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Director
Julian Darley
OperationsDavid Room Programs
Celine Rich Administration Manager
Christina Olsen Communications Coordintor
Milton Ariail Development Coordinator
Liz McDowell Outreach Coordinator
Shelby Tay
Post Carbon Newsletter #8
October 2005
1. Local Energy Farms
2. Major Gift
3. News In Brief
4. Featured Outpost: The Titanic Lifeboat Academy
5. New Appointments
6. Post Carbon Board Member: James Howard Kunstler
7. Global Public Media News
8. Next Newsletter Preview
1. Local Energy Farms
Post Carbon Forms Local Energy Farms Advisory Panel
We are now ready to move the Local Energy Farms Initiative into implementation. To make that happen as quickly and broadly as possible, our Local Energy Farms Initiative took a big step forward this month with the creation of an Advisory Panel. A marvelous group of experts on renewable energy and how to get things done have agreed to lend us their support!! The panel will advise Post Carbon Institute and all those associated with us on how to set up the best combination of renewable energies for a given locale in order to produce reliable power and fuels.
The panel includes the famous German politician, Hermann Scheer, who has worked for decades to bring renewable energies into the mainstream, as well as Tony Marmont who founded and runs the energy farm in Britain which has inspired our Local Energy Farms Initiative. We also welcome Carol Werner, head of the Environmental and Energy Study Institute in Washington - she has worked for over 25 years on public policy and renewable energy. For the other distinguished panel members please visit the Local Energy Farms Advisory Panel. [http://www.postcarbon.org/relocalize/energyfarmpanel] .
Local Energy Farm Business Plan
Local Energy Farm Panel member Richard George, with years of finance and business experience, has been commissioned to write a business plan. This will be no ordinary business plan, since we are working on novel ways of allowing community resources to flow into - and out of - local energy farms without fuelling the debt-based, interest-bearing money system. To facilitate this, we envisage setting up Community Supported Energy (similar to Community Supported Manufacturing [http://www.postcarbon.org/relocalize/manufacturing], see also Newsletter #7 [http:/ /www.postcarbon.org/news/newsletters/sept2005] and linking it to energy-backed local currencies as part of the hybrid solutions we intend to pioneer.
First Energy Farm and More Test Sites
We are very pleased to report that an Outpost member has already purchased land for an energy farm (see below - Post Carbon News In Brief) and we hope to begin installations very shortly. With the first energy farm about to come to fruition and the Business Plan under way, we are actively looking for more energy farm sites and would like to hear from those of you who may have land or resources you would like to make available. Email us at energyfarm@postcarbon.org.
2. Major Gift
We are pleased to announce that we have recently received a major grant for $75,000 from an anonymous donor. This grant will enable us to make the critical shift from being completely volunteer-run to working with several contract staff positions. In addition, we shall use the funds to improve our websites and the systems to help the Relocalization Network.
3. Post Carbon News In Brief
Flathead Outpost member Peter Myers purchases property for local energy farm.
Peter Myers scouted a number of locations in Montana and Washington State, before settling on land in Eastern Washington. "I'm focused on making an energy farm and leading a sustainable lifestyle," Myers says, adding that running a school and having a small post carbon community associated with the energy farm are also important parts of his goal. "I have two small children and I want them to grow up in a sustainable way."
Post Carbon Institute Director Julian Darley visits the Centre for Alternative Technology (CAT) in Wales.
CAT [http://www.cat.org.uk] has been in existence for 25 years and offers a fascinating chance to see low-energy living in action. The centre has examples of sustainable energy, organic growing, environmentally sound buildings and more. CAT has helped the local community to buy, install and run mid-scale wind turbines - a phenomenon common in Denmark, but unusual in the English-speaking world, but one which we believe should be promoted vigorously.
4. Featured Outpost: The Titanic Lifeboat Academy
In 2004, Caren Black and Christopher Paddon established a Post Carbon Outpost called The Titanic Lifeboat Academy [http://lifeboat.postcarbon.org] in Astoria, Oregon. They provide education and awareness about peak oil, global climate change, population overshoot and environmental degradation. Their main focus is on education and teaching sustainable living. Black and Paddon held a successful conference this summer called "Doing Something about Peak Oil." They have also organized a series of three-part workshops to help people devise workable plans to deal with the coming crises in energy supply. "Building Your Lifeboat" workshops will begin January 13-15, 2006.
Caren Black writes monthly columns about sustainable living in the local magazine Hipfish. [http://www.postcarbon.org/lifeboat/page6.html] Christopher helps Caren with articles for an on-line publication [called??] and a radio show on KMUN 91.9 FM Community Radio [http://www.kmun.org/] in Astoria. This media work goes a long way toward increasing public awareness of peak oil and our unsustainable energy-hogging lifestyles.
