Shoulder Season
From the Clusterfuck Nation blog

America is on vacation from its financial, fiscal, and economic problems, having left the centers of power in Wall Street and Washington for a Nantucket-of-the-mind, where, in a haze of artisanal vodka and bong smoke, it’s out in the cool dune grass watching imaginary whalefishes blow, leaving only the TV Bubbleheads behind back home. Larry Kudlow of CNBC was practically drooling into his cufflinks on screen last week when the dollar popped against the Euro, and crude oil slumped, and the equity markets climbed up a flagpole.

This sort of euphoria is actually an alarming pre-crash symptom, in this case of a patient (the US) entering the terminal phase of sclerosis. Our society and all its playerz — especially the appointed communicators — just can’t fathom the reality of the threats we face, which are 1.) the loss of primary energy resources, 2.) the loss of technological potency, and 3.) the loss of a comfortable standard of living. Read the complete Post.

‘Think Less………Act Locally’
The Rise of Localization
By Russell Precious

VPO note: the author refers to “localization” vs. “relocalization” because he doesn’t believe we’re returning to something that existed in the past, but rather moving towards something entirely new.

“The most personal reaction to landscape, to people, to ways of living, is that which is rooted in the local.” Wallace Stegner

In recent years it has been increasingly presumed that civilization was firmly entrenched on the path to some sort of nirvanic global village, a vision held equally by those representing both the ‘left’ and the ‘right’—albeit based on different principles and expected outcomes. The right viewed it more as an economic paradise of ever expanding markets and greater prosperity while the left saw it as a truly democratic world wide web of shared information and a diminishing gap between wealth and poverty.

Few have been willing to address the herd of elephants in the room that are poised to derail these presupposed outcomes. What are these elephants, and how did they (and we) get here? Read the complete Post.

From VPO member Chris Bouris:

This is the link to a video of Bob Williams, a member of the Vancity Board of Directors, speaking at an even at the Rhizome Cafe, Vancouver, March 22 2007 entitled: “The Possible City: Cooperatives in a Sustainable Economy”. about co-operatives in 2007. This excerpt is specifically about the need to make the bureaucracy of our city back into the meritocracy it once was.

The full presentation can be heard and seen here. Note the scrolling table of contents immediately underneath the video player window. When clicked upon, will redirect the video playback to the corresponding point in time of the video archive associated to that chapter. Kind of handy. Useful for one paragraph summaries, quotes for media and groups, and the like.
And campaigns of any kind.

by Rex Weyler
From his “Deep Green” column
Original article

As the era of cheap liquid fuels draws to an end, everything about modern consumer society will change. Likewise, developing societies pursuing the benefits of globalization will struggle to grow economies in an era of scarce liquid fuels. The most localized, self-reliant communities will experience the least disruption.

Oil is a fixed asset of the planet, representing stored sunlight accumulated over a billion years as early marine algae, and other marine organisms (not dinosaurs) captured solar energy, formed carbon bonds, gathered nutrients, died, sank to the ocean floors, and lay buried under eons of sediment. Like any fixed non-renewable resource, oil is limited, and its consumption will rise, peak, and decline.

World oil production increased for 150 years until the spring of 2005, when world crude oil production reached about 74.3 million barrels per day (mb/d), and total liquid fuels, including tar sands, liquefied gas, and biofuels reached about 85 mb/d. In spite of the efforts since, and tales of “trillions of barrels” of oil in undiscovered fields, liquid fuel production has remained at about 85.5 mb/d for three years, the longest sustained plateau in modern petroleum history. Discoveries of new fields peaked 40 years ago. Read the complete Post.

An interview with Anthony Perl (of SFU) and co-author Richard Gilbert about their book “Transport Revolutions”.

How to implement Al Gore’s recent energy proposal
By Julian Darley
Original post

Below is a conceptual plan for achieving the goal of 100% renewable energy by 2018. We will be updating this document with specific recommendations and additional resources in the near future.
1. Reduce 6. Reinvest
2. Share 7. Relocalize
3. Diversify 8. Reengineer
4. Distribute 9. Reskill
5. Store 10. Remobilize

1. Reduce consumption and reduce waste—not just of fossil fuels but of energy overall and of raw materials, almost all of which require energy to exploit and transport. Reducing consumption is vital in making the goal of 100% renewable electricity achievable, both to reduce the amount of renewable power we need to generate and because it will greatly reduce the cost of installing it. Such reduction will need to be planned in order to make sure that new jobs and opportunities demanded by renewable energy are brought on even as jobs dependent on cheap, abundant energy are removed by depletion. Americans need to become energy smart and self-reliant again—these were once defining aspects of the American character, and need to be revived.
Read the complete Post.

