“Unless we are successful in tackling climate change, we won’t be able to feed the world’s growing population, however we farm. This report shows that agriculture can reduce greenhouse gas emissions while producing food sustainably.”
Patrick Holden, Soil Association director

‘Organic farming may counter climate change’

Organic farming can play an important role in countering climate change, a new report suggests today.

Use of organic methods means that the soil takes up much more carbon, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide to boost global warming, according to the report from the Soil Association, the organic food and farming charity.

Soil is a major store of carbon, the report says, containing three times as much as the atmosphere and five times as much as forests. About 60 per cent of this is in the form of organic matter in the soil. On average, organic farming produces 28 per cent higher levels of soil carbon compared to non-organic farming in northern Europe, according to the report, and 20 per cent higher for all countries studied (in Europe, North America and Australasia).

The report suggests that widespread adoption of organic farming practices would offset 23 per cent of the UK’s greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture through soil carbon sequestration alone, more than doubling the Government’s target of a 6-11 per cent reduction by 2020.

If all UK farmland were converted to organic, the report says, at least 3.2 million tonnes of carbon would be taken up by the soil each year – the equivalent of taking nearly 1 million cars off the road.

The Independent (26 Nov)
Organic farming has ‘profound effect’ on climate change
Farmers Guardian (26 Nov)
Soil Association press release: Soil Carbon – the missing link in COP 15 (26 Nov)
To read the full report and summary of findings click here

I’m an everyday cyclist.  I don’t compete, and I do own a car.  I like to ride with my family and make short trips on my bike.  I enjoy the idea of not burning gas for a short trip in the neighborhood.  Its my way of protesting against the big gas companies and their record-breaking profits and a way of protesting any of the irrational reasons we are sending our troops around the world.

I really wanted to say something brilliant about what would happen if everyone used a bike close to home right here.  However, as I think about just the thing to say to change the narrow thoughts of my fellow citizens, I realized that this alone is my decision.  This makes me feel better in these challenging times.  I choose to be more bike dependent.  As our world moves closer to peak fuel production, I wonder how many people have really stopped to think about what they would do without fuel.

Cycling will be part of the solution.  It is one efficient way to travel and it doesn’t require fuel.  Sure, some of the bike products are made from oil, but I am fully convinced that we are smart enough to overcome that challenge.  Just think of how many countries exist without cars as their primary mode of transportation.  They are examples and leaders of the everyday cyclist movement.

One of my favorite resources is a magazine that takes this idea to a whole new level.  Bicycle Times is a great periodical that is not about selling expensive bikes and slick glossy ads.  This magazine is about cycling for the everyday rider and feels more like a gathering of friends than any of the other I have seen.  I have put back more magazines at the library and bookstore because they just weren’t written for me.  Pick up a copy of Bicycle Times and I am sure you will see what I mean.

Lundin Petroleum, det “svenska” oljebolaget, rapporterar att de har kört torrt i ett borrhål i Kaspiska havet.

Prospekteringsborrningen vid namn Petrovskaya-1, nådde ett djup på drygt 2 000 meter innan rester av olja och vatten påträffades. Hålet skall nu förslutas men borrningen skall fortsätta i området.

Aktien sjönk drygt tre kronor eller runt 5 % på beskedet. Detta är inget nytt i sig utan en naturlig del av verksamheten. Hittar de olja kommer aktien troligtvis att stiga.

En utmärkt spekulations eller trading aktie. För de som vill profitera på den kommande Peak Oil, kan hitta bättre alternativ.

Ich habe einen Teil meines Peak-Oil-Vortrages zusammengefasst und als 9-Minuten-VideoVortrag per SlideShare.com aufbereitet. Da auf wordpress.com das Einbetten von Videos leider kostenpflichtig ist, führt ein Klick auf den Screenshot zum Video:

Screenshot Peak Oil Vortrag

HOW INFANTILE IS AMERICAN SOCIETY?  Last night’s CBS “Business Update” (in the midst of its “60 Minutes” program) featured three items: 1.) The New Moon teen vampire movie led the weekend box-office receipts; 2.) Cadbury shares hit an all-time high; 3.) Michael Jackson’s rhinestone-studded white glove sold at auction for $350,000. Some in-house CBS-News producer is responsible for this fucking nonsense. How does he or she keep her job? Is there no adult supervision at the network?

Meanwhile, over at The New York Times this morning, Paul “Nobel Prize” Krugman writes:
“Most economists I talk to believe that the big risk to recovery comes from the inadequacy of government efforts; the stimulus was too small, and it will fade out next year, while high unemployment is undermining both consumer and business confidence.”

Disclosure: I’m not one of the economists that Mr. Krugman talks to (nor am I an economist). But it’s sure interesting to know that the ones palavering with Mr. Krugman imagine that that the US can possibly return to an economy based on the fraudulent securitization of reckless debt. Does Mr. Krugman think that the production housing industry can resume paving over the nether exurbs with half-million-dollar houses (to be bought with no money down loans by the sheet-rockers working inside them)?

Does he think all those people receiving cancellation notices from their credit card issuers are in a position to flash their plastic at the Gallerias this Friday? Or ever will be again?  Is he perhaps misusing the term “recovery?”  After all, that is generally taken to mean resuming a prior state, which is, in turn, presumed to be a healthy prior state.  Is that what the economy of the past decade was?  And, incidentally, what exactly is a “consumer?”  And why, at the highest levels of journalism in this land, do we refer to citizens that way?  As if the American people have no other purpose except to buy things? Or is that the only way an “economist” can imagine them?

I’m sorry to burden the reader with so many questions, but the idiots running the mainstream news media in this land are not doing it and somebody has to.

If a “recovery” is not in the cards, then what exactly is going on out there?

What’s going on in the US economy is a slow-motion convulsion from which we will emerge as a very different nation with a different economy.  The wild irresponsibility of the media in pretending otherwise is only going to make the convulsion worse, more painful, more socially and politically destructive. The convulsion can be described with precision as one of compressive contraction.

Historic circumstances are requiring us to change our behavior, to make new arrangements for everyday life in all the major particulars: capital accumulation and deployment; food production; commerce; habitation; transport; education; and health care. These new arrangements must be organized at a smaller and finer scale, and on a much more local basis.

