My last trip to England showed a country being hit by the effects of the peak of oil production. My visit over New Year shows a country nose-diving into a new kind of recession: one that has no end.

Some examples:

UK’s refinancing timebomb Sunday Times 4 Jan 2008 – Some £50 billion in loans expiring will need refinancing and the prospects are not good.

Number of business failures set to surge in 2009

As the reams of newspaper articles laying out dismal prospects for 2009 appear before us, there is an underlying belief in the recovery will come in a few or at most ten years, and 2008 will fade into memory as a year unremarkable. Not so from the perspective of Oil Peak. We are looking into the tangled guts of a system that has stopped working because the cheap and easy oil that feeds it has peaked.
We are looking over the precipice into the long decline, aptly called the long emergency by James Howard Kunstler.

The logic of this is almost too simple, but not anything you will find explained in the mainstream media.
The system we call business as usual is full of disconnects – think of it like a plumbing system with faulty joints and bends. Despite leakages, the system still delivers water to the end user. However, when pressure drops, the taps run dry and the installation is not only useless, it wastes valuable resources as well.
In this case, money is rather like water. You want to stuff money into the system and see more come out. At least you would want to know you can get basic services like food water, shelter etc. Any business needs a supply of capital and cash to start up and keep going. If you borrow money, you have to be able to pay it back at, say, 4% interest a year.

Standing in front of the bank manager or an inventor you have to convince her that you will be able to expand your business to be able to pay the loan and the interest off in a reasonable time. Multiply this by the number of businesses around and you will see that in order for any money to come in to the system you must be convinced everybody will make more money than they are already doing, to at least pay off the debt from the interest.
When it works, this way of doing things creates jobs, provides an endless array of services and goods and generates tax income to run the civil sector.
When it does not work, you put money and your own time into the system and get very little out.

This is where the connection to oil comes in: look into any business plan of any business and you will find a massive reliance directly or indirectly on fossil fuel. Electricity, the life blood of any office, comes increasingly in the UK from gas fired power stations.
Energy price hikes make everything more expensive, reducing profits and undermining the logic of the business plan and indeed the whole set-up.

From this perspective you can see how we got into the situation we are in. Peak production of cheap oil in late 2005 started a process of price hikes and started to knock holes in the wealth generation machinery. First hit were airlines and transport sector, creating job losses and credit defaults. From there the spiral downward continues. In this context a much larger number of businesses cannot make the business plan work. Trying to kick-start the economy now that oil is cheap will only result in a new wave of price rises as economic activity grows, oil demand increases, the production ceiling hits and the bidding goes up to push oil back up.
The current wave of low prices is merely the receding of the wave of the economic tsunami that will inevitably come back to hit us again.
The current low price of oil means stalled investments in new wells or increased productivity. With 60 of 80 oil producing countries past their peak we cannot expect any increase in economic activity to be long lasting.

What does all this mean for the oil aware denizen in 2009?
Don't be fooled by oil-unaware arguments. True Woolworth’s demise is partly their own doing in trying to sell everything, but there is nothing to say that just because a business is working to day, it will be able to continue as more and more job losses produce more and more unwilling or unable to buy their stuff. No, all business plans are energy reliant and I would say 99% are energy unaware.
You need to become familiar with other economic models. Interest-free banking and cooperatives are two I recommend.
Interest free banking at least shares rewards and risks and is more human.
Cooperatives, especially those involved with community supported agriculture, are designed to provide their owners with economic security and /or basic services at below market prices.

In fact, finding ways to ensure a supply of the basic necessities for all will be a major challenge in 2009. The leader in the Telegraph from Jan 2 expects there will be some people going hungry in the UK during 2009.
The system we live in already has major homelessness and poverty, in my opinion evidence of abject failure.
Oil aware people need to start to speak up outside the confines of discussion forums to send a clear message to politicians and civil servants: the fossil-fuel dependent way of life is on its last legs. Energy and food security for all need to become the top priority. And of course the good side of all this: this means there will be meaningful work for all, we expect to see a kinder, more generous UK, less stress and pollution, more local business and solidarity. The time to transition is now, 2009, while we still can.

