My dream budget in no particular order, as the brain turns...

Grants and loans for individuals and communities to develop their own food production at the local level.

A commitment to community housing - no person should be on the street unless they choose to be there.

A commitment to agricultural and manual arts education.

A re-priotitizing of infrastructure development funds from road and air to rail and sea. This includes the establishment of solidifying not only the major seaports, but also boosting the number and quality of the minor ones across Australia.

A commitment to water.

A commitment to the "greenstream" energy technologies. We always talk about "alternative" energy as being solar, wind, geo, wave, etc. Well, this mindset needs to change, dagnammit! Many of the technologies are here, waiting to be implemented! These ain't alternatives, these are ECONOMICALLY VIABLE, , ENERGY-PRODUCING ENTITIES.

Make the energy playing-field equal! Subsidize the greenstream tech to the same level as the polluters, or cut the subsidization to the polluters!

A commitment to small-business enterprises that are willing to take on and meet the challenges of the new economy with creative and/or long-lost ideas and solutions.

A commitment to simplification of the rules of co-operative enterprises.

A commitment to innovation and invention.

A commitment to bartering.

A commitment to the farmers. These men and women are, I believe, being taken for granted by Government and by us as citizens. They need our help. Without the farmers, well...I suggest that you look into how "civilization" was formed in the first place.

Peace in our communities.

I acknowledge the owners of the land upon which I write, the Kaurareg nation.

Living up here in the Torres Strait means that sometimes things take a bit of time to get done. On Friday night, just before the long weekend began, I lost both the lighting and the fans on my electrical switchboard. This happened as I turned on a light. The wiring is a bit worn and tired in our unit. Because a State government department handles my dwelling, I need to go through some paperwork to get things done. But, it's a long weekend, and I didn't feel much like trying to go through the effort of getting a sparky over here to do the work, let alone having to go through the bureaucratic hoops that one must go through to get something done without paperwork.

I viewed this as an opportunity to live with the lights out. Well, not exactly. I still had my powerpoints, so I've been able to set up a couple of lamps. Nonetheless, it's been pretty undramatic. I think that I would probably be able to get things done around here without any lights. It was pretty comical around 5 p.m. when I remembered that I still needed to fold laundry, clean the bathroom, and make a couple of dishes (yep, still have the oven circuit working too). I could have moved the lamps around, but didn't want to go through that trouble either. So, I ran around, got things done, then the sun went down.

Guess what? Things are fine.

To live without much light at night just means that I have had to adjust my schedule a bit. Not a huge drama. I am very very thankful that the powerpoints didn't go as well. Otherwise I would have had to find the sparky, pronto. You know, when I think about it, the only massive dramas that I would have around here without powerpoints would be refrigeration and the computer. OK, the stereo. The stove. The fans...the washing machine...hmmm...

Maybe it would be a little more daunting than I'd first thought.

So, let's think about powering down...could I do this western lifestyle on only one powerpoint?

Stove and oven? Well, it's pretty hot here - replace it with a solar oven. Or convert to gas.

Stereo? Might be able to get by (might have to get by) with an mp3 player and a set of headphones and/or small speakers that are powered by rechargeable batteries that get their energy from the sun. Keeping the music close to the ears requires less energy than cranking the speakers. However, it would be a drag when you want to get your groove on with others.

Ceiling fans? It would be a drag to be in the house without them. I refuse to use air conditioning even when it's 34 and 80% humidity, but the fans take the edge off. A solution to this is devising some kind of contraption that would use solar PV to directly power a fan to which it is attached through some kind of simple circuitry. It provides a relatively simple solution: when do I need the fans most? When the sun's beating down on the roof. Would probably want to connect a rechargeable cell of some sort so that I could turn it on when going to sleep in the summertime.

Computer? There are low power options out there. The 1 laptop per child program uses hardware that is power-pack free; battery charging is based on a hand crank.

http://laptop.org/

It may be possible that the myriad of laptop power packs in existence could be adapted to a portable solar charger that could augment or fully charge the battery. Who knows.

The washing machine? Hmmm...Without completely going back to the scrubbing board, it is possible that a few compromises could be made to improve chances of still using electric. Would a low-powered, smaller, front-loader do the trick? Could it do the trick on a power-point supplied by solar? Definitely no dryer!

These compromises could be managed, with growing pains, without the need for energy storage. Energy storage is one of the main factors confronting us today as we travel down the road to sustainability. Intermittency of renewables is often cited as an excuse for not upscaling them. Come on people, surely we can do better than this!

I'm not going to get into a debate about the power requirements of blowdryers, irons, and hair curlers or straighteners or whatever the heck we're doing to our hair these days. Quite simply, creased clothes and naturally occurring hair aren't going to send our communities into a tailspin (our nightspots, on the other hand, may never be the same). A real problem as far as our western civilization is concerned is a steady supply of energy for refrigeration. Yes, there are gas fridges, but these are still pretty darn dear, and gas won't last forever either. We may need to consider some adapting on this front as well. It may be beneficial for somebody out there to do some experimental work on refrigeration temperature profiles that reflect intermittent power delivery based on diurnal sunshine patterns (or a decrepit power grid). Could our food get by if we had a fridge that, say, could get down to 1 or 2 degrees whilst the sun was up and running a solar cell? Knowing that we lose a great deal of heat during the time that we open the fridge, do we as humans have the planning capacity to keep the door closed after the sun goes down? (I'd like to think so!) Maybe we wouldn't be able to keep our milk fresh for two weeks, but maybe it would still sort us out for 3 or 4 days? Still better than the alternative.

Power tools? This could be problematic. Many such tools are high-powered, just like the irons and blowdryers, meaning that they use a lot of energy in a short period of time. Sorry, but we might need to get used to going back to hand drills, hand saws, and screwdrivers, and community efforts. In my own opinion, we built a lot of great stuff before power tools anyhow. It just takes longer. What with inflation, mortgages, and rent being what they are, it is hard to say whether we're going to need many more new houses. I reckon that it's safe to say that some of us are going to be looking for somebody to rent out the second bedroom to help the mortgage. And that some of us are going to be asking around to see if we can stay on the sofa for a couple of days or years.