The main “historic circumstance” mandating these changes goes under the heading of “peak oil.” We’ve come to the end of our ability in this world to increase energy inputs to the global economy. The routine “growth” in industrial activity and production that has been the basis of our financial arrangements for 200-odd years is no longer possible.  Offsetting this decline in oil energy “input” with “alt.energy” is a dangerous fantasy because it distracts us from the urgent task of making new arrangements for trade, food production, et cetera – the very things that would provide jobs and social roles for our citizens in the future.

We are seeing a comprehensive failure of leadership in every sector and every level of American life – in politics, business, banking, education, news media, medicine, and the clergy. All are determined to pretend that we can somehow continue the habits and behaviors of the pre peak oil era. They are all unwilling to face reality, and are all engaged in mutually supporting each other’s dangerous fantasies.

If we don’t attend to the transformation of American life by downscaling our activities and changing the way they are carried out, and re-localizing them, we will see our society disintegrate – and I use the word “dis-integrate” with purposeful precision. Everything will come apart – our political arrangements, our households, our health and well-being.

At the moment, banking is disintegrating.  It’s happening because the end of regular, predictable, cyclical, industrial growth means the end of our ability to generate credit without limits, and in fact we passed this point by stealth some time ago leaving the banks in “Wile E. Coyote” suspension above an abyss, where they have lately been joined by government at all levels and the indebted citizens of the land. The profound nausea spreading through the offices of America is the somatic recognition of exactly where we are in all this: off the cliff.

It’s important to remind readers that so-called “capitalism” is not to blame. Capitalism is not an ideology.  It refers to a set of laws governing the disposition of surplus wealth. There is going to be surplus wealth somewhere in the years ahead, even if our living standards fall substantially, even under the strictures of peak oil.  All the communist experiments of the 20th century produced some kind of surplus wealth. All of them were subject to the phenomenon of compound interest. What matters in the disposition of capital are the rules created for accumulating and deploying it.

In the USA the past two decades, we ignored the rules, repealed some of the critical laws, and failed to enforce the existing ones so that, when faced by the historic circumstances of peak oil, we allowed fraud and swindling to run wild – just at the moment when we should have taken the most care. That is why our money system ran off the rails.

We’re now seeing worldwide a kind of race between the assertion of peak oil and the failures of capital management as to which will provoke a widespread convulsion first.  They are obviously related and whichever gets us in the most trouble fastest, our destination is the same: the absolute necessity to reorganize how we live. Among the many elements of this is the fact that “globalism,” in the Thomas Friedman sense of the word, is over. The urgent need to re-localize economies makes this self-evident. As a practical matter for us, this means committing to import replacement – making things we need in the US, probably much more regionally. “Globalism” now joins the many other fantasies that we can no longer indulge in.

At the moment, going into Thanksgiving 2009, America’s leadership has dedicated itself to the worst action it could take under the circumstances: a campaign to sustain the unsustainable. This is what’s embodied in the foolish term “recovery.” The way we try to explain things to ourselves matters, if we don’t want to be crushed by history. Go back to the top of this blog and look at the things we pay attention to. Aren’t you ashamed?

Transcribo la nota,  nos muestra que dependiente es nuestra alimentación y plantea interrogantes a futuro

Por: George Monbiot
The Guardian

Probablemente es demasiado tarde para prepararnos para el momento en que la producción de petróleo alcance su punto culminante, pero al menos podemos tratar de salvar la producción alimentaria.

No sé cuándo empezará a declinar el suministro de petróleo. Sé qué otro recurso ha alcanzado ya esa cima y está en caída libre: la credibilidad de la institución que se supone que ha de valorarlo. La semana pasada, las denuncias de dos fuentes de la International Energy Agency suponen que esta ha alterado deliberadamente su cálculo de los suministros petroleros del mundo con el objetivo de no asustar a los mercados(1). Tres días más tarde, un estudio publicado por investigadores de la Universidad de Upsala, en Suecia, mostraba que las predicciones de la IEA pueden ser erróneas, porque suponen una tasa de extracción que parece imposible(2). La valoración que hace la agencia de los suministros globales de petróleo empieza a ser tan fiable como los halagos de Mr. Greenspan sobre la salud de los mercados financieros.
Si esas fuentes tienen razón, deberíamos empezar a hacer acopio de munición. Si nos toman por sorpresa; si no hemos logrado sustituir el petróleo antes de que los niveles de suministro máximos caigan, la economía global está acabada. Pero nada de lo que dijeron esas fuentes me ha asustado tanto como la conversación que tuve la pasada semana con un campesino de Pembrokeshire.

Wyn Evans, que lleva una granja mixta de 170 acres, desde 1977 ha estado intentando reducir su dependencia de los combustibles fósiles. Ha instalado un biodigestor, una turbina eólica, paneles solares y un compresor de calor soterrado. Donde ha sido posible, ha tratado de sustituir el diésel por su propia electricidad. En lugar de usar el tractor para extender el estiércol líquido, lo bombea desde el biodigestor hasta los campos cercanos. Ha sustituido su sistema de irrigación, movido por el tractor, por uno eléctrico, además de crear un nuevo sistema de secado del heno en interior, lo que significa que ha de echarlo en el campo una sola vez. Todas las otras cosas que hace producirán probablemente ahorros más pequeños. Pero estas innovaciones solamente han reducido su uso del diésel aproximadamente un 25%.

Según los científicos de la Facultad de Agrónomos de la Universidad de Cornell, cultivar en Estados Unidos una hectárea de maíz exige 40 litros de gasolina y 75 litros de diésel(3). La notable productividad del trabajo agrario moderno se ha comprado al coste de una dependencia del petróleo. A menos que los campesinos puedan cambiar el modo en que se cultiva, una sacudida permanente del petróleo colocaría el precio de los alimentos lejos del alcance de la boca de mucha gente del mundo. Cualquier gobierno responsable debería plantearse cuestiones urgentes acerca de lo lejos que hemos llegado.

En lugar de hacer eso, la mayoría de los gobiernos delega ese trabajo en la International Energy Agency. En los dos últimos años me he quejado constantemente del rechazo del Gobierno británico a realizar planes de contingencia relativos a la posibilidad de que se alcanzara el punto culminante de la producción petrolera en el año 2020(4,5), así que empiezo a sentirme como un loco que anda por ahí embutido en cartelones publicitarios. Quizá lo sea, ¿pero se sienten afortunados por eso? Las nuevas perspectivas de la energía mundial publicadas por la IEA esperan que la demanda global de petróleo crecerá de los 85m barriles diarios de petróleo de 2008 a los 105m de 2030(6). La producción de petróleo crecerá hasta los 103m de barriles, se dice en el informe, y los biocombustibles compensarán lo que falta(7). Si queremos el petróleo, este se materializará.

