H2oil animated sequences from Dale Hayward on Vimeo.

By Miriam B. Weiner
Sent by Ross Moster – VPOE and Village Vancouver
Posted on Yahoo! Travel

Many of us take for granted the notion that all of our beloved cities will be around for centuries to come. However, cities around the world seem to be vying for the title of “The Next Atlantis.” Shaky foundations and encroaching seas are posing significant threats to some of the world’s largest and most beloved cities. When planning your next vacation, keep in mind that some of the world’s favorite destinations have a bit of a ticking clock on them. Here are seven major cities that are preparing to take the plunge.

#7: Bangkok, Thailand

Thailand’s capital is sinking — and sinking fast. However, unlike other cities on our list, a shoddy foundation isn’t necessarily to blame. Resting on the Chao Phraya River — which flows into the Bay of Bangkok about 30 miles south of the city center — this colossal settlement is more likely to drown than sink. Experts now say that this mouthwatering foodie destination — along with the dozens of beautiful temples found here — may be under water in as little as seven years. Read the complete Post.

R A Leng
Emeritus Professor, University of New England, Armidale, NSW, Australia
rleng@ozemail.com.au

Abstract

The world appears to be at a most critical period in recent history, a financial crisis precipitated by simultaneous and interrelated/ interactive events including Peak Oil (the end of inexpensive energy),other global resource depletion and climate change all of which are undermining food security particularly in developing countries. There is an urgent need to respond to these challenges in order to produce and deliver food to maintain the present world population, let alone the increased population predicted by 2030 of 8-10 billion people..

The primary underlying cause of world recession appears to be depletion in fossil fuel energy availability. The world has been using more fossil energy then is being discovered and it appears that the reserves of energy that can be cheaply mined are now at peak production (half these resources have been combusted). As oil reserves are depleted, prices will rise continuously with increasing scarcity and the extra demand now coming through the increased wealth in many emerging economies.

Nations have to prepare for a significant rate of depletion of oil reserves and large increases in costs of essentials relative to peoples purchasing power. World population expansion has been promoted by the availability of inexpensive oil, which has supported a “Green Revolution” by providing inexpensive inputs including fertilizers, insecticides, herbicides, traction power( lowering the need for labour and reducing the numbers of people in farming) and in places irrigation water. Inexpensive oil allowed food to be produced cheaply but this will change greatly as oil prices rise creating the potential for major disruptions in food availability and even famine. Failure to deal with increasing demand for oil, rising world temperature, failing water availability ( from snow melt, river flows and depleting aquifers) and reduced crop land fertility and availability through erosion, pollution, sea level rise may cause a slump in food production leading to widespread world famine Read the complete Post.

How to Boil a Frog – eco-comedy
SNEAK PREVIEW – Don’t miss this focus group screening of the rough cut of the new eco-comedy, How to Boil a Frog.

Meet director, writer, Jon Cooksey, laugh, worry, and give us your opinion.
Q&A after the screening.

Wed. Sept. 23, 7pm – 9:30pm
Langara College – Room A130
100 West 49th Avenue
Vancouver, BC

Admission is free

Brought to you by: Vancouver Peak Oil, Village Vancouver, Langara College, and New City Institute

T-shirts will be for sale for those who have cash or check – You know you want one

Make friends, Make fun, Make trouble

Written by William E. Rees, PhD, FRSC

Sunday, 21 December 2008 10:56 www.ourrivers.ca

Fact: Most public policy directed toward so-called sustainability, including alternative energy, is directly or indirectly oriented toward maintaining the status quo by other means—i.e., it emphasizes growth through efficiency or is geared toward increasing supply rather than reducing demand. This (along with kow-towing to the private sector) is what run-of-the-river hydro is all about.

Problem: Governments (and even most ‘environmental’ organizations) have yet to confront a contrary two-fold reality that demands a very different approach:

1. Scientists, particularly climate-change scientists, have grossly  underestimated the scale and rapidity of climate change.  Arctic warming/melting is 80-100 years ahead of the IPCC’s business-as-usual scenario. The most recent peer-reviewed research suggests that the world will be hard-pressed to avoid stabilizing GHGs at less than 650 ppm CO2e which implies a 50% probability of a catastrophic 4C° of warming.
2. Eco-footprint analysis shows that the world is in over-shoot, using 25-40% more of nature’s goods and services each year than the planet can sustainably produce. We are depleting essential natural capital.

Solution: There is nothing for it but to GIVE UP GROWTH. The era of material exuberance in the First World is over. Public policy that does not reflect this reality merely accelerates  ecosystemic—and ultimately societal—collapse.

