On one hand, an unholy alliance of governments and big business promotes globalization and corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance.Communities are re-building human scale, ecological economies based on an economics of localization.

Economic globalization has led to a massive expansion in the scale and power of big business and banking. It has also worsened nearly every problem we face: fundamentalism and ethnic conflict; climate chaos and species extinction; financial instability and unemployment. There are personal costs too. For the majority of people, life is becoming increasingly stressful.

The September showing in Transition Staunton Augusta’s Local Motion Film Series, The Economics of Happiness lays out the problems yet provides not only inspiration, but practical solutions. Arguing that economic localization is a strategic solution multiplier that can solve our most serious problems, the film spells out the policy changes needed to enable local businesses to survive and prosper. We are introduced to myriad community initiatives doing just that, along with a raft of positive, engaging experts who speak to the issues.

This film challenges us to restore our faith in humanity, and to believe it’s possible to build a better world.

Local Motion Film Series September Screening

The Economics of Happiness

Tuesday, September 20, 7pm
The Mockingbird Restaurant, 123 W. Beverley, Staunton

Q & A after the showing with guest speakers:

• Meghan Wiliamson, Executive Director of the Staunton Creative Community Fund, offering loans, knowledge and community to help people start and grow small businesses and nonprofits in the central Shenandoah Valley of Virginia and beyond.
• Nathan Vergin, farmer and owner of run a raw milk herd share business in Fishersville, Silky Cow LLC. Homeschooled on a small farm in Minnesota, Nathan worked his way through high school at a nearby dairy by milking 500-600 sheep. Later, he moved to the Valley to apprentice with Joel Salatin of Polyface farm for 2 years.

Movie begins at 7pm. Doors open at 5:30pm for dinner. Free Admission or Pay-What-You-Will (recommended donation of $5/per person). Come as early as 5:30pm to enjoy a dinner in the Roots Music Hall, featuring menus highlighting the bounty of our local farms. Call 540.213.8777 for dinner reservations (encouraged). Co-sponsored with The Community Network.

Other questions call Lindsay Curren: 540.849.9061.

It pits the ambitions of large, multinational wine producers, in particular Robert Mondavi, against the small, single estate wineries who have traditionally boasted wines with individual character driven by their terroir.

Mondovino earned a rare competition slot in the Official Selection of the 2004 Cannes Film Festival, one of only four documentaries ever nominated for the Palme d’Or in the history of the festival.

The showing is the latest in the Local Motion Film Series, put on by Transition Staunton Augusta, in partnership with Staunton Green 2020 and Mary Baldwin College.

Tuesday, August 16 / 7:00pm
The Mockingbird Restaurant and Roots Music Hall
123 W. Beverley Street, Staunton
Pay what you will ($5 suggested donation)

Q&A with Gabriele Rausse, who runs a French-style winery near Charlottesville.

Come early and enjoy a dinner in the Roots Music Hall, featuring menus highlighting the bounty of our local farms. Call 540.213.8777 for dinner reservations.

Stauntonians have come together to fix the Sears Hill Bridge. Now, can we build a bridge to the future? Photo: taberandrew via Flickr.

Join us for our next conversation in this three part series, “Beyond Green: Why Local Food is Just the Beginning,” Wednesday, November 2 at 7:00pm.

As the economy stagnates, many local families continue to face rising costs, unemployment, and home foreclosures. Now, with energy prices rising again, drivers also have to pay more and more to fill up their tanks. The media tells us things are getting better. Are you convinced?

People are starting to wonder how bad things have to get before they start to get better. They’re tired of wishful thinking, half-solutions, and distractions coming out of Washington. In the Shenandoah Valley, many of us have started taking matters into our own hands with local solutions for land conservation and watershed protection, historic preservation, and promoting local food and local businesses.

These efforts have been effective on their own. But they’ve failed to come together to address the magnitude of challenges to the global and national economy that affect us locally, particularly the high energy costs that started the Recession in 2008 and that continue to threaten families into the foreseeable future.

More than ever, we need a unified response to today’s challenges and a plan for a sustainable future. That’s why Transition Staunton Augusta has scheduled three community conversations this fall on our energy and economic situation, how they’re linked, and what we can do about it. Each talk will consider the big questions while also giving you simple, concrete steps you can take on your own to learn more and prepare yourself and your family for a world beyond peak oil.

