Global warming's impact already costs plenty;

CEO Economic Update: Global warming's impact already costs plenty;
from the page: "The mathematical model looked at the future cost of oil, its related chemical and rubber end products, metals, and the cost of electricity. In short, it was a comprehensive look at how the world might change if Kyoto was enacted, and doing so would be expensive. So expensive, API concluded solutions should be left to future and richer generations.

Ten years later, per capita GDP has grown by $6,000, so we are certainly richer. But more importantly, the other side of the argument is becoming clearer: The cost of doing nothing has an attachable dollar cost.

Back when the simulations were being drawn up, the cost of doing nothing was unclear. Today, with hundreds of destroyed building, and tens of thousands dead, it's time to weigh the cost of doing something against the cost of doing nothing.

Chart: No matter the measurement, warming is on the rise."

http://pbp.typepad.com/economy/2007/06/global_warmings.html

My Most Recent Gardening Pictures

Check out my most recent pictures on my other blog by clicking here.

www.LastGasStation.Com Weekly Workbench.1

Anybody who incorporates an old high school "memorial" song by the likes of Van Halen has to be cool. ....and the message is golden. You rock Robert Run! Continue on....or should I say "rock on"?

Yahoo: New Age Town in New England Embraces Dollar Alternative

Worried about a dollar crash in the future? With the dollar at significant lows and China financing our nation's debt load, more and more are advocating for creation of a local currency within their communities. More importantly, a local currency might also support more local business. With a more localized economy, I understand that local people who would use this would be more buffered in the event of a currency crash and there would also already be a local system set up in that case. See the story from Yahoo here.

Yahoo Finance: The Railroad Industry-Warren Buffet's Latest Big Bet

Click here for full article.

So where could the value that Buffett so clearly sees be coming from? Two things spring immediately to mind:

1. The coverage maps of the three railroads are somewhat complimentary - BNI and UNP operating in different portions of the west, NSC operating in the east. A merger could create efficiencies that increase the value of the combined companies that do not currently exist.
2. With the passing of "Peak Oil" and higher gas prices, railroads will increase in value as they are the most efficient method to move cargo across the country.

Regardless of what Buffett sees in the railroads, this is the most significant "loading up" we've seen from them in quite some time. It's been years, almost decades, since they made their initial stakes in American Express, Coca-Cola, Gillette (since bought by PG), and Wells Fargo, and you may have missed that boat. However, right now it seems that railroads are his next great investment and those who knew about that initial Form 4 filing have entered on the ground floor with him.

Business Week article: From Peak Oil to Dark Age?

Click here for article from Business Week.

Hello, hello!? Anybody out there? Will the masses please stand at attention!? Please wake up and change our ways! It takes more than a few thousand people!

The Last Gas Station blog

Click here for the blog.

Energy Without Oil

I'm dreamin' again....

An Invitation from Greg Peterson and the Urban Farm

Hi all,

Many of you know me from my work either as a graduate student in Environmental Planning at ASU or from my work at the Urban Farm in Phoenix. Well I have recently launched a new venture which includes an extensive webportal and television show called Smart Spaces: Inside & Out.

Each week we publish a new article on just how we can live a greener lifestyle. The article includes an Innovative Idea that is designed to spark your thinking in this area. I have included below this weeks Innovative Idea. I would like to invite you to subscribe (it's free) to our weekly tip here.

Again I want to thank you all for your awesome continued support of the work that I do. I feel blessed each day that I get to follow my heart and will continue to do it for a very long time.

Greg Peterson

June 11, 2007 Innovative Idea

This weeks article is the forward from a really great tool that helps you figure out the size of your ecological footprint. Our ecological footprint reflects as the impact of our everyday choices on the natural environment and believe it or not the cumulative effect of the choices that we make every day can make a difference.

"Anyone who knows me knows that for more than 25 years I've been preaching that at a small percentage of [us] changing the way [we] shop and the way we live can be a powerful force for good in the environment, says Joel Makower, Editor of The Green Consumer Letter.

EarthScore provides a cool scoring system designed to help us measure our personal impact with the idea that by understanding our individual habits and lifestyles, over time, we can identify where we can truly make a difference. Please read our article of the week for more information on the topic at Smart Spaces TV.


We look forward to your comments, interactions and feedback.

Greg Peterson
Editor
SmartSpacesTV.com
Greg@SmartSpacesTV.com

PS. Got a great tip you want to share? Visit Smart Spaces TV connect and share it.

Wikipedia Wally Rippel

Click here for Wiki site.

Wally E. Rippel is an engineer at Tesla Motors, and a long-time developer and advocate of battery electric vehicles.

