Where will our food come from? Will it be more wholesome if obtained locally?
http://www.relocalize.net/
********************************** The information on this page was offered by Chuck Grapes, retired petroleum geologist living on a small farm in Ohio.
1. Post Carbon Cities 2. Global Public Media 3. Relocalization Network 4. Energy Farms Network 5. Putting the Heat on Lomborg 6. Forthcoming Events 7. January Preview
1. Post Carbon Cities
Although the East Coast book tour is over, enthusiasm around Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty is still going strong. We've sold nearly 750 copies in barely two months and with minimal advertising. Austin, Texas and San Francisco, California have copies for their new oil/energy depletion task forces, and the city of Providence, Rhode Island ordered 50! Individuals all over the U.S. and Canada are buying it either for themselves or to share with their local officials.
The East Coast tour produced evidence of such interest that a Spring 2008 New England conference is in the works for New England officials and staff from the public, private and non-profit sectors. We're also working with interested parties to release both a version in French and an English mass-market version.
Daniel Lerch, Post Carbon Cities author and program manager, has been invited to present at the 2008 American Solar Energy Society conference in San Diego and Sustainable Ireland's annual "Convergence" conference in Dublin. Daniel will also be co-hosting a session on energy and climate uncertainty at the 2008 American Planning Association conference in Las Vegas. Early 2008 will see many other Post Carbon Cities presentations in California and the Pacific Northwest; we'll update the tour schedule at postcarboncities.net as it develops.
The Post Carbon Cities website added a weekly blog this month, providing a forum for PCC staff and guest bloggers to write about emerging themes in planning, policy, and urbanism in relation to energy and climate uncertainty. Daniel and Post Carbon Cities program assistant Laurel Hoyt inaugurated the blog with a series of posts about the Post Carbon Cities East Coast tour. Read the blog at http://postcarboncities.net/blog or subscribe to the rss feed at http://postcarboncities.net/blog/feed.
Here's a recap of some of the events and developments over the past month.
Toban Black of Post Carbon London took to the mic at the December 8th International Demonstration on Climate Change in London, Ontario (Canada). Read his speech online. Washington County Peak Oil recently joined the Relocalization Network community, bringing the relocalization strategy to Beaverton, Oregon (US). Founders Donna Maebori and Peter Lunsford were interviewed for Willamette Week, the leading weekly paper in Portland. Washington County Peak Oil has also sponsored Peak Moment TV for the coming year - a daily television series on positive responses to energy decline and climate change through local community action.
The Lifeboat Show, a program of the Relocalization Network's Titanic Lifeboat Academy (Astoria, Oregon), presented Post Carbon Fellow Dr. William Rees from the University of British Columbia, discussing our ecological footprint on December 17. Check Global Public Media for updates if you missed it.
After months of hard work and community consultation - Australian relocalization group coordinators, Sonya Wallace and Janet Millington have seen more than 150,000 hits on their website, numerous supporting emails and hundreds of visitors dropping in to their community education centre, the Sunshine Coast Energy Action Centre. Finally, they're taking a well-earned break but will be back in full swing for February 2008. In the meantime, they will be developing new courses and drafting Australia's first Energy Descent Action Plan. Stay tuned!
What are your plans for the coming year? If you or your group is interested in joining the Relocalization Network and building a strong and collaborative network of community groups, contact us!
Paths to a Sustainable Future is a grassroots organization dedicated to increasing self-reliance in the Greater Milwaukee region to address the impending global crises of climate change and the decline of fossil fuels. We strive to increase public awareness, advocate for progressive government policies, facilitate the re-establishment of lost skills, and develop community strategies for energy descent.
We began meeting in February 2007 at the Urban Ecology Center in Milwaukee. We joined the Relocalization Network in November, 2007, and since establishing a listserv, our group has grown to about 75 members. In t he last few months, we have sponsored film screenings, presentations by our own members and visiting speakers, home and garden tours, and potlucks, covering topics ranging from peak oil to intentional communities. A book discussion group also recently began meeting monthly.
We have a volunteer steering committee that meets approximately every 4-6 weeks. The steering group members come from a variety of backgrounds and have experience in grant writing, teaching, marketing, and organic farming in both urban and rural settings. We have also connected with the Director of the Mayor's Office of Sustainability, and several local organizations addressing various aspects of sustainability, including the Milwaukee Urban Agriculture Network.