I’m worried. I have just been to a presentation of world population trends by the eminently informative Swedish Professor Hans Rosling from Karolinska Institute. It seem that world population is expected to continue to expand. The good news is that the number of children per woman is reducing in developing countries and stable in developed countries. Still, we are looking at the world overstepping nine billion in 2045.
We currently need to do better to feed the poor and forgotten, who number 890 million, or 13%. So how will the world feed this 34% increase? Modern agriculture requires large inputs of fossil fuel and fossil-fuel based products. At the same time, oil production per capita is expected to fall.
On returning back to the office I started plotting world population trends against oil consumption I managed to (this is back of the envelop stuff) get oil consumption from the International Energy Agency site, and population figures from Wikipedia.
I also reflected on what the professor said: that as standards rose, and in the presence of peace, fewer children per woman were born. This isi the mechanism that will stabilize world population.
Up to 2007, oil consumption per capita has remained more or less stable even as consumption has risen.

o 2005 that is. If you then plot projected population rises against project oil production you get another picture:

This means that we are entering a new era, where each country has less oil per capita. Now, some countries are expanding their population faster than others. This leads to a few scenarios:
1) Those countries that expand their populations fast up to 2045 increase their share of oil and manage to retain or improve their living standards. For those industrialized countries it will mean a faster reduction in oil consumption per capita compared to the expanding countries.

2) ( See graph above.) Each country manages to keep the same proportion of consumption as now. The consequences will be that rapidly expanding countries will have less oil per capita and risk food shortages.
3) Some countries, possibly rich countries gain a larger proportion of the oil production and thereby fast growing countries will quickly face difficulties feeding the population.
From this “back of an envelope” analysis I see some rather stark conclusions:

• Abandoning economic growth as a goal and concentrating on security of supply of basic needs is a priority.
• Regardless of the stance taken towards countries with rising populations, all countries need to consider a Powering Down situation as they are looking at a reduction in the availability of fossil fuel in the next decade.
• Helping the poor and forgotten to rise to a minimum standard that gives food security should be a priority globally.

Holidaying in Britain, the country of my birth from which I emigrated nearly 30 years ago, thoughts of sustainable planet were giving way to visits to the pub, fish and chips and long walks in the countryside. Not for long. Wherever I look I see Britain is about to enter a period of deep crisis the root of the problem soaring oil prices as production has peaked.

Maybe it’s because I have been writing about the crisis of sustainability for over five years, maybe it’s because I see this country of my birth with other eyes having lived away so long. But I am in a country sliding into the downturn of the industrial age. All the signs are plain to see. So plain, in fact that the newspaper reports over the space of three days are sufficient to chronicle the start of the inevitable slide into irrecoverable erosion of way of life for Brits and others around the planet.

THE TIMES Monday July 19 2008
Farmers ready to cash in on soaring land prices
The gist: Farm land prices have gone from Per hectare price of 6828 pounds per hectare in late 2005 to currently 12,965. farmers are more than willing to sell as they are feeling the squeeze from rising costs of fuel and fertiliser.
Also from the same newspaper:
]Hungry miners reap rich harvest from potash - the latest must have mineral
The gist: Potash, the potassium containing mineral, has risen from under 100 hundred usd in 1993 to nearly 700 USD/ton this year. Potassium is an essential component of fertiliser.

Cheap flights boom runs out of runway
The gist: the age of budget flights is coming to an end.
Developments are about to price more than five million Brits out of the budget holiday market fares going to go up and will do so for the foreseeable future.
Analysts expect some airlines to be pushed into bankruptcy or be bought by larger rivals.

THE TIMES Monday 25th July 2008
Energy Firms 'conspire to raise prices'
The gist: a report claims that minimum of competition has kept prices too high over the last few years, and that the re is in wholesale price of energy will result in millions of Brits unable to pay their energy bill.
Prices of energy paid by industry is above European levels already and is putting thousands of jobs in manufacturing at a risk.
Energy suppliers are signaling further price rises which is fuelling inflation and creating real concerns of the negative impact on the economy starting a vicious downward spiral in the economy.

