Post Carbon Newsletter #42 September 2008

Relocalization Network : Global Public Media : Post Carbon Cities : Energy Farms Network : Oil Depletion Protocol

Read newsletter online

Issue #42: September 2008

For many families, September means one thing: It's "back to school" time. The return to the classroom is an annual pilgrimage almost all of us have gone through as children. But, in the broader sense, the practice of going back to school--of relearning or building new skills--is something that follows many of us throughout our lives, whether by interest or necessity.

In this month's newsletter, Post Carbon is taking a closer look at education. We explore how reskilling for a world without cheap, abundant oil should be included in the movement towards green collar jobs and the role of schools in preparing for peak oil. Among this month's commentaries, we also explore how students get around now that gas prices have gone up dramatically.

Also this month, Richard Heinberg examines how we could really reduce the cost of oil. Quick hint: it's not about drilling more. And in his first installment of a series on key aspects of global oil and gas supplies, Julian Darley probes U.S. imports from Mexico.

Last but not least, take the opportunity to catch up with highlights from Relocalization Network, Global Public Media, Energy Bulletin, and our upcoming events.

1. Real Jobs for a New Economy 2. Richard Heinberg 3. The Energy Secret - What Drives The 21st Century & Why Peak Oil Really Matters 4. Commentary Highlights 5. Post Carbon Cities 6. Relocalization Network 7. Global Public Media 8. Energy Bulletin 9. Events

1. Real Jobs for a New Economy

On September 27th, a coalition of environmental and social justice groups will be hosting Green Jobs Now, a national day of action to promote “the green economy.” Lead by Green for All, 1Sky and Al Gore’s We Campaign, this network of events is all about how a movement towards “green-collar jobs” can simultaneously address a few critical issues: climate change, poverty, and job security.

Green jobs are a hot topic these days, particularly in the midst of the presidential campaign season. But what if Van Jones and others leading this movement factored into their thinking an understanding of energy depletion? Would their vision of "green jobs" change? My guess is that it would. And for good reason. Read more

Back to top

2. Richard Heinberg

Want Cheap Oil? Reduce Demand!

This article originally appeared in The Ecologist, September 2008

Ask the major oil companies why oil prices are beyond ludicrous and they’ll tell you there’s plenty of oil out there, there’s just a lack of investment in exploration and production.

Funny, the level of investment in the global oil industry hasn’t dropped off a cliff lately. Yet oil prices have shot up like asparagus in April. What’s going on here?

What the experts are really saying is that a higher level of investment is needed now than previously to yield the same increment of new oil.

Hmmm. Let’s drill deeper, metaphorically speaking... Read more

Back to top

3. The Energy Secret - What Drives The 21st Century & Why Peak Oil Really Matters

The Energy Secret

There are at least two invisible things that tend to be ferociously difficult to understand. One is relations among humans and the other is energy. Especially when the former want more of the latter. And for some reason, understandable perhaps but also unfortunate, we are mostly loathe to try to comprehend where our energy comes from. Thus there is a kind of 'energy secret': we cannot see energy and we don't seem to be very good at understanding it, even though without it there is no life here or anywhere else in the universe.

These difficulties of understanding play out at every level from buying groceries to geopolitics. And yet though energy itself is invisible, its effects are visible everywhere, including this last week in the form of Hurricane Gustav, and a string of storms and hurricanes coming in behind it, lining up to hit the south east US. Gustav, though it has fortunately left New Orleans largely unscathed, has killed many people in the Caribbean. ...

Since the majority of US oil comes from foreign shores, we'll start this series by looking at the most important oil suppliers and the interesting situations above and below ground that will help us to understand where things are heading. Read more

Back to top

4. Commentary Highlights

Keep up to date on energy issues with Post Carbon Institute's commentary feature. Staff, Fellows and guest contributors post short, daily responses to the news of the day. Below are a couple of recent highlights. Be sure to visit our commentaries page regularly for more.

