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| <back | home An Enlightened Mayor in California? Larry Robinson, the Mayor of Sebastopol, speaks about Peak Oil with David Room of the Global Public Media The following is an edited excerpt from David Room’s (DR, of Global Public Media) interview with the mayor of Sebastopol, CA, Larry Robinson (LR), on August 26, 2005. (DR): Thank you, Larry, for taking my call on such short notice. Peak Oil is an urgent issue; am I right about that? (LR): This is a very urgent issue, and it’s not getting nearly enough attention in the media. But it’s going to catch up with us very soon. (DR): Tell me about your responsibilities as mayor, in the context of Global Oil Peak. (LR): Well, several things: one is to move our city to prepare for eventuality and for all the fallouts from it. Another is to use my office as a bully pulpit to educate the community and to write editorials in the newspapers. In September the city council will host a town hall meeting on the issue of Peak Oil. And the council will appoint a citizen’s commission to develop contingency plans that the city can adopt. I’m hoping that a number of local community groups will continue the discussion of how the community can prepare. What I’m trying to do as mayor is to shape our future development as a city to minimize the impact of skyrocketing energy cost. One of the things we’ve done is instituting a “Green Building Program” that requires much greater energy efficiency, both in construction and building use. We also have a “Solar Sebastopol Program” with the goal, within the next year, of generating a third of our electrical use from the rooftops within the city limit. Probably the most important thing we can do is encourage higher density development within our city limits. Urban and suburban sprawl are probably the most inefficient use both of land and resources, including water and energy. So the new development will mean higher building height, probably lower parking-space requirement in anticipation of less automobile use. (DR): Ok, you mentioned that Sebastopol is two square miles; to what extent is it car- and freight-dependent? Are many products made locally? (LR): We’re historically a farm market town. We have a population of 7,800 within the city limits and 30,000 in the greater Sebastopol area. With rich farm land, for the last 40 or 50 years our major export crop has been apples, but that has been transitioning to wine grapes, in particular, pinot noire. But there are also a lot of small organic truck farms in the area, growing fresh produce sold in our farmers’ market and the supermarket. One of the key things we’re going to be working with in preparation for Peak Oil is strengthening community support for our local agriculture. “Community Supported Agriculture” is growing in popularity. Local organic farmers offer subscriptions to for a certain fee per month for a box of fresh produce every week. The farmer has a guarantee that his crop is going to be bought and the consumer has a guarantee of fresh, wholesome, locally-produced foods. In line with that, two groups are working on developing a currency, with the city perhaps the major financial backer of the effort. That’s going to support our local economy by keeping the dollars circulating through the economy rather than moving out. We have some clothing manufacturing, timber production, local manufacture of electrical vehicles, tools manufacture. I think we do have the resources to convert a lot of these small firms to supply the kind of goods that people are used to importing. I think the time is coming when importing clothing, shoes, tools, and the basics of life is going to be a lot more expensive than producing it locally, and we’re going to do what we can to support a transition. (DR): Have you gotten any backlash with the Peak Oil issue? (LR): Well, you know, even the business leaders in this community are realizing that we need to shift to a much more sustainable way of living, that we’re all going to pay a high price if we don’t. In fact, the longer we wait to make that shift, the higher the price is going to be and the more suffering there’s going to be, so I think this issue will bring people together across the political spectrum. Sustainability is the slogan of this community, and we’re pretty much agreed that we want to make Sebastopol, as much as possible, a model of sustainable community. (DR): How will Sebastopol run essential services: police, fire, garbage, etc., in an energy-scarce future? You’ve mentioned contingencies plans. (LR): Well, we have put photovoltaic arrays on our fire department and our public works building. We’re going put them on our city well (we get all of our water from a deep aquifer), and we’re going to install them at the police department. We’re in negotiation with a private group to partner in a bio-diesel station here, for our fire trucks and public work vehicles do too, so as long as there are leftover grease and oil from restaurants, we can convert it to run our fleet. Our police force can ride bicycles as need be. We recently bought two hybrid vehicles for the department. We set a target of reducing our municipal green house gas emission by 30% between our base year of 2000, when we did the research, and 