Village Vancouver and Vancouver Peak Oil are pleased to welcome Richard Heinberg to Vancouver as part of the CoDev World Community Film Festival. Richard is one of the world’s most effective exponents of the urgent need to move away from fossil fuels and towards a post-growth economy.

Author of 10 books, including 2010′s The End of Growth, his wry, unflinching approach addresses challenges such as climate change, peak oil, economic instability, and food insecurity.

He exposes the tenuousness of our current way of life, while exploring governmental responses and promising grassroots models in community resilience, including the Transition Town Movement and the Occupy Movement. Heinberg offers a radical vision for a truly sustainable future.

More information about Richard Heinberg can be found on his website: richardheinberg.com.

JOIN US – FEB 10, 2012 5pm – 7pm
Langara College – Theater 5, Room 130
100 W 49th, Vancouver, BC
Admission to the festival opening lecture is by donation
Please register thru Langara 604.323.5322 (CRN 50966) or RSVP here.

The event is cosponsored by Village Vancouver and Vancouver Peak Oil. You don’t need to attend the film festival to attend Richard’s presentation. (Though we encourage you to go – it’s a great festival!)

Village Vancouver and Vancouver Peak Oil are pleased to welcome Nicole Foss, aka Stoneleigh, of The Automatic Earth back to talk about the future of our economy. She packed a lecture hall at Langara College last year with tales of impending economic collapse.

Now, after the Occupy Movement launched last fall, she has a new upbeat tone and theme, The Storm Surge of Decentralization. This is the 99%’s reaction to what we now know about the Ponzi schemes embedded in our modern financial systems, and changes have already begun.

Nicole Foss is a globally-sought issues leader on transition and an expert on the macro-economics of resilience.

JOIN US TO HEAR NICOLE
Thursday Feb. 2, 2012
7pm – 9pm
Langara College – Theater 5, Room 130
100 West 49th Avenue, Vancouver, BC
By donation at the door.
Please register thru Langara 604.323.5322 (CRN 50965) or
RSVP here.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012 1:27 AM
Mish Shedlock

Great summary of Peak Oil and Overpopulation in relation to each other. Vandy

“In the last 200 years the population of our planet has grown exponentially, at a rate of 1.9% per year. If it continued at this rate, with the population doubling every 40 years, by 2600 we would all be standing literally shoulder to shoulder.” says Professor Stephen Hawking as reported by Edward Morgan in Looking at the New Demography.

Suffice to say the rate of population growth will not continue, and Morgan makes the case we are already in stage 5 of The Demographic Transition Model

Peak Oil Implications on Population Growth Read the complete Post.

by Dr.Jim Stephenson
NSUC 13 November 2011

This article helps us understand our unwillingness to change and how and why we must.

Over the last few years I have become increasingly aware that the path of our society is not sustainable in several ways.
We won’t be able to continue as we are. Sooner or later, stuff will hit the fan.

Naturally, I set out to help my society recognize the dangers and to make the necessary changes. Employing a naive view of the political process, I wrote articles, gave presentations, and ran for political office. It was encouraging having people like Bill McKibben, James Hanson, and Al Gore helping me.

However, as time went by, I noticed that this approach was not leading to the necessary actions. Citizens were not studying the issues, considering the tradeoffs, and electing politicians to do the right thing. Most people were not interested, thought the complexity was too great, fell for the most simplistic campaign slogans, and reacted emotionally.

Intrigued by this dysfunctional behaviour, I set out to explore the ability of humans to practice foresight. After all, one of the characteristics which distinguishes Homo sapiens from other species is an awareness of the future and an ability to plan actions today which affect tomorrow. Today I will share some of my findings about this ability and its past, present, and future use. Read the complete Post.

Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to 2 years in prison on July 26, 2011 at the Salt Lake City federal courthouse. He was taken immediately into custody, being denied the typical 3 weeks afforded to put his affairs in order and say goodbye to his friends and family.