How students get around
Laurel Hoyt • August 14, 2008
The USA Today headline was "Schools move to eject cars from campuses." The article gave... Read more
 
Airline industry backpedaling on expansion?
Daniel Lerch • August 15, 2008
After my presentation to the Anchorage (Alaska) Municipal Assembly last week, I chatted with a... Read more
 
Even Giants Are Being Hurt By Rising Energy Prices
Julian Darley • August 8, 2008
In general it may be true that if we were willing - and in some cases able - to pay more for food... Read more Back to top

5. Post Carbon Cities

What role for schools in preparing for peak oil?

Our Post Carbon Cities program encourages cities to think about the vulnerabilities they face in peak oil and climate change. After all, local governments are not just responsible for the safeguarding the well-being of thousands of people. They're also employers, debtors, and the owners of millions of dollars worth of buildings, vehicles, equipment and other infrastructure.

Schools operate as mini-cities in their own right. They have hundreds or even thousands of students under their care, and employees, buildings, vehicles and equipment under their administration. From a tiny grade school in rural Texas to the 200,000+ student-strong City University of New York, schools of all sizes face significant challenges in a world without cheap oil -- and would be wise to plan accordingly... Read More

Back to top

6. Relocalization Network

Harvest Party & Climate Relay

In last month's issue of Relocalize, we took a look at energy conservation practices in the '70s and the role of food preservation. Richard Heinberg noted that, as any gardener or arborist knows, when fruit comes in, it comes in all at once. And when harvest time arrives, it always helps to have a few extra hands.

In Bundaberg, Queensland, Sustainabundy members got together to help out with the harvest of local sweet potatoes. Yum!

"Last Saturday, SustainaBundy members rolled up their sleeves and dug for sweet-potatoes at the Rickerts' property for SustainaBundy's first Harvest Party. We had a tour of the property, which included a large variety of fruit trees and vegetables."
Read more.

On the climate change front, group members also collaborated with local organizers to host a leg of the GetUp! National Climate Torch Relay featuring members of the community, young and old, calling on local and national leaders to work towards the goal of cutting Australia’s greenhouse pollution by half by 2020.

"It's been a weekend of festivities and fun for SustainaBundy members, with the Cycle QLD launch on Saturday and the Bundaberg Multicultural Festival on Sunday...1100 cyclists left the starting line near Main Post Office on Saturday, heading for Brisbane. It was a beautiful Bundaberg day and a great turnout to see the riders off. There were some very creative bicycles, even bikes with 3 riders!" Read more

Back to top

7. Global Public Media

The radio show Business Matters interviewed Post Carbon Cities author Daniel Lerch and investment banker Matthew Simmons about peak oil.
    • Business Matters: Surviving the Oil Crisis
 
Two MuseLetters address aspects of coal, as Richard Heinberg delves deeper into the subject for his upcoming book.
    • Museletter #196: Coal and Climate
    • Museletter #197: New Coal Technologies
 
This month the Reality Report brings us a two-part interview with David Holmgren, co-creator of permaculture, about his new web project, Future Scenarios. [ Part I | Part II ]
 
Latest material from Peak Moment Television includes:
    • Go-Getter Gets Governments Going on Sustainability (120, with Kris Holstrom)
    • Helping Local Food Businesses Thrive (121, with Wendy Siporen)
    • An Inside Look at an Emergency Survival Kit (122, with Matt Stein)
    • Cultivating a Suburban Foodshed (123, with Owen Dell)
 
The Deconstructing Dinner show took on the topic of meat production - both in general, and in one particular case of local meat production.
The Livestock Lost series:
    • I: Slaughterhouses and the Culture of Meat
    • II: Local Meat? "Not in my backyard!"
    • III: Local Meat? "Not in my backyard!" (Part 2)
Back to top

8. Energy Bulletin

A selection of articles appearing at Energy Bulletin.

In Berkeley, Calif., lunch has become a learning experience
Chad Heeter, Christian Science Monitor, March 2006

...Chef Ann Cooper is a lunch lady with a mission...