The Green House, Design It. Build It. Live It., a film by Liv Violette and Jason Scadron, is a documentary about the construction of the first carbon-neutral show house on the East Coast. It also captures the unique process of creating a “green show house” in which interior designers are challenged to create luxurious spaces based on progressive environmental standards. The building, furnishing and showcasing of The Green House created a community of developers, builders, designers and community organizers. All came together to create this special home that once you experience, you will want to change the way you live.

Joining us to speak on green building practices is architect Mike Brown, of the local firm Michael C. Brown/Architect, which specializes in organic architecture in the tradition of Frank Lloyd Wright, Bruce Goff, and Louis Sullivan.

The film is FREE (or $5 suggested donation) and begins at 7pm, but come early to mingle with like-minded folks and enjoy a special dinner in the Music Hall featuring food from our local farmers (call 540.213.8777 for reservations).

This Thursday we’ll reveal the films in the Fall/Winter season of the Local Motion Film Series. We’re proud to present this series with our partners Staunton Green 2020, Mockingbird Restaurant, and you, our supporters.

Tainted eggs came from factory farms.

With the latest dustup over unsafe food from factory farms and the Food and Drug Administration’s recall of more than half a billion eggs possibly tainted with salmonella, the health and quality of our food is again in the news.

It’s scary that America’s industrial food system continues to fail at providing families with healthy food. But it’s reassuring that the watchdogs at the FDA are looking out for the safety of the American eater. Right?

Not so fast there, pardner. America’s food is indeed under threat, but it’s not only from big, dirty factory farms. Ironically, our food is also under threat from the federal regulators themselves, those very watchdogs who are supposed to protect us.

Big ol’ softies or jack-booted thugs?

If you ask Joel Salatin and other small farmers, those regulators are truly Janus-faced.  One face is all smiles, when it comes to Big Food. But if you’re a small local producer trying to sell less processed food to your neighbors, you’re likely to get the FDA’s stern face, as their agents strap on their holsters and get ready to raid your field of non-certified corn.

The FDA may not be as bad as the Minerals Management guys before the Gulf oil spill who liked to party down with the oil workers from BP who they were supposed to be regulating. But the FDA has shown that it enjoys being pretty cozy with agribusiness, acting against industrial producers only in the most extreme cases, such as the current egg recall. Otherwise, from GMOs to CAFOs, the FDA has shown that cares less about the consumer’s health than about the financial health of Monsanto, Cargill, and Archer Daniels Midland.

Read what Salatin told Mother Earth News:

I think it’s amazing that in a country which promotes the freedom to own firearms, freedom to worship and freedom of speech, we don’t have the freedom to choose our own food. If I can’t choose the proper fuel to feed my body, I won’t have energy to go shoot, preach and pray anyway. Half the alleged food in the supermarket is really dangerous to your health. In fact, if we removed all the food items in the supermarket that would not have been available before 1900, the shelves would be bare. Gone would be all the unpronounceable gobbledy-syllabic industrial additives, irradiated, GMO, cloned pseudo-food.

Regulation yes, but at the right scale

First, let’s hope that those bad eggs don’t do much harm. But then, let’s not overreact.

We must not allow the FDA to use this episode as an excuse to blame the wrong people and further hurt small producers. The tainted eggs did not come from small family farms but from big factory operations. Yes, the FDA must regulate Big Food — that should be their job. If they weren’t so cozy with industry they would have been doing it by now. Time to step to it!

But we can’t let the FDA impose more onerous one-size-fits-all regulations that put unnecessary burdens on local producers and thus make it even harder for all of us American eaters to choose the healthy, local, organic food that we want.

Good regulation is all about scale — large scale farms need lots of regulations. But the local farmers of America already have a system of quality-control in place that’s worked well for hundreds of years. It’s called customer satisfaction and reputation. Word has always gotten around a local area if some farmer’s food was good or bad. Today, with the internet, reputation can spread at lightning speed around the world.

To prepare for the implications of pak oil, first we must understand the scope of the predicament.

The Local Motion Film Series continues its Summer Season showings this Thursday with A Crude Awakening, Life After the Oil Crash. This award-winning movie tells the story of peak oil, or the phenomenon where worldwide demand for oil begins to outstrip supply.

Unlike what some Pollyannas and business or politically-motivated persons would have us believe, bringing supply in line with increasing worldwide demand is not simply a matter of more drilling, baby. Our technology and bald geologic facts make clear that we wont be able to drill our way into turning a finite resource into an infinite one. Similarly, with almost every single thing we do, make, consume, or trade having something to do with fossil fuels along the way, from manufacture to transport,we cannot assume that “technology will save us”. Technology itself is dependent on fossil fuels.