Inspired by the Boulder County Going Local campaign, we are planning a campaign to increase local self-reliance, known as Live Local Milwaukee. We contacted Michael Brownlee of Boulder Valley Relocalization, one of the pioneer groups in the Relocalization Network - he was very supportive and helpful, and sent us some of their written materials. We're most impressed with what they've done and are grateful to have found a model that feels right for our group.
The goals of the Live Local Milwaukee campaign are to:
Create a coalition of organizations working toward relocalizing the Greater Milwaukee region.
Increase community awareness of the benefits of and need for relocalization.
Increase local self-reliance and community cohesion, and strengthen the local economy.
Click here to read more about our six proposed campaign themes.
4. Energy Farms Network
Brookside Farm
Within the past month, we have beautified Brookside Farm and taken its educational component to a new level with help from the local permaculture guild. Max and Maria Myers of Mendocino Ecological Learning Center (MELC) worked with Post Carbon Institute to plant perennial guilds (plants with similar habits of growth and nutrition) in and around fruit trees. We selected plants based upon their suitability to the climate and for functionality, with the main intention of bringing new smells, textures, and colors to the farm for students and after school programs.
We interplanted common culinary herbs such as sage, thyme, mint, and fennel are among nitrogen fixing lupines, beneficial insect-habitat plants (yarrow and calendula), and nutrient accumulating plants such as comfrey. We mulched the guilds to conserve water and keep weed competition low as the new plants establish themselves. We are thankful for the help from MELC and are sure that these guilds will spark further conversation around permaculture design, stacking functions, and the benefits of a polyculture system.
Since the agricultural season has slowed, we have more time for writing and analyzing our efforts in 2007. We live in an exciting time with emerging challenges related to food, energy, and the environment. Visit the recent blogs from Jason Bradford and Christoffer Hansen and join the dialog as we address the vulnerabilities and opportunities related to local food and energy security. We'll be transforming the website in the coming months, so check back frequently to view and comment on new material.
5. Putting the Heat on Lomborg
The outlook from the world global climate change conference in Bali gets grimmer by the day, as the United States appears to be succeeding in blocking any substantive collection action. Where did global climate deniers and delayers like Bjorn Lomborg come from? Check out the workings of The Denial Machine to see how corporate-funded climate denial sprang directly from the tobacco industry's cover-up of smoking and cancer.
The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the year 2008 to be UN International Year of Planet Earth. The Year's activities will span the three years 2007-2009. The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been designated to organize activities during the Year, in collaboration with UNEP and other relevant United Nations bodies, the International Union of Geological Sciences and other Earth sciences societies and groups throughout the world.
The GREEN REEL ENVIRONMENTAL FILM FESTIVAL is a two-day event held in Vaughan, ON, that serves both as a showcase for environmentally-themed productions and as an awareness forum for community green groups.
This is an environmental art and science exhibit that, amongst other things, highlights local and statewide efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
WFES will be the world's largest conference and exhibition on renewable and future energy solutions, innovations, policy and vision. Speakers include world ministers, politicians, business leaders, environmentalists, and opinion makers. Plus 200+ international exhibitors will showcase tomorrow's energy solutions. Global Public Media correspondent David Strahan will be attending, watch for reports.
This conference is a bit off the beaten track. Faced with rising fuel costs and pressure to reduce greenhouse gases, the rail community faces the challenge of finding a cost effective, energy efficient, and sustainable alternative to diesel oil
This year's Wisconsin Local Food Summit celebrates the diverse array of local food initiatives underway in the state. The Summit will be held in conjunction with the 10th annual Midwest Value-Added Agriculture Conference, which helps people explore new market opportunities and learn from farmers, business people and experts involved in value-added farm enterprises
7. January 2008 Preview
The importance of car sharing for cutting carbon use & emissions.
Post Carbon Institute encourages the following courses of action:
Begin implementing Relocalizationstrategies 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
1. Trans-Atlantic Learning and Linking 2. Post Carbon in $450,000 USDA Organic Farm Study 3. Global Public Media 4. Featured Post Carbon Group: Sequim, Washington, USA 5. Energy Farms Network 6. Post Carbon Cities 7. Putting the Heat on Lomborg 8. Forthcoming Events 9. December Preview
1. Trans-Atlantic Learning and Linking
Richard Heinberg and Julian Darley have just returned from Europe, where they gave lectures and had in-depth discussions about how North America and Europe can learn from and help each other to move away from fossil fuels in integrated and planned ways. It is never easy to justify burning jet fuel. The goal of these trips is to lay the foundations of systems which will in the future use no petroleum yet still allow sustainable societies to prosper. Richard and Julian both found great interest in bringing climate and peak oil issues together. Achieving unified "peak-climate" policies and actions will surely make the energy transition much easier and more effective.
