Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
I n early 2012, Post Carbon Institute is releasing its next book. It’s an easy-to-read guide to getting your money out of the Wall Street casino and investing it locally, where it’ll perform better for both you and your community.
From now until Monday, September 12th, we’re turning to our online community to suggest titles for this exciting new book — which, by the way, will be the first of our new Resilience Guides series (more on that later).
The US tropical storm season joined the economy and Libya as a factor driving oil prices this week. Gulf oil installations have escaped damage so far, but a lively storm season has led to platforms being evacuated, causing production delays and depressing US inventories…
The former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan is home to some of the world’s largest remaining forests of walnut and wild fruit trees. In an effort to sustainably manage this global resource, an international project has focused on ending Soviet-style management and giving power — and a profit incentive — to local farmers.
A while ago I posted a film here about Tom Harper’s “The Oil Game”, a programme of teaching young people about peak oil that he has been doing in schools in the south east of England. Tom has now finished a workbook for people who want to run this programme elsewhere, containing the games and activities that he developed. It was interesting to read on Energy Bulletin today about a cartoon book called Luz which uses cartoons to introduce ideas around peak oil to a younger audience. More of these kind of resources seem to be emerging all the time.
Cell phone and hand-held technology depend on myriad inputs that are not simply conjured from thin air, however magically they appear in iStores and Web ads. All that plastic wrapping of the device itself comes from…you guessed it, petroleum. Oil. The very stuff the International Energy Agency said has hit its peak. In the future, all the way to the year 2020 (and before) the cost for everything is going up, uP, UP! And all this because of the increasing scarcity and rising cost of energy. That’s difficult on its own, and made no easier when jobs are going down, down, down. This is the dot to connect to make predictions about the future.
We’re “keeping money flowing locally so we’re more prosperous as a community,” says James Frazier, co-founder of the Local Investment Opportunities Network (LION) in Port Townsend, Washington. LION is a clearinghouse between business owners like Matthew Day and potential investors like Kees Kolff. A business owner presents an investment opportunity to LION members. It’s all based on one-to-one personal relationships, so support can be more than monetary, says Kees — such as interest paid in locally-produced cheese and cider!
If there is a way to get through the loss of fossil fuels, it lies in developing new and more efficient ways to generate renewable energy and more efficient ways of utilizing the fossil fuels we have left.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
If you’ve missed reality shows like Pawn Stars, Storage Wars, and American Pickers, then you’ve missed a fascinating front in the expanding “new economy.”
The transition before us is not merely a transition in fuel types. It is also a transition in the whole energy infrastructure, both physical and psychological; a transition away from big power plants, distribution lines, and metered consumers; away from capital-intensive drilling, refining, distribution, and consumer fueling stations. More broadly, it is a transition away from centralization, concentration, and all the social institutions that go along with it.
Since the bottom dropped out of the economy in 2008, my family has gone from affluent suburban living to life below the poverty line, in a shabby house in the “wrong” part of town—with no car. We’ve given up most luxuries, and sold many of our possessions. We’ve become admirably “green,” as a benefit of paring down to the simplest needs. We have chickens, a vegetable garden, and a front door that is always open and ready to welcome a neighbor. People often comment on how we are living with a softer impact upon the earth. But if I am honest, I have to acknowledge that the most dramatic changes we have made were those that were forced upon us.
What will our cities look like from a preteen’s perspective in the not-too-distant future when peak oil pushes gas and food prices to new heights? No rides to the mall? No eating out? City-wide blackouts? Catastrophic! It was to Luz and her friends at first, but through a little bit of creativity and preteen gumption they discover the hidden potentials of an abandoned lot in their neighbourhood. Claudia Dávila’s debut graphic novel, “Luz Sees the Light,” sets Luz and her friends on a path to transform their fossil-fueled world.
