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Peak oil primer

What is Peak Oil?
Peak Oil is the simplest label for the problem of energy resource depletion, or more specifically, the peak in global oil production. Oil is a finite, non-renewable resource, one that has powered phenomenal economic and population growth over the last century and a half. The rate of oil 'production,' meaning extraction and refining (currently about 84 million barrels/day), has grown in most years over the last century, but once we go through the halfway point of all reserves, production becomes ever more likely to decline, hence 'peak'. Peak Oil means not 'running out of oil', but 'running out of cheap oil'. For societies leveraged on ever increasing amounts of cheap oil, the consequences may be dire. Without significant successful cultural reform, economic and social decline seems inevitable.

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Urban Scout on Rewilding

“No other word encompasses the act of abandoning civilization and its root of domestication like the verb rewild. It also struck me because, as a verb, it implies an action, a process, rather than an end point.” - Urban Scout.

His entry on Agriculture vs. Rewilding provide a good introduction to rewilding.

The Adventures of Urban Scout website also has some fun thought provoking videos. One intersting one is Urban Scout and Derrick Jensen in “The Secret of Sustainability”.

Los Angeles Permaculture Guild Newsletter

The Los Angeles Permaculture Guild Newsletter is a useful and lengthy compilation of needs, surplus, events and articles, videos, pictures and announcements of interest to permaculture students, environmentalists, activists, gardeners and others. Some of the information is gathered from community input - so your suggestions are welcome. The newsletter can be viewed online at taylorist.googlepages.com/permaculturelosangeles, or you can subscribe to the newsletter by sending an email to taylorist@gmail.com.

Luz: The Girl of the Knowing

Luz: The Girl of Knowing is an online comic about a 12-year-old latina girl who tends to be on the serious side and finds herself reflecting on life. She ponders the state of humanity and where we fit in Nature. She is curious, cares about people and animals, and tends to assume the best in everyone.

But Luz knows a big change is coming as she hears on the news and sees in headlines that petroleum is becoming expensive and scarce, and the climate is noticeably getting more erratic. Although surprised that no one seems very concerned, she doesn't wait for somebody else to take the lead.

Read More: www.transmission-x.com/luz/

Beyond Hope and Doom: Time for a Peak Oil Pep

by Richard Heinberg

Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg, on the psychological aspects of working to counteract the problems caused by peak oil and climate change. His "pep talk" reaches out to those working hard to make sure their families, their communities, and their planet are safe in a situation with many unknowns.

http://postcarboncities.net/node/2531

Rainwater as a Resource

Are our cities beyond repair? TreePeople doesn't think so.

As part of its Natural Urban Systems Group, TreePeople has been involved in the implementation of several retrofits designed to restore the natural functions of urban sites. From single-family homes to large public sites such as schools and parks, we've helped show that integrating nature's cycles into the urban landscape is not only technically and financially feasible but also highly desirable for individuals and cities alike.

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The Church Model for Peak Oil Activists

By Sharon Astyk, a subsistence farmer and author

So far, peak oil and climate change groups have focused on the other people who have figured out what is going on. But right now, in the early stages of the crisis, there are simply too few people who have put all the pieces together. With another decade to prepare and teach, such an approach might work. With only a short time, the odds are against it. Compare this to churches or synagogues or mosques, who invite in nearly everyone in a given community, opening their doors as widely as they can.

Read More at casaubonsbook.blogspot.com

Permaculture Defined

The Permaculture Activist, a periodical and website of permaculture resources, has an introduction to Permaculture. Here's a small excerpt.

1. From Bill Mollison: Permaculture is a design system for creating sustainable human environments.

2.From the Permaculture Drylands Institute, published in The Permaculture Activist (Autumn 1989): Permaculture: the use of ecology as the basis for designing integrated systems of food production, housing, appropriate technology, and community development. Permaculture is built upon an ethic of caring for the earth and interacting with the environment in mutually beneficial ways.