La Agencia advierte de la probabilidad de que el petróleo convencional “alcance una meseta” hacia el final de este período(8), pero no sugiere la advertencia más grave que hizo el principal economista de la IEA cuando lo entrevisté el año pasado: “seguimos esperando que hacia 2020 llegará a un nivel de meseta… me parece que en esto el tiempo no está de nuestro lado”.(9) Casi todos los años, la Agencia se ha visto obligada a reducir sus previsiones del suministro diario de petróleo hasta 2030: de los 123m de barriles de 2004 a los 120m de 2005, los 116m de 2007, los 106m de 2008 y los 103m de este año. Pero de acuerdo con una de las mencionadas fuentes internas, “incluso la cifra de hoy es muy superior a la que puede ser justificada y la IEA lo sabe”(10).

El informe de Upsala, publicado en Energy Policy, anticipa que en 2030 la producción global máxima de petróleo de todo tipo será de 76m de barriles por día. Analizando las cifras de la IEA, descubre que para cumplir sus predicciones de suministro, los campos petrolíferos nuevos y sin descubrir del mundo se tendrían que desarrollar en una tasa “nunca vista en la historia”(11). Como muchos de ellos se encuentran en lugares política o físicamente difíciles, y como el capital es escaso, esto parece imposible. Valorando los campos existentes, la tasa probable de descubrimientos y las nuevas técnicas de extracción, los investigadores descubren que “el punto culminante de la producción petrolera del mundo se está produciendo precisamente ahora”.

¿Tienen razón? ¿Quién lo sabe? El mes pasado, el UK Energy Research Centre publicó una lista masiva de todas las evidencias disponibles sobre los suministros petroleros mundiales(12). Mostraba que la fecha del punto culminante de la producción petrolera estará determinada no por el tamaño total del recurso global, sino por la tasa en la que se puede explotar. Los nuevos descubrimientos tendrían que ser inverosímilmente grandes para que la diferencia fuera significativa: incluso aunque se descubriera milagrosamente un campo del tamaño de todas las reservas encontradas en EE UU, ello retrasaría la fecha del punto culminante solo en cuatro años(13). Puesto que los descubrimientos globales tuvieron su punto culminante en los años 60(14), no parece muy probable que se produzca un descubrimiento así.

Los suministros petroleros regionales alcanzan el punto de extracción culminante cuando se ha extraído aproximadamente un tercio de los recursos totales(15): esto se debe a que la tasa de producción cae porque es más difícil extraer el petróleo restante. Por eso parece incierta la suposición del nuevo informe de la IEA de que la producción petrolera se mantendrá estable cuando los recursos globales hayan caído “hasta aproximadamente la mitad en 2030?(16). El análisis del UKERC dice que solo para mantener el suministro de petróleo en los niveles presentes, “para 2030 se deberá reemplazar más de dos tercios de la capacidad actual de producción de crudo… En el mejor de los casos, probablemente sea un reto extremo”(17). Existe, dice el análisis, “un riesgo significativo de que ese punto se alcance, para la producción petrolera convencional, antes de 2020”(18). El petróleo no convencional no nos salvará: incluso un programa de choque para desarrollar las arenas alquitranadas canadienses solo podría producir 5m de barriles diarios para(19).

Como muestra el informe del departamento estadounidense de la energía, un programa de emergencia para sustituir los equipos o suministros de energía actuales, para anticiparnos al punto culminante del petróleo, necesitaría 20 años para surtir efecto. La economía mundial está hecha polvo, con independencia de lo que hagamos ahora. Pero al menos podríamos salvar la agricultura. Hay dos opciones posibles: una sustitución masiva de la maquinaria agrícola o el desarrollo de nuevos sistemas que no requieran demasiado trabajo o energía. No hay barreras obvias a la producción masiva de tractores eléctricos y cosechadoras combinadas: el peso de las baterías y el par de eje inferior de los vehículos eléctricos son ventajas para los tractores. Más difícil resulta un cambio en la silvicultura y en otras formas de cultivos sostenibles, especialmente para la producción de cereales, pero la escala de la próxima emergencia es tal que no podemos permitirnos descartar nada.

El reto de alimentar a siete mil u ocho mil millones de personas mientras se reducen los suministros de petróleo es increíble. Pero será todavía mayor si los gobiernos pretenden que no va a suceder.

Traducido para Globalízate por Víctor García
http://www.globalizate.org/monbiot221109.html

Artículo original:

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/11/16/if-nothing-else-save-farming/

Referencias:

1. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

2. Kjell Aleklett et al, 2009. “The Peak of the Oil Age – analyzing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008″, Energy Policy, http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf

3. David Pimentel, Marcia Pimentel and Marianne Karpenstein-Machan, 1999. “Energy Use In Agriculture: An Overview”, Agricultural Engineering International: The CIGR EJournal, Volume I. http://www.cigrjournal.org/index.php/Ejounral/article/viewFile/1044/1037

4. I first began pestering the government about this in May 2007, as you can see here: http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/05/29/what-if-the-oil-runs-out/
After that, I lodged an FoI request, and returned to the theme in these articles:

5. http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/02/12/the-last-straw/

http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/05/27/majesty-we-have-gone-mad/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/04/14/cross-your-fingers-and-carry-on/

6. International Energy Agency, 2009. World Energy Outlook 2009. Page 73.

7. Figure 1.5, page 82.

8. p. 87.

9. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2008/dec/15/fatih-birol-george-monbiot

10. http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency

11. Kjell Aleklett et al, 2009. “The Peak of the Oil Age – analyzing the world oil production Reference Scenario in World Energy Outlook 2008″. Energy Policy, http://www.tsl.uu.se/uhdsg/Publications/PeakOilAge.pdf

12. Steve Sorrell et al, 2009. Global Oil Depletion: An assessment of the evidence for a near-term
peak in global oil production. UK Energy Research Centre, http://www.ukerc.ac.uk/support/Global%20Oil%20Depletion

13. p.134.

14. See Figure 2.8. page 24.

15. p. 7.

16. International Energy Agency, 2009, ibid., p. 80.

17. Steve Sorrell et al., 2009, p169.

18. p. 164.

19. p. 18.

