Why aren't the big investment banks investing more money in renewable energy?
(If you want to check out sources, you'll have to go to the URL original at the end of the article.)

By Matt Savinar, posted 12/15/2007
The large investment banks have concluded that renewable energy will never comprise more than a very small fraction of the world's total energy profile. They have also realized the world is plunging into an era of oil wars. Thus they are disproportionately moving their money into new weapons technologies over new energy technologies. Journalist Naomi Klein explains:
Anyone tired of lousy news from the markets should talk to Douglas Lloyd, a director of Venture Business Research, which tracks trends in venture capitalism. "I expect investment activity in this sector to remain buoyant," he said recently. Lloyd's bouncy mood was inspired by the money that is gushing into private security and defence companies. He added: "I also see this as a more attractive sector, as many do, than clean energy."

Got that? If you are looking for a sure bet in a new growth market, then sell solar and buy surveillance: forget wind, buy weapons. This observation - coming from an executive who is trusted by such clients as Goldman Sachs and Marsh & McLennan - deserves particular attention . . .

According to Lloyd, the really big money - despite all the government incentives - is turning away from clean-energy technologies, and is banking instead on gadgets that promise to seal wealthy countries and individuals into hi-tech fortresses. To put it simply, in the world of venture capitalism, there has been a race going on between greens on the one hand, and guns and garrisons on the other - and the guns and garrisons are winning. Source

To be perfectly clear: the investment banks are investing considerable amounts in new energy technologies. It's just that they are investing 100 times as much in new weapons technologies which will be used to fight over the world's diminishing supply of fossil fuels. The ratio between investment in the two sectors is the key point here: while the global market for renewable energy measures in the tens of billions, the (combined) global markets for oil and arms measures over $3 trillion. Furthermore, as fast as the market for new energy technologies is growing, the market for new weapons technologies is growing by several orders of magnitude faster.
Can't the investment banks see that these strategies will plunge the world into massive oil wars and total economic collapse?
Most of the investment banks' strategies - including the strategy to invest more in weapons technologies than in alternative energy technologies - are guided/informed by extremely sophisticated computer programs. For all intents and purposes, these programs make the decisions for the traders. Just how powerful are the programs? According to a December 2007 article in the San Francisco Chronicle, the newest generation of super-computers being used by Wall Street investment houses will soon be "peta-scale":
Sometime next year, developers will boot up the next generation of supercomputers, machines whose vast increases in processing power will accelerate the transformation of the scientific method, experts say. The first "petascale" supercomputer will be capable of 1,000 trillion calculations per second.

"The difficulty in building the machines is mind-boggling," said Mark Seager, assistant department head for computing technology at Lawrence Livermore. "But the scientific results that we can get out of them are also mind-boggling . . ."

Petascale computers are also expected to lead to more potent models for Wall Street to calculate risk and predict the fate of financial instruments . . . Source
A June 2007 Bloomberg article entitled "The Ultmate Money Machine" confirms that the world's most powerful investment consortiums are using the latest generation(s) of super-computers to guide their investment strategies:
For decades, investment banks and hedge fund firm computers to uncover relationships in the markets and exploit them. Today, computer-guided trading has reached levels undreamed of a decade ago. A third of all U.S. stock trades in 2006 were driven by automatic programs, or algorithms. By 2010, that figure will reach 50 percent . . . Rex Macey, director of equity management at Wilmington Trust Corp. says computers can mine data and see relationships that humans can’t. Source
Independent journalist Michael Ruppert gives a more in-depth explanation of how these modeling programs work:
. . . [this sort of software] combines datamining and artificial intelligence . . . Datamining is a technique for detecting and extracting meaningful patterns hidden within vast quantities of apparently meaningless data. Programs based on datamining are powerful analytical tools; finding meaningful patterns in an ocean of information is very useful. But when such a tool is driven by a high-caliber artificial intelligence core, its power gets spooky. The datamining capability becomes a smart search tool of the AI program, and the system begins to learn.

In recent decades, great strides have been made by the mutually fertile disciplines of mathematics, computer science, and neuroscience. Among the results has been a new discipline called cognitive neuroscience, which constitutes a powerful new understanding of the way the human brain works. This has applications so practical that they have reshaped our world. "Neural Network" programming is modeled on the computational techniques used by the human brain - an electrochemical computer that uses neurons instead of semiconductors; the firing or non-firing of neurons instead of ones and zeros.

With neural networking, software has become much smarter than it had been. Now it can perform multiple, related operations at the same time through parallel processing; now it can learn from setbacks, and use genetic algorithms to evolve its way out of limitations. This kind of computational power supports an inference engine that can digest the mined data into results that predictive for imminent and, to some degree, even middle -term outcomes. It extrapolates from current trends in a more than quantitative way.

Conventional electronic surveillance finds patterns in the data of other instruments; [this software] can exploit the patterns it detects and extrapolate future probabilities . . . Source
According to a 2007 UK Register article, the Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security now possess computer programs capable of modeling the decision making processes of financial institutions, media outlets, and even the entire human population (all 6.6 billion of us) right down to individuals:
. . . the US Department of Defense may already be creating a copy of you in an alternate reality to see how long you can go without food or water, or how you will respond to televised propaganda.

Called the Sentient World Simulation (SWS), the program replicates financial institutions, utilities, media outlets, and street corner shops. By applying theories of economics and human psychology, its developers believe they can predict how individuals and mobs will respond to various stressors.

Yank a country's water supply. Stage a military coup. SWS will tell you what happens next. Homeland Security is already using SWS to simulate crises on the US mainland. Source
The Bottom Line:

The point of all this is that the top investment banks' strategies to disproportionately invest in weapons technologies over new energy technologies has not been made "willy-nilly." Quite the contrary, these strategies have been informed by computer programs of almost unimaginable power.

