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In Praise of Nature
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Post Carbon Newsletter - September 2009
Last week, U.S. President Barack Obama had an opportunity to demonstrate bold leadership at the world's highest-level summit on climate change. Obama's stated commitment for the US to finally engage with the rest of the world in tackling the climate crisis was laudable. Unfortunately, his words belied a true understanding of the challenges we really face.
Obama spoke of ending subsidies for the fossil fuel industry, but then embraced "clean coal" technology—a boondoggle that will only make us more dependent on the most damaging of all fossil fuels. Worse still was his continued promotion of the fundamentally broken paradigm of unending growth: "Our goal is simple: a global economy in which growth is sustained, and opportunity is available to all." Until Obama and other world leaders see the correlation between unrelenting growth and crises like climate change and energy depletion, we'll be left with empty rhetoric and false solutions.
Fortunately, millions of people around the world recognize these crises for what they are and are taking action into their own hands. On the climate front, PCI Fellow Bill McKibben is organizing what will be a historic International Day of Climate Action on October 24th. Bill will be introduced by Executive Director Asher Miller this Friday evening, October 2nd, in PCI's own backyard of Santa Rosa, CA. With millions of world citizens from over 120 nations participating in various 
events, October 24th may well demonstrate global demand for action on climate change too massive for politicians to ignore.
October 24th will be an important step, but the fight to build a resilient world in the face of economic, energy and environmental crisis will require many more far-reaching actions in the years ahead. One of the people best qualified to help with these efforts is sustainable agriculture pioneer Wes Jackson, who joins PCI as a Fellow this month.
This has been another exceedingly busy month for the Post Carbon Institute. See below for the juicy details. And as usual, in this month's newsletter we summarize the most thought-provoking content from Energy Bulletin, plus updates from Transition US.
Photo: WorldResourcesInstitute/flickr
As part of Post Carbon's new direction, we're adding more experts to our team to help people make sense of the new challenges of the unfolding post-carbon world. We're pleased to welcome the following colleague as our newest Post Carbon Fellow:
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Wes Jackson is one of the foremost figures in the international sustainable agriculture movement. Founder and president of The Land Institute in Salinas, Kansas, he has pioneered reserach in Natural Systems Agriculture — including perennial grains, perennial polycultures, and intercropping — for over 30 years.... Read more |
 To help fuel the addiction of social media junkies, Post Carbon Institute is now on Facebook. In a world where things change awfully quickly, it's critical that we provide an outreach method that lets us share daily updates about the efforts of our Fellows, as well as their takes on current events.We do hope you'll join over 400 of your already tuned-in peers at Post Carbon Institute on Facebook. Prefer Twitter? No problem: Post Carbon on Twitter. |
Read and listen to the latest content by our Fellows, Board and Staff anytime on the front page of our website. Here are some selections from the last month:
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Is the Global Oil Tank Half-full, Is It Half-Empty...Or Are We Running On Fumes? Commentary by Richard Heinberg • September 27, 2009 In his article in the New York Times September 24, "Oil Industry Sets a Brisk Pace of New Discoveries", staff reporter Jad Mouawad cites oil discoveries totaling ten billion barrels for the first half of 2009.... Read more |
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Obama on Climate: Is He Even Trying? Commentary by Bill McKibben • September 24, 2009 Judging from the UN speech, I am starting to doubt it. For those of us who care desperately about the climate, President Obama's speech... Read more |
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The future is all about resilience Presentation by Asher Miller • September 11, 2009 This is a presentation, complete with speakers notes, which I gave recently. The presentation sets out Transition Towns as a response to the converging crises in the economy, energy... Read more |
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Iowa's future shouldn't depend on fossil fuels Commentary by Richard Heinberg • September 2, 2009 More than 70 percent of Iowa's electricity comes from coal. That's a much higher proportion than the national average of 50 percent... Read more |
