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.

We risk losing our country to permanent droughts and extreme natural disasters.

Photo Credit: AFP/Getty Images
Scientists have been predicting for years that global warming would produce record-breaking extremes on either side of the thermometer. This past winter, America survived its so-called snowpocalypse, and now that summer has arrived, we’ve got a heat dome.

If you’re wondering what the hell that is — it’s just another obvious climate change assassin that we could see coming miles away, if some of us were paying better attention. If you’re looking for a more technical definition, according to National Geographic a heat dome is a seasonal high-pressure system of dense hot air, albeit one with a highly unusual (for now) strength and size, stretching one million square miles from the Rocky Mountains to the East Coast. It’s already killed a couple dozen people, adding to a swelling death toll resulting from recent tornadoes and floods that bedeviled the nation this year.

It conforms easily to the ravages of Kevin Borden and Susan Cutter’s so-called Death Map — academically known as “Spatial patterns of natural hazards mortality in the United States” — which in 2008 peered into climate change’s crystal ball and found intensifying natural disasters capable of regionally reshaping the nation with every catastrophe. According to University of South Carolina scholars Cutter and Borden, heat and drought were the main death-dealers, along with extreme summer and winter events. Borden now works for homeland security risk management specialist Digital Sandbox. If his post-academic career choice doesn’t confirm it outright, then recent warnings from the United Nations Environment Program should: These global warming nightmares, not domestic or international terrorists, are the most dangerous threat to global security in existence. 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.

By Max Paris, CBC News
Posted: Jul 14, 2011 2:02 AM PT
Last Updated: Jul 14, 2011

Natural gas is not a “transition” fuel to a low-carbon energy future, says a report from two of Canada’s most respected environmental think-tanks.

Natural gas isn’t a long-term answer to lowering greenhouse gas emissions, a new report says. Here, the Rowan Gorilla III is loaded onto a semi-submersible heavy lift ship in Halifax harbour last January after drilling on the Deep Panuke natural gas development offshore Nova Scotia. (Andrew Vaughan/Canadian Press)

Switching from coal to natural gas could help meet Canada’s short-term goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent from 2005 levels by 2020. But if that’s the only change Canada makes, the 2050 targets — an 80 per cent greenhouse gas reduction — would be almost impossible to achieve. Read the complete Post.

A FILM from the Post Carbon Institute – an animated journey from then to now.

Plus a peak into the future and some advice on what we should do next. I’d like to see more emphasis on having a reduced global population and empowering women, but alas, one can see from the animation and voice-over that this is a male written, produced, and directed film. Still it’s a fine quickie for the under informed. I suggest sharing this with friends.

300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds

Jan. 18, 2011
Rex Weyler

Lost in the news cycle is the fact that oil has quietly returned to its Oct. 2007 price of $90/barrel .. now $91 .. and the Brent Crude price, European price, is $95. So we’re back where we were in early 2008, approaching $100 oil, and counting. This matters.

OPEC oil production peaked in 2005 at just over 20-million barrels per day .. now down to 19-million, exports falling faster than total production, and with U.S. complaining loudly. Global production remains flat only because of massive recovery effort elsewhere. Price will continue to rise until it begins to hobble the economy again. This is an important thing to watch, as oil price will be the primary governor on world economic growth for the next decades and beyond. Read the complete Post.

Posted on Nov 29, 2010

By Chris Hedges

On Dec. 16 I will join Daniel Ellsberg, Medea Benjamin, Ray McGovern and several military veteran activists outside the White House to protest the futile and endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Many of us will, after our rally in Lafayette Park, attempt to chain ourselves to the fence outside the White House. It is a pretty good bet we will all spend a night in jail. Hope, from now on, will look like this.

Hope is not trusting in the ultimate goodness of Barack Obama, who, like Herod of old, sold out his people. It is not having a positive attitude or pretending that happy thoughts and false optimism will make the world better. Hope is not about chanting packaged campaign slogans or trusting in the better nature of the Democratic Party. Hope does not mean that our protests will suddenly awaken the dead consciences, the atrophied souls, of the plutocrats running Halliburton, Goldman Sachs, ExxonMobil or the government.

Hope does not mean we will halt the firing in Afghanistan of the next Hellfire missile, whose explosive blast sucks the oxygen out of the air and leaves the dead, including children, scattered like limp rag dolls on the ground. Hope does not mean we will reform Wall Street swindlers and speculators, or halt the pillaging of our economy as we print $600 billion in new money with the desperation of all collapsing states. Hope does not mean that the nation’s ministers and rabbis, who know the words of the great Hebrew prophets, will leave their houses of worship to practice the religious beliefs they preach. Most clerics like fine, abstract words about justice and full collection plates, but know little of real hope.