The good news is that as the price of oil continues to increases, the total amount of money invested renewable energy will also likely increase. The bad news, however, is that the ratio of money invested in renewable energy as compared to weapons technology is unlikely to improve as the higher the price of oil goes, the more demand there will be for weapons to fight large scale oil-wars.

On a related note, even if solar, wind, and other green alternatives could replace oil, we still wouldn't escape the evil clutches of so called "Big Oil." The biggest maker of solar panels is British Petroleum with Shell not too far behind. Similarly, the second biggest maker of wind turbines is General Electric, who obtained their wind turbine business from that stalwart of corporate social responsibility, Enron. Source As these examples illustrate, the notion that "Big Oil is scared of the renewable energy market!" is silly. "Big Oil" already owns the renewable energy market. Source
http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/Archives2007/BanksComputers.html

Plains Rd United Church, Plains Rd Burlington, 7:30pm
Local engagement is the best antidote to despair and indignation at the inertia of our governments towards the twin crises of peaking energy supply and climate change. It is now well reported in the informed press, the academic press and the ecological literature that climate crisis is upon us and we are not prepared. This film tries to imagine the Escape from the Suburban mindset that traps us in complacency and inertia. It is a thoughtful film, not a shocker, it is intended to help us get started on the path to a sustainable future. Our children will be thankful some day if they know that we did sound the alarm and take action.

Discussion questions

What is your lingering reaction to the film? Bafflement, anger? Curious, resolved? Other?

What do you do in your household in relation to energy conservation or carbon emissions (greenhouse gas) reduction?

What could you do, now that you've seen this film?

What is would you like to tell our local elected officials?

Are we approaching Peak Oil now?

A growing consensus of energy analysts, petroleum geologists and business leaders see the present tightness in world oil markets, combined with the dramatic rise in demand for non-conventional oils (such as those found in the Canadian tar sands) and alternative fuels (bio-fuels such as cellulosic ethanol) as signs that world demand for oil is beginning to hit the production “ceiling”, or the “peak”. In addition, further signs of world peak include the world’s second and third largest conventional oil fields themselves peaking within the past three months (Burgan in Kuwait and Cantarell in Mexico). For further information:

'Peak oil' enters mainstream debate see http://www.energybulletin.net/36194.html
Peak Oil is Now Official
What markets are telling us about future energy prices

What are the controversies surrounding our future energy options?

How best do we transition our society away from dependence on petroleum? This is the trillion dollar question for the 21st century … Do we move to a mix of alternative fuels for transportation, nuclear power for electricity, genetically modified crops for agriculture? Do we reject big energy and agribusiness in favour of more local, renewable forms of energy and agriculture, and more rail-based transportation? Let the debate begin…

What are ordinary people doing across North America in their own communities to prepare for Peak Oil?

Peak Oil will affect the availability and price of transportation fuels, home heating fuels, and most importantly food. There are events and activities happening in YOUR town or city to prepare for these impacts. Get involved!

Renewable and Sustainable energy www.appro.org/links.html

Community produce exchange - Good Idea!
www.neighborhoodproduce.org

Creating livable, sustainable communities
www.newurbanism.org

Options and actions for a post carbon society in your neighbourhood
www.postcarbon.org

Town in California embraces localization
www.energybulletin.net/8480.html

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/printer_062707T.shtml

Paul Hawken: How to Stop Our Political and Economic Systems From Stealing Our Future
By Terrence McNally
AlterNet.org

Tuesday 26 June 2007

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest, discusses what he sees as the largest social movement in human history, and why that movement is so invisible to the media - and itself.

"It will be the stroke of midnight for the rest of our lives. It is too late for heroes. We need an accelerated intertwining of the over 1 million nonprofits and 100 million people who daily work for the preservation and restoration of life on earth.... The language of sustainability is about ideas that never end: growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear. A green movement fails unless there's a black-, brown-, and copper-colored movement, and that can only exist if the movement to change the world touches the needs and suffering of every single person on earth." - Worldchanging.org 12/26/06

Paul Hawken: Where is the root, not just who put it in the water? And, once you start pulling the string on the bag of either social or environmental issues, you find they all come from the same system.

The major source of corruption in the world is business - that's clear - and corruption is a major source of poverty in this world. Corruption destroys the rights of people and the ability of people to make their voices heard, and to secure what they deserve as citizens in any type of geographical entity.

Poverty drives population rates, population rates drive resource extraction and pressure on resources. Pressure on resources drives poverty. Poverty then drives migration to the cities, and that creates a big pool of low-income workers who are easily exploited in support of globalization. Globalization drives consumption, and consumption drives the use of carbon fuels. Carbon fuels drive climate change, climate change drives climate justice or injustice as the case may be. In other words, you start anywhere in the environmental and social justice movement and play it out, and you come full circle.

New Jersey High Court Hands Wal-Mart a Setback
In a setback for Wal-Mart, the New Jersey Supreme Court ruled yesterday that a lawsuit claiming off-the-clock violations could proceed as a class action on behalf of nearly 80,000 current and former Wal-Mart employees.

We did it, showed the new sequel to the world-changing End of Suburbia, to a crowd of 40+ at the library in Burlington last night. Greg Greene and Dara Rowland, producer as well as the editor (sorry don't have his name)came on the GO Train to be with us. The dvd will be available June 10th via www.escapefromsuburbia.com.

