A Japanese animation about food security - what it is and how to get it. Very well done.

“We are an exceptional model of the human race. We no longer know how to produce food. We no longer can heal ourselves. We no longer raise our young. We have forgotten the names of the stars, fail to notice the phases of the moon. We do not know the plants and they no longer protect us. We tell ourselves we are the most powerful specimens of our kind who have ever lived. But when the lights are off we are helpless. We cannot move without traffic signals. We must attend classes in order to learn by rote numbered steps toward love or how to breast-feed our baby. We justify anything, anything at all by the need to maintain our way of life. And then we go to the doctor and tell the professionals we have no life. We have a simple test for making decisions: our way of life, which we cleverly call our standard of living, must not change except to grow yet more grand. We have a simple reality we live with each and every day: our way of life is killing us.”

published Feb. 2002

By Rick Balfour, VPO

Plan B Questions are mandatory for all civic, provincial and federal politiicans.

Poor answers or no answers deserve no votes; we need leaders with both guts and vision.

We need action, not more talk. We have little time to change.

1. How high is your own concsciousness, relative to Global run away impacts on our communities, about Peak Oil, Global Warming and the inevitable shift in job markets and mass migration from difficult areas to highly preferred areas. Is it higher than most, are you ahead enough in the issues to lead and be proactive?

Take a page or ten minutes. No excuses, no glib answers.
Read the complete Post.

The decision on Richmond’s Garden City Lands will have far-reaching implications for agricultural lands

Wendy Holm
Special to the Sun
Original article

Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Several weeks ago, the process for public comment on the Agricultural Land Reserve exclusion application for Richmond’s Garden City Lands drew to a close.

This Monday, almost two years to the day after rejecting it for the first time, an Agricultural Land Commission panel convened to re-evaluate whether this 55-hectare parcel of land in the heart of Richmond should be removed from the ALR and slated for development.

Haven’t heard about it? Doesn’t affect you? Think again. Read the complete Post.

This request was received by sister NGO Village Vancouver, but is of equal concern to the VPO:

Hi Village Vancouver Folk:

As some of you know, the farm at UBC is in a precarious situation and may be eliminated. This would be tragic as it is the only working organic farm at a Canadian university; hosts a number of innovative community-based programs including an intergenerational youth garden with senior mentors, a native community kitchen garden, a traditional Mayan garden; conducts much-needed research on rare heirloom poultry that can actually live outside and on traditional and experimental organic farming methods; has significant student and volunteer involvement, and a marvellous Farmer’s market.

Unfortunately, the farm has been classified as land that is available for development, and a decision will be made soon about whether that will happen.

Some Village Vancouver folk had a tour of the farm last week, and five of us volunteered to form a task team to help save the farm.

I’m checking to see if any of you who weren’t on the tour would be interested in being part of our taskteam or are in helping in any way.

If you’re interested in helping, please e-mail me ASAP. We’re getting a wish list from the farm people, and we’ll try to help them with as much as we can.

Time is very short — the farm is preparing a proposal this month, and there will be a public hearing in October.

So,,,, if you’re interested in helping, please let me know.

Jill (604) 608-0384
jg3weiss@smartt.com

Some background about the farm, based on my faulty memory of what was said at the farm tour, is below. Read the complete Post.

Commodity Online
2008-08-20 17:50:00
By Rex Weyler
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.

As sent to Herb Barbolet, VPOE member and co-founder of Farm Folk/City Folk:

Hello herb,
From what you have written, it is obvious that you understand the crisis facing us, but I am concerned that you will be disappointed when you try to do something about it. Doing something will require people get involved rather than just talk. I actually found that it is much easier to get people to give money than their time. Along the way you may feel inspired because of the verbal support you will receive, people will say all the right things, but it means nothing. They will hear people make nice sounds like “food security” and “local production” but don’t forget those are just sounds that mean nothing, they are just talking in their sleep and do not or cannot wake up. Regulations have been passed that make it increasingly difficult, even illegal for farmers to produce food. I cannot legally sell meat in produced in a humane and sustainable way. If animals disappear into an “approved” slaughter house how can I guarantee that the meat in the box is from my animal? And those places will now be in charge of inspecting themselves? Besides, the most humane way is to kill the animal is on the farm. It is now illegal for people to have healthy milk from their own cow. The bureaucrats actually seized some (I believe that is theft) and are interfering with people who wish to have milk the way we have always had it: straight from the cow. Is it unreasonable to assume that soon it will be illegal to sell eggs? The raw milk people set things up legally but the rules seem to have changed. Fighting in court will be futile, because the corporate/government partnership will keep making laws that benefit them, and they have unlimited resources when it comes to spending time in court. The organic talkers did nothing to protect Fred from the marketing board, and the raw milk issue certainly has not had the shock value that it should have. Every person who talks about anything having to do with food security, healthy food, etc should be making many phone calls a day, and taking whatever other action they can to show the bureaucrats that they have gone too far. Read the complete Post.

