Back to the future

PCC’s sustainability coordinator sees something very familiar in newfangled ‘technology’

By Mateusz Perkowski

The Beaverton Valley Times, Aug 24, 2006, Updated Oct 30, 2009

Mateusz Perkowski / Pamplin Media Group

Noelle Studer, PCC's sustainability coordinator, works in a garden on the Rock Creek campus.

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Can you imagine living without air conditioning?

If you’ve got a basement and a good box fan, probably.

What would you do with your food if you didn’t have a refrigerator?

OK, that’s a bit tougher.

And what would you do if trucks couldn’t make deliveries to your grocery store?

Whoa. Now we’re getting into the realm of serious problems.

Thankfully these questions, for now, are hypothetical. But Noelle Studer thinks they are increasingly relevant, and she believes the answers may come from our ancestors.

Studer, sustainability coordinator for Portland Community College, doesn’t advocate returning the horse and buggy.

But, she says people interested in sustainable life skills can learn a thing or two from our predecessors, who had no choice but to find ways to survive without outside energy sources.

“We had this knowledge and wisdom, then we had cheap oil and the knowledge was forgotten,” said Studer, who spends most of her time at PCC’s Rock Creek campus.

“That kind of knowledge has now been coming back in the green building and sustainability movement, and we’re going to take it to the next level.”

Studer’s interest in exploring traditional techniques of energy conservation got a boost from the recent surge in oil costs.

She discussed her ideas in last week’s lecture, “The End of Cheap Oil: Positioning Oregon as a Leader in Sustainable Technologies,” at the Washington County Historical Society and Museum.

The idea for the lecture came to Studer when she heard about the Draft Horse Plowing Exhibition, held on the PCC Rock Creek campus.

The annual event reminded her of a documentary film about the resurgence of horse-drawn farming in Cuba. When the Soviet Union fell, the country’s oil supply was drastically diminished and farmers, searching for an alternative, turned to horse-power.

While the local agricultural industry isn’t facing such an alarming situation, local farmers will tell you that diesel bills are becoming increasingly burdensome.

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