Richard's main effort in Europe was to underline the emerging crisis in global agriculture and to strengthen the relocalization movement. To this end, he spoke in the UK at well-attended events organized by the Soil Association and Transition Bristol, and to a conference in Sweden about the future of food. Richard delivered the Soil Association's Lady Eve Balfour Memorial Lecture 2007 "What Will We Eat When the Oil Runs Out." You can listen to the entire lecture or read the transcript on the Soil Association's website. In London he discussed peak oil matters with two members of the UK Parliament. Even though the MPs were from opposing parties (Labor and Conservative), there was no hint of partisanship, and both were already well aware of the decline of oil and natural gas.
Julian's discussions helped reinforce Post Carbon's connections in Britain and Germany. Post Carbon is now a peer review organization with the Energy Watch Group, which is sponsored by a member of the German parliament and has published some of the most powerful new reports on oil, coal and uranium. At the World Renewable Energy Assembly in Bonn, we forged good links with renowned author of books on sustainable cities, Herbert Girardet, and his new organization, the World Future Council, based in Hamburg. In Britain, Julian became a trustee and Vice Chair of the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre, founded by Colin Campbell. Julian also gave a briefing on the energy situation to BedZED (Beddington Zero Energy Development), a model sustainable housing development in the UK created by the BioRegional Development Group. BedZED has done world famous pioneering work to dramatically reduce the carbon footprint of buildings and we look forward to working with them in the future.
***
"It is clear that there is so much that different nations can and must quickly learn from each other now that it appears oil has peaked, and we do hope that these trips will benefit all our varied efforts aimed at getting society off fossil fuels fast." - Julian Darley
2. Post Carbon in $450,000 USDA Organic Farm Study
We are proud to announce our collaboration with Kentucky State University in a new $450,000, 4-year long USDA-funded study of the sustainability of small Kentucky organic farms growing food and biofuels. Dr. Michael Bomford, Principal Investigator in KSU's Organic/Sustainable Vegetable Production program, will manage this research project.
Bomford credited Post Carbon President Julian Darley with inspiring him to seek the USDA grant in a talk last spring about Post Carbon's Energy Farms Network. In the study, Bomford will be looking at the effectiveness of growing organic food and biofuel crops on three small organic farming systems (biointensive, market garden, and small farm). As Post Carbon has argued for years, transitioning to locally-grown food and locally-produced energy is critical for reducing the agricultural use of oil and lowering greenhouse gas emissions.
As part of the collaboration, Post Carbon will be collecting data from similar demonstration farms in Willits, California, Rogue River, Oregon, and Sebastopol, California, and will post short audio, video, and written material generated by this project to Post Carbon Institute's public broadcasting site, Global Public Media.
3. Global Public Media
This month on Global Public Media:
A former top official at Saudi Aramco tells former BBC journalist David Strahan that oil has peaked
BBC Radio 4 talks about peak oil with Jeremy Leggett and follows it up with coverage of the IPCC 4th Assessment on climate change
4. Featured Post Carbon Group: Sequim, Washington, USA
Local Action for a Sustainable Tomorrow (LAST) started in September of this year. Our current projects focus on uniting Clallam County (Washington) by bringing together groups on the Olympic Peninsula that are interested in sustainability and then to establish the steps necessary to prepare for peak oil and climate change. Right now we're in the process of identifying local groups to partner with, and finding individuals who are already supporting sustainable practices in our community.
We're also looking into potentially helping to create a sustainability center at Peninsula College or similar facility, and working with local city and county leaders to take action on these issues. Being a newly formed group, there's lots of work ahead but we're glad to be part of a growing network of people working towards implementing the relocalization strategy and building strong and healthy communities. Our guiding principles include:
Communication: Raise public awareness of the environmental, economic and social challenges facing Clallam County; build a compelling case for action to meet these challenges.
Education: Provide detailed information and facilitate the development of skills, knowledge and resources that will be needed within a sustainable local community.
Community Development: Strengthen ties between community and governmental groups in order to create or enhance local infrastructure to address the challenges we face.
