Here are excerpts from Harvey’s article today in the Vancouver Sun:

“…there are legitimate reasons to be concerned about the supply of oil. For a start, output from some of the world’s conventional fields is indeed declining…”

“…in-place resources of bitumen, oilsands and oil shale could yield roughly 10 trillion barrels or equivalent, most of it in friendly hands. However, it will be expensive to extract and process.”

“The second worrying trend is the rapid growth of oil-dependent China, India and other emerging economies, where energy demand is unlikely to decline appreciably…”

“One can’t rule out international belligerence as a culprit in the world’s oil woes. Many promising oil deposits are in hostile jurisdictions that limit, or even bar, foreign investment and activity, with the result that oil recovery, when there is any, is inefficient, intermittent and insecure. Frequent regional conflicts play havoc with oil exploration, extraction and delivery.”

“Another problem is that no one really knows the size of reserves in oil-rich states such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Russia. For instance, only Saudi officials know how much oil that country has and the estimates they make public may be fictions designed to yield political gain.”

“To complicate matters further, many countries have declared areas off-limits for oil and gas exploration and development…”

“The world economy is dependent on oil and all of us are vulnerable to disruptions in its production and delivery.”

“The price of oil is ruled by the laws of supply and demand, which are subject to geopolitical influences. Supply can be limited by cartels assigning production quotas to its members, or by boycotts or by wars. Demand can be stimulated by raising personal disposable income and depressed by a recession, as we see in the U.S. Indeed, the price of oil began to weaken as the global economy wound down and demand lessened. That’s the way markets are supposed to work. Nevertheless, it makes sense to diversify, to prepare and have on hand a full basket of energy options.”

“…there’s much to be gained by having a few more arrows in the quiver.”

The members of Vancouver Peak Oil - and all the scientists, geologists, oilmen, economists, investment bankers, urban planners, government agencies and others involved in preparing for global oil depletion - agree with all of the above, and welcome Harvey to the fold!

Barbara Yaffe, Vancouver SunPublished: Thursday, July 31, 2008

North American cities had better start adapting to a future characterized by climate change and depleting oil. Fewer parking lots. More condominiums. No more big highway upgrades. No further airport expansion. Emergency response and health care systems that can respond to the potential impacts of global warming and energy shocks.

The future is here, declares Bryn Davidson, a Vancouver engineer and architect who, with fellow planners Jonathan Frantz and Tom Lancaster, established the Dynamic Cities Project in 2005.

The project is a non-profit organization aimed at jolting designers and planners out of a torpor that has them carrying out business as usual.

To date, only the municipality of Burnaby has done any formal analysis of trends that are starting to hit North America.

A group of activists calling themselves the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive launched a petition recently urging Vancouver to strike a committee that would address the same issue.

Davidson’s Dynamic Cities Project website (www.dynamiccities.org) features a slide show detailing the ways in which climate change and declining petroleum reserves will drastically alter people’s behaviour.

Yet government planners have been fashioning civic infrastructure based on past trends.

The Pacific Gateway Strategy in B.C. — upgrading bridges, highways and road networks connecting ports, rail and the airport — is one example.

“A terrible idea,” Davidson says.

Indeed, planning documents for the $3-billion project, from 2005, predict Asia-Pacific air traffic would double at YVR by 2020. In 2008, already the outlook is quite different. Read the complete Post.

Why plague people with trash talk when they’ve got worries enough?
Derek Moscato, The Province
Monday, July 21, 2008

Forget about manicured front lawns, white picket fences and the sound of children at play. According to a growing legion of pundits and “peak oil” theorists, the tidy suburbs of today are the forsaken slums of tomorrow.

A recent article in The Atlantic Monthly by Christopher Leinberger argued that once-idyllic cul-de-sacs are about to become the domain of poverty, social disorder and physical rot.

More recently, Smart Growth B.C., the Vancouver-based not-for-profit with a focus on creating “more livable communities in British Columbia,” made the link between sprawling, auto-friendly suburbs and the grim spectre of childhood obesity.

Given sky-high gas prices, the new carbon tax and a growing number of “for sale” signs popping up in family subdivisions, there’s no doubt that B.C. suburban dwellers are facing a financial and psychological squeeze these days.

But writing them off as the doomed villains of the peak oil or global-warming stories is not only mean-spirited, it is also irresponsible.

Read the complete Post.