We are going to have to get used to things taking longer. We are going to have to become better planners in our everyday life. We are going to need to adjust our habits. We need to become consciously aware of the notion that instant gratification just isn't going to be there like there was. Things are going to slow down. I reckon that'll be a good thing for a lot of us anyhow.

The moral of the story is, this weekend without light has been a good, easy, thought-provoking exercise in peak energy. In the same way that a few empty petrol bowsers in Scotland in the last week was a good exercise for the UK.

Anyhow, I'm going to turn on the light in the oven to see if that potato bake is done.

Peace in our communities.

For those interested in how exponential growth applies to things other than paw-paws, I invite you to check out the very interesting slide show in the making at "Crash Course".

http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

It provides some very interesting analysis and talks about exponential growth in some easy-to-understand detail.

The other exponential growth that I perceive to be happening is the exponential growth of the Relocalization movement. I can't actually prove it. Perhaps some statistics are available for number crunching, Shelby? Now that's exponential growth worth talking about!!

Peace in our communities.

One of the "buzz-words" flying around a lot of blogs (but not yet the mainstream media) is the idea and reality of exponential growth. You may have also heard of "positive-feedback loops". These loops are related to exponential growth. It has been said that one of our failures as humans is to properly understand what exponential growth is. Let alone to understand what it can mean or how it can manifest; or to comprehend the wide range of natural and economic phenomena that follow such growth patterns.

Let us consider growth then for a minute. What does that mean to you? It is commonly viewed as "getting bigger", or "getting larger". Perhaps think of that in the context of a seed that transforms into a fully fruiting paw-paw (or choose your own fruit) tree. First the seed. Then a sprout, followed by a stem, leaves, branches (well, pseudo-branches in the case of the paw-paw), all the way to a set of lovely oblong green and yellowing fruit hanging from the upper trunk of a tree with leaves of a variety of colour of greens. OK. That is one reconciling of growth.

Let us now consider not just the SIZE of the tree. Let us also consider the size of the tree as time marches steadily on. You might now ask, how quickly does the tree grow? Trees take a while to grow from a seed to when the point when they actually fruit. So, the changes in the tree happen in a way that can seem slow to us humans, but perceptibly slow. As time goes on, we might notice that the tree is now taller than the bird-bath, or has a flower, or a new branch, or is shading the tomato plant. This conception that the tree is taking a while to grow is one of a LINEAR GROWTH conception (not quite a reality, as the early growth of many organisms is actually exponential).

Let us now consider the 4 fruit on that paw-paw tree. Within the deep orange and red flesh of the paw-paw are the black seeds of the future of the paw-paw population. After eating the flesh of a few paw-paws, some animal discarded the seeds into a heap. Lo and behold, twleve weeks later, new paw-paw plants. But not one paw-paw plant. 150 paw-paw plants!

THIS IS AN EXAMPLE OF EXPONENTIAL GROWTH. You might barely notice one paw-paw plant growin in your garden, but the transformation of a garden landscape with 150 paw-paw seedlings is very quick, and is very dramatic (GASP!!).

So, each of those new 150 trees produced 4 paw-paw fruits after about 40 weeks. The seeds of the fruit were discarded by a bunch of animals who were now sharing (GASP) paw-paw and paw-paw seedlings with other animals. These animals tossed their seeds in a number of different places. 12 weeks passed by. Wow, all over the countryside, 22,500 paw-paw seedlings popped up out of the ground! Why 22,500? One paw-paw tree (call it the first generation) gave rise to 150 new trees in the second "generation". These 150 second generation trees EACH gave rise to 150 new trees in the third "generation".

150 x 150 = 22,500.

Now to finish the exponential growth lesson. The third generation trees gave rise to the fourth generation - an astronomical 3 million-plus (22,500 x 150, or 150 to the power of 3 generations) number of paw-paw seedlings! Sadly, the third generation had tapped out a lot of the soil's nutrients. Furthermore all of the generations were growing in a place surrounded by ocean on all sides, and so got crowded. The fourth generation didn't bear any fruit, in fact, a lot of them withered away before anyone noticed.

This illustrates the FINITENESS (an endpoint) of exponential growth, at least in the biological realm.

In another posting, I would like to reflect on one of the characteristics of exponential growth. That is, that actual growth can be imperceptible for a long time, and then suddenly explode upwards.

Peace in our community.

Sigh. That is about all I have been doing for the past few days as I read the blogs that I frequent. Then I stumbled upon one which poked me into quiet reflection for a little while that put things into a bit of perspective. I highly recommend it, but I also warn that there is some really deep philosophical musing, and the occasional bit of language that some might find offensive.

Casaubon's Book: Sharon Astyk’s Ruminations on an Ambiguous Future
http://sharonastyk.com/2008/04/24/ok-breathe/

The basic message of this commentary is, things in various aspects of energy, climate, economics, finances, food, and population, are getting very interesting, perhaps more quickly than many have previously thought possible. This is the dynamic of EXPONENTIAL GROWTH vs LINEAR GROWTH. However, in the midst of all of this, we should remember what it is that is really important to us. What is it that we need and want most? Sit down and reflect on that.

So I did. I went to my neighbours', had a beer and a sing-song, and a laugh. I played with their dogs and talked about music, and threw the darts around-the-world.

It was a nice night.

The second message of the commentary is that there is much work that we have to get to. We need to reprioritize. We need to take back our communities that have been hijacked by solitary commutes in an automobile to race home after work to catch up on primetime TV.

Last night I felt that we had, in some small way, proceeded to build our community, and not just from the metaphysical standpoint. We also engaged in discussions about building up a (small) community garden in our complex of duplexes. The great thing was that nobody was in dispute that it should or shouldn't be done. We were talking about what we were going to bring to the equation. One guy was going to get a hold of a rotary hoe, we talked about permaculture vs. dig & turn, about acquiring fish carcasses to enrich the soil...We talked about where we should put it, about what to put in it. Everyone contributed to the discussion.

This morning I transplanted out seven more paw-paw plants, and got another 30 ready for distribution to a few others around. The beans are sprouting, the capsicum plants are getting bigger, and I had the most beautiful coconut for breakfast.

Progress isn't all about material wealth.

Peace in our community.

I acknowledge the traditional owners of the land where I write, the Kaurareg nation.