20. Robert L. Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling, February 2005. “Peaking Of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, & Risk Management”, US Department of Energy. Available at http://www.hubbertpeak.com/us/NETL/OilPeaking.pdf

What Peak Oil Can Do for Climate Change

Follow the Yellow Brick Road

By Chris Nelder
Friday, November 20th, 2009

With all eyes focused on the Copenhagen climate summit in less than three weeks, perhaps it’s time for the peakists to find a new purpose.

The reason is simple. Money isn’t interested in problems; it’s only interested in solutions. And wherever capital goes is where the changes will be made.

The public also has little appetite for unpleasant stories, even true ones. The message is: Don’t tell us what we can’t consume — tell us what we can consume. Tell us our grid power costs are going to go up because of climate change and we’ll fight it. But help us buy efficiency improvements and renewables that will pay for themselves in fuel savings, and we’ll support it all the way.

A new Pew study on “apocalypse fatigue” highlights the problem nicely. The public’s confidence in the global warming problem has fallen sharply this year, even as momentum built toward Copenhagen.

Guilt and deprivation simply don’t sell like opportunity does.

That’s why trillions of dollars are pouring into cleantech annually, while the peak oil community continues to go begging for a few dollars to staff a small office and keep a web server running, all while battling a constant onslaught of misinformation placed in the top mainstream media by very deep-pocketed vested interests.

That’s why I said last week that the IEA was shrewd to turn its annual World Energy Outlook into a stalking horse, masquerading its alarm about peak oil as an earnest appeal to address climate change…………………………..

http://www.getreallist.com/what-peak-oil-can-do-for-climate-change.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+Getreallist+(GetRealList)&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

This evening I watched an extraordinary documentary titled A Crude Awakening (which can be found at Amazon here), and in the film three numbers jumped out at me:

• 25
• 5
• 2

And what do these numbers represent?

• 25 is the percentage of the world’s annual oil production that Americans consume
• 5 is the US percentage of the world’s population (actually, it’s even less than that; 1 out of every 22 people on Earth is a US citizen) 
• 2 is the estimated percentage of the world’s remaining oil reserves to be found beneath US soil.

Given theses numbers, and the rapid rise of China and India in the global economy, it doesn’t take an economist or petroleum geologist to tell you that our country’s consumption of fossil fuels is completely unsustainable (even if global oil production was not peaking, which it clearly is). Here are those numbers again:

• 25% (US consumption of annual global oil production)
• 5% (US population as a percentage of total global population)
• 2% (US share of estimated global oil reserves)

Let those numbers sink in. Political and economic turmoil, cultural upheaval, wars, and rumors of wars are in those numbers. Here’s a segment from the A Crude Awakening  documentary:

I’m not suggesting for a moment that it will be Mass Migration by itself that initiates the move to military governments in the West. It was Lester Brown’s recent article in Scientific American, in which he put forward his idea that failing states may be what causes civilization’s collapse, that made me realize that as the failure rate continues to accelerate the pressure of mass migration may be the earliest catalyst for the end of democracy in the West. As he points out, the pressures of desertification, water shortages, collapsing fisheries, famine, civil war and overpopulation etc., are already impacting states in the developing world to a far greater extent than the West. Some military planners in the US are coming to the conclusion that these pressures will pose a greater threat than terrorism and drugs. So assume that the stream of the dispossessed continues, climate continues toward chaos, population continues to explode, and the technological basis for a military state already exists in the US and Europe. Then how robust are our vaunted democracies?

We in the West have assumed for a long time that democratic government is our inalienable right, fought for over centuries by heroes of liberty. We also assume, somewhat more questionably, that it is by definition the ne plus ultra of political evolution and therefore the ultimate aspiration of people the world over. There are a number of problems with these ideas; mostly that they aren’t true. Democracy is notoriously fragile and there is nothing inalienable about it. Its progression in Europe, beginning (more or less) in 6th century BC Athens, has been sporadic. Athenian democracy fell to Alexander’s monarchy, the Roman republic to Octavian, the first Emperor in 31 BC. It wasn’t until the 18th century that anything we understand as a democracy re-emerged. Since 1960 the great majority of nation states self identify as democracies. This is a little like asking people if they are honest. The majority of the world’s population lives under regimes that are corrupt, incompetent or worse. For example Zimbabwe, Colombia, and Turkmenistan consider themselves to be democracies. Francis Fukuyama famously announced in “The End of History”, that liberal democracy had won the day as the peak of socio-political evolution. It is possible he may have been over optimistic.

In his new book, “From Democrats to Kings: The Brutal Dawn of a New World from the Downfall of Athens to the Rise of Alexander the Great”, Michael Scott makes some chilling comparisons between the current situation and those that caused the collapse of Greek democracy: crippling economic downturn, uncontrolled immigration and unpopular wars. In other words, emergencies that overwhelmed the ability of democracy to adapt fast enough. Sooner of later a powerful elite takes control. Much the same story could be told of the rise of fascism in 20th century states. When democratic governments fail authoritarian/military governments tend to be the default. It’s hard to see what makes the present crisis different, except the scale of the problem is global rather than local. Given the fact that western governments have thus far failed completely to make any effective changes regarding either climate or resource depletion it’s reasonable to imagine that if there is, as Kunstler calls it, a long emergency, then Democracy will fail and be replaced by more authoritarian regimes.

The Pentagon, NATO, and the military establishment in Europe are well aware of the challenges and there is now a significant defence literature dealing with Peak Oil, Climate and Migration. Some of the scenarios being investigated by military planners are bolder than others, and include the prospect of taking control of more than just the states they are charged with defending. In his award winning paper entitled “Imperialism 21: Hedging and Abandoning History”, Lieutenant Commander Joey Dodgen wrote:

“As far-fetched as it sounds, the advantages captured through colonial or imperial ventures would be numerous, including, but certainly not limited to, resource control and forward military basing…Economic imperialism is crucial to securing resources, maintaining favourable trade, and calming America’s business market amidst the daily turmoil of global terrorism. Economic imperialism is of no less importance to the United States than military imperialism.”

The attitude is understandable, even if on the basis of our performance in Iraq and Afghanistan, unlikely to be crowned with success. The Pentagon is tasked with defending the “American Way of Life” or at least the integrity of the developed countries, and it will do so to the best of its ability. The same stance is true of European military and intelligence. They are clearly expecting to deal with an increasingly chaotic environment and are examining ways to succeed. So the stage is set; the technological triumvirate is in place and there is no reason to expect that as the 21st century progresses the West will not become increasingly militarized.