Submitted by Richard Heinberg on July 30, 2008 – 4:46pm.
Original article

Two weeks ago, oil was soaring toward $150 a barrel; now it’s nosediving to $120 and may even see $100 again. Peak Oil? Humbug! Problem solved. The market works after all.

Not so fast. Read the complete Post.

Michael McCarthy
Vancouver Courier
Friday, July 11, 2008
Original article

Martin Burger pulls his van up to the pumps on West Georgia near Stanley Park. Gas is $1.50 a litre right now, and Burger’s prediction is the price will continue to rise. He’s not the only one; the law of supply and demand being what it is, many experts think predict the costs of energy-whether oil, electricity, natural gas, or even “renewables” such as wind and solar-have nowhere to go but up. But while others talk about carbon taxes as a solution to saving the planet, Burger has a bigger vision for B.C. He thinks investment in truly green power, such as the province’s untapped tidal energy, is a better way to go.

Burger drives close to the Lions Gate Bridge. Down at the seawall, he points out the old lighthouse just west of the bridge.

“The current here flows at eight knots during tide, which I estimate to be 275 cubic metres during a six-hour tide. That would produce about 140 to 200 megawatts,” he says, adding he’s talked with the Vancouver Aquarium about initiatives for energy conservation. “What we really need to do is build a tidal demonstration unit here and raise public consciousness about the power of the tides before we pollute the entire planet.” Read the complete Post.

Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver SunPublished: Thursday, July 31, 2008

North American cities had better start adapting to a future characterized by climate change and depleting oil. Fewer parking lots. More condominiums. No more big highway upgrades. No further airport expansion. Emergency response and health care systems that can respond to the potential impacts of global warming and energy shocks.

The future is here, declares Bryn Davidson, a Vancouver engineer and architect who, with fellow planners Jonathan Frantz and Tom Lancaster, established the Dynamic Cities Project in 2005.

The project is a non-profit organization aimed at jolting designers and planners out of a torpor that has them carrying out business as usual.

To date, only the municipality of Burnaby has done any formal analysis of trends that are starting to hit North America.

A group of activists calling themselves the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive launched a petition recently urging Vancouver to strike a committee that would address the same issue.

Davidson’s Dynamic Cities Project website (www.dynamiccities.org) features a slide show detailing the ways in which climate change and declining petroleum reserves will drastically alter people’s behaviour.

Yet government planners have been fashioning civic infrastructure based on past trends.

The Pacific Gateway Strategy in B.C. — upgrading bridges, highways and road networks connecting ports, rail and the airport — is one example.

“A terrible idea,” Davidson says.

Indeed, planning documents for the $3-billion project, from 2005, predict Asia-Pacific air traffic would double at YVR by 2020. In 2008, already the outlook is quite different. Read the complete Post.

The Fannie Mae/Freddie Mac bailout forced Congress to raise the debt ceiling by $800 billion, to $10.6 trillion. Good thing they met on a Saturday, so the Spears/Federline custody settlement will bury the news by Monday. But in combination with the way the debt is skyrocketing as America continues to pay to import 13 million barrels a day of oil (the biggest share from Canada), and the way that oil is driving up inflation while forcing car companies, airlines and other companies to the edge of bankruptcy, this is one more step into a very very big hole.

Original article here

Senate Gives Final Approval to Sweeping Housing Bill
Sunday 27 July 2008
by: David M. Herszenhorn, The New York Times

Washington – Hoping to stretch a safety net under the nation’s tumbling housing market, the Senate voted overwhelmingly on Saturday for final approval of a huge package of legislation that includes an ambitious program to save hundreds of thousands of families from losing their homes to foreclosure.

The housing legislation is the latest in a series of extraordinary interventions this year by the Bush administration, Congress and the Federal Reserve as they seek to limit the risk that shockwaves in the housing sector will ripple across the American economy and the world financial system. In the process, the central bank and taxpayers have taken on what critics warn are incalculable liabilities and risk.

The bill grants the Treasury Department broad authority to safeguard the nation’s two mortgage finance giants, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, potentially by spending tens of billions in federal money to prevent the collapse of the companies, which own or guarantee nearly half of the nation’s $12 trillion in mortgages.

To accommodate the rescue plan for the mortgage companies, the bill raises the national debt ceiling to $10.6 trillion, an increase of $800 billion and the first time that the limit on the government’s credit card has grown to 14 digits. Read the complete Post.