food Can I Grow Around My House?” (Peak Moment 87), Judy Alexander kept right on going. As chair of the Local 2020 Food Resiliency Action Group in Port Townsend, WA, she helped initiate 25 community gardens in her county within four years. Sitting in her own neighborhood’s garden, she talks about the power of cooperative gardens compared with individual plots. There’s something for people of all ages and skills to do (even non-gardeners), while enjoying learning from one another, and building closer neighbors and a more secure community. http://www.L2020.org

October 24 & 25: #199: Peak Oil Blues — We’re All Bozos on this Bus

“My own reaction seemed so crazy to me,” says psychologist Kathy McMahon of her response to Peak Oil. Wondering if she was the only “wacko”, she started the Peak Oil Blues blog to explore her own and readers’ responses. As the “Peak Shrink,” Kathy formulated a delightfully tongue-in-cheek “Panglossian Disorder” — an unrealistic optimism about the future. She is about to publish “I Can’t Believe You Actually Think That!” A Couple’s Guide to Finding Common Ground about Peak Oil, Climate Catastrophe, and Economic Hard Times. http://peakoilblues.com, http://feistylife.com

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

Sept. 5 & 6: #193: Sharing Gardens — Giving and Receiving

More than a community garden, this sharing garden provides fresh produce for all who’ve contributed to it, with surplus going to the local food bank. Coordinators Chris Burns and Llyn Peabody note that with one large plot rather than separate plots, Alpine Sharing Garden enables more efficient food production — from watering to optimizing for pollinators. They share tips for getting started, garden planning, communicating with volunteers, garden practices like deep mulch, and especially the joy of giving without expecting a return. http://www.alpinegarden.blogspot.com

Sept. 12 & 13: #194: Portland’s Neighborhood Tool Sharing Libraries

Need a tool for a few days? Don’t have it? Neighbor doesn’t have it? Borrow it from your neighborhood tool library! No tool library? Check out Portland, where several neighborhoods have started successful tool libraries just in the last few years. Organizers Tom Thompson, Karen Tarnow and Stephen Couche discuss how they got started, stories of community generosity, and the enthusiastic response of all who stop by. In these neighborhoods, there’s no reason not to grab the tools you need and do that project!

More at www.neptl.org and www.septl.org

Sept. 19 & 20: #195: This Old House - Rethink, Reuse, Remodel

Turn a century-old Seattle house into an efficient, energy-producing home using repurposed materials. Owner-builder Jim Bristow’s creativity extends to reclaiming dead spaces, jacketing his house with exterior insulation, and modernizing the kitchen with sleek previously used cabinetry and low-power LED lights. But he’s not stopping there. Along with maintaining a prolific front yard vegie garden, this green-minded guy is working with neighbors and the city to construct a storm water drainage and traffic circle at the nearby street intersection.

Sept. 26 & 27: #196: Arrival of the Post-Petroleum Human

“Petroleum Man is dead. Infinite Growth Man is dead. Post Petroleum Human is alive,” announced Michael C. Ruppert on May 22, 2011. Members of this emerging “species” know they must live in balance with the Earth, while remembering the lessons of industrial civilization. The star and subject of the documentary film “Collapse”, Mike founded www.CollapseNet.com in 2010 to empower people to connect and relocalize. He’s the author of Crossing the Rubicon, and Confronting Collapse. Mike did a 2006 Peak Moment Conversation, “Pondering our Post-Petroleum Future.”

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

Peak Moment explores locally reliant living for challenging times. The Peak Moment Shows are available at the Potsdam Public Library for borrowing and/or interlibrary loan.

The second Local Living Festival takes place on September 24 & 25, 2011 from 9 am to 5 pm at the Cornell Cooperative Extension Learning Farm, 2043 Route 68, Canton, NY. The Festival is a grassroots celebration of all things local -- rural life skills, small-scale agriculture, and renewable energy -- in town, in the dorm, and in the countryside. Watch for special pre-Festival programming on WCKN the week of Sept. 19-23!

May 2 & 3: #189: Menu for the Future - Bringing Farmers to the Table

What happens if you create 25 small groups to discuss food values and issues, and include a local farmer or food producer in each one? Innovative organizers Judy Alexander, Dick Bergeron and Peter Bates facilitated the "Menu for the Future" groups to support local farmers and educate eaters. Results? Eaters changed their food choices, and the market for local food products expanded. Winners all around! http://www.nwei.org

May 9 & 10: #190: Reclaiming Childbirth

Why does industrial culture consider this natural event a medical problem? People in the radical birth movement want to broaden the conversation about options for families giving birth. Squat Birth Journal co-editors Jaydee Sperry, Meghan Guthrie, and Danny Scar want families to know they can choose birth processes in which they develop ongoing relationships with midwives and doulas. They also discuss medical costs, safety, health insurance, legal hurdles, and educational challenges. squatbirthjournal.blogspot.com

May 16 & 17: #191: The Vegetarian Myth

What we eat is destroying both our bodies and the planet, according to author Lierre Keith, a recovering twenty-year vegan. While she passionately opposes factory farming of animals, she maintains that humans require nutrient-dense animal foods for good health. A grain-based diet is the basis for degenerative diseases we take for granted (diabetes, cancer, heart disease) - diseases of civilization. Annual grain production is destroying topsoil and creating deserts on a planetary scale. Lierre urges the restoration of perennial polycultures for longterm sustainability. http://lierrekeith.com