So the answer to the last question of the Rare Events post, “At what point are people scared enough of the influx to want what is essentially a military government?” is that they won’t be asked. Our responses to the Drug War and Terrorism have already laid the groundwork for such a transition. All that would be required is the continuation of the current crisis until a permanent state of emergency can be declared. We will likely adopt a far harsher view of mass migration as conditions in Sub-Saharan Africa, South America and Mexico, India, and a host of lesser failing states continue to deteriorate.

Of more immediate concern is the effect of mass migration on those states nearby failing states – contagion. It is happening all across Africa as one state fails and as populations become displaced they are naturally moving into neighbouring states, themselves already fragile. Recent analyst meetings and war games in the US have concluded that the next 20 years of climate and ecological degradation will produce catastrophic events, including storms, migrations, droughts and pandemics, which will require US military intervention.

I believe that the economic collapse of the West will make such expensive interventions impossible in the future and that the developing world is close to a tipping point, after which recursive feedback effects will overwhelm the developed world’s ability to place failing states on life support – they’ll be on life support themselves. Which leads me to think that we will be taking more of a defensive position as our politicians give up on the idea of bombing the world into democracy and focus on maintaining order at home. Which brings me to my next topic: Fractal Collapse.

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5979#more

http://www.theoildrum.com/node/5949#more

The first is the current state of production, the second is an interesting look at the maths of forward projections.

Take the time, both are worth having a serious think about.

What a wee cracker of a night.

Note that both – BOTH – major political parties ducked the issue, and the opportunity.

Shame on you both. On behalf of my kids, and theirs; shame shame and thrice shame.

I call it criminal, at this juncture.

The evening started with a ’sustainable’ meal-on-a-budget, from Fleur Sullivan. Smoked cod’s heads, fish-liver pate, yummy asparagus soup, seaweed scones….  bloomin’ marvellous!

Then we got to the debate:

“PROMOTING CONTINUOUS ECONOMIC GROWTH PER SE IS A SOUND NATIONAL STRATEGY TO SECURE OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE”.

In the Chair, Alex Familton. For the Affirmative, Gerry Eckhoff, Bruce McNab and aul Hansen. For the Negative, Rod Oram, Te Radar and Susan Krumdiek.

My appraisal:

Alex Familton is old-school polite, but a buffoon. Any original thinking long since past.

Gerry Eckhoff suffers from predisposition. Like most (all) at that end of the spectrum, he needs a certain answer, so argues from that basis. “the world has never run out of anything” was one of his private comments later. He then drove home past a raft of worked-out gold mines.

Bruce Mc Nab ditto. This however, is probably a nice, sincere, well-meaning man. Certainly brave enough to attend, which places him well ahead of all the National Party, all the Labour Party, and a host of others. His arguments were a non-event ….tame, old, and totally refutable. Much like having a Jehovah’s Witness at the door. You can prove he’s wrong, but he won’t listen.

Paul Hansen – never met him, but I will endeavour to do so. I suspect a fine intelligence, and a disquiet about some of the assertations being promulgated from his team. I suspect, indeed, that his understanding would naturally fit with the negative.

Rod Oram. Ah Rod. Third time I’ve heard you in the last wee while (apart from Nat Radio and the SST) and I think I’m getting you sussed. You are religious, and I suspect you suffer from that being overlaid on top of your actual understanding. Clearly, you’re a man of huge heart and compassion, and I think that – deep down – you know we’re in the shit. In response to my question (re doubling time) you acknowledged that “if we carry on the trajectory we’re on, we will crash”. Quite right. But then, you address – not for the first time – our ‘obligation’ to feed 10 billion by 2050. That ain’t going to happen. Also, you have the need to remain publicly credible, and the public is firmly of a growth track.

Te Radar – a consummate pro. Perfect one-worders, pitched at the right level and time. Clearly not stupid, and I suspect he knows the science and the maths rather well. At times, spoke from the heart.

Susan Krumdiek. A conundrum withing an enigma, or something. Here is a big heart, an honest heart, and an engineer. Not, though, a conceptual maths person. She doesn’t get growth, or the exponential function. I’ve heard her a few times, and I think there is a place for the proactive stuff she does, but we need folk in her position to have the bigger picture firmly in mind. I’m not sure she’s there – but I’d trust her with my life, if you see what I mean.

The audience was an already-informed one, with about three exceptions. But well-behaved, and supportive -appreciative even – of the bravery of Gerry and Bruce in fronting.

A great night out, good people everywhere. The biggest sadness I had, was that complete absense of the National and Labour Parties.

Shame on you both. This is important. You were absent. There is no excuse.

At the Hampden debate?

Not on your Nellie.

You have to keep yourself ignorant, when you choose ignorance. That means not getting informed.

That way you can post self-important posts, about your important position, and how you rub shoulders with important people, and ensure folk know you then did ‘retail therapy’.

Right idea, wrong genre.

I will write a history of this period – if we survive it intact – and I will remember these people. They had the chance to get informed, and chose not to. Or, they were informed, but chose to not contribute to the needed redress.

Either way, ignorance has been established legally as no excuse – so I regard these folk’s actions as criminal.

My journey down sustainability lane started a few years back when I heard of and investigated peak oil. Then, there was very little on offer in terms of government environmental initiatives.

Today I heard an excerpt from a speech by Naledi Pandor where she is calling for SA boffins to find alternative energies for our transportation needs as (wait for it) fossil fuels “will run out”. She was talking today at the International Aerospace symposium of South Africa in Centurion.

I’m keen to know what else aircraft run on if they run “mainly on fossil fuel”. The guy that pedaled across the English Channel doesn’t count!

At least we’re moving in the right direction!

Shot over a two day period last March, Collapse centres around the theories and ideas of a man named Michael Ruppert, a former member of the LAPD turned investigative journalist, author and nation wide lecturer.  Ruppert essentially outlines the various ways in which he believes the world’s total economic collapse is not only possible but inevitable.

Directed by documentary filmmaker Chris Smith, the film consists mostly of Ruppert speaking about the dangers of peak oil and the looming catastrophe that declining oil reserves could bring.

“The power of ‘Collapse’ is that Ruppert never sounds like a crackpot,” Entertainment Weekly critic Owen Gleiberman wrote after the movie’s Toronto International Film Festival premiere in September. “You may want to dispute him, but more than that you’ll want to hear him, because what he says—right or wrong, prophecy or paranoia—takes up residence in your mind.”