The conversation afterwards pointed up the emotional impact of the 90 minute documentary. People were distraught at the footage of the wanton destruction of the 14 acre urban garden in Los Angeles, to make way for a developer's warehouse. One of the 'starring' couples in the film is a gay couple from NYC who got the peak oil message and made a 180 degree turn to help build a movement to make neighbourhoods liveable under energy descent future. I think Tom was easily the most likeable guy in the whole piece, winning hearts when he said from a conference podium that peak oil is like a coming out for gay people; you expect to be rejected, even lose your job, but you have to do it, or go on living a double life.

Another viewer wrote this review. After Seeing the Documentary Screening: Escape from Suburbia
Tonite we saw a California Community Garden of several acres of urban green space bulldozed which is exactly opposite to where Global Warming needs to go... The producer and director joined us for a facilitated discussion after the movie. Please see the press release below for more details about the screening. The sequel everyone who saw End of Suburbia is waiting for... not just about technical energy questions,it is about the people who are trying to address them. Director Gregory Greene states, "These are people who are anticipating massive social changes based on energy becoming much more expensive. That is what we are going to look at. Their futures, our futures, could be vastly different depending on the success or failure of their projects. Very different indeed." People came to find out why the escape is a mindset, not a relocation.

Here is what we sent out as a press release.

We invite all of Burlington to come out and experience our future as energy and climate issues define the lifestyle options of the next decade. Come to Burlington Central Library tomorrow evening, to Centennial Hall, for the Ontario premier of this important film. The director and producer will be present to lead a discussion.

Two years in the making, Escape from Suburbia: Beyond the American Dream is the second film in a trilogy by director Gregory Greene. Greene's first feature film The End of Suburbia (2004) became an independent success, winning film festival awards, returning generous revenue for its producer, and capturing attention from such media as Oprah, The Colbert Report, The New York Times, the Globe and Mail and the Toronto Star. Just as The End of Suburbia was the first film to introduce 'peak oil' in irreverent style, Escape from Suburbia explores new territory with bold humour. It weaves together David Suzuki's climate chaos with peaking fossil fuel production. It shows how real change is percolating up from the grassroots, not down from big government and corporate business.

In Escape from Suburbia we meet three characters whose very different lives converge on a single note: creating a more sustainable future for their families and communities as Hummer fever begins to power down.

Single mom Kate's MBA in Finance informs her political and environmental community work in Toronto. Phil trades in his valuable comic book collection for a new life based on permaculture and the production of public conferences that bring experts and community activists together in New York City. Portland based Jan and Carol have outgrown the constraints of their suburban home and cross the border to establish an eco village on Salt Spring Island in Canada.

Through the stories of these ordinary people, Escape from Suburbia Provides a sneak peak of a possible future where local economies flourish and communities thrive. But the news is not all shining solar panels and spinning wind turbines: James Howard Kunstler returns from The End of Suburbia with a few other familiar faces to state that "no amount of alternative energy will power Wall-Mart, Walt Disney World and run the interstate highway system." As the context and path for social change are imagined by credential laden thinkers and experts, Escape characters advance from theory and scepticism to active engagement. A small California town inventories its human and natural resources and plots a course toward sustainability.

Corporate and government solutions juxtapose what history and common sense tell us is beginning to happen: our civilization is about to face one of the most significant events in human history, the overhaul of a lifestyle completely predicated on cheap and abundant oil. Is it the fear of change, of a redefined future, that challenges the ability of the masses to embrace ingenuity? Is the American way of life, which is to say the American Dream, not negotiable? According to Kunstler, to cling to an outdated suburban model is to invite an arm-wrestle with reality. Escape from Suburbia is ultimately about a new reality that finds suburbia in a transformed universe.

Sustainable Burlington Citizens Group is people in this city who are concerned to act to reduce our local consumption of energy, particularly fossil fuels, and the effects on climate change. We prepare for a time when the energy we now take for granted is more scarce and costly. For more information, see the attached brochure.

On Wed May 9th SB participated with the Florence Mears Public School parents and staff to host a local showing of An Inconvenient Truth.

This is one of the more progressive public schools, it seems to me, in the Burlington area. I don't know of another public school that has moved on the environmental issues to the same degree. The principal, Janice Hambrock, was just as committed as the parent organizer, Adriana Girdler, to getting parents and their families to start thinking and acting on the urgent climate change information.

 The school is initiating new projects, including a 'walking school bus' program to encourage parents to stop driving their kids to school, reduce traffic congestion, get kids exercising, and reduce smog/carbon emissions.

Mark Butler, head custodian, is working on innovative ideas to reduce the trash created by students, and increase the recycling.

Sustainable Burlington core group showed up to support the event, talk with parents and staff the display. We met with Councillor Rick Goldring, who fitted at visit into his packed schedule, presenting a few of the high environment priorities facing Burlington.

About 20 parents attended, some with their children. Joe Jaroszek came with his 10 yr old son, Ian, who was insistent that he did not want to miss seeing the film. 

Parents were invited to add a coloured sticker to the wall maps provided by the city of Burlington showing the catchment area for the school. This may be helpful in identifiying neighbourhood groups which may want to support the school's environmental program or start a local post-carbon support group with Sustainable Burlington.

Mears AIT event Burlington: Student at AIT film event, Mears PS: Mark Butler, Rob Plaschka, Ian Jaroszek at AITPrincipal Hambrock at AIT eventAdriane (middle) with parents at AIT event

Test logos for BurlingtonCan: test options for Burlingtoncan's logo

We're finalizing an new logotype for our group.

logo options

A new webbased service to share slide shows and powerpoint presentations is at http://www.slideshare.net/mbrownlee/boulder-going-local-2007.

In particular check out Boulder Relocalization group's presentation to go public with the message.

I really like it.

BUY LOCAL FIRST! EAT LOCAL! GROW LOCAL! LOCAL ENERGY! LOCAL CURRENCY!