THE TIMES Wednesday July 30 2008
Mortgage market paralysis will last for at least three years says Crosby.
The gist A report for the government by Sir James Crosby on the mortgage situation highlights how banks are unwilling to give mortgage loans for house purchase, and this is crippling the housing market as well as
The crunch in credit will give rise to defaults on repossessions.
The level of July is 70% lower than the equivalent period in the previous year.
Comment: TV commentators cite the report as evidence that the mortgage system is broken.

Retail sales slide at their worst rate for 25 years.
The gist; Sales during July are at their worst for 25 years. They believe consumers are reining in their spending in the face of seriously squeezed purchasing power.

THE TIMES Thursday July 31 20008 Millions face 100 pound a month fuel bills
The gist: coming hike of 35% on gas and 9% on electricity will put millions more into fuel poverty over 5 million.

THE TIMES Thursday July 31
[Work until you are 70.
The gist: 100 years after the introduction of state pensions, Britain is facing a crisis. With rising prices, longer lifespan and smaller percentage of the population working, the size of pension money is going to shrink, leaving many of the aged living in poverty and retirement age rising to 70.

THE TIMES Wednesday August 6 2008
Double decline in services and industry puts Britain on the brink of recession

The gist: Economists report the economy is grinding to a halt based on official figures showing manufacturing output fell for the fourth quarter in a row, and overall output fell in services for the third month in a row.

Other signs: wherever we go we see ”For Sale” signs outside houses. And my brother in law just came back form meeting an old friend, a building contractor. After 19 years he is forced to close the business down. There is just not the work for him or his employees.

So there it is, the whole drama of the counter-sustainable rut the nation is in, and the impending long emergency they all teeter on, is being played out, in news reports in the press and in front of me. There was even a TV drama ” Burn Up” about Peak Oil.

Unable to fuel the lifestyle that has grown up post-war with cheap energy, and with the money printing machine of home loans broken, the country is staring economic recession in the face.
This is not just a dip in a normal economic cycle, it is the signs that the country is in such serious difficulty that radical changes are called for before it gets worse.

Britain has enjoyed a long period of economic prosperity, partly endowed by the gift of North Sea oil and gas. Even during this period poverty, homelessness and were not addressed. Admittedly the Labour government addressed fairness issues, but if they were unable to succeed as government coffers were filed with tax income who can they be expected to succeed now. Now the situation is getting acute as millions face poverty.
They are now alone. I fear the same events are playing out in my new home, Sweden.
Except in Sweden such stories and drama tend to be downplayed by the media. Watch this space.

http://Stephenhinton.avbp.net Inventing for the Sustainable Planet

Just to keep you up to date.... Oil commission. The report on how to break oil dependency was released amid a gush of, well, not very much. See earlier postings.

Oil Awareness. The meetup dot com service is so brilliant we decided to use that instead of the relocalize net platform. From a start a couple of year's ago of three rather wary people sitting in the lounge of the local Sheraton complaining about the prices of beverages we have grown to 52 web members and about 10-12 active meetups in real life.

Eco Units. A group has convened to look into the possibility of setting up an eco-unit just outside Stockholm. We have not set up a home page for them yet (and anyway it will be in Swedish) but we believe that eco-units could present a practical path to relocalization. Read more about Eco units the Eco Unit community site S

Synthetic Diesel I was interviewed by the BBC radio about by views on ethanol, which Swedes are having a love affair with. (not released yet - maybe they couldn't get all the swear words out *just joking*) We are rather interested in the Possibility of synthetic diesel on the other hand, where local plants convert biomass to high grade fuel which can be used in existing vehicles, especially key service vehicles like ambulance, tractors, fire engines, etc. The inventor of the KDV process, Dr Koch, agrees that local plants make much more sense. Read more on AVBP's website.