Michael McCarthy’ cover story Out of Gas for Friday, June 27, 2008 is a long overdue story. The issue of global oil peak has been spuriously overlooked, suppressed, ignored, and/or misunderstood for a long time.

McCarthy’s hypothesis that “EcoDensity may not be enough to save our oil-dependent society” is an understatement. EcoDensity targets middle to low-income earners and impacts in no substantial way the wealthiest of our society. The large homes in Shaughnessy are going to remain so, with relatively sparse occupancy in comparison to the density numbers EcoDensity proponents would like to see. EcoDensity principles will not apply to the wealthiest of neighbourhoods. (I’m convinced that proponents will argue the contrary.)

But EcoDensity in a world without the energy utility of petroleum will be one of the least of our social problems. By “us” I’m specifically referring to Canada and North America where we consume 25% of the world’s daily energy expenditure. Once our advantage is gone, we will plunge into a deep economic slump that will be difficult if not impossible to rectify.

There are many reasons this issue has been buried by government and media. Most importantly, the science behind oil-peak seems not only to elude the commoner, but confounds those charged with providing information. Peak Oil was not well explained by McCarthy.

Read the complete Post.

Hey, wake up from your trance and trust your senses this is serious - Hans Tammemagi

New millennium has brought a turning point in history, yet we ignore meltdown

Hans Tammemagi, Special to the Sun

Published: Saturday, June 28, 2008

The period from 1950 to 2000 will be remembered as the Golden Era of modern civilization, the pinnacle reached by humans after a million years of evolution. This brilliant half-century was sponsored largely by fossil fuels, especially oil, which brought unprecedented economic growth, plentiful transportation and a rich and diverse lifestyle.

But the new millennium has brought the end of cheap oil, and civilization is suddenly teetering on the edge of collapse. Even if we manage to scrape through (and it would require heroic efforts), life will change. We’re at one of the most important turning points in history, yet we persistently ignore the coming meltdown and just want to party on. Nero would be proud.

So, why is civilization teetering?

Read rest of article here

Summary

• we are on the threshold of a major crisis.
• the supply of oil will diminish each year, but population and demand will continue to grow.
• renewables like wind and solar simply can’t be supplied in enough quantity to fill the enormous demand.
• the world is facing a major food shortage.
• United Nations recently announced that large segments of the world face immediate hunger now, and global food production must be doubled in the next 30 years.
• we are adding 70 million more people to the planet every year.
• our efforts to curb carbon emissions are laughable and pathetic.
• Societal breakdown won’t happen quickly nor everywhere, but be sure of this: Change is coming and although poor nations will be hardest hit, North America will not be spared.

Out of gas

As the “peak” of global petroleum production rapidly approaches, EcoDensity may not be enough to save our oil-dependent society

Michael McCarthy, Vancouver Courier

Published: Friday, June 27, 2008

Gazing out his kitchen window in Kitsilano, Richard Balfour can see a clear picture of the future. We are running out of oil, says the founder of the Vancouver Peak Oil Executive, a group of local planners and community organizers concerned about this dilemma and looming crisis that will have a major impact on Vancouver in the near future.

“We are in for a very hard landing,” says Balfour, an architect, recently retired member of the Vancouver City Planning Commission and co-founder of the newly formed volunteer organization Metro Vancouver Planning Coalition. “Anything to do with oil will rise sharply in price, and so much of what we consume is dependent upon oil. We can expect imported food prices to jump as aviation and maritime fuel costs increase, and anyone driving a vehicle that’s a gas guzzler is in for a painful adjustment… There are lots of people who tell you this won’t happen, but these deniers said oil would never go past $100 a barrel.

Read rest of article here

A glimpse at what the future of our city could be,

EcoDensity here to stay

Despite Mayor Sam Sullivan’s electoral loss, the plan to increase city densities has widespread support

Frances Bula, Vancouver Sun

Published: Thursday, June 12, 2008

VANCOUVER - For the past two years, EcoDensity has been ridiculed as a marketing ploy, an empty phrase for self-promotion by now-deposed Mayor Sam Sullivan, a giveaway to developers, and a recycled version of existing Vancouver policy.

But it was also praised as a much-needed and exciting kickstart for Vancouver in thinking about how to build a more sustainable city.

