David MacLeod's Posts - Transition Whatcom2024-03-19T09:52:39ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeodhttp://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/5560384493?profile=RESIZE_48X48&width=48&height=48&crop=1%3A1http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blog/feed?user=07gtkcy73e5ut&xn_auth=noPatterns for Navigating the Transition to a World in Energy Descenttag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2015-09-03:2723460:BlogPost:1033102015-09-03T18:14:19.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg" style="font-size: 13px;"><img alt="Integral Leadership Review" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1993" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg?w=640"></img></a> <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/" style="font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">Integral Leadership Review</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> (ILR) has published the paper I presented to the recent </span><a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/?offset=1437163743337" style="font-size: 13px;" target="_blank">Integral Theory…</a></h1>
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<h1 class="entry-title"><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg" style="font-size: 13px;"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1993" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-cover.jpg?w=640" alt="Integral Leadership Review"/></a><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Integral Leadership Review</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> (ILR) has published the paper I presented to the recent </span><a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/?offset=1437163743337" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Integral Theory Conference</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> 2015, “</span><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13462-819-%ef%bb%bfpatterns-for-navigating-the-transition-to-a-world-in-energy-descent/" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">Patterns for Navigating the Transition to a World in Energy Descent</a><span style="font-size: 13px;">” in their </span><a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/table-of-contents/?slug=august-november-2015" target="_blank" style="font-size: 13px;">August-November 2015</a><span style="font-size: 13px;"> issue.</span></h1>
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<div class="entry-content"><p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-heading.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1994" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-heading.jpg?w=640" alt="ILR heading"/></a><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-patterns-for-navigating-intro.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1995" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ilr-patterns-for-navigating-intro.jpg?w=640" alt="ILR Patterns for Navigating Intro"/></a></p>
<h1><strong>Abstract</strong></h1>
<p>This paper considers current concerns about resource depletion (“energy descent”) and the unsustainability of current economic structures, which may indicate we are entering a new era signaled by the end of growth. Using the systems thinking tool of PatternDynamics™, developed by Tim Winton, this paper seeks to integrate multiple natural patterns in order to effectively impact these pressing challenges. Some of the Patterns considered include Energy, Transformity, Power, Pulse, Growth, and the polarities of Expansion/Contraction and Order/Chaos.</p>
<p>We tend to have horrible visions associated with downturns and “collapse.” Can we even entertain the possibility that we might be entering a period of decline in energy and standard of living? Can we re-examine our assumptions about “growth” and “development”? Jean Gebser’s emphasis that every mutation of structure is preceded by a crisis is considered and Howard T. Odum’s ideas about energy as the basis of man and nature informs the discussion. Edgar Morin’s <em>dialogic</em> <em>Method</em> of active inquiry in regards to the interplay of polarities assists in our understanding and response to the complex challenges we face.</p>
<p>Read the paper <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13462-819-%EF%BB%BFpatterns-for-navigating-the-transition-to-a-world-in-energy-descent/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Also in this issue</strong> is Tim Winton’s reflections on the conference that is worth reading: “<a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/13570-819-notes-on-the-field-thoughts-on-integral-leadership-post-itc-2015/" target="_blank">A Note on the Field: Thoughts on Integral Leadership Post ITC 2015</a>.”</p>
<p>Jeremy Johnson also did a great job as the official conference blogger. Some of you might be able to identify me in the first photo on <a href="http://www.jeremydanieljohnson.com/blog/2015/8/3/theories-have-become-their-dancing-reflections-on-itc2015s-artistic-nocturne" target="_blank">this page</a> (Jeremy and Tim were two of my five suite-mates, which also included Chris Dierkes, Gaby McDonald, and Trevor Malkinson).</p>
<p><strong>About ILR, from their website:</strong></p>
<blockquote><h3><em>Integral Leadership Review</em> – the world’s premier publication of integrated approaches to leading and leadership.</h3>
<p><em>Integral Leadership Review</em> is a bridging publication that links authors and readers across cultures around the world. It serves leaders, professionals and academics engaged in the practice, development and theory of leadership. It bridges multiple perspectives by drawing on integral, transdisciplinary, complexity and developmental frameworks. These bridges are intended to assist all who read the <em>Integral Leadership Review </em>to develop and implement comprehensive shifts in strategies by providing lessons from experience, insights, and tools all can use in addressing the challenges facing the world.</p>
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</div>Fossil Fueled Republicans and The Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Questiontag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-30:2723460:BlogPost:1002672014-11-30T21:32:29.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<div class="entry-content"><p>In my final post in the <em>Holiday Smorgasbord</em> series, I want to share two articles that are each directed at (and finding fault with) different ends of the political spectrum. I don’t think the point of either of these articles is to demonize individuals who embrace either conservatism or liberalism, but rather to point out that in general we are not being served by the mainstream political discourse from either perspective. I find these articles…</p>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>In my final post in the <em>Holiday Smorgasbord</em> series, I want to share two articles that are each directed at (and finding fault with) different ends of the political spectrum. I don’t think the point of either of these articles is to demonize individuals who embrace either conservatism or liberalism, but rather to point out that in general we are not being served by the mainstream political discourse from either perspective. I find these articles by Michael Klare and Erik Lindberg to bring an appropriate balance to one another. I close with the alternative offered by Peter Pogany.</p>
<p><strong>Fossil-Fueled Republicanism</strong></p>
<p>Michael Klare’s latest post offers his take what the latest U.S. election results portends for the immediate future:</p>
<blockquote><div>Pop the champagne corks in Washington! It’s party time for Big Energy. In the wake of the midterm elections, Republican energy hawks are ascendant, having taken the Senate and House by storm. They are preparing to put pressure on a president already presiding over a largely <a class="external" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175889/michael_klare_oil_rush_in_america" target="_blank">drill-baby-drill administration</a> to take the last constraints off the development of North American fossil fuel reserves.</div>
<div>The new Republican majority is certain to push their agenda on a variety of key issues, including tax reform and immigration. None of their initiatives, however, will have as catastrophic an impact as their coming drive to ensure that fossil fuels will dominate the nation’s energy landscape into the distant future, long after climate change has wrecked the planet and ruined the lives of millions of Americans.</div>
<div><a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175924/tomgram%3A_michael_klare%2C_the_new_congress_and_planetary_disaster/" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</div>
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<div><strong>Six Myths About Climate Change that Liberals Rarely Question</strong></div>
<div>This post by Erik Lindberg is, as of this writing, showing 551 comments on the Resilience.org site – by far the largest number of comments I have ever seen on a single post at that site. Some liberals are taking offense, but I think are missing the point, as I stated at the top of this post.</div>
<div><blockquote><p><b>Myth #1: Liberals Are Not In Denial </b></p>
<p><i>“We will not apologize for our way of life” –</i>Barack Obama</p>
<p>The conservative denial of the very fact of climate change looms large in the minds of many liberals. How, we ask, could people ignore so much solid and unrefuted evidence? Will they deny the existence of fire as Rome burns once again? With so much at stake, this denial is maddening, indeed. But almost never discussed is an unfortunate side-effect of this denial: it has all but insured that any national debate in America will occur in a place where most liberals are not required to challenge any of their own beliefs. The question has been reduced to a two-sided affair—is it happening or is it not—and liberals are obviously on the right side of that.</p>
<p>If we broadened the debate just a little bit, however, we would see that most liberals have just moved a giant boat-load of denial down-stream, and that this denial is as harmful as that of conservatives. While the various aspects of liberal denial are my main overall topic, here, and will be addressed in our following five sections, they add up to the belief that we can avoid the most catastrophic levels of climate disruption without changing our fundamental way of life. This is myth is based on errors that are as profound and basic as the conservative denial of climate change itself.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-11-26/six-myths-about-climate-change-that-liberals-rarely-question" target="_blank">Read more here</a>.</p>
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<p><strong>Rethinking the World</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/rethinking-the-world.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1960" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/rethinking-the-world.jpg?w=200&h=300" alt="Rethinking the World" height="300" width="200"/></a>Now, if this is the situation we find ourselves in with mainstream political discourse, with its unwillingness to consider options other than continued growth (about which <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/29/responding-to-limits-to-growth-embrace-life-and-locate-your-values/" target="_blank">see yesterday’s post here</a>) – is there hope for meaningful action? If folks want to explore this further, consider the work of <a href="https://ideas.repec.org/f/ppo294.html" target="_blank"><strong>Peter Pogany</strong></a>, whom I’ve been reading lately. Pogany has pointed out that we currently live in a “world order” or “global system” (since approximately 1945) that is basically not capable of voluntarily moving beyond the paradigm of economic growth; therefore a chaotic transition to a new global system will be required :</p>
<blockquote><p>“The current world order cannot deliver long-term sustainability on a planetary scale. By design, it is incapable of recognizing humanity’s thermodynamic reality. A new form of global self-organization is needed and it is probably waiting in the wings.” (<a href="http://blog.gebser.net/" rel="nofollow">http://blog.gebser.net/</a>)</p>
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<p>Pogany doesn’t mean there’s something all set up that we can easily and seamlessly transition to. On the contrary, he sees world history as a “thermodynamic process of self-organization,” which “precludes smooth transition from one relative, globally valid steady state to the next.” (quoted from his 2006 book <a href="http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/rethinking-the-world-peter-pogany/1008215147?ean=9780595678686" target="_blank"><em>Rethinking the World</em></a>).<br/> But he does see, based on his own work, as well as that of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean_Gebser" target="_blank">Jean Gebser</a> (<em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Ever-Present-Origin-Part-Aperspectival-Manifestations/dp/0821407694" target="_blank">The Ever Present Origin</a></em>) that after a period of chaotic transition, we will move “toward a new form of self-organization that would recognize limits to demographic-economic expansion. What will it take to go from the current hostile disgust with the dystopia of tightened modes of multilateral governance to people around the world on their knees begging for a planetary guild? It will take nothing less than a mutation in consciousness, as outlined in the oeuvre of Jean Gebser (1905-1973).” (quoted from his 2013 paper on <em><a href="http://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/49924/" target="_blank">Thermodynamic Isolation and the New World Order</a></em>).</p>
<p>This is no fairy tale, and yes, human agency is definitely involved. Pogany’s approach is a systems thinking approach with a the laws of thermodynamics as a foundation, and built around his own expertise as an economist; he calls his approach <em>new historical materialism</em>.</p>
<blockquote><p>“Only Cassandra may know whether the “best” (a quick global transformation), the “historically conditioned expectation,” or the worst (no global transformation, not even in the wake of an ecological disaster) is in the womb of time.”</p>
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<p>Too woo-woo? Only if you consider previous transformations to be woo-woo. Pogany sees the French revolution as a chaotic transition to Global System 1, characterized as “laissez faire/metal money,” and two world wars and the Great Depression as the transition to the current Global System 2, characterized as “mixed economy/weak multilateralism.” What will it take to transform into a radically new Global System 3, which he expects to be characterized as “two-level economy/strong multilateralism,” and which, he says “will favor cooperation over competition; acquiescence over indifference; responsible sociability over isolation; integrative open-mindedness over stubborn, perspectival dogmatism, altruism over extrasomatic hedonism.”</p>
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<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24128" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27898"><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125">Previous posts in this series: A Holiday Smorgasbord of Recommended Reading, Listening, and Watching by David MacLeod</span></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24245" dir="ltr"><br/><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125"></span></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24246" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27217"><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/watching-the-watchdogs" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362">Watching the Watchdogs: 10 Years of the IEA World Energy Outlook</a></span></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27326" dir="ltr">The primary deliverable from the IEA is the massive <em id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_29314" class="yiv6970894684">World Energy Outlook</em> (WEO) report that is released annually in November. Concerned about peak oil, I began reading the Executive Summary to this report 10 years ago.<br/><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27217"><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125"></span></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27327" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27217"><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-holiday-smorgasbord-part-1-climate-change-and-pacific-northwest" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362"> </a></span></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27328" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_27217"><span id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24125"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-holiday-smorgasbord-part-1-climate-change-and-pacific-northwest" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24362">Climate Change and Pacific Northwest Glaciers</a></span></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24248" dir="ltr">Here’s a story from KUOW’s Ashley Ahearn that aired on NPR on how climate change is affecting the glaciers in Washington State – focused on the Easton glacier on Mt. Baker, and the Skagit River it drains into. Since 1900 we’ve lost about 50 percent of our glacier area, and this makes the Northwest “uniquely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”</div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24091"><div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24556"> </div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24557" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24706"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24670" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/a-holiday-smorgasbord-part-2-permaculture-a-vision-of-a-post-oil-" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24670">Permaculture, A Vision of a Post-Oil World</a></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24558" dir="ltr">Yves Cochet's Preface to the French edition of <i id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24705">Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</i>.</div>
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<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24561" dir="ltr"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_25697"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_25055" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/post-navigation-older-posts-what-s-going-on-with-low-gas-prices-s" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_25055">What’s Going on with Low Gas Prices, Shale Oil, American Energy Independence, and OPEC?</a></b></div>
<div id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_24948" dir="ltr">There’s a lot of confusion going on right now – as the price of gasoline in the U.S. is declining, we are becoming ever more complacent....</div>
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<div dir="ltr" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_25391"><b id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_26831"><a rel="nofollow" id="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_26115" target="_blank" href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/responding-to-limits-to-growth-embrace-life-and-locate-your-value" name="yiv6970894684yui_3_16_0_1_1417290633905_26115">Responding to Limits to Growth: Embrace Life and Locate Your Values</a></b></div>
<p>two voices that I have been following off and on for the last decade, and who have both been warning about limits to growth, and more importantly what we as individuals can do about it: Nate Hagens and John Michael Greer.</p>
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</div>Responding to Limits to Growth: Embrace Life and Locate Your Valuestag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-29:2723460:BlogPost:1002652014-11-29T23:43:54.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>In today’s installment of our Holiday Smorgasbord, I bring you two voices that I have been following off and on for the last decade, and who have both been warning about limits to growth, and more importantly what we as individuals can do about it.</p>
<p><strong>Nate Hagens on Limits to Growth: Where We Are and What to Do About It</strong></p>
<p>Nate Hagens, a former “wolf of Wall Street” stock trader/money manager, and then a …</p>
<p>In today’s installment of our Holiday Smorgasbord, I bring you two voices that I have been following off and on for the last decade, and who have both been warning about limits to growth, and more importantly what we as individuals can do about it.</p>
<p><strong>Nate Hagens on Limits to Growth: Where We Are and What to Do About It</strong></p>
<p>Nate Hagens, a former “wolf of Wall Street” stock trader/money manager, and then a <a id="yiv9588396956yui_3_16_0_1_1416683572677_64741" href="http://www.theoildrum.com/search/apachesolr_search/Sasquatch" target="_parent" rel="nofollow" name="yiv9588396956yui_3_16_0_1_1416683572677_64741">popular writer</a> (for a long time under the ‘Sasquatch’ nom de plume) at The Oil Drum website. Here is his presentation at the recent Degrowth conference in Vancouver, B.C. It’s long – an hour and a half, but worth watching. Hagens talks about the big picture of energy, money, environment, behavior (how neurotransmitters and hormones motivate our behavior), where we are in 2014, and some take-aways on what we can do in our own lives. Along the way he shares his own story – and how he’s never been happier. Interestingly at this “Degrowth” conference, Hagens makes it clear that he’s not advocating for degrowth – rather he thinks the end of growth is a reality, and we have to deal with it. His top-level recommendation is to “embrace life.” <a id="yiv9588396956yui_3_16_0_1_1416683572677_23681" class="yiv9588396956" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1_dsU1Dx0A" target="_parent" rel="nofollow" name="yiv9588396956yui_3_16_0_1_1416683572677_23681">Nate Hagens – Limits to Growth: Where We Are and What to Do About It</a></p>
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<p><strong>Facts, Values, and Dark Beer</strong></p>
<p>Another memorable post by John Michael Greer, wide ranging and addressing some deep questions, such as the meaning of life, especially in the context of a difficult future:</p>
<blockquote><p>Claiming that one such sphere is the only thing that makes human life worthwhile is an error of the same kind. If Ervino feels that scientific and technological progress is the only thing that makes his own personal life worth living, that’s his call, and presumably he has reasons for it. If he tries to say that that’s true for me, he’s wrong—there are plenty of things that make my life worth living—and if he’s trying to make the same claim for every human being who will ever live, that strikes me as a profoundly impoverished view of the richness of human possibility. Insisting that scientific and technological progress are the only acts of human beings that differentiate their existence from that of a plant isn’t much better. Dante’s <i>Divina Commedia</i>, to cite the obvious example, is neither a scientific paper nor a technological invention; does that mean that it belongs in the same category as the noise made by hogs grunting in the mud?</p>
<p>…As for me—well, all things considered, I find that being alive beats the stuffing out of the alternative, and that’s true even though I live in a troubled age in which scientific and technological progress show every sign of grinding to a halt in the near future, and in which warfare, injustice, famine, pestilence, and the collapse of widely held beliefs are matters of common experience. The notion that life has to justify itself to me seems, if I may be frank, faintly silly, and so does the comparable claim that I have to justify my existence to it, or to anyone else. Here I am; I did not make the world; quite the contrary, the world made me, and put me in the irreducibly personal situation in which I find myself. Given that I’m here, where and when I happen to be, there are any number of things that I can choose to do, or not do; and it so happens that one of the things I choose to do is to prepare, and help others prepare, for the long decline of industrial civilization and the coming of the dark age that will follow it.</p>
<p>Read <a href="http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/11/facts-values-and-dark-beer.html" target="_parent">Facts, Values, and Dark Beer here</a>.</p>
</blockquote>What’s Going on with Low Gas Prices, Shale Oil, American Energy Independence, and OPEC?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-28:2723460:BlogPost:999672014-11-28T21:30:00.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gas-price-nov-26-2014.jpg"><img alt="Orlin Wagner/AP" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1947" height="224" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gas-price-nov-26-2014.jpg?w=300&h=224" width="300"></img></a> (image source: <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/27/367013836/opec-holds-production-steady-signaling-lower-fuel-prices" target="_blank">Orlin Wagner/AP</a>)</p>
<p>There’s a lot of confusion going on right now – as the price of gasoline in the U.S. is declining, we are becoming ever more complacent. Today we saw another steep drop in the price of oil…</p>
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<p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gas-price-nov-26-2014.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-1947" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/gas-price-nov-26-2014.jpg?w=300&h=224" alt="Orlin Wagner/AP" height="224" width="300"/></a> (image source: <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/11/27/367013836/opec-holds-production-steady-signaling-lower-fuel-prices" target="_blank">Orlin Wagner/AP</a>)</p>
<p>There’s a lot of confusion going on right now – as the price of gasoline in the U.S. is declining, we are becoming ever more complacent. Today we saw another steep drop in the price of oil to a four year low under $68/barrel. Is this a sign that peak oil is dead, and that we have indeed entered a new era of energy independence in the U.S., thanks to the fracking phenomena, giving us an expanding bonanza of shale oil and gas? Today’s installment in our Holiday Smorgasbord series takes a look at these issues, and the significance of the decision made yesterday by OPEC to keep oil production at current levels.</p>
<p><strong>Read More at</strong> <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/28/whats-going-on-with-low-gas-prices-shale-oil-american-energy-independence-and-opec/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a></p>A Holiday Smorgasbord Part 2: Permaculture, A Vision of a Post-Oil Worldtag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-27:2723460:BlogPost:1000642014-11-27T21:10:14.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Today’s installment of our holiday smorgasbord features an approach to the environmental crisis and the energy crisis and the economic crisis that I’m very thankful for…Permaculture.</p>
<p><strong>Permaculture, A vision of a post-oil world</strong></p>
<div class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 649px;"><a href="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/YC-SanFrancisco-Solaire-e1416108320215.jpg"><img alt="" height="426" src="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/YC-SanFrancisco-Solaire-e1416108320215.jpg" width="639"></img></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Yves Cochet</p>
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<p>Yves Cochet…</p>
<p>Today’s installment of our holiday smorgasbord features an approach to the environmental crisis and the energy crisis and the economic crisis that I’m very thankful for…Permaculture.</p>
<p><strong>Permaculture, A vision of a post-oil world</strong></p>
<div style="width: 649px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/YC-SanFrancisco-Solaire-e1416108320215.jpg"><img src="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/YC-SanFrancisco-Solaire-e1416108320215.jpg" alt="" height="426" width="639"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Yves Cochet</p>
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<p>Yves Cochet has written the preface to the <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/french/" target="_blank">French edition</a> of David Holmgren’s <em>Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</em>. Yves Cochet was a minister for the environment in the French national government, and is now an elected member of <a href="http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meps/en/1202/YVES_COCHET_home.html" target="_blank">Euro parliament</a> for the Greens.</p>
<p>In his own Preface in the original, Holmgren was very clear that “Permaculture is a creative design response to a world of declining energy and resource availability…” and that it “was predicated on the likelihood of some degree of collapse and breakdown in technology, economics and even society…”</p>
<p>In my copy of the book I have a star by this paragraph:</p>
<blockquote><p>Insofar as permaculture is an effective response to the limitations on use of energy and natural resources, it will move from its current status as “alternative response to environmental crisis” to the social and economic mainstream of the post-industrial era. Whether it will be called permaculture or not is a secondary matter.</p>
<p>- David Holmgren</p>
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<p>In the new French edition, Cochet shows a keen understanding of Holmgren’s thought. It is clear, it is succinct, and I think very well captures David Holmgren’s message on the essence of Permaculture, and I highly recommend taking a look at the English translation.</p>
<blockquote><p><em>More than an agricultural technology, permaculture is a vision of the societies of tomorrow, ours, which will be confronted with the evolution of energy and climate systems. Permaculture is not only another way to garden: it is another way of thinking about and acting on the world, a global philosophical and concrete change. At the same time permaculture draws together strategies of resilience in the face of imminent radical transformations, if not collapses.</em></p>
<p>- Yves Cochet</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Download the entire translated preface from David Holmgren’s website here: <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/preface-french-edition-principles-yves-cochet/" target="_blank">Permaculture, a vision of a post-oil world</a>. And join me today in giving thanks for Permaculture!</strong></p>A Holiday Smorgasbord Part 1: Climate Change and Pacific Northwest Glacierstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-26:2723460:BlogPost:995802014-11-26T22:37:40.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>I’m giving thanks that there are so many good sources of information available on the current state of affairs regarding climate, energy, and the environment. Unfortunately most are not showing up in the mainstream media, so we have to search them out.</p>
<p>On a long Thanksgiving weekend, many of us tend to eat a lot, shop a lot, and then veg out in front of ball games or other distractions.</p>
<p>For the next few days I’ll be providing an alternative to how you spend some of your holiday…</p>
<p>I’m giving thanks that there are so many good sources of information available on the current state of affairs regarding climate, energy, and the environment. Unfortunately most are not showing up in the mainstream media, so we have to search them out.</p>
<p>On a long Thanksgiving weekend, many of us tend to eat a lot, shop a lot, and then veg out in front of ball games or other distractions.</p>
<p>For the next few days I’ll be providing an alternative to how you spend some of your holiday weekend with a holiday smorgasbord of <strong>Recommended Reading, Listening, and Watching</strong>. Curl up with a cup of tea or hot chocolate (see <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/15/the-worlds-biggest-chocolate-maker-says-were-running-out-of-chocolate/" target="_blank">this story on peak chocolate</a>), and partake of this information download. I apologize in advance that this isn’t all good news, but please keep in mind Thomas Hardy’s adage: “<em>If a path to the better there be, it begins with a full look at the worst</em>.” On today’s menu…</p>
<p><strong>What Climate Change Means for Mt. Baker and the Skagit River</strong></p>
<p>Here’s a story from KUOW’s Ashley Ahearn that aired on NPR on how climate change is affecting the glaciers in Washington State – focused on the Easton glacier on Mt. Baker, and the Skagit River it drains into. Since 1900 we’ve lost about 50 percent of our glacier area, and this makes the Northwest “uniquely vulnerable to the effects of climate change.”<br/> Read the <a href="http://earthfix.opb.org/water/article/how-the-fate-of-glaciers-could-change-lives-in-the/" target="_blank">full story here: What Climate Change Means for a Land of Glaciers</a>.<br/> Listen to the <a href="https://soundcloud.com/earthfix/gone-glaciers-salmon-hydropower-and-a-changing-northwest" target="_blank">NPR report here</a>.</p>
<p>And here’s a short video companion to the story on <strong>The Melting Easton Glacier</strong>:</p>
<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/AwztZ-PvATg?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<p>The above story is especially poignant, as it has been recently revealed that NPR has gutted its climate coverage and reduced environmental reporting to one part-time reporter. The story broke on <a href="http://insideclimatenews.org/news/20141024/npr-reduces-its-environment-team-one-reporter" target="_blank">Inside Climate News</a>, with further commentary by Joe Romm at <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2014/10/24/3584246/npr-guts-climate-team/" target="_blank">Think Progress</a>, who now puts NPR into the category of "part of the problem." Credo has a clicktivism campaign going on in response, in case you care to participate: <a href="http://act.credoaction.com/sign/NPR_Dont_Abandon_Environment/?t=5&akid=12168.1824150.59BqO-" target="_blank">Tell NPR: Don't reduce your coverage of climate change and other environmental issues</a>.</p>