Black and Paddon practice what they preach. Their "Building Your Lifeboat" workshops focus on community and individual actions. As part of their personal outreach to their community, they have been lobbying for wind energy in Astoria. Christopher reports that a group he works with have recently got approval in principle from the director of the Port of Astoria to build several wind turbines on Pier 3 (part of the Astoria Port).
For more information go to: [http://lifeboat.postcarbon.org]
5. Introducing Post Carbon Board Member: James Howard Kunstler
James Howard Kunstler is one of America's great critics of suburbia and its associated sprawling, energy-sucking infrastructure. He is known for such biting phrases such as "drive- by architecture" - describing the automobile-oriented, pedestrian-unfriendly design of strip malls and development along suburban commercial roads - and the "consensus trance" about the inertia of the American Dream.
Kunstler calls the development of suburbs and their associated car-addicted infrastructure one of the greatest misallocations of resources in the history of the world.
Born and raised in New York City, Kunstler now lives in Saratoga Springs, NY. He started working as a newspaper reporter, leading to a staff writing job with The Rolling Stone before quitting to work full-time on books.
Kunstler is the author of four non-fiction works on cities and the challenges facing American society. Geography of Nowhere is one of the most powerful - and poignant - analyses of the problems of North American settlement patterns, a theme he furthered developed in Home From Nowhere, and expanded in his comparative analysis of the urban form in Cities In Mind.
His latest work, The Long Emergency [https://store.postcarbon.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=20], offers a powerful projection of the dawning global energy crisis and its possible aftermaths.
Kunstler is featured in the documentary, The End of Suburbia: Oil Decline and the Collapse of the American Dream. [https://store.postcarbon.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=51]
See the whole Board [http://www.metafoundation.org/board.php]
6. New Appointments
We welcome three new additions to the Post Carbon team.
Christina Olsen joins us as Administration Manager in Vancouver to oversee the day-to-day administration of MetaFoundation, Post Carbon Institute and Global Public Media. She has a degree in environmental studies and anthropology from the University of Victoria and has worked for a variety of environmental organizations, including Television for the Environment in London, England. You can contact her at christina@postcarbon.org
Liz McDowell will be joining the fundraising effort as our new Development Coordinator. She will be working in the Vancouver office to help Celine implement Post Carbon's ambitious plans for the future. Liz studied business and international development at McGill University in Montreal and was the project coordinator for the Sustainable McGill Project. She can be reached at liz@postcarbon.org
Shelby Tay, a fourth year environmental science student at the University of British Columbia, is joining our team as Program Coordinator. She will be establishing a communication network amongst new and existing Outpost groups and developing lines of communication with all members of the Relocalization Network. You can reach her at shelby@postcarbon.org
7. Global Public Media News
Ritawatch: Post Carbon Institute and its sister organisation, internet broadcast station Global Public Media, have offered both our own special reports and other media reports on the progress and immediate effects of Hurricane Rita, which hit the Gulf of Mexico in September. Following the recent devastating US hurricanes, we are currently producing feature radio reports on the new revelations about the damage. We are particularly featuring natural gas - this is the fuel which increasingly looks as if it will cause a crisis both in North America and Europe, even as all eyes are on oil (which will be problematic enough). Natural gas is very hard to transport to new places - it takes years and billions of dollars (or pounds) to put in a Liquefied Natural Gas chain (and is a bad idea anyway - see Julian Darley's High Noon for Natural Gas [http://www.highnoon.ws/] for explanation). This means that nations have to rely on their existing gas sources and infrastructure. Thus, if demand goes up and supply goes down, a crisis will almost certainly ensue. That is exactly what is now happening in North American and the British Isles.
For Global Public Media's regular and special energy reporting go to [http://www.globalpublicmedia.com]. For Post Carbon's collection of sources on Hurricane Rita : [http://www.postcarbon.org/features/rita]
8. Next Newsletter Preview
The Oil Depletion Protocol: a far-sighted global and local policy response to peak oil and gas. The Protocol has been created and initiated by Colin Campbell, and is now being developed into a full plan by Richard Heinberg. Post Carbon Institute is proud to be assisting in this effort, which will become an international campaign of extraordinary importance.
The Post Carbon Institute encourages the following courses of action:
- Begin building Parallel Public Infrastructure (we are working on research and guidelines)
- Write letters to the editor of your newspapers and to your local politicians-- (mention Peak Oil and Gas)
- Tell your friends and neighbors what's happening
- Start a Post Carbon Outpost
- Forward this newsletter to others
- Support our efforts by becoming a member
The Post Carbon Institute newsletter is designed to inform you of the work of the Institute, which is to help educate and prepare communities for a world of declining oil production. For North Americans and those in the British Isles and New Zealand, peak oil is compounded by heavy dependence on now declining natural gas production.
Help us get this message out to the rest of the world -- please forward this email and encourage your friends, family members, co-workers, planners, policy makers, and politicians to subscribe.
Post Carbon Institute is an Initiative of MetaFoundation.
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Post Carbon Institute is an Initiative of Metafoundation, Incorporated in Eugene, Oregon