Collapse is in firm company with hardline leftist “crisis of capitalism” conspiracies. Might be worth a look for entertainment value, in any case.

A recent article on the wire “Debt may swamp the federal Treasury” I’ve retitled here as will swamp because there is no may about it.  Let’s look at some key points from the article:

With the national debt now above $12 trillion, the White House estimates that the government’s tab for servicing the debt will top $700 billion a year in 2019, up from $202 billion this year [emphasis by GardenSERF], even if annual budget deficits shrink dramatically. Other forecasters say the figure could be much higher.

In concrete terms, an additional $500 billion a year in interest expense would total more than the combined federal budgets this year for education, energy, homeland security and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The potential for rapidly escalating interest payouts is just one of the wrenching challenges facing the United States after decades of living beyond its means.
….
Americans now have to climb out of two deep holes: as debt-loaded consumers, whose personal wealth sank along with housing and stock prices; and as taxpayers, whose government debt has almost doubled in the last two years alone, just as costs tied to benefits for retiring baby boomers are set to explode.

That’s just one suction cup on the massive financial tentacle now wrapped around the USA and locked in a conscious economic attack on this country.  Other tightly fastened cups on this single tentacle include the trade deficit, overseas outsourcing, manipulated exchange rates, tax breaks (and removal of tariffs) which both encouraged and allowed domestic manufacturing to be moved out of the USA, etc, etc.

A similar method of attack used on the consumers (once known as citizens) of this country was also used on its government.  However, the financial/economic attack is only one tentacle in a multi-prong attacked which will be used against this country over the next two decades.  However, many Americans will be unable to see this ongoing long term attack due to their daily conditioning by Hollywood/Mainstream Media with the usual short-term emphasis on the “here and now” and instant gratification.  When you think of the frog in the warm water being brought to the slow boil on the stove, imagine a master chef paying close attention to the amount of heat being applied under the pan.  This is the level of sophistication and planning being used against the USA.

Other methods of attack on the people and this country as a whole in the future will be more physically direct.  They will come years apart at first.  Waiting for the smoke to clear will take months at a time in the early stage we’re now in, but even this will be enough for many Americans to forget and be unable to connect the dots.  However, the later attacks on this country will be in relatively more rapid succession and from many directions all at once –similar to an octopus wrapping many tentacles around its prey.

This could take the form of multiple and coordinated acts of terrorism involving WMDs (Weapons of Mass Destruction, but I would emphasize the biological form of attack as most damaging to the population), symbolic or actual decapitation strikes (persons as well as the means of mass command, control and communication), followed by the loss of our access to imported oil.  Famine is a given in this scenario due to our reliance on fossil fuels in our national model of mass agriculture when combined with our already current loss of local food production of many key staples.

Nothing I have posted here is new.  In fact, this model of attack has been used time and time again throughout human history.  It has been used by both foreign invader and domestic tyrant alike –with the two often working together hand in hand behind the scenes and out of view of the common people.

Comments are open.

From the ever-illuminating Overthinking It and contributor Mark Lee:

The Hubbert Peak Theory of Rock, or, Why We’re All Out of Good Songs

Many rock purists and music snobs (myself included) often lament the quality of most modern pop/rock music.  “Music these days is so trite and derivative,” they say.  “It’s just been downhill since the 60’s and 70’s.  Those were the days.”

A few years ago, Rolling Stone magazine added fuel to the music snobbery fire with its “500 Greatest Songs of All Time” list.  Anyone casually paging through the list would notice that the bulk of the list was comprised of songs from the 60’s and 70’s, just like the music snobs always say.

I, however, wasn’t content with the casual analysis.  So I punched the list into Excel, crunched some numbers, and found an interesting parallel between the decline of rock music quality and, of all things, the decline in US oil discovery and production:

Read the analysis here.

As we oil up our turntables and dust off the vinyls, we might smile a silent smile in honor of that most marvelous of the Marx Brothers, Harpo:  Adolph (later known as Arthur, then as Harpo) Marx was born on this date in 1888 in New York City.

Harpo

]]> http://transitionpolitics.org/2009/11/22/unintended-freedom/ Sun, 22 Nov 2009 23:08:55 +0000 rorourke http://transitionpolitics.org/2009/11/22/unintended-freedom/

Fall of the Berlin Wall: 20th anniversary celebrations

It’s been interesting to read the analysis surrounding the recent 20th anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall, specifically in the context of our current banking crisis and general economic malaise. Several articles I’ve read rationalise how it was the fall of Communism which gave Capitalism a free run of the pitch, and in the absence of its constraining effect, this free run ran us headlong into the wall of a banking crisis.

One of the unintended consequences of the fall of the Berlin wall and the subsequent collapse of the Soviet Union, was that Cuba stopped receiving shipments of oil and so entered into what Castro euphemistically titled the ‘Periodo Especial’. The graph below shows the drop in oil imports, approximately 20% over two years.

Cuban Oil Production & Consumption

The impact this drop had on the economy can be seen clearly in the table below. The starkest data point is the one third drop in GDP in  just 4 years. This bears an uncanny resonance with Callenbach’s Ecotopia (1975), a fictional nation that suffers a similar fate when it secedes from its parent state (the states of Washington, Oregon, and Northern California made up this new fictional country).

As stark, if not more so, are the data on the average calorific consumption of the Cuban population, correlating strongly with the drop in oil consumption.

Without oil to power agricultural machinery, food production dropped. Likewise, without oil, food distribution was severely hampered. And with rolling electricity black-outs and brown-outs, there was little refrigeration available for storage. A moments reflection on how our major supermarkets and their long supply chains would operate in the face of a 20% drop in the availability of oil, should force one to realise the dangerous extent of our dependence and consequent lack of resilience should there be a shortage. A recent report by the city of Bristol highlights such concerns.

And yet, despite the obvious hardship and hunger, there was no famine or starvation. In 2006, the WWF produced a report which claims that Cuba is the only sustainable nation in the world. One can’t help but wonder if there is a causal relationship between the impact of its oil shortage and the fine environmental record on the island. Of course, the ‘cruel’ Embargo has played a central part also in holding back industrial development in the country.

Certainly worth watching is the documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba survived Peak Oil.