.png) Products Contribute 44% of U.S. GHG FootprintAccording to a new report by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the life cycles of non-food products contribute more to U.S.-produced greenhouse gas emissions than the heating and cooling of buildings; passenger transportation; or food. Product Policy Institute (PPI), co-founded by Post Carbon Fellow Bill Sheehan, concurrently released its own report by the same author as the EPA report. It shows that including emissions of products made abroad but consumed in the U.S. increases the greenhouse gas footprint of products to 44% of the country's total. Product Policy Institute promotes producer responsibility policies to close the loop and drive green design. Asked how PPI's report can shape future policy, Sheehan remarks, "Since most product life cycle impacts occur in the production phase, these new data show that we cannot address climate change without radically changing product design. Every Climate Action Plan needs to have a product policy component." You can read PPI's findings here: Products, Packaging and U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions |
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Allen on Grist - Growing Power in Africa Post Carbon Fellow Erika Allen was interviewed in this article on Grist announcing that Growing Power — the organization run by Erika and her father, will be starting up programmes in Africa with support from the Clinton Global Initiative... Read more |
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McKibben interviewed in The Atlantic Post Carbon Fellow Bill McKibben was interviewed by The Atlantic on his reaction to the UN climate summit. From the article: So you were happy with President Hu's speech?... Read more |
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Carter interviewed on GritTV (video) Post Carbon Fellow Majora Carter was interviewed by Laura Flanders of GritTV to highlight global climate change action week... Read more |
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Hopkins and Transition in Huffington Post Post Carbon Fellow Rob Hopkins was featured in this piece about the Transition Movement in the Huffington Post. From the article: Something strange has happened over in old Blighty. I'm not sure if the Utopian dreams of the 1960's are making a comeback... Read more |
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Mills in Earth Day's reviews - The Guardian, NYT, Salon.com Post Carbon Fellow Stephanie Mills was cited in a number of recent reviews of the new film Earth Days which chronicles the growth of the environmental movement.... Read more |
A selection of articles and media appearing this month at our partner site Energy Bulletin.
| Interview with Bob Hirsch — The Stonewalling of Peak Oil by Steve Andrews  Robert L. Hirsch is the lead author of a seminal report—Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management—written for the US Dept. of Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE, NETL) and released in early 2005. He has remained very active with respect to his concerns about peak oil... Read more |
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| Disaster: the gift that keeps on giving, or finding paradise in hell by Carolyn Baker  I can't recall when or where, but recently, my attention was drawn to Rebecca Solnit's A Paradise Built In Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise In Disaster (Viking, 2009). Thoroughly hooked by the title, I ran to my computer to scan online reviews and ultimately order the book. What I write here about A Paradise Built In Hell... Read more |
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| Your Ticket May Win You a Shetland Pony by TS Bennett  It became clear to me early on, as Sally and I dove fully into our journey of discovery and research that coalesced into What a Way to Go, that if nothing else, as I face into the shitstorm that is Empire's end, I get to be sane. (We might define sanity, for our purposes here, as "relating to what's so as what's so", keeping in mind that "what's so" is an ongoing process of discernment and revelation.)... Read more |
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Crop to Cuisine: Where Locavores get it wrong Crop To Cuisine spends time with James McWilliams - Author of a new highly provocative book, Just Food: Where Locavores Get it Wrong, And How We Can Truly Eat Responsibly. McWilliams shares his thoughts on on food dogma, global population, and sustainability. |
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Peak Moment Television 151: Baked in Telluride: Making Dough in a Tough Economy Biting into a fresh-baked cookie from "Baked in Telluride" is a double treat — a yummy goody that also supports a local independent business. Owner Jerry Green has been going "green" for decades before it became fashionable. He shares the challenges of running an independent business in a tourist town while competing with bakeries thousands of miles away. While a town councilor, Jerry helped shape projects like affordable public housing and public transportation. |
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Deconstructing Dinner: "The Local Grain Revolution X (Retail Supported Agriculture? / Sprouting Grain)" What is Retail Supported Agriculture? - As far as the North American local food movement is concerned, it's not a concept that has yet been coined in any notable way. The Kootenay Grain CSA (community supported agriculture) project located in the Kootenay region of British Columbia is now changing that. |
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This month, the transition community welcomes four new Official Transition Initiatives, bringing the total to forty-two in the U.S. and two hundred twenty around the world.
