In evaluating the resources comprising the “Commonwealth” of Vermont,
we made a disturbing discovery: Most of the valuable resources in
Vermont, including minerals, groundwater, surface water, hydro sites,
airwaves, etc., are owned by out-of state corporations.  Vermont is a
banana republic without the bananas...Gary Flomenhoft teaches energy technology and policy at the University of Vermont.

Creating an Energy Descent Action Plan, launching local currencies,
organizing energy co-ops: these are all important parts of Transition
work....Carl Etnier is director of Peak Oil Awareness in
Montpelier. He hosts two radio shows and blogs on the subjects of Peak
Oil and relocalizing.

Off to Cali for a few days, a work-related trip that promises to be nasty, brutish, and short...‘The Greenneck’ lives and writes in the rusted-out shell of a one-ton Chevy pickup somewhere in Cabot.

Good design is design for change. Good design is structurally diverse
and not dependent on any single element for its overall success...Ben Falk grows food and fuel in the lower Mad River Valley, and develops post-petroleum human habitats with Whole Systems Design, LLC.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Ripton, Vermont - February 14, 2010 - Vermont State Senate independent candidate Robert Wagner has exposed the deep links between the offices of Bernie Sanders, Monsanto and the USDA.  A Monsanto insider, lobbyist & litigator, Tom Vilsack is the US Secretary of Agriculture and gave the keynote speech at the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont (NOFA-VT) convention yesterday.

Do you know who will deliver the keynote speech at NOFA, the Northeast Organic Farming Association of Vermont this weekend? A Monsanto man who was put in charge of the USDA. Yet another case of the fox entrusted to guard the hen house. Remember James Watt?

This is a slap-in-the-face to every small farmer in Vermont.

Today I learned that I have been censored from asking any questions in the staged Q&A session after the Monsanto keynote speech.

Gotcha.  That's some of what I've been hearing out there, when talking to people about their concerns... if they're well off, folks are as yet unwilling to even discuss the subject of secession. They haven't been hurt yet by the general decline.  They'll even agree with my first three Senate campaign points, but are afraid of No. 4:

1. NO further Vermont support for War, Torture…or deployment of VT National
   Guard. Order the Guard home now.
2. NOT a dime more for Wall Street…Invest VT funds in VT small banks and
   credit unions for lending here at home.
3. Build a Green Vermont via serious investments in alternative energy,
   human-food-agriculture, and all local community efforts towards self reliance
   and town/village life. Clean, green, decent, peaceful & fun. 
4. Start the discussion with all Vermonters re returning our state to the
   status of a free Independent Republic [as we once were], maintaining free trade
   & good relations with all other nations of the world. 

...and there's the rub.  Nos. 1 through 3, everything that we hope to achieve in Vermont, can happily be blocked or perverted by a federal government pushing its 'standards' and increasingly desperate economic measures and civil repression onto Vermonters.

If you've still got lots of money, the last paragraph may make me sound like a nutjob, a Jeremiah. If you're like most Vermonters, trying like hell to make ends meet as Montpelier cuts essential services; if your kids, parent, spouse (in one case both spouses, leaving the children behind) have been grabbed for Afghanistan, No. 4 begins to make sense!

Even if you are a chronic procrastinator living off the grid without a root cellar, there is still time to preserve some food for this winter and it doesn’t require energy inputs or special equipment.  All you need is some of the least expensive of all local vegetables – cabbage and/or root vegetables – and it is likely that you will find these in ample supply at one of the many winter farmers’ markets throughout the state. 

This issue’s Homestead Security column continues our series, Oil to Soil and Back Again. Part I (“Rapid Topsoil Formation in the Solar Age”) appeared in our Fall 2009 issue; Part II (“Harvesting Value from Your Leach Field”) was published in our Stick Season/Holidays issue (November 2009).

Sugar Cane, or How the Earth Was Saved

By Jim Hogue
From an account by Rodger Savory