<p>Related: <em><a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/23/us/climate-change-threatens-to-strip-the-identity-of-glacier-national-park.html?action=click&contentCollection=Asia%20Pacific&module=MostEmailed&version=Full&region=Marginalia&src=me&pgtype=article" target="_blank">Climate Change Threatens to Strip the Identity of Glacier National Park</a></em> from the New York Times.</p>Watching the Watchdogs: 10 Years of the IEA World Energy Outlooktag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-11-15:2723460:BlogPost:994002014-11-15T01:21:45.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<div class="byline">by <a href="http://www.resilience.org/author-detail/1151479-david-macleod">David MacLeod</a>, originally published by <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/watching-the-watchdogs-10-years-of-the-iea-world-energy-outlook/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> <span class="article_date"> | Nov 13, 2014…</span></div>
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<div class="byline">by <a href="http://www.resilience.org/author-detail/1151479-david-macleod">David MacLeod</a>, originally published by <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/11/12/watching-the-watchdogs-10-years-of-the-iea-world-energy-outlook/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> <span class="article_date"> | Nov 13, 2014</span></div>
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<p><a target="_blank" class="external" href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/weo.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1909" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/weo.jpg?w=640" alt="WEO" height="292" width="500"/></a></p>
<p>The International Energy Agency (IEA) is the energy watchdog of the industrial world. The developed nations of the world were caught off guard by the oil crisis of 1973. They then realized energy resources are so fundamental to all of civilization, and recognized how vulnerable we are to supply disruptions. Forty years ago in 1974, the International Energy Agency was formed, tasked with keeping an eye on these precious resources, and providing policy makers around the world with information to make better informed planning decisions.</p>
<p>The primary deliverable from the IEA is the massive <em>World Energy Outlook</em> (WEO) report that is released annually in November. Concerned about peak oil, I began reading the Executive Summary to this report 10 years ago. Five years ago I wrote a summary of what the report has been telling us from 2005 – 2009, concerning issues related to peak oil: <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2009-11-13/iea-and-world-oil-supply-projections" target="_blank"><em>The IEA and World Oil Supply Projections</em></a>. Given that another 5 years have passed, I offer an update, which will bring us to today’s release of the <a class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/november/signs-of-stress-must-not-be-ignored-iea-warns-in-its-new-world-energy-outlook.html" target="_blank">2014 <em>World Energy Outlook</em></a>.</p>
<p><strong>The short version is this:</strong> The IEA World Energy Outlook has gradually moved from rosy to pessimistic reports over the last ten years, or what <a class="external" href="http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2010/11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil.html" target="_blank">Stuart Staniford</a> called “increasingly reality-based.” Over the last decade, the report’s projected oil demand has gradually decreased by 20 million barrels per day (mb/d), and the projected costs have continued to rise. Yet even their most pessimistic reports, I believe, fail to capture true reality. It seems that politics plays a strong role in what is allowed to be published. It also must be stated that predicting the future “is a fool’s errand,” as Kurt Cobb reminds us in his <a class="external" href="http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2013/11/will-real-international-energy-agency.html" target="_blank">review of the 2013 report</a>.</p>
<p>Not that the report tries to predict the future – its purported purpose is to lay out realistic scenarios that allow for intelligent planning by policymakers. However, the scenarios have not turned out to be realistic, and that’s the rub.</p>
<p>So why should we pay any attention at all to these yearly exercises? 1) because the IEA has access to the most comprehensive data available; 2) because there is much useful information if you learn to read between the lines; and 3) because they are considered the voice of authority by so many; and 4) because it is intriguing (to me anyway), to follow the trajectory, year by year, comparing the changes and the contradictions, and trying to learn something in the process.</p>
<p><strong>The bottom line of the latest report</strong> released today, November 12, 2014, is that we live with an energy system under extreme stress and danger, and sustained political efforts are essential and urgent if we are to avert both supply disruptions and climate disaster. For a couple of independent reports that I feel are more realistic, see the end of the post.</p>
<p><strong>Prior to 2005: Watchdog Fail</strong></p>
<p>It has been reported that the IEA was aware of peak oil as far back as 1998. Researcher <a class="external" href="http://petrole.blog.lemonde.fr/2010/05/18/how-the-global-oil-watchdog-failed-its-mission-13/" target="_blank">Lionel Badel has uncovered the story</a> (a fascinating tale) that the 1998 WEO contained an oil supply graph that included “a balancing item” that they named “unidentified unconventional oil” that conveniently made up for shortages beyond 2010. This was said to have been <strong>a code to indicate peak oil</strong>. The political fallout that resulted after publication of that report resulted in very conservative WEO reports from 2000 to the present.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline; color: #008000;"><strong>Part 1: A Recap of 2005 – 2009</strong></span></p>
<p><strong>2005: Don’t Worry, Be Happy</strong></p>
<p>2005 was the year world oil production begain its multi-year plateau, after steady increases for many years, and is now <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-04-13/did-crude-oil-production-actually-peak-in-2005" target="_blank">regarded by many</a> as the world peak of conventional oil production (<a class="external" href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0360544213009420" target="_blank">see also here</a>). It was also the year <em><a class="external" href="http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/others/pdf/oil_peaking_netl.pdf" target="_blank">The Hirsch Report</a></em> was produced for the U.S. Dept. of Energy, warning that “The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem,” and that mitigation needed to be implemented 20 years in advance of the peak.” In <strong>2005</strong>, peak oil was still seen as a pretty fringe idea. The then executive director of the IEA, Claude Mandil dismissed the idea of peak oil out of hand and stated confidently that “Hydrocarbon resources around the world are abundant and will easily fuel the world through its transition to a sustainable energy future.” [International Energy Agency, 2005. Resources to Reserves: Oil and Gas Technologies for the Energy Markets of the Future, page 3. IEA, Paris, quoted by G. Monbiot, <a target="_blank" class="external" href="http://www.monbiot.com/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/">http://www.monbiot.com/2008/12/15/at-last-a-date/</a>]. <strong>In the 2005 WEO, Oil demand by 2030 was projected to be 120 mb/d.</strong></p>
<p><strong>2006: Expectations Lowered</strong></p>
<p>In <strong>2006</strong>, the peak oil community was pointing out that after years of steadily increasing supply of oil, production had been flat for a full year since 2005 – perhaps “peak oil” had arrived. The 2006 WEO began lowering expectations of demand growth from 120 million barrels per day (mb/d) to <strong>116 mb/d by 2030</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>2007: A Supply Crunch in 2015?</strong></p>
<p>The tone of the <strong>2007</strong> <em>World Energy Outlook</em> was noticeably becoming less rosy. They discussed decline in output from existing fields, admitted the possibility of a temporary supply crunch in 2015, and expressed concern about whether investment needed to meet future demand would be forthcoming. It was noted that we were becoming more dependent on a few Middle Eastern countries as declines in output from other countries increased. <strong>Demand was still projected to be 116 mb/d by 2030.</strong></p>
<p><strong>2008: Findings Replace Assumptions, and Time Is Not On Our Side</strong></p>
<p><strong>2008</strong> marked a significant change in the stance of the IEA in regards to peak oil. The IEA has always focused on projecting oil demand, assuming supply would be forthcoming (as a commenter correctly reminded me in response to my 2009 article). For the first time, the 2008 WEO had undertaken a detailed examination of the 800 largest oilfields and seriously considered supply concerns. And for the first time they acknowledged the peaking or plateauing of conventional oil production: “Although global production in total is not expected to peak before 2030, production of conventional oil…is projected to level off towards the end of the projection period.” Decline rates of existing fields were changed from 3.7% in the previous year to 6.7% in 2008, and projecting an 8.6% decline rate by 2030. <strong>Oil demand projected for 2030 declined from 116 mb/d to 106 mb/d – revised downward by 10 mb/d</strong>, with additional concern that “there can be no guarantee that [these “plentiful” resources] will be exploited quickly enough to meet the level of demand projected.” Considering the dramatic change from previous years projections, British journalist George Monbiot asked IEA chief economist Fatih Birol what the previous figures were based on. The reply: “It was mainly an assumption, a global assumption about the world’s oil fields….Last year it was an assumption, and this year it’s a finding of our study.” Birol further clarified his expectation that conventional oil would come to a “plateau” around 2020, and saying “I think time is not on our side here.”</p>
<p>The WEO 2008 Executive Summary emphasized not only supply concerns, but also the ongoing problem of policy makers avoidance of addressing <strong>climate change:</strong> “Current global trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable – environmentally, economically, socially… It is not an exaggeration to claim that the future of human prosperity depends on how successfully we tackle the two central energy challenges facing us today: securing the supply of reliable and affordable energy; and effecting a rapid transformation to a low-carbon, efficient and environmentally benign system of energy supply. What is needed is nothing short of an energy revolution… The sources of oil to meet rising demand, the cost of producing it and the prices that consumers will need to pay for it are extremely uncertain, perhaps more than ever.” The Summary ends with a strong warning: “Time is running out and the time to act is now.”</p>
<p><strong>2009: The Whistleblowers</strong></p>
<p>Days prior to the release of the <strong>2009</strong> report, a front page article in The Guardian told us that <strong><a target="_blank" class="external" href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/09/peak-oil-international-energy-agency">“Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower.”</a></strong></p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The world is much closer to running out of oil than official estimates admit, according to a whistleblower at the International Energy Agency who claims it has been deliberately underplaying a looming shortage for fear of triggering panic buying.</em></p>
<p><em>The senior official claims the US has played an influential role in encouraging the watchdog to underplay the rate of decline from existing oil fields while overplaying the chances of finding new reserves.</em></p>
<p><em>The allegations raise serious questions about the accuracy of the organisation’s latest World Energy Outlook on oil demand and supply to be published tomorrow – which is used by the British and many other governments to help guide their wider energy and climate change policies…”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>This article reinforced my already existing opinion that 1) The WEO is written by committee, and represents numerous interests, resulting in reports that tend to favor conservative statements, and 2) that political influence also strongly tempers what is allowed to be conveyed in these reports. Reading the Executive Summaries, one often gets there are competing, sometimes contradictory ideas vying for predominance. These reports, therefore, have to be read with a grain of salt, and a careful eye to read between the lines. What keeps me coming back to these reports each year is this tracking of the changes to their statements over time – mostly in the direction of increased pessimism.</p>
<p>What is interesting is that these revelations came at a time when the report was actually at its strongest in terms of warnings about oil supply. In fact, deputy executive director Richard Jones stated, in a reply to the allegations, “We’re the ones that are out there warning that the oil and gas is running out in the most authoritative manner. But we don’t see it happening as quickly as some of the peak oil theorists. Generally, we’re viewed as more pessimistic than we should be by the (oil) industry.”</p>
<p>The 2009 WEO reports the results of two scenarios: a Reference Scenario – a baseline of expectations if governments make no changes to existing policies; and a 450 Scenario, “which depicts a world in which collective policy action is taken to limit the long-term concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to 450 parts per million of CO2-equivalent (ppm CO2-eq).” Continuing on the current energy path in the Reference Scenario is said to lead to “alarming consequences for climate change and energy security.” <strong>Oil demand in 2030 is expected to be 105 mb/d, down just 1 mb/d from the 2008 report</strong>, but they state that for importing countries this would require “increasingly high level of spending…representing a major economic burden for importers, with OECD countries spending 2% of their GDP on oil and gas imports.</p>
<p><span style="color: #339966;"><strong>Part 2: 2010-2014: “Will Peak Oil be a Guest, or the Spectre at the Feast?”<br/></strong></span></p>
<p><strong>2010: Peak Oil Occurred in 2006 – Did We Forget to Tell You?</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>2010</strong> WEO is notable for a casually dropped bombshell, which the mainstream media ignored: peak oil, which was derided in 2005, ignored in 2006-2007, acknowledged in 2008 with the statement “production of conventional oil…is projected to level off towards the end of the projection period [of 2030];” leaked by IEA whistleblowers in 2009, and <strong>now in the 2010 report we’re explicitly told that conventional oil peaked 4 years prior in 2006</strong>! See how it is nonchalantly dropped in the following sentence: “Crude oil output reaches an undulating plateau of around 68-69 mb/d by 2020, but never regains its all-time peak of 70 mb/d reached in 2006, while production of natural gas liquids (NGLs) and unconventional oil grows strongly.”</p>
<p>So, of course, this is not really a problem, according to the WEO, because natural gas liquids and unconventional oil [tar sands, shale oil (tight oil), oil shales, biofuels, etc.] will make up the difference (at least until 2035), provided, of course, that the usual caveat of proper investment is attended to.</p>
<p>Peak oil analyst <a class="external" href="http://earlywarn.blogspot.com/2010/11/iea-acknowledges-peak-oil.html" target="_blank">Stuart Staniford</a> noted about the 2010 report, “Suddenly, the subject of impending peak has gone from not worthy of discussion to in the past already!”</p>
<p><strong>New Policies Not Adequate for the Crisis We Face</strong></p>
<p>In 2010, three scenarios are presented: The Current Policies Scenario, which projects a 1.4% energy demand growth, a 450 Scenario (a scenario designed to keep climate change to 2 degrees C of warming), which projects a 0.7% demand growth, and, for the first time, a New Policies Scenario, “that anticipates future action by governments to meet the commitments they have made to tackle climate change and growing energy insecurity.” The New Policies Scenario projects an energy demand growth of 1.2% per year. For comparison, it is noted that the previous 27 year period experienced 2% demand growth per year. It is acknowledged that the New Policies are not nearly adequate for the crisis we face. These new policies suggest trends that could put greenhouse gases at over 650 ppm, and would likely result in a temperature increase of more than 3.5 degrees C.</p>
<p><strong>40% of Oil to Come from Fields Not Yet Found</strong></p>
<p>Nevertheless, New Policies now becomes the reference scenario in the WEO, and <strong>oil demand is projected to reach 99 mb/d in 2035</strong> under this scenario (down from 105 mb/d by 2030 in 2009). To get to those 99 mb/d, the report sees OPEC needing to boost its output by over one-half, with Iraq tasked with “a large share” of that increase. Non-OPEC oil production is expected to be held broadly constant by unconventional oil production and natural gas liquids (NGL), which will then start to drop at the end of the period. The report then offers another disclaimer: “The size of ultimately recoverable resources of both conventional and of unconventional oil is a major source of uncertainty for the long-term outlook for world oil production.” For me, it does not inspire much confidence to be putting our hopes for a growing supply of oil for the next 20 years on the Middle East, especially when the bulk of it must come from Iraq. According to the report, 40% of oil production in 2035 will need to come from fields not yet found.</p>
<p>Permission is granted to jump to the end of this post to see the <a class="external" title="Oil Production Growth in the United States, Canada, Brazil and the Middle East" href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/a-major-risk-to-oil-markets.jpg" target="_blank">2014 graph</a> showing a decline in unconventional oil produced by Brazil, Canada, and the U.S. well before the 2030s.</p>
<p><strong>A Cry for Help</strong></p>
<p>It is also important to note that the WEO sees increasing demand to come primarily from the non-OECD countries (i.e. China and India), as the rest of the industrialized world decreases consumption. <a class="external" href="http://aleklett.wordpress.com/2010/11/10/spin-slips-off-oil-production-numbers-world-energy-outlook-2010-%E2%80%93-a-cry-for-help/" target="_blank">Kjell Aleklett</a>, ASPO President, characterized the WEO 2010 as “a cry for help,” stating that the IEA avoids discussion of economic growth in the west, interpreting it to mean that economic growth will not be possible:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“The IEA now sees OECD oil consumption falling from today’s 41.7 mb/d to 35.3 mb/d by 2035. This means that all OECD nations, including Australia, must revise down their future consumption estimates. Non-OECD nations are now expected to increase their oil consumption by 19 mb/d by 2035. Two thirds of this will come from China and India.”</em></p>
<p>Aleklett concludes:<br/> <em>“By showing this data without announcing this obvious conclusion [that the peak of total oil production is imminent] the IEA is making a cry for help to do what, for them, is politically impossible. WEO 2010 is a cry for help to tell the truth about peak oil.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2011: “If We Don’t Change Direction Soon, We’ll End Up Where We’re Heading”</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>2011</strong> WEO report actually does offer the useful advice that “If we don’t change direction soon, we’ll end up where we’re heading.” This reminds me of the adage I heard from Matt Simmons: “When you find yourself stuck in a hole, rule number 1 is to stop digging.”</p>
<p><strong>The Year of Living Dangerously</strong></p>
<p>2011 was the year of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, the Arab Spring, and the beginning of Occupy Wall Street. The WEO report noted there were few signs that the “urgently needed” change in direction of global energy trends were underway, “boding ill for agreed global climate change objectives,” and they offer this grim prognostication: “China is projected to consume nearly 70% more energy than the U.S. in 2035, yet per-capita energy consumption will still be less than half the level in the U.S.”</p>
<p>They acknowledge some steps in the right direction – “Half of the new power capacity installed [to the year 2035] will come from renewable energy technologies” – but that “the door [limiting climate change] to 2 degrees C is closing.” Another grim statement: “Four-fifths of the total energy-related CO2 emissions permissible by 2035 in the 450 Scenario is already ‘locked-in’ by our existing capital stock.”</p>
<p><strong>Mindful of MENA</strong></p>
<p><strong>Projected demand for oil remains at 99 mb/d for 2035</strong>. “To compensate for declining crude oil production at existing fields, 47 mb/d capacity additions are required, twice the current total oil production of all OPEC countries in the Middle East.” Once again, the shortfall is expected to be made up from NGL, unconventional sources, and the largest increase from Iraq. Light tight oil (LTO, or shale oil) from the U.S. is acknowledged as playing a significant role to allow us to decrease imports, but the IEA is not yet hailing it as the savior (but see below regarding natural gas). Also mentioned is an increasing dependence on oil from the MENA (Middle East/North Africa) region, which must rely on vulnerable supply routes. “In aggregate, the increase in production from this region is over 90% of the required growth in world oil output, pushing the share of OPEC in global production above 50% in 2035.” With the caveat, again, of sufficient investment.</p>
<p><strong>Natural Gas – You Gotta Wear Shades!</strong></p>
<p>Dropping the caveats of uncertainty, the report trumpets “Golden prospects for natural gas… a bright future, even a golden age, for natural gas.” This is due to the revolution in hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) and horizontal drilling, making unconventional gas half of the estimated resource base.</p>
<p><strong>The Nuclear Conundrum – Can’t Live With It, Can’t Live Without It</strong></p>
<p>In the wake of Fukushima, the report warns, “The consequences [of a low-nuclear future] would be particularly severe for those countries with limited indigenous energy resources which have been planning to rely relatively heavily on nuclear power. It would also make it considerably more challenging for emerging economies to satisfy their growing demand for electricity.”</p>
<p><strong>2012: Don’t Look Over Here – Everything’s OK, and the Kids Will Be Alright!</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>2012</strong> WEO report is marked by a temporary return to a tempered exuberance and brings the shale oil (light, tight oil, or LTO) explosion in the U.S. to the fore: “A new global energy landscape is emerging. The global energy map is changing, with potentially far-reaching consequences for energy markets and trade. It is <strong>being redrawn by the resurgence in oil and gas production in the United States</strong> and could be further reshaped by a retreat from nuclear power in some countries, continued rapid growth in the use of wind and solar technologies and by the global spread of unconventional gas production. <strong>Perspectives for international oil markets hinge on Iraq’s success in revitalizing its oil sector.</strong> If new policy initiatives are broadened and implemented in a concerted effort to improve global energy efficiency, this could likewise be a game-changer.” [Emphasis theirs]</p>
<p><strong>Locking-In Climate Change</strong></p>
<p>And yet the report acknowledges in the next sentence that alas, “the world is still failing to put the global energy system onto a more sustainable path.” Subsidies for fossil fuels in 2011 were $523 billion – 6 times more than they were for renewables and 30% higher than they were in 2010. In regards to climate change, this statement stands out: “If action to reduce CO2 emissions is not taken before 2017, all the allowable CO2 emissions would be locked-in by energy infrastructure existing at that time. Rapid deployment of energy-efficient technologies – as in our Efficient World Scenario – would postpone this complete lock-in to 2022, buying time to secure a much-needed global agreement to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.”</p>
<p><strong>The U.S. All but Self-Sufficient – “Saudi America”!?</strong></p>
<p>Due to the development of light, tight oil, the United States is projected to overtake Saudi Arabia, and become the largest oil producer through to the mid 2020s. It is projected that North America becomes a net oil exporter by 2030 (presumably combining LTO from the U.S. with the tar sands from Canada). “The United States, which currently imports around 20% of its total energy needs, <strong>becomes all but self-sufficient in net terms – a dramatic reversal of the trend seen in most other energy-importing countries</strong>.” [Emphasis theirs]</p>
<p><strong>In regards to oil demand expected in 2035, the quantity remains from 2011 (99 mb/d), but the price has increased from $210/barrel in nominal terms to $215/barrel</strong>.</p>
<p><strong>The Devil is in the Details – Counting on Iraq</strong></p>
<p>Despite the resurgence from LTO in the U.S. noted above, “supply after 2020 depends increasingly on OPEC.” “Much is riding on Iraq’s success” the report tells us, with Iraq making “the largest contribution by far to global oil supply growth.”</p>
<p>So, while the overall tone of the report is positive and optimistic, the details sometimes send a different, contradictory message. Yet it was the “good news” about the fracking boom in the U.S. that garnered front page headlines around the world, and has stuck in the consciousness and zeitgeist since then. Countless articles since then have reminded us in various contexts that “<a class="external" href="http://online.wsj.com/articles/fracking-firms-get-tested-by-oils-price-drop-1412899027" target="_blank">the world is awash in oil</a>.”</p>
<p>In contrast to this industry promoted meme, <a class="external" title="The Good, The Bad, and the Really Ugly" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175621/" target="_blank">Michael Klare</a> had a very different takeaway:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Given the hullabaloo about rising energy production in the U.S., you would think that the IEA report was loaded with good news about the world’s future oil supply. No such luck. In fact, on a close reading anyone who has the slightest familiarity with world oil dynamics should shudder, as its overall emphasis is on decline and uncertainty.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Renewables are expected to become the second-largest source of power in the world by 2035 and will closely match coal as a source of electricity. This transformation is being driven by falling technology costs, rising fossil-fuel prices, and continued subsidies.</p>
<p><strong>Energy is Thirsty</strong></p>
<p>Water is given some attention in this year’s report, acknowledging that “energy is becoming a thirstier resource,” with water needs projected to grow at twice the rate of energy demand. “The vulnerability of the energy sector to water constraints is widely spread geographically,” increasingly affecting many of the existing and emerging energy technologies, such as shale gas development, Canadian tar sands, maintaining power plants in India, and maintaining oil field pressures.</p>
<p><strong>Really, Truly Ugly</strong></p>
<p>I’ll mention again Michael Klare’s analysis of the 2012 report, which I highly recommend (<a class="external" href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175621/" target="_blank"><em>The Good, the Bad, and the Really, Truly Ugly</em></a>). He writes,</p>
<blockquote><p>“Its portrait of our global energy future should have dampened enthusiasm everywhere, focusing as it did on an uncertain future energy supply, excessive reliance on fossil fuels, inadequate investment in renewables, and an increasingly hot, erratic, and dangerous climate.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2013: Era of Oil Abundance is Cancelled</strong></p>
<p>The <strong>2013</strong> WEO Report repeats some of the themes from 2012: “China dominates the picture within Asia, before India takes over from 2020 as the principle engine of growth. …China is about to become the largest oil-importing country and India becomes the largest importer of coal by the early 2020s. The United States moves steadily towards meeting all of its energy needs from domestic resources by 2035.” And the world is still on a trajectory towards 3.6 degrees C of global warming.</p>
<p><strong>No Era of Abundance? That’s <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-02-13/not-the-future-we-ordered-peak-oil-psychology-and-the-myth-of-progress-by-john-michael-greer-a-book-review-by-carolyn-baker" target="_blank">Not the Future We Ordered</a>!<br/></strong></p>
<p>It is noted that the sustained high price of oil at $110 per barrel since 2011 is “without parallel in oil market history.” The claim for U.S. shale oil is similar to those made in 2012, but the tone is not as optimistic sounding:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>“Light tight oil shakes the next ten years, but leaves the longer term unstirred. The capacity of technologies to unlock new types of resources, such as light tight oil (LTO) and ultra-deepwater fields… But this does not mean that the world is on the cusp of a new era of oil abundance. …no country replicates the level of success with LTO that is making the United States the largest global oil producer. The rise of unconventional oil (including LTO) and natural gas liquids is meets the growing gap between <strong>global oil demand, which rises by 14 mb/d to reach 101 mb/d in 2035</strong>, and production of conventional crude oil which falls back slightly to 65 mb/d.”</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>In the next paragraph, a statement somewhat contradictory of the previous paragraph is made: “The role of OPEC countries in quenching the world’s thirst for oil is reduced temporarily over the next ten years by rising output from the United States, from oil sands in Canada, from deepwater production in Brazil and from natural gas liquids from all over the world. But, by the mid-2020s, non-OPEC production starts to fall back and countries in the Middle East provide most of the increase in global supply.” In one sentence the U.S. is seen as meeting “the growing gap” between demand and conventional crude to 2035, and in another it is implied that the U.S., or at least non-OPEC production in total will be declining a decade earlier by the mid 2020s.</p>
<p><strong>6% Declines in Conventional Oil Fields, More Rapid Declines for Unconventional</strong></p>
<p>As first reported in 2008 (examining 800 fields), we are reminded that the IEA analysis (of 1600 fields this time) confirms that “once production has peaked, an average conventional field can expect to see annual declines in output of around 6% per year…. the implication is that conventional crude output from existing fields is set to fall by more than 40 mb/d by 2035.”</p>
<p>And finally, the rapid rate of decline in unconventional fields, and a startling admission: “most unconventional plays are heavily dependent on continuous drilling to prevent rapid field-level declines. Of the 790 billion barrels of total production required to meet our projections for demand to 2036, more than half is needed just to offset declining production.” Which prepares us for 2014…</p>
<p><strong>A Dramatic Shift in Stance and Tone: A Short Lived Shale Boom</strong></p>
<p>In June of this year (2014), I wrote a post titled <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/new-energy-report-from-i-e-a-forecasts-decline-in-north-american-oil-supply/" target="_blank">New Energy Report from I.E.A. Forecasts A Decline in North American Energy Supply</a> about a special report titled <a target="_blank" class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,86205,en.html">World Energy Investment Outlook</a>. I noted the dramatic shift in stance and in tone from 2012, when the agency forecast that the U.S. would overtake Saudi Arabia in oil production by 2020, and that North America would be a net oil exporter by 2030. Now they were telling us that output from North America will plateau and then fall back from the mid-2020s onwards.</p>
<p>The other important aspect of this special report was its careful look at the amount of investment that will be required going forward. I wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p><em>The focus of the <a target="_blank" class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/june/name,72035,en.html">new report released by the IEA today</a> is on how much investment in the energy sector is going to be needed in the next 20 years (<a target="_blank" class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,86205,en.html">World Energy Investment Outlook</a>). The numbers are sobering. They estimate that $48 trillion dollars needs to be invested to meet energy needs…but really it needs to be closer to $53 trillion if we want to address climate change. They don’t even bother talking about a 350 parts per million target, but rather 450 parts per million to limit global warming to 2 degrees C.</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>2014: Gloomy Times Ahead – An Energy System Under Stress</strong></p>