Sweden, although at the forefront of the drive to oil independence, sits powerless when industry finds national energy prices a little too high. The Swedish daily Svenska Dagbladet reports on Thursday the 31 August 2006 that Rottneros, one of the world’s five largest makers of paper pulp, is closing its plant in Utansjö, in Northern Sweden. The plant will be dismantled and shipped to a country offering lower electricity prices. The move demonstrates the energy vulnerability of many industries, and how a permanent hike in energy prices, stimulated e.g by scarcity of oil, is likely to affect developed countries at least while there are countries offering cheaper energy. Capital and industry simple leave, while whole communities remain behind, unemployed.

The mechanical process used by Rottneros is energy intensive, and uses twice as much energy as the alternative chemical process. On the other hand, less raw timber is used and the process has environmental benefits. The plant is one of the most modern in the group, and can be easily moved and set up elsewhere.

The Utansjö community, which has hosted the paper and pulp industry since 1897, will be absorbing 150 jobless.

Other paper and pulp producers like SCA and the Swedish-Finish StoraEnso may soon follow suit. Both state to the newspaper that they have no plans to invest any further in Sweden. ITPS, the Swedish Institute for Growth Policy Studies - the Swedish Government's agency for understanding growth and for evaluating government policies - estimates 2-4 thousand jobs will disappear every year.

This is at a time when national supplies are unable to meet industry demand. Wood is in short supply, and Sweden is importing 10 of the 90 million m3 of forest it uses.

The move demonstrates that we cannot rely on industry to come up with a solution in the short term to higher energy costs. As managing director, you are bound by the terms of your contract to find a cheaper solution in the first place, not to apply all ingenuity to rework business processes and technology to find a less energy intensive or less environmentally challenging solution. And Government is not allowed to interfere according to EU competition rules. It also shows how any approach to a sustainable use of timber supplies is far off. If consumers demand paper products to a level where forests are depleted, the global force of industry is willing to supply it – without taking any responsibility for future generations ability to use the infrastructure and local natural resources.

Of those countries offering cheaper energy, we can only speculate as to the environmental risks associated with this “cheap” energy. Consumers get no say in the matter as they are left unaware of the environmental and social costs of the paper they are holding in their hands, as little as they are informed of the situation of thousands of workers in the oil industry in the long supply chain from the desert to their local petrol filling station.

The third, surprising display of shooting in the opposite direction to goal is displayed by the Swedish Government's assignment to the road transport and rail traffic authorities. Announced via press release the 20th June, both organizations are to develop a long term plan for sustainable development of public transport in Sweden. So far so good. But they are ordered to prioritize ticket booking, timetable coordination, interchanges and the disabled.

Whilst the above subjects are worthy causes they are hardly going to provide Sweden, already highly transport dependent, with a sustainable public transport network.

No mention is given of environmental impact of transport, city planning, oil dependency or long term planning for energy vulnerability.

This announcement is the third in a series of actions going against the stated intention of creating independence from oil. The first was the oil commission's statement that oil vulnerability was not perceived as a threat and therefore not addressed in their report. The second was the decision to invest in "green" vehicle technology taking the technology optimistic line that an energy source will be found.

The authorities have until the 31 of December to produce their plans.

Once again Sweden, the first nation to proclaim its intention to become oil independent, acts disappointingly in a way far removed from what many believed were its true intentions. As reported in the Swedish daily newspapers on the 24th July, the Swedish State are to finance a research and development program to produce better environmentally suited vehicular technology. It is hoped Swedish vehicle industry suppliers as well as other companies will participate in the program to increase the competitiveness of Swedish vehicle industry. The total budget is 800 million kronor, 282 million (35 percent) coming from the State, the rest from the industry.

read the full article in features

Daily newspaper slags off oil commission.
Comments on the oil commission’s report have been very few in the Swedish media. Perhaps because it was released during the holiday period or because the issue is so complex, that in criticising the report you show how much you do not know. SvD, the right wing Swedish national daily newspaper, however, takes the Oil Commission to task for “giving us a vision of wood-burning

The Stockholm oilawareness meetup held its monthly meeting on a farm just outside Lerum. Local landowners got together with Oil awareness members and Post Carbon Sweden members to take a first look at relocalisation possibilities in the area. Follow the link to see photos and meeting notes. http://avbp.net/html/lerum.html.