2008, and our vehicle use is the biggest part of that, so switching over all of our police vehicles to hybrids, or at least more efficient conventional gas engines, is going to be a high priority. As fuel gets more expensive, it may mean simply less driving, maybe more foot and bicycle patrols for the police if supplies are interrupted completely. Our waste water treatment facility is partially powered by methane that’s generated there, and we’re going to be installing photovoltaic there, as well. (DR): You’ve done a lot of work in the last three or four years. Are there any other goals for local food production in the Sebastopol area, such as adding fruit and nut trees to your smart trees program? (LR): Yes, we plan to look at that. (DR): Do you have a strategy for slowly weaning Sebastopol from natural gas? (LR): Most people use natural gas heater for heating their home or heating their water, we’ve actually, in a way moving toward greater dependence on natural gas by a wood smoke ordinance, trying to clean up the air and encouraging people to use natural gas rather than wood, but I don’t have a solution to that yet, and I’m open to any suggestions. (DR): What do you say to people who’s advocate nuclear power as a response to Oil Peak? (LR): I’ll say, first of all, let’s look at the cost of nuclear vs. wind and solar and point out that it is much more expensive if they consider disposal of the nuclear waste in a way that’s safe, and nobody’s got a satisfactory answer to that. The other consideration around nuclear, like coal and natural gas or any big generating facility, is that it’s centralized and somebody else is in control of our energy, whereas a photovoltaic system on your rooftop or a small wind generator or a community-owned generator put the power literally in people’s own hands. That’s both a much more democratic way and, I think, ultimately safer and more sustainable. (DR): How can local government in other places learn more about what you’re doing and possibly follow some of the footsteps? (LR): Well, I think, one thing people can do is contact their local officials, whether the mayor or council members or any supervisors and take some time to educate them about it. I certainly welcome phone calls or letters from other cities interested in what we’re doing. But in Northern California, most communities have already bought into the principal of “Smart Growth,” which has essentially the same principles for best preparation for Peak Oil. I would encourage young people beginning an education, to get as broad an education as possible, including the humanities, and also to learn things that aren’t taught in the Universities, such as how to build a house, fix a bicycle, do simple repairs, take care of your family’s health, grow your own food. Maybe even more important than individual survival is the survival of our cultural heritage, and we’re already at risk of losing that. In time of crisis, people have a tendency to withdraw into isolation. Some people talk about putting up a wall around our community to keep the starving hordes from the Bay Area from coming here, and I think that’s absolutely the wrong way. What we need to do is become even more inclusive and keep building stronger ties to other communities. This is essential to maintaining the best in our culture. I would put my highest priority into developing strong community networks, our greatest resource: our friendship and our connections to other people, So I would put my career in second place to trusting relationships, with my neighbor, my community, my family. (DR): I understand that Sonoma County and Sebastopol, in particular, have a high level of social cohesion. (LR): Yes, that and our climate, soil, and water are our greatest resources. Yet, interestingly, with community cohesion we have political diversity. In Sebastopol we’re not all green and progressive, but even the traditional conservatives are part of a community; we see each other on the street, stop and visit, realize we’re dependent on each other. This is one of the reasons for the town hall meetings we’re doing: to let all the voices be heard so we can remember we’re all in it together. (DR): Are there any words of encouragement for people preparing for an energy-constrained future that you’d like to leave us with? (LR): Yes, I’ll leave you with a poem from Gary Snyder, called “For the Children.” The rising hills, the slopes of statistics lie before us. The step climb of everything, going up, up, as we all go down. In the next century or the one beyond that, they say, are valleys, pastures. We can meet there in peace if we make it. To climb these coming crests one word to you, to you and your children: Stay together learn the flowers go light. (DR): Fabulous. Thank you so much, Larry. For the full interview go to www.globalpublicmedia.com/transcripts/481 for both print and audio. Also, Jason Bradford, founder of the Willits Economic Localization (WELL), speaks with Global Public Media’s David Room about climate change, peak oil, and how Willits is preparing for an energy-constrained future. He discusses how WELL got started, the efforts of the group, and their progress. For this interview (in audio and video) go to www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/434. <back | top^ |