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Dear friends and
neighbors,
 Some
of you may have noticed that Woody Tasch has frequently been in
Colorado in recent months, and wondered why. He was at the Boulder Book
Store in early May to talk about his new book, Inquiries Into the Nature of Slow Money:
Investing as If Food, Farms, and Fertility Mattered
(Chelsea Green), which is surely the most poetic book about economic
issues that we've seen in decades. He recently was also in Aspen as a
panelist for American Renewable Energy Day, and was the rousing keynote
speaker at EarthWorks Expo in Denver last Sunday.
What's up is that Woody is at the forefront of a
head-spinning movement coalescing around the concept of "Slow
Money" (an allusion to Carlo Petrini's international Slow Food
organization). In a nutshell, the purpose of Slow Money, starting with
food and farming, is to accelerate the transition from an economy of
extraction and consumption to an economy of preservation and
restoration. Slow Money, says The Green Fork blog, "gets right to
the heart of everything that's ailing our economy and corroding our
culture."
 In
a recent interview in Chronogram Magazine, Woody said: "We
need to build a culture that stands as a radiant counterpoint to our
dominant hurry-up culture. We need to bring our culture down to
earth--and I mean this literally. We need to replenish the soil; we
need to remember our connection to the soil; we need to support our
local food system; we need to participate in and celebrate the local
culture that emerges from these many connections and awarenesses; and
we also need to build the financial infrastructure that will enable all
this to thrive." We at Transition Colorado couldn't agree more!
While here, Woody has been talking with a small number of
people about launching a local Slow Money Alliance "chapter"
in Boulder, and that is slowly coming together. The group will be
exploring the development of the kind of small food enterprises that
Woody has been promoting, everything from small organic farms, to local
food processors, to slow food restaurants. Woody has suggested that the
group get started by focusing on greatly increasing CSA subscriptions
in Boulder County.
If you are interested in exploring a Boulder Slow Money group further,
please visit www.SlowMoneyAlliance.org. While you're at
the site, please read the Slow Money Principles there, and sign them.
And then please join the Alliance, perhaps even as a founding member.
[For more information about Boulder Slow Money, contact Fred (Rico)
Baker, fcb...@astrocowboy.com]
But the main excitement at the moment is a powerful
conference Woody is convening in Santa Fe, Sept. 9-11, called "Slow Money: From the Ground Up." This
will be the inaugural national gathering of the nascent Slow Money
movement, the very first time that various thought leaders,
entrepreneurs, investors, donors, farmers and activists have the
opportunity to come together to begin to map the dimensions of an
enlightened, re-localized food system that could make wholesome foods
available affordably without degrading people, animals and the planet.
Registrations are still open for the Slow Money
conference, and several people from the Front Range will be
participating. We'd like to invite you to join us there (click here for the poster). We are convinced
this will be one of the most significant gatherings of 2009!
Woody has said, "With soil depletion and climate
change hard upon us, we're heading toward an irreversible and possibly
apocalyptic problem. We need to respond by being daring. This means
going beyond our left brains and engaging our whole brain and our
heart."
We look forward to your participation in the daring Slow
Money movement.
The Transition Team
TRANSITION COLORADO
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