March 7th, 2010 by admin

Are you troubled by what you learned about our nation’s food system from Food, Inc., King Corn, The Future of Food, or The Omnivore’s Dilemma, and wonder what you can do about it?  Concerned about the dependence of our industrialized agricultural system on fossil fuels for fertilizers, pesticides, farm machinery, food processing, storage and transport in the face of climate change and fossil fuel depletion?

Transition Newburyport is seeking individuals interested in working together to create a vision and a pathway to the food system of the future for our community, to tackle the question of how we can move toward a more sustainable, equitable, and resilient food system that will not only make us more self-reliant but will also serve to strengthen our local economy.

Our local food system includes all the growers, producers, processors, distributors, retailers, restaurants, school food programs, food pantries and every food consumer — in other words, everyone. What is more basic and central to our everyday lives than food?

We’ll be exploring questions such as: Where does our food come from? Could the Newburyport area feed itself? If not, why not, and what can we do to stimulate local food production? Does everyone who wants to grow food in our community have access to the land to do it?

If you are interested, please email us at transition@transitionnewburyport.org. We’ll be scheduling a get together in February to begin discussing these questions. The meeting will, of course, involve good local food as well as good company.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Following the financial panic that gripped the US earlier this year, a grassroots group Move Your Money formed to encourage people to move their money out of “too big to fail” banks and into smaller, community-oriented financial institutions. Community banks generally avoided the reckless investments and schemes that helped cause the financial crisis.

Their website allows you to search your zip code for community banks that have IRABank ratings of B or better. We are fortunate to have five of these banks in Newburyport:

Eastern Bank
Institution for Savings
Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank
First National Bank of Ipswich
Provident Bank

Visit the Move Your Money website for more information.

Banking, savings

March 7th, 2010 by admin

After seeing the documentary Garbage Warrior sponsored by Transition Newubryport and The Long Way Home, Heidi Spinella and her husband decided to learn more.  Here’s her report:

We’re planning on building a home in harmony with nature, so as part of our research we visited Michael Reynold’s Earthships in Taos, New Mexico in November. We were delighted to experience living in a home built primarily from recycled materials that heats and cools itself, generates its own electricity from the sun and/or wind, catches rain and snow melt for drinking water and household use, treats its own sewage and then uses it to grow food indoors all year long.

Earthships maintain comfortable temperatures in any climate year round since they’re built about four feet into the earth which maintains a constant temperature of 58 degrees. Simply by letting in more sunlight or cooler air, home owners are able to regulate the temperature to their liking.
We checked into our earthship studio rental about 3:00 in the afternoon and were surprised by how warm, actually, hot we found it. The shades had not been drawn and we felt the full power of the sun immediately. We were able to bring the temperature down by opening the front door and a skylight for about 10 minutes, which funneled cool air throughout the home.

We then set about exploring the earthship. A large greenhouse runs the length of the house and opens into the interior which includes a living room and bedroom combo, a full kitchen with sink, refrigerator, propane stove and oven and a bathroom complete with toilet, sink and full shower/ tub. In addition there is a TV with VCR, stereo and wireless internet connection, all the comforts of home without the unwanted side effects of conventional living. A shelf full of books detailing all aspects of earthship construction caught my eye and I spent the next several hours lost in the world of earthships.

As the sun set, we made a lovely meal in the comfortable kitchen equipped with everything we needed. It was a treat to know we were drinking rainwater, captured naturally, filtered through the house and supplied by a separate faucet next to the kitchen sink.

As the evening wore on we were surprised by how cool it got inside. Since we keep our home about 62 degrees we weren’t uncomfortable, but did use the extra blankets supplied. We woke up at 5 am to a sky full of starlight.  Marveling at the vastness, we were about to go outside but upon opening the door were greeted by howling winds and 20 degree temperatures.  Grateful for our cozy earthship, we snuggled under the covers and went back to sleep.

Waking the next morning, we tentatively turned on the shower, half expecting a trickle of lukewarm water, but were delighted to find a more than ample supply of wonderfully hot water. After breakfast we tidied up our temporary home and prepared to leave with both pictures and inspiration of what our own earthship will one day be.

For more information, please visit Earthship Biotecture.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Three members of Transition Newburyport joined in the world-wide No Impact Week. The goal was to raise awareness of our own ‘footprint’ on the planet by reducing our energy, water and material consumption. The Daily News wrote an article about the experiment, and some of us wrote about our experiences on the Transition Massachusetts ning site.

Here is just one entry by Niall Robinson, who participated with his wife and two children:

“Perhaps the biggest learnings for us were around the ‘multiplication effect’ of changing our behaviors.

I must admit I too was not fazed by the trash perspective until I thought about what I purchased at work and ended up throwing away. My family already composts our kitchen scraps, buys local and reuses all we can so I was feeling comfortable about our trash footprint at home. But at work, our cafeteria is a ‘healthy’ walk away from my cubicle so I bring everything back to my desk. Usually a cardboard box and grease proof paper for my sandwich plus in the morning there is another container for my oatmeal or bagel. Now granted my work colleagues already think I’m “interesting” in that I bring home the cardboard containers (they are a great weed blocker in my garden) but I thought there was an opportunity to improve and also have a bit of fun.