Living at the end of the Australian diesel supply chain here on Waibene (Thursday Island) has always made me consider, subconsciously, the potential impacts of an energy disruption. A couple of pieces of information have come to my knowledge this weekend which has moved the debate to my conscious mind.

First of all, according to my calculations, made based on a pamphlet released by the International Energy Association and the OECD (see attached document), Waibene's electricity use requires the consumption of more than 10,000 litres of diesel PER DAY. Electricity supplied here is "off-the-grid" and is supplied by wind and diesel fuel. The wind turbines only account for 10% (at the very best) or less of the electricity supplied.

Second, the Caltex diesel refinery at Lytton has had to conduct unscheduled maintenance. This is going to have an impact on diesel supplies in SEQ for the rest of the month. For the story, click the link below.

"Brisbane diesel drought looms"
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,23542562-952,00.html

It made me think in two different ways:

1) If I had to give up 90% of my electricity consumption tomorrow, what would I need to do in my day-to-day activities?

2) If Waiben had to give up 90% of its electricity consumption tomorrow, what would the island need to do? Is a plan in place?

My thoughts on this are unclear at this point, although a couple of things came to mind immediately: the hospital, refrigeration, and communications networks. Maybe a fan. Regardless of what I think, the Federal Government does have a plan to deal with such an event. It is the Liquid Fuel Emergency Amendment Act 2007. This diesel drought might be a good time to conduct a dry-run of the new provisions of this Act. The Act can be found at:

http://www.comlaw.gov.au/ComLaw/Legislation/Act1.nsf/framelodgmentattach...

I hope to provide a more detailed musing on all of this when the time comes. In the meantime, if you are interested in keeping an eye on what the retailers are paying for diesel when it is unloaded off the cargo ships, go to the Australian Institute of Petroleum link here:

http://www.aip.com.au/pricing/tgp/index.htm#diesel

By the way, diesel was 87.4 cents/L on Jan 1 2004; it was 158.4 cents/L on April 18, 2008 according to the same website of the AIP. This is an average annualized rise of approximately 18.9% p.a.

Renewable energy is not only becoming less expensive, non-renewables are becoming more expensive.

Peace.

Well, the second year of the tropical permaculture garden has officially begun. My sense of permaculture is to try to use everything in one's immediate vicinity to the fullest, then import after that. In a future blog, I aim to touch on some of the more creative things I have done, with this conception of permaculture in mind. However, for now, I am just going to report on how things are going in the garden at the denouement of the wet season, for no other reason than to see if I can learn anything - maybe you will too.

The climbing spinach is doing O.K. It is not really earth-shattering on its own, but then again it is a single, slow-growing perennial. A few more plants will hopefully do the trick. The passion fruit is growing, but now that the sun is on the autumn axis, it gets virtually no direct sunlight. Problematic. I would like to reposition it, but the space here is really lacking and doesn't really lend itself to doing this. Probably better to prune it, put the clippings in the compost, and give it to someone who has a hope of year-round sun for the thing.

The coconut tree is literally going nuts. Last winter and spring as the fishers were filleting their catch, I was able to obtain a number of carcasses. The ground around us is pretty much just rocky fill in several areas, with nary a weed about (well, maybe a couple) so I figured I'd take a punt and see if a bit of nitrogen might sweeten things up a bit. I had remembered a story David Suzuki once told about the grizzly bear, the salmon, and the fir trees: forest growth was directly correlated to the path of the grizzly bear. Why? Grizzly poo and salmon carcasses provided nutrition to the soils. After depositing the remnants of GTs, tuna, mackerel, coral trout, sweet-lip, and golden trevallee deep into the ground (wrapped in newspaper), I covered the holes, packed them down, and covered with cardboard boxes and large stones so that the feral cats and dogs wouldn't get to them.

About two months later, the worms started popping up in the areas where the fish had been buried.

Last year, the coconut tree in the backyard produced five coconuts. We've eaten 5 this year and it's only April. Furthermore, we've given away six, have another 20 on the tree, and some newer nut stocks on the way. The insects were there today, happily buzzing around some recent flowers. The fronds give good cover to the southwest corner of the house, and should improve this benefit over the years. The dead fronds are used in three ways: first, the leaves are clipped with the secateurs and deposited in the compost; second, the wide part of the branches are used to construct organic garden beds; third, the narrow parts are good as supports for various things. Anything unused goes into a part of the yard dedicated to another experiment: long-term composting of woody and fibrous materials.

The coconut husks are a great mulch for the paw paws and as a general tonic for the rockmelon bed. Done right, the coconut shells can be halved and used as seedling pots, or as bowls.

All from putting a few dead fish into the ground that would have smelled up the bins.

The paw-paws are going great guns. We've got about 25 fruit on 4 trees, 2 other trees blossoming, and 3 other trees in the ground and taking well. A few personal notes on paw-paws:
- They seem to like a fair bit of shade. I've seen a few around here keel over from 6 months of full sun @ 30 degrees for 7+ hours a day. Might be different down south. That said, it's still 29 in the shade here for the majority of the year, and a lot of secondary light abounds what with proximity to the water and lightly coloured housing.
- They seem to like a concrete slab. Whether this has to do with concrete chemistry or to do with proximity to a shady structure built on a concrete slab is beyond me.
- They like a bit of urea.
- Seedlings come up well from smaller, cooler composts. The last batch of mature compost we put over the garden landed us about 75 seedlings. We planted four more ourselves, and gave away another 30...now the rest are just getting in the way - if we had more land we'd definitely plant them.
- They respond positively to direct mulching of weed prunings and cuttings around their base.
- When the leaves yellow I snap them off (unless they are holding up fruit) and place the leaf at the base of the trunk.

The basil is doing well, it's over a year old now and pretty much a woody weed. It keeps on ticking over with a bit of a prune (helped most recently by a couple of kids wrestling in the garden). This basil happens to get no more than 4 hours sun a day in summer and will not see direct sunlight for the next 6 months. It sure knows where the sun is though, based on its horizontal growth.

Rockmelon vines popped up out of the compost, a few fruit are around but as yet are untested.

Tomato and capsicum have also sprung up from the compost, probably 2 or 3 months away from fruit yet as they are in shady spots under the coconut tree.

Broad beans are coming out of the ground; hopefully they will continue as I focus on hilling them as they grow.