It's a whole campaign. We here in Burlington should look at this for ideas to ramp up our appeal to the citizens of Burlington. Soon we'll be behind the curve, er, the tsunami!

Ian

Monbiot: I have one purpose in writing Heat: to persuade you that climate change is worth fighting. I hope I have been able to demonstrate that it is not - as some people (notably the geophysiologist James Lovelock) have claimed - too late.

    In doing so I aim to encourage people not only to change the way they live but also to force their governments to make such changes easier. No one can make all the necessary changes by themselves: you can't switch to public transportation, for example, if the public transportation system has been dismantled. Nor, for that matter, can a government act unless its citizens are demanding that it do so: more loudly and more effectively than those who demand that nothing change.

    Perhaps we should allow the legislators to forget what they once were, in the hope that they can become the people they now believe themselves to be. I hope to prompt you not to lament our governments' failures to introduce the measures required to tackle it, but to force them to reverse their policies, by joining what must become the world's most powerful political movement.

Read the rest of the essay at http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/printer_050207EB.shtml

Thinking about the future is complicated at the best of times, but with more information and more awareness it becomes 'brain freeze'.

Here's a way to put your thinking into a reasonably clear framework. It is from David Holmgren, the Permaculter educator in Australia.

He has posted one of his talks with Powerpoint presentation, on the South Australian government's long range planning exercise. Same sort of thing that is going on here in Halton. Except our politicians and bureaucrats are not taking peak energy or climate chaos into account.

Holmgren's point of departure is to ask, what are the most basic drivers of social and economic activity. Arguably these are energy and climate. Do you think energy supply will decline fast (>10%/yr) or slow (<2%/yr)? Do you think climate change is most likely to occur fast or slow? He then gives a 2 x2 scenario space to support the strategic planning exercise.

Energy Descent Scenarios:

from Energy Descent Scenarios: Integrating Climate Change & Peak Oil http://www.energybulletin.net/22674.html

See the website or download the powerppoint.

I subscribe to Matt Savinar's arresting mwebsite, Life After the Oil Crash because it is usually the place for breaking news. I found BBC's documentary there, and encourage you to check it out.

I sent the link to the BBC's hard hitting documentary on the end of the age of oil, that we are now entering, to all our councillors at Burlington city hall. I will send it to all councillors at the region too.

They just don't get it. Many of them, like Craven, Thoem, Jackson, have had this information for months. They are waiting for what, a miracle? For public opinion to 'allow them' to act courageously and come out of the closet?

Well, what can we do, we can send emails to all and anyone we do business with. All business cards you collect are fair game for going on a maillist. Start raising the heat.

Now, I encourage you to watch this streaming video on your computer, then send it on.

http://www.peakoil.org/Archives2007/BBCOil.html

I believe this video has the content to spark a dialogue here at our site. I encourage you to watch at least part of it, and then post something. BurlingtonCanRelocalize has been eerily silent, most of the posts are mine. It feels like I'm talking to myself.

As YOU educate yourself, I hope you will see the importance of raising consciousness everywhere about the climate/energy/earth crisis. CRISIS is not too hard a word. If the BBC can do it, why can't we?

An intense article by Kunstler, 'We Must Imagine a Future Without Cars ' on AlterNet.org , Wednesday 04 April 2007 posted at http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/040407ED.shtml#

Kunstler argues that the coming age of energy scarcity will change everything about how we live in this country - most of all our dependency on automobiles.

The file is James Kunstler's recent speech to the Commonwealth Club of California. An audio stream of the speech is available.

COMMENTARY: Ten Things Wrong With Sprawl
By James M. McElfish, Jr.

In just the next 34 years, the Census Bureau tells us, we 300 million Americans will be joined by another 92 million.(1) Where will all these people—mostly us and our direct descendants—live, work, play, worship, buy, sell, and serve? Where will 40 million additional households be located? What sort of built environment will we produce, and what will be the results for the nation’s and the environment’s well-being?
Sprawl has 10 undeniably adverse effects (elaborated on in his essay)that should place it on the public policy agenda:
1. Sprawl development contributes to a loss of support for public facilities and public amenities.
2. Sprawl undermines effective maintenance of existing infrastructure.
3. Sprawl increases societal costs for transportation.
4. Sprawl consumes more resources than other development patterns.
5. Sprawl separates urban poor people from jobs.
6. Sprawl imposes a tax on time.
7. Sprawl degrades water and air quality.
8. Sprawl results in the permanent alteration or destruction of habitats.
9. Sprawl creates difficulty in maintaining community.
10. Sprawl offers the promise of choice while delivering more of the same.
JAMES M. MCELFISH, JR. is director of the Sustainable Use of Land Program at the Environmental Law Institute, (202)939-3800, www.eli.org.

This is a slick and sparsely worded ppt about our US/Canadian capacity to respond to energy descent.
Closing the Collapse Gap
http://www.cluborlov.com/ClubOrlov/ConfSlides/index.html

What is your 2007 peak oil to do list? Do you have some resistance in getting on with this? Start small, funky, doable.

If you are noticing a little 'dysphoria' leading to inaction, try out www.peakoilblues.com blog for people's stories about how they are coping/not coping with peak oil awareness. Like when loved ones stare at you and roll their eyes heavenward, or worse!

Try reading this one by Alan Wartes , reposted on http://www.energybulletin.net/24399.html

What we want to know is, what does peak oil mean? How should we live? Even when we seem to be stuck endlessly going over the evidence that the big black clouds on the horizon really do mean a storm is coming, what we are searching for is an answer to the question, "What can I DO?"

