---------- - - ------ - - - - -- - --- - ----- -- ------- Page16 RAIN luncl981 - COMMUNITIES Working Together: Community Self-Reliance in California by the Community Assistance Group, Office of Appropriate Technology, 1981, 110 pp., free to CA residents, $6.50 for non-residents (checks payable to "State of California") from: Office of Appropriate Technology 1600 Ninth Street Sacramento, CA 95814 " ommunity self-reliance offers a vision of a democratic, cooperative society in which local producers use local resources to satisfy local needs." Community groups in several cities across the country are working on seJfreliance proJects, but to my knowledge this is the first stat e-wide guide to community selfreliance. The main body of the book portrays the efforts of some twenty citizen groups, ranging from the hinese ommunit Housing Corporation and the Toiyabe Indian Health Project to the Santa Cruz Community Credit Union and the Humboldt Bay Wastewater Authority. In Fresno, for example, Western Community Industries buys old newspaper and turns it into cellulose insulation, combining resource conservation with community job development. Each group' s history is concisely described, including stumbling blocks and lessons learned as well as victories. In addition to explaining the ontext of and prOViding examples of community selfreliance, Working Together oncludes with section on fundamentals for community organizing, followed by an Appendix of California and other resources. Working Together is an inspiring model and should be read by people across the continent-state officials especially-interested in community self-reliance. Certainly, at the price, no Californian should be without it. - MR RAIN's Community Self-Reliance Guide fo r the Portland area is scheduled for publicatIon in early summer. Look for future announcements. ENERGY Ellergy and Environment Checklist, by Betty Warren, 1980, 228 pp., $5.95 from: Friends of the Earth 124 Spear Street San Francisco, CA 94105 Maybe someday there will be a complete, continuously updat d, and readily available data bank for renewable energy. Meanwhile, this annotated and newly revised bibliography should do quite nicely. It includes an excellent selection of the beS1 nonteroni al information sources around as of early 19 O. There is also a fairly current list of good magazines and organizations in the field of appropriate technology . Energy C/lld Environment offers an interesting perspective on how quickly things are changing in the fIeld of energy. From Worki/lg Together early all of the books and studies mentioned are less than four years old. None of them were written before 1974. Renewable energy has a long way to go before it gets bon ng. -KB America's Energy, by Robert Engler, 1981,464 pp., $7.95 from: Pantheon Books/Random House 201 E. 50th St. New York, NY 10022 The fight for an energy supply that is publicly controlled (or at least publicly accountable) is at least as old as the industrial revolution and concurrent shift to a centralized fossil fuel economy. The informed cynicism of Nation magazine has been around for a lot of that time, and this collection of a hundred-odd articles offers a rare insight into the progress of that struggle since the turn of the century. America's Energy is history at its best: contemporary writers talking about the subtleties of personality and politics that shaped our energy future, events that are as important as, and often the cause of, the flashier revolutions, wars, and crises that have upstaged them in the history books. -KB Preliminary Comments of the Natural Resources Defense Council on a CostEffective Energy Conservation Program for the Pacific Northwest, 3/24/ 81 Revision, 1981,95 pp., $6.00 from: Natural Resources Defense Council 25 Kearny Street San Francisco, CA 94108 NRD 's latest contribution to the energy debate 10 the Pacific Northwest is a detailed discussion of what an effective energy conservation program should look like in the residential sector. It includes a methodology for determining the cost-effectiveness of different conservation options, a shopping list of available conservation techniques and how their life cycle costs compare to new coal and nuclear power plants, and a number of ways that utilities and communities Clln oversome the financial and institutional barriers to a less centralized energy grid. This report is largely based on information provided by regional utilities, and its onclusions go a long way towards providing the hard numbers that are needed to counter utility and government claims about the need for more large power plants. The basis for those conclusions is thoroughly documented, and the methodologies they describe should prove to be an.important tool for renewable energy advocates nationWIde. NRDC is developing similar proposals for conservation in the regional commercial and industrial sectors, and Will be updating their reports as needed. - KB
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