ENERGY & EQUITY: Nikiforuk on how oil lubricates bellicose statecraft.
By Andrew Nikiforuk, March 5, 2012, TheTyee.ca

Excellent article. Worth the read. Vandy

Whenever North Americans fill up their vehicles with gasoline these days they should reflect on their ongoing contribution to the dysfunctional status of petro states and the Islamic Republic of Iran in particular.

Iran’s civilian nuclear power ambitions, of course, have set off a grand political tiff with the United States and Israel. Both suspect the nation wants to make atomic weapons too. 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.

Published by Falls Church News-Press on Wed, 10/12/2011 – 08:00
Original article: http://www.fcnp.com/commentary/national/10285-the-peak-oil-crisis-contagion.html
by Tom Whipple

With every passing day it is becoming more apparent that the crisis of the depletion of cheap oil has become deeply enmeshed in the European debt crises.

The sequence of events is well known. Greece’s economy is imploding; the government can no longer pay its bills without continuing bailouts from the EU; at some point Greece will have to default on at least part of the $430 billion it owes to mostly European banks. Such a default would in turn do severe damage to the viability of many major European Banks which are already suffering a liquidity shortage from the slowing global economy. It is widely believed that these problems quickly would spread to Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and now Belgium which are too large to ever be bailed out by France and Germany. Credit Default Swaps would kick in and, taken to the extreme, the world could conceivably not have much of a banking system left. Read the complete Post.

Song Of the Spindle from Drew Christie on Vimeo.

Why we humans need to sing and make more music to be in harmony with each other and our planet. Pun intended.

Exercise your spindle.
Thanks to Ben West for sending this to me.

By Paul Kingsnorth

26 September, 2011
The Guardian

Leopold Kohr warned 50 years ago that the gigantist global system would grow until it imploded. We should have listened

Living through a collapse is a curious experience. Perhaps the most curious part is that nobody wants to admit it’s a collapse. The results of half a century of debt-fuelled “growth” are becoming impossible to convincingly deny, but even as economies and certainties crumble, our appointed leaders bravely hold the line. No one wants to be the first to say the dam is cracked beyond repair. Read the complete Post.

As many of you already know, Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to 2 years in jail yesterday for defending thousands of acres of pristine wilderness in Utah. The Bush administration was illegally selling off land to the oil and gas companies. DeChristopher stopped them. I am deeply moved by his courage.
Vandy July 27, 2011

Excerpt – “Mr Huber claims that the seriousness of my offense was that I “obstructed lawful government proceedings.” But the auction in question was not a lawful proceeding….

The power of the Justice Department is based on its ability to take things away from people. The more that people feel that they have nothing to lose, the more that power begins to shrivel. The people who are committed to fighting for a livable future will not be discouraged or intimidated by anything that happens here today. And neither will I. I will continue to confront the system that threatens our future. Given the destruction of our democratic institutions that once gave citizens access to power, my future will likely involve civil disobedience. Nothing that happens here today will change that. I don’t mean that in any sort of disrespectful way at all, but you don’t have that authority.

You have authority over my life, but not my principles. Those are mine alone…I have no desire to go to prison, and any assertion that I want to be even a temporary martyr is false. I want you to join me in standing up for the right and responsibility of citizens to challenge their government. I want you to join me in valuing this country’s rich history of nonviolent civil disobedience. If you share those values but think my tactics are mistaken, you have the power to redirect them.

You can sentence me to a wide range of community service efforts that would point my commitment to a healthy and just world down a different path. You can have me work with troubled teens, as I spent most of my career doing. You can have me help disadvantaged communities or even just pull weeds for the BLM. You can steer that commitment if you agree with it, but you can’t kill it. This is not going away. At this point of unimaginable threats on the horizon, this is what hope looks like. In these times of a morally bankrupt government that has sold out its principles, this is what patriotism looks like. With countless lives on the line, this is what love looks like, and it will only grow. The choice you are making today is what side are you on.”
Tim DeChristopher – July 26, 2011 Utah courthouse

Follow the story at Peaceful Uprising

By Rick Balfour

July 12, 2011

alr-land-access-report-draft-b2

This is a topic of great concern to groups of people now looking to relocate but need to do so in collective, cooperative manner, and not necessarily in ecovillage form, but as extended family or combination of relationships similar to one.

There are many examples but the illustrations communicate a need of bridging structures or designs reflecting social transitions ‘back to the land’.

This one is purposefully ‘more elegant’ to counter the notion that leaving the city as some sort of backward step.

As lands become more intensively farmed (and without oil/tractors), the ratio of land and people in this and homestead models might rise to 1 person per acre or more.

Rick
oldcityfoundation@telus.net
www.plancanada.com
B&A Strategic Planning

March 18, 2011

Instructions for saving our butts in a Post Oil low energy future.

Co-written by VPOE Richard Balfour and Eileen Keenan
Cost $10.00 for full color pdf downloadable file or $35.00 for a hardcover edition.

Want one? Click here to go to Plan Canadahttp://plancanada.com/

While focused on Vancouver as an example this is about global impacts on any city or culture from peak oil and climate change, and in an effort to deal with cultural adaption, not cultural melt down.
• Peak Oil
• Sustainability Workshops
• Canadian Institute of Planners
• Narrow Streets and Houses
• City Lands opportunities
• Farmland
• Miscellaneous – you won’t believe the topics covered in this section
• Links

For agreements for multiple use for education uses, please contact oldcityfoundation@telus.net.

Thanks to Charles Dobson in help making this alternate access available.
Richard Balfour and Eileen Keenan

Richard Balfour Architect & Co.
Balfour & Associates • Strategic Planning
Vancouver  6047310206
balfourarch@telus.net
www.plancanada.com

Wednesday, February 23rd, 2011

Reuters reports that, “A string of Arab uprisings are giving a foretaste of the likely havoc that climate change will cause without greater effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions, a British foreign ministry official warned. …’Treat this as a prequel, because if we can’t remove some of those upward pressures on resource stresses then crises that are difficult to deal with when they happen will become more likely,’ said John Ashton, special representative for climate change at Britain’s foreign ministry.”

“Soaring food prices, stoked by Russia’s drought last year and subsequent ban on wheat exports, were an additional trigger in the popular revolts across North Africa and the Middle East mostly blamed on public frustration with autocratic rule. …(Ashton) used the example of food riots in Mozambique after the Russian wheat export ban. …A Libyan uprising follows revolts which toppled the long-time rulers of Tunisia and Egypt and threatened entrenched dynasties including Bahrain.” Read the complete Post.

By Julio Godoy
24 January, 2011
Inter Press Service

PARIS – Despite repeated warnings by environmental and climate experts that reduction of fossil fuel consumption and greenhouse gas emissions is fundamental to forestalling global warming, disaster appears imminent. According to the latest statistics, unprecedented climate change has Earth hurtling down a path of catastrophic proportions.

The Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that the global consumption of primary energy in 2010 reached some 500 exajoules (EJ), a number just under the worst-case scenario formulated ten years ago by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The IPCC’s Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, published in 2000, calculated the worst-case scenario as 525 EJ consumed in one calendar year. Read the complete Post.