Eggplants are doing ok, about 6 plants with 5 fruit total and flowers still coming. Could probably use another stake or two. These seem to do particularly well up here for some reason. The only water they really see during the dry seasons is the rinse from the laundry. I have used hand-pollination with these, and although I can't say it works for sure, I don't think that it has reduced yields.

Butternut squash looks ready to kick it into top gear as five small fruit have appeared suddenly near the ends of what is turning out to be an impressive-looking, if not yet yielding, vine. We got a big rain a few days ago which sat in the flowers that remained attached to new fruit after pollination. Sadly, the small fruit under these flowers rotted, providing the most pungent of odours. I am experimenting by knocking the flowers off of some of the new fruits before they fall off by themselves.

Experiments in need of retesting:

The zucchini and cucumbers were a flop. Too much sun I think. Didn't even get a fruit! This also may have been a pollination issue, as things were pretty dry around the time the stalks were popping up out of the ground. The plants were actually quite prolific, full of big, furry leaves ready to use energy from the sun's rays to build sugars and starches to deliver to fruit...too bad about the lack of insects to buzz around the beautiful yellow and orange flowers. Has anyone tried hand-pollination of these crops?

The peanuts never rose 3 months after planting.

Finding a hard time raising lettuce seeds including cos, mizuna, and wild rocket. I suspect that the "potting soil" is probably the worst thing I could do for them. I got them raised last year in home-made compost, but we don't have any mature stuff at the moment. Any suggestions?

After a year of part-time gardening, things are looking really good. It is an absolute pleasure to sit amongst this piecemeal garden at sunset or any old time, really, and watch the activities going on around here. Frogs, grasshoppers, birds, butterflies, wasps and flies of all sorts; small spiders so shiny and golden you could get blinded, and of course, feral cats, cockroaches, fruit bats, green ants, common ants, and fruit maggots. Hey, they all play their role.

We gave the TV to the TV repairman. Don't need it anymore.

Peace,

Clive.

This is a call to all of you who read this to make a submission to the federal government's planned National Energy Security Assessment.

In February, I sent an email to my federal member for the Leichhardt riding within which I reside, Jim Tourner. The letter was like this:

(beginning of my email)
Good morning, I am writing to express my concern about a phenomenon known as Peak Oil. We are entering a period of history where we are becoming unable to meet worldwide demand for oil, both because demand increases worldwide, and because all of the easily discovered oil is gone. Transport poverty is beginning to impact on families around Australia as lack of transportation options for suburban workers means they have to spend a lot of money on petrol. The implications on regional and rural Australia are both positive and negative. Positive because communities are generally tighter and more self-reliant; negative because goods and supplies have to be brought in by petrol-related transport over long distances, i.e. shipping, road train, diesel train, or plane.

My question to you is this: how does the Federal Government plan to make the infrastructure of rural and regional Australia resilient to high fuel prices and/or shortage of supply? Suggestions:
- Ramping up construction of electric railway whilst oil is still cheap ($100 a barrel is cheap in light of what is to come).
- Fast-tracking the electric car so that we can use more coal-derived electricity in our transport supply.
- Convert more automobiles to natural gas as this will buy us time in the search for longer-term solutions
- Encouraging more Australians to construct their own food-producing gardens in their own homes, because the cost of food is very, very fossil-fuel heavy. Fertilizers and transport contribute greatly to the production of food; however both are heavily dependent on fossil fuel liquids and therefore threaten to make food more expensive than it is now.
- Developing IT and telecommunications infrastructure that encourages "telecommuting", which is where people perform their information and communications based work from their own home, thus reducing dependency on fossil-fuels, and also reducing the bottom line for the companies they work for.
- Development of electricity production and distribution infrastructure beyond its current means. We need to replace energy lost from petrol and diesel, and one of those sources will have to be electricity.
- Retrofit remote electrical infrastructure that depends on diesel, such as that on Thursday Island, and fast-track wind and solar development in these areas. At current diesel prices, it may not look sensible to replace the infrastructure, but if you double, triple, or tenfold the prices, the economics look different. There is a growing concern that such pricing scenarios could play out - which could bankrupt energy companies or thier customers. I appreciate your time and look forward to your ideas. C Smith
(end of my email)

HIS RESPONSE TO MY EMAIL WAS AS FOLLOWS:

(beginning of his letter)
Dear Mr Smith

Thank you for your recent email regarding your concerns about 'peak oil' and offering suggestions for the future.

The Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism is working with other Australian Government agencies, the states, territories and industry to improve critical infrastructure protection. The first priority is to implement Labor's election commitment to undertake a National Energy Security Assessment.

This assessment will provide an integrated picture of the outlook for electricity, gas and liquuid fuel supply and demand over the next five, ten and fifteen years. I can report to you that this assessment is already underway with stakeholder consultation planned for the second quarter.

The Australian Government has also made a commitment to increase the proportion of renewable energy to 20 per cent of our national electricity supply by 2020. Renewable energy will be a key part of the global solution and we need to make sure we have a wide range of appropriate technologies, including clean fossil fuels, bio-fuels, hydrogen and energy efficiency.

The Government is investing $500 million in a Renewable Energy Fund; $240 million to establish Clean Business Australia to deliver energy and water efficiency projects; $500 million for a National Clean Coal fund; $500 million for the Green Car Innovation Fund; and $150 million for solar and clean energy research.

Through direct financial incentives, strengthened energy efficiency regulations and targeted information, households will be helped to use less energy while saving money. Farmers will also be encouraged to engage in sustainable farming practices that reduce carbon emisions.

These initiatives will be delivered across and I look forward to reporting to my constituents as the various programmes are rolled out. In the meantime, I am working hard in my electorate of Leichhardt to understand the needs of all communities in Tropical North Queensland and ensure that they are represented in Canberra.

I thank you for taking the time to write to me and put forward your suggestions for a better future.

Yours sincerely,

Jim Tourner, MP
Member for Leichhardt
12/3/2008

(end of his letter)

Now, I am optimistic about these programs, and I hope that these will bring about real change, change that is more extensive than so-called "showcase programs".

The stakeholders to be consulted in the NESA assessment to be done in the second quarter (which I assume to be April 1 - June 30 2008) appear to be, based on my research, energy industry players. I urge you all to be heard in the assessment. Write to the Hon. Martin Ferguson, Minister for Resources and Energy, Minister for Tourism.