Demonstration: Take individual and collective action, in whatever ways we each can, to serve as an example of sustainable local community citizenship.
We invite people to take part in the group and come to our meetings which take place every Tuesday night. For more information and details about upcoming film screenings, meetings and guest speaker events, visit us online at sequim.relocalize.net.
5. Energy Farms Network
Brookside Farm
With four new compost piles built, cover crops sown, and winter veggies growing nicely, Brookside Farm in Willits, California, USA is tucked in for the winter. We have had a wonderful mix of deep rain and warm sun to aid with germination and have established good stands of cereals and legumes.
The fall rain provided us with an excellent opportunity to sow over-winter grains in Willits. However, we were not able to secure the 4-6 acres of land we had hoped to plant. In spite of difficulty in acquiring land, we did secure a small parcel to test the Electric Tractor for a couple of days before rain. In initial tests, we found that the machine has ample power to pull heavy implements while the on-board inverter was handy for using power tools in the field. The machine used an average of 110 amps while towing the disc.
Initial calculations suggest that the tractor's 20 kw/hr battery bank would allow around 5 hours of work at 110 amps. The tractor is equipped with an extra, exchangeable 10 kw/hr battery pack. The auxiliary pack would give us another 2 hours of work, boosting total run time to 7 hours on a full charge of batteries. After field tests, we look to work with the designers to modify key components related to steering and braking.
Energy Garden
In preparation for the highly anticipated rains, we have recently installed a rainwater collection system. The system consists of four tanks and a rock and reed constructed wetland. This system is being built to be capable of processing the house's gray water. To do this we will need to go through a process to get a permit from our local authorities. (Gray water is water that comes from the sinks, washing machine, dishwasher, and bathtubs.) Rain water and Gray water systems generally use plants, soil and gravel to clean the waste water. More complex systems like ours use water circulation, aquaculture, and fish to further purify the water.
The Energy Garden is currently planted with cover crops, and brassicas are set to emerge. The cold frames hold tasty salad greens and the peas are vigorously climbing up our front fence.
6. Post Carbon Cities
Last week Post Carbon Cities Program Manager Daniel Lerch wrapped up his five-week book tour to promote Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, our new guidebook for local governments in the U.S. and Canada. Daniel's whirlwind tour hit 14 different cities in the northeastern United States and Canada, including over 30 events such as public presentations, meetings with local citizen groups, and meetings with local officials and staff. Highlights of the tour included:
Presentation to city staff in Montréal, Québec
Meeting with Brattleboro (Vermont) Regional Peak Oil Task Force
Presentation to city staff in Cambridge and Boston, Massachusetts
Public presentation in Providence, Rhode Island
Meetings with local groups in Central Massachusetts
Presentations and meetings in New York City
Presentation and workshop for regional planners in Philadelphia
Meeting with local group in Toronto
The response to the tour has been tremendous. The city of Providence alone ordered 50 copies of Post Carbon Cities following Daniel's visit, and peak oil interest in New England overall is so strong that we're planning on organizing a Post Carbon Cities conference there in Spring 2008, in partnership with local citizen groups and city officials. Read more about the tour in Daniel's posts to the Post Carbon Cities blog, and visit www.postcarboncities.net/guidebook for more information or to order the book.
We're pleased to announce the addition of Laurel Hoyt to our staff! Laurel has taken over as Editor of the Post Carbon Cities website, posting daily news, resources, events and commentary on the challenges cities face with peak oil and climate change; she is also providing research, website, writing and administrative support for the Post Carbon Cities program overall. Prior to joining Post Carbon, Laurel was the Education Coordinator of Free Geek, where she helped this collectively-managed computer recycling and computer training non-profit grow into a national model for community-based technology centers.
7. Putting the Heat on Lomborg
Climate delayers and climate deniers took a major hit this month with the release of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The report followed on the heels of the announcement that the IPCC would split this year's Nobel Peace Prize with Al Gore "for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change." Far from following Lomborg's advice to "Cool It," the chairman of the IPCC said that "Slowing or even reversing the existing trends of global warming is the defining challenge of our age" (See "Climate Panel Does Not Want Us to Cool It")
This workshop, one in a series sponsored by the Roundtable on Environmental Health Sciences, Research, and Medicine, will focus on current and emerging environmental issues as they pertain to transportation and U.S. energy policy. This workshop will examine the composition of traditional and alternative fuels and fuel additives and discuss the potential health impacts associated with their use.
