!! NEWS!!

Brief but important snippets:

1. The WEP's 'puta fix-it, fence builder, poster maker, meeting helper, Mr Everywhere Man Carl Scott celebrated his 40th birthday on the 22nd of November 2009. While the theme was 'Green', we learnt some hitherto concealed secrets about his misspent youth! All pedal and electric power to Carl!

2. The Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust has just signed a contract (20th November 2009) with the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority, who've offered funding via the Distributed Generation Fund to assist us develop the financial model for community owned renewable generation. Exciting work for the months ahead!

3. 350 parts per million is what scientists say is the safe upper limit for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we're currently at around 390ppm and rising. The 24th of October was an International Day of Action on Climate Change and in Dunedin the local 350 team organised a fantastic Spring Festival (along with other actions). The WEP was there, with a poster, stall and most importantly, a presence. It was a fantastic day and I almost talked myself hoarse, but awareness is only one thing. We need a fast transition to renewable forms of power and to stop pouring more carbon into the atmosphere, so the forests and oceans will slowly absorb some of it and return us to safe levels. Here we are (see the WEP's fundraising turbine (tea)pot? Carl Scott's electric bike in the foreground).

4. Together with Transition Port Chalmers, Transition Valley 473 (North East Valley and other 473 numbered suburbs) and the Hampden Energy Group, and as an outcome of the energy following the premiere of the "In Transition" film evening in Waitati Hall on the 3rd of October, we've submitted an application to the Working Together More Fund to collaborate on a Solar Hot Water project for East Coast Otago.

5. Just a few months after the launch of the 'Household Fund' in the 2009 Budget providing a billion dollars for retrofitting our cold New Zealand households, the government was seeking the removal of the Household Fund from the Emissions Trading Scheme! Voxy has reported this. The WEP has not had time to go over the new ETS legislation, however on household insulation The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority's information on the scheme is still a good place for further details.

Background

Complacency, and the belief that low electricity prices and reliable supply will continue in our changing world is not an option. Faith in cheap fuel is equally misplaced. Some of this was brought home sharply to us all in Waitati in 2006 when floodwaters cut us off, damaged houses, infrastructure, crops and livestock. Yet it also gave us cause to celebrate the strong networks that are already in existence in the community.

Over the past two and more years a number of meetings/workshops have been held with energy as a key focus. Green co-leader Russell Norman, Bob Lloyd and Richard Reeve discussed wind power, peak oil and wind farms at Waitati in 2006. Green co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimmons stimulated our imaginations on her Climate Defence Tour stop off in Waitati in 2007. In between, and subsequently, a number of other workshops, films and meetings have continually raised to prominence the idea that if we don't do something, no-one else will. While the government and local authorities demonstrate a lag in their comprehension of the challenges we all face, we must act locally.

Vision

Our vision is to facilitate a positive, healthy, secure and resilient future for Waitati, Blueskin Bay and linked communities and promote sustainable resource use. We are engaged in an active transition to a lower energy future and seek to lower our carbon footprint while developing an energy resilient system.

Mission

The Waitati Energy Project will act to strengthen Waitati and Blueskin Bay communities in the immediate, mid and long-term future, with emphasis on energy and community resilience. We acknowledge the challenges posed by climate change, peak oil and the emerging global recession. We will actively collaborate with partners who recognise the need for communities to engage in sustainable initiatives and we will seek to develop partnerships with other groups, actors and communities who share the key theme of our vision.

Objectives

1. To develop and administer projects that provide education, support and resources to maximise locally based sustainable provision of energy, food, and water.
2. To develop and administer projects that provide education, support and resources to minimise energy use, encourage healthy homes and encourage sustainable households.
3. To secure and manage funding to achieve the stated goals of the WEP, and to stimulate local sustainable economic activity.
4. To develop and maintain relationships to achieve the stated goals of the WEP.
5. To ensure community partnership in any enterprises initiated by the WEP and to aim for the most equitable use of resources.
6. To foster linkages between organisations with objectives similar to, or complementary to, the WEP’s own Vision and Objectives.
7. The WEP’s goals and activity will always remain charitable.

