How is your community responding to the challenges of climate change?

[Kim Ridley]

Here in Maine, we're looking at everything from organizing ride shares for people who live in rural areas to clean energy alternatives like wind power and marine current turbines. I also think the Transition Initiatives movement is pretty exciting.

What's happening in your neck of the woods?

[Charley Quinton]

I'm glad you posted the question. Here in very rural Ballard county of extreme Western Kentucky it seems like tradition and convention rule. The local farmers co-op appears to be just another outlet for agri-business. Monocultures of soybeans and hybrid corn are the only thing that make "economic" sense to farmers around here (ya' gotta' make a livin').

But your question prompted me to do a search using the terms "Western Kentucky climate change" and a few interesting sites like this came up.

I haven't been back here in the county for long, so there may be more than I'm seeing. The Universities are of course looking into regional problems in their own academic way, but I don't know of anything as far as a grassroots effort here... yet. An artist colony now exists in a nearby larger town, Paducah. Artists I suppose are usually forward-thinking conscientious folks. Paducah has a real farmers market also and pretty good mass transit for a smaller city.

In the broader area, which includes Southeast Missouri and Southern Illinois several farms list at LocalHarvest.org so there is hope. Networking is an important tool for rural communities and Bioneers.org and TransitionUs.org can help.

[Kim Ridley]

Thanks for posting. Greening Western Kentucky looks like a great project!

We signed up for Maine Interfaith Power and Light, which provides electricity from 100 percent renewable sources (wind and hydro here). These organizations are popping up around the country. You can find out if your state has a program here.

There are no religious strings. The project is so named because it started through diverse congregations, ala the Civil Rights Movement.

We don't have agribusiness issues here, but volunteers in various towns are working on local food issues. In my town, we're organizing our second local food festival. It was a blast last year and pretty simple to put together with a few volunteers.