<blockquote><p>And so we come to the <strong>2014</strong> WEO, released today, November 12, 2014. The opening words of the executive summary offer a warning: “An energy system under stress. The global energy system is in danger of falling short of the hopes and expectations placed upon it. Turmoil in parts of the Middle East – which remains the only large source of low-cost oil – has rarely been greater since the oil shocks in the 1970s…” We are advised that the insights of this report “can help to ensure that the energy system is changed by design, rather than just by events.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a class="external" href="http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2013/11/will-real-international-energy-agency.html" target="_blank">Kurt Cobb</a> characterized the 2013 report as sounding “like a group of Gloomy Guses.” The 2014 report is, I believe, the gloomiest we’ve seen yet.</p>
<p>This year’s report projects to 2040, when energy demand is expected to have grown by 37%. For the last two decades demand has grown by 2% per year, but they see it slowing to 1% per year after 2025 as the result of price pressure (due to limited and more expensive energy), policy effects as the world attempts to grapple with climate change, and also due to an expected change in the structure of the global economy, with a greater emphasis on services and lighter industrial sectors. World demand growth is expected to decline to 0.3% by the 2030s as it moves towards a plateau in global oil consumption.</p>
<p><strong>Energy Consumption in the U.S. Falls Back to Levels Not Seen in Decades</strong></p>
<p>The report expects energy demand to stay flat in Europe, Japan, Korea, and North America, while we see rising consumption in China, India, Africa, the Middle East and Latin America. By the early 2030s, China is expected to become the largest oil-consuming country, while use in the United States “falls back to levels not seen for decades.”</p>
<p><strong>A “Last Chance” to Contain Carbon Dioxide Emissions</strong></p>
<p>We are reminded yet again that even though policies are in place that will bring the share of fossil-fuels in the energy mix to less than three-quarters in 2040 of what it is today, it won’t be enough to contain the rise in carbon-dioxide emissions that keep us on the path that could result in a global average temperature increase of 3.6 degrees C. Urgent action is required. A special report on climate action is being prepared for release in min-2015 in preparation for the UN climate summit in Paris, possibly a “last chance” to contain carbon-dioxide emissions – the Central Scenario shows that the entire global CO2 budget to 2100 that would hold us to 2 degrees C of warming will be used up by 2040.</p>
<p><strong>Will Supply Meet Demand?</strong></p>
<p><strong>Demand for oil is expected to reach 104 mb/d in 2040. The question is will there be enough supply to meet this demand?</strong> I will quote at length from the <a class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/WEO_2014_ES_English_WEB.pdf" target="_blank">executive summary</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong><em>“</em></strong><em><strong>Investment of some $900 billion per year in upstream oil and gas development is needed by the 2030s to meet projected demand, but there are many uncertainties over whether this investment will be forthcoming in time – especially once United States tight oil output levels off in the early 2020s and its total production eventually starts to fall back. The complexity and capital-intensity of developing Brazilian deepwater fields, the difficulty of replicating the US tight oil experience at scale outside North America, unresolved questions over the outlook for growth in Canadian oil sands output, the sanctions that restrict Russian access to technologies and capital markets and – above all – the political and security challenges in Iraq could all contribute to a shortfall in investment below the levels required. The situation in the Middle East is a major concern given steadily increasing reliance on this region for oil production growth, especially for Asian countries that are set to import two out of every three barrels of crude traded internationally by 2040.”</strong></em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Is There a Hidden Code in this Graph?</strong></p>
<p>Note the graph below, taken from the slideshow accompanying the <a class="external" href="http://www.iea.org/media/speeches/mvdh/WEO_2014_London_fortheweb.pdf" target="_blank">press release</a> of this report, which shows declining output in the U.S. before 2020, and <strong>the enormous burden placed on Iraq and a small number of other Middle East countries after 2020</strong> to make up both the shortfall from declines everywhere else, plus meeting expected demand – <strong>regardless of the instability in the Middle East, isn’t this conventional oil that the 2010 report told us had peaked in 2006?</strong></p>
<p><a target="_blank" class="external" href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/a-major-risk-to-oil-markets.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1907" src="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/a-major-risk-to-oil-markets.jpg?w=640" alt="A Major Risk to Oil Markets" height="375" width="500"/></a></p>
<p>Also discussed in the slide presentation are the low prices for oil that have manifested in recent months. It is pointed out that we now live in a time where high prices are necessary to sustain the more expensive processes necessary to extract the unconventional oils that are currently propping up supply. “Lower prices are starting to curtail upstream spending plans, with implications for future supply. Over time, squeezed cash flow would constrain the capacity of North America and Brazil to act as engines of global supply growth.”</p>
<p><strong>Renewable Energy – Not Enough</strong></p>
<p>Renewable energy received $120 billion in subsidies in 2013. Oil, coal, and gas received over 4 times that much, with $550 billion in subsidies. Looking at renewable industries to 2040, wind power is expected to grow globally by 34%, hydropower by 30%, and solar technologies by 18%. Renewables are expected to account for nearly half of the increase in total electricity generation by that time. Use of biofuels is expected to triple, and use of renewables for heat will more than double. Yet <strong>none of this will be enough to cut carbon dioxide emissions to acceptable levels.</strong></p>
<p>Nuclear power is projected to increase by 60%, but its share of electricity generation will rise by only 1%. According to the IEA, if policies are enacted to decrease use of nuclear power (in its Low Nuclear Case scenario, global capacity drops by 7%), “indicators of energy security tend to deteriorate in those countries that utilize nuclear power.” It is also emphasized that “Nuclear power is one of the few options available at scale to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions while providing or displacing other forms of base load generation.” With almost 200 reactors scheduled to be retired, this presents an acute energy security challenge. The cost of decommissioning these nuclear facilities is estimated to be in the range of $100 billion, while acknowledging there are “considerable uncertainties” about these costs. The number of countries operating nuclear plants will rise from 31 to 36, “as newcomers outnumber those that phase out nuclear power.” The total of spent nuclear fuel will double, even though no country has yet opened a permanent disposal facility.</p>
<p><strong>Power to Shape the Future in Sub-Saharan Africa</strong></p>
<p>The Executive Summary closes as it usually does with attention given to areas of the world that have extremely limited access to adequate energy supplies. Emphasis is given this year to sub-Saharan Africa, where 620 million people do not have access to electricity and where 730 million do not have adequate cooking facilities, resulting in nearly 600,000 premature deaths per year due to indoor air pollution. The area is rich in largely undeveloped energy resources – the challenge being to develop these resources in ways that are equitable for the people who live in this region.</p>
<p>If you’ve read this far, you have my sincere thanks for sticking with it. The 2014 WEO is disturbing enough as it is, noting the numerous wicked problems and predicaments we face in regards to energy in these days of the early 21st century. As I <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/new-energy-report-from-i-e-a-forecasts-decline-in-north-american-oil-supply/" target="_blank">wrote last June,</a></p>
<blockquote><p><em>The IEA is becoming increasingly more realistic as they move beyond demand driven scenarios, and acknowledge that the era of easy oil is over. The alternatives we are left with are becoming increasingly expensive – from unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and shale plays, to renewables. However, at some point (a point we may have already passed), geology responds less and less to the human construct we call money. We’re currently living at the high point of the <a class="external" href="https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/principles-for-the-pulse-that-is-peak-oil/" target="_blank">fossil fuel Pulse</a>, and I don’t believe we can negotiate an avoidance of the backside of the pulse’s decline – but we can take measures to make a graceful descent if we begin early enough (ten years ago).</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>I’d like to recommend two additional independently produced reports, which when combined, I feel give an even more realistic picture of what we’re dealing with in terms of oil supply.</strong></p>
<p>The first is a presentation prepared by energy investment banker and analyst Steven Kopits, <a class="external" href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers" target="_blank">Global Oil Market Forecasting: Main Approaches and Key Drivers</a>, which I wrote about <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/oil-company-woes-this-is-what-energy-depletion-looks-like/" target="_blank">here</a>. and with a follow-up <a class="external" href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/an-energy-renaissance/" target="_blank">here</a>. Kopits explains the predicament of the rising costs of oil production, and argues for supply based rather than demand based forecasting.</p>
<p>The second recommendation is <a class="external" href="http://www.postcarbon.org/publications/drillingdeeper/" target="_blank">Drilling Deeper: A Reality Check on U.S. Government Forecasts for a Lasting Tight Oil & Shale Gas Boom</a>, by David Hughes, a respected and experienced geologist working for the Post Carbon Institute. This report confirms that tight oil in the U.S. will most likely peak before 2020 – matching the current IEA forecast, but the decline thereafter will probably be more rapid than the IEA is estimating. For a commentary on this report, see Asher Miller’s (executive director of Post Carbon Institute) <a class="external" href="http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/10/28/revolution-wasnt-why-fracking-phenomenon-will-leave-us-high-and-dry" target="_blank">The Revolution that Wasn’t: Why the Fracking Phenomenon Will Leave Us High and Dry</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, if you’re wondering about the current decline in oil prices (I planned to cover it more in this piece, but ran out of space and time), check out <a class="external" href="http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/the-crash-of-oil-prices-and-european.html" target="_blank">Ugo Bardi</a> and <a class="external" href="http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/11/05/oil-price-slide-no-good-way-out/" target="_blank">Gail Tverberg</a>.</p>
<p>You can find the older WEO reports <a class="external" href="http://www.worldenergyoutlook.org/publications/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>All the Peak Moment Videos Filmed at Inspiration Farmtag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-07-06:2723460:BlogPost:981092014-07-06T22:34:53.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>I'm starting to lose track of the Peak Moment episodes filmed at Inspiration Farm, so I thought it would be nice to see them in one place. Visit <a href="http://peakmoment.tv/" target="_blank">peakmoment.tv</a> and subscribe to see these consistently good series of interviews (and see if you can find the one filmed in my front yard).</p>
<p>I'm also hoping you will be inspired to consider attending the Permaculture Design course at Inspiration Farm coming up August 17-29th.…</p>
<p>I'm starting to lose track of the Peak Moment episodes filmed at Inspiration Farm, so I thought it would be nice to see them in one place. Visit <a href="http://peakmoment.tv/" target="_blank">peakmoment.tv</a> and subscribe to see these consistently good series of interviews (and see if you can find the one filmed in my front yard).</p>
<p>I'm also hoping you will be inspired to consider attending the Permaculture Design course at Inspiration Farm coming up August 17-29th. <strong><a href="http://www.inspirationfarm.com/newif/classes/PDC.html" target="_blank">Learn more here</a>.</strong> For even more info, view the ongoing thread about the PDC at permies.com <a href="http://www.permies.com/t/35357/cascadia/PDC-Inspiration-Farm-August#294513" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p><strong><b>*BONUS! This PDC includes free admission and participation with the <a href="http://whatcomskillsharefaire.org/" target="_blank">Whatcom Skillshare Faire</a>/<a href="http://www.northwestpermaculture.org/" target="_blank">Northwest Permaculture Convergence</a> happening in nearby Ferndale, WA on Aug. 23 and 24!*</b></strong></p>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" class="yt"><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" title="Handmade Tools Make Simple Work at Inspiration Farm">Handmade Tools Make Simple Work at Inspiration Farm</span></h1>
<p id="watch-uploader-info"><strong>Published on Jul 5, 2014</strong></p>
<div id="watch-description-text"><p id="eow-description">Watch Brian Kerkvliet cut thick grasses easily and quickly with his hand-built scythe — a far cry from a noisy weed whacker! He demonstrates three tools whose design he has honed over the years: the scythe, grass rake and U- bar or broadfork. "It took a few years to get the right methodology, the right blades, the right sharpening technique, and the ergonomic setup so it's effortless," he says of the scythe. The U-bar gently aerates soil and doesn't compress it like a rototiller. "I used to rototill, run my tractor. The beauty of this is you don't have to do the whole area. You just do the beds you need to do. It might take me 15-20 minutes to do these beds, and I'm good for three years." Episode 269. [inspirationfarm.com]</p>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" class="yt"><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" title="Shaping Water and Soil at Inspiration Farm">Shaping Water and Soil at Inspiration Farm</span></h1>
<p id="watch-uploader-info"><strong>Published on Jun 14, 2014</strong></p>
<p>"If you grow good soil, everything else falls into place. You grow good plants, you grow good animals, you grow good people." Permaculturist Brian Kerkvliet shows how he gently shapes soil to form ponds which overflow into connected swales (ditches on contour). They slow and retain water while distributing nutrients through the whole landscape. On the mound of soft earth dug out from one swale, he planted mostly edible cover crops, berry bushes and 25 fruit tree species in only three days. "We don't till [the soil]," he says. "The worms till. The moles till. We find the niche where each element works the best." Episode 267. [inspirationfarm.com]. See photos during spring at <a href="http://peakmoment.tv/journal/a-new-season-at-inspiration-farm" target="_blank" title="http://peakmoment.tv/journal/a-new-season-at-inspiration-farm" rel="nofollow" dir="ltr" class="yt-uix-redirect-link">http://peakmoment.tv/journal/a-new-se..</a></p>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" class="yt"><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title long-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" title="Inspiration Farm - Cultivating Nourishing Food and Creativity">Inspiration Farm - Cultivating Nourishing Food and Creativity</span></h1>
<p id="watch-uploader-info"><strong>Published on Jan 21, 2013</strong></p>
<p>"Changing times calls for changing lifestyles." says Brian Kerkvliet. "So we've put more energy into the land. The more you get your fingers in the soil, the more endorphins rush through your head. You get excited by all of that." Using permaculture and biodynamic practices, Brian's family is endlessly experimenting and innovating to find what works. His wife Alexandra and daughter Rosalie introduce us to the goats, pigs, and cows who are essential players in their farm's web of life. Don't miss the outdoor shower with water heated by microbes in the compost pile! (Episode 226). [inspirationfarm.com]</p>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" class="yt"><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" title="Come to the SkillShare Faire!">Come to the SkillShare Faire!</span></h1>
<p id="watch-uploader-info"><strong>Published on May 4, 2014</strong></p>
<div id="watch-description-text"><p id="eow-description">Brian Kerkvliet is one of numerous subjects in this Skillshare episode. Join the fun at the 2013 Whatcom SkillShare Faire! Make fire by friction. Thresh seeds with a 100-year-old pedal-powered machine. Learn to card, spin and weave. Make a rocket stove. In this extravaganza of sharing, residents teach and learn all kinds of useful, practical skills — like making soap, sharpening tools, and raising chickens. "Share your Skills, Trade your Wares." Organizers from Transition Whatcom, near Bellingham, Washington, are reviving old skills and showcasing new ones in a festive event including local music, local food, and activities for children. Episode 265. [whatcomskillsharefaire.org]</p>
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<h1 id="watch-headline-title" class="yt"><span id="eow-title" class="watch-title yt-uix-expander-head" dir="ltr" title="Come to the SkillShare Faire!">Farm Resilience with Brian Kerkvliet<br/></span></h1>
<p>Finally, NOT from Peak Moment, but a YouTube interview by <a href="https://www.youtube.com/redirect?q=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.farmresilience.org%2F&redir_token=zvyfi85XMCsXq5tUWzBWKIF0Nqd8MTQwNDc3MTExMUAxNDA0Njg0NzEx" target="_blank">Farm Resilience</a> with Brian Kerkvliet who describes what a resilient farm will look like in the 21st century.</p>
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</div>Survive and Thrive with Permaculturetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-07-05:2723460:BlogPost:982112014-07-05T00:36:53.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p><em><strong>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/07/01/survive-and-thrive-with-permaculture/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site. Be sure to see the comment at the end related to the local opportunity of a Permaculture course at Inspiration Farm in August (which will include, btw, admission into the Whatcom Skillshare Faire/Northwest Permaculture Convergence).…</strong></em></p>
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<p><em><strong>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/07/01/survive-and-thrive-with-permaculture/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site. Be sure to see the comment at the end related to the local opportunity of a Permaculture course at Inspiration Farm in August (which will include, btw, admission into the Whatcom Skillshare Faire/Northwest Permaculture Convergence).</strong></em></p>
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<p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/david_holmgren_talking_2013-100x100.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1847" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/david_holmgren_talking_2013-100x100.jpg?w=640" alt="david_holmgren_talking_2013-100x100"/></a>David Holmgren, co-originator of Permaculture, and systems analyst Nicole Foss have begun their summer tour of Australia, which is being billed as “<em><strong>Strategies for a Changing Economy: Survive and Thrive</strong></em>” (<a title="Survive and Thrive" href="http://holmgren.com.au/survive-thrive-update/" target="_blank">click here for dates</a> and <a title="Survive and Thrive" href="http://holmgren.com.au/survive-thrive-update/" target="_blank">here for further details about the tour</a>). Foss will outline the links between the converging crises that include economic contraction, peak energy and geopolitical stress. She will also share her thoughts on the implications for how it will impact everyday lives and will offer practical solutions. David Holmgren will outline practical strategies drawn from 30 years of permaculture to help households and communities survive, thrive and contribute to a better world. Holmgren will also present an update of his well-known and popular “<a title="Retrofitting the Suburbs for Sustainability" href="http://holmgren.com.au/retrofitting-the-suburbs/http://" target="_blank">Retrofitting the Suburbs for Sustainability</a>” presentation:</p>
<blockquote><p>Returning to Aussie St, David shows how the permaculture makeover and behaviour change is progressing through the Second Great Depression. Aussie St is not only surviving but thriving through the “dumpers” that property bubble collapse, climate chaos and geopolitical energy shocks have unleashed on the lucky country. An endearing, amusing and gutsy story of hope for in-situ adaptation by the majority of Australians living in our towns and suburbs.</p>
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<p>Reading about the announcement of this Foss and Holmgreen tour, I was reminded of an observation I’ve had that when people really get educated about this triple threat of climate chaos, energy depletion, and economic instability; and when they seriously consider the options for how to respond; that permaculture very often comes up as the number 1 recommended approach.</p>
<p>Let’s review just a few.</p>
<p><strong><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/grubb_adam_2010.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1831" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/grubb_adam_2010.jpg?w=640" alt=" "/></a>Energy Bulletin</strong> – <strong>Adam Fenderson and Bart Anderson</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://resilience.org">Resilience.org</a>‘s predecessor was the venerable Energy Bulletin, co-founded in 2004 by Adam Fenderson as a clearinghouse for information on peak-oil. Adam clearly latched on to Permaculture early on. He did some excellent interviews with David Holmgren that are still very worthwhile to listen to (check out transcript <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2004-06-06/peak-oil-and-permaculture-david-holmgren-energy-descent">here</a>). He then changed his name to “Adam Grubb” and resigned to pursue Permaculture in more depth. He became co-founder of the <a href="http://www.permablitz.net/" target="_blank">Permablitz network</a> and director of <a href="http://www.veryediblegardens.com/" target="_blank">Very Edible Gardens</a>. Longtime editor of Energy Bulletin/Resilience, <strong>Bart Anderson</strong> is also a <a href="http://www.permacultureactivist.net/articles/urbnzonsectr.htm" target="_blank">proponent of permaculture</a>.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/heinberg.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-1833 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/heinberg.jpg?w=103&h=150" alt="Heinberg" height="150" width="103"/></a>Richard Heinberg</strong></p>
<p>Richard Heinberg is one of the most longest standing and well respected “peak oil educators.” When you read his work, note how often he recommends permaculture and Transition Towns as a response. Heinberg also <a href="http://transitionculture.org/2006/08/18/the-dream-double-bill/comment-page-1/" target="_blank">toured with Holmgren in 2006</a>, and practices permaculture at his home (as demonstrated in this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFIkJGAS8EI">Peak Moment TV episode</a>.)</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/bates.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-1835 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/bates.jpg?w=150&h=150" alt="Bates" height="150" width="150"/></a>Albert Bates</strong></p>
<p>Already a well known permaculturist, Bates authored one of the early practical response books to Peak Oil: <a href="http://www.newsociety.com/Books/P/The-Post-Petroleum-Survival-Guide-and-Cookbook">The Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook</a>.</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hopkins.png"><img class="alignright wp-image-1837 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/hopkins.png?w=150&h=84" alt="Hopkins" height="84" width="150"/></a>Rob Hopkins and Transition Towns</strong></p>
<p>Hopkins was also already a permaculture educator when he and his students experienced what he calls their “End of Suburbia moment” in 2004. The Transition movement was born as a permaculture “energy descent” design plan – social permaculture in action. As Hopkins said in an <a href="http://www.treehugger.com/files/2007/03/rob_hopkins_transition_town.php" target="_blank">interview</a>, “It [Transition] is my attempt at lifting permaculture principles onto a whole other level of effectiveness and relevance. We try and integrate permaculture principles into the whole process, and they certainly underpin the work that I do. I recommend Holmgren’s book to anyone who is interested in all this.” In his review of Holmgren’s book, <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/principles-and-pathways-class" target="_blank">Hopkins wrote</a>, “This book is the clearest elucidation of what this new paradigm might look like since his permaculture co-originator Bill Mollison’s seminal ‘Permaculture, a Designers Manual’ was published in 1988. It is no exaggeration to call this the most important book published in the last 15 years.”<br/> <strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/martenson.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-1839 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/martenson.jpg?w=100&h=150" alt="Martenson"/></a>Chris Martenson</strong></p>
<p>Martenson developed his highly regarded “<a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/crashcourse" target="_blank">Crash Course</a>” as a response to energy depletion and economic instability. Martenson found his way to “Financial Permaculture” and more recently Permaculture has had a more pronounced presence on his ‘<a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/" target="_blank">Peak Prosperity</a>” website – for example, see his post on <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-05-30/permaculture-and-the-8-forms-of-capital">Permaculture and the 8 Forms of Capital</a> with Ethan Roland, and the excellent discussion with <a href="http://www.peakprosperity.com/podcast/85511/toby-hemenway-explaining-permaculture" target="_blank">Toby Hemenway: Explaining Permaculture</a> .</p>
<p><strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/foss.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-1840 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/foss.jpg?w=113&h=150" alt="Foss" height="150" width="113"/></a>Nicole Foss</strong></p>
<p>Posting as “Stoneleigh” on The Oil Drum and then <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/">The Automatic Earth</a>, Nicole Foss has a well-earned reputation for deep analysis, penetrating wisdom, and a unique ability to connect the dots using her complexity and systems thinking skills. In the last few years she too seems to be increasingly mentioning permaculture, and participating with permaculture teachers and courses, culminating in the current tour with David Holmgren.</p>
<blockquote><p>I am increasingly involved with permaculture (teaching it in <a href="http://www.mmrfbz.org/_9th_Annual_Permaculture_Design_Course.html"><b><span style="color: red;">Belize</span></b></a> this February), as it represents one of the most important paths towards building workable life-support systems in our era of limits to growth. We are rapidly running out of options as we deplete our natural capital worldwide. While we badly need to make some informed hard choices, we collectively do not, as our consumptive system has tremendous inertia. As we reach the limits that lie in our not too distant future, permaculture can be of tremendous use, for those who implement it, in mitigating the impacts and facilitating rebuilding from the bottom-up.<br/> - <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-on-demand-a-response-to-david-holmgren/">Nicole Foss</a></p>
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<p>We could mention many others, but the point is made. The next question is – what is it about Permaculture that makes it so attractive as a response to the challenges we’re faced with today?</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/shop_principles_800s-400x400.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-1723" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/shop_principles_800s-400x400.jpg?w=150&h=150" alt="shop_principles_800s-400x400" height="150" width="150"/></a>First, it can be said that Permaculture was designed specifically for declining availability and use of fossil fuels. In the Preface to his 2002 book, <em><a href="http://holmgren.com.au/product/principles/" target="_blank">Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</a></em>, David Holmgren wrote very clearly that permaculture, from the very beginning was founded on fundamental assumptions about the environmental crisis, the ongoing impacts of global industrial society, the limitations due to the energy laws that govern the material universe, the role of fossil fuels in enabling the industrial era, and the inevitable depletion of fossil fuels – likely sooner rather than later.</p>
<p><a href="https://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/odum.jpg"><img class="alignright wp-image-1842 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/odum.jpg?w=100&h=150" alt="odum"/></a></p>
<p><strong>Howard T. Odum</strong></p>
<p>Holmgren also acknowledges “a clear and special debt to the published work of American ecologist <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2011-12-18/real-wealth-howard-t-odum%E2%80%99s-energy-economics" target="_blank">Howard Odum</a>.” Odum was the first listed reference in the first permaculture book (Permaculture One), and is referenced over and over in the 2002 book, which is dedicated to the memory of Odum, who passed Sept. 11, 2002. This is significant, because Howard T. Odum spent much of his life work on the topic of energy and the inevitable decline of fossil fuel availability. In 1994, Holmgren wrote:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>Odum was one of the leading ecologists who developed a systems approach to the study of human/environment interactions. He uses energy as a currency to compare and quantify the whole spectrum of natural and man-made elements and processes.</strong></p>
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<p>In Holmgren’s 2002 Permaculture book, he states that “Permaculture is a creative design response to a world of declining energy and resource availability.”</p>
<p>Other features Holmgren names offer additional reasons permaculture is being recognized frequently as appropriate response to the current state of affairs. Permaculture:</p>
<ul>
<li>gives priority to using existing wealth to rebuilding natural capital…</li>
<li>emphasizes bottom-up “redesign” processes…</li>
<li>more fundamentally was predicated on the likelihood of some degree of collapse and breakdown…</li>
<li>sees pre-industrial sustainable societies as providing models that reflect the more general system design principles observable in nature and relevant to post-industrial systems.</li>
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<p>Here’s an interview with Holmgren on Permaculture and Peak Oil, recorded circa 2007, I think. He covers many of the most important features of his thinking in relation to energy descent.</p>
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<p>Hopefully it is becoming obvious that permaculture is much more than a quirky form of organic gardening. It is when people come to this realization that they start to see the real possibilities and potentialities.</p>
<p><strong>Now we come to that pesky problem of trying to define “permaculture.”</strong> Holmgren, again:</p>
<blockquote><p>“…I see permaculture as the use of systems thinking and design principles that provide the organizing framework for implementing [the vision outlined in <em>Permaculture One</em> of] …’Consciously designed landscapes which mimic the patterns and relationships found in nature, while yielding an abundance of food, fiber and energy for provision of local needs.’ People, their buildings and the ways they organize themselves are central to permaculture. Thus the permaculture vision of permanent (sustainable) agriculture has evolved to one of permanent (sustainable) culture…It draws together the diverse ideas, skills and ways of living which need to be rediscovered and developed in order to empower us to move from being dependent consumers to becoming responsible and productive citizens.”<br/> - <em>Permaculture: Principles & Pathways Beyond Sustainability</em>, p. xix [to get a concise definition, I've rearranged the order of sentences, but it all comes from page xix of the Introduction]</p>
