Experimental brainstorming session on fossil fuels set for March 3

DEXTER — On Friday, March 3 Dexter Dover Area Towns in Transition (DDATT) hosts its monthly First Friday community discussion at the Abbott Memorial Library. From 6-8 p.m. the group will experiment with the open space technique of answering the evening’s central question, “If fossil fuel is hard to get, what are the most important issues facing our area?”
As a part of the transition town movement, DDATT’s mission is to help reduce the area’s dependence on fossil fuel use, the first stage of which is to acknowledge all of the ways that gasoline and diesel affect personal lives, business activities and municipal functions. Fossil fuels are incredibly important assets which should be used with the highest thoughtfulness possible. Eventually DDATT aims to create an “energy transition pathway” for the area, which envisions a powered-down, resilient, localized future, then creating a map for how to get there from here.
Open space is a method of concentrating many peoples’ thoughts onto a few topics and studying them in depth, even for just a couple of hours. It has four rules and one law. After learning the simple process, the full group begins with different ideas being generated by attendees, then breaks up into smaller discussion groups based on those ideas. The outcome should be, at the very least, interesting if not surprisingly useful as a basis for beginning work on the energy transition pathway planning.
For more information on DDATT and future events, email info@ddatt.org to get on news list or call 277-4221 or 924-3638.