1. Recite this daily: "Today is better than tomorrow."
2. Forget your "little house on the prairie."
3. Grow some food.
4. Stop being a consumer.
5. Host monthly peak oil potluck suppers.
Peak Oil Blues is a resource for people feeling emotional turmoil about peak oil. The site is devoted to "the unique social and emotional challenges we face in a post-petroleum age."

Here is my letter to the editor of the Hamilton Spectator

Letter to the editor.
The Waterdown Expressway fight begins.
The call for public input began last night at city hall. I presented the parallels to Red Hill Creek, the expressway that was rammed through Hamilton with the powerful interests uppermost. Burlington now has its own version: The Waterdown Expressway, or the widening of a environmentally protected road to accommodate commuter traffic from the 6500 homes being planned for the top of the escarpment. Pasquale Paletta and others were successful ten years ago in getting the provincial cabinet to overrule all the official plans for three areas, now known as South Waterdown, the largest of which is at Kerns Rd and Dundas St., right next to the new Burlington city park.
Burlington council has a timebomb ticking. They are not recognizing the realities of today: climate upset and peaking fossil fuel production. The Waterdown expressway is an artifact of the era of cheap oil, tract housing and commuter bedroom sprawl. We don't know how to get off the intravenous feed of cheap plentiful gasoline, even when it has pushed the Ontario cliimate into spasm and probably run-away temperature extremes. Powerful interests invested in land and land development are over-extended and over-committed to business as usual. They only know what they have done in the past and need an exit strategy before they crash and burn. One last project may be the way they climb to safety. But at the cost of forcing the city into more unsustainable car-centric infrastructure. Ten years ago we could be forgiven. Now there is no excuse.
The Waterdown Expressway is a line in the sand for this council. Now is the time to stop mindless growth and start the process of relocalizing Burlington's economy so it can feed, employ and protect its citizens. That is the meaning of sustainability: to live well within the Earth's means. I ask, when will we stop building our city to suit cars?

Ian Graham
Sustainable Burlington Citizens Group.

We did our bit for waking up to the consequences of climate change today. Sustainable Burlington organized a lament and vigil for local communities, pointing out how Walmart bigbox stores and sprawl are directly related to oil consumption via the car. Side effect: greenhouse gases.

posted on www.truthout.org
Global Warming: The Final Verdict
By Robin McKie
The Observer UK

Sunday 21 January 2007

A study by the world's leading experts says global warming will happen faster and be more devastating than previously thought.

Global warming is destined to have a far more destructive and earlier impact than previously estimated, the most authoritative report yet produced on climate change will warn next week.

A draft copy of the Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, obtained by The Observer, shows the frequency of devastating storms - like the ones that battered Britain last week - will increase dramatically. Sea levels will rise over the century by around half a metre; snow will disappear from all but the highest mountains; deserts will spread; oceans become acidic, leading to the destruction of coral reefs and atolls; and deadly heatwaves will become more prevalent.

The impact will be catastrophic, forcing hundreds of millions of people to flee their devastated homelands, particularly in tropical, low-lying areas, while creating waves of immigrants whose movements will strain the economies of even the most affluent countries.

'The really chilling thing about the IPCC report is that it is the work of several thousand climate experts who have widely differing views about how greenhouse gases will have their effect. Some think they will have a major impact, others a lesser role. Each paragraph of this report was therefore argued over and scrutinised intensely. Only points that were considered indisputable survived this process. This is a very conservative document - that's what makes it so scary,' said one senior UK climate expert.

Climate concerns are likely to dominate international politics next month. President Bush is to make the issue a part of his state of the union address on Wednesday while the IPCC report's final version is set for release on 2 February in a set of global news conferences.

Although the final wording of the report is still being worked on, the draft indicates that scientists now have their clearest idea so far about future climate changes, as well as about recent events. It points out that:

* 12 of the past 13 years were the warmest since records began;

* Ocean temperatures have risen at least three kilometres beneath the surface;

* Glaciers, snow cover and permafrost have decreased in both hemispheres;

* Sea levels are rising at the rate of almost 2 mm a year;

* Cold days, nights and frost have become rarer while hot days, hot nights and heatwaves have become more frequent.

And the cause is clear, say the authors: 'It is very likely that [man-made] greenhouse gas increases caused most of the average temperature increases since the mid-20th century,' says the report.

To date, these changes have caused global temperatures to rise by 0.6C. The most likely outcome of continuing rises in greenhouses gases will be to make the planet a further 3C hotter by 2100, although the report acknowledges that rises of 4.5C to 5C could be experienced. Ice-cap melting, rises in sea levels, flooding, cyclones and storms will be an inevitable consequence.

Past assessments by the IPCC have suggested such scenarios are 'likely' to occur this century. Its latest report, based on sophisticated computer models and more detailed observations of snow cover loss, sea level rises and the spread of deserts, is far more robust and confident. Now the panel writes of changes as 'extremely likely' and 'almost certain'.

And in a specific rebuff to sceptics who still argue natural variation in the Sun's output is the real cause of climate change, the panel says mankind's industrial emissions have had five times more effect on the climate than any fluctuations in solar radiation. We are the masters of our own destruction, in short.

There is some comfort, however. The panel believes the Gulf Stream will go on bathing Britain with its warm waters for the next 100 years. Some researchers have said it could be disrupted by cold waters pouring off Greenland's melting ice sheets, plunging western Europe into a mini Ice Age, as depicted in the disaster film The Day After Tomorrow.

The report reflects climate scientists' growing fears that Earth is nearing the stage when carbon dioxide rises will bring irreversible change to the planet. 'We are seeing vast sections of Antarctic ice disappearing at an alarming rate,' said climate expert Chris Rapley, in a phone call to The Observer from the Antarctic Peninsula last week. 'That means we can expect to see sea levels rise at about a metre a century from now on - and that will have devastating consequences.'