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| Throughout the month, the Transition US website features stories about the projects Transition Initiatives are working on. Here are some highlights: | |
 Sustainable NE Seattle hosts a solar potluck: "When you plan a solar cookout in Seattle, you keep your fingers crossed that the sun will shine that day, and that enough people actually have solar cookers and will bring them to your potluck. Luckily the weather couldn't have been better and thanks to a workshop on building solar cookers offered just in time, we had plenty, " says Leo Brodie... Read more |
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 Local currency creates economic community resilience: "The B£ is the UK's first local currency in an urban area and the fourth transition town to have its own currency, following the Totnes Pound in Devon, Lewes Pound in Sussex and Stroud Pound in Gloucestershire. The B£ project has been initiated by a group of volunteers from Transition Town Brixton (TTB), a community-led organisation for action..." Read more |
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| Stay in touch with Transition US on Twitter, Facebook, WiserEarth, Flickr and YouTube. | |
 Three of Post Carbon's urban experts will feature in a special evening event at the Resilient Cities: Urban Strategies for Transition Times conference October 20-22 in Vancouver, British Columbia.The conference, featuring Paul Hawken, Majora Carter, and many other internationally-recognized speakers, will focus on how cities and urban regions in North America can prosper in the face of growing sustainability challenges. Participants will advance their thinking on three key subjects: - best current practices for managing sustainable urban systems; - capturing opportunities in the green economy; and - strategies for building widespread sustainability collaborations. The Post Carbon panel --a "shoulder event" the evening of Tuesday, October 20th--will be an honest conversation on what cities truly face in a world of growth limits, and what citizens and leaders can realistically do to cultivate local resilience. It features Bill Rees (Our Ecological Footprint), Anthony Perl (Transport Revolutions), and Warren Karlenzig (How Green is Your City?), and will be moderated by PCI Program Director Daniel Lerch (Post Carbon Cities). "Resilient Cities" is organized by Gaining Ground in association with Smart Growth BC and the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics. Register for the conference |
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 An evening with Bill McKibben: sharing the 350 messageOctober 2, Santa Rosa, CA Post Carbon Fellow Bill McKibben, leading efforts to build the first global-scale climate change movement, will discuss the significance of the number 350, the  campaign, and the importance of the upcoming International Day of Climate Action on October 24th.Further event information. |
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 Population Growth and Rising Consumption: What's SustainableOctober 6, Washington, DC Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg will be presenting on resource limitations and their potential economic impact at this public forum event hosted by the Population Institute in partnership with the Population Media Center and the Wallace Global Fund. Further event information. |
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 ASPO 2009 International Peak Oil ConferenceOctober 11-13, Denver, CO Post Carbon Fellows Richard Heinberg & Chris Martenson as well as Board Member Nate Hagens will be taking part in this year's conference. Reflecting on a tumultuous year of major swings in the price of oil and the world economy, the ASPO 2009 International Peak Oil Conference zeros in on the vital links between oil and money. Further event information. |
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 Society of Environmental Journalists Annual ConferenceOctober 9, Madison, WI Post Carbon Fellow Bill Ryerson will be a panelist in a session on population and the environmental health. He will be joined by Biologist Paul Ehrlich. The conference runs from October 7-11... Further event information. |
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 Bioneers Conference 2009October 16-18, San Rafael, CA The Bioneers 2009 conference brings together social and scientific innovators to focus on solutions inspired by nature and human ingenuity. Among the speakers will be Post Carbon Fellows Bill Ryerson and David Orr. Further event information. |
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 October 24th: Global Day of Climate Action with October 24, Global Bill McKibben, Vandana Shiva, David Suzuki and everyone else at invite you to participate in an international day of climate action on October 24, 2009...Further information. |
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 Leadership in Sustainability 1st Annual Awards DinnerNovember 7, Windsor, CA Post Carbon Fellow David Orr will be the keynote speaker at this event. The dinner will recognize and celebrate community leaders who have displayed remarkable achievements in creating socially, economically and environmentally sustainable communities. Further event information. |
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The call for sustainability and climate action, a quickly shifting energy future, and the lure of the green economy have North American cities scrambling to comprehend and manage the shift toward ecological practices and greater resilience. -- |
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