Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
“The challenge we face at this moment is pretty simple. We just need to completely transform our economy, our technology, our system of agriculture, our food system and the governance systems that go with it, and we needed to have done this all 10 years ago! It’s easy.. ” (laughs).
On July 17th, 2008, Vice President Al Gore challenged the nation to produce 100% of its electricity from renewable sources within 10 years. Post Carbon Institute has responded to Gore’s challenge by putting forward a new plan: “10 Steps in 10 Years for 100 Percent Renewable Power.” The plan shows how we can make Gore’s vision a reality, with a keen understanding of the roles that energy depletion, the vulnerabilities of the supply chain, and the limits of technology all play.
Like my title? Never let it be said I’m not ambitious.
A student in my class asked me for a list of skills we need to get ready for peak oil, prioritized. I admit, it took me about a day after she asked to stop thinking “Holy Crap, how do I figure that all out!” But it is an interesting question. And while it isn’t all just about food preservation, I thought I’d take a shot at it. I will, of course, be relying on my fearless readership to point out gaps in my thinking.
We recently reached the 2 year anniversary of peakoilblues.com. To mark this milestone I invited back our earliest contributors to give us an update of how their lives have changed since they first wrote us two years ago.
“The best security you have is a prepared neighbor,” said Paloma O’Riley a decade ago, when she was rallying people to prepare for an emergency of unknown proportions.
The comment still rings true, as we prepare for a hard winter in the short term and, in the medium term, what James Howard Kunstler calls the “long emergency” of declining fossil fuels and other challenges that lie ahead. Fortunately, people at all levels in Vermont are scrambling to prepare for this winter, and many of them are conscious that high food and fuel prices are more a harbinger of things to come than a one-time increase.
College leaders, with help from facilities managers, sustainability directors, faculty members, and even students, should think hard about how systems on their campus would operate in an energy-scarce world. That thinking should range beyond running part of the campus fleet on a cafeteria’s fryer oil, a seemingly-popular response at the moment.
The bicycling horticulturalist
Gardens Save the Day in ‘WALL-E’ and America’s Cities
The happy minimalist
Alex Steffen: The outquisition
Wendell Berry on Small Farms, Local Wisdom and the Folly of Greed Digging In (excerpts)
The last great push for Victory Gardens came from the federal government during World War II. Today, Hayden-Smith said, there isn’t as strong a connection between American military involvement and the home front, but the American way of life is imperiled by more than foreign wars. The country is facing ever rising fuel and food prices, the threat of global warming, and a high rate of obesity.
Community gardens: growing food brings people together
The only diet for a peacemaker is a vegetarian diet
Good crop, bad crop (biofuels)
A truly cool city would feature a short stroll to the local worm bin
How to curb food waste
Trash collectors (students in poor barrios find their own solution)
The bicycling horticulturalist
Gardens save the day in ‘WALL-E’ and America’s cities
Financial independence with The Happy Minimalist
The Outquisition