A second arresting fact is that while clean energy and renewables are desirable, their capacity to provide the kind of magic ratio of energy delivery that fossil fuels have done is severely limited. With all this context in mind, it becomes urgent as world oil supply peaks (the U.S. already peaked in the 70s) to utilize remaining resources to strategically plan for a much lower energy future where we can at the same time remain a vibrant society with a high quality standard of living and trade.

Scary, huh? While the cold, hard facts of fossil fuel decline are inevitable, how we respond to it is in our hands. Re-imagining our communities, finding new and exciting ways to do business and develop important infrastructure, all offer opportunities for localities, regions, nations, and the world to innovate, develop business, create jobs, and define how we live. But first we must begin with understanding the predicament.

A Crude Awakening is a compelling documentary on the energy industry, and one well worth seeing to begin to confront the implications of peak oil.

Presented by Transition Staunton Augusta in conjunction with Staunton Green 2020, A Crude Awakening plays this Thursday, August 19, 2010 at Mockingbird Restaurant and Roots Music Hall at 7:00p.m. The film is free and the doors to the Mockingbird open at 5:30p.m. for pre-moving dining.To make diner reservations (advised as the films are usually packed), please call 540. 213.8777.

After the film, Anthony Smith, a former oil futures trader and current clean energy entrepreneur will take questions and share comments. We hope to see you there.

Tom Hylton of Save Our Land, Save Our Towns

Save Our Land, Save Our Towns, the second film in the summer season of our Local Motion Film Series, plays at 7:00 p.m., Thursday, July 15, in the Mockingbird Restaurant Roots Music Hall and is co-sponsored by Staunton Green 2020 and the Valley Conservation Council (VCC). This warm-hearted yet provocative documentary examines the causes and effects of — and then remedies for — suburban sprawl.

Vibrant towns or sprawl?

Americans are frustrated with traffic congestion, angry about the loss of open space, and perplexed by the decline of America’s cities. Many think sprawl is inevitable. But it’s not. Small town newsman (and Pulitzer Prize winner) Tom Hylton explores how America can save its cities, towns, and countryside in this one-hour film.

Save Our Land, Save Our Towns is a story of hope — logical reasons why America’s towns can be rebuilt and its countryside preserved from strip malls and subdivisions. The program is designed to be engaging and personal — a voyage of discovery, rather than a mere recitation of facts, with moments of revelation, humor and emotion.

Enter the Conversation

After the film, during the community conversation portion of our evening, Sara Hollberg of the VCC and Bill Frazier of Frazier Associates will take questions.

The film is free. To have dinner first, call 540.213.8777 for reservations in Mockingbird’s Roots Music Hall.

The Rest of the Series

Our other showings will be held on the third Thursday of each month:

August 19 — A Crude Awakening, Life After the Oil Crash
September 16 – The Green House; Design It. Build It. Live It.

All showings begin at 7pm at the Mockingbird Restaurant at 123 W. Beverley Street in downtown Staunton. Doors open at 5:30pm for dinner — Come enjoy local food and brews with great conversation.

We hope to see you there!

Joel Salatin holds one of his hens while talking about Polyface Farms.

Hardworking local farmer (and international farming superstar extraordinaire), Joel Salatin, of Polyface Farms, is the confirmed speaker for Transition Staunton Augusta’s first ever Locavore Fest this Labor Day weekend.

Salatin, whose farm and farming methods were profiled in Michael Pollan’s groundbreaking work, The Omnivore’s Dillema, a book that addresses food production and consumption sustainability, was also featured for his farming methods in the documentary films Food, Inc. and Fresh! An author himself, Salatin’s books include Holy Cows & Hog Heaven, and Everything I Want to do Is Illegal, among others.

In a generous show of support for Transition Staunton Augusta’s mission, Salatin waived his customary speaking and expenses fee and is donating all ticket sales to Transition Staunton Augusta. The event happens Saturday, September 4, 2010 at 7:30 p.m. at the new Shenanarts space in the newly renovated Gypsy Hill Place. Shenanarts also generously donated the space for this event, making it possible for all proceeds from the event to benefit Transition Staunton Augusta.

Tickets are $18 for general admission, $15 for students and seniors, $8 for children 6-12. Ticket sales outlets will be announced soon–please watch this blog for details (subscribe via RSS feed) or sign up to be on our mailing list.