Read more at permacultureactivist.net/intro/PcIntro.htm

Urban Agriculture for Entrepreneurs

by Sarah Rich
Published by World Changing

Wally Satzewich operates Wally's Urban Market Garden which is a multi-locational sub-acre urban farm. It is dispersed over 25 residential backyard garden plots in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, that are rented from homeowners. The sites range in size from 500 sq. ft. to 3000 sq. ft., and the growing area totals a half acre. The produce is sold at The Saskatoon Farmers Market.

Read more at www.worldchanging.com/archives//006935.html

Peak Oil - How Will You Ride the Slide?

A short animated film by Bruce Woodside

Los Angeles local, Bruce Woodside, has recently created an animated short concerning Peak Oil

On nofatclips.com: http://nofatclips.com/02007/12/02/oil/Peak%20Oil.mp4

On youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ulxe1ie-vEY

Survive LA

Self-sufficiency Tips and Tricks from an Urban Homestead

Survive LA is a Los Angeles based blog which covers a variety of topics including the uses of local plants such as the broadleaf plantain, how to cook Rusks, a sturdy biscuits of Dutch South African origin, and reviews interesting local events, such as the Bike Scouts Campout, and the Street Signs and Solar Ovens: Los Angeles Social Craft Exhibit.

http://survivela.blogspot.com

The END of SUBURBIA

Update: Only the trailer is available on YouTube at this time.

Barry Silverthorn, the producer of The END of SUBRBIA: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream, uploaded a 52-minute version of The END of SUBURBIA to YouTube. The END of SUBURBIA documents how peak oil may affect our industrial society in the U.S. (and in the rest of the industrial world) as the globe faces the downslope of petroleum extraction. Since its release in March 2004, The END of SUBURBIA has sold over 29,000 copies, and may now likely reach a much wider audience on YouTube.

Watch the trailer of END of SUBURBIA on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com

If you recognize the importance of this documentary, please forward the link on to friends & family. You can also help promote it by goint to YouTube and rating it and commenting on it. This will help it reach the Top Rated, and Most Commented lists.

The director of the END of SUBURBIA, Gregory Green, is working on a sequel named Escape From Suburbia

"Through personal stories and interviews we examine how declining world oil production has already begun to affect modern life in North America. Expert scientific opinion is balanced with “on the street” portraits from an emerging global movement of citizen’s groups who are confronting the challenges of Peak Oil in extraordinary ways. " http://escapefromsuburbia.com/.

For a documentary with more of a focus on solutions to Peak Oil, there is The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil, http://www.communitysolution.org/cuba.html.

Walk, Bike, Ride L.A. Campaign

C.I.C.L.E. has announced a Walk, Bike, Ride L.A. Campaign and ask us to send a message to the Mayor. C.I.C.L.E. created pre-addressed postcards for people to send to Mayor Anonio Villaraigosa asking him to include bicycling and walking as part of his vision of a clean and green L.A. Print out our pre-addressed postcard and send it to the mayor today. C.I.C.L.E. will be distributing these postcards within the L.A. area, but asks others to help circulate these postcards too. www.BikeNow.org

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Permablitzing the suburbs down under

http://www.energybulletin.net/20945.html

A permablitz is basically a permaculture-inspired backyard makeover where people come together to share knowledge and skills about organic food production in urban gardens while building community and having fun.

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The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook
Recipes for Changing Times

A new book on post carbon life and the transition

By Albert K. Bates
http://www.newsociety.com/bookid/3927

Over the coming years we will need to move from a global culture addicted to cheap, abundant petroleum to a culture of compelled conservation, whether through government directive or market forces. The Post-Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook provides useful practical advice for preparing your family and community to make the transition.

This book takes a positive, upbeat, and optimistic view of "the Great Change," promoting the idea that it can be an opportunity to redeem our essential interconnectedness with nature and with each other. The many rifts that have grown up since oil became the world's prime commodity can be mended: between cities and their food sources; the design of the suburban built environment and its car-oriented sprawl; runaway greenhouse warming, clearing of forests and toxification of rivers, oceans, and land.

