Post Carbon Newsletter #32 October 2007

1. Global Public Media
2. Putting the Heat on Lomborg
3. Relocalization Network
4. Energy Farms Network
5. Post Carbon Cities
6. Executive Assistant Job
7. Forthcoming Events
8. November Preview

1. Global Public Media

Post Carbon Institute founder Julian Darley got a stunning admission from T. Boone Pickens, legendary Texas oilman and chair of BP Capital, that global Peak Oil occurred in 2006. Darley spoke with Pickens at the recent Houston meeting of ASPO USA (Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas--USA).

Pickens isn't the only one who thinks global oil peaked in 2006. Chris Skrebowski, editor of the UK Petroleum Review, speaks with Julian Darley about the remarkable new oil report from the German-based Energy Watch Group, which states that world oil production peaked in 2006 and will decline by half as soon as 2030.

Also on Global Public Media this month:

• Tim Flannery, one of Australia's top scientists and author of the important climate change book, The Weathermakers, told GPM's Andi Hazelwood that we have to stop our greenhouse gas emissions, tipped his hat to the relocalization movement, and talked about Bjorn Lomborg's book Cool It.
• Oscar Kjellberg spoke to Hazelwood about Sweden's member owned, interest-free savings and loan bank
• Megan Quinn of the Community Solution discussed the upcoming "Planning for Hard Times" Conference
• Klaus Harvey of Transition Town Kinsale gave us a look back at the first two years of one of the first successful national relocalization movements in the world.
• Hazelwood also talked to Tim Winton of Permaforest Trust Centre for Sustainability Education in Australia, an organization that is making presentations from their "Post Carbon Transition" accredited permaculture training courses available on for free on their website, and on GPM.

This month we also posted Richard Heinberg's two part Museletter "Powerdown Revisited/As The World Burns," two new episodes of Peak Moment Television and a new Deconstructing Dinner. Finally, the Reality Report looked at "Escape from Suburbia," the sequel to the popular film "End of Suburbia."

2. Putting the Heat on Lomborg

Danish statistician Bjorn Lomborg's new book, Cool It: A Skeptical Environmentalist Looks at Global Warming, has become (unfortunately) a best-selling example of disinformation about the need to deal with global warming immediately. Check out our special Putting the Heat on Lomborg webpage for the latest exposes of Lomborg's mistaken and misleading arguments, as well as insight into the role the media plays in creating credibility for global warming delayers like Lomborg. Let us know when you see Lomborg in your local media, and tell us what you think in the Comments on each item.

3. Relocalization Network

October has been a busy month marked by conferences and events across the Network. The Northern California Post Carbon Network held their quarterly regional meeting on September 29 in San Francisco, California. The Bennington Sustainability Outpost in Vermont (US) hosted a local food dinner on October 18 with guest speakers addressing global warming and supporting the local economy.

The Green Thumb Kids, a project of the Cape Breton Farmers' Market in collaboration with the Sydney Post Carbon Group in Nova Scotia, Canada, was back this fall and better than ever with 73 student participants! The idea was to get children into growing tomatoes and beans from seeds to harvest, starting with planting the seeds in the summer and returning to the market in the fall with their produce for sale. Read more about this year's successes at www.capebretonfarmersmarket.com.

Directors Caren Black and Christopher Paddon of the Titanic Lifeboat Academy, who specialize in research and education in sustainable living, have been working for two years to create a sustainable homestead to demonstrate the skills, systems and technologies of sustainable living. During the month of October, they are testing themselves on how well they are doing by trying to use no outside utilities, produce no garbage, use only one tank of gas, and refrain from making any purchases. Read an article about their challenge by Kara Hansen in The Daily Astorian.

SustainaBundy in Bundaberg, Australia, is finalizing content for their first project, "The 2008 SustainaBundy Directory and Guide: how to live a GREENER life in & around Bundaberg.” The guide will have a directory of local businesses and community groups, maps, interviews and how-to articles on all aspects of local sustainable living.

If you or your group is interested in joining the Relocalization Network and building a strong and collaborative network of community groups, contact us!

Subscribe to the monthly Relocalize Newsletter and visit www.relocalize.net to stay current with all the Relocalization Network activities!

4. Energy Farms Network

The season has changed at the Brookside Energy Farm and we are entering what many might consider the end of the agricultural season. A series of early October frosts have made their presence felt on our warm season crops of peppers, tomatoes, sorghum, and squash.

However, fall marks not the end but the beginning of the growing season. To that end, we must now apply compost to previously worked beds and sow cover crops in order to secure and improve fertility for the upcoming spring and summer crops. The 2006 soil report for Brookside Farm indicated that the site is low in nitrogen. To address this fertility issue in accordance with nature, we have chosen to use nitrogen fixing crops of field peas, vetch, clover, and fava beans to "fix nitrogen" into the soil. Some nitrogen will be trapped in the roots while the bulk will remain in the body of the plant which can be chopped into the soil or harvested for compost and spread back onto the land. We have also selected biomass-producing crops of rye and barley. Adding biomass in the form of extensive roots and compost places humus and organic matter in the soil that bacteria and fungi feed on as they work to release nutrients to plants throughout their life cycle.