If you look at what Mr. Ferguson has said in recent speeches, it appears that clean-coal, coal-to-liquid (CTL), and gas-to-liquid (GTL) technologies are going to play a big role in Australia's energy future.

To see what he has said, have a look at these links:
http://minister.dret.gov.au/TheHonMartinFergusonMP/Pages/SpeechtoCTlandG...
http://minister.ret.gov.au/TheHonMartinFergusonMP/Pages/GLOBALFOUNDATION...

It seems to me that the Government knows about Peak Oil, but aren't calling it as such at this point in time.

In the meantime, I'm going to plant some broad beans and pick some spinach and eggplant.

Peace.

Three months ago in Australia, we had Mandatory Renewable Energy Targets (MRETs) that amounted to mandating less than 1% of new energy to renewables. Now we've got a government that, in the last campaign, took a considerably bold step in light of Australian politics. 20% cuts by 2020. 60% by 2050. These marks alone set amazing new benchmarks, and indeed raised the bar for all of us as individuals and communities.

This new interim report by Garnaut provides a new impetus for government energy policy. The numbers needed are higher than current Labor commitments. But before we go bagging the government for not going far enough, let the government get on with the job of 20% by 2020. As new studies, INCLUDING THE GARNAUT REPORT, come to light, it will become clear to them that more cuts are needed, and more quickly. Governments need time to digest things. 60% by 2050 is a lot to swallow; in time 90% will be a reality.

So...how does this apply to relocalization? We are going to have to cope with less energy as a nation, and as communities. So we need to learn to use energy more efficiently. Yes, we need renewable energy, but more on that in a minute. Over the short term, we can, if we are willing, reorganise our lives and communities so that as a community, we use less energy. This helps targets.

As far as energy production goes, it is important that we focus on a grid-decentralisation focus. This increases jobs for every local area, and provides a degree of energy security for local areas. I would like to discuss the specifics in a later post.

Finally...

Now, we can't just rely on government policy. So...have you audited your carbon-emissions vs. energy consumption yet? A 20% cut is achievable by most of us by the END OF THE YEAR (or next week) if we are willing to make conscious decisions about our energy use (mostly non-renewable, carbon-emitting in Australia). You wouldn't have to spend a cent on rooftop PVs.

Peace.

Today the Federal Reserve announced it almost made the last interest rate rise at 0.5% rather than 0.25%. The evil, they say, is in the inflation rate. We keep spending our money, which keeps bumping up the price...

Or...

Is the bumping up of the price a reflection of buying the same amount of stuff, but for more money? If this is the case, and I suspect it is partly so, why is everything costing more money? Look no further than the price of oil. Oil is needed to bring stuff from around the world to where we are in Australia. It is needed to fertilize the large-scale farms that the global economy is now so dependent upon. Food, in case you hadn't noticed, is going through a marked incline in price. Since the price of oil virtually doubled in 2007, this has a flow-on effect in many parts of the economy, which includes food prices.

How to cope?

Turn off the TV and garden, and ride your bike!!! Doing these things is starting to make financial sense, not just health sense.

Peace,

Clive.

The Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report has been hard to find. I attempted to post this document here because it took me a heckuva long time to find it, the IPCC server has appeared to have crashed, and although you could probably get it in the morning I hope that this helps somebody out there get access to this report. However it exceeds the upload limit for this site, so below you will find a link to where I got it from

I acknowledge Kent Holsinger at the Ecology and Evolutionary Biology Department at the University of Connecticut, USA, as the source of the document that you can attempt to access.

http://darwin.eeb.uconn.edu/uncommon-ground/pdfs/ar4_syr_spm.pdf

Major media outlets are carrying the story on this one, straight-up, no-chaser. It's happening, people, so let's wake up and make it happen. The scientists have spoken. The politicians need to listen. They will listen if we are willing to speak. Petition. Write. Call. Email. Do whatever you can, Australia, to let your politicians know what's up. The Bali convention starts in December.

Peace.

Clive

Many of the professional pundits are saying that Peak Oil has arrived. No doubt the meteoric shift in crude prices is contributing to this notion. One of the problems with pinpointing the time of Peak Oil is the fact that we won't know when the Peak is going to occur. We can only observe it in the rearview mirror. Another problem is that many say that the availability of oil declines more sharply than it increases on the way to the peak. This is possibly related to the demand side of oil - when we find out what cheap energy can do for us, we want more of it, and more of us want it. Demand in industrialized and industrializing countries continues to increase yet we don't seem to be able to produce enough to meet with demand. The paradigm of classical economics suggests that when demand is high enough, prices will increase, providing a stimulus for providers of goods (oil in our case) to provide more to those wanting it. The bad news (or good news, depending on your perspective) is, we are not meeting this demand. OK, enough philosophy and musings about stuff we can't control for one blog...

So, what can you and I do about this to mitigate the impact that fuel prices and possible future shortages/rationing is going to have on our lives, our communities, and our nation? As a mature economy with decent infrastructure in place, we have particular advantages that can help sustain us through what may be an interesting transition period. I will not elaborate too much on potential advantages, but would like to list a few here to get your mind on possibilities. While we can't make more petrol, what we can do is use it in a dramatically more efficient fashion, and consider alternatives. There is lot of slack in the system if we take a look.

- significant natural gas resources can help with the transition to the next transportation energy infrastructure. A shift of a large portion of the Australian fleet to dual fuel or gas can buy us time while we figure out how to deal with declining fossil fuel stocks.

- finding, purchasing, fixing, and maintaining the fleet of existing fuel-efficient cars for longer periods of time.

- a rail network that is run on electricity, althought a significant fraction of Queensland railways are diesel dependent.

- car pooling...it used to be for the environment, and still is, but the car pool holds promise in the new age of petrol prices.

- ethanol production can extend the mileage of whatever petrol Australia ends up with. However, a cautionary note: in my opinion, ethanol crops should only be grown in places where they are the only possible crops. They should not be replacing food crops. Worldwide, we are in danger of heading towards the possibliity of a minority of motorists competing with a majority of hungry people for agricultural land use because of the rise of the ethanol and bio-diesel industries. People or fuel...?

- cycling - and you've seen it elsewhere on this blog, but I'll say it again: the bicycle is going to make a comeback, and mopeds and motorcycles are going to make inroads in the daily commute.