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(How can we already be) looking at the end of the age of oil and abundant energy

by Jan Lundberg
Published on 22 Sep 2006 by Gristmill
http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2006/9/21/233944/840

In my travels I'm called upon to answer difficult questions on energy supply and how today's complacent U.S. population will cope with petroleum famine. While there are technical answers and a crying need for skills like permaculture and revived handcrafts of all kinds, the key to our survival post-peak oil will be cultural, not technological. I've benefited from going around the country to speak and learn about our petroleum reality and how our ecosystems and communities will have to quickly adapt.

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Preparing for a Crash: Nuts and Bolts

by Zachary Nowak
Published on 31 Aug 2006 by Energy Bulletin
http://energybulletin.net/19929.html

This essay is intended to address the serious “peaknik,” that is to say a person who accepts as axiomatic that Peak Oil will occur and that the consequences will be devastating for most of the world’s Homo sapiens sapiens. As one of these people, I am often frustrated by the lack of practical suggestions for what to do to survive the Peak and the Crash. Recently I read a list of things that the people who participate in the forum of a noted Peak Oil site were doing “to prepare for a future that can no longer depend on cheap oil.” These included having a rain barrel, a one-month supply of canned goods and a one-week supply of bottled water, “adjusting my stock portfolio with more energy and other commodity stocks,” setting the thermostat at 62, and replacing the light bulbs in the house with compact fluorescents. While all of these are good things to do now, they fail to even minimally prepare for a world with no food distribution, no electricity, and lots of hungry people, things that I think are an acceptable picture for a post-Peak future. Therefore I would like to set out my suggestions, assuming that the worst-case scenario is the one we may have to deal with.

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Why the Survivalists Have Got It Wrong

by Rob Hopkins
http://transitionculture.org/?p=447

I have very little time for the survivalist response to peak oil, and on the back of a new article about it, Preparing for a Crash: Nuts and Bolts by Zachary Nowak, posted recently on the ever indispensible Energy Bulletin, perhaps it is time to deconstruct the whole survivalist argument, which is still a strong theme in the peak oil movement.

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Humanities Institute Fall 2006 Lecture Series
The End of Oil

In the fall semester of 2006, the Humanities Institute at Scripps College will sponsor a lecture series on the "The End of Oil." To help us understand what a post-oil age may look like, we are inviting energy analysts, economists, geologists, journalists, scientists and environmentalists, as well as political scientists to discuss with us the impact of the end of oil on the global economy, on the world's geopolitical balance of power, on our food supply and way of life, as well as on the environment and climate change.

For more information please write or call the Scripps College Humanities Institute at 1030 Columbia Avenue, Claremont, CA  91711, (909) 621-8326 or visit our website:   http://www.scrippscollege.edu/dept/humanities/index.html

All events are free and open to the public.  The events are listed on the LA Post Carbon event calendar.

Third U.S. Conference on “Peak Oil” and Community Solutions

As the world nears Peak Oil, energy prices are skyrocketing, geopolitical tensions are escalating, and the push for energy alternatives is intensifying. Yet many proposed solutions to Peak Oil will accelerate climate change, worsen global inequity, and further degrade our environment and communities. Still others have limited short-term technical feasibility. “The time has come to move beyond energy alernatives to creating alternative lifestyles and communities.”

Learn more about the 3rd US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions which will take place in Yellow Springs, Ohio, September 22-24th.

http://www.communitysolution.org/

Energy Descent Action Plan (EDAP) Primer

Here is a good introduction to "Energy Descent Action Plans" from the Energy Bulletin, including a brief primer on peak oil and permaculture. This would be a good article to send to neighborhood council members, council district staff and other public official types to try and start a conversation, if you are so inclined.

- Jennifer (Pasadena Post Carbon Outpost).

The concept of Energy Descent Action Plans isn't a widely known or discussed one. Even the issue which forms the EDAP's main inspiration - Peak Oil - may not be widely appreciated. So I've written a background briefing below. It's a work in progress, and being adapted from a document written for the Melbourne Food Network, so there may be some regional assumptions. But I hope that it might be a useful source document for others.