Hope knows that unless we physically defy government control we are complicit in the violence of the state. All who resist keep hope alive. All who succumb to fear, despair and apathy become enemies of hope. They become, in their passivity, agents of injustice. If the enemies of hope are finally victorious, the poison of violence will become not only the language of power but the language of opposition. And those who resist with nonviolence are in times like these the thin line of defense between a civil society and its disintegration. Read the complete Post.

This week’s Radio Ecoshock Show is entirely devoted to Kathy McMahon’s speech in Vancouver.

This Radio Ecoshock special on Peak Oil Blues is also being distributed via the Pacific Radio network (about 5 to 7 stations will run that), and in an even more abbreviated cut, on Green 960 AM in San Francisco (it’s just a half hour show).  The one hour program is already out to my podcast list. Here in Vancouver, This Friday at 1 pm on CFRO 102.7 FM, I only get to play 35 minutes of Kathy’s speech.

Here is a link to the Lo-Fi version of the program, to be broadcast starting Friday:

http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock10/ES_101029_Show_LoFi.mp3

That is 1 hour, 14 megabytes.

You, and all listeners, can download the full speech, plus the 20 minute interview between Kathy and I, with links in this week’s Radio Ecoshock Show blog entry here:

http://www.ecoshock.info/2010/10/peak-oil-vs-pathological-optimism.html

Scroll down to the bottom, to find the links.  Later, all this will show up on our Peak Oil page at ecoshock.org as well.

Alex Smith
host
Radio Ecoshock
http://www.ecoshock.org

Douglas Coupland
From Saturday’s Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Oct. 08, 2010 6:49PM EDT

The iconic writer reveals the shape of things to come, with 45 tips for survival and a matching glossary of the new words you’ll need to talk about your messed-up future.

1) It’s going to get worse

No silver linings and no lemonade. The elevator only goes down. The bright note is that the elevator will, at some point, stop.

2) The future isn’t going to feel futuristic

It’s simply going to feel weird and out-of-control-ish, the way it does now, because too many things are changing too quickly. The reason the future feels odd is because of its unpredictability. If the future didn’t feel weirdly unexpected, then something would be wrong.

3) The future is going to happen no matter what we do. The future will feel even faster than it does now

The next sets of triumphing technologies are going to happen, no matter who invents them or where or how. Not that technology alone dictates the future, but in the end it always leaves its mark. The only unknown factor is the pace at which new technologies will appear. This technological determinism, with its sense of constantly awaiting a new era-changing technology every day, is one of the hallmarks of the next decade.

4)Move to Vancouver, San Diego, Shannon or Liverpool

There’ll be just as much freaky extreme weather in these west-coast cities, but at least the west coasts won’t be broiling hot and cryogenically cold.

5) You’ll spend a lot of your time feeling like a dog leashed to a pole outside the grocery store – separation anxiety will become your permanent state

6) The middle class is over. It’s not coming back Read the complete Post.

July 31, 2010
George Lakoff
Author, The Political Mind, Moral Politics, Don’t Think of an Elephant!

Posted: July 15, 2010 09:08 AM
Huffington Post

Saving nature is the central issue. Carbon fuels destroy nature. The Gulf Death Gusher is the most visible sign. But signs are everywhere. Overall global warming increases hurricanes and floods, destroys habitats for plants, fish, birds, and ground animals, spreads deserts, causes deadly waves, and destroys glaciers and our polar ice caps. The use of carbon fuels has been destroying nature. Our job now is to save it.

Interestingly, there is a short, 39-page bill before the Senate that would allow us to save nature and get paid substantially for doing it. It is the CLEAR bill, first suggested by Peter Barnes, and introduced by Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Susan Collins (R-ME). It is simple, it works, and it pays you!

The principle behind it is this: We US citizens own the air over the US equally. Carbon-fuel sellers are dumping pollution in our air, not just poisoning the air, but destroying nature. At least they should pay for permits to dump, poison, and destroy, and should be forced year-by-year to stop. Who should the sellers pay for permits? All of us, the citizens who live here, should be paid handsomely. And there should be predictably fewer permits every year, till the practice ends or reaches tolerable levels. Read the complete Post.