Open Letter to President Obama. (Stay in touch and please bookmark!)

Mr. President,

I know it's been since May 2008 during your campaign that I met you in Northern Indiana and gave you Heinberg's book on oil depletion with my blog address written on the inside cover. I really hope you remembered or chose to take the book with you to the White House during your move. I also hope that with recent news that you can keep your Blackberry, that you can/would bookmark this blog with its valuable links to the best of the best voices of the peak oil and sustainable living subculture!

A lot has transpired since then and I'm almost sure you haven't had the time to read the book, although you appear to understand a little about our oil situation already. Likewise, I've been so busy with your campaign in 2008 that I haven't even had time to update this blog as much as I like nor to experiment with a lifestyle that's more sustainable. But first things first. I had to prioritize.

Well, now, the goal has been accomplished! Congratulations! There are a lot of things I'm happy with concerning what your presidency means, however, the most celebratory idea you've put forward in your campaign coincides greatly with one of the core solutions in living in a world with less cheap oil.

This mutual idea is community service. Although I have a hunch that you lean towards economic globalization and are (and will be) pressured by large corporations, your roots are firmly established in local community activism. Relocalization has become one of the principles for sustainability and survival in the peak oil crowd, and your encouragement for the people of our country to give service within their own communities is a welcoming message for us.

You have propelled me to choose a community-oriented service which will address both my concern for sustainability while simultaneously helping others in need. I will be volunteering at my local mission on a routine basis not only preparing items to help the poor and homeless but also will assist in their local garden for the homeless providing their own food. I can save and share my seeds and supplies. In other words, I'll help them give themselves skills to support themselves--a hand up, not just a hand out. That's all people really want.

So this is my hope. I thank you for inspiring me. May you allow God's will to work through you, that others may be drawn to Him through you and be so inspired to act and do for others, may He bless you and keep you and your family safe at all times.

Choosing What Our Cities Will Look Like in a World Without Oil

As we draw nearer to reaching the point of Peak Oil, it benefits us to imagine what our cities will look like in a world without oil. Does this conjure up images of cities turned into urban farms just to produce enough food for us all? Do we devote all our energy to growing, bartering and trading the food we grow? Or will the city become divided, with the wealthy moving to the center while higher costs of living force lower-income families to the outer-ring suburbs, where access to goods, services and transport will be limited?

If we start now, we can choose what we want our cities to look like in the future. We can make them the resilient, sustainable centers of culture, justice, art and creativity that we hope they will become.

Author and Professor Peter Newman is asking us to imagine and then get to work building these urban centers. His book and talk, both titled Resilient Cities: Responding to Peak Oil and Climate Change, ask audiences to honestly look at what will happen to our cities when we reach Peak Oil. During his 90 minute presentation last night at Seattle's City Hall, Newman explained to the full house how peak oil will soon change reality as we know it; and how if we choose to make it so, we can take this challenge as our opportunity to create a functional, just and sustainable world


More at World Changing here.

If you could live anywhere in a post peak world, where would that be?

I found this neat website where you can explore other areas of the world to live. Click here for escapeartist.com. So far, Costa Rica seems like a nice place....

Photogallery of Greenroofs

This one was my favorite.

Here is the link if you'd like to look at them.

Joyce Marcel: Our "Cheap Oil Fiesta" s Over

Click here for full article.

It’s the end of the world as we know it, and for a little while, at least, it sounds lovely.

Imagine a world where the air is cleaner because fewer people are driving cars. Where you can hop on a train to visit your friends in the West River Valley or spend a day in Boston, arriving refreshed instead of wiped out from highway driving. Where chemical-drenched agribusiness is dead, and food is grown locally. Where big box stores are gone, and the shops on Main Street sell the things you need. Where small schoolhouses again dot the hills of tight little communities.

This vision harks back to a simpler time, perhaps one directed by Robert Capra and starring Jimmy Stewart. But it may not turn out to have a happy ending.

James Kunstler came through our town over the weekend, giving a talk at Marlboro College on Saturday and sharing his semi-apocalyptic view of a post-cheap oil future. He’s talking about the time when “our cheap energy fiesta” is over, and his vision has a certain relevant ring in a week when gas prices creep up over the $4 a gallon mark and truckers in Spain tie up all the roads to protest paying over $10 a gallon for diesel.

Already, many of us are driving more fuel efficient cars, converting to fry oil, trying to piggyback errands in town and, in general, driving less to save gas. And many more of us are worrying how we’re going to heat our homes next winter.

Kunstler, an enemy of sprawl, has been writing about energy issues for the past five years. He’s not coming at this topic from a right, left, conservative, liberal, progressive, Democrat or Republican perspective. In his opinion, we’ve all screwed up.

For the last 200 years, as Americans have enjoyed an upward path of progress on every level, we have taken “bigger, faster, more” as not only our motto but our birthright.

In the past, a better technology always came along to save our butts. Kerosene replaced whale oil. Electric lamps replaced kerosene. People complained about manure-clogged streets at the turn of the last century, and then along came Henry Ford and his automobile.

Kunstler’s warning is that this upward swing will not continue indefinitely. He quotes Dick Cheney’s famous line, “The American way of life is nonnegotiable.”

“Then reality will negotiate for you,” Kunstler said. “You don’t even have to be in the room.”

The reality is a world of depleted oil reserves and intense global competition for what remains. The current manipulation of the commodity markets and the devaluation of the dollar isn’t helping, either.

Abandoned Mines = Geothermal Heat (5 min.Video)

www.cbc.ca/mrl3/23745/thenational/archive/geothermal-031008.wmv

Abandoned Mines Provide Geothermal Heat
March 10, 2008 (Runs 4:57)
Innovator Ralph Ross, of Springhill, Nova Scotia has been working in geothermal energy since the 80's and is finally seeing his idea take off.

Kitchen Gardeners International

I found a new website dedicated to sustainable eating called Kitchen Gardeners International. They feature a YouTube clip of Richard Heinberg speaking about food and peak oil. Check it out!

Rocket Stove Assembly/Cooking Demonstration Video

For mp4 video click here.

This is a very good and inspiring demonstration on how to make and use a rocket stove. The video also demonstrates how to use a purchased, cheap solar cooker. I haven't made one myself but I will keep this with plans to try one out. If I can't have my outdoor brick oven yet, I will try this in the meantime!

Corn ethanol requirements passed by senators??

Someone on one of my lists just posted this link of a chart presented by Matthew Simmons on corn ethanol requirements recently passed by the senate. Oh boy , this puts "eminent domain" in a whole new light....this means I might have to move to Michigan or Ohio!

Helpful Post Peak Oil Book: The Post Petroleum Survival Guide and Cookbook

Click here for Raise the Hammer's article by Ryan McGreal

I've ordered WAYYY too many books recently to justify buying this right away but this one will be at the top of my list of energy "depletive" living books to buy in the near future. Hat tip to Pat on ROE3!