As many of you may already know, Post Carbon Institute has paid for the repairs to Steven Heckeroth’s scratch built electric tractor ET-7. It was delivered to Willits on October 17, and is ready for testing. The first application we intend to use it for is a dryland grain demonstration in Willits, CA. Growing grains in a dry-farming style (i.e., without irrigation, using natural rainfall) is manifesting a vision of the Energy Farm program that addresses food security in a reduced energy scenario. ET-7 will provide us with a crucial tool that can allow people of all ages to perform heavy labor and cover significant amounts of land while operating with a reduced carbon footprint and powered by renewable solar energy.

In addition, we plan to test the use of compost tea, mycorrhizal fungi, crop rotation, and companion planting as ways to improve yields and the health of the soil. We will be taking pictures and keep you posted as we finalize the final details related to winterizing our land, and new information about our alarmingly expensive and scarce wheat seed acquisition.

Local Energy Garden

We had a real treat from our friends at The Regenerative Design Institute's Four Season Permaculture Course. President Julian Darley welcomed them to the garden and provided the context for the work here saying, "We want to leave something for the next generation. We know that there will be big changes in the Twenty First Century and our goal is to ensure a future for the twenty second century." The twenty students then went to work on coming up with new designs for catching and using rain water, for building an area for harvesting and processing garden crops, and for building an energy network. We really appreciate all of the great ideas which they left with us!

5. Post Carbon Cities

We're pleased to announce the official release of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, our new guidebook for local governments in the U.S. and Canada! Purchase your copy today at Post Carbon Books ($30, 113 pages; quantity discount available).

Post Carbon Cities is the first major guidebook on peak oil and global warming written specifically for local government officials and staff.

You can also download a free abridged version of Post Carbon Cities at www.postcarboncities.net/guidebook. This 20-page preview includes the Executive Summary, Introduction, and a guide to establishing a Peak Oil Task Force.

Post Carbon Cities author and Program Manager Daniel Lerch is already on the road in the U.S. Northeast, doing presentations about the book and meeting with local government officials and staff. Please come out and hear Daniel speak and ask him questions if he's in your part of the world. In the next few weeks he'll be giving public presentations in these cities:

• Thursday 10/25, Middlebury, Vermont
• Friday 10/26, Keene, New Hampshire
• Monday 10/29, Cambridge, Massachusetts
• Tuesday 10/30, Providence, Rhode Island
• Thursday 11/1, Worcester, Massachusetts
• Friday 11/2, Amherst, Massachusetts
• Monday 11/5 - Wednesday 11/7, New York City
• Thursday 11/8, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Monday 11/12, Hamilton, Ontario
• Thursday 11/15, Alliston, Ontario

Visit the tour page for details, updates and additional venues.

6. Executive Assistant Job

Post Carbon Institute is currently searching for a full-time Executive Assistant, for our Sebastopol, CA office. If you are highly experienced and detail oriented, and you enjoy organizing and handling a wide variety of challenging administrative tasks, this is the job for you. For a full description of the position, qualifications, and how to apply, please check the Post Carbon Institute jobs page.

7. Forthcoming Events

October 26-28, 2007
Planning For Hard Times: The 4th Annual US Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions
Kelly Hall, Antioch College, Yellow Springs, Ohio

Join one of the world's largest gatherings of Peak Oil activists for three days of presentations, workshop sessions, and networking. Come learn tactics for Peak Oil education and community organizing, strategies for reducing your personal energy use, and participate in visioning a viable post-peak future.

October 24-26
Climate 2050
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The Veolia Environment Institute (France), the Pew Center on Global Climate Change (USA), and the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy (Canada) will host this conference to generate substantive, multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral discussions to improve understanding of long-term climate change strategies that will lead to meeting the 2050 targets.

November 3
Step It Up on November 3

Join in one of thousands of demonstrations across the U.S. for Step It Up 2007's latest national demonstration to stop global warming. Founded by writer/activist Bill McKibben, Step It Up 2007 has teamed up with 1 Sky to call on the country's leaders to create 5 million new jobs by conserving 20% of our energy by 2015, cut carbon emissions by 80% by 2050, and impose a moratorium on the building of new coal plants.

For info about the November 3 events, click here.

November 7-9
Behavior, Energy and Climate Change Conference
Sacramento, CA

This national conference, focused on understanding the behavior and decision-making of individuals and organizations and on using that knowledge to help accelerate our transition to an energy-efficient and low-carbon economy, is being sponsored by the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy and California Institute for Energy and Environment.

November 7-9
Greenbuild International Conference and Expo 2007
Chicago, IL

The U.S. Green Building Council's Greenbuild 2007 will explore "Accelerating Green Communities" with outstanding educational sessions, exciting speakers, special events and tours, and our largest exhibit hall ever. Special low prices for students.

November 11-14
Energy Efficiency Global Forum
Washington, DC

Presented by the Alliance to Save Energy, EE Global will showcase the potential of energy efficiency in creating a sustainable energy future.

November 13-17
National League of Cities Conference
New Orleans, LA

This conference is the National League of Cities most important annual conference drawing more than 4000 local elected officials every year. It is a chance for local elected officials to share ideas about how to make their communities better for their citizens. This year's conference will be a unique opportunity to see up close the host city of New Orleans and their accomplishments as they go from disaster to recovery.

8. November Preview

A report from Julian Darley on ASPO's Houston World Oil Conference.