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<p>In this more recent video, David Holmgren talks about permaculture as a way to change the world:</p>
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<p>I envy those in Australia who are able to attend one of the presentations of the Foss and Holmgren <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/survive-thrive-update/" target="_blank">‘Survive and Thrive’ tour</a>. If you live elsewhere in the world, the best way to learn permaculture is to attend a ‘hands-on’ full immersion Permaculture Design Certification course taught by qualified and experienced teachers using the full <a href="http://www.permacultureactivist.net/DesignCourse/PcSyllabus.htm#6" target="_blank">72 hour course material</a> from the Permaculture Design manual by the other co-originator, Bill Mollison.</p>
<p>You can check out <a href="http://www.permacourses.com/" target="_blank">permacourses.com</a> to find a course being taught this summer near you.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bk_2.jpg"><img class="alignleft wp-image-1730 size-thumbnail" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/bk_2.jpg?w=150&h=150" alt="Brian Kerkvliet" height="150" width="150"/></a></p>
<p><strong>Brian Kerkvliet, steward of Inspiration Farm</strong></p>
<p>I’m hoping to see some of you at the <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/permaculture-design-certificate-course-at-inspiration-farm/" target="_blank">Inspiration Farm PDC course</a> I’ll be a co-instructor at in Northwest Washington state, Aug. 17-29th. Lead instructor <strong>Brian Kerkvliet</strong> is PRI certified, and Paul Wheaton, of <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">Permies.com</span>, has named Inspiration Farm as the premier Permaculture Farm of the Pacific Northwest. You can learn much more in the Cascadia Forum at <span class="skimlinks-unlinked">Permies.com</span> <a href="http://www.permies.com/t/35357/cascadia/PDC-Inspiration-Farm-August" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<div id="attachment_1740" style="width: 445px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1740" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg?w=640" alt="Dawn at Inspiration Farm"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Dawn at Inspiration Farm</p>
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<p> </p>New Energy Report from IEA Forecasts Decline in North American Oil Supplytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-06-05:2723460:BlogPost:975122014-06-05T18:29:22.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/new-energy-report-from-i-e-a-forecasts-decline-in-north-american-oil-supply/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site.</em></p>
<p>National Public Radio’s “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/03/318414855/business-news" target="_blank">Morning Edition</a>” reported this morning:</p>
<p><em>NPR’s Business News starts with the outlook for oil. This is a change of course – the International Energy Agency…</em></p>
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/06/03/new-energy-report-from-i-e-a-forecasts-decline-in-north-american-oil-supply/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site.</em></p>
<p>National Public Radio’s “<a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/03/318414855/business-news" target="_blank">Morning Edition</a>” reported this morning:</p>
<p><em>NPR’s Business News starts with the outlook for oil. This is a change of course – the International Energy Agency has released a report on global energy investment. And this group predicts the United States will have to rely more heavily on Middle East oil in the coming years, as North American sources start to dry up a little bit. U.S. energy production has boomed recently, much of it coming from oil and gas extracted from shale. But the IEA says U.S. production will start to lose steam around 2020, and that would put more bargaining power back in the hands of OPEC countries, such as Saudi Arabia.</em></p>
<p>This is quite interesting, given that in 2012, <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/English.pdf" target="_blank">the IEA forecast</a> that the U.S. would overtake Saudia Arabia in oil production by 2020, and that North America would be a net oil exporter by 2030. The International Energy Agency (I.E.A.) is a watchdog organization considered the world’s leading energy analyzing institution. This new stance coincides with a similar about-face from the U.S. government’s EIA (Energy Information Administration), which <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/breaking-govt-slashes-calif-oil-estimate/" target="_blank">suddenly downgraded its assessment of the Montery Shale “tight oil” fields by 96%</a>.</p>
<p>Well, that Shale bubble, didn’t last long, did it? As <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/05/21/breaking-govt-slashes-calif-oil-estimate/#comments" target="_blank">Sylvia says</a>, “we told you so!” One of the best recent analysis of the current energy situation, I believe, was done by Steven Kopits, which I wrote about <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/oil-company-woes-this-is-what-energy-depletion-looks-like/" target="_blank">here</a>. and with a follow-up <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/an-energy-renaissance/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>The focus of the <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/june/name,72035,en.html" target="_blank">new report released by the IEA today</a> is on how much investment in the energy sector is going to be needed in the next 20 years (<a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,86205,en.html" target="_blank">World Energy Investment Outlook</a>). The numbers are sobering. They estimate that $48 trillion dollars needs to be invested to meet energy needs…but really it needs to be closer to $53 trillion if we want to address climate change. They don’t even bother talking about a 350 parts per million target, but rather 450 parts per million to limit global warming to 2 degrees C.</p>
<p>I am extremely skeptical that even these levels of investments would provide the levels of energy the world is expecting. The IEA is becoming increasingly more realistic as they move beyond demand driven scenarios, and acknowledge that the era of easy oil is over. The alternatives we are left with are becoming increasingly expensive – from unconventional fossil fuels like tar sands and shale plays, to renewables. However, at some point (a point we may have already passed), geology responds less and less to the human construct we call money. We’re currently living at the high point of the <a href="https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/04/22/principles-for-the-pulse-that-is-peak-oil/" target="_blank">fossil fuel Pulse</a>, and I don’t believe we can negotiate an avoidance of the backside of the pulse’s decline – but we can take measures to make a graceful descent if we begin early enough (ten years ago).</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hubbertcurve.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1321" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/hubbertcurve.jpg?w=640" alt="Hubbert+curve"/></a></p>
<p>The report itself (disclaimer: so far I’ve only looked at the accompanied introduction, fact sheet, and powerpoint) notes many risks and difficult achievements that will be necessary. To note just a few:</p>
<ul>
<li>The middle east may or may not increase oil supply.</li>
<li>Depletion of conventional fossil fuels force reliance on more challenging fields which puts pressure on upstream costs.</li>
<li>The larger share of the trillions in investment would go just toward replacing existing production that is in decline, and not toward demand growth.</li>
<li>Nearly two-thirds of the investment will take place in emerging economies in Asia, Africa, and Latin America.</li>
<li>There are many political and regulatory uncertainties that will be difficult to navigate.</li>
<li>Financing the transition to a low carbon energy system is a major challenge (to put it mildly).</li>
<li>Getting the world to a 2 degree emissions path would mean a different investment landscape (and a breakthrough at the Paris 2015 COP).</li>
<li>Households need to make about half of the investment, with 40% coming from business, and 11% from government.</li>
<li>“The supply of long term financing on suitable terms is still far from guaranteed” – “the banking sector…may be constrained…in the wake of the financial crisis.” (to put it mildly)</li>
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<p>This last bullet point above reminds us of the difficult bind we are in. Many of us believe we are teetering on the edge of an <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/crash-on-demand-david-holmgren-updates-his-future-scenarios/" target="_blank">even bigger financial crisis</a>, which would not only make the above investments impossible, but will lead to a steep decline in existing investments. Even now we are seeing <a href="http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-oil-companies-cut-back-on-spending/" target="_blank">signs of this</a>.</p>
<p>On that happy note, below is IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven’s remarks at the launch of the report.</p>
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<p>To read an introduction to the <em>World Energy Investment Outlook</em>, please click <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/pressreleases/2014/june/name,72035,en.html" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p>To download <em>World Energy Investment Outlook</em>, please click <a href="http://www.iea.org/publications/freepublications/publication/name,86205,en.html">here</a>.</p>
<p>To download Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven’s remarks at the launch of the report, please click <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/speeches/140603_ED_WEOinvestment.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>To download the presentation at the launch of the report, please click <a href="http://www.iea.org/newsroomandevents/speeches/140603_Slides_WEOinvestment.pdf">here</a>.</p>
<p>To download fact sheets related to the report, please click <a title="140603_WEOinvestment_Factsheets" href="http://www.iea.org/media/140603_WEOinvestment_Factsheets.pdf" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>Come to the Farm and Be Inspired! Primary Practical Permaculturetag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-05-27:2723460:BlogPost:972032014-05-27T03:27:18.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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Reposted from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/come-to-the-farm-and-be-inspired-primary-practical-permaculture/" target="_blank"><em>Integral Permaculture</em></a> blog.<br />
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<p><span style="color: #000000;"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg"><img alt="sky_2" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1740 align-center" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg?w=640"></img></a></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">If you’re in the region of northwest Washington, or southwest B.C., consider stopping by Inspiration Farm on June…</span></p>
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Reposted from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/05/26/come-to-the-farm-and-be-inspired-primary-practical-permaculture/" target="_blank"><em>Integral Permaculture</em></a> blog.<br />
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<p><span style="color: #000000;"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1740 align-center" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/sky_2.jpg?w=640" alt="sky_2"/></a></span></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">If you’re in the region of northwest Washington, or southwest B.C., consider stopping by Inspiration Farm on June 1st for a day of <strong>“Primary Practical Permaculture”</strong> at Inspiration Farm, located just north of Bellingham, WA.</span></p>
<p><strong><em>June 1st $40 10am to 4pm<br/></em> A hands on approach to applying Permaculture principals. Ethics, Zones, Sectors, mapping, compost and guilds. This fun information packed day will provide practical ways to design your environment into an integrated system of abundance and productivity. Using design strategies we will explore ways of stacking elements within a system to be more productive and self regulating. The morning will be presentations and discussion, the afternoon will be a site tour and hands on session working with guilds, sheet mulch, keyhole beds and integrated composting.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Class includes: Presentation-discussion, A tour of Inspiration Farm explaining the systems employed, and hands on activities.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Register at <a href="http://www.inspirationfarm.com/newif/Classes.html">http://www.inspirationfarm.com/newif/Classes.html</a></strong></p>
<p><strong>If you attend this class and then decide you want to take the whole Permacultue Design Certificate course we are offering in August we will credit this class fee towards the PDC.</strong></p>
<p><span style="color: #000000;">You will likely come away Inspired, as <a href="http://peakmoment.tv/" target="_blank">PeakMoment.tv</a> host Janaia Donaldson is when she visits. In her latest Journal post, Janaia writes:<br/></span></p>
<blockquote><p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4163" style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4164" style="color: #000000;">Brian Kerkvliet gave the grand tour to us and gardener Ruth Nail, a recent transplant to the area. A large new pond in the middle, channeling water to a new swales (ditches carved on contour). Just outside the pasture fence were just-planted alder and apple trees which will eventually provide munchables for the two dairy cows inside.</span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4161" style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4160" style="color: #000000;">I was most intrigued by his putting multiple levels of plants in one bed. “Stacking function,” said Brian the <span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4162" class="yiv4956227693Apple-style-span">permaculture educator</span>. Just like in a forest, there’s ground cover, an herbaceous layer, shrub layer, and tree layer. In the berm — a big mound of soil dug out of and piled up beside the swale<span class="yiv4956227693Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv4956227693Apple-style-span">—</span> Brian had strewn a cover crop mix of broccoli, kale, peas, turnips, sunflowers, parsnips, daikon, buckwheat, oats, fava and other beans, bees’ friend, crimson clover, lettuce, carrots, and collards! Their little leaves were just poking up, colorful and varied like a ground cover of mosses and tiny plants in the forest. What a gorgeously diverse spread for future munching!</span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4171" style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4170" style="color: #000000;">Beside the cover crop, a thicket of tall rye grass provided protection for the small apple tree starts planted here and there. The rye grains will be harvested in a few months, their cut stalks falling left in place to become mulch. Amongst the apple trees were also alder trees starts, whose roots will go much deeper than the apple trees, and will bring up deep water and nutrients for plants with shallower roots. </span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4173" style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4172" style="color: #000000;">All of these layers were in one swale mound, just like in a forest: Autumn olive, sea buckthorn, buffalo berry, Gumi berry, siberian pea shrub. Brian rattled off which plants were nitrogen fixers as well as food plants, like black locust and alders.</span></p>
<p id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4174" style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4175" style="color: #000000;">I love this changing food forest landscape<span class="yiv4956227693Apple-converted-space"> </span><span class="yiv4956227693Apple-style-span">—</span><span class="yiv4956227693Apple-converted-space"> </span>always evolving, becoming more complex and even more like wild nature.</span></p>
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<p style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4175" style="color: #000000;">See Janaia’s Journal: <a href="http://peakmoment.tv/journal/a-new-season-at-inspiration-farm/" target="_blank">A New Season at Inspiration Farm</a> for a great photo montage that accompanies this post.</span></p>
<p style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4175" style="color: #000000;">A new Peak Moment episode featuring Inspiration Farm is coming soon…in the meantime, check out this recent episode about last year’s Whatcom Skillshare Faire – which partly features Inspiration Farm steward Brian Kerkvliet as he and Celt Schira demonstrate the 100 year old seed thresher they restored.</span></p>
<p style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/R5zpjruKpz0?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<p style="color: #606060; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 15px; line-height: 22px; text-align: left;"><span id="yui_3_16_0_1_1401151296777_4175" style="color: #000000;"><strong>And don’t forget the <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/02/17/permaculture-design-certificate-course-at-inspiration-farm/" target="_blank">Permaculture Design Course in August at Inspiration Farm</a>, mentioned above! Make plans now to <em>learn a skill set for uncertain times, and to be part of the solution!</em></strong></span></p>
<div id="attachment_195" style="width: 650px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/img_96441.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-195 align-center" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/img_96441.jpg?w=640&h=480" alt="Feet in communion at Inspiration Farm" height="480" width="640"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Feet in communion at Inspiration Farm</p>
</div>An Energy "Renaissance"?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-04-05:2723460:BlogPost:963402014-04-05T16:13:44.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<p><strong>Reposted from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/an-energy-renaissance/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog.</strong></p>
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<div class="entry-content"><blockquote><p>David – I thought we were entering an energy “renaissance” with new and easy ways to extract gas via fracking. Obviously, I understand the downsides of fracking. Can you elaborate?</p>
<p>Ken Mann<br></br> Whatcom County Councilmember</p>
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<p>Yes Ken, I…</p>
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<p><strong>Reposted from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/20/an-energy-renaissance/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog.</strong></p>
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<div class="entry-content"><blockquote><p>David – I thought we were entering an energy “renaissance” with new and easy ways to extract gas via fracking. Obviously, I understand the downsides of fracking. Can you elaborate?</p>
<p>Ken Mann<br/> Whatcom County Councilmember</p>
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<p>Yes Ken, I would love to elaborate. Thank you for the question. Councilmember Mann’s note above was in response to my last post: <em><strong><a href="https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/03/12/oil-company-woes-this-is-what-energy-depletion-looks-like/" target="_blank">Oil Company Woes: This is What Energy Depletion Looks Like</a></strong></em>.</p>
<p>Brief recap: In that post I pointed out that <strong>many of the big oil companies</strong> (the “richest corporations in the history of civilization” according to Pete Kremen) <strong>actually are facing some serious cash flow difficulties.</strong> How could this be? I pointed to a <a href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers" target="_blank">Steven Kopits presentation</a> at Columbia University showing that the costs of oil extraction have been rising rapidly in recent years, while the price that they’ve been able to sell for has remained fairly flat – about $100 a barrel for the last 3 years. Costs have risen almost 11% per year since 1999, and for oil companies to maintain expected profit ratios, the price should now probably be about $130/barrel or more.</p>
<p>Things are getting so bad that oil companies are cancelling projects, selling assets to pay dividends, and <a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/12/3523610/whatcom-county-council-not-happy.html" target="_blank">challenging property tax assessments</a>.</p>
<p><strong>Why don’t the oil companies raise the price?</strong> Because they don’t set the price, markets do, according to Kopits.</p>
<p><strong>Why doesn’t the market raise the price?</strong> Because the economy can’t afford it – prices that high could lead to another recession.</p>
<p><strong>Why are the costs for extracting oil increasing so dramatically?</strong></p>
<p>Here we come back to the concept of energy depletion. “The age of easy oil is over” Chevron CEO Dave O’Reilly told us in an ad campaign in 2005. It turns out he was right. Conventional oil production peaked that year. What has made up the difference since then is unconventional oil sources: ultra-deep water oil, tar sands oil, oil from shale, and oil from fracking. Which leads us to Councilmember Mann’s question:</p>
<p><strong>I thought we were entering an energy “renaissance” with new and easy ways to extract gas via fracking…?</strong></p>
<p>Yes, this is the meme that has been put out there through industry channels. The peak oil community has continually challenged this message. Petroleum geologist <a href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-10/u-dot-s-dot-shale-oil-boom-may-not-last-as-fracking-wells-lack-staying-power" target="_blank">Art Berman</a> said “I look at Shale gas more as a retirement party than as a revolution.” Geoscientist Dave Hughes warns that we’re due for the gas bubble to burst in his <a href="http://shalebubble.org/drill-baby-drill/" target="_blank">Drill, Baby, Drill</a> report (<a href="http://www.desmogblog.com/2013/02/19/fracking-wall-street-housing-bubble" target="_blank">summary review here</a>). And <a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/book/1788629-snake-oil-how-fracking-s-false-promise" target="_blank">Richard Heinberg’s latest book</a> is called “<em>Snake Oil: How Fracking’s False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future</em>.”</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/snake-oil-front-cover.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1786" alt="snake-oil-front-cover" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/snake-oil-front-cover.jpg?w=640"/></a></p>
<p>Lately, even the mainstream media is catching on. <em><strong>Forbes</strong></em> magazine ran a story on Jan. 26th: “<a href="http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesgruber/2014/01/26/shale-oil-charlatans/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Why Shale Oil Boosters Are Charlatans in Disguise</a>.”<br/> It is interesting that this story claims peak oil theory is wrong, but the argument laid out is exactly what the intelligent ‘peak oil’ theorists have been saying for years. This is not new material – it is a simplified version of what’s been said on The Oil Drum peak oil site many times: <strong>the importance of getting a significant energy yield for the energy that is invested to get that yield.</strong></p>
<p><strong>The first thing to understand about fracking is that the wells tend to deplete very fast. The second thing to understand about all of these unconventional resources is that it is taking more and more energy to get less and less net energy returned. When you see costs of extraction going up exponentially, that usually means a lot of energy associated with those costs.</strong></p>
<p>We’re already tapped out on the low hanging fruit, and now we’re having to reach further, to dig deeper, to cause more environmental destruction, for less and less of a return. Instead of peak oil, the Forbes article talks about the end of cheap energy, which is fine by me, and perhaps a better way to frame it anyway.</p>
<p>The situation we find ourselves in today is following the trajectory laid out in Heinberg’s 2003 book <em>The Party’s Over</em>, in which he reported the prognosis laid out by geologists Colin Campbell and Jean LaHerrere. As I quoted Heinberg in my last post:</p>
<blockquote><p>So they were saying back before 2003, because it published in 2003, so it was actually written in 2001 and 2002. So they were saying back in 2000 and 2001 that we would see a peak in conventional oil around 2005—check—that that would cause oil prices to bump higher—check—which would cause a slowdown in economic growth—check. But it would also incentivize production of unconventional oil in various forms—check—which would then peak around 2015, which is basically almost where we are right now and all the signs are suggesting that that is going to be a check-off, too. So amazing enough, these two guys got it perfectly correct fifteen years ago.</p>
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<p>A front page story in <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> on January 29th confirms our story about the cash flow struggles the industry is currently facing: “Big Oil Companies’ Big Projects Struggle to Justify Soaring Costs” by Daniel Gilbert and Justin Scheck, Jan. 29th. I think the story is behind a paywall. Someone tweeted the graphic used in the story, which says a lot by itself (<a href="https://twitter.com/chr1stianh/status/428492906593136640/photo/1" target="_blank" rel="nofollow"><span style="color: #196ad4;">Twitter post here</span></a>.) :</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/bfjqbz7cmaaawoj.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1787" alt="BfJQBz7CMAAAwoj" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/bfjqbz7cmaaawoj.png?w=640&h=271"/></a></p>
<p>You can see that since 2009 the oil companies have worked very hard to supply the market with oil. The efforts have been compared to The Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland (<a href="http://climatecrocks.com/2013/11/04/usa-today-fracking-and-red-queen-syndrome/" target="_blank">“Fracking and The Red Queen Syndrome” from Climate Crocks</a>):</p>
<div id="attachment_1788" style="width: 463px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/alice__red_queen.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1788" alt="Red Queen Syndrome: "It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place." " src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/alice__red_queen.jpg?w=640"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">Red Queen Syndrome: “It takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place.”</p>
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<p>The problem is, they can only run in place for so long. As Gail Tverberg pointed out, if the oil companies are now having to cut back on their spending, does this spell <a href="http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-oil-companies-cut-back-on-spending/" target="_blank">The Beginning of The End</a>?</p>
<p>Richard Heinberg and Chris Martenson are right: <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-10/the-oil-revolution-story-is-dead-wrong" target="_blank">The Oil Revolution Story Is Dead Wrong</a>.</p>
</div>Oil Company Woes: This is What Energy Depletion Looks Liketag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-03-14:2723460:BlogPost:960482014-03-14T18:34:14.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>The Bellingham Herald had a front page article Wednesday indicating the dismay being expressed by the County Council over the fact that the two largest corporate taxpayers are challenging their property tax assessments. These would be BP Cherry Point refinery and the Phillips 66 refinery in Ferndale.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/12/3523610/whatcom-county-council-not-happy.html" target="_blank" title="Whatcom County Council not happy about BP tax dispute">The…</a></p>
<p>The Bellingham Herald had a front page article Wednesday indicating the dismay being expressed by the County Council over the fact that the two largest corporate taxpayers are challenging their property tax assessments. These would be BP Cherry Point refinery and the Phillips 66 refinery in Ferndale.</p>
<p><a title="Whatcom County Council not happy about BP tax dispute" href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/12/3523610/whatcom-county-council-not-happy.html" target="_blank">The Bellingham Herald article</a> by John Stark tells us that BP is challenging the most recent property tax assessment of $975 million, which they say is at least $275 million too high. BP is the number 1 taxpayer in Whatcom County, and number 2 is Phillips 66, which got an assessed value of $459 million for 2014 taxes and is <a title="Millions in tax dollars at stake as Whatcom oil refineries dispute property taxes" href="http://www.bellinghamherald.com/2014/03/03/3503310/millions-at-stake-as-whatcom-oil.html" target="_blank">also contesting its assessment</a>, seeking a reduction of $35 million.</p>
<div><blockquote><p>Council member Pete Kremen said he thought BP was asking for far too big a tax cut. “It is a huge, audacious ask, in my opinion,” Kremen said. “I think it is absurd. … It’s one of the richest corporations in the history of civilization.”</p>
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<p>Kremen went on to joke that BP needs the money to pay for the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that resulted from the explosion of their Deepwater Horizon oil rig.</p>
<p>I would argue that we need to connect the dots to a more systemic problem the oil industry as a whole is facing. Ironically, these “richest corporations in the history of civilization” actually are facing some serious cash flow difficulties. The problem was spelled out in painful detail recently in a presentation by Steven Kopits at Columbia University. You can view the hour long presentation or download the pdf <a href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers" target="_blank">here</a>. Or you can get an overview from Gail Tverberg over at the excellent <em>Our Finite World</em> blog. She titled her post <a href="http://ourfiniteworld.com/2014/02/25/beginning-of-the-end-oil-companies-cut-back-on-spending/" target="_blank"><strong>Beginning of the End? Oil Companies Cut Back on Spending</strong></a>. It boils down to this:</p>
<blockquote><p>Steve Kopits <a href="http://energypolicy.columbia.edu/events-calendar/global-oil-market-forecasting-main-approaches-key-drivers">recently gave a presentation</a> explaining our current predicament: the cost of oil extraction has been rising rapidly (10.9% per year) but oil prices have been flat. Major oil companies are finding their profits squeezed, and have recently announced plans to sell off part of their assets in order to have funds to pay their dividends. Such an approach is likely to lead to an eventual drop in oil production…</p>
<p>Kopits presents data showing how badly the big, publicly traded oil companies are doing. He looks at two pieces of information:</p>
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<li>“Capex” – “Capital expenditures” – How much companies are spending on things like exploration, drilling, and making of new offshore oil platforms</li>
<li>“Crude oil production” -</li>
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<p>A person would normally expect that crude oil production would rise as Capex rises, but Kopits shows that in fact since 2006, Capex has continued to rise, but crude oil production has fallen…According to Koptis, the cost of oil extraction has in recent years been rising at 10.9% per year since 1999. (CAGR means “compound annual growth rate”)…Kopits explains that the industry needs prices of over $100 barrel…</p>
<p>…companies have found themselves coming up short: they find that after they have paid capital expenditures and other expenditures such as taxes, they don’t have enough money left to pay dividends, unless they borrow money or sell off assets. Oil companies need to pay dividends because pension plans and other buyers of oil company stocks expect to receive regular dividends in payment for their equity investment. The dividends are important to pension plans. In the last bullet point on the slide, Kopits is telling us that on this basis, most US oil companies need a price of $130 barrel or more.</p>
<p>…Kopits reports that all of the major oil companies are reporting divestment programs. Does selling assets really solve the oil companies’ problems? What the oil companies would really like to do is raise their prices, but they can’t do that, because they don’t set prices, the market does–and the prices aren’t high enough. And the oil companies really can’t cut costs. So instead, they sell assets to pay dividends, or perhaps just to get out of the business.</p>
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<p>So what is the problem? Evidence continues to support the notion that, as many of us “peak oilers” have been saying for many years, conventional oil production peaked in 2005. Since that time the industry has had to increasingly rely on unconventional oil – the expensive, dirty, hard to get “oil” found in the ultra-deep waters of the ocean, from tar sands, from the Bakken shale, etc. The problem is not that those resources do not exist, the problem is that they are not cheap, they are not easy, and the energy returned on the energy invested continues to shrink.</p>