However, there is still hope, said Peter Cox of Exeter University. 'We are like alcoholics who have got as far as admitting there is a problem. It is a start. Now we have got to start drying out - which means reducing our carbon output.'

We were at the fair, really a tradeshow for wellness products and services, at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Jan 13,14 2007. Although most exhibitors were for-profit ventures, NFPs like ourselves were invited at no charge. We were located in an area with Canadian Organic Growers, Eat Locally Hamilton, Environment Hamilton, Acorus Native Seeds, and William Dam Seeds.
Attendance was not high, maybe 100 people came through our area of the show, but we had some interesting conversations. It amazed me how many people have still not heard about energy scarcity, tho all had some idea about climate change. We put a good booth together in very short notice, thanks to Tracey P. We brought a laptop and showed clips from Power of Community, Walmart: High Cost of Low Price, and powerpoint presentations. We created a bio-intensive garden template on the floor in the centre of the room, 100 sq Ft, using the design in Jeavons' excellent beginner book, Sustainable Vegetable Gardening. This sparked a lot of cameraderie and story swapping, among the exhibitors as well as visitors. Next year we think it would be good to make it more form part of an exhibit area. We met Andy King, Events Marketing person for the RBG who interested in organizing a 'green' living show some time. We met Connie Dam-Byl from Wm Dam Seeds and explored doing a field trip to their store and demonstration gardens. We met Heather Donison of Green Venture who is doing a low income housing energy upgrade project which we might be able to piggyback on for burlington. Lots of good connections.
See photo attached.

Burlington is in a heat wave, no snow, no frost in the ground and 8dgC, so in case you wonder, it's a sign of the times.
A dozen 'sustainers' came together for an evening to socialize and explore relocalization ideas here in Burlington. We watched John Jeavons talk about biointensive food gardening, read an imaginary Christmas story set in 2050 and discussed the ways that people are waking up to peaking energy extraction rates. One person said it is actually good that we have such warm weather, it reminds people very day that something is not right with the climate.
We shared a meal potluck style mostly cooked with local ingredients. One person drove all over town looking for local lettuce! go figure, how green is that!

Next meeting of all SB-ers is Jan 11, at Ian's house.
See the handout "GO LOCAL" from Yes Magazine, loaded with resources to learn more about building up a locally resilient economy.
www.yesmagazine.org Winter issue

Environmental Group Offers Road Map to Curb Global Warming http://www.truthout.org/issues_06/121906EA.shtml
A regional environmental group Monday released a comprehensive "climate change road map" to reduce pollution linked to global warming by 75 percent in the northeastern United States and eastern Canada.

Environment Northeast said the proposals included in the 275-page plan draw from many of the best practices already found within the region, including Massachusetts's use of low-emission, hybrid buses and Maine's requirement that new state buildings exceed energy codes by 20 percent.

We had a rocking good time putting the first film nite together on Dec 4th. Tracey was a delight to work with, things just came together. We had an overflow crowd of over 90 people, even turned some away.

So we're doing it again, Dec 11. Jason Speers of the UC Cinemas is so very helpful, we basically took over the lobby of the theatre with displays. People stayed to the end of the Walmart film, tho it is really too long. Emotional fatigue sets in.
The surprise was we were visited by the director and producer of the sequel to End of Suburbia. We showed their fresh new preview of Escape from Suburbia, which went over well with the audience.
It gave me a new angle. What do Walmart and Suburbs have in common? Answer: THE CAR! Why, because low cost fossil fuel has become our addiction to an car-centric lifestyle.
Now what do we do about that?
Come out on the 11th and discuss choices in sustainable living. We're using Shuman's Small-mart Revolution as our guide and handbook.

Reading the press release from the Hamilton Spectator made us sound like rabid anti-progress types, but guess what, where will they be when gas is $4/L, ten years from now? Here's their scrib.

The Hamilton Spectator
BURLINGTON (Dec 4, 2006)

Sustainable Burlington, a group of social activists fighting a proposed Wal-Mart store, has sponsored a screening of a controversial film that depicts the uber-retailer in an unflattering light.

Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price will be screened tonight at 7 at the Upper Canada Cinema, 460 Brant St.

Sustainable Burlington says Wal-Mart's proposed store in central Burlington will threaten local jobs, small businesses and overall quality of life. Following the screening, it will host a group discussion about the effect Wal-Mart might have on Burlington and Halton Region. Directed and produced by Robert Greenwald, the film features a small-business owner trying to stay afloat in the shadow of the mammoth chain, as well as Wal-Mart workers, former managers and residents of tiny communities who are fighting the retailer.
Ian

This is a thread for comments and discussion following the showing of the Greenwald film on Walmart.

I think Walmart is a huge success story by any business or technology measure. It has grown mightly, becoming the pre-eminent retailer in the world. Now what? And that is exactly the problem. It has reached such a huge scale, out of all proportion to the rest of the economies in which it operates, that it is a danger. Not just Walmart, but what it represents, namely excessively efficient production and consumption of goods.

Is there an alternative? Some would say no, TINA "THERE IS NO ALTERNATIVE" is this point of view. No collective choices to be made, and individual ones don't add up to much. Others say yes, LOIS "LOCALLY OWNED, IMPORT SUBSTITUTING' approaches have the potential to moderate excessive negative consequences of global giantism.

The book "Small-Mart Revolution" is a blueprint for just this sort of rebalancing. I found the book by Michael Shuman sobering because I had not realized the extent of damage to healthy economies that has been inflected by box store retailing of low cost imported merchandise. But also hopeful, as he outlines what people can do as consumers, investors, entrepreneurs and policymakers. I have attached pdf scanned pages of the consumer list to this post.

