Boxborough Local

I really enjoyed reading a note written by Cecile Andrews in a Seattle paper, posted in EnergyBulletin. She mentions the Coffee Party civility pledge (below) but goes on to talk about living simply, living slow.

Most of you have heard about the new Coffee Party, where people come together for civil conversation. To start with, people take a “civility pledge,” which says, “I pledge to conduct myself in a way that is civil, honest and respectful toward people with whom I disagree. I value people from different cultures, I value people with different ideas and I value and cherish the democratic process.”

Taking such a pledge and coming together to talk is great, but we need more.

Seen on BBC online (here):

Benn unveils plan to boost UK food and 'grow your own'

'We need to get emissions down from agriculture'
Plans to boost food production in Britain and reduce its impact on the environment have been unveiled.

The government's 20-year food strategy includes making land available for people to grow their own food and more healthy cooking courses.

I ran across a great website - EnvironmentalChemistry.com - that is well worth a visit. But one page I found especially appealing was an energy audit report about a typical 1970's ranch home. Since I have a 1970's vintage home and was actually building houses in the 70's, I know quite a bit about how it was constructed and the ideas presented in this page are extremely appropriate.

Interviews of Michael Pollan, Eric Schlosser, Joel Palatin, and Gary Hirshberg are included in this new documentary about our industrial food system. See www.foodincmovie.com for the trailer and more.

At Saturday's Boxborough Ag Fair I met Jennifer Taylor in the new Ag Commission's booth. Jennifer is trying to establish a farmer's market for Acton and Boxborough. Anyone who is interested might want to attend their upcoming meeting to be held on Tuesday, October 7, at 7:00 pm at the Citizens Library in West Acton. This is the same group mentioned in a brief note in last week's Beacon.

For more information, contact Jennifer Taylor at 978-877-1657 or actonfarmersmarket@hotmail.com.

By Kathy McMahon

If you aren’t feeling some degree of apprehension right now, you aren’t reading the news. Here are some of my thoughts for turning that emotional energy into constructive action:

1. SET A GOAL TO CUT YOUR EXPENSES by some concrete number—10%, 20%, 30%, even 50%, and set up a plan to do it. Reducing costs is the fastest way to increase your income–faster than making more money.

Welcome to the new Boxborough Local web site. We're in the midst of transitioning to a new web server technology that supports forums, blogs, and stories, with the ability for users to add comments. Some items of public interest will be cross-posted here from the original Boxborough Local Google group so they can be enjoyed by a wider audience. Those items will be marked with the date they were sent to the original mailing list. Incidentally, the Google Group remains an active private forum, and you're welcome to join.

Chris Ryan of Concord Local organized an informal discussion about how all of our Locals could work together. He is also the town planner for Ayer and we met in their huge town hall - what a room. There were about 12 of us there, including folks from Groton, Harvard, and Concord Locals as well as some folks from Ayer and of course myself from Boxborough. After a couple hours of chat we found a local bar for some refreshment and another couple hours of chat. It was fun to be in a room full of people who know the meaning of words like Relocalization, Local Food, and Peak Oil.

Boxborough Local is a community group focused on energy independence, local food, and sustainable living, based in Boxborough, Massachusetts, USA. We are a grass roots organization seeking local solutions to two major challenges of our times: global climate change and the coming end of cheap fossil fuels. The organization was formed out of a concern for the potentially dramatic changes we will face, along with the belief that we must all be part of the solution. We are a non-partisan, non-profit, non-religious organization.