<p>Part 2 of the problem is that the oil companies can’t charge $130 a barrel, because that would crash the economy, and when the economy tanks, so do the oil prices, at which point the amount of oil they extract and process will have to shrink as well.</p>
<p>Continuing on this theme, I recommend the recent discussion between Chris Martenson and Richard Heinberg, which is a bit easier to follow that the above referenced presentations by Kopits and Tverberg. Martenson says <strong><a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-10/the-oil-revolution-story-is-dead-wrong" target="_blank">The Oil Revolution Story is Dead Wrong</a></strong>.</p>
<blockquote><div><strong>Chris Martenson:</strong> So I want to start here. <em>The Party’s Over</em>, the book that did get me started on peak oil, written in 2003. And very clearly articulated, oil is a finite substance, and we built this whole giant growing economic model around it and that is a problem, it is a predicament. Here we are, eleven years later in 2014, and the party is still continuing. What is going on?</div>
<div><strong>Richard Heinberg:</strong> Well, you know, I recently went back and reread the first edition of <em>The Party’s Over</em>because it was the tenth year anniversary. And I was actually a little surprised to see what it really says. My forecasts in <em>The Party’s Over</em> were really based on the work of two veteran petroleum geologists—Colin Campbell and Jean Laherrère. So they were saying back before 2003, because it published in 2003, so it was actually written in 2001 and 2002. So they were saying back in 2000 and 2001 that we would see a peak in conventional oil around 2005—check—that that would cause oil prices to bump higher—check—which would cause a slowdown in economic growth—check. But it would also incentivize production of unconventional oil in various forms—check—which would then peak around 2015, which is basically almost where we are right now and all the signs are suggesting that that is going to be a check-off, too. So amazing enough, these two guys got it perfectly correct fifteen years ago.</div>
<div><strong>Chris Martenson:</strong> Well, it is an amazing part of the story is that at a price, there is always more oil, right? If it was a trillion dollars a drop, I assume we would find ways to actually flip North Dakota over and scrape the source rock out. And so the price and availability and supply of oil is always a big deal. I see that a lot when people are talking about the resources of natural gas that exist but fail to tell me at what price those exist, right? To get the resource is always possible but the price is important.</div>
<div>And yet, we look at the economic sphere and we discover that the economy also has a price for oil but it’s what it can afford to pay.</div>
<div><strong>Richard Heinberg:</strong> That is exactly right.</div>
<div><strong>Chris Martenson:</strong> And as I look across the last three years, we have roughly been averaging $100 a barrel on the international landscape. And what do we see? We see Ukraine suddenly dissolving, we see Southern Europe with 50% unemployment rates—all things that I think were predicted by almost anybody who was really looking at the peak oil story a long time ago. It is all really coming true and yet the story today is not really connecting those two pieces together, except for people like you and myself and a number of others, but really a handful.</div>
<div><strong>Richard Heinberg:</strong> Right. Yeah, the big news right now is that the industry needs prices higher than the economy will allow, as you just outlined. So we are seeing the major oil companies cutting back on capital expenditure in upstream projects, which will undoubtedly have an impact a year or two down the line in terms of lower oil production. That is why I think that Campbell and Laherrère were right on in saying 2015, 2016 maybe, we will also start to see the rapid increase of production from the Bakken and the Eagle Ford here in the US start to flatten out. And probably within a year or two after that, we will see a commencement of a rapid decline…</div>
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<div>Read more here (or listen to the podcast): <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-10/the-oil-revolution-story-is-dead-wrong" target="_blank">http://www.resilience.org/stories/2014-03-10/the-oil-revolution-story-is-dead-wrong</a></div>
<div>Is peak oil a myth? Tell that to our local refineries who are experiencing the downslope of formerly abundant oil flowing through the Alaska pipeline, and now must instead turn to the more expensive and problematic <a href="http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/jun/29/refineries-prepare-for-ndak-oil-trains/" target="_blank">oil coming via trains from North Dakota</a>.</div>
<div>The era of easy oil is over, and the prospect of oil trains, coal trains, and less tax revenue from oil companies are all signs that things are changing, and changing fast. This is what the first stages of energy depletion look like.</div>
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</div>Nicole Foss on Deliberate Attempts to Cause System Failuretag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-02-23:2723460:BlogPost:957492014-02-23T05:00:12.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>This post is a continuation of <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/category/crash-on-demand/" target="_blank">my series</a> discussing David Holmgren’s <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Crash-on-demand.pdf" target="_blank"><strong><em>Crash On Demand</em></strong></a> essay, and the multitude of responses that have popped up in the peak oil blogosphere.</p>
<p>One of those responses was by Nicole Foss, of The Automatic Earth. In fact her response was a…</p>
<p>This post is a continuation of <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/category/crash-on-demand/" target="_blank">my series</a> discussing David Holmgren’s <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Crash-on-demand.pdf" target="_blank"><strong><em>Crash On Demand</em></strong></a> essay, and the multitude of responses that have popped up in the peak oil blogosphere.</p>
<p>One of those responses was by Nicole Foss, of The Automatic Earth. In fact her response was a long essay in its own right, which deserves to be read in its entirety: <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-on-demand-a-response-to-david-holmgren/" target="_blank"><em><strong>Crash on Demand? A Response to David Holmgren</strong></em></a>. In the middle of this long essay, Nicole Foss has a section that I’d like to quote at length. One of the unfortunate outcomes of long essays is that important ideas can get lost, and I want this to see the light of day.</p>
<p>I have previously pointed out (<a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/what-is-david-holmgren-really-telling-us/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/02/03/david-holmgren-i-havent-really-changed-the-message/" target="_blank">here</a>) that David Holmgren was not directly advocating that people engage in activities for the purpose of crashing the economy. Rather he was appealing to those who do think that such an approach is appropriate – suggesting that the permaculture approach of withdrawing from the consumer economy and becoming more self-reliant might actually contribute more effectively to the end result of creating the kind of world we do want to live in, AND might also, by the way, hasten the crashing of the current economic system. In a recent interview, Holmgren stated: “…some people thought I was advocating that the primary motivation for the sort of Permaculture strategies was actually to destroy the current economy. That’s not the purpose at all, but it’s a bizarre situation that we’ve got to, where the possibility of the success of that strategy would hasten what is an inevitable process, because generally the view is that these personal things that we do don’t really have any impact.”</p>
<p>Nevertheless, I think it is important to address this question – should we engage in deliberate attempts to bring the system down? I personally do not feel this to be a strategy that would be effective in the long term. This is a message I have tried to put out numerous times (for example <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/xn/detail/2723460:Comment:1783" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/xn/detail/2723460:Comment:1795" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/responses-to-bill-mckibben/" target="_blank">here</a> and <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/you-say-you-want-a-revolution/" target="_blank">here</a>), but I think Nicole Foss says it better than I have ever been able to articulate. Perhaps she does not fully grasp the subtleties of Holmgren’s position that I’ve outlined above, but I appreciate the clarity of her own position. I am quoting at length to provide context – the important points I want to focus on are in the last three paragraphs:</p>
<blockquote><p>Holmgren argues that collapse in fact offers the best way forward, that a reckoning postponed will be worse when the inevitable limit is finally reached. The longer the expansion phase of the cycle continues, the greater the debt mountain and the structural dependence on cheap energy become, and the more greenhouse gas emissions are produced. Considerable pain is inflicted on the masses by the attempt to sustain the unsustainable at any cost. If we need to learn to live within limits, we should do so sooner rather than later. Holmgren focuses particularly on the potential for collapse to sharply reduce emissions, thereby perhaps preventing the climate catastrophe built into the Brown Tech scenario.</p>
<p>He raises the possibility that concerted effort by a large enough minority of middle class westerners to convert from dependent consumers to independent producers could derail an already over-stretched and vulnerable financial system which requires perpetual growth to survive. He suggests that a 50% reduction in consumption and a 50% conversion of assets into building resilience by 10% of the population of developed countries would create a 5% reduction in demand and savings capital available for banks to lend.</p>
<p>An involuntary demand collapse is, in any case, characteristic of periods of economic depression. Conversion of assets from the virtual wealth of the financial world to something tangible would have to be done well in advance of financial crisis, as the value of purely financial assets is likely to evaporate in a large scale repricing event, leaving nothing to convert. There are <a href="http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.ca/2011/12/december-5-2011-look-back-look-forward.html"><b>far more financial assets that constitute claims to underlying real wealth than there is real wealth to be claimed</b></a>, and only the early movers will be able to make a claim. This is already well underway among the elite who are aware that financial crisis is approaching. In a world where banks create money as debt at the stroke of a pen, a pool of savings is not actually necessary for lending. Lending rests to a much greater extent on the perception of risk in the financial system. The impacts of proposed actions would not be linear, as the financial system is not mechanistic, meaning that quantitative outcomes would not necessarily be predictable. Holmgren recognizes this in his acknowledgement that small changes in the balance of supply and demand can have a disproportionate impact on prices.</p>
<p>Holmgren realizes the risks inherent in explicitly advocating such an approach, both at a personal level and in terms of the permaculture movement as a whole. These concerns are very valid. Permaculture has a very positive image as a solution to the need for perpetual growth, and this might be put at risk if it became associated with any deliberate attempt to cause system failure. While I understand why Holmgren would open a discussion on this front, given what is at stake, it is indeed dangerous to ‘grasp the third rail’ in this way. This approach has some aspects in common with Deep Green Resistance, which also advocates bringing down the existing system, although in their case in a more overtly destructive manner. In a command economy scenario, which seems at least temporarily likely, such explicitly stated goals become the focus, regardless of the least-worst-option rationale and the positive means by which the goals are meant to be pursued. A movement best placed to make a difference could find itself demonized and its practices uncomprehendingly banned, which would be simply tragic.</p>
<p>Decentralization initiatives already <a href="http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.ca/2012/01/january-3-2012-storm-surge-of.html"><b>face opposition</b></a>, but this could become significantly worse if perceived to be even more of a direct threat to the establishment. While they hold the potential to render people who disengage from the larger system very much better off, on the grounds of increased self-reliance, they also hold the potential to make targets of the early adopters who would be required to lead the charge. Much better, in my opinion, to continue the good work with the declared, and entirely defensible, goals of building greater local resilience and security of supply while preserving and regenerating the natural world. While almost any form of advance preparation for a major crisis of civilization would have the side-effect of weakening an existing system that increasingly requires total buy-in, there is a difference between side-effect and stated goal.</p>
<p>The global financial system is teetering on the brink of a major crisis in any case. It does not need any action taken to bring it down as it has already had easily enough rope to hang itself. Inviting blame for an inevitable outcome seems somewhat reckless given the likelihood that many will be casting about for scapegoats. Holmgren argues that, as those who warn of a crash are likely to be blamed for causing it anyway, they might as well be proactive about it. Personally, I would rather not provide a convenient justification for misplaced blame.</p>
<p><strong>- Nicole Foss: <em>Crash on Demand? A Response to David Holmgren</em></strong></p>
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<p>Please read her complete essay <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-demand-response-david-holmgren-3/" target="_blank">here</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/enantiodromia.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1747" alt="Enantiodromia" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/enantiodromia.jpg?w=640"/></a> <a href="http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/patterns/rhythm/enantiodromia/" target="_blank">Enantiodromia</a> has been identified by PatternDynamics as a common system pattern. The term was invented by Carl Jung who observed that “the superabundance of any force inevitably produces its opposite.” In <a href="http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/patterns/rhythm/enantiodromia/" target="_blank">PatternDynamics</a> it is described as “the force exerted by extreme movements on the emergence and growth of their opposites.” The extreme conditions brought about by climate change impacts can spur some groups of people to develop an extreme response, which will likely result in an even more extreme response by opposing groups. For an extreme example, imagine an activist blowing up train tracks in order to stop coal trains from delivering their cargo to an export terminal. The likely result would be a swing in public opinion in support of both the railroad and the export terminal. Most people would not be able to identify with that level of violence, and so would tend to identify with its opposite. As the Bible says, <em>Sow the wind, reap the whirlwind</em>.</p>
<p>Although I thought <a href="http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2014-01/holmgren-s-crash-demand-be-careful-what-you-wish" target="_blank">Rob Hopkins’ response</a> to the Holmgren essay was somewhat off the mark in its interpretation of Holmgren’s essay, he had an important point along these lines as well: “be careful what you wish for.” The Transition approach is still, for me, one that holds a lot of potential. The scale of changes needed calls for larger segments of society to come on board. The <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/page/7-principles" target="_blank">Transition Principle of Inclusion and Openness</a> states, “<i>“Successful Transition Initiatives need an unprecedented coming together of the broad diversity of society.</i>” Hopkins’ follow-up piece, <a href="http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2014-01/reflections-being-cultural-optimist-and-month-scaling" target="_blank">Reflections on Being a Cultural Optimist</a>, is for me a stronger contribution to the <em>Crash on Demand</em> discussion. He writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>Transition, for me, is in part about withdrawing our support from the existing, climate-destroying, fossil fuel-hungry beast, and transferring it to a new culture, a new economy, a new society. It’s divestment writ large. As Lipkis put it,</p>
<p>“I think we’ve been trained to spend time on these battles, on the negativity, and we lose people. We’ve lost precious decades. The crash is on its way. We don’t have to do anything. We need the time to convert people and move people. From the experience of those of us who went through the ‘60s and ‘70s in protest movements, I don’t think that route’s going to succeed. If we focus on that our best leaders are going to end up in jail for too long.”</p>
<p>That’s why Transition, for me, is skilful. It works at the local level, it is apolitical and therefore works beneath the radar, and it has the power to make what currently seems politically impossible become politically inevitable.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In my own “Integral Permaculture” approach, I have a high level of concern about the perilous state of the planet, and so I resonate with the concern and frustration of those who want to stop the destruction by any means necessary. However, like Hopkins and Foss, I believe positive actions are more effective strategies. The system is more likely to change course when a new and better paradigm is demonstrated. It is in this spirit that we strive for positive actions with both immediate and long term benefits.</p>
<p>The “us vs. them” approach is not working. We’re all in this together now.</p>
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</p>David Holmgren Responds to "Crash on Demand" Discussiontag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-02-01:2723460:BlogPost:952092014-02-01T23:12:42.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<div class="entry-content"><p>The blog post I wrote below is one of many circulating in the peak oil scene. I’m looking forward to hearing David Holmgren in his own words on this radio interview on Sunday, Feb. 2nd. He’ll be answering some of the questions raised in the recent debate on his essay “<a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand</a>.“ 8pm London time, I believe that’s Noon PST, here in Bellingham.</p>
<p>Here’s…</p>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>The blog post I wrote below is one of many circulating in the peak oil scene. I’m looking forward to hearing David Holmgren in his own words on this radio interview on Sunday, Feb. 2nd. He’ll be answering some of the questions raised in the recent debate on his essay “<a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand</a>.“ 8pm London time, I believe that’s Noon PST, here in Bellingham.</p>
<p>Here’s <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand-radio-interview-1/" target="_blank">what was posted on Holmgren’s site</a>. I love the radio image, which underscores Holmgren’s adage “When using high technology, avoid using state of the art equipment”:</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/radio_barmaya-300x203.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1719" alt="radio_barmaya-300x203" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/02/radio_barmaya-300x203.jpg?w=640"/></a>The other day David Holmgren was interviewed by Steffen Geyer from the radio show, “<a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand-radio-interview-1/www.mixcloud.com/21stcenturypermaculture" target="_blank">21st Century Permaculture</a>” answering some of the questions raised by the fellow travellers in the recent debate on his essay “<a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand</a>“.</p>
<p>The interview is scheduled to go to air on <a href="http://www.shoreditchradio.co.uk/" target="_blank">Shoreditch community radio</a> in London this Sunday [Feb. 2, 2014] at 8pm. If you are not in London, you can listen to it via the station’s website. We will be getting up early at 7am Feb 3 Monday morning (AEDT zone) to listen to the program, no doubt.</p>
<p>If you are in any other time zone, convert your local time and tune in. <strong>[12:00pm, PST in Bellingham and on the west coast U.S.A.]</strong></p>
<p><a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/697940413573814/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular&source=1" target="_blank">Facebook event page of the radio show</a>.</p>
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<p><span class="font-size-3"><strong>What is David Holmgren Really Telling Us?</strong></span></p>
<p><em>by David MacLeod, <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/what-is-david-holmgren-really-telling-us/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a>, Jan. 19, 2014</em></p>
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<p>David Holmgren’s latest essay, <em><strong><a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand</a></strong></em>, appeared on his website initially with little fanfare in December. My post (<em><a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/12/17/crash-on-demand-david-holmgren-updates-his-future-scenarios/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand: David Holmgren Updates His Future Scenarios</a></em>) was perhaps the first online response (posted December 17th).</p>
<p>Now the peak-oil blogosphere is roiling with commentary, with lots of different positions being staked out. <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2014/01/19/what-is-david-holmgren-really-telling-us/maintains%20that%20we%20have%20a%20duty%20to%20protect%20life%20on%20earth%20by%20any%20means%20necessary%20from%20a%20rapacious%20class%20of%20human%20being%20and%20a%20system%20that%20has%20got%20out%20of%20control." target="_blank">Jason Heppenstal</a> characterizes Holmgren’s position as advocating “any means necessary” to protect life on earth.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-demand-response-david-holmgren-3/" target="_blank">Nicole Foss at The Automatic Earth</a> mostly supports Holmgren’s position, but offers her own lengthy essay to stake out her nuanced position.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2014-01/holmgren-s-crash-demand-be-careful-what-you-wish" target="_blank">Rob Hopkins at Transition Culture</a>, taking on one of his heroes, calls Holmgren “naive and irresponsible” and then quotes Nicole Foss out of context to boot. Guy McPherson was (apparently) even less kind to Foss. <a href="http://c-realm.blogspot.mx/2014/01/dirty-pool.html" target="_blank">Kevin O’Conner at C-Realm</a> calls him out on it and sets the record straight.</p>
<p><a href="http://transitionus.org/blog/economic-descent-hopefully-skillful-means" target="_blank">Joanne Poyourow at Transition U.S.</a> in turn seems to imply that Hopkins is beginning to paint himself into the Green Tech Stability scenario, rather than that of Energy Descent (Steady State folk then claim they are misrepresented). She is careful to make her position clear: “I am not advocating for intentionally creating an economic crash.”</p>
<p>Then legendary permaculture activist <a href="http://peaksurfer.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/charting-collapseniks.html" target="_blank">Albert Bates</a> offered up convenient charts so that we can see where all of our favorite Collapseniks fall into his 4 quadrant map. Do they lean toward Ecotopia or Collapse, toward Peaceful Transformation or Violent Revolution? He shows Holmgren moving from Techno-optimist into the “Violent Revolution” quadrant, which I would strongly challenge. Bates later clarified that the “Violent Revolution” tag is not meant to mean physical violence necessarily, but those “willing to push the agenda with acts of defiance of state authority.” Nevertheless, that nuance is easily lost when just looking at the chart.</p>
<p>Finally (so far), <a href="http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/01/david-holmgrens-crash-on-demand.html" target="_blank">Dimitry Orlov</a> has joined the fray, claiming that Holmgren has “proposed a new approach” because previous mainstream environmentalist strategies (including the Transition Towns movement) have had such a negligible effect.</p>
<p>For me, all of the commentators named above have valid points and important perspectives that are good to hear. However, it is very easy to misrepresent the views of the people being responded to…as I’ve likely unintentionally done above. I will be attempting to sort some of this out in a series of posts.</p>
<p>Today I want to discuss my contention that most of the writers named above, whom I have a great deal of respect for, seem to me to be missing the nuance of David Holmgren’s thinking. These deficient interpretations then are stretched and amplified as they bounce off one another in the blogosphere. <strong>No one seems to be noticing that the actual actions Holmgren recommends haven’t changed much since he wrote <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/about-permaculture/" target="_blank">Permaculture One in 1978</a></strong>.</p>
<p>I hope I’m forgiven for using extended quotes in an attempt to make things more clear.</p>
<p>For example, here is David Holmgren in 1994, concluding an essay titled “<em><a href="http://www.permacultureactivist.net/articles/holmgren.htm" target="_blank">Energy and Permaculture</a></em>“:</p>
<p><b>To summarize…</b></p>
<ul>
<li><b>Reduce, Reuse, Recycle (in that order).</b></li>
<li><b>Grow a garden and eat what it produces.</b></li>
<li><b>Avoid imported resources where possible.</b></li>
<li><b>Use labor and skill in preference to materials and technology.</b></li>
<li><b>Design, build, and purchase for durability and repairability.</b></li>
<li><b>Use resources for their greatest potential use (e.g. electricity for tools and lighting,<br/> food scraps for animal feed).</b></li>
<li><b>Use renewable resources wherever possible even if local environmental costs appear higher (e.g. wood rather than electricity for fuel and timber rather than steel for construction).</b></li>
<li><b>Use non-renewable and embodied energies primarily to establish sustainable systems<br/> (e.g. passive solar housing, food gardens, water storage, forests).</b></li>
<li><b>When using high technology (e.g. computers) avoid using state of the art equipment.</b></li>
<li><b>Avoid debt and long-distance commuting.</b></li>
<li><b>Reduce taxation by earning less.</b></li>
<li><b>Develop a home-based lifestyle, be domestically responsible.</b></li>
</ul>
<p>And here is part of his introduction in last month’s <em><strong>Crash On Demand</strong></em>:</p>
<blockquote><p>My argument is essentially that radical, but achievable, <strong>behaviour change from dependent consumers to responsible self-reliant producers</strong> (by some relatively small minority of the global middle class) has a chance of stopping the juggernaut of consumer capitalism from driving the world over the climate change cliff. It maybe a slim chance, but a better bet than current herculean efforts to get the elites to pull the right policy levers; whether by sweet promises of green tech profits or alternatively threats from mass movements shouting for less consumption.</p>
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<p>It’s the same strategy advocated in both papers: Move from being “dependent consumers to responsible self-reliant producers.” The only thing that has changed is that he’s now also saying, (I’m paraphrasing), “by the way, engaging in this behavior just might help crash the system a little bit sooner.” It seems to me that this invitation is designed to bring into the permaculture fold the environmental activists that are already attempting to avert climate catastrophe by ever more defiant or desperate means – from McKibben campaigning against private oil companies (<a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2012/08/04/responses-to-bill-mckibben/" target="_blank">see my post here</a>) to Klein calling for revolt (<a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/you-say-you-want-a-revolution/" target="_blank">see my post here</a>) to Jensen who claims that “the task of an activist is to confront and take down systems of oppressive power.” (<a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/forum/topics/culture-of-resistance-or?commentId=2723460%3AComment%3A1795" target="_blank">see my post here</a>).</p>
<p>Holmgren writes, “disillusioned social and political activists are just starting to recognize Permaculture as a potentially effective pathway for social change as 20th century style mass movements seem to have lost their potency.”</p>
<p>Their methods are not showing to be effective, whereas the Permaculture/Transition approach will not only put them and their community in a more secure position, it just might also “have a chance of stopping the juggernaut of consumer capitalism from driving the world over the climate change cliff.”</p>
<p>And yet, the way Holmgren’s position is being presented in the blogs, you might think he was saying the opposite. Such was the impression of Lou, who left this comment on Hopkins’ blog:</p>
<blockquote><p>If you agree with David [Holmgren] come and join us at [Deep Green Resistance link]…</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Holmgren states up front in the introduction that “this provocative idea is intended to increase understanding.” This indicates to me that he’s using the suggestion at least partially as a rhetorical device.</p>
<p>On page 14, Holmgren writes:</p>
<blockquote><p>An argument can be mounted for putting effort into precipitating that crash, the crash of the financial system. Any such plan would of course invite being blamed for causing it when it happens.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Note that he doesn’t mount the argument, he instead, choosing his words carefully, says “an argument can be mounted.” Then, a few paragraphs later:</p>
<blockquote><p>Before considering whether this is a good idea or not, I want to consider whether concerted action by limited number of activists could bring it about?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>He has still not decided whether this thought experiment is a good idea or not. Now notice the nuance in Holmgren’s words as he concludes <strong><em>Crash on Demand</em></strong>:</p>
<blockquote><p>Conclusion</p>
<p>Mass movements to get governments to institute change have been losing efficacy for decades, while a mass movement calling for less seems like a hopeless case. Similarly boycotts of particular governments, companies and products simply change the consumption problems into new forms.</p>
<p>I believe that actively building parallel and largely non-monetary household and local community economies with as little as 10% of the population has the potential to function as a deep systemic boycott of the centralized systems as a whole, that could lead to more than 5% contraction in the centralized economies. Whether this became the straw that broke the back of the global financial system or a tipping point, no one could ever say, even after the event.</p>
<p>Discussing such possibilities may be counterproductive and may brand us as crazy people, a doomsday cult or even terrorists. Maybe it is better to keep focusing on the positive aspects of these bottom up changes that are acceptable to the average citizen, better physical and mental health, more fun and empowered children who can survive and thrive in a world of dramatic transformation, while minimizing our contribution to harm to nature and others.</p>
<p>On the other hand, bringing these issues out in the open might inspire desperate climate and political activists to put their substantial energy into permaculture, Transition Towns, voluntary frugality, and other aspects of positive environmentalism. It just might stop the monster of global growth after all other options have been exhausted. Rather than spurning financial system terrorists, we would welcome the impacted and vulnerable to the growing ranks of terra-ists with their hands in the soil.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Did you notice that Holmgren begins by pointing out the ineffectiveness of traditional activism (<a href="http://transitionculture.org/2008/05/15/the-rocky-road-to-a-real-transition-by-paul-chatterton-and-alice-cutler-a-review/" target="_blank">much as Hopkins does here)</a>. He then acknowledges that his provocative suggestion that “reducing consumption and capital enough to crash the fragile global financial system” might actually be counterproductive. “Maybe it is better to keep focusing on the positive aspects of these bottom up changes…” Here he seems to back away a little from the idea of intentionally crashing the economy, coming back around to his common Permaculture message of the past 30 years.</p>
<p>And then he tells us why he offered the suggestion in the first place: to inspire activists “to put their energy into permaculture, Transition Towns…and other aspects of positive environmentalism.”</p>