The latest development is that surprise preview is going to be shown as well. We will be joined by the producer and director of the sequel of End of Suburbia, called Escape from Suburbia. They are bringing the 10 minute preview of this film to show tonite. Really a scoop! Its probably not worth coming just for the ten minutes but if you are interested in Walmart vs Small-mart, come to see both.

Core Group Meeting Nov 30, 2006 at Graham residence, 7 to 9:30pm
Attended by Ian, Tracey, Brigitte, Karin, Rob
Missed: George, Pam

Discussed preparations for Walmart film event Dec 4th
- have a factsheet on hand for discussion that gets into particulars about Walmart
- the event is not just Walmart, but the effect of concentrated market share on local economies, we are raising the question of what is sustainable in retailing
- we want to start the conversation on relocalizing the economy of Burlington, respond to the monoculture of corporate concentration

Preparations
- Brigitte to help with greeting people on arrival, hand out info cards for SB
- show the full length film, preceded by short introduction. play the spoof ads during the trailer time
- have sign up sheets for Sustainable Burlington

Promotion
- poster at Tansley Woods and similar
- hand out flyers
- email to our own networks
- SNAP: Rob to contact about a story on SB

2. Research the Consequences of energy/climate upset
Karin is interested in being 'point person' on this, now gathering information on what other cities are doing (see entry in Group Pages)
- Will be a project to communicate our city's readiness for peak oil and gas, how self-sufficient we are in food, water, soil, skills, healthcare, etc
- will be an audit of our assets and resources in response to short and long term disruptions, including a rating system with areas for improvement
- to do this we need to identify and have people come forward with research and writing skills
- we forsee subgroups in various areas:Transportation, Emergency services, Local food production, Local food distribution, Winter food supply, Health care, Education, Employment and training, Agriculture as a local industry, Manufacturing as a local industry, Heating, Alternative sources of energy, Water, Waste disposal, and Social and psychological adjustment. (list from Tompkins County Relocalization Project)
- we don't expect policy makers in city government will have the mandate to do this sort of preparation and if the need arises, we want to be able to offer it.

3. Community Gardens
Ian has contacted this city Parks and Rec Dept, who have indicated what sort of request is needed so they can reply to it. A council directive will be needed for staff to work on it or to assign resources to a gardening project.
We are looking for people interested in community gardening and who can take the lead in organizing it. Ian has contacted Holy Rosary Catholic Church on Plains Rd who allowed their land to be used for a garden organized by the Lions a few years ago. More research into locations required. Next step: get a few interested people and start meeting as a gardening/local food interest group.

4. Social event
We are looking for a good venue to do something related to our interest in sustainability that will be fun way to get to know each other more. Tracey is looking into a tour of recycling/landfill site as a suggestion.

5. Participation
We are slowly finding people who are interested in the topics of sustainable living in Burlington. We hope to see groups going in each ward, even each of the 32 grids on the Burl map. Brigitte will research school contacts for ways to plug into the high school age group.

6. Next meeting
Between Xmas and New years, to get ready for Jan event with Rambo Creek Ratepayers Assoc and keep the momentum from the Walmart film event going.

7. General
Ian asked all to spend some time on the relocalize.net website, reading the backgrounders they have prepared for local postcarbon groups like us. Also to be sure to subscribe so that our site can function as our virtual office. And to pass out the SB info cards (master copy is on this site).

8. Adjourned 9:30

We here in Burlington are in the vanguard of a most hopeful movement, if we can get behind this relocalization drive.

Here's what the Christian Science Monitor had to say on Nov 1st.

"In New York, which produces 2 percent of US carbon emissions, the mayor plans to make his city the leader in this effort. Last year, about half of the cities reported reductions in greenhouse gases.

That's a hopeful sign that Americans are becoming hip to the warning that "we have seen the enemy and he is us." Creating a widespread willingness for a low-carbon lifestyle is essential preparation for what may be strong government action to come.

Now, about trading in that SUV for a hybrid..."

"The "Relocalization Network," for instance, is one of several groupings of activists trying to swear off fossil fuels. The network has 128 local groups so far, mainly in the US, that create communities for a postcarbon world by such actions as Internet-linked car sharing, buying only local foods, walking and biking more often to destinations and, overall, reducing personal consumption."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/1101/p08s01-comv.html

There is an eloquent spokesman for the positive countertrend in our current global devolution and destruction.
Watch David Korten's address to an audience in Vancouver on his analysis and prescription for turning away from global climate chaos and dread.
It's about an hour long, but you will not miss the time. Especially if you are confronted with despair and the enormity of the task.
To break the trance of the story of empire, we break the silence of conformity, move to end personal isolation and participate in a clear and audible public voice, to change the stories.
Listen to to Korten at Global Public Media, right here on Postcarbon.org. http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/lectures/781 is the link.

Please consider posting your reflections in our blog.

It is a testament to the power of money that Nicholas Stern's report should have swung the argument for drastic action, even before anyone has finished reading it. He appears to have demonstrated what many of us suspected: that it would cost much less to prevent runaway climate change than to seek to live with it. Useful as this finding is, I hope it doesn't mean that the debate will now concentrate on money. The principal costs of climate change will be measured in lives, not pounds. As Stern reminded us yesterday, there would be a moral imperative to seek to prevent mass death even if the economic case did not stack up.

