December 2004: Post Carbon News
Post Carbon Institute Newletter April 2004
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PCI
Staff
Director
Julian Darley
Communications
David Room
Programs
Celine Rich
Post
Carbon Institute 2004 Report
ISSUE #4, December 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
In this Issue...
1) The
View from the Peak
2) 2004 Accomplishments
3) Ways to Contribute
4) Focus for 2005
5) Gift Memberships
6) Holiday Specials
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
1)
The View from the Peak
Storm clouds are rumbling.
In the light of recent history, culminating in 2-11 (what we call the November
2nd US election), clearly citizens of Earth cannot look to the United States
government to do much to prepare for or avert the "Perfect Storm" of oil peak,
severely stressed ecosystems, exploding population, resource conflicts, and
the gargantuan deficits of United States.
Recognizing that business-as-usual
will hasten and exacerbate the pending crises (be they energy, fiscal, ecological,
or some unpleasant combination), the ‘walking worried’ must begin preparing
locally for the inevitable transition into the Post Carbon world. Until the
tsunami hits the beach, preparations will appear ‘uneconomic’ and certainly
premature to most people who don’t know about the deep implications of our energy
and ecological problems. This relative calm, however, is the time to act;
better to prepare now than under duress. Investments in time and money
now will pay off handsomely in the inevitable energy constrained future. The
programs, projects, and infrastructure that we are shaping together have the
added benefit that they are designed to be helpful immediately - for our current
already unfortunate situation, as well for whatever else happens, whenever it
happens.
Through these dark days,
into the growning storm and onto brighter days, Post Carbon Institute and Global
Public Media aim to be right there with you, always a mouse click, a letter,
or a phone call away. Your support has let us reach millions with our message
(see 2004 accomplishments below). As we approach the end of 2004, we hope that
we can count on you to help us start the New Year with a bang.
Contribute
here: http://member.postcarbon.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
2) 2004 Accomplishments
In 2004, we had an amazingly
productive year for a volunteer-run organization with just three (core) people.
As you may know, Post
Carbon Institute (PCI) both and Global Public Media (GPM ) are initiatives
of MetaFoundation, which is in the process of applying for tax exempt status. When it is granted donations will be tax deductible reto-active to the date of incorporation. (September 2003) GPM has been broadcasting long format video and audio interviews with subject area experts on biosphere destruction and energy since
2001; we have the earliest video and audio footage from today’s peak oil realists.
As the oil peak debate intensified and it became clear that governments were
not going to prepare for oil decline, PCI was born as the action-oriented complement
to GPM. In 2003, PCI sponsored a dozen of the first public conferences and workshops
on Peak Oil in the United States, Canada and Great Britain. Information from
GPM feeds into the practical oriented research of PCI, and gives PCI access
to many of the world’s brightest minds with respect to ecology and energy. PCI
then gets the information to community groups doing relocalization experiments.
We use input from community groups to help drive GPM programming choices.
The rest of this section
lays out our main accomplishments in the following categories:
-
Raising Energy Awareness
- Using the Internet to get the message out -
Raising Energy Awareness
- Using our voice -
Raising Energy Awareness
- Using our words - Community Outreach
- Partnerships and Collaborations
- Organizational Development
Raising
Energy Awareness - Using the Internet to get the message out
Our combined sites have a total of 50,000 visitors making over 1 million hits
per month.
In 2004, we launched or
re-launched virtually all of our web sites as detailed below:
-
A completely redesigned
GPM web site. Our profound thanks to Jake Gordon in Britain, who did the
vital programming work for this major upgrade.
[ www.globalpublicmedia.com
] -
PCI site with a full
suite of content, a regularly updated newsroom, and live link to our online
bookstore and a donation page [ www.postcarbon.org
] -
Julian Darley's High
Noon for Natural Gas [ www.highnoon.ws
] -
Richard Heinberg's
latest book, Powerdown [ www.powerdown.ws
] -
Corporate Disobedience
[ www.corporatedisobedience.org
] -
Our highly acclaimed
web site for the End of Suburbia
[ http://.eos.postcarbon.org
] led to hundreds of screenings of The End of Suburbia. Tens of thousands
of people have now seen the film.
On GPM, we broke the story
and provided the most detailed early coverage of the controversy between Matthew
Simmons and Saudi Aramco about the prospects of Saudi oil (http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/interviews/116).
We have just added three more fascinating Simmons clips to this continuing debate.