<p>He’s not a terrorist after all – he’s the same “terra-ist” he’s been all along. He’s not inviting us to take to the streets, but rather to put our “hands in the soil.”</p>
<p>Like Joanne Poyourow, I want to make it clear that I do not support the idea of intentionally creating an economic crash. We’ll go into this in the next post as we look at <a href="http://www.theautomaticearth.com/crash-demand-response-david-holmgren-3/" target="_blank">Nicole Foss’s own thoughtful essay</a>.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/shop_principles_800s-400x400.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1723" alt="shop_principles_800s-400x400" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/shop_principles_800s-400x400.jpg?w=640"/></a>My deepest hope is that after all this discussion ABOUT Holmgren’s ideas, that people will actually read his work, especially <em><a href="http://holmgren.com.au/product/principles/" target="_blank">Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</a></em>. The theme of the book is energy descent, the same theme as the latest paper. The book rises above any particular strategies associated with Permaculture and offers broad principles that can be applied at any scale to the problems of a society that has reached the limits of growth.</p>
</div>What Is PatternDynamics?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-01-25:2723460:BlogPost:952642014-01-25T22:30:00.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>I'm excited for our workshop to begin tomorrow morning, and as I was waiting for Tim's arrival I was studying some of his material. What follows are all Tim's words, but I've organized and put together various statements he's made to form another summary of what PatternDynamics is about. <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bellingham-registration-8926283755?aff=RhythmPolarityStructure&afu=11889076017" target="_blank">There's still a little time…</a></p>
<p>I'm excited for our workshop to begin tomorrow morning, and as I was waiting for Tim's arrival I was studying some of his material. What follows are all Tim's words, but I've organized and put together various statements he's made to form another summary of what PatternDynamics is about. <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bellingham-registration-8926283755?aff=RhythmPolarityStructure&afu=11889076017" target="_blank">There's still a little time left to Register here for the workshop</a>!</p>
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<p>Living systems have a very, very refined capacity of awareness. An awareness that can sense a wide range of subtle signaling between the parts to coordinate into some kind of dynamic system.</p>
<p>This shared awareness is the consciousness of a system of its identity and purpose (the Source pattern). "Source" is the original and central unifying force of a system - the primordial pattern of organization at the heart of all systems.</p>
<p>A "system" is any set of parts that come together to form a whole.</p>
<p>"Dynamics" is any process that integrates and coordinates the complex functions that occur within and between systems.</p>
<p>"Patterns" are patterns of organization observed in nature and in all living systems.</p>
<p>As mentioned above, there is a wide range of subtle signaling that occurs between the parts of a system to coordinate it into some kind of dynamic system. There is a constant coordination and integration and balancing of the fundamental patterns of organization occurring that have kept nature's living systems thriving for hundreds of millions of years.</p>
<p>PatternDynamics(TM) is a form of communication based on these patterns of nature as a new kind of language. <a href="http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/patterns/" target="_blank">They are a set of diagrams</a> designed to communicate a clear set of principles anyone can learn. These principles will enable us to understand complexity and learn systems thinking.</p>
<p>The Patterns can be used to identify tensions in the flow of our human systems and organizations, and when we balance and integrate the Patterns, our systems will achieve a greater level of enduring, thriving health.</p>
<p>Each Pattern has a fundamental Polarity which has the potential to become unbalanced. As we increase in our awareness of our systems and the patterns within them, we will learn how to better balance and integrate the Patterns that have fallen out of balance or become unintegrated.</p>
<p>Living systems do this superbly. That's why we want to bring living systems consciousness into our organizations. Living systems have an amazing capacity to adapt and change and keep thriving in a range of circumstances. If we can bring that into our organizations, then our organizations can, in turn, steward the environments they exist in better.</p>
<p>Ultimately this will contribute to the development of planetary civilization.</p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231487183?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-center" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231487183?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>Embodying the Patterns of PatternDynamicstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2014-01-09:2723460:BlogPost:948782014-01-09T13:00:38.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>In my previous PatternDynamics post (<em><a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/patterndynamics-following-the-way-nature-organizes-itself-to-deal-with-complexity/" target="_blank">Following the Way Nature Organizes Itself to Deal with Complexity</a></em>), I focused mostly on giving a fairly brief explanation of the underlying theory. In this post I’d like to share a little bit about the embodied experience of some of the Patterns that occurs during the PatternDynamics…</p>
<p>In my previous PatternDynamics post (<em><a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/patterndynamics-following-the-way-nature-organizes-itself-to-deal-with-complexity/" target="_blank">Following the Way Nature Organizes Itself to Deal with Complexity</a></em>), I focused mostly on giving a fairly brief explanation of the underlying theory. In this post I’d like to share a little bit about the embodied experience of some of the Patterns that occurs during the PatternDynamics One Day Workshop (coming up <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bay-area-oakland-registration-8925872525?aff=eorg" target="_blank">Jan. 18th in Oakland, CA</a>, and <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bellingham-registration-8926283755?aff=RhythmPolarityStructure&afu=11889076017" target="_blank">Jan. 26th in Bellingham, WA</a>). Rather than being simply a linear, left brain information gathering day, we are invited to be active participants in an experience-based learning organization.</p>
<p><em><strong>Note: I will be leading a short 40 minute session on Jan. 18th in Bellingham where we will get a taste of this easy group breath and movement practice. <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/winter-feast-for-the-soul-patterndynamics" target="_blank">More details here</a>.</strong></em></p>
<p>Participants are asked to stand in circles around the 7 first-order Pattern diagrams that are laid out on the floor (Rhythm, Polarity, Structure, Exchange, Creativity, Dynamics, and Source). Tim Winton then teaches these seven Patterns through simple breath and movement patterns alternating with brief definitions, compelling examples, and group discussion.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/1546362_711640925536788_697941468_n.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1675" alt="1546362_711640925536788_697941468_n" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/1546362_711640925536788_697941468_n.jpg?w=640&h=250" height="250" width="640"/></a></p>
<p>As it goes along, it starts to become clear that each movement is not separate and distinct from the others, but instead each one builds on the one that came before. This serves as a powerful example of how integrated the patterns really are, and that they are all there all the time. What changes is what we focus on, and what perspectives we bring to bear.</p>
<p>Tim Winton:</p>
<blockquote><p>That’s where we really bring living-systems consciousness into organizations, because living systems … have a really amazing capacity to adapt and change, and keep themselves thriving in a range of circumstances. If we can bring that capacity into our organizations, then our organizations can in turn steward those environments better.</p>
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<p>Near the beginning of the workshop it is explained that “Source” represents the fundamental pattern of organization at the heart of all systems, and that the Source of any organization is its identity and purpose. “If the identity and purpose is strong, there’s a strong sense of self-organization.”</p>
<p>Workshop participants are asked to take part in an experiment, “to create a really strong and intentional identity and purpose for our work today. Our identity and purpose is to form a temporary learning organization – a model system with our bodies, our minds, and our awareness.” Consensus is reached on a “Source Commitment” statement that identifies the identity and purpose of the temporary learning organization that is being created.</p>
<p>It is fascinating to experience how embodying the patterns physically and in a group setting serves the learning process. What is really memorable is the sense of being part of a living organism, consciously experiencing our roles as both “part” and “whole,” as well as the process of signaling and responding as parts and wholes. At the conclusion of the first go-around on the ‘Dynamics’ pattern during last year’s Bellingham workshop, there was spontaneous laughter and applause. One participant commented, “That was delicious! Mmm… I could just eat that up!”</p>
<p>I think this is the best advertisement for the workshop – so I created a <em>very</em> short YouTube video teaser with slides and audio; the music at the end is the Monkey Puzzle Orchestra, featuring me on muted cornet (the <a title="Ephemera - The Monkey Puzzle Orchestra" href="http://monkeypuzzleorchestra.com/?ms_collection=ephemera" target="_blank">cd is now available</a> – I’m on tracks 2, 5, and 7).</p>
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<p><iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/zR6Q0QDWwok?wmode=opaque" frameborder="0"></iframe>
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<p>Another woman’s comment: “I feel very charged, and alive. It feels like the whole field is charged, not just me.”</p>
<p>Tim Winton:</p>
<blockquote><p>I think living systems have this kind of awareness [that we had a taste of tonight;] there’s a very, very refined capacity to sense the signaling between the parts to coordinate into some kind of dynamic system. Having a language for how that happens, and being able to share this language, will help coordinate the source of our own organizations, which then are the foundation for supporting the environment and the planet.</p>
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<p><strong>If you’re interested in learning more…</strong></p>
<p><strong>Register for the Bellingham workshop at Eventbrite: <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bellingham-registration-8926283755?aff=RhythmPolarityStructure&afu=11889076017" target="_blank">Click Here</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Download the One Day Workshop work book <a title="One Day Workshop Workbook" href="http://pd1.kajabi.com/sq/34828-workbook-download" target="_blank">here</a>.</strong></p>
<p><strong>Visit <a href="http://www.patterndynamics.net/" target="_blank">www.patterndynamics.net</a></strong></p>PatternDynamics: Following The Way Nature Organizes Itself to Deal with Complexitytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-12-28:2723460:BlogPost:944442013-12-28T20:00:00.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<p>The natural world is staggeringly complex, and yet amazingly elegant in how it manages the multitude of interconnected parts into organized, unified wholes that thrive. What is the secret for harnessing this elegance for use in human systems? Tim Winton found that observation of the most common patterns found in the natural world led to the development of high level principles which can then be used to address the most complex challenges that human systems…</p>
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<p>The natural world is staggeringly complex, and yet amazingly elegant in how it manages the multitude of interconnected parts into organized, unified wholes that thrive. What is the secret for harnessing this elegance for use in human systems? Tim Winton found that observation of the most common patterns found in the natural world led to the development of high level principles which can then be used to address the most complex challenges that human systems face.</p>
<p>After learning some of the common patterns found in all natural systems, we can then begin to recognize these patterns in human systems , and learn how to balance the ones that are skewed, and to integrate in the ones might add a greater level of enduring health. We can “make a deeper difference by changing the system!”</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/change-the-system.png"><img class="alignleft wp-image-1649" alt="change the system" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/change-the-system.png?w=244&h=448" height="448" width="244"/></a></p>
<p>PatternDynamics is a systems thinking tool for creating systems level change that Winton has been developing over 20 years as he’s worked in diverse fields, including: environmental services contractor, organic farmer, sustainability educator, designer, project manager, consultant, executive leadership, and corporate governance.</p>
<p>What is unique about PatternDynamics is that it combines the patterns of nature with the power of language, to produce a sustainability pattern language.</p>
<p>In a <a title="The Future of Leadership for Conscious Capitalism " href="https://associates.metaintegral.org/blog/future-leadership-conscious-capitalism" target="_blank">recent paper by Barrett Brown</a>, referring to a study he had done in 2012 of top performing organizational leaders, he observed that these top leaders “use three powerful thinking tools to design their initiatives and guide execution. They are (a<i>) Integral theory</i>, (b) <i>Complexity theory</i>, and (c) <i>Systems theory</i>. These models help them to step back from the project, get up on to the balcony, and take a broad view of the whole situation. They use these tools to make sense of complex, rapidly changing situations and navigate through them securely.”</p>
<p>And famed Permaculture teacher Toby Hemenway (author of Gaia’s Garden) <a title="Trojan Horses, Recipes, and Permaculture" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-05/trojan-horses-recipes-and-permaculture" target="_blank">recently posted on his blog</a> the following recommendation: “To enrich our ability to use recipes and put them into context, without engaging in a full-blown design analysis from scratch, we can use pattern languages. The term was coined by architect Christopher Alexander to mean a structured grammar of good design examples and practices in a given field—architecture, software design, urban planning, and so forth— that allow people with only modest training to solve complex problems in design. … Like recipes, pattern languages are plug-and-play rather than original designs, but they allow plenty of improvisation and flexibility in implementation, and can result in rich, detailed solutions that fit. <em>A handbook of pattern languages for the basic human needs and societal functions, structured along permaculture principles, would be a worthy project for a generation of designers</em>.”[my emphasis]</p>
<p>PatternDynamics is firmly rooted in Integral theory, Complexity theory, and Systems theory, and as well contains Permaculture’s emphasis on patterns and principles (PatternDynamics was developed during Tim’s time as Director of the Permaforest Trust, a 170 acre Permaculture education center in New South Wales, Australia). In addition a fifth strong influence was Alexander’s ideas on pattern languaging. These five robust theories and practical application tools provide a very firm foundation that will continue to support PatternDynamics long into the future as it continues to evolve. It is probably not the recipe book that Hemenway envisions, rather the patterns are more like a set of key ingredients from which we are invited to collaborate to c0-create the needed recipes for a given context. The goal is to facilitate collective intelligence.</p>
<blockquote><p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/timwintonheadshotverysmall.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1661" alt="Tim Winton" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/timwintonheadshotverysmall.jpg?w=640"/></a>“The key to complexity is systems thinking, and the key to systems thinking is patterns. The key to patterns is using them as a language – an idea I borrowed from architect and mathematician Christopher Alexander’s book ‘<em>Notes on the Synthesis of Form’</em>.”<br/> – Tim Winton</p>
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<p>Systems thinking itself is complex and difficult to learn, which is why the series of Patterns in PatternDynamics can be so helpful in simplifying that complexity – “If we don’t have a symbol for something, it does not become enacted in our reality” Winton says.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/order_chart.png"><img class="aligncenter size-large wp-image-1654" alt="order_chart" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/order_chart.png?w=640&h=565" height="565" width="640"/></a></p>
<p>Secondly, as these Patterns become part of a shared language, this gives us the ability to collaborate with others –hence the facilitation of collective intelligence. Noting the increased complexity in our human systems, Winton states that “No longer is any one person brilliant enough to solve the complex problems we face; we really have to use our collective intelligence.” This innovative method of facilitating collective intelligence is proposed as an essential 21<sup>st</sup> century skill.</p>
<p>Speaking for myself, after completing the Level II training in PatternDynamics, I notice that I am starting to see “wholes” much more often, in extremely diverse systems. Everything from systems at work in my own body, to systems in organizations I’m involved with, to the systemic problems facing our world, and all the way up to long term processes going on in our universe. Being able to see these wholes then helps the next step – ideas are flowing more easily on how to balance and integrate to improve the health of the systems I am involved with.</p>
<p><strong>Therefore, it is with some excitement that I am preparing to host a One Day PatternDynamics Workshop on January 26, 2014 here in Bellingham, Washington. <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bellingham-registration-8926283755?aff=RhythmPolarityStructure&afu=11889076017" target="_blank">Click Here for more information about this event</a>. A workshop is also being held in Oakland, CA on January18th – <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/patterndynamicstm-one-day-workshop-bay-area-oakland-registration-8925872525?aff=eorg" target="_blank">more info here</a>.<br/></strong></p>
<p><strong>Related:</strong></p>
<p>To read a longer article I co-wrote about an introductory workshop I attended last year, go here: <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/8479-tim-wintons-pattern-dynamics-workshops-in-usa-and-canada-januaryfebruary-2013/" target="_blank">Integral Leadership Review</a></p>
<p>And here is a 23 minute introductory slide show with audio by Tim Winton:</p>
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<p><br/> Much more info can be found at the PatternDynamics website here:</p>
<p><a href="http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/">http://www.patterndynamics.com.au/</a></p>Crash on Demand: David Holmgren updates his Future Scenariostag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-12-18:2723460:BlogPost:943072013-12-18T03:12:09.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/futurescenarios.jpg"><img alt="Future Scenarios" class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1280" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/futurescenarios.jpg?w=640"></img></a> David Holmgren, co-originator of the Permaculture concept, published <strong><a href="http://futurescenarios.org/" target="_blank" title="Future Scenarios"><em>Future Scenarios</em></a></strong> in 2007, originally as a website, and then published by Chelsea Green in 2008 as a…</p>
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<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/futurescenarios.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-1280" alt="Future Scenarios" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/futurescenarios.jpg?w=640"/></a>David Holmgren, co-originator of the Permaculture concept, published <strong><a title="Future Scenarios" href="http://futurescenarios.org/" target="_blank"><em>Future Scenarios</em></a></strong> in 2007, originally as a website, and then published by Chelsea Green in 2008 as a <a title="Future Scenarios book" href="http://holmgren.com.au/product/future-scenarios/" target="_blank">small book</a> (126 pages). He explores four possible human futures as the two great crises of Peak Oil and Climate Change converge into what he has coined our <em>energy descent future</em>. In my view, this is essential reading. Adam Grubb, founder of Energy Bulletin, characterized it like this:</p>
<blockquote><p>These aren’t two-dimensional nightmarish scenarios designed to scare people into environmental action. They are compellingly fleshed-out visions of quite plausible alternative futures, which delve into energy, politics, agriculture, social, and even spiritual trends. What they do help make clear are the best strategies for preparing for and adapting to these possible futures.</p>
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<p>Three years later, in 2010, Holmgren contributed an additional important essay, <strong><em><a title="Money Vs. Fossil Energy" href="http://holmgren.com.au/money-vs-fossil-energy/" target="_blank">Money Vs. Fossil Energy: The Battle for Control of the World</a></em></strong>. Holmgren describes this essay as “a framework for understanding the ideological roots of the current global crisis that I believe is more useful than the now tired Left Right political spectrum.” Like all of his work, it is based on a profound energetic literacy, and is quite startling and original, and “challenges much of the strategic logic behind current mainstream climate change activism.”</p>
<p>A year ago, in a December 2012 <a title="The Conversation: David Holmgren" href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bydesign/the-conversation---david-holmgren2c-father-of-permaculture/4437220" target="_blank">interview</a>, Holmgren was asked:</p>
<p><i>What do you see as the biggest challenges in our struggle to control our resources today?</i></p>
<p>His Answer:</p>
<p><em>After a lifetime of focusing on the biological basis for existence, and then the energetic basis, I’ve now become more and more interested in money, ironically, after ignoring it for most of my life. <strong>On the downside of the energy peak, it’s actually the bubble economies that can unravel so fast, that become almost the most important thing in shaping the immediate future.</strong> That bubble economy is, of course, actually falling apart right now. So a lot of the mainstream sustainability strategies assume we have a growing and steady economy. Permaculture works from the basis that we can adapt and do these adaptions in an ad-hoc way from the bottom up, and we’ve been doing that essentially for 30 years without the support of government and corporations. I’m not saying that we’ve got all the answers, but there’s a lot of people out there who are modeling and have been modeling how creative responses are going to happen.</em></p>
<div id="attachment_1279" style="width: 230px;" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/david_holmgren_size4.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1279" alt="David Holmgren" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/david_holmgren_size4.jpg?w=640"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text">David Holmgren</p>
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<p><strong><span style="text-decoration: underline;">The 2013 Update</span></strong></p>
<p>And now a year later, as 2013 draws to a close, David Holmgren has published a new essay (<a title="Crash On Demand pdf download" href="http://holmgren.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/Crash-on-demand.pdf" target="_blank">a 24 page pdf download</a>), which is an update of <em>Future Scenarios</em>, builds on <em>Money Vs. Fossil Fuels</em>, and expands his new focus on money and economy. The essay is titled <strong><em><a title="Crash on Demand" href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">Crash on Demand: Welcome to the Brown Tech Future</a></em></strong>.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/energy_descent_scenarios-300x207.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1641" alt="energy_descent_scenarios-300x207" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/energy_descent_scenarios-300x207.jpg?w=640"/></a></p>
<p>Six years on, of the four scenarios outlined in <em>Future Scenarios</em>, Holmgren is seeing the <a href="http://futurescenarios.org/content/view/28/48/index.html" target="_blank">Brown Tech</a> scenario as the one currently in play, where the decline of fossil fuels unfolds slowly, “but the severity of global warming symptoms is at the extreme end of current mainstream scientific predictions.” The political system is Corporatist, and emphasis is placed on replacing declining conventional fossil fuels with lower grade fossil fuels, which are both more expensive and also release more GGE (Greenhouse Gas Emissions), which exacerbates Climate Change even further. The <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/crash-demand/" target="_blank">introduction</a> to this essay states:</p>
<blockquote><p>David’s argument is essentially that radical, but achievable, behaviour change from dependent consumers to responsible self-reliant producers (by some relatively small minority of the global middle class) has a chance of stopping the juggernaut of consumer capitalism from driving the world over the climate change cliff. It maybe a slim chance, but a better bet than current herculean efforts to get the elites to pull the right policy levers; whether by sweet promises of green tech profits or alternatively threats from mass movements shouting for less consumption.</p>
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<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/browntech_logosmlw_bt.png"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1643" alt="browntech_logosmlw_bt" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/12/browntech_logosmlw_bt.png?w=640"/></a></p>
<p>In the extensive discussions about money and economy, the influence of systems analyst Nicole Foss (<a title="The Automatic Earth" href="http://theautomaticearth.com" target="_blank">Stoneleigh -The Automatic Earth</a>) and economist Steve Keen (<a title="Debt Deflation" href="http://www.debtdeflation.com/blogs" target="_blank">Debt Deflation</a>) are strong and freely acknowledged. Holmgren believes that deflationary economics is the most powerful factor shaping our immediate future.</p>
<p>The basic recommendation (as noted in the quote above) is not much different from what David Holmgren has been recommending for 30 years: to engage in a shift away from being a dependent c0nsumer, and toward being a responsible self-reliant producer for your household and community, and to shift a significant portion of assets out of the mainstream economy and move them into building household and community resilience. These actions not only put us in a more secure position, they also, if engaged by perhaps 10% of the population of affluent countries, might be just enough to shift our economies out of the perpetual growth paradigm we’ve been inhabiting since at least the industrial revolution, and is now only hanging on via a rising debt bubble. The collapse of the current bubble economy will be painful. However, given that current growth is only being made possible by rising debt, we are not doing ourselves any favors by perpetuating it. As he had previously pointed out in <em>Future Scenarios</em>:</p>
<blockquote><p>…without radical behavioral and organizational change that would threaten the foundations of our growth economy, greenhouse gas emissions along with other environmental impacts will not decline. Economic recession is the only proven mechanism for a rapid reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and may now be the only real hope for maintaining the earth in a habitable state.</p>
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<p>Holmgren makes the case that while it may be too late for the <a href="http://futurescenarios.org/content/view/29/49/index.html" target="_blank">Green Tech</a> scenario to materialize, it may still be possible to avoid the worst effects of the Brown Tech scenario (a 4 to 6 degree “Climate Cooker” <a href="http://futurescenarios.org/content/view/31/51/index.html" target="_blank">Lifeboats</a> scenario). A severe global economic collapse could switch off enough GGE to begin reversing climate change, so that the <a href="http://futurescenarios.org/content/view/30/50/index.html" target="_blank">Earth Steward</a> scenario of bioregional economies based on frugal rural agrarian living, assisted by resources salvaged from the collapsed global economy and the defunct national governments, might emerge in the long term future.</p>
<p>It’s not a picture of a bright and shiny future, granted. The last 10 pages or so, however, I found to be quite stimulating, and opened up more possibilities for positive engagement. Topics discussed are Nested Scenarios (different scenarios co-existing at different scales); Investment and Divestment; Formal and Informal Economies; Alternative and Non-monetary Economies; Labor and Skill Vs Fossil Fuel and Technology; Brown Tech Possibilities; Actors at the Fringe; and Not Financial Terrorists (but Terra-ists with hands in the soil). There are also many great footnotes/links worth following up on.</p>
<p>This is a highly recommended essay – essential reading for those trying to make sense of our long term future and how we can best make a positive difference.</p>
<p><strong>Related, on Integral Permaculture:</strong><br/> <a href="https://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/tag/techno-economic-evolution/" target="_blank">Lessons from the Ages, Part 1</a><br/> <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/01/06/lessons-from-the-ages-for-2013-part-2/" target="_blank">Lessons from the Ages, Part 2</a></p>
<p><strong>Other Related Articles</strong><br/> <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/bydesign/the-conversation---david-holmgren2c-father-of-permaculture/4437220" target="_blank">Conversation with David Holmgren</a> (a 15 minute radio interview, where Holmgren is forced to give concise answers to key question)<br/> <a href="http://wheelercentre.com/videos/video/lunchbox-soapbox-david-holmgren-on-retrofitting-the-suburbs-for-sustainability/" target="_blank">Retrofitting the Suburbs for a Resilient Future</a> (Excellent David Holmgren video presentation of his famously practical vision for the future of suburbia)<br/> <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-12-09/powerdown-let-s-talk-about-it" target="_blank">Powerdown: Let’s Talk About It</a> (popular recent post by Joanne Poyourow of Transition US)<a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-12-16/downloading-responsibility" target="_blank"><br/> Downloading Responsibility</a> (Extraenvironmentalist interview with Nicole Foss and Laurence Boomert)<br/> <a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-30/climate-after-growth-why-environmentalists-must-embrace-post-growth-economics-community-resilience" target="_blank">Climate After Growth: Why Environmentalists Must Embrace Post-Growth Economics and Community Resilience</a> (Rob Hopkins and Asher Miller appeal to environmental activists, urging to let go of the growth paradigm)</p>3 Minutes of Wisdom from Robyn Francistag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-12-06:2723460:BlogPost:941902013-12-06T04:56:22.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
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<p>"Robyn Francis is one of the 26 contributors to <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/product/permaculture-pioneers/" title="Permaculture Pioneers: stories from the new frontier">Permaculture Pioneers – stories from the new frontier</a>. In this short interview, introduced by co-editor Kerry Dawborn, Robyn talks about how permaculture informs everything in her life now,…</p>
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<p>"Robyn Francis is one of the 26 contributors to <a title="Permaculture Pioneers: stories from the new frontier" href="http://holmgren.com.au/product/permaculture-pioneers/">Permaculture Pioneers – stories from the new frontier</a>. In this short interview, introduced by co-editor Kerry Dawborn, Robyn talks about how permaculture informs everything in her life now, how permaculture brings a sense of hope during tumultuous times, and how the movement needs to find a better balance between the human ‘people care’ element and the practical physical systems."</p>