– Adam (@energybulletin.net)

http://energybulletin.net/16859.html

Technofix bubbles of hydrogen and biofuels at Pentagon’s Energy Conversation

Written by Jan Lundberg for CultureChange.org

Energy in the form of hydrogen, as well as biofuels, is one of the few mainstays of hope for clinging to global economic growth. When it comes to today’s growing worries over both the world peak in oil extraction and global warming, government and industry favor certain renewable energy technologies to supplement and then supplant decades more of fossil fueling. What of lifestyle change and truly sustainable, local economics? That's not what's being planned for you by the corporate state or even by some entities we would trust. Therefore, we are all allowing a tragic waste of time and more global warming that is avoidable. The technological solution (or "the technofix") is what we examine in this report, for its appeal serves to excuse the absence of immediate, realistic national and global action on preparing for what a growing number of people see as petrocollapse.

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The Tilth Producers Internet Audio Archive

Sumbitted by Jennifer Murphy

The Tilth Producers Internet Audio Archive has the beginning of an excellent library of conference keynote speeches and workshops related to sustainable agriculture and permaculture. Listen online for free: www.tilthproducers.org

Paul Stamets - Mushrooms as Allies: Potentiating Planetary Host Defenses through Fungi. Tilth Producers 2003 Conference Workshop. Paul Stamets, extraordinary mycologist and long-time Tilth member, takes you to the outer limits of the miracles of mushrooms in this wide-ranging and ground-breaking talk.

Vandana Shiva - Agriculture for Life: Beyond the suicidal Economy of Industrial Farming and Globalized Agriculture. Tilth's 30th Anniversary Conference Keynote Address November 2004. Dr. Vandana Shiva inspires and awakens us as she describes the history of her anti-corporate/pro-farmer activism in her home country of India.

Also, if you enjoy getting this kind of information by listening online (as I do), check out www.globalpublicmedia.org - Public service broadcasting for a post-carbon world, www.loe.org - Living on Earth (weekly enviro show from NPR), www.beyondorganic.com - Beyond Organic Radio (another weekly enviro show with a focus on food issues, based in Northern CA), and www.radio4all.net - a lot of the local audio activists in Sound Posse upload their stuff here.

The Power of Community screened at Carlotta's Passion

The film, "The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil" was shown at Carlotta's Passion, an art gallery in Eagle Rock, California on May 26th. Instead of how Cuba survived peak oil, this film is more about how Cuba survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and their subsequent cessation of support. It serves as a valuable lesson for us regarding life in the post carbon era.
http://www.cicle.org/cicle_content/pivot/entry.php?id=690

For more information on this documentary, visit:
http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/articles/657

July 15th Direct Action for Climate Justice

On July 15th, the "Group of 8" (G8) richest industrialized countries will gather in St. Petersburg, Russia to plot their continued commodification and domination of the planet, this time under the euphemistic banner of "Energy Security." A leaked G8 "Communique on Energy Security" calls for trillions of dollars in new investments in oil, gas and coal production worldwide, plus wide-scale global expansion of nuclear energy. With runaway climate change looming just over the horizon, such neoliberal business-as-usual poses a direct threat to the continuation of life on Earth as we know it. Resistance is self defense. The G8 agenda promotes petroleum-dependent "Energy Security" that pollutes our land and atmosphere, exploits poor and indigenous communities, and scorches the Earth’s climate. Their recipe for catastrophe must be met with our global resistance!

Read more: http://reclaimthecommons.net/article.php?id=318

Save the South Central Farm!

THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND HAS SECURED AN OPPORTUNITY TO SAVE THE SOUTH CENTRAL FARM!

The 14-acre South Central Farm, located at 41st and Alameda Streets in South Los Angeles, is thought to be the largest community garden in the United States. After a contentious three-year land-use battle that made news around the world, the Trust for Public Land (TPL) has secured an opportunity to save the Farm. Within the confines of a tentative purchase agreement, TPL hopes to help unify stakeholders and different sectors of Los Angeles to raise the money necessary to purchase the land.

