On Thursday night, the City of Staunton was thinking green and showing people that green innovations don't just have to happen around the country.

They can happen in the Valley too.

Presenters, like Taylor Cole, explained that biomass fuels, such as switch grass, are economical and can be grown in this area.

The grass can then be harvested and used as fuel for boilers.

Solar panels like those at Eastern Mennonite University and practical approaches to residential wind energy were also presented as unique energy alternatives by Tony Smith with Secure Futures and Bob Zickefoose with Shenandoah Wind Power respectively.

"We need to keep promoting to the public these ideas and these solutions. The future is not a foregone conclusion. We don't have to live in a boiling planet, there are things we can be doing right now," says Taylor Cole, the president of Conservation Partners, whose principle mission is to make sure in the future there will be farms and productive farmers in Virginia.

The presenters said most barriers to establishing initiatives like these are conventional wisdom, along with financial and legal issues.

"Get the community behind it, get the capital behind it. These things are within our grasp, we just have to persevere and keep plugging away," says Cole.

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