He has a list of 10 major items, on fast track. Very positive, very exciting. Much better than mass starvation. Well worth readin at http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=/views06/1031-21.htm

IG

US POPULATION REACHES 300 MILLION - No Cause for Celebration
Lester Brown, Earth Policy Institute, Oct 4, 2006

October 4, 2006-9

U.S. POPULATION REACHES 300 MILLION, HEADING FOR 400 MILLION
No Cause for Celebration

Lester R. Brown
Earth Policy Institute

Sometime this month, the U.S. population is projected to reach 300 million. In times past, reaching such a demographic milestone might have been a cause for celebration. In 2006, it is not. Population growth is the ever expanding denominator that gives each person a shrinking share of the resource pie. It contributes to water shortages, cropland conversion to non-farm uses, traffic congestion, more garbage, overfishing, crowding in national parks, a growing dependence on imported oil, and other conditions that diminish the quality of our daily lives.

With births exceeding deaths by nearly two to one, the U.S. population grows by almost 1.8 million each year, or 0.6 percent. Adding nearly 1 million immigrants per year brings the annual growth rate up to 0.9 percent, raising the total addition to 2.7 million. As things now stand, we are headed for 400 million Americans by 2043. (See data at www.earthpolicy.org/Updates/2006/Update59_data.htm.)

U.S. population growth contrasts with the situation in other industrial countries such as France, the United Kingdom, Germany, Italy, and Japan, where populations are either essentially stable or declining slightly. In virtually every industrial society where women are well educated and have ready access to jobs, they have on average two children or fewer.

More people require more of everything, including water. In our highly urbanized society, we fail to recognize how much water one person uses. While we drink close to a gallon of water each day as water, juice, pop, coffee, tea, beer, or wine, it takes some 500 gallons a day to produce the food we consume.

The U.S. annual population growth of nearly 3 million contributes to the water shortages that are plaguing the western half of the country and many areas in the East as well. Water tables are now falling throughout most of the Great Plains and in the U.S. Southwest. Lakes are disappearing and rivers are running dry. It has been years since the Colorado River, the largest river in the U.S. Southwest, reached the Gulf of Mexico.

As water supplies tighten, the competition between farmers and cities intensifies. In this contest, farmers almost always lose. Scarcely a day goes by in the western United States without another farmer or an entire irrigation district selling their water rights to cities like Denver, Las Vegas, Phoenix, Los Angeles, or San Diego.

The seafood appetite of 300 million Americans is also outgrowing the sustainable yield of its coastal fisheries. Long-time seafood staples such as cod off the New England coast, red snapper in the Gulf of Mexico, and salmon in the U.S. Northwest are threatened by overfishing.

In the United States, more people means more cars. And that in turn means paving more land for roads and parking lots. Each U.S. car requires nearly one fifth of an acre of paved land for roads and parking space. For every five cars added to the U.S. fleet, an area the size of a football field is covered with asphalt.

More often than not, this land being paved is cropland simply because the flat, well-drained soils that are good for farming are also ideal for building roads and parking lots. Once paved, land is not easily reclaimed. As environmentalist Rupert Cutler once noted, “Asphalt is the land’s last crop.”

The United States, with its 226 million motor vehicles, has paved some 4 million miles of roads—enough to circle the Earth at the equator 157 times. In addition to roads, cars require parking space. Imagine a parking lot for 226 million cars and trucks. If that is too difficult, try visualizing a parking lot for 1,000 cars and then imagine what 226,000 of these would look like.

More cars also translates into more traffic congestion. Americans are spending more and more time sitting in their cars going nowhere as freeways and streets become, in effect, parking lots. As cities sprawl, commuter distance lengthens.

Longer commuting distances and more congestion en route combine to increase the time spent in automobiles. In 1982 the average motorist experienced 16 hours of delay; by 2003 this had virtually tripled to 47 hours. Car commuting time is increasing in nearly every U.S. metropolitan area. “Rush hour” everywhere is becoming longer as commuters attempt to beat it by leaving work early or delaying their commute until traffic eventually wanes.

The costs of increasing congestion and longer commuting times are high. Traffic congestion in the United States in 2003 caused 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and wasted 2.3 billion gallons of fuel. The total bill for all of this was $63 billion.

Some corporations have begun to consider congestion costs when deciding where to establish a new plant or office building. They are concerned about both the effects of traffic congestion on their employees and the costs for the company itself when the movement of raw materials and finished products is slowed.

More people mean that not only are our home towns more crowded, but so too are the “get away” spots where we go for relaxation. National parks, wilderness areas, and beaches are seeing more visitors each year. U.S. national parks sometimes have to turn tourists away. In 1906 when Yosemite National Park was young and when we were a far less mobile population, the park had 5,000 visitors. Today, more than 3 million people (and their cars) visit the park each year.

More people also usually means more garbage. New York City, for example, generates 12,000 tons of garbage a day, a flow that requires 600 tractor-trailers—fully loaded—to leave the city each day headed for remote landfills in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Ohio. Trucking garbage to ever more distant landfills makes us more dependent on distant sources of oil.

As population grows, so does energy consumption. The United States, richly endowed with oil, has largely depleted its petroleum reserves within two generations. The use of oil has exceeded new discoveries in the United States for some 25 years. As reserves shrink, U.S. production falls and imports climb, helping to drive up world oil prices. And as population increases, so do the emissions of the Earth-warming gas carbon dioxide.

Given the negative effects of continuing population growth on our daily lives, it may be time to establish a national population policy, one that would lead toward population stabilization sooner rather than later. As noted earlier, almost all other industrial countries now have stable or declining populations. Perhaps it’s time for us to stabilize the U.S. population as well, so that we never have to ask whether 400 million Americans is a cause for celebration.

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Here is chart from the cover of Lindsay Grant's book, The Collapsing Bubble. This chart makes it REAL easy to see how serious the overpopulation problem has become. I strongly recommend his book. It does a fabulous job explaining how little alternative energy will be able to accomplish against resource depletion AND overpopulation.
http://www.relocalize.net/files/Graph-USEnergyUse&Population.gif