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<p>From <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/an-interview-with-permaculture-pioneer-robyn-francis/" target="_blank">http://holmgren.com.au/an-interview-with-permaculture-pioneer-robyn-francis/</a></p>Top 10 Hits - Resilience.org and Energy Bulletintag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-11-18:2723460:BlogPost:939182013-11-18T19:25:12.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<h1 style="line-height: 26px; text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; text-indent: 0px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; clear: both; font-weight: 400; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Reposted from<span class="Apple-converted-space"> …</span></h1>
<h1 style="line-height: 26px; text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; font-variant: normal; font-style: normal; text-indent: 0px; font-family: Lato, sans-serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; clear: both; font-weight: 400; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">Reposted from<span class="Apple-converted-space"> </span><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin" target="_blank">Resilience.org</a></h1>
<div style="text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; text-indent: 0px; font: 16px/26px Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><em>Formerly known as Energy Bulletin, celebrating 10 years online, this is a great time to review some of the great articles posted there over the last 10 years. In the next post I’ll share my own favorites.</em></div>
<div style="text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; text-indent: 0px; font: 16px/26px Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><em>- David </em></div>
<div style="text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; text-indent: 0px; font: 16px/26px Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;">by <a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/author-detail/1253518-resilience-org-staff">Resilience.org Staff</a>, originally published by Resilience.org | NOV 15, 2013</div>
<div style="text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; text-indent: 0px; font: 16px/26px Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"> </div>
<div style="text-transform: none; background-color: #f7f3ee; text-indent: 0px; font: 16px/26px Georgia, serif; white-space: normal; letter-spacing: normal; color: #333333; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0px;"><p align="center"><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/10-years/"><img style="margin-bottom: 0.5em;" alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/10YearLogo-pci.png"/></a></p>
<p>Ever wondered which articles have been accessed the most at Resilience.org and Energy Bulletin? Here’s the run down…What have been some of your favorites? Please let us know in the comments section at the bottom.</p>
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<h1 style="font-family: Lato, sans-serif; clear: both; font-weight: 400;">Resilience.org Top 10 Hits</h1>
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<tbody><tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/collapse-gap.png" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-04/closing-collapse-gap-ussr-was-better-prepared-collapse-us">1. Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’: the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US</a><br/>by Dmitry Orlov, Dec, 2006</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/wickbed.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2011-05-31/bottom-diy-guide-wicking-beds">2. A DIY guide to wicking beds</a><br/>by Rob Avis, May, 2011</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/consumerism-image_resilience.png" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-07-24/the-brief-tragic-reign-of-consumerism-and-the-birth-of-a-happy-alternative">3. The Brief, Tragic Reign of Consumerism—and the birth of a happy alternative</a><br/>by Richard Heinberg, Jul, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/acorns.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-12-18/what-kind-tree-do-acorns-grow">4. What kind of tree do acorns grow on?</a> <br/>by Gene Logsdon, Dec, 2007</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/solar.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-04-25/solar-energy-this-is-what-a-disruptive-technology-looks-like">5. Solar Energy : This Is What A Disruptive Technology Looks Like</a> <br/>by Brian McConnell, Apr, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/chicken.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-01-22/how-to-build-a-chicken-run-in-157-easy-steps">6. How to build a chicken run in 157 easy steps</a> <br/>by Brian Kaller, Jan, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/climate.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-11/when-agriculture-stops-working-a-guide-to-growing-food-in-the-age-of-climate-destabilization-and-civilization-collapse">7. When agriculture stops working: A guide to growing food in the age of climate destabilization and civilization collapse</a><br/>by Dan Allen, Mar, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/weimar-money.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-01-07/commentary-why-peak-oil-threatens-the-international-monetary-system">8. Commentary: Why peak oil threatens the International Monetary System</a><br/>by Erik Townsend, Jan, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/Crowd_outside_nyse.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-03-06/the-hard-road-ahead">9. The Hard Road Ahead</a><br/>by John Michael Greer, Mar, 2013</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/velomobile.jpg" width="80" height="80"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p>10. <a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-10-25/electric-velomobiles-as-fast-and-comfortable-as-automobiles-but-80-times-more-efficient">Electric velomobiles: as fast and comfortable as automobiles, but 80 times more efficient</a><br/>by Kris De Decker, Oct, 2012</p>
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<h1 style="font-family: Lato, sans-serif; clear: both; font-weight: 400;">Energy Bulletin Top 10 Hits</h1>
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<tbody><tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/collapse-gap.png" width="80" height="80"/><br/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-04/closing-collapse-gap-ussr-was-better-prepared-collapse-us">1. Closing the ‘Collapse Gap’: the USSR was better prepared for collapse than the US</a><br/>by Dmitry Orlov, Dec, 2006</p>
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<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-11-11/five-stages-collapse">2. The Five Stages of Collapse</a><br/>by Dmitry Orlov, Nov, 2008</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/map01_1024.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-11-17/who-has-oil">3. Who has the oil?</a><br/>by Aaron Pava, Nov, 2007</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/US_Army-Loading_vehicles.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-05-21/us-military-energy-consumption-facts-and-figures">4. US military energy consumption- facts and figures</a><br/>by Sohbet Karbuz, May, 2007</p>
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<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2005-04-01/why-our-food-so-dependent-oil">5. Why Our Food is So Dependent on Oil</a><br/>by Norman J. Church, Apr, 2005</p>
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<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-12-07/soil-food-web-opening-lid-black-box">6. Soil food web – opening the lid of the black box</a><br/>by Bart Anderson, Dec, 2006</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/Cadillac_bumper.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2008-08-18/our-american-way-life-unsustainable-evidence">7. Our American way of life is unsustainable – evidence</a> <br/>by Chris Clugston, Aug, 2008</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/Phosphorite_Mine.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2007-08-13/peak-phosphorus">8. Peak phosphorus</a><br/>by Patrick Déry, Bart Anderson, Aug, 2007</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/shale-gas-well.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2009-06-25/shale-gas-boom">9. A shale gas boom?</a><br/>by Dave Cohen, Jun, 2009</p>
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<tr><td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top" colspan="2"><img alt="" src="http://www.resilience.org/articles/General/2013/11_Nov/Top10-hits/Solar_panels_on_a_roof.jpg" width="80" height="80"/><img border="0" alt="" align="left" src="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-15/top-10-hits-resilience-and-energy-bulletin"/></td>
<td style="padding-bottom: 6px; padding-left: 24px; padding-right: 24px; padding-top: 6px;" valign="top"><p><a style="color: #5e191a; text-decoration: none;" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2006-06-16/energy-payback-roof-mounted-photovoltaic-cells">10. Energy Payback of Roof Mounted Photovoltaic Cells</a><br/>by Colin Bankier, Steve Gale, Jun, 2006</p>
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</div>You Say You Want a Revolutiontag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-11-11:2723460:BlogPost:939032013-11-11T05:27:03.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Reblogged from <em><a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/you-say-you-want-a-revolution/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a></em></p>
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<p>Naomi Klein’s recent article posted at New Statesman has been generating a bit of a buzz. The title is “<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/science-says-revolt" target="_blank">Why Science is Telling All of Us to Revolt and Change Our Lives</a>.” She begins with a story discussing a presentation by complex…</p>
<p>Reblogged from <em><a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/11/10/you-say-you-want-a-revolution/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a></em></p>
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<p>Naomi Klein’s recent article posted at New Statesman has been generating a bit of a buzz. The title is “<a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/2013/10/science-says-revolt" target="_blank">Why Science is Telling All of Us to Revolt and Change Our Lives</a>.” She begins with a story discussing a presentation by complex systems researcher Brad Werner, who “is saying that his research shows that our entire economic paradigm is a threat to ecological stability.”</p>
<p>Klein writes further:</p>
<blockquote><p>There was one dynamic in the model, however, that offered some hope. Werner termed it “resistance” – movements of “people or groups of people” who “adopt a certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture”. According to the abstract for his presentation, this includes “environmental direct action, resistance taken from outside the dominant culture, as in protests, blockades and sabotage by indigenous peoples, workers, anarchists and other activist groups”.</p>
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<p>I’m no expert, but as someone interested in systems theory, I find it a bit odd that there is only one dynamic mentioned that appears to offer hope. Renowned systems thinker Donella Meadows identified at least <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twelve_leverage_points" target="_blank">12 leverage points</a>, or places to intervene in systems, and <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/8926283755/RhythmPolarityStructure/11889076017" target="_blank">PatternDynamics</a>™ founder <a href="http://integralleadershipreview.com/tag/patterndynamics/" target="_blank">Tim Winton</a> has identified 56 patterns in systems that all need to be balanced and integrated if we want to achieve a sustainable system. [I'm studying PatternDynamics now - <a href="http://www.eventbrite.com/event/8926283755/RhythmPolarityStructure/11889076017" target="_blank">Join me January 26th for a workshop in Bellingham, WA</a>]</p>
<p><em><strong>Transition U.S. blogger Joanne Poyourow</strong></em>, in her response to the Klein article (<a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-11-05/revolt-and-change-our-lives" target="_blank">Revolt and Change Our Lives</a>), points out that systems thinker Joanna Macy has outlined <a href="http://www.joannamacy.net/three-dimensions-of-the-great-turning.html" target="_blank">3 Dimensions of The Great Turning</a>.</p>
<blockquote><p>Macy’s first is <strong>Stopping action</strong>, stopping further destruction, which is all that Klein talks about or labels as “appropriate.” Stopping action is noisy campaigning, it is Julia Butterfly Hill sitting in old-growth trees, it is Tim DeChristopher bidding on land parcels, it is the activists who lie down in front of the pipeline trucks.</p>
<p>…Macy’s second type of action is <b>Creating New Structures</b>, creating that which will be in place to replace the old. Sound familiar? To those of us working with different facets of the international Transition movement it sure does. This is the “change our lives” part of the equation. It’s a much quieter type of action, in that it doesn’t necessarily mean noisy crowds with plackards out on the streets, and it doesn’t necessarily grab the notice of the news cameras. But it’s no less of a revolution. And it’s happening all around you right now.</p>
<p>Which brings me to Macy’s third type of action to help further The Great Turning: <strong>Change in Consciousness</strong>. Joanna Macy describes this as changing the stories we tell each other, our cultural stories, our inner stories. Redefining who we are, and how humanity fits into the cycles of this small planet. Within the international Transition movement, this is addressed as “inner transition.” Changing our inner selves, our inner paradigm, our ways of relating to each other is another huge part of creating the world we want to live in.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/macy-3pillars.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1598" alt="macy-3pillars" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/11/macy-3pillars.jpg?w=640&h=640" height="640" width="640"/></a></p>
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<p><em><strong>Rob Hopkins</strong></em> also mentions the Klein article, in his own excellent post on Austerity (<a href="http://www.transitionnetwork.org/blogs/rob-hopkins/2013-10/imagination-antidote-plague-austerity" target="_blank">Imagination: Antidote to the Plague of Austerity</a>).</p>
<blockquote><p>I don’t agree with Klein and Werner’s analysis that “resistance” should be only taken to refer to the same tools that oppositional politics has always used. For me, Werner’s “certain set of dynamics that does not fit within the capitalist culture” needs to be viewed more broadly…And that’s where Transition comes in, with its core focus on imagination and the telling of different stories.</p>
<p>……In order to be able to create something, first we have to imagine it. That applies as much to the supper you’ll cook when you get home tonight as to social change. While there is much that Transition initiatives can, and are, doing to respond to austerity, it is the holding of spaces where people, their political representatives and others, can come together to imagine the kind of future they want to see, and modelling this in practical ways, which may be one of the most powerful things we can do in these difficult times. It could prove to be, as the world seemingly steps from arguing that climate change isn’t a problem to arguing that it’s too late to do anything about it, missing out that vital piece in the middle, you know, the doing something about it bit, that the ”poverty of life without dreams” may turn out in the long run to be the wickedest form of poverty.</p>
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<p>Hopkins’ thinking is reminiscent of thoughts expressed by <em><strong>David Holmgren</strong></em> (also a systems thinker) in late 2011 (<a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/forum/topics/the-upcoming-transition-away-from-a-fossil-fuel-based-society-dav" target="_blank">David Holmgren Talks Strategy</a>):</p>
<p><iframe width="400" height="251" frameborder="0" src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/32106050?title=0&byline=0&portrait=0"></iframe>
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<blockquote><p>I think that, while the big political movement stuff is always going to be in some ways more exciting – and there’s certainly some exciting aspects of that emerging in the world now around the notion of demanding that someone do something, I don’t think those things really help change the structure much, unless people are also making the changes themselves. Because the changes people make themselves are double insurance – they are insurance against dysfunctional or anti-social behavior by elites (and there’s certainly plenty of evidence for that), but they’re also the way we model the world that we’re actually wanting to be, because in a lot of ways it’s a matter of being able to crawl before you walk. The sort of world we’re trying to construct, I think it’s actually impossible to construct that top-down. It has to actually be rebuilt bottom up, in parallel with the crumbling system. And then as those models become more real, it’s possible to get some degree of top-down reform/support for those things. But if they don’t actually exist, if we don’t have the working, living solutions, then it’s very hard for policymakers to say “Yes, we’ll have more of that, and less of that.” They can’t actually create the things we need. The things we need are all very small, localized, particular, and large scale systems just can’t do that.</p>
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<p>I’m saving the best for last. If we say we want a revolution, who better to check in with than someone who’s been at the forefront, and working on revolution for over 7 decades? Her name is <em><strong>Grace Lee Boggs</strong></em>, and she published a book last year called <em><strong>The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the 21st Century (<a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2012-07-07/next-american-revolution-sustainable-activism-twenty-first-century#" target="_blank">read the review by WWU’s Molly Lawrence</a>)</strong></em>.</p>
<p>As an activist for over seventy years, and involved in movements including the civil rights movement, labor movement, women’s movement, Black Power movement, Asian American movement, anti-war movement, and environmental justice movement, Boggs has some wisdom to share.</p>
<p>Over these many years, her keen mind has continued to think about “how to bring about radical social change,” which has become all the more urgent, because, as she says, “I cannot recall any previous period when the issues were so basic, so interconnected, and so demanding of everyone.” “What is going to motivate us,” she asks, “to start caring for our biosphere instead of using our mastery of technology to increase the volume and speed at which we are making our planet uninhabitable…?”</p>
<p>Interestingly, she believes that, though they were effective in the late 1960s, “it becomes clearer every day that organizing or joining massive protests and demanding new policies fail to sufficiently address the crisis we face.” She tells us that we need to “come out of our culturally defined identities,” and she claims that mass protests “do not change the cultural images or the symbols that play such a pivotal role in molding us into who we are. “</p>
<p>Boggs also makes a crucial distinction between rebellion and revolution. Rebels see themselves as victims and do not go beyond protesting injustices. Revolutionaries go beyond anger, protest, and opposition, and instead concentrate on involving people on a grassroots level with assuming responsibility for creating the values and infrastructures needed for a new society.</p>
<p>What does Boggs recommend on a practical level? Working from the ground up to transform individuals and to rebuild community. This revolutionary sounds very much like Hopkins, Holmgren, and Poyourow: Living radically differently by rejecting consumerism and the ideas around unending economic growth. It can begin with simple actions such as “planting community gardens, recycling waste, rehabbing houses ,… and organizing neighborhood festivals.” It can then develop into “a solidarity economy whose foundation is the production and exchange of goods and services that our communities really need. It’s about “remaking this nation block by block, brick by brick,” pledging to look after not only ourselves but also each other.</p>
<p>Fortunately, there are many working on various pieces of this puzzle we call “sustainability.” Are we doing enough, fast enough to avert crisis? No. That’s why we need all hands on deck. Stopping Actions, Creating New Structures, and Changing Consciousness are all significant.</p>
<p>In terms of changing consciousness, the theme Boggs returns to over and over in her book is that “these are the times to grow our souls.” It’s easy to neglect this important element. In Bellingham there are two upcoming events that address this work of inner transition from two perspectives:</p>
<p><strong>1. Rabbi Michael Lerner: The Spiritual Transformation and Healing of the World: Building a Spiritually Progressive Political Party. On Thursday, November 14th at 7:00 pm</strong>, Rabbi Michael Lerner, “the most prophetic public speaker and intellectual of our time” according to professor and author, Cornel West, will share his vision on how to build a spiritually progressive political movement so we can move American politics from a perspective that hurts the poor and middle-class and undermines the rights and protections won by women, gays and minorities, toward a perspective that builds love, generosity and corporate environmental and social responsibility. <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/the-spiritual-transformation-and-healing-of-the-world-building-a" target="_blank">More info</a>.</p>
<p>2. <i id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46123"><b id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46122">The Holy Universe: A New Story </b><b>of Creation For </b></i><b><i>The Heart, Soul, and Spirit</i> </b>breathes life into the cold, mechanistic worldview of the Universe, transforming our physical history into a living story—and provides us with powerful insights into navigating the global ecological, social, and spiritual crises now facing our world, and provocatively argues<b id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46092"> <i id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46091">the crises we face today just </i></b><i id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46275"><b>might be the best thing that ever happened to </b><b id="yui_3_13_0_1_1384090985133_46274">humanity. Author David Christopher <br/> will be here in person to present.</b></i> <a href="http://www.bellinghamions.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">November 21st, 7pm at the Fairhaven Library, presented by the Bellingham Institute of Noetic Science</a>.</p>
<p><span style="text-decoration: underline;"><strong>Related Article:</strong></span><br/> <a href="http://beamsandstruts.com/bits-a-pieces/item/980-joanna-macy-and-the-three-pillars-of-the-great-turning" target="_blank">JoAnna Macy On the Three Pillars of the Great Turning</a></p>Recommended Readingtag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-09-20:2723460:BlogPost:930032013-09-20T03:00:33.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<div id="yiv9462848623yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_2783"><a href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-17/small-scale-aquaponics-from-fish-poop-to-seafood-dinner" id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23638" name="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23638" rel="nofollow" target="_blank"><b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23637">Small Scale Aquaponics: From Fish Poop to Seafood Dinner - Peak Moment TV with Janaia Donaldson</b></a><br></br> Tour a closed-loop water system where one critter’s wastes become another’s…</div>
<div id="yiv9462848623yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_2783"><a id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23638" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-17/small-scale-aquaponics-from-fish-poop-to-seafood-dinner" name="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23638"><b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23637">Small Scale Aquaponics: From Fish Poop to Seafood Dinner - Peak Moment TV with Janaia Donaldson</b></a><br/> Tour a closed-loop water system where one critter’s wastes become another’s food. Inside a steamy greenhouse, Jeremy Roth of Aprovecho Center’s Aquaculture Project shows us fish tanks containing tilapia just like you might order in a restaurant. Water from the tanks is pumped through troughs where pond plants take in the nutrients from the fish. Plant material is then returned to feed the fish in their tanks. The nutrient-rich water is also diverted to nourish veggies like chard, tomatoes, and water chestnuts rooted in a shallow gravel bar. In this cycle, aquaponics yields generous quantities of high quality protein from a very small footprint.<br/><i><b><br/></b></i></div>
<div id="yiv9462848623yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_2783"><i id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23636"><b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23635">**Look for Janaia Donaldson and Robyn Malgren filming for Peak Moment TV at the Whatcom Skillshare Faire!**</b></i></div>
<div id="yiv9462848623yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_2783"><b><br/><a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-19/peak-oil-demand-peak-oil">Peak Oil Demand = "Peak Oil" by Richard Heinberg</a></b><br/>A new phrase has entered our energy lexicon—<i><a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9462848623" target="_blank" href="http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-05-01/peak-oil-is-back-but-this-time-its-a-peak-in-demand">peak oil demand</a></i>. The essential idea: prophets of doom who warned about a looming global petroleum shortfall (“peak oil”) were wrong; instead of a downturn in <i>supply</i>, we’re instead seeing the shrinkage of <i id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23642">demand</i> for oil. A non-problem just solved itself! Nothing to see, folks; move along.<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23634">What’s wrong with this framing of our energy situation? Plenty...<br/><br/></div>
<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23633"><b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23648"><a id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23647" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-18/snake-oil-how-fracking-s-false-promise-of-plenty-imperils-our-future-introduction" name="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23647">Snake Oil: How Fracking's False Promise of Plenty Imperils Our Future by Richard Heinberg</a></b><br/> The change in our public conversation about energy is predicated on new drilling technology and its ability to access previously off-limits supplies of crude oil and natural gas. In the chapters ahead, we will explore this technology—its history, its impacts, and its potential to deliver on the promises being made about it. As we will see, horizontal drilling and hydrofracturing (“fracking”) for oil and gas pose a danger not just to local water and air quality, but also to sound energy policy, and therefore to our collective ability to avert the greatest human-made economic and environmental catastrophe in history...<br/><br/></div>
<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23651"><b id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23650"><a id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23649" rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-09-15/albert-bartlett-on-message-about-exponential-growth-to-the-end" name="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23649">Albert Bartlett: On Message About Exponential Growth to the End by Kurt Cobb</a></b></div>
<div id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23644"><p id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23643"><a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9462848623" target="_blank" href="http://www.albartlett.org/about_al_bartlett/about_al_bartlett.html">Albert Bartlett</a> might have been another obscure physics professor had he not put together a now famous lecture entitled <a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9462848623" target="_blank" href="http://www.albartlett.org/presentations/arithmetic_population_energy.html">"Arithmetic, Population and Energy"</a> in 1969. The lecture, available <span id="yui_3_7_2_79_1379618393926_162"><span class="enhancr-links"><a rel="nofollow" class="yiv9462848623" target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sI1C9DyIi_8">broadly on the internet</a> <span class="enhancr-show-preview">(<a>Preview</a>)</span></span></span> , begins with the line: "The greatest shortcoming of the human race is our inability to understand the exponential function."</p>
<p id="yui_3_7_2_1_1379618393926_23652">The logic is surprisingly simple and irrefutable. Exponential growth, which is simply consistent growth at some percentage rate each year (or other time period), cannot proceed indefinitely within a finite system, for example, planet Earth. The fact that human populations continue to grow or that the extraction of energy and other natural resources continues to climb does not in any way refute this statement. It simply means that the absolute limits have not yet been reached.</p>
<p>Bartlett, who died this month at age 90, gave his lecture all over the world 1,742 times or on average once every 8.5 days for 36 years to audiences ranging from junior high students to seasoned professionals in many fields. His ability to stay on message for so long about something so important should make him the envy of every modern communications professional...</p>
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</div>Take It From the Lummistag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-08-16:2723460:BlogPost:926802013-08-16T18:18:46.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Reblogged from <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>"Take it from the Lummis (which describes their story in a nutshell) regarding the wisdom of believing promises sworn to by the government, or by the corporations pulling its (purse) strings."</em></p>
<p>So begins this month's "Just Thinking" column in the <em>Whatcom Watch</em> by my good friend Philip Damon. Phil's column this month, "…</p>
<p>Reblogged from <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a>.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><em>"Take it from the Lummis (which describes their story in a nutshell) regarding the wisdom of believing promises sworn to by the government, or by the corporations pulling its (purse) strings."</em></p>
<p>So begins this month's "Just Thinking" column in the <em>Whatcom Watch</em> by my good friend Philip Damon. Phil's column this month, "<em><strong><a href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?id=1593" target="_blank">Spare Us Those Empty Promises</a></strong></em>" is about a recent dramatic presentation by the Lummi tribe "depicting the infamous 1855 Treaty of Point Elliott and its shameful aftermath."</p>
<p>Phil connects the dots between the drama's history lesson, the current coal port controversy (proposed to be located at Cherry Point, which is considered to be one of the most important and ancient village sites for the Lummi tribe), and the legal and moral message that the Lummis have for us today.</p>
<p>Along the same lines, this month's <em>Whatcom Watch</em> also has a VERY special 8 page insert authored by Jewell Praying Wolf James, of the Lummi Indian Tribe. The insert is titled <em><strong>"<a href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/pdf_content/LummiInsert.pdf" target="_blank">The Search for Integrity in the Conflict Over Cherry Point as a Coal Export Terminal</a>."</strong></em></p>
<p>This is a <strong>powerful</strong> document. Damon calls it <strong>"remarkable."</strong> <a href="http://daily.sightline.org/2013/08/12/understanding-lummi-opposition-to-coal-at-cherry-point/" target="_blank">Sightline Daily's Eric De Place</a> calls it <strong>"mandatory reading."</strong></p>
<p>When reading, I was reminded of the scoping hearings for the terminal, and that after hearing hundreds of excellent comments from a wide variety of community stakeholders, the testimony from Lummi tribal members seemed qualitatively different. They were simultaneously intelligent, coherent, insightful, moral, and spiritual. I was made to feel that because of their presence and the way they carried themselves and presented their input, I was on holy ground. There was a sense of gravitas.</p>
<p>A similar effect was felt when I read the news story about the <a title="Tribes Step Up Opposition to Proposed Coal Terminals" href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/northwest-tribes-step-up-opposition-to-proposed-coal-terminals-140853" target="_blank">ceremony they held at Cherry Point last September</a> in opposition to the proposed terminal, and saw the dramatic photos of them burning a large facsimile of a million-dollar check, labeled "Non Negotiable" - indicating they would not be bought off.</p>
<div class="mceTemp mceIEcenter"><dl style="width: 610px;" id="attachment_1563" class="wp-caption aligncenter">
<dt class="wp-caption-dt"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/non-negotiable.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1563" alt=" Members of the Lummi Nation protest the proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point by burning a large check stamped "Non-Negotiable." The tribe says they want to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the site. Read more at http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/northwest-tribes-step-up-opposition-to-proposed-coal-terminals. " src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/08/non-negotiable.jpg" width="600" height="389"/></a></dt>