- undertaking the development and implementation of government and corporate policy that attempts to move the workforce closer to home. What would the impact of reducing the average Australian commute by even a kilometre a day? Whilst the figures below are only unsubstantiated estimates, you can see what I'm getting at:

5,000,000 employed and car-commuting Australians x 1 kilometre saved per Australian x 0.1 average litres petrol per km = 1 million litres of petrol saved every two days

- food production: this is absolutely key. Many people in Australia are used to having access to cheap food on a regular basis, and this has been going on now for long enough that many of us are unaware of the intricate infrastructure that exists to keep the food coming and going. Many of us are unaware of the (fossil fuel intensive) processes involved to get the food to us, never mind the production of it. In case you missed it, food prices are climbing steadily upward, and it is reasonable to suggest that crude prices are impacting upon food prices and will continue to do so. The drought is adding to this impact. What to do? Grow your own food. There are gardening companies and organisations that tell us that we can grow a very significant proportion of our own food in surprisingly compact spaces. I started growing my own food two years ago, and I can say without hesitation that it is one of the most rewarding things that I have ever done. It is more work than a walk in the park, but it is also fun, tasty, and healthy. It does cost some money up front, but the payback time is pretty short and getting shorter as food prices continue to rise. It also gets you in touch with the earth, which can have an amazing positive impact on the mind. And there are absolute stacks of information available to get you started: permaculture and gardening blogs, chat rooms and websites are not hard to find if you've managed to find this blog. A couple of books, charts, and pamphlets are handy to have as well when you are around the garden. And this brings me to my final point:

- Information & Communication technologies (ICT): If we are creative enough, ICTs provide a key link in the transition to a lower-energy future. A lot of the work done today involves the gathering, processing, and transmission of information. Theoretically, this can all be done on computers. If companies and workers are willing, we can cut down on a lot of physical commuting and build the telecommuting economy.

If we are willing. Let's do it!

Peace.

P.S. Added bonus: endeavouring in the above initiatives also impacts positively on global cooling.

Reading Sonya's posts about gardening as a concrete way to counter global warming and peak oil have inspired me to attempt to build a garden up here in the Torres Strait. As you might expect, it is pretty warm here all of the time, which provides both challenges and opportunities. The average nighttime temperature in July is 22 degrees Celsius. My traditional dietary staples of onions and potatoes are pretty much a no-go to grow here, as is anything that requires a cold-spell to stimulate fruiting. For example, others around me have tried lemon but with no success. Lettuces and salad greens are challenging but can be done if attention is paid to microclimating and timing. To this point, my successes have included wild and domestic rocquette, basil, coriander, eggplant, birds-eye chili, rockmelon, watermelon, cos lettuce, mustard, running beans, broad beans.

Failures included snow-peas and garden peas. This may be due to a lack of trellising and/or sunshine in the area planted.

Works in progress include Lebanese cucumbers, zucchini, a variety of tomatoes, climbing spinach, passionfruit, and paw-paw.

Next year's projects include peanuts, butternut squash, sweet potatoes, capsician, and more of the produce outlined above.

As time permits, I will be sharing some of my experiences in developing food, and in developing the garden, trying to highlight its development with the ideas of permaculture as I have come to experience them.

Peace,

Clive.

Well, I just watched the movie "What a Way to Go" by Bennett and Erickson. It is pretty heavy, even if you are well-informed about how things are going with oil and climate. Those new to the ideas might well be devastated by this film. It is a call to change on a massive scale, even if it is thin on HOW to change. Let's do it.

Highly recommended.

Clive

Yes, another resource for the uninitiated to Peak Oil. This one comes from Ireland, and is put on by RTE Publishing...the national broadcaster in Ireland. Upfront and in the centre of the public eye!

Runs about an hour and it requires Real Player.
The clip is available here:
http://www.rte.ie/tv/futureshock/av_20070618.html

Real Player is available here in Australia:
http://www.realplayer.com.au/

Enjoy...

Peace

Clive

For those of you new to the Peak Oil phenomenon, the idea of where to start is bewildering and confronting sometimes. Well, here's a video interview with James Kunstler (author of The Long Emergency) with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's George Stroumboulopoulos. It is about 8 minutes long and does quite an effective job of conveying the implications of Peak Oil. Kunstler also makes references to relocalization as a societal coping strategy. Enjoy. Then act.

http://www.cbc.ca/thehour/video.php?id=545

Peace.

Clive.

I have heard a little bit about movies like "What a Way to Go" and "The End of Suburbia" which, based on what I've heard, are dramatizations of life after Peak Oil. I look forward to viewing these. Until then, I highly recommend the ABC's documentary about Peak Oil, named "CRUDE", that presents the facts in a straightforward way in terms that should make the point clear to most of us. It does get a bit technical at times, but this does not get in the way of the overall message that is out there to be read if we are willing to keep our head out of the sand. It can be viewed online at ABC Video on Demand at the following site:

http://abc.net.au/science/crude/

The interesting short term aspect was about petrol prices...you've seen it double or triple in the last 5 or 10 years...wait for it to increase 10x...

The video runs in three parts and is about 1.5 hours, with bonus interviews with some of the main players. The one with Sonia Shah is quite meaningful.

Peace,

Clive

If we are going to relocalize, one of the things that will have to change is the nature of our work and employment. A few options that you may wish to consider in choosing your future job, or in renegotiating on your new AWA (Australian humor, sorry) are as follows:

1) The cost of the commute. Are you willing to take a pay cut to take work closer to home? You might end up saving not only time, but as the cost of petrol rises, you might actually take home more money in the end;

2) Is your employer willing to be flexible in terms of rostered days on? In the standard 37.5 hour work week, would you and your employer be willing to try a 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. arrangement four days a week? This would reduce your work related transport costs by 20% IMMEDIATELY. Even more radical, what about a 6 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. arrangement, for three days per week, which would result in 12.5 hours worked in a day plus an hour a day for unpaid breaks (and there should be a paid 10-15 minute break in there somewhere as well, although I'm not up to scratch on current negotiating tactics). A 13.5 hour day, you say...ouch. But the flipside is four days off! AND a 40% reduction in greenhouse gas emissions related to employment;

2a) Flexibility in terms of e-commuting. One of the greatest things that the computer could allow us to do is to work from home. With proper software, hardware, and telecommunication outfitting, working from home is a real possiblity. People are already doing this. Perhaps a lot of your work is email and telephone-based. Surely the accounting software already exists that would allow management of home-based employees (if we are employers) or that would allow us to function as satellites of a central company (if we are employees). There are questions that need to be answered, like keeping track of phone call expenses, internet and email privacy and security, amongst other things. But I really believe that the protocols exist already; could anyone point me in the right direction to confirm this belief?