Digging into details to understand Sweden’s oil dependency

 
Most people who start to discover Peak Oil find themselves confronted by their lack of knowledge as to how things work in the society they live in. The good news for those living in Sweden is the transparency of its institutions. The bad news is the work required to cut through all the details to see the bigger picture. Let’s explore the question of the role of energy in the economy.

Two statements heard quite often are that the percentage of GDP of energy is growing less. And that Swedes are actually using less energy now than in the 70s. The other thing we often here is that oil independence is easy to attain as a large percentage of energy used is either renewable or nuclear, neither threatened by oil prices.

When is innovate the right strategy to use to address a business or organization challenge? If the challenge is similar to challenges in the past, the sensible thing is not to re-invent the wheel, but use well-known solutions. If the situation is novel and temporary, a quick fix may work. But if the situation is novel and permanent a new approach is called for. As we see it, the world is approaching a novel situation: the end of cheap fossil fuel, an end to endless economic growth and the growing negative effects of environmental degradation on health, agriculture and climate stability. Increasingly, forward thinking organizations like the UK’s Live Work http://www.livework.co.uk/home.html and the US Rocky Mountain Institute http://www.rmi.org/ are suggesting an End-use/Least Cost services approach.

Retford was slow in coming to the realization that "business as usual" may not keep local citizens' standard of living at an acceptable level. As they saw energy prices hike many were concerned the local economy was in danger of spiraling down out of control. Many others found it incomprehensible that energy security could be synonymous with economic security.

Fortunately, the neighboring city of Porena had embarked upon a successful sustainable development process several years earlier. They turned to Porena city manager, Aaron Heathcliffe, for help. They have now managed to start activities rolling in eight major areas involving just about everyone in the area. Part of the reason for Retford's success was getting people involved in a way that built a sense of urgency and importance. But how serious and urgent was the situation? Says Jeff Small, coordinator for the Sustainable Development Office of Retford: "Our starting point was one of a need to understand the situation from the point of view of security of living standards.

The national government had delegated responsibility for sustainable development down to the local level. We had received a list of goals to strive for."? Jeff continues,"how urgent was the situation? We had no idea. Some people were saying oil depletion would mean energy price hikes above the annual 4-5% we were seeing. Others were saying market mechanisms would prevail. Interestingly, very few actually knew how things worked in the local region. And even fewer could navigate the figures needed. We found ourselves comparing apples and pears. For instance; how much food do we need (often measured in calories), how much food do we grow (measured in tons) how much energy needed to grow food (measured in liters of diesel)"?.

It was just this need to understand the situation that prompted Aaron Heathcliffe to use a data gathering and modeling approach. Based on the local council's own GIS (geographic information system) he asked the office to set up a project group to find out how the living standard basics were provided. These included water, housing, food, jobs, transport etc. All figures and explanations were to be put into the GIS system so project members could"fly" through the area to gain an understanding of how these systems were working. Jeff Small again; "The exercise was a real awakening; for example, we do not grow enough food in the area to feed all the population. There is massive commuting every day, and parts of the area are not served by public transport. The system was extremely useful.

The group could ask the operator to, say, "show us the number of people living out of walking distance of public transport""“ and we could see immediately the information in graphic form on the map"?. It was the process of gathering the data that started to create both awareness and multilateral cooperation. For instance, it started to become apparent what was NOT known about water supply. People are just used to turning on taps, and very few had a view of the sewage treatment processes. The data gathering exercises produced very clear and comprehensive information, which the project published. Pictures from the studies helped create awareness for what was to come. It was the next phase however, that really created the impetus for change.

The project team started to bring in representatives of every stakeholder organization. Each basic element of living standard was mapped against the relevant stakeholder organization. The local business association, residents' association and gardening club got very active early on. The next step was to ask representatives to review the data, and to evaluate it. They got as the starting point the government goals and security of living standards. They were to come up with risks and priorities.