Wally has a prominent role, labeled as himself, "Research Engineer, AeroVironment," in the 2006 documentary movie Who killed the electric car?, including two brief scenes in the official trailer [1].

In 1968, as an undergraduate student, he built the Caltech electric car (a converted 1958 VW microbus) and won the Great Transcontinental Electric Car Race against MIT [2] [3].

In the 1970s and 1980s, Rippel worked for the Jet Propulsion Laboratory on electric vehicle battery research, among other things.

Around 1990, Rippel joined AeroVironment and helped to design the GM Impact, later named the EV1; he had worked on the induction motor for the car before joining AeroVironment [4]. In 2003, he was one of the participants in the mock funeral for the EV1 as GM prepared to collect the last few for crushing [5].

Rippel left AeroVironment in 2006 and joined Tesla Motors where he continues his life long work on the battery electric car.

Greening The Desert

Click here for link....repairing trashed, salt-laden, drought-stricken soils

Two Blogs Plus This One Promote Refocus

I am glad to report two more blog sites that promote a refocus:
Ergobalance
by Chris Rhodes, see his profile here.

and my list of 117 selected sites here.

Thanks to peaknik for her patience.

Sustain

ASPO: 2007 Houston World Oil Conference

Wish I could go. It looks like it will be exciting. For more exciting peak oil news go to ASPO-USA's site here

2007 Houston World Oil Conference

We are pleased to announce that ASPO-USA will hold its 2007 World Oil Conference, October 17-20, at the Hilton Americas in downtown Houston, Texas. We have an exciting roster of confirmed participants including legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, Houston Mayor Bill White(former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy), Bob Hirsch (co-author of the groundbreaking Hirsch-Bezdek Report to DOE), Peter Tertzakian (author of “A Thousand Barrels a Second"), Matthew Simmons, (author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock"), Henry Groppe of Groppe, Long & Littell, Charles Maxwell of Weeden & Co., David Hughes of the Canadian Geological Survey, Chairman Elizabeth Ames Jones of the Texas Railroad Commission, Professor Peter Bishop of the University of Houston, and many others. We are awaiting RSVPs from other high-profile speakers including Former President Bill Clinton.


Honorary Co-chairmen of the Conference are Houstonians Matt Simmons of Simmons & Company International, and Art Smith of John S. Herold, Inc.

ASPO Week in Houston will consist of four days of energy discussion as well as field trips to a drilling site and to Refinery Row on the Houston Ship Channel, the heart of our nation's refining and petrochemical industries.

Nothing could be more fitting than Houston - "The Energy Capital of the World" - hosting international oil & gas experts to address the energy challenges of the 21st Century. We are proud to announce that the ASPO-USA World Oil Conference will be jointly Co-sponsored by the City of Houston and the University of Houston.

Our 2006 World Oil Conference was co-sponsored by BostonUniversity's Center for Energy & Environmental Studies, and our 2005 conference was co-sponsored by the City of Denver and the University of Colorado Graduate School of Public Affairs. Both meetings were widely acclaimed by Peak Oil scientists, attendees, and media outlets from across the country and around the world.

Peak Oil experts don’t claim that we will run out of oil, but that we will run out of cheap oil, as production decreases and demand increases. They point to below-ground evidence and above-ground factors: the continued depletion of major oil fields worldwide drives resource nationalism, a volatile geopolitical climate, and rising oil & gas prices.

The deniers of Peak Oil say that technology, new discoveries, and unconventional oil will save us. If the deniers are wrong, we are in deep trouble; if the Peak Oil experts are wrong, we will have conserved and mitigated ahead of schedule. ASPO-USA says the latter prudent and conservative approach is the path we must take as a nation.

Professor Peter Bishop of the University of Houston's Future Studies Program will conduct a conference session to explore scenarios of Peak Oil impacts on the City of Houston, the intelligent responses to mitigate these impacts, and the needed steps going forward to preserve the city's position as "Energy Capital of the World."

The Houston Conference agenda will feature technical sessions on Reserves and Production; Substitute Fuels; Peak Oil & Climate Change; Peak Oil Reports from the GAO, National Petroleum Council, and AAPG; a Natural Gas/LNG Update; a Net Energy Update; Mitigation Scenarios; Smart Policy Initiatives (local, state & national); and Smart Money & Investment in the Age of Peak Oil.

Registration will open on or about June 1st. For more information on agenda details, speakers and activities as they become available, as well as a review of past Conferences, please see the links above and our website at www.aspousa.org.

We look forward to seeing you in Houston,

ASPO-USA Co-founders,
Steve Andrews, Jim Baldauf, Randy Udall, Dick Lawrence

For further information please contact:

Rick Block, 856-845-0579