3) Yes, it's an old cliche, but what about dusting off that bicycle? If you spend a bit of extra cash that you might spend on petrol anyhow, you can get a pretty fast and efficient bicycle. You reduce your emissions and you increase your cardiovascular fitness, reduce excess fat (or you can eat more!), and reduce your risk of all kinds of lifestyle related nasties;

4) Get a moped to be used only for single passenger work-related commuter travel. Keep your car for the weekend errand run/roadtrip. The savings could be big;

5) Consideration of the proximity to public transport. One of the most important themes in relocalization is an effective form of public, or at least shared, transport. Does the bus or train run by the place of your employment?

6) Does a a car pooling plan exist at the place of employment? Could you set one up;

7) a switch to LPG. Not the most favourable option, but the emissions are lower, and it is expected to be around for a while. Also, if you live in Australia, it is more abundant than oil. In theory, accessing LPG over petrol in Australia, would result in a decreased carbon footprint not only from the burning of the fuel itself but also from the emmissions cost of getting the resource to your automobile. The calculation is beyond the scope of this blog.

You've probably heard some of these things before, perhaps ad nauseaum, but until I see every car with 2 people in it, expanded public transport, and more bikes on the road, I believe that these things need to be considered.

So, there you have it. When petrol's $2.25 a litre, how will that impact YOUR commute? Or if a supply crisis occurs (they have happened before, and unfortunately the next one is a case of when, not if), how are you planning on getting to work?

May your bike chain remain lubed, not yanked.

Peace

You have heard of peak oil, this is a subject that has well and truly come to light in recent months, as seen for example, in the ABC's recent production on the topic "Crude". On the Energy Bulletin website is an article that outlines possible declines in available coal, declines that unsurprisingly may parallel the familiar Hubbert curve:

http://energybulletin.net/30692.html

It challenges the notion that we've got two centuries of coal-burning left in our economy. Depending on several variables, including consumption growth in rapidly expanding economies, and economic viability of raw coal production efforts, we may be looking at a peak happening within fewer than 100 years. More data is needed, (and so there should be in most points of social/economic/scientific discourse), but it is noted that both the U.S. and China could be at peak coal production within 20 years.

Let's put this possibility into perspective (and let's for the sake of argument, ignore the environmental issues like CO2 and particulate emissions).
Remember what petrol prices were 20 years ago, before the Gulf Wars? Try half of what it is today - inflation accounted for. See:

http://zfacts.com/p/35.html

Given that much of Australia's electricity grid runs on coal, how would we feel if our electricity bills were double what they are today?
What I am suggesting is that even if we don't invest in 'greener' energy, electricity prices are still probably going to go up. The argument against solar photovoltaic has always been an economic one..."it is not economically feasible given the lower cost of electricity generation from coal." OK, so availability of high-grade silicon is also part of the problem, but I digress..

I ask our well-intentioned politicians: if the cost of coal is going to double within the next 20 years, AND if that much-hyped geo-sequestration goes online (at additional substantial cost to electricity producer hence consumer), AND if one accounts for the costs incurred in bringing new power plants online such as the one near Chinchilla (750 MW @ $ 1.2 billion) - would it not be fair to suggest a more vigourous role for solar PV? Sure, the cost of PV might not be going down by much, if at all, but in light of increased prices associated with the inevitable decline of coal, why not PV?

When you start to crunch the numbers, here's why not: PV can be installed for roughly $6/W, and only with the help of the new extra $4000 rebate announced in the budget. The Chinchilla powerstation was installed for $1.60/Watt. This frames the classic anti-PV argument. Of course, powerstations do have substantial running costs, whereas PVs do not. The unknown future price of coal is what makes it tough to justify PVs based on the status quo economic argument. However...

Given that the inevitable decline of coal quantities could lead to social unrest, and that the inevitable increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration associated with burning of coal could lead to social unrest, shouldn't we increase our renewables capacity?

One thing will definitely help to tip the balance back towards the uptake of PVs and other renewables by consumers:

A carbon trading scheme THAT DOESN'T SKIMP ON THE COST OF CARBON. This is a crucial point. The IPCC working group 3 comments on numbers ranging from $5-$100+ per tonne equivalent CO2. The higher the pricetag placed on carbon emissions, the more likely we'll get this global warming thing roped in. We created money as an economic system based on the value of human service and physical assets. Meet the new money - the environmental cost of doing business...so how does this translate?

Well a litre of petrol costs 2 kg of CO2. See: http://www.greenhouse.gov.au/fuelguide/environment.html

The dollar cost equivalent is:

CO2 emission per unit of energy source (petrol) x $ equivalent per tonne

at $100 per tonne, {[2kg/L / (1000 kg/tonne)] x 100 $/t} = 20 cents per litre

at $5 per tonne, this works out to be 1 cent per litre.

"TWENTY MORE CENTS!?" you say...

Yes. This does hurt. But the longer we wait, the more it is going to hurt our progeny.

Remember that we don't have much time, according to the IPCC, to get our house in order. Those of you with pre-school children - the paradigm shift needs to happen BEFORE your children can vote, according to the IPCC. Start today if you can. You will benefit both from lower emissions and increased energy security.

Get on your bike
get your new light
Do for your future
What you think is right

Climate change is here
But let us not fear
In this climate of change
The targets are in range.

Peace

As the economy begins to slow down and it becomes more of a chore to get anywhere, more money to do anything, and the supply of useful and useless consumer goods dwindles, the choice is clear: we are going to be spending more time in our local neighbourhood, or more time getting to faraway places. As this happens, our work and recreational activities will need to become more locally focussed.

