Small-Mart Revolution author Michael Shuman gave a fascinating talk at the Vermont statehouse the other day.

We've compressed it and hosted it at YouTube - follow the first part below to the whole talk.

Shuman is full of good ideas for decentralizing our economic life.

His talk is worth watching, and you can find out more at his web site.

John Michael Greer  wonders whether the Transition Town Movement is engaging in "premature triumphalism." As a part of the initiating group in Transition Town Montpelier, which on Tuesday received official recognition from the international transition folks, I doubt it.

We're happy if people even notice what we're up to.

Luckily, there's a chance Monday for everyone in the central Vermont area to find out more about Transition Towns and judge for themselves. Naresh Giangrande, co-founder of the first Transition Town, Totnes in the UK, will speak on “Transition Towns: From Oil Dependency to Resilient Communities.” The talk is Monday, November 24, 7 pm. Unitarian Church, Main Street, Montpelier. We're being contacted by people as far away as Maine and Massachusetts who want to hear the talk, so come early!

Greer provides a nice summary of the Transition Town movement:

There's a thought-provoking article in Sunday's Boston Globe (via Matt Yglesias) on how a 21st century US depression would look different from the 1930s depression. The author, Drake Bennett, makes the case that the US is so different now that the depression would look different in fundamental ways. Healthcare costs more than it did in the 1930s, relative to food, for example, so there'd be lines outside of emergency rooms rather than at soup kitchens (though he acknowledges that soup kitchens are already being visited by more people).

Drake is open to the view that people will raise more of their own food, growing gardens on lawns and keeping chickens in the backyard. I don't agree with his argument that farmers in New England will do poorly, though:

At the high end of the market, specialty and organic foods - which drove the success of chains like Whole Foods - would seem pointlessly expensive; the booming organic food movement could suffer as people start to see specially grown produce as more of a luxury than a moral choice. New England's surviving farmers would be particularly hard-hit, as demand for their seasonal, relatively high-cost products dried up.

To the extent that there is a price premium on New England agricultural products, I think it's due to high costs of labor compared to energy, subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture, and niche marketing. A depression, together with peak oil, would change the ratio of labor to energy costs. Subsidies to industrial-scale agriculture can be changed. And niche marketing of premium products--well, that might not become more widespread, at least. Hard to say whether the market for premium New England food will wither or whether the wealthy will switch from caviar to camembert produced in Vermont.

In Vermont we're seeing a stronger and more sophisticated push for policies that support local businesses, including farmers. Michael Shuman's talk yesterday in the Statehouse was a good example.

This video is a remarkable primer on the unjust and unconstitional nature of our U.S. monetary system - and a good argument for nonviolent secession, as well.

Heady stuff - but vital, for an understanding of the current Wall Street wing ding.

There's a fight brewing in the U.S. House over who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee in the next session. Michigan Representative John Dingell now holds the chair. California Representative Henry Waxman wants it.

According to Frank O'Donnell at Gristmill, the battle is decades old between Waxman, who wants more regulation for clean air, and "Tailpipe Johnny" Dingell, who apparently thinks clean air regulations would hurt the auto industry in his home state.

Peter Welch told me Friday he supports Waxman. If Congress and the Obama administration are to move quickly on meaningful climate change legislation, it sounds to me like Waxman is the far better choice.

Waxman now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Welch serves on.

Vermonters are eager to switch to locally generated, locally owned, renewable energy. As governor, Jim Douglas has repeatedly retarded the state's move in that direction. I've recently both documented some of the effects of his veto of last year's energy bill, and I've looked more broadly at his obstructionism on energy.

I've now learned that the legislature is getting ready to push back against an energy program that the administration has changed so much as to make it unrecognizable, maybe even non-compliant with the law. We'll see if they move fast enough to effect change: The administration's version is already on the street in the form of a Request for Proposals (RFP), and multiple organizations in the state have begun working on their proposals, which are due in three weeks.

What's in dispute is the watered-down version of an all-fuels efficiency utility, as passed in this year's omnibus energy bill, Act 92.

Author’s note: I had planned to write a follow-up to Exponential Money in a Finite World (published in Vermont Commons,
Fall 2008), where I would continue to make the case that our financial
system is incompatible with reality and is due either for collapse or a
major overhaul over the next 20 years – max. National events have
obviously overtaken the publication schedule, so I will instead focus
on the recent bailout and what this means to each of us over the next
one-to-two years.

The following interview considers the feasibility of wood being a
primary heating-fuel source for Vermont. New wood stove technology,
combined with sustainable forestry, offers a real opportunity for
Vermont to become more energy independent. According to the Vermont
Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, Vermont’s landmass is 78
percent forest with 4.5 million acres of woodland and an average of 26
cord of standing wood per acre, for 117 million cord of total standing
wood.

"Money alone sets all the world in motion."
-    Publius Syrus, 42 B. C.

“Yet habit -- strange thing! What cannot habit accomplish?”

So wrote Herman Melville in his epic novel Moby-Dick. More than 150
years later his face would appear on  currency near his home in
Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and his quote would become relevant not only
for describing a captain in search of an elusive whale, but also for a
group of citizens searching for an elusive economic vision.

Damn it! 

Our tomato crop is way down this year from
last.  In 2007 our garden produced more than 230 pounds of
tomatoes that we canned, dried and froze, and enjoyed all the way up
through the middle of July of this year.  But with less than a
measly 125 pounds from this year’s garden, I was starting to
panic.  How would I fill the gap?  Would I have to resort to
buying canned tomatoes in the grocery store?