Her arrival last October as the new director of nutrition services for Berkeley's public schools coincided with the district's new School Lunch Initiative, an ambitious long-range plan to put the district's 10,000 students on a path of lifelong healthy eating habits. In California, 28 percent of schoolchildren are overweight or obese, reflecting a nationwide problem.

Berkeley's School Lunch Initiative aims to replace low-quality "heat and eat" processed foods with fresh, locally grown food. The plan also teaches kids about how food gets from seed to plate by establishing school gardens and kitchen classrooms that integrate lessons about food and cooking into the academic curriculum. Organizers hope children will not only learn about the art and science of food, but also adopt nutritious eating habits.

"Teaching kids about food is as important as math or science, "Cooper says"... Read more

Photo credit: flickr/catsper

Teaching a student-led course on peak oil
David Huck, March 2006

When I first read James Howard Kunstler’s Rolling Stone excerpt in April of last year, I knew I needed to know more about peak oil. Could this be true? Was this man right? Thousands of pages later I have a far more nuanced picture, and am now back at college teaching a course on peak oil.

The Experimental College (ExCo) program at 3,000-student Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio allows students to teach topics of interest that are normally not covered in the standard curriculum, giving them the opportunity to be on the other side of the blackboard. When I met up with another passionate peak-nik on a visit in the fall, we decided that this was an opportunity we couldn’t pass up... Read more

Schools Look to Save Money With Four-Day Week
Voice of America, July 2008

As we said last week, American schools are looking for ways to save money on bus transportation because of high fuel prices. More children may have to walk, ride their bikes or find other ways to get to school...

...Some schools, especially in rural areas, are changing to a four-day week. That means longer days instead of the traditional Monday through Friday schedule... Read more

Photo credit: flickr/conspirator

Back to top

9. Events

Post Carbon Institute Speakers Schedule

Sustainable Packaging Forum
September 10, 2008 - Denver Marriott Tech Center Denver, CO
Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg will deliver the Keynote Address at the 2008 Sustainable Packing Forum in Denver, CO. Richard's talk is titled "Peak Sustainability & The 5 Axioms of Sustainability"

Bay Area Funders' Forum on Energy Scarcity
September 15 2008 - San Francisco, CA
Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg will present at the Bay Area Funders' Forum on Energy Scarcity, produced by the Tides Foundation, the JoMiJo Foundation and and the Bay Area Peak Oil Task Force.

Annual Isadore Candeub Memorial Lecture in Planning
Oct 8 2008 - 7:30pm - Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ
Post Carbon Cities Program Manager Daniel Lerch will be presenting the Annual Isadore Candeub Memorial Lecture in Planning at the Edward Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Bioneers
Friday, October 17 & Sunday, October 19, 2008 - Marin Center, San Rafael, CA
Richard Heinberg, Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow will participate on two panels at Bioneers.

American Planning Association,Fall Conference
November 7, 2008-Salt Lake City, UT
Daniel Lerch, Post Carbon Cities Program Manager will present at the Utah Chapter of the American Planning Association, Fall Conference. The meeting will be held at University of Utah.

Featured Events

ASPO-USA Peak Oil Conference
September 21-23, 2008 - Hyatt Regency, Sacramento, CA
ASPO-USA announces its fourth annual high-level conference to discuss impacts of and responses to a peak in world oil production. Conference participants will include Matt Simmons, Jeff Rubin, Jim Buckee, Jeremy Gilbert, Herman Franssen, Kjell Aleklett, Randy Udall, Jim Puplava, David Hughes, Dan Reicher, Vince Mathews, Nate Hagens, and many others.

Back to top

Post Carbon Institute encourages the following courses of action:

• Begin implementing Relocalization strategies in your community
• Please tell a friend about the Post Carbon Institute
• Encourage your friends, family members, co-workers, planners, policy makers, and politicians to subscribe
• If you're not yet a member of the Relocalization Network, then please sign up
• Donate to Post Carbon Institute

View the Newsletter archives

Having trouble receiving our e-mail? Try adding us (info@postcarbon.org) to your Address Book.

Post Carbon Institute is a 501c3 registered charity chartered in Eugene, Oregon USA