In this light, the mad scramble by governments everywhere to re-establish ‘normal’ growth after the recent implosion of the world’s greed-driven financial markets is tragicomedy on a global scale. Sustainability requires that we should, instead, be planning a stable way down for everyone while we still have the capacity to do so. Governments should be negotiating a global treaty on ‘contraction and convergence’ by which the First World would shrink its per eco-footprints to converge, at a sustainable level, with justifiably growing per capita EFs in the Third World. We should aim to de-carbonize the global economy completely by 2025. All this implies an 80% reduction in per capita consumption and waste production by North Americans.

The good news is that the implicit serious conservation effort would generate more energy from existing sources than can be derived by supply-side approaches. Ecologically hazardous run-of-the-river hydro is an unnecessary growthist strategy.

By the way, ‘zero growth’ may be blasphemy today, but within a decade or so it will have become holy doctrine.

The inventor of the “eco-footprint” concept, Dr. William Rees is one the world’s foremost  ecological and sustainability experts.  He teaches at the UBC School of Community and Regional Planning.

I can’t help but feel frustrated when I read Newsweek articles like that one below that only go as far as advocating a Business As Usual (BAU) or a Technofix just-in-time-to-save-our-asses solution (In religious jargon – False Messianic promise) to Climate Change and Peak Oil.

By Philip Be’er VPOE

In his Hierarchy of Needs, Abraham Maslow laid out in a graphic format, what human beings need to thrive http://www.businessballs.com/maslow.htm

Try to find the need for nuclear, fossil or even “low carbon” energy sources, for cars or of any other kind of mechanised transportation in the pyramid and you’ll see that they simply play no role in what human beings require to be healthy, wealthy and happy.

According to Professor Abraham Maslow, we do need Clean Air, Food, Water, Sleep and Shelter to survive. When we also get our safety and security needs met this creates a stable environment conducive to developing socially and emotionally. When we set up our societies in ways that allow us to have our Esteem Needs met, then we also have a shot at realising our personal potential.

Read the complete Post.

Feb 15, 2009 04:30 AM
The Toronto Star
by Cathal Kelly

For millennia, doomsayers have been predicting the end of the world as we know it. These days, theory dovetails with fact: oil is disappearing. Should we be listening?

After the planes hit the towers, Paul added a to-do to his long survival list.

At the time, he was working on the eighth floor of a west-end office tower. So he convinced a guy at the local outdoors supplier to teach him to rappel. Then he bought 60 metres of rope and packed it, along with some climbing gear, into a briefcase. Then he tucked the briefcase under his desk.

“It seemed like the intelligent thing to do,” he shrugs.

Three years ago, Paul heard about Peak Oil. This is the millenarianism of our recessionary time, a doomsday scenario with a wrinkle – scientific backing. In essence, Peak Oil states that the world’s supply of crude will soon go into permanent, inexorable decline. This is widely accepted amongst experts. The main points of debate are exactly when this will happen, how quickly oil will deplete and what happens next. Read the complete Post.

Campbell River Mirror

January 29, 2009 12:00 PM

I am writing this article to shine some light on what the NDP and their psuedo-enviromentalist bought-and-paid-for associates are doing in their attempts to discredit First Nations involvement in run-of-river development projects.

Real environmentalist organizations should ask for a First Nation perspective on the facts (as they have many times in the past) before embracing the fear-mongering hysteria being perpetuated by the NDP and unions as it tarnishes their credibility as stewards of the land.

I have personally attended several of these NDP so-called “public meetings” (they would not let me speak at one) on run of river issues, two of which were in Campbell River and one was with Rafe Mair in attendance.

It was a “million dollar” experience I would not pay a nickel to do again. I now know these people will say or do anything to get in control of your tax dollars.

Truth and facts do not even enter into their blathering as they are only concerned with promoting their political agenda. Read the complete Post.

Friday 09 January 2009
by: Ian Sample, The Guardian UK
Original article

Climate change may ruin farming in tropics by 2100. Record temperatures to become normal in Europe.

VPO note: as alarming as this article is, it’s entirely over-optimistic in talking about food shortages by 2100…but leaving out a probable crash in agricultural yields as oil inputs decline in the next couple of decades, plus shortages of fresh water already beginning, plus rapid soil loss and continuing urbanization of farmland, the continued push to convert food into fuel for our cars, and so on. This is why OVERSHOOT must be the starting point for looking at problems like this, and not just one individual symptom of it, like global warming.

Half of the world’s population could face severe food shortages by the end of the century as rising temperatures take their toll on farmers’ crops, scientists have warned.

Harvests of staple food crops such as rice and maize could fall by between 20% and 40% as a result of higher temperatures during the growing season in the tropics and subtropics. Warmer temperatures in the region are also expected to increase the risk of drought, cutting crop losses further, according to a new study.

The worst of the food shortages are expected to hit the poor, densely inhabited regions of the equatorial belt, where demand for food is already soaring because of a rapid growth in population. Read the complete Post.