Important note: Although this page is filled with great references, the most current information related to community preparedness will be found at sites such as Y2K Community, The Cassandra Project, Coalition 2000 and Robert Theobald's website on community resilience. This field (community preparedness) is developing too fast for me to keep up and I will be focusing on Y2K transformational issues. So, if you want the latest in community preparedness, do familiarize yourself with these excellent sites. -- Tom Atlee
This page is a compilation of material located or referred to
elsewhere on his site which may be useful to local government
officials, politicans and interested community activists.
The Year 2000: Social
Chaos or Social Transformation by John L. Petersen,
Margaret Wheatley, Myron Kellner-Rogers -- a good overview, with
good collaborative advice.
"Rachel's Environmental &
Health Weekly" on Y2K - a compelling compendium of facts.
Community
impact of the Year 2000 problem - possible scenarios for the
next few years.
And if you want more evidence, try Is
this Y2K problem for real? which includes information from
the first two articles, plus much, much more, in a stripped-down,
intense compilation.
All Together Now: The
"Y2K Neighborhood" takes on the "Millennium Computer
Bomb" by Larry Shook - an excellent intro to
the whole problem, from an emotionally-compelling building-community
perspective.
What
Local Government Should be Doing about the Year 2000 Problem
by Steve Davis
Y2K Contingency Planning Notes
- how to think about community preparations for Y2K.
The Y2K Political Action Project
featuring Mapping
out a creative political perspective for Y2K now - which describes
what the national political priorities should be for supporting
local communities in their efforts to deal well with Y2K
Synergistic
Mitigation and Contingency Preparation by Harlan Smith. Since
100% remediation cannot be completed in time, we need to ensure
minimal support systems ("austere infrastructure" for
food, water, etc.) are in place.
An Open
Letter to State Legislators (and other politicians) by Victor
Porlier
Model
cover letters to send to government officials by Roleigh Martin
Questions for Meeting with Officials
More Y2K Questions
for Campaigning Politicians and Elected Government Officials
To learn about some of the potentially catastrophic
consequences of Y2K that all government officials should work
together to prevent, please visit our Toxics/Nukes
Page.
Has the Y2K bug bit your PC? Find out with tools that analyze,
report, and sometimes fix this date dilemma. Read Y2K
Revisited.
Dealing With
The Year 2000 Problem: The International Compliant Community Initiative
by Steve Davis -- a good overview of what's needed at all
levels.
Government's Role in Reducing "Year 2000" Risks by Leon A. Kappelman, Jerry L. Johnson and Kathy Rosmond
Y2K v. 2: Time for Triage by Jim Seymour of PC Magazine -- what it's like to make the tough decisions about which programs to make Y2K compliant.
What can I do about Y2K? outlines actions citizens can take in their local communities and with their local governments (see especially Reaching out to local authorities by Ed Alpern)
Reweaving Community Resilience by Robert Theobald
Why Community-Based Responses Make More Sense than Survivalism by Tom Atlee.
The Year 2000: Who will do what and when will they do it? by Douglass Carmichael. A sophisticated look at what could happen, under a variety of conditions, sketched out by an experienced, high-level scenario-spinner.
Thoughts about Community Preparedness Plans, Requirements, and Self-organization by Doug Carmichael, Harlan Smith, Ian Wells and Tom Atlee
Y2K Awareness Days and Holidays - guidance for creating local Y2K events and activities.
Why Are Year/2000 Projects so Difficult and Risky? by Ed Yourdon
Eight Steps to U.S. Y2K Food Security by Carla Emery and her "Farmer Direct" project
ITAA's Year 2000 Outlook is published every Friday to help all organizations deal more effectively with the Year 2000 software conversion. To create a subscription to this free publication, please visit ITAA on the web at: http://www.itaa.org/transact/2koutlooksub.htm
Grassroots and Governments
Collaborate to Prepare Their Communities for Y2K
Protecting Ithaca from
Computer Chaos by Paul Glover gives a vision of how
a community can grow more sustainable through its efforts to deal
with Y2K
A call for a progressive Y2K
agenda by Tom Atlee
An Alternative Community
Response Vision by Tom Atlee
How one community
made it: Looking back from the future by futurist Robert Theobald
Local currencies and Y2K community
organizing by Tom Greco
Y2K
Movement Analysis and Recommendations by Laurence Victor,
a book-length manuscript describing what it would take to midwife
a new, sustainable post-Y2K civilization.