May 23 & 24: #192: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crises

"There are no real solutions, there are only responses." So say the expert contributors in The Post Carbon Reader, pointing to society's complex, interdependent systems squeezed by growing demand and declining resources. Co-editor Daniel Lerch tells us renewable energy will never be able to replace fossil fuels. Thus resilience - the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance while retaining its fundamental integrity - needs to replace sustainability as a guide to action. http://www.postcarbon.org/reader

May 30 & 31: #155 Peak Oil - Adapting for Big Changes Ahead

With a long-time eye to declining energy resources, Bart Anderson envisions a very different society in five years. The former editor of Energy Bulletin.net offers advice for post-oil living: Understand the problem. Prepare psychologically for big shifts and the unexpected. Find your niche and get good at it. See what your great grandparents did as a model for living well within limits. "Live poor and learn to do it well" as Bart did as a graduate student. Things will be very different, he said, but we'll make it through. www.energybulletin.net

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

April 4 & 6: #185 Claiming the Commons — Food for All on Haultain Boulevard

Rainey Hopewell's crazy idea has ended up feeding a neighborhood and creating community. She and Margot Johnston planted vegetables in the parking strip in front of their house. They offer them free for the taking — to anyone, anytime — with messages chalked on the sidewalk noting when particular vegies are ready to pick. Neighboring children and adults are joining in to work on the garden, harvesting fun along with food, and even handing fresh-picked vegies to passers-by.

April 11 & 12: #186 Your Money, Your Life, Your Happiness

Published 20 years ago, Your Money or Your Life was written for these times, asserts co-author Vicki Robin. Following its nine steps has transformed our own lives and those of some of our Peak Moment guests. People examine their assumptions about money, decide what is "Enough," get out of debt, and free up life energy to invest in what matters most to them. Vicki discusses applying these same tools to relationships with our time, opportunities for creativity and exchange, building community, and her ten-mile food diet.

April 18 & 19: #187 How to Boil a Frog - Meet the Filmmaker

Filmmaker Jon Cooksey is one funny guy, even while presenting the most serious problems facing humanity. In this fast-paced conversation, he gallops all over the map with five big problems, five big solutions, and a playful and heartfelt approach. Wacky, sobering, full of animations, with Jon in dozens of personnas, "How to Boil a Frog" is a film to view and discuss with friends.

April 25 & 26: #188 Your Personal Baker — A Bakery CSA

Watch baker Jen Ownbey whip up a batch of zucchini bread while she talks with Janaia about doing what she loves. Every week, members of her bakery CSA (community supported agriculture) get a handmade, local, mostly organic, and even personalized box of breads and bakery desserts. Jen talks about getting started, selling wholesale and at growers markets, plus the joys, lessons, and challenges of running a solo business. www.8armsbakery.com

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

March 7 & 8: #121 Helping Local Food Businesses Thrive

Wendy Siporen coordinates The Rogue Initiative for a Vital Economy (THRIVE), which helps small locally-Peak Moment Conversations 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 cooking a meal made from all-local products from the growers market. Yum!

March 14 & 15: #122 An Inside Look at an Emergency Survival Kit

If an emergency forced you to evacuate your home, would you be prepared? Matt 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.

March 21 & 22: #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.

March 28 & 29: #124 Creating our Own Neighborhood — Bellingham Cohousing

Kathleen Nolan helped shaped the beginnings 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.

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.

February 7 & 8: #138 The Twilight of an Age

In his book, The Long Descent, John Michael Greer observes that our culture has two primary stories: “Infinite Progress” or “Catastrophe”. On the contrary, he sees history as cyclic: civilizations rise and fall. Like others, ours is exhausting its resource base. Cheap energy is over. Decline is here, but the descent will be a long one. It’s too late to maintain the status quo by swapping energy sources. How to deal with this predicament? He lays out practical ideas, possibilities, and potentials, including reconnecting with natural and human capacities pushed aside by industrial life.

http://www.thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com

February 14 & 15: #147 A Geodesic Greenhouse — Year-Round Gardening at 6000 Feet

In Colorado it's cold for much of the year, but inside this cozy dome greenhouse, the plants are growing happily. Take a grand tour with Buckhorn Gardens manager and permaculturist Breigh Peterson: the greenhouse structure with its interplay of light and water, warmth and air; curving raised beds of vegetables and flowers; fish tanks moderating the temperature; vertical trellises and shelves to use vertical space. Outdoors a huge garden of row crops and a young orchard are complemented by free-roaming chickens and ducks.

http://buckhorngardens.blogspot.com

February 21 & 22: #166 The Crash Course — Exponential Growth Meets Reality

"The next twenty years will be totally unlike the last twenty... We’ll face the greatest economic and physical challenges ever seen by our country, if not humanity.” So opens Chris Martenson's much-viewed online Crash Course illuminating the relationship between economy, energy and the environment. Starting with the power of exponential growth, he tidily sums up our economic problems: Too Much Debt. Chris discusses the implications if we continue the status quo, and ways to prepare. He believes that “if we manage the transition elegantly we can actually improve things.”

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

February 28 & March 1: #168: Four Acres and Independence – A Self-Sufficient Farmstead

Take a tour of Mark Cooper’s self-sufficient small farm in Rough and Ready. Over several years, he transformed a rundown house and hillsides covered with berry brambles into pasture and gardens where he produces and preserves most of his family’s food. Visit the Goose Grotto in a constructed pond, a heritage fruit tree orchard, oak logs producing shiitake mushrooms, and a cheap-and-easy container kitchen garden. All with the basic how-to’s for producing this abundance. Mark gives us a close up tour of the solar dehydrator he constructed from salvaged materials, along with his tips on food drying.

PEAK TV is sponsored locally by the Center for Excellence in Communication at Clarkson University and the Seymour Family of Potsdam.