Read rest of article here

EcoDenisty - A flashy name or a mechanism for change? Time will tell

Don’t belive the experts, they have no clue…I suggest using chicken bones for scenario planning

Fazil Mihlar, Vancouver Sun

Published: Saturday, June 07, 2008
Anyone who predicts what the future holds beyond a three-year horizon is a fool. Anyone who believes the predictions of these futurists is a bigger fool. Any politician or business executive who makes decisions on the basis of these predictions is the biggest fool of all.Consider the following prognostications and what actually transpired.

Read rest of article here

Commentary

Fazil makes some astonishing remarks in this article. This is par for the course for him and other starry-eyed cheerleaders of endless growth. Three of his examples highlight the power of technological progress over that last 100 years and how history has missed their potential impact. If ‘A’ is a prediction and turned out wrong, then if ‘B’ is also a prediction then it will be wrong by virtue of ‘A’. The logical fallacy of this approach would garner him a failed mark in 12th grade Philosophy. He then goes on to include failed predictions of metal commodity shortages and asserts that a good economics course would explain what we should all know - shortages drive up prices which spur investment which adds to supply, which drives prices down. And just in case you want to talk about using up a resource, economists like to dismiss this as ‘poppycock’ since commodities are fungible.

Most nuanced analysts understand that running out is not the problem or the reality. Many economic reporters use the red herring of ‘running out’ or the ‘exact timing of the peak’ to distract from the larger conversation on trends. Paradoxically, some economic journalists gloss over the economic fallout that rapid and/or sustained loss of cheap oil would exact on the economy, the very subject about which they profess to be so knowledgeable. The short-term difficulty is when supply flows of a needed commodity cannot meet demand because there are real world limits to their availability (regardless of investment). I would hardly call 1000 barrels a second of crude oil a shortage but I would call it a shortage if the world was set up to expect (a better adjective would be ‘perceived to need’) higher flows for an expected economic expansion. We face a collective ‘crisis of scale’ in transportation fuel dictated by real world limitations to supply and bounded by competing goals for human well-being.

Fazil goes on to point out the Tar Sands as evidence that we will transition to unconventional sources of oil. However he conveniently neglects to point out that the outflow is a meagre 2 million barrels a day at a significant cost to the environment compared to traditional drilling. Expansion plans are limited by available natural gas, labor and water. It’s not the size of the resource …its the size of the spigot. Next, Fazil makes the most egregious of Western-centric statements about food - ‘The net result is that there’s plenty of food, but not in the right places at the right time.’ Is this a glaring admission of the failures of the economic system so revered by Mr. Mihlar? He also fails to highlight the input risks to the food production system. Prudence suggests that one must at least consider the fact that natural gas is the lynch pin holding the industrial agricultural system together as it is the precursor to nitrogen based fertilizer.

According to the premises of the article, to speculate about the future (no matter how rigorous the exercise) is to join a litany of ‘doomsday environmentalists, economists, business executives, preachers and astrologers.’ I’m glad Mr. Mihlar isn’t running my business. I want market analysis, future trends and scenario planning. According to Fazil we only need ‘faith’ in the market and a warm cozy feeling that ‘everything is gonna be allright.’ Market analysis, risk management and a rigorous field-by-field supply study or throwing the chicken bones…you decide.

Ben West, West Coast Wilderness Committee Staff

Confidential documents reveal BC government did not consider rising oil prices for multi-billion dollar transportation project
Gateways feasibility was based on gas prices of $0.80/litre!

Vancouver, BC – Freedom of Information documents provided to the Wilderness Committee revealed that BC government officials failed to take into account rapidly rising fuel costs when they were establishing the feasibility of the proposed multi-billion dollar Gateway Project to expand highways, bridges and port facilities around Metro Vancouver.

Transportation experts anticipate that rapidly increasing fuel prices will reduce personal vehicle use and increase the demand for public transportation. The BC governments analysis of the Gateway Projects and gas prices was based on a forecast of gas at $0.80/Litre, but gas in Metro Vancouver is currently selling at around $1.30/Litre, and is projected to rise. The BC governments modeling is based on a 2003 Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) study entitled “Driving Costs” which explores overall operating expenses of vehicles.

“We are disturbed to see that the traffic modeling was based on such out of date figures. At best these projections are shortsighted; at worst they are could be construed as an attempt to justify spending billions of public dollars on a project that will not serve the publics interest,” said Ben West, Wilderness Committee Healthy Communities Campaigner.

Read rest of article here: