Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Sarah van Gelder Events from 2010 contain the seeds of transformation. None of the following stories is enough on its own to change the momentum. But if we the people build and strengthen social movements, each of of these stories points to a piece of the solution.
How do we “save the bees?” It seems like giving the EPA a swift kick in the behind might be a good start, but for all you non-political types (like myself), you can also do something at home.
The Community Supported Agriculture model is providing very successful around the world in various manifestations. It can involve communities owning a share in a local farm, setting up their own farm, paying an annual subscription to a farmer they support, and many other variations on the theme. The model is also being applied to other enterprises, such as pig clubs or community supported bakeries. Where possible, use the community buy-in generated by your Transition initiative to support community supported initiatives.
Self-restraint clearly failed to abolish slavery in the American South—nothing else bar a war did. But the future is not written, and we can learn from our mistakes. History suggests that the negotiators in Cancun should thus push for incremental self-restraint while making sure people are offered an alternative to fossil fuels.
The biggest stories of 2010 were financial. But you could say that the continuing Great Recession, the deficit debate, and more and more mortgage defaults were really stories of energy-driven economic crisis. This year also had plenty of big stories directly on energy, including some breakthroughs on peak oil. Here are our top picks. It’s a highly subjective list; so please chime in with any stories you think we left off.
Brock McLeod and Heather Walker operate Makaria Farm in Duncan, British Columbia (www.makariafarm.com) and what they have been doing the past two years is just eye-poppingly, unbelievably, overwhelmingly, audaciously amazing. They decided to take small scale grain raising to the very high level of accomplishment— beyond the wildest dreams I had when I wrote my book by that name.
But this post-peak oil revolution in expectations will not begin with any of our mainstream political parties, nor even according to familiar political values. With only minor differences about how the spoils of the oil age might be dispersed, cutting across political lines is the master-belief that if we have the right to anything we can afford. Whether liberal or conservative, progressive or reactionary, nearly all inhabitants of North Atlantic democracies lavish themselves with as much of the looted splendor of the age of cheap energy as they can seize. There is so little room outside of this hegemony of entitlement that this marginal space, until now perhaps, has been reserved only for an impractical fringe unaware of the democratic needs of a mass-society in the industrialized world.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Iran
-US Natural Gas
-China
-Briefs
“Fuel demand continues to strengthen, a positive sign for the economy.”
– John Felmy, Chief API economist
Christmas comes but once a year and its excesses pack a crippling punch. Then there’s all those “so what’s new in your world” conversations. Bringing up peak oil feels tricky. How to cope? Let me count the ways…
“Latent conditions in technology and organisation can exist for a significant time, waiting for circumstances to line up that create a calamitous accident. … A systemic perspective is essential to shed light on the complex interplay of actions and how the loss might have been prevented.”
If we look at a graph of historical world oil production, we see a somewhat bumpy production pattern with two major price spikes (in 2009 $)–one peaking in 1981 and one peaking in 2008. The first spike in prices occurred when Persian Gulf production dropped starting in 1980, so seems to be oil supply related. The second spike occurred when world oil production would not rise above a bumpy plateau, despite rising demand, in the 2005 to 2008 period. In this post, I will show some breakdowns that I think give a little insight into our current situation.
Currently, as financial markets stagnate and food prices swing wildly and the environment is under siege, more and more people, communities, and nations are taking steps to reduce their vulnerability to a volatile global economy.