Bilateral Information Exchange Between California and Brazil to Promote Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reduction. The seminar will feature ways in which renewable energy projects could represent an innovative strategy for economic development and a significant benefit for the environmental quality of Brazil (on the forefront of renewable energy usage) and California (leader on climate change regulation). It will provide legal practitioners with the latest information and developments in the use of renewable fuels and green technology in California and Brazil.
This introductory seminar on green building covers the following topics: steps to reduce energy costs, conservation methods, how to use natural resources on your site; improve indoor air quality; take action in your own homes and lives; use community resources and contacts; and decrease the burden on the local environment.
The 4th Annual Canadian Renewable Fuels Association (CRFA) Summit will bring together a diverse and influential group of approximately 800 professionals from throughout North America whose common goal is to promote and discuss the production and utilization of renewable fuels.
The Green California Schools Summit and Exposition will focus on the strategies, technologies and services that will ensure that new and existing public schools are models of sustainability and provide healthy learning environments for the students.
The Conference, hosted by the Government of Indonesia, brings together representatives of over 180 countries together with observers from intergovernmental and nongovernmental organizations, and the media. The two week period includes the sessions of the Conference of the Parties to the UNFCCC, its subsidiary bodies as well as the Meeting of the Parties of the Kyoto Protocol. A ministerial segment in the second week will conclude the Conference.
UC Berkeley's China Initiative presents an international lineup of experts including NRDC's Barbara Finamore, Asia Society's Orville Schell, China environmentalist Ma Jun and New York Times Beijing correspondent Jim Yardley to discuss how data on China's environment is collected, verified, disseminated and utilized.
Rally Around the Earth for Climate Justice and a Safer, Healthier Planet! Join with people from dozens of countries for the largest planetary day of action yet to stop climate chaos. For information on the rally site nearest you, or to pull together your own rally, go to climatechaos.ca.
Ecobuild Fall and AEC-ST Fall is an annual event that goes beyond green to cover the breadth of green building, sustainable design, renewable energy, environmental planning processes and information collaboration strategies for commercial, industrial, institutional and residential construction.
ArcticNet is a Network of Centres of Excellence of Canada that brings together scientists and managers in the natural, human health, and social sciences with their partners in Inuit organizations, northern communities, federal and provincial agencies, and the private sector to study the impacts of climate change in the coastal Canadian Arctic.
8. December Preview
Exciting news about Post Carbon Institute's plans for 2008.
Post Carbon Institute encourages the following courses of action:
Begin implementing Relocalizationstrategies 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
“History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.”~Dwight D. Eisenhower Copyright 2007-2009TALK CITIZEN ™ is a trademark of LobaTek Incorporated
New this month on Global Public Media:
Within the past month, we have beautified Brookside Farm and taken its educational component to a new level with help from the local permaculture guild. Max and Maria Myers of 
The outlook from the world global climate change conference in Bali gets grimmer by the day, as the United States appears to be succeeding in blocking any substantive collection action. Where did global climate deniers and delayers like Bjorn Lomborg come from? Check out the workings of 
Richard Heinberg and Julian Darley have just returned from Europe, where they gave lectures and had in-depth discussions about how North America and Europe can learn from and help each other to move away from fossil fuels in integrated and planned ways. It is never easy to justify burning jet fuel. The goal of these trips is to lay the foundations of systems which will in the future use no petroleum yet still allow sustainable societies to prosper. Richard and Julian both found great interest in bringing climate and peak oil issues together. Achieving unified "peak-climate" policies and actions will surely make the energy transition much easier and more effective.
We are proud to announce our collaboration with 
This month on Global Public Media:
With four new compost piles built, cover crops sown, and winter veggies growing nicely, Brookside Farm in Willits, California, USA is tucked in for the winter. We have had a wonderful mix of deep rain and warm sun to aid with germination and have established good stands of cereals and legumes.
In preparation for the highly anticipated rains, we have recently installed a rainwater collection system. The system consists of four tanks and a rock and reed constructed wetland. This system is being built to be capable of processing the house's gray water. To do this we will need to go through a process to get a permit from our local authorities. (Gray water is water that comes from the sinks, washing machine, dishwasher, and bathtubs.) Rain water and Gray water systems generally use plants, soil and gravel to clean the waste water. More complex systems like ours use water circulation, aquaculture, and fish to further purify the water. 
December 01, 2007 
December 04 - 06, 2007 
December 10 - 13, 2007