Not to digress too much but I was recently put on to Amory Lovins’ (actually a friend had been pestering me for awhile to watch it and I finally did — http://www.rmi.org/sitepages/pid231.php ) series of lectures at Stanford University where he talks about getting multiple benefits from single expenditures. Though Amory was talking about building smarter buildings the same applies to almost everything you do i.e. maximize the number of benefits you get from what you do.

So I decided to bring in my own lunch and breakfast. The benefits were multiple:

1. I eliminated my trash by using reusable utensils etc.
2. I saved money by not buying expensive food at the cafeteria.
3. I controlled the food I ate.
4. I reduced my carbon footprint by sourcing my work meals locally.
5. I reduced our food waste at home (using up leftovers).
6. And I felt better!

And so, not to get too philosophical, I think a big takeaway is that we have to ‘think out of the box.’ We have to think creatively to solve these problems, and yes, the solutions should be imaginative and ‘better’ than what we know today. As William McDonough talks about, up-cycling is the way — not re-cycling or down-cycling.”

If you are interested in trying it out for yourself a new nationwide No Impact Week is being launched on November 15.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Sunday October 18th brought the first snow of the season but it didn’t deter 250 people from attending the Massachusetts Relocalization Conference in Boston, MA. The conference focused on developing vibrant local economies based on sustainable jobs and economic justice, including community-led initiatives in renewable energy, sustainable agriculture, community farms and gardens, local manufacturing, livable-walkable-bikeable streets and well-integrated public transportation, community-owned finance and local currencies, and more.

At the conference Transition Newburyport members Conrad Willeman and Elizabeth Marcus served as panelists in the breakout session focused on the Transition Towns movement, led by Massachusetts’ own Tina Clark, one of 23 US Transition Town Trainers. TN member David de Smit was a panelists for the Building Local, Sustainable & Just Food Systems session.

Keynote speakers were Francis Moore Lappe, author of Diet for a Small Planet, Mel King, Massachusetts activist and former state representative, and Bill McKibben, environmental activist, writer and founder of 350.org

It was a great opportunity for networking with other organizations working toward a more local, sustainable future. Links to some of the many groups represented:

Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility
The Lowell Center for Sustainable Production at U Mass Lowell
Organic Agriculture Program at Bristol Community College
Mass Local Food
Sustainable Business Network-Boston
Common Good Bank

March 7th, 2010 by admin

On Wednesday, October 21 Transition Newburyport members Ben Twombley and Conrad Willeman participated in a public symposium, part of the Difficult Dialogues programs held at Clark U. since 2006. This semester’s theme, “Old Forms Give Way: Visioning the New” hosted a presentation on the Transition movement. To begin, Transition Towns Trainer Tina Clarke presented an overview of the Transition model, then representatives of Transition initiatives from around New England related some of their experiences and finally everyone present (about 75, including many Clark U. students) participated in guided dialogues about how to work toward healthier communities.

The day after the presentation an energized Clark U. student formed a Clark University Interest Group on the Transition Massachusetts ning site. Not only for Clark U. students, the group has attracted several Central MA residents interested in Transition.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

The Newburyport High School Environment Club, Green Artists League, First Parish Church of Newbury and Transition Newburyport partnered to observe the International Day of Climate Action. They created a banner that will be on display at the high school and crafted healing blankets for mountaintop removal sites in West Virginia. At 3:50 PM the church bells tolled 350 times echoed by students responding with improvised percussive instruments.

A Daily News article publicized the event and photos of the event are featured on the Transition US website.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Connecting with Local Groups
Building Community

On August 5 we met with members of The Greater Newburyport Local Food Network to explore common interests in a wide-ranging discussion of the future of food in the Newburyport area. If you’d like to know more, see the meeting minutes on the Transition Newburyport Ning Site

We are working collaboratively with the The First Parish Church, The Newburyport Farmers Market, the Spencer-Peirce LIttle Farm, Pennies for Porverty:2 Cents 4 Change and the Green Artists League on several upcoming events.

The goal of the transition movement is to promote resilience and self-reliance in our community. This typically involves the formation of self-selected working groups focusing on issues like: energy, transportation, housing, education, the heart and soul of change. If you are involved in a group interested in these issues or would like to form one, we would like to hear from you.

March 7th, 2010 by admin

Permaculture Demonstration Plot
A Living Experiment

We continue to watch and learn from our Permaculture Plot at the New Eden Community Garden. We’ve harvested strawberries, beans, turnips, tomatoes, lamb’s quarters, lettuce, kale, basil and mint for eating as well as comfrey and calendula to make salves in the fall.
Perma plot 3 width
Check out the New Eden Community Garden website blog and schedule of food preservation workshops offerings.

Charlotte Dion, our advisor and the organizer of the North Shore Permaculture Meetup, is co-hosting a 2-day Permaculture Workshop September 12 & 13 in Cambridge. The workshop will focus on providing individuals with practical tools for creating positive social change, inner-city gardening techniques, indoor and apartment gardening, making fermented foods, whole foods, Living Machines and natural wastewater treatment, biogas generators, ecological niche market and value added business ideas, passive integrated water systems, rain gardens that alleviate flooding while addressing sewage treatment plant overflows and clean water, living roofs, rooftop gardens and regional energy systems.For more details visit Urban Permaculture Workshop with Andrew Faust .

June '09

community, gardening, permaculture