Peak Oil Group

NORTH COUNTRY PEAK OIL STUDY/ACTION GROUP

The group got started in the fall of 2006 after a several of us were inspired by auditing a course on Peak Oil at SUNY Potsdam given by Richard Heinberg, international expert and author of the well-known books The Party’s Over and Power Down (now also The Oil Depletion Protocol and Peak Everything). We have been meeting monthly for potlucks and discussion ever since and had several film showings in our Peak Oil Series including The End of Suburbia, The Power of Community, The Story of Stuff and Escape from Suburbia.

Members of the group are involved in various relocalization and energy initiatives including grass pelleting to keep our energy dollars at home. We have gotten together a professional display on Peak Oil which has appeared at the North Country Sustainable Energy Fair, SUNY Canton, Clarkson and St. Lawrence University over the last year.

Ark Community Barn Raising 08/2007

The ARK COMMUNITY has developed out of the original group and is going strong with about 70 members on our email list and about 20-30 who come regularly to meetings which happen at a different person’s house usually on the first weekend of each month. It looks at relocalizing our economy, educating about sustainable practices and lifestyles in our rural areas and linking up people who are living, or want to live, homesteading and off-grid lifestyles to have fun, help each other out, and share information.

Ark Community Barn Raising 08/2007

In the last year, two members have installed water pumping windmills, two others are working on building their own wind turbine, we helped people get biodiesel and many are using it, 40 of us participated in a barn-raising last summer and this winter a group cut ice from a pond with hand saws, hauled it to the ice house and stacked it for use in summer. At each potluck/meeting, we try to look at sustainable living from different perspectives.We’ve had lessons on organic gardening, seed saving, maple sugaring and worm composting. And sometimes we just sit around the fire or table and chat about what matters most to us and how to remain positive in a world about to change drastically. We bring our questions and someone in the group will be sure to have an answer.The best thing is that we’re building a real sense of community.

FOR INFO ABOUT THE NEXT ARK MEETING OR TO BE PUT ON THE LIST-SERVE FOR NOTIFICATIONS, call Patricia Greene at 315-379-9466 or email patricia@ncenergy.org