The community goal is to raise $1 million in less than 30 days, for this we need your help. Los Angeles must step up to the plate and help save this land. We have the opportunity to eliminate park poverty in this highly urbanized and semi-industrial neighborhood. We can make permanent and public the community and cultural benefits of the green oasis created by 360 families as they continue to grow healthy fruits, vegetables and medicinal plants to supplement their food budgets.

Without the help of donors—both major and modest—the fate of the South Central Farm remains in doubt. Help us save this important community asset and transform it into a true multi-cultural regional resource built on the unique relationship between people and the land. If you would like more information about the project, fundraising or Parks for People-LA, please call Bob Reid 213.380.4233 x 14 or email at bob.reid@tpl.org or Alina Bokde 213.380.4233 x 27

Donation form at http://www.southcentralfarmers.com

How much Do I care?

About Peace?
Do I care
Enough about Peace
To ride My bike to work
To not say, "It's too far"
And instead,
Just move closer?

Turn on your speakers:
http://kipchoge.com/howmuch.html

San Francisco Passes Peak Oil Resolution

Campaign by Local Activists Persuaded Board of Supervisors of Looming Energy Crunch; Landmark Initiative Urges Development of ‘Action and Response Plan’ San Francisco, CA (PRWEB) April 15, 2006 -- San Francisco on Tuesday became the first major U.S. city to pass a resolution acknowledging the threats posed by peak oil, urging the city to develop a comprehensive plan to respond to the emerging global energy crunch.

http://www.prweb.com/releases/2006/4/prweb372174.htm

Giving micropower to the people

Alan Knight

Countering climate change should begin at home, says Alan Knight in The Green Room this week. A hands-on approach to energy generation, he argues, gives people a sense of empowerment and the impetus to reduce their environmental footprints.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4856106.stm

The oil is going, the oil is going!

Katharine Mieszkowski interviews leaders of bay area Post Carbon Groups and Matt Savinar in this Salon.com article.

"A posh conference room on the 33rd floor of a skyscraper in downtown San Francisco is an elegant if ironic perch from which to ponder the uncertain future of life as we know it. Yet the 20 people assembled around the golden conference table for the February monthly meeting of the San Francisco Post Carbon group believe that sooner rather than later that stream of cars and trucks will falter, if not actually stop, altogether. And as the geopolitical and economic dominoes start to fall in the wake of climbing oil prices, some wonder with macabre humor how long it will be before they'll have to climb 33 flights of stairs if they want to make it to this room."

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Why the Farmers Must Win

by Leslie Radford

In its Saturday editorial, the Los Angeles Times reduced virtually all the civic concerns of the historically neglected South Central to “niceties” and condemned a swath of the district to being a “concrete-and-asphalt” wasteland,“ "a seemingly endless sweep” of “industrial warehouses, packing plants, and junkyards.” It proclaimed that developer Ralph Horowitz must triumph, and the South Central Farm must be razed. The Times was wrong.

Entitled “Los Angeles gothic,” the lead editorial in Saturday's Los Angeles Times evokes the horrific, not the rural. The Times took up for fat-cat developers, industrial sprawl, and backroom deal-making with a ferocity unmatched even by the shirking Mayor’s office or the stolidly silent City Council. Only the California State Appellate and Supreme Courts, in granting the City Council license to violate the City Charter’s to sell off publicly-owned property, has bent over so adamantly to advance the interests of robber barons.

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Related: How To Save the Farm by Leslie Radford, Down on the Farm by Perry Crowe, A Magic So Strong: The South Central Farm Must Live by Juan Xavier Santos, Trouble in the Garden By Dean Kuipers

Cities for People not Cars

Green Cities and the End of the Age of Oil

by Richard Register

The oil-burning, fume-spewing private automobile is only part of a larger environmentally damaging system - the energy-intensive sprawling infrastructure of our cities. When small buildings are scattered over large areas, more energy is required for heating and cooling as well as for transportation. Pedestrian-friendly Green Cities - built for people, bicycles, mass transit and renewable energy - would not only cut air pollution, they also would promote the rebuilding of essential soil and water resources while increasing plant and animal biodiversity.

