September 27

The US National Peak Oil Conference was held this past weekend in Yellow Springs Ohio, the home of another fine Peak Oil think tank, the Community Solution. I travelled with the coordinator of the Post Carbon Outpost from Burlington, Ian Graham. We learned a great deal, including discussions on home building, urban agriculture and permaculture, transportations systems, as well as municipal planning for Peak Oil. We were fortunate to hook up with several Canadians stretching from Ottawa to Windsor and built new relationships to support each other in coming years. Further, as it pertains to us in SW Ontario, I made a few Michigan contacts too.

Last evening James Kunstler spoke at the University of Windsor. I have heard him speak before in New York, and this talk was very similar. I believe there were approximately 80 in attendence, with 75% of them male, a fact my travelling companion commented on with some degree of curiousity.

Jim spoke with Windsor's mayor yesterday for about 40 minutes and was scheduled to have breakfast with Windsor's council and strategic planning committee today. I hope they have the courage and foresight to truly listen to what this expert on energy issues and urban planning has to say.

It was good to meet and talk with Jim. He had a cold but being the consumate professional, he delivered with his usual vigor and kept the group involved and interested as evidenced by the number of questions and books he signed after the talk.

August 26

I was at the Sustainable Energy Forum over the weekend in Michigan. It was a good conference with over 100 people in attendence. There were educators, environmentalists, non-profits, engineers, business and even a few politicians. I spent an hour getting the basic run-down on straw house and cob house building. They have a cottage on site that stands as testement to the method.

I met some of our fellow Post Carbon folks from the states. John Richter and his excellent executive. John has been studying Peak since he was 13 years old! Given he's now about 40-41 this is exceptional, even unique. Needless to say the man knows his stuff. They put on a very polished 3 part seminar on Peak and a few visions of the future as well as replacement fuels.

I met a number of good people that it would be good to strengthen our relations with. I mentioned the conference in London and there was some interest in attending.

All movements start with little bits and pieces continuing to come together until critical mass occurs, from what I can see, we're growing and with some very smart people on the job.

June 26

Guys, Lester Brown's books on peak oil and sustainability are available online for order or viewing in pdf format. The site is found here: http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/index.htm

I encourage the reading of Plan B, chapter 2, the chapter concerning Peak Oil and Chapter 11 on designing sustainable cities in particular.

June 4

Well gang,

We had our first show. I thank all of you for your efforts to get the word out to the community and the guests that it brought to the screening. I wish to particularly centre Michael out for his outstanding work in the audio-visual realm, both for the use of his laptop to show the documentary as well as getting it to work in the first place! We had a few RSVPs not show up and a few unexpected but, nonetheless, welcome guests. We will probably have to show this a few more times in the future and I am being facetious when I say 'few'. Thank you all again for your support for this group and this community.
keep the faith, we're all in this together

Lance

May 16

I have been out in the community posting flyers for the End of Suburbia and talking with various business people, leaders, farmers, teachers, etc. I encourage you to talk with people that would have a natural interest in this issue too. The more people we have aware of this challenge the easier it will be to help Chatham-Kent. Julian Darley, the founder of the Institute has been described by his peers as being in the business of saving lives, and in a sense, we are.
As energy costs rise and discretionary incomes disapear, there will be a need for people who have coping strategies thought up that are specific to CK. CK's two biggest private employers rely on cheap hydrocarbons. The truck plant requires that there be a market for the products that move down the road on its product as well as it is remaining a cost effective way to transport goods. As fuel prices increase, the demands for those goods through diminished discetionary income will decrease, so the demand for trucks will increase. For those with some disposalable income to spare, transportation and manufacturing costs will be passed along to the consumer. All of this amounts to fewer trucks sales and fewer parts sales for feeder plants and will result in layoffs.
If this news wasn't enough sunshine for your day, the Gas is also vulnerable as natural gas peaked in Canada and the USA in 2001. Mexico has recently stopped its exports of natural gas to its NAFTA partners so this is not a source of supply for us. Also, Canada as a result of NAFTA, sells 60% of its production to the USA. There is natural gas in places like Bolivia and the Middle East but transport costs of getting the stuff to minus 253 degrees Celcius and the port facilities to off load it make the costs prohibitive. Thus people will be facing higher costs to heat their homes by gas, or through gas generated electricity, to heat them that way. The gas may face layoffs of its own in an effort to cut costs wherever possible.
We have challenges ahead, but we also have assets in CK, our agricultural base and fresh water to maintain it will largely be our best parachute. So in a sense, we are saving lives, helping people transform from one life to another, with as little turmoil as possible in betwen. More discussion at future meetings.

see you there,

Lance