Will PEAK OIL devour Vancouver’s Politicians?
Or, will our politicians battle INERTIA and defeat the monstrous status quo?

Wed. Oct. 15, 2008, 7 - 9:30 PM
BCIT Downtown Campus
555 Seymour St., Vancouver

WATCH WITH FASCINATION as our panelists reveal their plans for addressing these critical issues!

• Is the Lower Mainland ready for a LOW-ENERGY FUTURE?

• Is GATEWAY a solution to our future transportation needs, and – if not – what is?

• Is there a plan to make sure we’ll all have enough FOOD to eat next year and 20 years from now?

• How do we reshape our pattern of community for a world with less and LESS OIL?

• How do we ensure an adequate ENERGY SUPPLY for the Lower Mainland?

Before you cast a vote in the next city election…
FIND OUT what these candidates plan to do.

Introducing Mayoral Candidates:
Gregor ROBERTSON - candidate Mayor Vision Party
Councillor Peter LADNER - candidate Mayor NPA
Betty KRAWCZYK - candidate Mayor Work Less Party

With:
Councillor Suzanne ANTON - candidate Vancouver City Council
Mayor Derek CORRIGAN - candidate Mayor Burnaby
Council Candidate Andrea REIMER – candidate Vancouver City Council

JOIN US for a rousing panel discussion and SEE FOR YOURSELF how some of the Lower Mainland’s top politicians PERSONALLY plan to address the many problems posed by PEAK OIL.

YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS THIS.

Wednesday October 15, 2008
7 - 9:30 PM
BCIT Downtown Campus
555 Seymour St., Vancouver
(a few blocks up from Waterfront station)
Tickets $7 in advance, $10 at the door.

Advanced Tickets:

http://vancouverpeakoil.org
Brought to you by Vancouver Peak Oil and The Great Bear Pub, and sponsored by:
The Cooperative Auto Network

Opposition to the provincial government’s Gateway Project is heating up. But it may be too late.

Michael McCarthy
Vancouver Courier
Original article
Friday, September 26, 2008

From Anthony Perl’s condo in Coal Harbour you can see small commuter planes, cruise ships, freighters loaded with containers and the Seabus trundling towards North Vancouver. At writer Richard Gilbert’s Gastown apartment, you can view the CPR yards, the West Coast Express, a helipad, tourist buses, a car rental company and heavy trucks working the port. What they all have in common is their dependence on fossil fuels, a resource rapidly escalating in price as it diminishes in supply. It’s also a resource that the B.C. government has picked as the backbone of its multi-billion dollar Gateway Project.

Perl, professor of political science and director of the urban studies program at Simon Fraser University, predicts the days of fossil-fuelled transportation are coming to an end. In his new book Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight without Oil, co-authored with Gilbert, Perl says that any urban planning centred around the use of fossil fuels is extremely shortsighted and bound to fail. Many other local urban planners, neighbourhood groups and activists also see Gateway as a politically motivated quick fix that is bound to have negative ramifications on the Lower Mainland in the future.

“I’m not suggesting any sort of conspiracy,” says Perl, “or that selected people are getting together in back rooms to plan this, but obviously some people stand to make an awful lot of money from building low-density, unclustered, single-family developments throughout the Fraser Valley.” 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.

The Vancouverpeakoil.org panel discussion from July 12th is now available for download, courtest of Alex Smith at Radio Ecoshock.

The CD quality version (56 MB) is at:
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080829_Show.mp3

The lower quality Lo-Fi version (mono, faster download, 14 MB) is at:
http://www.ecoshock.net/eshock08/ES_080829_Show_LoFi.mp3

There is no copyright on this work, feel free to use it as you like.

Original post with slideshow

Some people get a little concerned about more electrics and electric-hybrid cars. That’s because 50% of electric power in the U.S. comes from coal-burning power plants. And, just about every state wants to build more power plants to meet peak demand.

The big automakers are working on coming up with plug in hybrids. By the end of 2010, G-M and Toyota plan to have cars you can plug in to charge up batteries, backed up with small gas powered engines. Lester Graham reports there are concerns about whether pollution from power plants will be any better than pollution from tailpipes:

A related article from USA TODAY
A related blog post from TreeHugger

Producer: Lester Graham
Release Date: August 25, 2008
Running Time: 3:11

Visit the conference website now.
Hold these dates for the Fifth U.S. Conference
on Peak Oil and Community Solutions:
October 31- November 2, 2008
Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan

Why Attend This Conference?

Skyrocketing oil prices, mounting geopolitical tensions, grave economic realities, and dangerous climate changes are threatening our lives and communities like never before.

The age of cheap, abundant fossil fuels is coming to an end, and urgent action is required to transform our over-consumptive society into one that uses far less energy.

By acting now to reduce household energy use and re-localize economic production, we can create resilient, sustainable communities that will be able to weather the coming economic and ecological storms. Read the complete Post.

August 18th, 2008 · No Comments
By Barbara Kessler
Original article

It’s refreshing in these days of gas and environmental calamities, not to mention lending and budget crises, to hear about something that’s chugging along in a positive direction.

That’s the story of Amtrak, or nearly so, at this junction. Ridership on the American passenger rail service is up a healthy 14 percent compared to this time last year, and is on pace to hit an all-time annual record of 28 million passengers in fiscal 2008.

Trains are whisking folks around in the busiest “Northeast Corridor” (DC to Boston) faster than ever, and people across the nation are flocking to inter-city train travel, a mode of transportation less polluting per passenger than both cars and planes. Amtrak seems right for the times and primed for expansion. Read the complete Post.

From households to nations, we need to get serious about food self-sufficiency
By THOMAS HOMER-DIXON AND SARAH WOLFE
From Monday’s Globe and Mail
August 18, 2008 at 8:28 AM EDT
Original article

Our baby was fussing for her next feeding, and our preschooler was turning somersaults on the couch as he negotiated for the next episode of Sesame Street. Meanwhile, we were up to our elbows in hot syrup and peeled peaches - and we still had another 15 pints of the little devils to go.

Canning our own peaches seemed like a terrific idea at first. We’d been talking about household self-sufficiency for years. We love Ontario peaches, and they were coming into season. And we’d even bounced the idea off our parents. During their recent visit, the conversation had turned to higher fuel prices and how they’d make locally produced food more competitive with imported food. So we announced our plan.

It was not received with overwhelming enthusiasm. “Canning fruit - especially peaches - is a lot of work,” they explained gently. “Do you know how it’s done?” “Oh, that’s okay,” we declared, “we’ll find instructions on the Web.” Read the complete Post.

Fraser River works as transport route
Environmental impact less when containers put on barges
Brian Lewis, The Province
Published: Tuesday, August 12, 2008
Original article

VPO note - the NDP under Glen Clark ended up wasting millions of BC taxpayer dollars in the 1990’s on the FastCat ferries, and took heat for it from the Liberals. But now those same Liberals are about to waste BILLIONS of BC taxpayer dollars on the Gateway project just when people are finally starting to drive less, and cheaper alternatives like barges & rail - that are better for our future - are available. See our FAQ on VPO’s Gateway 2.0 proposal.

VPO considers this a scandal, if there’s any meaning to the word.

A report commissioned by local port authorities but virtually ignored by the B.C. government for more than three years now raises serious doubts about the economic viability of building the $1-billion South Fraser Perimeter Road.

In fact, the holes it opens in the so-called rationale for this 40-kilometre, four-lane truck freeway through Delta farmland and Burns Bog are large enough to drive an 18-wheel container truck through. Read the complete Post.