It is my impression that Western economies, in general, push us towards individualism, towards individual wealth and accumulation of capital. Unfortunately, for all its benefits, capitalism has unwittingly divided us up into individuals who work to pursue the (American) dream of the home, car, and a bunch of stuff. At the same time, we as Western individuals are being taught to be suspicious of anyone at anytime for any reason (ok this might be an exaggeration...) including their neighbour. Well...this has to stop!

In a scenario where things are likely to get slower, and where services are harder to obtain, who are we going to call on? And those of us who provide services at a professional premium, how are we going to behave economically when our skills are called upon to benefit others in our local area?

One of the things that we can all do as individuals is to find out who are neighbours are. Who will come to our aid when something goes amiss, who will talk to us when conventional communications are temporarily disabled (or worse)? We would do well to find out the skills of those around us, in case those skills may need to be called upon. It may also give comfort to those around us if they know, for example, that we have a talent for corralling snakes, a knack for unclogging gutters, or can darn socks (anyone out there darned a sock lately??) It is great to talk about relocalization on a webplace like this - but talking about it with your physical neighbour is also great!

One of the obstacles to effective relocalization is the determination of value. If I am an electrician, will I refuse to provide service to members of the community who may not be able to afford regular electrician rates? If I have a small but normally profitable farm, will I let my unsold produce go to waste because not enough people buy at the price I want? These are questions that people need to be asking of themselves and then others. When the chips are down, a community will thrive if its members act in the interest of the community, and not of the bottom line. For those of you considering your 'economic value' in a relocalized world, consider this...I believe that water, fresh produce, and handypersons are significantly undervalued in today's Western economies; in a relocalized world, we will need to recalibrate the value of a clean drop, a good meal, and someone who can give your computer, television, block-splitter, or shoes (as the case may be) an extra couple of years. Today we just throw it away. Recently, I bought a new pair of shoes when the cobbler told me it would be $100 to resole my old ones. It is a hard pill to swallow, but it's not the cobbler that's overpriced - those new shoes are just too darn cheap, but I digress...

I can see how economists might see such 'community transactions' as a step away from capitalism and towards socialism...perhaps they are right. After all, a sack of potatoes and a pineapple in exchange for fixing a light socket isn't the type of transaction a conventional government likes - it isn't taxed and doesn't contribute to the growth of GDP...but I digress (again!) to a future blog, perhaps, on the taxation ramifications of relocalization on education and medicine, and by extension, education and medicine's impact on our ability to develop relocalization...

The long and short of this rant is that at some point, we need to stomach the idea that our skills won't command the $ that many of us think we deserve; and that neighbours, working together, can create real local economic sustainability if they are willing to stomach this necessary fact.

Get to know your neighbours! It may be a bit unnerving at first, but is rewarding once the ball is rolling. Chocolate chip cookies seem to work well on the first knock on the door...unless they're allergic to chocolate, gluten, egg, or dairy, but hey, it's the thought about someone else that counts.

Peace

There are many things that will contribute to the way communitites behave and respond to the challenges of the future. The solution lies not in one thing, but in the development of a number of things. In the context of the Sunshine Coast Hinterland, I would like to briefly touch on rail transport.

In 2005, the Queensland Government distributed a questionnaire to households along the railway corridor between Caboolture and Nambour, to ask for feedback on proposed developments to the rail network. I was delighted at the opportunity to participate. A few months later, the project plans were announced.

The plans are for upgrades to railway stations between now and 2015. In addition, track duplication will proceed along the corridor, from south to north, between now and 2026; plus a link to Maroochydore from Beerwah is set for completion by 2026. Apparently, this is the largest ever investment in the future of rail in SEQ. This commitment is, in my opinion, good, and suggests forward thinking.

However, I would like to see this plan 'sped up'. Furthermore, a relocalisation plan should also cater for more regular service to the communities of Yandina, Eumundi, Cooroy and further north to Gympie. This reflects the need for rail to pick up the slack that is likely to result from the decline of the use of the long-haul freight truck because of the price of petrol.

If, as I suggest, that relocalisation plans will still depend on the need for inter-local transport services, it seems to me that the railway is going to be a vital cog in these plans.

So...

1) Can we wait for 20 years for the completion of this project? How does one place political pressure for the expedition of the railway projects, if one believes this is part of the long-term solution?

2) If rail is going to be a substantial means for the future of inter-local transportation of goods and people, how can the Sunshine Coast Hinterland develop to maximize the benefits of the railway for its citizens (not just big-business)?

3) How would such developments affect the nodes of, say, Eudlo, Mooloolah, Elimbah, and Beerburrum (and North Arm, Cooran and Pomona, for that matter)?

4) Given that rail runs on coal, is it environmentally responsible to replace petrol-based transport on the Sunshine Coast with coal-based transport? To ask the question another way, how does a comparison of CO2 emissions result mathematically, and what parameters does one use to make such an assessment? Are alternative modes of electricity production feasible over the long-term? (Ed. note) In a personal communication (see attachment) by Wade Oesterich, Policy Advisor in the Queensland State Office of Minister for Energy and Minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Policy (2005), it was stated that

"...existing renewable technologies are unable to supply large amounts of reliable and cost competitive electricity. Significant technology breakthroughs will be required for renewable sources to meet Queensland’s future demand for electricity."

5) Which brings me to my last, more general energy-based question...how are going to know when a technology breakthrough hits us? Has anyone considered that it may be too late to wait for future technology to come on-line? Is it (even remotely) possible to develop the technology in existence today on a widespread basis? Hmmm...sounds like some serious number crunching to me...

Food for thought? What do you think? Please drop me a blog...is that what you do on blogs? I'm a bit of a rookie blogger...

For more info on what QRail has planned:
http://www.qr.com.au/SEQIP/projects/b2l/default.asp

To let your State minister(s) know what you think (and based on the list at

http://www.parliament.qld.gov.au/view/legislativeAssembly/members_minist...,

there are about 7 or 8 to choose from) I would suggest (Hon) Paul Lucas, Minister for Transport and Main Roads? His email is:

transport@ministerial.qld.gov.au

By the way, all of the minsterial email addresses are on the above link. And yes, they do get back to you, even if it takes a while. The attachment is an example of this, and may be of interest to some.

Cheers,

Clive

I just found out about the meeting...too bad I joined up to the Relocalization Network 2 hours after the meeting started. Could someone please advise as to when the next one might be? Thanks.