‘The community’ or ‘communities’ is/are defined as focused on the geographical area of Blueskin Bay, encompassing the village communities of Waitati, Evansdale and Warrington as defined by census map, school attendance and local food-shed. However we are aware that ‘community’ is not a static idea but is re-negotiated at every moment and thus we reserve the right to restrict or expand the notion of community to a smaller or wider geographical circle associated with ‘Blueskin Bay’ generally, either as our resources allow or as required to meet our objectives. At all times our smallest area of action is Waitati, as per the 2006 census map.

Action/Activities

The Waitati Energy Project is action based. There is often a lag between what we do, and what appears on the web, as our 'virtual' action is far less important to us than what is happening on the ground (and therefore receives less attention from the bounded resource of individual volunteer's time and energy). However here is a log of action over time (month by month, in the form of WEP articles that have appeared in the Blueskin News), and below is a list of WEP activities or interests that are currently occupying us.

1. Creating Household Energy Efficiency: The WEP Retrofit Rollout and further insulation initiatives
2. Renewable Generation. Four projects on the go: Community Wind Turbine, Powerhouse Wind's 'Thinair' Proto-type, Micro Hydro and Dispersed Generation.
3. Energy Literacy: Not the normal WEP publications and activity but specific and upcoming events and actions.

Friends and Partners

The Waitati Energy Project emerged out of a certain consensus in the community that we had to take matters into our own hands to enact positive change, and not be merely reactive. To this end we have approached and built relationships and friendships with other groups or actors (business, tertiary, government) and are constantly seeking ways to ensure we can broaden the consensus around the notion that positive action is needed. Below are the links for our friends and partners.

1. The Otago Energy Research Centre
2. The Hikurangi Foundation (through the Blueskin Resilient Communities Trust)
3. Powerhouse Wind
4. The Energy Efficiency and Conservation Authority
5. Sustainable Dunedin City
6. The Centre for the Study of Agriculture, Food and Environment

TRANSITION IN THE NZ CONTEXT

Around New Zealand people and communities are banding together and taking action on Energy because it is time to take action (and there's no point in waiting for the government to act). It is not easy, transforming the energy landscape, without a policy support network, but there are dynamic, passionate people with ambition and enthusiasm acting nevertheless. Just one turbine/solar array/etc at a time...

We want to work with other communities, learn from their experiences, and cooperate where we can to make effective change for our communities here. Below is what we hope will be an expanding list of community initiatives occuring now in New Zealand.

1. Harbour Wind Limited is an initiative at Banks Peninsula (Canturbury) seeking to establish wind generation owned by the local community, who control and get the financial benefit of generating energy from the wind on the peninsula. The lessons learned here will benefit all NZ communities working through the legal formalities for community owned and operated generation.
2. The Nelson Transition Town Energy Group is working on building energy literacy and an energy culture in the Nelson area. Again, this is an important and transformative initiative: how do we become aware and open to positive change? The Energy Group provide great information on how it is actually working in their community (contact them for more information).

Useful Links

Below is a growing list of links that we like and find useful.

• The NZ Home Energy Web is a great visual website created by Maria Callau and is packed full of useful web-based material. It combines sharp end academic research, tools, information and a great resource list in a unique and very friendly, accessible package.
• The Greenpeace Clean Energy Guide is a simple to use guide to energy companies and generation in NZ with clear information and links if you want to change suppliers.

• It's always necessary for a recharge from time to time and the Future Scenarios site developed by David Holmgren is motivational. It is a really accessible site, with clear explanations of the choices we have, while also providing valuable background, options and alternative visions.

• Now this one gives us something to do as 'small people' wanting to deal with the big issues, or precisely THE big issue of climate change. 350.org is a website expressing a concept and facilitating mass action. The idea is to communicate via the number 350 - the amount of carbon in parts per million that we need to be at to maintain a viable life system on the planet for humans. We've already passed that point, but with concerted effort, SERIOUS effort, we may get back down and stop runaway climate change. Using the number and expressing it widely and visually is one way to give negotiators bargaining power, to speak with a common language, to push a message in deep at all levels of governance. Might it work? Hell, who knows!?, but at this point we have to try everything! The big day of action is the 24th of October 2009.