A database related to the GIS system stored geographical positioning data, the issue description, risk and priority. All the data could be aggregated to give a general overview of the risk of potential of shortfall or excess for local residents. What was interesting was that from the point of view of each stakeholder organization's purpose, as stated in their articles of association, the current situation was not really producing the sort of results they were after. Local businesses were struggling, resident's associations complaining of falling standards, food quality was poor¦ Oil depletion risks were changing the situation from uncomfortable to downright disastrous. Aaron Heathcliffe commented; "we never mentioned politics once. What was interesting was that no-one really disputed where the priorities lay. Maybe some had different ideas about how to solve them, but this fact-based method helped build a basis for consensus"?.

At this point, the stakeholder organizations were invited to send representatives to work out a plan of action. The plan would include commitments by each organization, so only representatives with enough mandate were sent to the action planning. The plans were based on the shortfall vs excess evaluations. Excess would be a resource to use to mitigate shortfalls in other areas, by for example trading with other areas. In the end, the groups had worked out about eight major areas to tackle and strategies for each. Commitments from the various stakeholder organizations were not enough, however, for real changes to be brought about. For instance, one scheme involved reducing commuting by job-swapping. Although the local business association had set the scheme up it needed employees to volunteer for the changes. To sweeten the deal, anyone who swapped their job would be given a free travel permit. Anyone who gave up their car would be prioritized for housing and so on. So the next step was for each stakeholder organization to invite their members and members of the public to presentations. The office of sustainable development decided to stage a large exhibition in conjunction with the local May fair. Large displays took visitors through the analysis the project groups had gone through, and other displays asked for volunteers. Most of the key area booths took the form of displays with four sections. In the middle they showed how the area works today - what we have - the left pane showed - why we can't go on

• the right pane: what we need
• and the bottom pane what we must do.

The next set of displays talked about managing the transition, and the need for overall coordination of efforts. People would then drift to the display get involved just before the exit. One group is planning to re-build some parts of the town to make easy walking access. And they are talking about a canal for energy efficient transport of heavy goods. One priority is diesel for the construction machines. They want to dig ditches and create the conditions for permaculture before the machines become useless.

Jeff Small is excited; "from what looked to be a dark future we are hopeful we are headed for an easier, more social life, with a feeling of being closer to nature!"

This is an extract from the coming sequel to the book "Inventing for the Sustainable Planet http://www.avbp.net/html/porena.html

Report from Swedish Energy Conferences

Having recently attended two conferences arranged by the Swedish Energy Ministry and read a good deal in the daily press I would like to summarize my general impressions of attitudes to the energy situation in Sweden. These are purely my own reflections, and not the expressed opinions of anyone in the Ministry or invited speakers.

Basically, there is an “A plan� and a “B plan�. Many are on the fence as to which is the best to follow, and as A represents “Business as usual� fence sitters are de facto on the “A plan� side.

As he swipes his LETS card at the candy store English visitor John Oxley finds it hard to imagine his last visit to New York. Way back in 2007 the dollar was the only currency available. “People were spending most of their waking hours scrambling frantically for the Legal Tender.� He remembers. “It’s not the LETS introduction in itself, LETS is just a system� he says: “it’s the change in attitude – the way people look out for each other.� John is enthralled by the way LETS has spread. “Hey, I arrived here, got a LETS Card, a mobile terminal, entered my skills and terms, and within minutes I was getting offers to come and help out. I had fun washing up at the fast food counter one morning and then went and acted as adviser to a collaboration project the next day. I am practically one of you!�

In my quest to find out how a standard of living could be produced for all sustainably, that is efficiently and with minimum impact on the environment and health, I visited PORENA again. The country of PORENA abolished work as we know it some time ago after they realized paid work was actually fueling the development of a non-sustainable society. The whole system was threatening the environment, people’s health and creating a society that was not pleasant to live in. Many people were actually “out of work� which was draining resources.

On the one hand, PORENA had set up strict rules for emissions of all kinds into the environment. On the other they made housing, education, food etc free. They also focused on producing a standard of living for all cheaply, environmentally and in a socially sound way. Removing the stress on the individual – meeting physiological needs – is at the heart of the PORENA way. How they managed this is still unclear to me, but to make a start I was invited to meet the management of the city of PORENA for an Interview.

nearly choked on my cuppa as the radio ad came on....