Locavore Fest will also include special menus at downtown restaurants in celebration of the Locavore theme.

Thomas Jeferson's lovely Rotunda on the UVA campus.

A couple of days ago I suffered from a miserable funk. Why? Because it’s so easy to become discourged by what’s not happening in response to the looming energy crisis brought about by peak oil.

Indeed, we should have moved faster and long before now to create the new energy economy. It is clearly an abdication of leadership at the highest levels along with short-sighted corporate dominance of government that has lead to a situation where, no matter what we do now, it will be too little, too late. For this we will all pay the price in a rough and rude awakening to a markedly depressed lifestyle going forward. Just you wait and see.

That said, we still have to give credit to those individuals like Delegate David Toscano, localities such as Charlottesville, and programs like LEAP that point the way toward change in a way that is both manageable and palatable given larger social, economic, and cultural resistance to change.

That’s why I found yesterday’s program Energy: Plugging the Leaks, in Charlottesville City Council chambers, so inspiring. The seminar included four guest panelists representing industry, government, and the non-profit sectors . The panelists, who spoke both on conservation measures and energy programs for those in need, lifted me out of a mercurially disparaging view and, while not prompting euphoria, at least brought me back to focusing on gains where gains can be made.

Some of the highlights of the forum included:

Virginia Dominion Power’s business and consumer conservation measures in the form of its Smart Cooling program, and renewable incentives through its net metering initiatives, showcased in an SPCA solar experiment.

Virginia’s Fuel Assistance Program was represented, with coverage of heating and cooling aid along with crisis measures. While these programs remain crucial for low income individuals, it was a telling moment when manager Kathryne Presson noted significant program budget reductions enacted by the General Assembly. What was once assistance up to roughly $450 a season for cooling has now capped at $100. That’s a hefty cut! As visionary alternative energy guru Van Jones argues, the likelihood that a kind of Eco-Apartheid will arise with energy scarcity is revealed in just this kind of budgetary reduction.

Now, we can argue the validity of compulsory cooling for all consumers, including those without the ability to pay, and the unsustainability of that in today’s economy—and the case will have merit. But that does not change the impact of an energy-haves versus energy-have-nots scenario and the real world impact that creates. I think we’re seeing the beginning of this and, at the very least, it should give us pause to consider myriad scenarios that a tightening energy market and a declining economy provoke.

A second program, GAP (the Gas Assistance Program) unique to Charlottesville, offers additional help to those in need throughout the year. All of its donor funding exclusively goes to provide gas assistance to needy individuals and families, while its administrative function is funded by City revenue as part of the City-owned gas utility.

Finally, LEAP, the Local Energy Alliance Program, rolled out a suite of incentives, backed by 800,000 in stimulus funding garnered through the Southeast Energy Efficiency Alliance, to spur residents of the Thomas Jefferson Planning District toward conservation measures in their homes. In addition to $250 in home energy audit rebates, and $1000 in rebates for retrofits, LEAP also launched a $10k home energy makeover contest for area residents. LEAP also provides a comprehensive program from start to follow-up designed to move homes toward 20% more efficiency. To make it pay, LEAP hooks participants up with other local, state, and federal incentives, a tactic they hope will help residents move past any resistance they might have to taking the plunge toward efficiency measures.

Net result? For Charlottesville the effort to explain more directly and in one place and time multiple fronts where the City and its partners are taking on conservation, worked well. The event, filmed live, will be broadcast on local public access TV Channel 10 throughout the fall.

For me it was a helpful reminder that, absent revolution, social change tends to be glacial at best. While I expect there to be precipitating events that will change this in the future, and not always for the better, at least in the meantime there are many people both locally and in the wider world who choose the path of positive change over disgruntled cynicism, enacting measures, however small, to begin the change of a power down.

That’s inspiring.

Anne Armentrout in front of her art work for Transition Staunton Augusta.

Congratulation to Anne Armentrout, the artist referenced in an earlier blog post, for her 3rd place win in the Staunton Downtown Development Association’s Filling the Half-Empty Glass: A Storefront Art Initiative with her piece, In Your Hands, Triptych to the Third Power, Plus.

Armentrout worked in collaboration with Transition Staunton Augusta to create her triptych collage which she has since donated to TSA for use at events, festivals, and conferences. Thank you Anne for all you hard work and for the terrific artistic interpretation of the issues behind the Transition movement.