<dd class="wp-caption-dd">Members of the Lummi Nation protest the proposed coal export terminal at Cherry Point by burning a large check stamped "Non-Negotiable." The tribe says they want to protect the natural and cultural heritage of the site.<br/>Read more at <a href="http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/northwest-tribes-step-up-opposition-to-proposed-coal-terminals">http://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/article/northwest-tribes-step-up-opposition-to-proposed-coal-terminals</a>.</dd>
</dl>
</div>
<p>The effect was felt once again when looking at the <a title="Lummi Opposition: Proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal" href="http://www.lwvbellinghamwhatcom.org/files/lummi-opposition.pdf" target="_blank">official letter from the tribe</a> in its "unconditional and unequivocal opposition to the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal." I love how they outline 3 Principles that have influenced their decision making process. 1) "Everything is Connected" - enduring well-being is connected to healthy land, water, and environment. 2) "We must manage our resources for the seventh generation of our people" - irresponsibility now could mean stealing from our grandchildren. 3) "As a tribal government, we have adopted the critical goal that we must preserve, promote and protect our "Schelangen" ("way of life")." These principles resonate with my affinity for David Holmgren's <a title="Permaculture Principles" href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/" target="_blank">Permaculture Ethics and Principles</a> (which Holmgren himself acknowledged were deeply influenced by his sense of the principles "common to all indigenous tribal peoples").</p>
<p>But this 8 page insert in the Whatcom Watch takes the effect to another level. Jewell James gives us a history lesson, a legal lesson, a moral lesson, a spiritual lesson. He takes us back 200 years, and we work our way forward to where we are today, followed by an eloquently delivered "Sacred Obligation" ("Xa xalh Xechnging").</p>
<p>As Phil Damon points out, we have taken from the Lummis for far too long. It's time we slow down, listen, and consider. It's time to now take the wisdom that they offer. Please set aside some time to read this valuable contribution by Jewell Praying Wolf James. You can pick up copies at <a title="Distribution points for Whatcom Watch" href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?distrib" target="_blank">a number of distribution points</a> in Whatcom County, or <a title="Whatcom Watch - Lummi Insert" href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/pdf_content/LummiInsert.pdf" target="_blank">find it online</a>. I'll share a couple of teaser quotes to get you started.</p>
<p> </p>
<p><strong>The Search for Integrity in the Conflict Over Cherry Point as a Coal Export Terminal</strong></p>
<p><em>Jewell Praying Wolf James is a Lummi tribal member and director of the Lummi Nation's Sovereignty and Treaty Protection Office...</em></p>
<blockquote><p>We are living in a fast-paced society and rarely take the time to reflect upon the truths behind the laws that govern us. We are, one and all, proud to be law-abiding citizens. We operate under the assumption that the law is just, reasonable, and fair, and that no person stands above it. But how many people understand — or have even been introduced to — the important role Native Americans played in the governance of the American Nation?</p>
<p>I hope through the medium of history to give voice to a silenced history. In this article we will move through time, from first contact between European-Americans and the indigenous peoples of the Western Hemisphere, in 1492, to the present conflict over Cherry Point. Along the way, I hope to inform the reader about some of the laws, political realities, and administrative procedures that benefit corporate interests more favorably than either tribal rights or the greater public good. Just as important, I hope to show how the general public can influence the final outcome of this search for integrity.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Read More:</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/pdf_content/LummiInsert.pdf" rel="nofollow">http://www.whatcomwatch.org/pdf_content/LummiInsert.pdf</a></p>
<p><em>Thanks to Phil Damon for the title of this post.</em></p>Why You Should Care About the Growth Management Act if You Live in Whatcom Countytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-07-27:2723460:BlogPost:922242013-07-27T21:40:29.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog...</em></p>
<p>I know, it sounds like a subject best left to professional planners, politicians, and policy wonks. But it turns out to be a really important piece that is shaping the character and landscape of Whatcom County. Perhaps more importantly it plays a role in our ability to become more resilient by preserving fertile farmland for the purpose of feeding our…</p>
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog...</em></p>
<p>I know, it sounds like a subject best left to professional planners, politicians, and policy wonks. But it turns out to be a really important piece that is shaping the character and landscape of Whatcom County. Perhaps more importantly it plays a role in our ability to become more resilient by preserving fertile farmland for the purpose of feeding our community with locally grown food.</p>
<p>In 1990, the state of Washington passed The Growth Management Act (GMA), which basically requires local governments to do land use planning, and to demonstrate how they’re going to accommodate expected population growth. Since that time Whatcom County has had what <a href="http://getwhatcomplanning.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Get Whatcom Planning</a> calls a “sordid history…of compliance with that state law.”</p>
<p>You can expect that County compliance with the GMA will be a big topic at the upcoming <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/candidate-forum-on-growth-the-environment" target="_blank">Growth and Environment Election Forum</a> mentioned in the <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/could-our-obscure-whatcom-county-council-election-change-the-planet/" target="_blank">previous post</a> (Aug. 1st). So it’s a good idea to get up to speed on the topic before the forum. I’m not an expert by any means on this topic, so I’m mostly going to be referring to other articles and blog posts.</p>
<p>A great way to ease into this topic is Riley Sweeney’s blog post, “<a href="http://sweeneypolitics.com/2012/12/11/why-is-the-county-breaking-the-law/" target="_blank">Why is the County Breaking the Law?</a>“ Riley shares an admittedly over-simplified analogy of a school child refusing to turn in his or her homework.</p>
<p>Riley explains the purpose of the GMA:</p>
<blockquote><p><strong>The idea was that if you made the counties do their homework,</strong> they would avoid sprawling strip malls and giant condos next to what should have been rural areas. Unplanned growth leads to expensive infrastructure adjustments by the county.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>For various reasons, the County has adopted plans that various Hearings Boards and courts have found to be invalid, and the County has continued to resist the findings by spending our taxpayer money ($50,000 per year – <a href="http://getwhatcomplanning.blogspot.com/2013/06/county-council-update-representing-your.html" target="_blank">they just decided to re-up for another $40,000</a>) on litigation…and they continue to lose.</p>
<p>I’ll have more articles to share next time, but until then you should pop over to the <a href="http://sweeneypolitics.com/2012/12/11/why-is-the-county-breaking-the-law/" target="_blank">Sweeney Politics</a> blog and take a few minutes to read that aforementioned post. It’s actually an entertaining read.</p>
<p><a href="http://sweeneyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/img_6410.jpg"><img alt="Let's talk about this "GMA" business" src="http://sweeneyblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/12/img_6410.jpg?w=120&h=180&h=180" height="180" width="120"/></a></p>
<p>“Let’s talk about this “GMA” business”</p>Could Our Obscure Whatcom County Election Change the Planet?tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-07-26:2723460:BlogPost:923002013-07-26T03:00:00.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/could-our-obscure-whatcom-county-council-election-change-the-planet/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog...</em></p>
<p></p>
<p>A couple of months ago there was a piece in the National Journal that put a spotlight on our humble county, and caught some local attention:…</p>
<p><em>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/07/23/could-our-obscure-whatcom-county-council-election-change-the-planet/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> blog...</em></p>
<p></p>
<p>A couple of months ago there was a piece in the National Journal that put a spotlight on our humble county, and caught some local attention: <em><strong><a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/magazine/the-obscure-county-election-that-could-change-the-planet-20130523" target="_blank">The Obscure County Election That Could Change the Planet</a></strong></em> by Carol Davenport. The tagline says “A little watched race in Washington State will determine how America uses its coal – and the future of the global climate.” (in addition to the article, you can watch <a href="http://video.msnbc.msn.com/the-daily-rundown/52056515#52056515" target="_blank">an interview NBC did with the author</a>).</p>
<p>The issue of concern is the proposed Gateway Pacific Terminal, a $600 million project that, if approved, is projected to ship 48 million tons of coal annually to Asia, which would make it the largest coal export terminal in North America. This is said to be enough fuel to power 15 to 20 new coal fired plants a year – taking us in exactly the opposite direction in which we need to go. With carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere now reaching past 400 parts per million – the highest levels ever recorded in history – many of us believe it is a very high priority to do all we can to discourage the burning of coal anywhere and everywhere.</p>
<div id="attachment_1434" class="wp-caption aligncenter" style="width: 249px;"><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/richards_bay_coal_1.jpg"><img class="size-full wp-image-1434 align-center" alt="Richards Bay Coal Port" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/richards_bay_coal_1.jpg?w=640"/></a><p class="wp-caption-text"><em>The Richards Bay Coal Terminal, the largest coal export terminal in Africa exports 66 million tons annually.</em></p>
<p class="wp-caption-text"></p>
</div>
<p>The site for the proposed coal port is Cherry Point, just north of Bellingham, in Whatcom County, WA, with coal from Wyoming and Montana arriving here via rail – up to 18 coal trains per day. And this is where our County Council comes in. According to Davenport’s article:</p>
<blockquote><p>Over the next two years, the seven-member board will play an outsized role in Gateway’s fate, voting on two crucial siting permits which, if approved, will pave the way for the terminal’s construction. If the council rejects the permits, it could freeze the project for years, if not permanently. This November, voters will determine the makeup of the council that will make those crucial permit decisions, electing four of the seven members.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Hence, this year’s election is extremely important. And there’s big potential for special interests to have a large influence. Apparently the world’s largest public relations lobbying firm has already been hired to help promote the project.</p>
<p>The problem is that the candidates are not allowed to directly address the issue with their opinion, lest they jeapardize their role in being able to participate in the decision. It is set up as a “quasi-judicial” system, requiring the council to remain neutral and base their decision only on the “facts” that are presented to the council at a future date.</p>
<p>So what is a voter to do? For one, you want to consider the candidates who believe in climate change, and who acknowledge that human activity is the cause for much of the warming we’re seeing today. Two, examine how the candidates relate to other sustainability related or resilience related issues. What are their positions on protecting the Lake Whatcom watershed, or handling the GMA related issues, or the slaughterhouse regulations?</p>
<p>The GMA? Growth Management Act. This is huge, and has been a thorn in Whatcom County’s side for more than a decade. More about that next time.</p>
<p>How can you learn more about where the candidates stand on these issues? <strong>Attend the Candidate Forum on Growth and the Environment, Thursday Aug. 1, 2013, at Bellingham High School, from 5 to 7:30pm.</strong></p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/candidate-forum-flyer_small_for_web.jpg"><img class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-1433 align-center" alt="Candidate Forum Flyer_small_for_web" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/candidate-forum-flyer_small_for_web.jpg?w=640"/></a></p>
<blockquote><p>Attend the Growth and Environment forum to hear comments and opinions from Whatcom County Council candidates regarding important growth, land use and environmental issues facing Whatcom County. By answering a series of questions from forum moderators with audience input on topic selection, candidates will discuss pivotal issues in the upcoming elections, such as new industrial development, growth management, the proposed jail, Lake Whatcom, Critical Areas protection and shoreline protection.</p>
<p>We have invited every candidate to attend and represent his or her views, and are hopeful for full participation from all eight candidates.</p>
<p>Out of respect for the quasi-judicial role that council members inhabit during major project land use permit evaluation, moderators will not ask direct questions related to support of or opposition to Gateway Pacific Terminal or other similar projects.</p>
<p>Also, please join us from 5:00 to 5:30pm for a pre-forum information fair. Representatives from local organizations working on county-wide (including Bellingham) issues will be available to answer your questions (stop by the <strong>Transition Whatcom</strong> table).</p>
<p><ins cite="mailto:RE%20Sources%20office%20staff" datetime="2013-07-16T13:29">For more information, visit</ins><a href="http://www.re-sources.org/">www.re-sources.org</a> or contact Matt Krogh at</p>
<p>(360) 733.8307<ins cite="mailto:RE%20Sources%20office%20staff" datetime="2013-07-16T13:30">, or</ins></p>
<p>mattk@re-sources.org<ins cite="mailto:RE%20Sources%20office%20staff" datetime="2013-07-16T13:30">.</ins></p>
<p> </p>
</blockquote>
<p><strong>Related: See the excellent article in Whatcom Watch by Terry Wechsler:</strong> <a href="http://www.whatcomwatch.org/php/WW_open.php?id=1584" target="_blank"><strong><em>GPT and County Council Elections</em></strong></a></p>That Most Wonderful Time of the Year!tag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-07-07:2723460:BlogPost:920722013-07-07T00:30:55.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Cue Johnny Mathis, singing "It's that most wonderful time of the year!"</p>
<p>I'm not talking about Christmas, however. I'm talking about that time of year when the fresh, local fruits collide. When you're getting the last of the Strawberries, the first of the Blueberries, and the peak of the raspberries! I love how nature spaces out the fruit season so wonderfully!</p>
<p>These were picked minutes ago from our small but growing berry plants, including the above, plus red and black…</p>
<p>Cue Johnny Mathis, singing "It's that most wonderful time of the year!"</p>
<p>I'm not talking about Christmas, however. I'm talking about that time of year when the fresh, local fruits collide. When you're getting the last of the Strawberries, the first of the Blueberries, and the peak of the raspberries! I love how nature spaces out the fruit season so wonderfully!</p>
<p>These were picked minutes ago from our small but growing berry plants, including the above, plus red and black currants.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476043?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231476043?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>And here's a pic from a couple weeks ago when the strawberries were in full force.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a target="_self" href="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477455?profile=original"><img width="750" class="align-full" src="http://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/2231477455?profile=RESIZE_1024x1024" width="750"/></a></p>
<p>Happy Summer!</p>The Many Uses of the Sun's Powertag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-06-30:2723460:BlogPost:917762013-06-30T04:54:13.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/the-many-uses-of-the-suns-power/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_5/" target="_blank" title="Permaculture Principles">Permaculture Principle #5</a>: <em><strong>Use and Value Renewable Resources</strong></em></p>
<p>“Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-renewable…</p>
<p>Reblogged from my <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/06/29/the-many-uses-of-the-suns-power/" target="_blank">Integral Permaculture</a> site.</p>
<p></p>
<p><a title="Permaculture Principles" href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_5/" target="_blank">Permaculture Principle #5</a>: <em><strong>Use and Value Renewable Resources</strong></em></p>
<p>“Make the best use of nature’s abundance to reduce our consumptive behaviour and dependence on non-renewable resources.”</p>
<blockquote><p>As we go through the essential transition to declining energy, the limited and erratic nature of renewable energies provides a valuable negative feedback, reminding us that all natural resources must be used carefully and respectfully.<br/> - David Holmgren, Permaculture: Principles and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</p>
</blockquote>
<p>These photos were taken today in our backyard. How many uses of the sun can you identify? Which uses do you think best optimize the sun’s energy?</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/going-solar.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-1386" alt="Solar Power 1, 2, 3" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/going-solar.jpg?w=640&h=486" height="486" width="640"/></a></p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/the-many-uses-of-solar-power.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-1387" alt="Solar Power 4, 5, 6" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/the-many-uses-of-solar-power.jpg?w=640&h=580" height="580" width="640"/></a></p>
<p>This season we are focusing our efforts more on rebuilding the soil, reshaping the garden beds (and by “we” I mean mostly head gardener Angela), and <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/making-swales-part-6-the-weekend-event/" target="_blank">redesigning our landscape with swales</a>, rather than an emphasis on food production. Hence the cover crop of buckwheat on these newly shaped garden beds.</p>
<p>And speaking of the sun’s power (amplified by the human caused greenhouse effect, i.e. climate change)…fellow blogger Robert Scribbler has a couple of worrying posts on the current heat wave being experienced on the west coast and it’s affect on Arctic Sea ice. See “<a href="http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/06/27/mangled-jet-stream-and-global-warming-to-shatter-earths-highest-recorded-temperature-this-week/" rel="bookmark">Mangled Jet Stream and Global Warming to Shatter Earth’s Highest Recorded Temperature This Week?</a> and <a href="http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/with-warm-storm-at-its-heart-and-heatwaves-rushing-in-from-the-sides-arctic-sea-braces-for-major-blow/" rel="bookmark">With ‘Warm Storm’ at Its Heart and Heatwaves Rushing in From The Sides, Arctic Sea Ice Braces for Major Blow</a> .</p>
<blockquote><p><em><strong>Worst Case Melt Scenario May be Emerging</strong></em></p>
<p>So by late June, it appears that the worst case melt scenario — with a storm hollowing out and melting the Arctic sea ice from the center and powerful warm air pulses delivered by a mangled Jet Stream rapidly melting the sea ice from its edges — may be emerging. A start to a ‘melt cliff’ that occurred this week, therefore, may extend and rapidly advance over the coming days. Model ensembles seem to support this forecast even as atmospheric heat delivery to the Arctic ramps up. It is an extreme situation that is well worth monitoring.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>In more positive news (also related to the topic of this post), Robert’s latest post is about <a href="http://robertscribbler.wordpress.com/2013/06/28/renewables-to-replace-nat-gas-as-second-largest-source-by-2016-generate-25-of-the-worlds-electricty-by-2018/" rel="bookmark">Renewables to Replace Nat Gas as World’s Second Largest Electricity Source by 2016, Generate 25% by 2018.</a></p>
<p>Despite this positive news, it is important to keep in mind some caveats. David Holmgren again:</p>
<blockquote><p>To harvest, store and use renewable energy sources requires varying inputs of high-quality (generally non-renewable) energy…In the case of wind power, the lower quality and erratic nature of the energy resource requires the much greater harvesting infrastructure. For solar electric power, the resource is most abundant but so low in quality that vast infrastructure is required relative to the quantity of harvested energy.</p>
<p>Despite these limitations, solar (photovoltaic) cells that convert sunlight to electricity have become the great symbol of renewable energy, out of all proportion in importance to a future with declining energy…I believe that a high-tech society running on solar cells is the stuff of dreams.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I am glad to have solar panels, but I don’t see them as a panacea, and I believe the jury is still out on how much net energy they generate after accounting for the varying inputs required for their manufacture (see <a href="http://prosperouswaydown.com/renewable-power-rhythm/">here</a> (check comments) and <a title="The Renewable Revolution II" href="http://peakoil.com/alternative-energy/ugo-bardi-the-renewable-revolution-ii" target="_blank">here for an alternate view</a>). Why did I not put the wet clothes in our very efficient clothes dryer inside the house, and let the energy from the panels dry the clothes? Because using the direct energy of the solar clothes rack is much more efficient (when the sun is shining).</p>
<p>I asked at the top of the post, “<em>Which uses [of the sun shown in the photos] do you think best optimize the sun’s energy?</em>“ The answer is likely the trees in the background, and the grass and garden beds in the foreground.</p>
<blockquote><p>Studies in biophysics providing curves of efficiency as a function of light intensity for isolated [green plant] cholorplasts show them to be more efficient than hardware cells. It may be that the natural conversion of sunlight to electric charge that occurs in all green plant photosynthesis after 1 billion years of natural selection may already be the highest net EMERGY [embodied energy] possible.</p>
<p>- Howard T. Odum, Environmental Accounting (quoted by Holmgren)</p>
<p>The ultimate development of the biological capture and storage of solar energy in forms useful to future generations of people is forest trees. Although trees do not yield electricity directly, they do most efficiently convert the very dilute solar energy into wood that we can more effectively substitute for many current uses of fossil fuel. For example, modern technology for wood gasifiers and micro-gas turbines appears to be a much more economical pathway for electricity production than solar cells.</p>
<p>- David Holmgren, Permaculture: Prinicples and Pathways Beyond Sustainability</p>
</blockquote>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/hpim0364.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-large wp-image-1393" alt="Solar Powered Trees" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/hpim0364.jpg?w=640&h=486" height="486" width="640"/></a></p>
<p>Our neighbor carefully cultivates and harvests evergreen trees on his 1/2 acre plot next door (picture above). I’m not sure of the efficiency of his wood burning stove, but I believe he is making very good use of solar energy.</p>
<p>We should also note the intermediate technology of the greenhouse in the picture at top, especially since we used reclaimed glass rather than new. According to Holmgren, when you make use of another’s discarded materials, this should be classified under the Permaculture principle of “<a href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_3/" target="_blank">Obtain a Yield</a>” (rather than “<a href="http://permacultureprinciples.com/principles/_6/" target="_blank">Produce no Waste</a>“).</p>
<p>There are still at least a couple more uses or potential uses of the sun’s energy in the pictures up top that I haven’t discussed here. Can you name them?</p>
<p>I’ll give the last word once again to David Holmgren, the conclusion to his chapter on renewable resources:</p>
<blockquote><p>The developing environmental orthodoxy is that we must increasingly separate all human support systems and ourselves from nature in order to prevent damage. This is a delusion created by generations of urban affluence separated from the cycles of nature. Although there are many positive and useful examples of environmental technology based on natural models, the underlying principles of separation of people from nature are philosophically and energetically flawed. We need to recognise that sustainable systems are more likely to emerge from an intimate parnership with nature, rather than application of natural design principles within the confines of the technosphere. Thus the slogan “nature knows best” is appropriate.</p>
</blockquote>Occupy Love, Part 2: Charles Eisenstein and Sacred Economicstag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-05-08:2723460:BlogPost:904922013-05-08T04:00:00.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<p>Part 2 of my comments about this film...see <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/occupy-love-may-21-at-pickford-s-limelight-theatre" target="_self">Part 1 here</a>.</p>
<p>As TW's Emily Farrell said, <span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“My sense, so far, of this movie, is that it is grounded in the connectedness we feel in our hearts about what is happening in the world.”</span><br></br> <br></br> And what attracts me most to the film is the portion featuring…</p>
<p>Part 2 of my comments about this film...see <a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profiles/blogs/occupy-love-may-21-at-pickford-s-limelight-theatre" target="_self">Part 1 here</a>.</p>
<p>As TW's Emily Farrell said, <span style="font-size: 11.0pt; line-height: 115%;">“My sense, so far, of this movie, is that it is grounded in the connectedness we feel in our hearts about what is happening in the world.”</span><br/> <br/> And what attracts me most to the film is the portion featuring <strong>Charles Eisenstein</strong>. He says:</p>
<p class="yiv299850834msonormal">"This movement isn't about the 99% defeating or toppling the 1%. You know the next chapter of that story - that the 99% create a new 1%. What we want to create is the world that our hearts tell us is possible, the world that works for everybody...The system isn't working for the 1% either. If you were a CEO, you would be making the same choices they do...life is pretty bleak at the top too..."</p>
<p class="yiv299850834msonormal">Last year, this youtube video (featuring Eisenstein speaking the above quote) went viral - as filmmaker Velcrow Ripper was working on "Occupy Love," he released this excerpt, called <strong>The Revolution is Love</strong>.</p>
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<p>This resonates for me with one of the Transition principles: <i>"Successful Transition Initiatives need an unprecedented coming together of the broad diversity of society. They dedicate themselves to ensuring that their decision making processes and their working groups embody principles of openness and inclusion. This principle also refers to the principle of each initiative reaching the community in its entirety, and endeavoring, from an early stage, to engage their local business community, the diversity of community groups and local authorities. It makes explicit the principle that there is, in the challenge of energy descent, no room for 'them and us' thinking."</i> <br/> <br/> And so, we may want to make some comments at the movie emphasizing some of the above points to clarify why TW is co-sponsoring this movie and where it all fits in the Transition approach. <br/> <br/> And know that many of us in the Transition movement have a great respect for those of you in the Occupy movement using a "different tool" so effectively to help raise the consciousness of us all.</p>
<p>Filmmaker Ian Mackenzie collaborated with Velcrow Ripper on Occupy Love. He also made short movie (12 minutes) based on Eisenstein's book <strong>Sacred Economics</strong>.</p>
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<p><strong>Join us for the Encore showing of Occupy Love at the Pickford Cinema in Bellingham on June 11, 2013. Tickets must be purchased by June 4th.<br/></strong></p>
<p><a href="http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/occupy-love-film-showing-encore-screening">http://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/events/occupy-love-film-showing-encore-screening</a></p>
<p></p>International Permaculture Daytag:transitionwhatcom.ning.com,2013-05-05:2723460:BlogPost:903472013-05-05T16:55:38.000ZDavid MacLeodhttp://transitionwhatcom.ning.com/profile/DavidMacLeod
<div class="entry-content"><p>Today is International Permaculture Day.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/grow-local-live_final_png.png"><img alt="grow-local-live_final_png" class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1343 align-center" height="240" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/grow-local-live_final_png.png?w=300&h=240" width="300"></img></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="http://www.live.permacultureday.org" target="_blank">www.live.permacultureday.org</a></strong></p>
<p>This is a good time to consider the investment ideas from the Permaculture movement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The time now is of transition, of asking yourself,…</p>
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<div class="entry-content"><p>Today is International Permaculture Day.</p>
<p><a href="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/grow-local-live_final_png.png"><img class="aligncenter size-medium wp-image-1343 align-center" alt="grow-local-live_final_png" src="http://integralpermaculture.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/grow-local-live_final_png.png?w=300&h=240" height="240" width="300"/></a></p>
<p style="text-align: center;"><strong><a href="http://www.live.permacultureday.org" target="_blank">www.live.permacultureday.org</a></strong></p>
<p>This is a good time to consider the investment ideas from the Permaculture movement:</p>
<blockquote><p>“The time now is of transition, of asking yourself, where do I want my money? Where do I invest my time? Start with yourself. Research this idea of the Great Reskilling and ask yourself what you know already, what you want to know, and what you need! How can you be so much more than just a “consumer”? What can you produce? What can we produce together? Let’s produce a legacy worth saving.”</p>
<p>- Kenton Zerbin</p>
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<p>See <a href="http://permaculturenews.org/2013/04/29/investing-the-option-they-never-told-you-about/" target="_blank">Investing: The Option They Never Told You About</a> at the Permaculture Research Institute</p>
<p><strong>Permaculture As a Design System</strong></p>
<p>David Holmgren, co-originator of the Permaculture concept, <a href="http://holmgren.com.au/about-permaculture/" target="_blank">defines it like this</a>:</p>
<blockquote><p>“permaculture is a ‘design system based on ecological principles’ (see below) which provides the organising framework for implementing the above vision. In this more limited, but important sense it draws together the diverse skills and ways of living which need to be rediscovered and developed <strong>to empower us to move from being dependant consumers to becoming responsible producers</strong>.</p>
<p>In this sense, permaculture is not the landscape, or even the skills of organic gardening, sustainable farming, energy efficient building or eco-village development as such, but can be used to design, establish, manage and improve these and all other efforts made by individuals, households and communities towards a sustainable future.”</p>
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<p><em>Co-originator of the permaculture concept, David Holmgren, gives an overview of the design principles as thinking tools that when used together allow us to creatively redesign our environment and our behaviour in a world of less energy and resources. Explore the permaculture ethics and design principles further by visiting <a href="http://integralpermaculture.wordpress.com/www.permacultureprinciples.com" target="_blank">www.permacultureprinciples.com</a>.</em></p>
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