Rough translation

We know we must become less dependant on oil. but you don't have to give up your car. you can run on ethanol, a renewable energy source.100 Statoil gas stations around Stockholm are offering E85.

(Note: E85 is 85% ethanol, 15% petrol. Ford flexifuel and Saab biopower cars run on it, but not your ordinary car.)

Robert Bériault wants the world to wake up to Peal Oil. And he broadcasts the message not so much with graphs and figures, but with a message crafted from his own reality and heart. At the centre of his message is his concern for his granddaughter.

With a compelling use of pictures and words in Powerpoint format he takes us chapeter by chapter from "Will oil Peak" through "what can we do about it".

Definately material to read and pass on to friends.

Read more at http://www.peakoilandhumanity.com/

this is simple.

put this code between two html tags (left arrow /right arrow)

img src="locationof picture"

For example a picture of Kim Dixon's logo

img src = "http://www.322.org.uk/New322Image.jpg"

now with the tags:

Remember you are stealing bandwith if you do not have permission to link to the image, so put the image on your own server and link to that.

http://blogs.salon.com/0002007/2005/11/03.html#a1328

is the link to a list by Dave Pollard of companies and brands to avoid based on their environmental or social practices.

he also suggests a few to support!

Interesting reading.

Many agree with the efficacy of the basic market economy model (goods’ and service’s prices are set by sellers, and increase with demand and decrease with competition) in generating a living standard

However, many also see with dismay the downside of this way of organizing our daily lives: extraction and dumping of huge amounts of resources, high levels of fossil fuel use, greenhouse gas emissions etc.

Forgetting the luxury consumption side and concentrating on the must haves, we can see that market economy models in themselves is challenged to provide what people need when it is not in abundance. (see diagram)

Matt Simmons, financial advisor to the energy industry has released this presentation which spells out the urgency of the situation.
http://www.simmonsco-intl.com/files/ENERGY%202050%20Policy%20Bri efing.pdf

Energy production is at its maximum, exacerbated by hurricane Katrina. Demand is rising, and unless we start decreasing the energy intensity of the way we live the coming shortfall will not only impact economic growth, but cause extreme physical hardship.

Now is the time for all think tanks - ours included - to step up our efforts to find low energy solutions and maybe more importantly - new approaches to business and money.

I just became aquainted with the Ecolanguage diagramming system developed by Lee A. Arnold. (See http://ecolanguage.net/).

I wonder if anyone else has had the opportunity to explore its uses and specifically modelled for example, complementary currency or re-localization?

It looks like it has potential and I will probably be giving it a go to model COGS (circle of gifts http://xcogs.avbp.net.)

Dave Pollard's blog of environmental philosophy, creative works, business papers and essays contains the image above which shows some of the potential of the system.

just a plug for my e-book which I am releasing in a new version. it's eco-fiction or relocalization - fiction.

Read more and download here: http://avbp.net/html/porena.html

Max Wahlter, a journalist specializing in science and technology, decides his new career is in sustainability. Having come across an innovation technique called Image Streaming he proceeds to create a vision of the sustainable society, publishing the results on his web log.

The book, Inventing for the Sustainable Planet is a collection of his weblog postings, drawings, musings, verifications and observations.

one of my favourite innovation techniques comes from Win Wenger (www.winwenger.com) called Image Streaming. The techniques allow you to "visit" places which have solved a problem you are concerned with, and during your visit you can pick up a whole load of innovations.

During one such visit I came across a re-localised community called PORENA.

The country of PORENA abolished work as we know it some time ago after they realized paid work was actually fuelling the development of a non-sustainable society. The whole system was threatening the environment, people’s health and creating a society that was not pleasant to live in. Many people were actually “out of work� which was draining resources. On the one hand they set up strict rules for emissions of all kinds into the environment and on the other they made housing, education, food etc free. They also focused on producing a standard of living for all cheaply, environmentally and in a socially sound way. Removing the stress on the individual – meeting physiological needs – is at the heart of the PORENA way. One day I was invited into the office of the community manager...