I’m certainly under no illusion of Cuba being some sort of utopian socialist society, I saw plenty there to come away with more than a strong impression that it was a country holding its breath waiting for the ‘Old Man’ to die so that it could run headlong into the arms of capitalism. Hopefully recent events will have taken a little steam out of that enthusiasm and the break from communism will be a more considered one. Ironically, with the imminent onset of peak oil, could it be that the harsh and undemocratic parent, Castro, could have enforced a discipline on his people that means they are ready in a way the rest of the world is not? I’m in danger of over-romanticising the situation, but it’s a society far better prepared than mine, for example.

I include below some photos from a trip I took to Cuba in December 2007.

16-22 November

It’s been a week of inspiring eco-artiness and inspiration.

Eric Maddern - eco-storyteller

Monday I went to see the fabulous show by Australian storyteller, Eric Maddern, What the Bees Know: Songs and Stories to Sustain and Restore the World – an engaging and galvanising blend of story, poetry, song and environmental awareness raising. I saw a preview of this at the Ecobardic Minifest at Cae Mabon, Eric’s amazing eco-retreat centre in North Wales way back in May, but it was well worth seeing the full show, which had so much more in it. Eric’s charismatic presence filled the Chapel Arts Centre and took the small but committed audience on a 2 hour ‘bee-line’ from the malady to the remedy, honey being a traditional cure-all, and one of the rich gifts these industrious pollinators bestow upon humankind: beeswax, royal jelly, mead, various medicines, and most of all – the pollination of plants. The UK bee population dropped by 30% in 2007 – in Spain, it was 50%, and the USA is experiencing similarly sobering trends. Without these key pollinators, the cycle of life could grind to a halt (25% of the global species depend on plants pollinated by bees). Uber-brainbox Albert Einstein once said: “If the bee disappears from the surface of the earth, man would have no more than four years to live. No more bees, no more pollination … no more men!”…Despite the gloomy predictions, Eric’s show left the audience feeling uplifted – the creative act is affirming in itself, and is another example of the remarkable power of the human imagination, with which anything is possible – including solutions to these mounting environmental problems. Homo sapiens may be the problem, but is also the solution – and has proven over the millennia, since it first discovered fire, flint and the paintbrush back in the caves of our ancestors – that it is nothing but ingenius.

There are various good folk offering ‘plan B’, notably The Global Bee Project. We can all do our bit (eg plant bee-friendly flowers in your garden).

Eric is still touring his show – catch it next Spring, or even book it for your venue or group. Next month he’s off to Copenhagen – the place to ‘bee’ for such a committed eco-campaigner. Long may the story-honey flow from his lips.

it's been a long time coming ... Image from Home, words from Eric Maddern

On Saturday I went to the spectacular setting of Bath Abbey to see a film by Earth from the Air visionary, Yann Arthus-Bertrand called Home – deeply beautiful and moving. The Abbey was packed out with nearly a thousand people. It was very forward-thinking for the Abbey to allow this film to be shown. It was an interesting experience – the large screen in front of the altar, the haunting music drifting up into the vaults, hushed reverence, enduring the discomfort of the hard pews … a kind of surrogate religiosity pervaded the film – I would argue a genuine one, based upon awe of Creation, the miracle of this precious and fragile planet we live on. Perhaps if they had more events like this the Church would find its houses filled once more. Many are overwhelmed and despairing at the crisis facing us. Is it time for eco-churches – centres of energy descent, where folk can ‘pray’ not for their own salvation, but the salvation of the planet? The consolation of faith perhaps has its place – life without a spiritual dimension is shallow and ultimately futile – but we have to act now, before it’s too late. A good place to start is the Transition Movement, as mentioned last week. Read about the burgeoning Transition Culture here

In a week of extreme weather ravaging Britain, this seems more poignant than ever.  The flood gates are open.

…

Dear Mr Mowshowitz,

Thank you for taking the time to write to Mary Honeyball MEP.
The issue of Peak Oil is one which rightly will affect the future of the
developed and industrialised nations of the world.
It is part of the debate on the climate changes that are increasingly seen
to be the result of usage of fossil fuels.
We are seeing a series of engagements at national and international level
and increasing commitments to deal with the results of expanding
industrialisation.
Your MEP will be alert to the proposals and developments in this area and
thanks you again for sharing your views with her.

Yours truly

Colin Ellar
Casework assistant

He says the companies gave them a hard sell, saying everyone around them had signed up and that they had better do the same. Wheeler was offered $125 an acre.

Less than a year later Wheeler and his neighbors, who had agreed to sell for even less, were hearing of other landowners who had been offered up to $30,000 an acre. And the royalty payments have been more like a trickle than the torrent many were promised.

“If they had paid everyone a fair market value instead of taking advantage of us, we wouldn’t have had all this,” said Wheeler, who is among landowners suing the owner of the gas well in their neighborhood.

Some are also skeptical that the boom in leasing and drilling in shale plays will deliver as promised. Houston energy consultant Arthur Berman likened the shale rush to speculative bubbles seen in financial services, real estate and technology in the past.

And famed energy investment banker Matt Simmons — a proponent of the “peak oil” premise that says the world already has reached its maximum oil production levels — has doubts about predictions that wells will continue to produce for years after their initial burst.

via Louisiana shale could change fate of U.S. energy supply | Energy | Chron.com – Houston Chronicle.

In thinking about the possible military response to the increasing mass migrations from failing states it’s not necessary to invoke science fiction scenarios. It’s closer than you think. The infrastructure for military government is already well established in most of the West. Well before rafts of Somalis were drifting across the Mediterranean annoying sunbathers and the Italian Coastguard, police tactics and surveillance were becoming ever more military. There is more surveillance in Britain on a daily basis than the Stasi or KGB dreamed of in their wildest flights of authoritarian fancy. Estimates run at over 4 million cameras. There are 32 within sight of George Orwell’s flat in Canonbury Square. As Open Europe’s recent paper “How Brussels is watching you – the rise of Europe’s surveillance state” makes plain, Europe is in the process of following Britain’s lead, and no democratically elected body has the right to veto it.

Another aspect of this militarization is the rise of SWAT, that is to say Special Weapons and Tactics, policing. SWAT began in Delano, California as a response to protests by Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers Union. It’s interesting that this was a response to what was essentially a migration issue: the treatment of Mexican farm workers. SWAT teams are now taken for granted all across America and, although the acronym SWAT isn’t used, increasingly the same squads are in place in Europe. It is now routine for members of these police teams to be trained by and with members of special forces, including Delta Force and SEALS. Of course it is a natural career choice for those leaving those same parts of the armed services. Never mind for the moment the rise of private ‘executive security’ – I don’t mean the fat guy in uniform standing at the door of the supermarket. I mean Blackwater (now Xe, LLC), ESTS, etc. These are the same guys. There is a vast informal network of former special forces personnel employed in all these organizations. You think they didn’t keep each other’s email and phone numbers when they left the service? The lines that have traditionally separated soldiering and policing have now all but disappeared.