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Earthworks Farm Community Supported Agriculture

Community Supported Agriculture is a direct partnership between the consumer and the farmer. The CSA member buys a share of the farm at the beginning of the growing season. In exchange, the farmer grows exceptionally high quality vegetables, herbs, and fruits. Every week, the produce is picked and immediately delivered to local drop off sites, where members pick up their shares. This arrangement is ecologically sound because it reduces the long-distance trucking involved in much of today's produce delivery. In addition, all the produce is organically grown. This method of growing food is healthier and more environmentally sustainable for the consumer, agricultural worker, and the land itself. The amount of vegetables, flowers and herbs available each week depends on the season and the growing conditions, but a CSA "share" often amply feeds a family of four. Earthworks Enterprises will be working diligently to generate enough production as the year progresses to begin a CSA program for the local community.

Earthworks new website: http://www.ewent.org/

Petrocollapse and Food Security at the South Central Farm

by Jennifer Murphy

Jan Lundberg, oil industry analyst, founder of Auto-Free Times and www.culturechange.org came to Los Angeles last weekend to speak on the issues surrounding peak oil. I attended the Sunday afternoon talk on “Petrocollapse and Food Security”, an appropriate title for the location, the South Central Farm.

The farm may be receiving an eviction notice any day now, and in the light of Jan’s talk, this makes no sense at all. The average distance food travels between the farm and the dinner table in this country is 1500 miles. Our city’s food supply lines are dangerously dependent on petroleum-powered transportation and petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides. Rather than destroy existing vibrant, community-operated agricultural production we should be supporting and expanding it to every neighborhood in town.

Read More:
http://la.indymedia.org/news/2006/02/146380.php

Alternatives to Plastic

By PAUL GOETTLICH

Over the past few of years, many people asked for help in getting plastic out of their lives. It is hoped that this article guides you to a cleaner lifestyle. While it is presently impossible to actually remove all plastic from one's life, it is definitely worth reducing it to a minimum.

Read More:
http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Alternatives/Alternatives-Plastic-Goettlich3aug05.htm

Related: Rejecting the Toxic Plague, The War on Plastic, Our Synthetic Sea - A 22 minute documentary about exponential buildup of “non-biodegradable” plastic debris in the world’s ocean

Trouble in the Garden

Excerpt from LA City Beat

The 350 families who banded together as the South Central Farmers transformed an industrial dump into a jungle paradise. But now they’re being evicted

~ By DEAN KUIPERS ~

The space is the South Central Community Farm, a 14-acre community garden just south of downtown smack on Alameda Street, right up alongside the industrial warehouses of the City of Vernon. The contrast with community gardens elsewhere in the city is shocking. These aren’t tiny weekend projects with a few tomatoes and California poppies. The 330 spaces here are large, 20 X 30 feet, many of them doubled- and tripled-up into larger plots, crammed with a tropical density of native Mesoamerican plants – full-grown guava trees, avocados, tamarinds, and palms draped in vines bearing huge pumpkins and chayotes, leaf vegetables, corn, seeds like chipilin grown for spice, and rank upon rank of cactus cut for nopales. The families who work these plots are all chosen to receive one because they are impoverished by USDA standards, and use them to augment their household food supply. These are survival gardens.

Simplicity and health versus consumerism

Written by Jan Lundberg

For many there is some freedom to be had from minimizing possessions and sharing everything. Too bad that in today's regimented culture, almost no one is given a chance to explore what it might entail to live another way, and what the advantages may be compared to consumerism. Such exploration should be widely considered today, given that there is petrocollapse ahead for the U.S. -- likewise for all petroleum-dependent countries that have seen their traditional social structures weaken from "free" market-based economics.

Read More www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=35&Itemid=2

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