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On April 28, Nevada County Information and General Services director Steve Monaghan presented the Board of Supervisors with a new and far-sighted proposal — a comprehensive plan for the county to drastically reduce its energy consumption and expenses.
As Steve mentioned in his testimony before the Board while presenting the Nevada County Energy Plan, it represents the first time the county has taken a top-to-bottom approach to this issue.
On behalf of all local energy and sustainability activists, I congratulate Steve and the board for accepting the challenge of implementing a new set of policies that begins to address an ever growing need: saving money and powering down through energy efficiency, energy conservation and smart energy investment.
Many don't realize it yet, but we all face a major paradigm shift that this new energy plan begins to address. Its roots lie in the finite availability of many things, particularly fossil fuels, which support our current lifestyle. Often referred to as “peak oil,” in many respects we've reached “peak everything” and the evidence for this grows every day. On a grander scale, some call this paradigm shift “the great turning,” alluding to the book of the same title. If one Googles these terms, he or she will see much more detail, and it is, indeed, sobering.
Whatever term is used, the implications of this shift require nothing less than an individual and collective radical reconsideration of how we use (and often waste) energy. We will make this shift together, and it will be the common denominator of our future lifestyles locally and worldwide.
The plan states “County of Nevada has established a goal to reduce overall energy usage by 10 percent in the first year, 20 percent in the second year, and 5 percent in the third year by implementing the practices, measures, and procedures outlined in this energy plan.”
The document succinctly spells out in a little more than eight pages new policies the county will implement to achieve these goals. You can access it soon at www.mynevadacounty.com/igs.
Perhaps we, as families and individuals, can take a lesson here and more closely examine how we use all forms of energy, as well as how we can use less.
There is a growing body of belief worldwide that the tough times may not be over for a while. The economy is reeling, a sense of fear and uncertainty pervades, and people just don't know what's going to happen next. It's fair to speculate that the consequences of our lifestyles over the last 50 years could be coming back to visit us as a series of, for lack of a better term, crises. If so, we'll have to deal with them.
Many local individuals and groups are working to recognize and address these possibilities, and one such local grassroots group is the Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy, or A.P.P.L.E. of Nevada County.
Much of A.P.P.L.E.'s work reflects a movement toward a concept known as “relocalization.” It can be seen as somewhat the opposite of globalization, and involves locally producing our necessities, including food, energy and other vital needs, as much as possible. This is important because transportation costs will soon rise once again after our temporarily low gasoline prices give way to an economy that wants to expand, but is constrained by fuel costs, and perhaps even liquid fuel availability.
What Steve and his staff are able to see is that investing in energy efficiency and conservation is a smart way to ensure the county can continue to meet its obligations, as well as save money.
I would like to use this opportunity to strongly encourage the supervisors to allocate funding in the budget process for energy related projects. As the price of energy inevitably rises over the next two to five years, we will all face this challenge one way or another.
Since we live and work in a rural county, far from a hub and the interstate, we are all in this together. Rather than face our uncertain future with fear or empty rhetoric, why not begin now to address those aspects of our lives over which we have some control, and take some appropriate action?
With the Nevada County Energy Plan now official policy, the county is taking its first big step in this direction.
As Steve mentioned in his testimony before the Board while presenting the Nevada County Energy Plan, it represents the first time the county has taken a top-to-bottom approach to this issue.
On behalf of all local energy and sustainability activists, I congratulate Steve and the board for accepting the challenge of implementing a new set of policies that begins to address an ever growing need: saving money and powering down through energy efficiency, energy conservation and smart energy investment.
Many don't realize it yet, but we all face a major paradigm shift that this new energy plan begins to address. Its roots lie in the finite availability of many things, particularly fossil fuels, which support our current lifestyle. Often referred to as “peak oil,” in many respects we've reached “peak everything” and the evidence for this grows every day. On a grander scale, some call this paradigm shift “the great turning,” alluding to the book of the same title. If one Googles these terms, he or she will see much more detail, and it is, indeed, sobering.
Whatever term is used, the implications of this shift require nothing less than an individual and collective radical reconsideration of how we use (and often waste) energy. We will make this shift together, and it will be the common denominator of our future lifestyles locally and worldwide.
The plan states “County of Nevada has established a goal to reduce overall energy usage by 10 percent in the first year, 20 percent in the second year, and 5 percent in the third year by implementing the practices, measures, and procedures outlined in this energy plan.”
The document succinctly spells out in a little more than eight pages new policies the county will implement to achieve these goals. You can access it soon at www.mynevadacounty.com/igs.
Perhaps we, as families and individuals, can take a lesson here and more closely examine how we use all forms of energy, as well as how we can use less.
There is a growing body of belief worldwide that the tough times may not be over for a while. The economy is reeling, a sense of fear and uncertainty pervades, and people just don't know what's going to happen next. It's fair to speculate that the consequences of our lifestyles over the last 50 years could be coming back to visit us as a series of, for lack of a better term, crises. If so, we'll have to deal with them.
Many local individuals and groups are working to recognize and address these possibilities, and one such local grassroots group is the Alliance for a Post-Petroleum Local Economy, or A.P.P.L.E. of Nevada County.
Much of A.P.P.L.E.'s work reflects a movement toward a concept known as “relocalization.” It can be seen as somewhat the opposite of globalization, and involves locally producing our necessities, including food, energy and other vital needs, as much as possible. This is important because transportation costs will soon rise once again after our temporarily low gasoline prices give way to an economy that wants to expand, but is constrained by fuel costs, and perhaps even liquid fuel availability.
What Steve and his staff are able to see is that investing in energy efficiency and conservation is a smart way to ensure the county can continue to meet its obligations, as well as save money.
I would like to use this opportunity to strongly encourage the supervisors to allocate funding in the budget process for energy related projects. As the price of energy inevitably rises over the next two to five years, we will all face this challenge one way or another.
Since we live and work in a rural county, far from a hub and the interstate, we are all in this together. Rather than face our uncertain future with fear or empty rhetoric, why not begin now to address those aspects of our lives over which we have some control, and take some appropriate action?
With the Nevada County Energy Plan now official policy, the county is taking its first big step in this direction.
Dave Clark lives in Grass Valley and is a member of the Board of Directors of A.P.P.L.E. of Nevada County (www.apple-nc.org).
