Politics

Government ‘Peak Oil Summit’ Starts the Process of Government Acknowledging Peak Oil?

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On Monday Peter Lipman and I represented Transition Network at an event which could potentially be the day people look back to as the day when UK government finally starting to ‘get’ peak oil. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, the event, “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”, was billed as “a half-day workshop hosted by the Energy Institute in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, under Chatham House Rules”. For those who don’t know what Chatham House rules are, it means that the contents of what was said can be discussed, but none of it can be attributed to anyone.

Towards Local Democracy

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It’s been more than a year since we’ve started our initiative in Sopot, Poland. It has the same aim as the Transition initiatives, however we have decided to focus on local democracy first. Democracy helps to eliminate the struggles of political parties and it weakens vested interests. What we have also quickly realized is that even if you come up with a great plan for improving public transport or installing a biogas digester in your city, there’s this little, tiny issue: how can you make it all happen? Where will the money come from? Who will give all permits and change the city plans?

The Politics of Wood Heating

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It may seem a strange title for a commentary about a form of home heating that is often seen as quaint and dated. But if politics is the process by which we decide how to manage our lives together, then yes, there certainly is a politics of wood heating. Some people heat with wood and like it, and other people think it is a terrible way to heat houses, and there you have the makings of a contest of ideas and therefore politics.

Economics – Mar 22

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-Author Lewis Says Wall Street Reckoning Is Coming
-Coming soon: “oil-less” economic growth
-Arcane Currency Battle Masks Deeper Economic Tensions with China
-‘I=PAT’ means nothing, proves nothing
-The Broken Society
-Natural resources: The curse of developing countries?
-Money Out Of Thin Air: Now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Wants To Eliminate Reserve Requirements Completely?
-America’s “Houdini Recovery” under IMF-Type Austerity

Web & media – Mar 22

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-A road not taken
-Our Obsession With Stuff Is Trashing the Planet, Our Communities and Our Health
-Richard Heinberg Lecture Peak Oil Pt 1
-Q&A with Chef Dan Barber: Can organic farming feed the world?
-The Global Food Market (VIDEO): Why Do Some Eat Well While Others Starve?

ODAC Newsletter – Mar 19

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OPEC ministers meeting in Vienna this week caused no surprises in deciding to keep production quotas unchanged. Saudi oil minister Ali Al-Naimi described current prices as “beautiful”. Indeed as the group met the oil price rose to $82/barrel, close to its 2010 high despite only 53% compliance by OPEC to its quotas and low US demand.

The Growing Movement for Publicly Owned Banks

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“Hundreds of job-creating projects are still on hold because Michigan businesses and entrepreneurs cannot get bank financing. We can break the credit crunch and beat Wall Street at their own game by keeping our money right here in Michigan and investing it to retool our economy and create jobs.”

Where Dark Green Meets Cleantech (Or, Beyond Shades of Green)

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A little while ago, Alex Steffen of World Changing offered a critique of the permaculture-inspired Transition Towns initiative–a grass-roots, peak oil/climate change adaptation movement that has gone viral around the world in the past three years . . . Steffen would describe these people as “dark greens,” a brand of environmentalist who emphasizes local community action but can tend toward collapse-thinking or doomerism.

UK new car sales and the recession

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I just finished reading a book called Anatomy of the Bear where the point was made that rising new car sales are a leading indicator for the end of recession. No wonder then that many OECD governments introduced incentive schemes to boost new car sales following the dive off the cliff that accompanied the credit crunch (Figure 1). Cash for clunkers in the USA was called the Scrappage Scheme in the UK. No prizes for spotting when the credit crunch recession began in the UK. But what will happen now that the scheme is due to end shortly?

An Interview with David Orr, author of ‘Down to the Wire’. Part 1-3

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David Orr was in the UK recently, and the two of us were part of a panel at an event organised by the Prince’s Foundation for the Built Environment. After the event, we retired to the bar of a rather grand London hotel, and chatted for an hour about energy, climate change, the Precautionary Principle, Transition and whether or not we are beyond talk of ’solutions’.

Ocean acidification: Why the climate change deniers don’t want to talk about it

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It is hard to imagine a case weaker than that made by the climate change deniers against the science of human-caused global climate change. But there is one, the nonexistent case against the reality of human-caused ocean acidification. So, it’s no wonder they don’t want to talk about it.