Federal prosecutors asked for Tim to receive an extra harsh prison sentence in an effort to intimidate the movement that stands with him. They hoped that by condemning him to years behind bars, they would “make an example out of him” and deter all of us from taking meaningful action. Read the complete Post.

Announcing a NEW BOOK from Balfour and Associates

SSP: Civil Defense Manual for Cultural Sustainability

This book gives in depth information about strategic sustainable planning from city planners and architects. It discusses peak oil and ways to address the end of cheap energy. It shows how patterns of community must change to allow for green corridors and food production. This manual is a guide to the essential transformation of our cities and suburban communities to sustainable, livable, self-reliance.

You can order a hard copy from oldcityfoundation@telus.net. The current edition, 200 pages in colour, is $35.00.

A pdf can be downloaded from www.plancanada.com for $10. using PayPal.

The New York Times
ELISABETH ROSENTHAL

KRISTIANSTAD, Sweden — When this city vowed a decade ago to wean itself from fossil fuels, it was a lofty aspiration, like zero deaths from traffic accidents or the elimination of childhood obesity.

But Kristianstad has already crossed a crucial threshold: the city and surrounding county, with a population of 80,000, essentially use no, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long frigid winters. It is a complete reversal from 20 years ago, when all of their heat came from fossil fuels.

But this area in southern, best known as the home of Absolut vodka, has not generally substituted solar panels or for the traditional fuels it has forsaken. Instead, as befits a region that is an epicenter of farming and food processing, it generates energy from a motley assortment of ingredients like potato peels, manure, used cooking oil, stale cookies and pig intestines. Read the complete Post.

By Mathis Wackernagel

As world leaders prepare for the next round of climate talks in Cancun, it is time to put to right a misperception that for too long has shackled our approach to this vital issue. The error is simply this: Taking action is a burden some nations will need to shoulder for the good of the world – rather than the single best action each nation can take to further its own long-term interests.

The question by governments of “What’s in it for me?” has up to now been a major stumbling block to international agreement. But if leaders and their administrations truly understood the underlying resource dynamics, they would have the exact opposite approach. They would see it is in their self-interest to act quickly and aggressively, whatever the actions taken by their global neighbors.  In fact, each country’s own actions will become more urgent and valuable the less others do.

Why would it be in any individual country’s interest to address a problem whose costs are ultimately born by all of humanity? Consider the nature of the carbon problem. Read the complete Post.

By Tom Jacobs, Miller-McCune.com
Posted on October 8, 2010, Printed on October 8, 2010

http://www.alternet.org/story/148318/

A clear consensus of opinion emerges within the scientific community on an important issue, such as climate change. But the public, and its elected leaders, remains unconvinced and unreceptive to well-founded warnings.

With this phenomenon growing frustratingly familiar, researchers can be forgiven if they begin to feel like Rodney Dangerfields in lab coats. From their perspective, they don’t get no respect.

Newly published research suggests that’s not entirely true: Americans do believe and trust researchers. But we focus our attention on those experts whose ideas conform with our preconceived notions. The others tend to get discounted or ignored.

“Scientific opinion fails to quiet societal disputes on such issues (as climate change) not because members of the public are unwilling to defer to experts, but because culturally diverse persons tend to form opposing perceptions of what experts believe,” a team of scholars writes in the Journal of Risk Research. “Individuals systematically overestimate the degree of scientific support for positions they are culturally predisposed to accept.” Read the complete Post.

Fri – Sat October 15 – 16

from 9 am – 5 pm

Langara College, 100 West 49 Avenue, Vancouver

Co-sponsored by Langara College Continuing Studies and Village Vancouver

Join leaders of the transition movement in Vancouver for a 2-day workshop and dialogue introducing the principles, steps and lessons of the successful Transition Town model of local response to global challenges.

· What are the lessons for activists and concerned citizens?
· How can we increase resilience in every neighbourhood?
· What are the ways we might collaborate to get the impacts that are needed? Read the complete Post.