To watch and listen to our Matt Simmons collection, visit http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/people/matt_simmons.
In 2004, we broadcast
many exclusive video and audio interviews with world experts, including Chris
Skrebowski, Helena Norberg-Hodge, Jeffrey Smith, and Paul Ehrlich. In addition,
we interviewed and will soon put online Richard Register, Van Jones, Miguel
Altieri, Sonia Shah, David Goodstein, Jules Dervaes of (PathtoFreedom.com),
Bernard Lietaer, Richard Douthwaite, and Paul Glover. And we are about to post
a major interview with Richard Heinberg, along with an hour long synopsis of
Powerdown (which will also be available on DVD).
The PCI site experienced
a 500% increase in visitors from May to October. For GPM, traffic has
steadily increased by 700% since May. On Google, GPM is in the top four sites
listed for many luminaries including Matt Simmons, Richard Heinberg, Colin Campbell,
Chris Skrebowski, Bill Rees, Sonia Shah, and of course Julian Darley.
The Statement of Global
Oil Peak at COPAD (Citizens’ Committee on Oil Peak and Decline, http://www.copad.org)
added more than 560 signatories in 2004 (from 80 signatories to over 640) without
publicity! And the statement is now translated into Italian.
Raising Energy Awareness
- Using our voice
Our founder, Julian Darley, spoke at a number of important conferences. In North
America, at Schumacher Local
Currency, Solfest,
Green Festival, and the First
Annual Peak Oil and Community Solutions; and in Europe, at the World
Renewable Energy Forum in Bonn, Germany. Julian also gave a number of workshops
and talks in North America including three days at Salisbury University in Maryland
and a weekend with Calgary Dollars
in Calgary, Alberta. Julian also visited
and toured the famous Canadian tar sands, the world’s largest hydrocarbon
resource.
David Room, Communications
Director, spoke at the Whole Earth Festival, Sustainable
World Symposium, 2004 National
Conference of Engineers for a Sustainable World (ESW), and Watershed Poetry
Festival. He also spoke on the same platform with Julian Darley at the Green
Festival.
In October
when oil prices were at their zenith, Julian was featured along with nationally
known political analyst Professor Larry Sabato, Center for Politics (UVa)
on CNN. Julian linked – as far as we know for the first time on a mainstream
television news station in the U.S. - high oil prices to geology. Julian
was interviewed on radio stations throughout North America.
[ http://www.globalpublicmedia.com/news/131
]
Raising
Energy Awareness - Using our words
Chelsea
Green published Julian’s new book: High Noon for Natural Gas: the New Energy
Crisis in September 2004. The book is the first for a general audience
to focus on this invisible yet vital energy source, and has a noteworthy chapter
on reducing energy consumption.
[www.highnoon.ws]
We had articles published
on Alternet,
From
the Wilderness, Petroleum Review (UK), Faultlines Newspaper, and
Urban
Age.
<DIV>And to our delight, just
this week we learned that New Society Publishers will publish our guidebook
for community action, “Outpost Manual: A Post Carbon Guide for Education, Analysis
& Action� (expected Fall 2005).
We also developed a manifesto
for Global Relocalization [ http://relocalization.postcarbon.org
] which gives a preview of Julian’s forthcoming book, Replacing the Future.
Community
Outreach
As an
alpha program of the Outpost initiative, we worked extensively with four community
groups that are beginning to prepare for an energy-constrained future.
The groups we selected were all very different in location, structure, and
focus. We finished a beta version of a guidebook for such groups called
The Outpost Manual. To date, we have already received over 150
requests for the guidebook. We will send the beta version to requestors
in late December. If you or your group would like to be in the Beta test group
please email dave@postcarbon.org.
New Society will publish the next version of this book.
Partnerships
and Collaborations
We co-sponsored events
and screenings of the End of Suburbia worldwide with organizations
such as:
- Global Exchange
-
New College of California
- Ecology Center, Berkeley
- Bay Area Rapid Transit
Union 1555 - Sierra Club of California
- Sustainable Novato
- Local Power
Co-sponsored events included
conversations with Ross Gelbspan, Richard Heinberg, and Julian Darley, as well
as Sonia Shah's book tour, Crude.
Organizational
development
We started an online store where we now sell thousands of DVDs and books and
accept donations and membership applications (http://store.postcarbon.org).