Website links about community
and sustainability
How to get a Mayor's or Governor's
Proclamation about Y2K
Why Your Organization Should Educate
People about Y2K
Corporate/Government Pledges of Cooperation
-UK and NZ
Input to U.S. FEMA survey
The entire Y2K Environmental/Sustainability
materials page on this site
The
Millennium Salon's incredible "tools
you can use" section
Coalition 2000 Preparedness
Plan Review/Link
Preparedness plans for
counties and cities
Senator John Vasconcellos'
Y2K Plan for California
National Civic Associations' Y2K Programs to support
local communities in dealing with Y2K.
The Cassandra
Project: National Y2K community organizing resources
and co-ordination
Community-Building Organizations
Local community preparedness
group web sites
Cyntha Beal's very informative
and homey Y2K site oriented to small businesses and communities
Computer Professionals
for Social Responsibility are recruiting programmers for small
businesses and non-profits and trying to assume real responsibility
for this side-effect of their profession. They are a good starting
place for unofficial, expert technical information on Y2K.
The Small Business-Owners Year
2000 Readiness Checklist.
What's
needed by small businesses and organizations who want to try
getting their computer systems ready for Y2K.
Visit the Small Business Administration's Y2K web site at http://www.sba.gov/y2k/
How to push for Utilities' Y2K
readiness - a guide for citizens and officials
Examples of useful Y2K community news articles: The
LA Times on Gov't helping communities organize and Tech
Week on Community Y2K action
Y2K web sites having to do with government and politics:
For information on what the role of government should be in reducing Y2K risks, check these sites:http://www.scotsystems.com/harlany2k.html
http://www.year2000.unt.edu/kappelma/Gov-y2k.htm
http://www.uuy2k.org/uuy2k/gore-04-24-98.htm
Info Tech Assn of America testimony to Congress 5/7/98For official state and county Y2K web sites, see
For a guide to official federal Y2K web sites, see
To see the Republican's estimate of the federal government agencies' Y2K compliance see House Majority Leader Dick Armey's site:
"The purpose of the federal database is to share vendor
compliance information. Initially it was developed for federal
government use only. In January or so of this year the federal
government opened access to all. It has the usual disclaimers on the
accuracy of the data but the database contains a large amount of
information and has a great search engine. The web site address is:
<http://y2k.policyworks.gov/> . Another good
web site is the State of Washington's. They also maintain a vendor
compliance database. The Washington web site address is:
<http://www.wa.gov/dis/2000/y2000.htm> "Chris Apgar, Year 2000 Project Manager
Multnomah County, OR
Phone: (503) 248-3749, X-26068
Fax: (503) 248-5009
E-mail: chris.r.apgar@co.multnomah.or.usFor information on global Y2K status, check the Global Millennium Foundation's site.
Here are two community preparedness listservs hosted by Oregon Public Networking in Eugene, Oregon. These lists discuss community preparedness issues resulting from potential century-date-change (CDC) complications impacting the nationally and internationally shared infrastructures of power, fuel, food, telecommunications, currency, and community services through several means. There has been quite a bit of traffic (30 messages/day in early June) on the unmoderated one. Try them both and see which serves your needs. They're free, of course.
UNMODERATED: HOW TO SUBSCRIBE to the Regional Preparedness Listserv:
Send email To: listproc@efn.org
Message: subscribe year2000 [type your name in here] ----end
MODERATED: HOW TO SUBSCRIBE to the Northwest Year 2000 Regional Preparedness Listserv:
Send email To: listproc@efn.org
Message: subscribe y2kforum [type your name in here - no brackets]
Although the Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility
listserv is not specifically about community preparedness,
it often has information useful to people working with organizations
in their communities. To subscribe send a message to listserv@cpsr.org.
In the body of the message, write: subscribe cpsr-y2k yourfirstname
yourlastname
The Millennium Salons Forum allows many people to ask and answer questions about Y2K -- including many about community preparedness. The questions and answers get sorted out into a reference library for everyone. There is also an excellent tools you can use section. To find out more about it, click here.