The third arm of this militarization is a function of computing. Before the advent of the network and the titanic server farms that store petabytes of data it was simply impossible to collect and analyse data on the scale necessary to implement a database state. Yes, it’s true the Stasi was credited with having nearly 100 miles of files, but it was a scrapbook compared to what Google can do, never mind the NSA. For example, there seems to be little information published on the byte size of the UK DNA database, NDNAD, but it is said to hold the records of 5 million people, or 7% of the population. Perhaps most impressive is the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute’s World Trace Archive database of all the DNA sequences published by the science community. In January 2006 it hit a billion records, was 22 terabytes and doubling every 10 months, so I assume it’s getting pretty big by now. You get the idea.

The point here is not that databases are by definition part of some global conspiracy, but that they allow previously unimagined levels of personal data to be held by governments and corporations, neither of which have a particularly great record in this regard. In the UK, this week’s news is that millions of phone contract records were stolen and sold to rival mobile phone companies, by employees of T-Mobile. The list of incompetent or dishonest data security breaches is legendary. But it is now past the point of recall. Privacy is history and it would be idiotic to assume that should a more military government come to power under the pressures of resource shortages, depression and climate chaos, it would not seek to use databases for its own purposes.

So the answer to two of the questions posed in my last post seem to be straightforward. What kind of government does that call for? Probably more military than we imagine right now. What does it look like and how would it happen? It looks remarkably similar to life now, and all it takes is some ‘emergency’ – whether it is from terrorism or economics or climate is irrelevant. The infrastructure is there: the combination of surveillance, combat policing and the database state form the critical technological triumvirate for an emerging military response to ecologically driven mass migration.

The third question, ‘at what point are people scared enough of the influx to want what is essentially a military government?’ is not quite so easy.

by Cam Mather

Something’s up. At least something’s up in the energy world. Many people have now heard about peak oil. This is the time when the world has pumped half of all the oil it will pump. It’s the top of the supply curve, and once you hit peak and start going down the backside it gets expensive and it gets harder and harder to get out of the ground. Since 2005 the world has produced about 85 million barrels of oil a day. It’s a mind boggling number. It’s 5,550 Olympic sized swimming pools everyday. How can we possibly suck this much oil out of the ground? But what’s been truly amazing is that many people say in the future we’ll be pumping more than this. Some figures show that we’ll need to be pumping 100 million barrels a day or more. Holy cow! Where’s it all going to come from?

Up until last year the IEA said not to worry. Everything is fine. They said we might ramp up to 120 million barrels a day in the future. It’s important to understand what the IEA is. It’s the International Energy Agency and it’s the organization that advises the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development) nations on what’s happening with oil. For years they’ve been saying don’t worry, be happy, everything is fine.

Then last year in their 2008 Outlook report they changed their tune. After suggesting in 2007 that the depletion of conventional oil supplies was only dropping by 3%, they suddenly identified the drop at 6.7%! That’s a really scary jump. That means that the world has to discover not only an additional 7% more oil each year, just to keep up with the current pace, it has to find even more because the demand for oil worldwide is increasing.

This is really important stuff. Our society runs on oil and we use a lot of it and if it’s in short supply it’s going to get really expensive and have a major impact on our lives. George Monbiot, a journalist who writes for the UK Guardian, interviewed Fatih Birol, the head of the IEA when they released their report last year and asked him what’s up? (http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/video/2008/dec/15/fatih-birol-george-monbiot) Why did their depletion number suddenly double? Mr. Birol’s response was basically that it was the first time they took a really critical look at the data on all the oil wells. What? You mean the organization that advises the governments of the developed world on how they should be running their economies and investing in transportation infrastructure, wasn’t looking at the data in the past to make their predictions? This is really scary stuff!

Since the interview Mr. Birol has been on a world tour advising governments that it’s time to get serious about energy. He suggests that the world will hit a “plateau” in 2020. I believe the large number of oil geologists who say we’ve hit that already and we are on the downside of the curve. If it’s not something to be concerned about why is the head of the IEA touring to warn governments?

There have been many recent news articles examining these issues such as this one; www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency. Eric Reguly in The Globe and Mail examines the same issues: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-investor/is-the-world-awash-in-oil/article1360337/

Matt Simmons, chief executive of Simmons & Company, a Houston energy consultancy and advisor to George Bush has been quoted as saying; “Global oil production peaked in 2005 and is set for a steep decline from present levels of about 85 million barrels per day By 2015, I think we would be lucky to be producing 60 million barrels and we should worry about producing only 40 million”

What appears to be happening is that the cat is out of the bag and the powers that be are starting to admit there may be a problem. A report prepared for the U.S. Government by Robert Hirsch in 2005 on peak oil warned that the developed worlds need to start making radical changes at least 20 years ahead of peak (www.netl.doe.gov). If we made a huge effort to reduce our reliance on oil for transportation and made a number of other changes, we might be able to limit the disruption to our lives to something manageable.

If we start 10 years before peak oil to prepare for it, we’ve got to take radical steps to prevent a major dislocation of our economies and lives. If we wait until peak oil hits to start dealing with it, it’s too late. We won’t have the time or resources to prevent a cataclysmic shock to our system. If the IEA is correct that it’s 10 years away, we gotta get crackin’. If you read between the lines of the what the IEA is saying, and assume that people in the industry like Mathew Simmons who says we’re past peak are correct, then “Houston, we’ve got a problem.”

There are simple steps you can take today to start preparing. My book Thriving During Challenging Times (www.aztext.com/thriving.cfm) provides a roadmap to start planning how to prepare for the shocks that peak oil will bring. It doesn’t have to be a bad thing if you have a plan and start preparing now. And best of all, there is no downside to anything you do. Using less energy is better on your pocketbook and better on the planet. What are you waiting for?

<p><a href=”http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2009/11/videos-on-growing-change.html” mce_href=”http://poweringdown.blogspot.com/2009/11/videos-on-growing-change.html”>powering down: videos on growing change</a>.</p>

via powering down: videos on growing change.

This is a fantastic compilation of videos on backyard gardening and so much more.  Thanks, Powering Down!