From economist Mike Nickerson:

Due to the approaching election, it is
timely to introduce a program to advance a Genuine
Progress Index (GPI) for Canada. We are looking
for volunteers to raise this topic with candidates.

For our associates outside Canada, you may
find that the materials offered here are adaptable for
use in your area.

An improved measure of progress is essential.
As long as the costs arising from social and
environmental disasters are added to the GDP,
helping to make it grow, the economic growth
focused establishment will not recognize them as
problems. A Genuine Progress Index (GPI) would
improve our prospects by distinguishing between
regrettable expenditures and positive ones and by
adding measures of social and environmental well-
being to the familiar economic ones. Read the complete Post.

Monday Oct. 6, 2008 at Noon

Are you sick and tired of sitting in road clogging traffic? Are you shocked at rising cost of gas and food? Are you worried that oil production peaked in 2005 while demand continues to soar making shortages inevitable?  And what are we asked to do? We are asked to just keep on buying stuff to keep the economy going.

This is insane.

Exactly.

OK WHAT CAN I DO?

On Oct 6th, 2008, at noon -  DON’T JUST SIT THERE - TAKE ACTION. Put down your coffee cup, jump out of your car, leap up from your chair, rise up from the table, and raise your fist and yell, “This is Insane,” smile at the baffled drivers, diners, and colleagues around you, I mean, they’re stuck too, then continue on. It’s that easy.

TELL YOUR FRIENDS: Of course, the more Long Suffering Kick Ass Citizens who do this, the more fun we’ll have, so spread the word.

GET OUTRAGEOUS: Try wearing crazy glasses, or go nude, or use a bullhorn or trumpet or? After all, this is street theater.

GET FAMOUS: Take a photo of you and your friends doing the This is Insane yell and post it on our facebook page.

RSVP: Sign up for “This is Insane Day” at and get your name added to our Kick ass Activist list, and while you’re there, you can add your name to our Peak Oil petition raising our entire membership’s Kick Ass Quotient.

About “This is Insane”:
As we enter the 21st century, serious questions are beginning to emerge about the sustainability of our oil-based way of life. The rapidly rising price of oil has shocked citizens into buying smaller cars, riding public transit, and forced citizens to pay more for food and nearly all consumer goods. Peak Oil is here and we must begin to wean ourselves off of our dependency on gas-powered vehicles.

Obsolete and Expensive Gateway Project:
Our province is plowing ahead with obsolete transit plans, such as the $4.5 billon dollar Gateway Project. Budgeted in 2003, gas cost $.80 liter. The price of building materials - cement, steel, asphalt – have hit the stratosphere. This project is already over budget before the first shovel of dirt has even been thrown.

This is Insane.

No Canadian Fuel Efficiency Standards:
The federal government has set a target of improving the fuel efficiency of Canadian vehicles by 25% by 2010, but is depending on automakers to voluntarily agree to increase the fuel efficiency of their vehicle fleets.

This is Insane.

Food Prices Through The Roof:
Food prices have skyrocketed. But we continue to burn corn-based ethanol in our cars. We are feeding our cars instead of people. Plus, a new joint study from Cornell University and University of California-Berkeley determined that it costs 29% more fossil energy to make a liter of ethanol than the fuel it produces.

This is Insane.

Endangered Species and Water:
The US plans to “melt” and bulldoze the Rocky Mountains to extract oil from shale. It is projected to take 1-3 barrels of water to extract 1 barrel of oil. In the water starved west, this could endanger eco-systems and water supplies for drinking and growing crops.

This is Insane.

Planning for cities without oil:
Massive changes to municipal zoning and regulations are unavoidable and needed yesterday. We need streetcars, trams, community gardens, rooftop gardens, alternative energy, walkable city centers, villages rather than suburbs. We need to reduce our carbon footprint. But, instead, we just keep on keeping on rather than planning for a future without oil.

THIS IS INSANE!

by Staff Writers
New York (AFP) Aug 25, 2008Original article

VPO note - global warming and peak oil connect to create food shortages that are soon going to both trump and worsen political and religious conflicts between countries. Good example.

Wracked by drought, Iran has turned to the United States for wheat for the first time in 27 years, marking a setback for Tehran’s search for agricultural self-sufficiency.

According to a recent US Department of Agriculture report, Iran has bought about 1.18 million tonnes of US hard wheat since the beginning of the 2008-2009 crop season in June.

The number, which has been growing steadily all summer, already represents nearly 5.0 percent of US annual exports forecast by the USDA.

The last time Iran imported US wheat was in 1981-1982. Read the complete Post.