Fearing oil crisis, group encourages community to hitch a ride
Adam Gorlick, Associated Press
NORTHAMPTON, Mass. –She’s been called the Walking Quaker, an 86-year-old pacifist pedestrian who embodies much of this college town’s sense of grass roots activism and liberal politics that never escape at least the whiff of beat or hippie influence.
And as Frances Crowe and a group of like-minded residents predict a future threatened by major oil shortages, they’re reviving and modifying a one-time popular mode of transportation with the hope it might help prevent an energy crisis: hitchhiking. …
Carpooling and ride-sharing certainly aren’t new ideas. But Crowe’s group — which calls itself Communi-GO — is trying to offer a more flexible transit system to college students, poor people and anyone else who may not have a car or the desire to drive themselves throughout the Pioneer Valley, the stretch of western Massachusetts that follows Interstate 91 between the Connecticut and Vermont borders.
“It makes sense that people are looking to hitchhike as a new way of carpooling,” said Morgan Strube, a longtime hitchhiker who maintains www.digihitch.com, a hitchhiking information Web site. “It’s informal, and it could be pretty fun.” …
“We’re trying to take some concrete steps to address the problems of peak oil,” said Molly Hale, one of the Communi-GO organizers.
Similar efforts have been made in the San Francisco and Washington, D.C., areas where impromptu carpooling systems have been set up along highways and heavily traveled roads.
The Pioneer Valley program is still in planning stages, and the group needs to answer questions about safety, liability and how to screen potential drivers and riders. They figure 300 people will have to sign up before Communi-GO can, well, get up and go.
(27 October 2005)
Climate Crisis Coalition: A Day of Action on December 3, 2005
Climate Crisis Coalition
From November 28th to December 9th representatives from 150 or more nations will be meeting at a Climate Conference in Montreal, Canada. The vast majority of those present will be signers of the Kyoto Protocol on global warming. They will be discussing the latest developments with this deepening world crisis and what should be done about it.
The representatives of the United States government, however, will be present working behind the scenes to try to block any positive action. This is the role they have played for several years.
…
The Climate Crisis Coalition seeks to broaden the circle of individuals, organizations and constituencies engaged in the global warming issue, to link it with other issues and to provide a structure to forge a common agenda and advance action plans with a united front.
(October 2005)
Underappreciated is the fact that the drying up and loss of organic matter from topsoils has been a major contributor to greenhouse emmisions. Allan Yeoman’s latest book presents a plan to rebuild soil fertility and capture greenhouse gases using his late father PA Yeoman’s innovative Keyline system of soil development. -AF
The Green alternative to the energy crisis
Edward Fenech, The Malta Independent
Managing by crisis, whether in a commercial organisation or in government, is empirical evidence of the absence of a strategic planning culture. …
However, the magnitude of the issue is now bordering on a crisis and is something that could have been avoided, at least in part. How, may one ask? Answer: if this country’s leaders over the last 30 years had been thinking more about energy policy in general and alternative energy specifically, rather than being locked into the mindset that energy = shiploads of fossil fuels.
That this country is in dire (for absence of a stronger word) need of new thinking on energy is now obvious to all; especially after Gonzi’s and Sant’s successive and ground-breaking paeans to alternative energy delivered last Tuesday on TV. The Blues and Reds can be excused for ignoring the issue for so long; it is acceptable that people only react under extreme pressure. However, if they continue to ignore the issue any further, that would be unforgivable.
The Malta Resources Authority has to be given a clear agenda to develop an energy strategy for Malta within the next two years. Responsibility without clear targets is no responsibility at all. No more excuses! If this task is not timely and properly executed, those responsible at the Authority, as well as the Minister, should search for employment elsewhere. …
(31 October 2005)
Fuels of the future touted
Bill Egbert, New York Daily News
Sky-high gas prices have everybody from trucking companies to Sunday drivers hungry for alternatives to their gas guzzlers, and the Bronx Community College Center for Sustainable Energy served up some food for thought. The all-day “Road to Energy Independence” conference Friday featured panel discussions on oil shortages, climate change and new technologies, as well as an array of alternative-fuel vehicles on display.
“We want people to know about the problems of oil depletion and climate change,” said Jim Quigley, director of the center, “but we also want them to know that there are viable solutions that are available now. These are the cars of the future.”
The cars on display ran on everything from natural gas to hydrogen to cooking oil. Compressed natural gas is an increasingly popular alternative fuel with fleet operators – including the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs many city buses on the cleaner-burning fuel. Biodiesel cars actually allow drivers to fill up their tanks from the grease traps of fast-food restaurants. Two types of hydrogen-powered cars were on display at the conference. …
Dr. Michael MacCracken, chief scientist for the Washington-based Climate Institute, delivered the keynote address, emphasizing that burning oil at the current rate is unsustainable. “The Earth is changing,” MacCracken said. “An astronomer on some remote planet would be amazed at what is happening, and how rapidly. Quite clearly, the natural course of Earth’s evolution is being affected.”
Panelist Alfred Cavallo, an expert on global oil supplies, explained the coming crisis of “peak oil” – when expanding production has sucked most of the oil out of the ground, making the ever-dwindling supply increasingly expensive to extract, causing prices to skyrocket. “The supplies are finite and will soon be controlled by a handful of nations,” Cavallo said. “The invasion of Iraq and control of its supplies will do little to change that.”
(31 October 2005)