We made and began selling DVDs of Percy Schmeiser, Colin Campbell, Matthew Simmons,
and Richard Heinberg.
We worked with over 30
interns and volunteers from all over the world on transcription, translation,
web development, graphics, research, product development, and more...
In 2004, MetaFoundation
added a new initiative, SpaceShare's Green Events. Green Events brings car pooling
to events and helps enable activists and like-minded people to connect within
their own community. [ http://www.spaceshare.com/greenevents
]
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
3) Ways to Contribute
We need your support to
ensure that we are able to continue and expand this work in 2005. Like anyone
starting nonprofits, we knew we were taking a risk when we opened our doors.
This year has been a great building year for us. We have accomplished far more
than we forecast in our budget. The success of our new bookstore is already
generating a good revenue stream, and we will be working hard in 2005 to expand
this source of funds. In the meantime, your donations and memberships remain
the foundation of our work. We hope your review of our accomplishments this
year shows how much we are able to do with your support.
Please
volunteer, donate, or become a member. MetaFoundation is in the process of applying for tax exempt status. When it is granted donations will be tax deductible reto-active to the date of incorporation. (September 2003) Also
if you have any warm leads for raising funds, please let us know. We deeply
appreciate the gifts of those who have already donated and we will take the
greatest care with your contributions. Every dollar, pound, and euro counts.
One day we hope to develop methods to accept local currency too.
As
a way of saying thank you, for
each multiple of $60 in your donation, we will send you one
GPM DVD (your choice of Matt Simmons, Percy Schmeiser,
Colin Campbell) through December 2004.
After selecting your donation, add the DVD(s) of your choice to the shopping
basket and enter this coupon code FREEDVD
on the checkout page.
To
donate or become a member of Post Carbon Institute please visit: http://member.postcarbon.org
To
donate or become a member of Global Public Media: http://member.globalpublicmedia.com
To volunteer, see our
listings at Volunteermatch volunteermatch.postcarbon.org
or contact celine@postcarbon.org
with ideas of how you’d like to help.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
4) Focus for 2005
In 2005, we intend to
build upon 2004. Through continuing our efforts to raise awareness and
posting more video interviews on GPM, we intend to increase web site traffic
and sales as a source of support. We will strive to be the leading
source of newsworthy video and audio on energy peak and relocalization. We will
also begin filming an oil peak documentary.
Our community outreach
efforts will intensify as the Outpost Initiative begins to take on a life of
its own. Using feedback from the beta program (first quarter), we will
refine the Outpost Guide and submit the manuscript to New Society Publishers.
We will provide community groups (Outposts) with infrastructure, and with practical
and theoretical tools, including an online application for networking and sharing
experiments with other groups. We also plan to launch The Red Pill
- our Youth Outreach program (reference is to film, the Matrix, for those
that have not seen it!) to make sure this becomes an intergenerational movement.
Working with the Outposts and other organizations, we will coordinate action
to reduce dependence on global corporations and begin the process of relocalization.
Finally, we hope to have
a physical location for our offices and giving courses on relocalization and
post carbon living by the end 2005.
To
donate to one of the specific focus areas, contact celine@postcarbon.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
5) Gift
Memberships
A membership of PCI or
GPM makes a great gift for your friends and family. You support us, and you
help your friends and family better understand how to build sustainable communities.
At any membership level,
we will send them a letter of thanks that explains our mission and a 16 page
special synopsis of Richard Heinberg’s The Party’s Over. For a membership
of Bronze level membership ($60) or above, we will send the DVD of your choice
- The End of Suburbia,
Colin Campbell, Percy
Schmeiser, or Matt Simmons.
Give the gift of membership
at http://gift.postcarbon.org.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
6)
Holiday Specials
Send Post
Carbon books and DVDs as gifts or take advantage of our specials to stock
your library. Use
this coupon code HOLIDAY
in the checkout process to receive 30%
off the following books at http://store.postcarbon.org:
- Powerdown
- The Party's Over
-
High Noon for
Natural Gas -
The End of Fossil
Energy - Crossing the Rubicon
- Growth Illusion
- Eco Footprint
-
Richard Heinberg
Keynote DVD -
Randy Udall Keynote
DVD -
Percy Schmeiser
DVD -
Colin Campbell
DVD - Matt Simmons DVD
See our new books and
DVDs at http://store.postcarbon.org:
-
Growing food in
the Southwest Mountains: a permaculture approach to home gardening (book) -
Creating a Life
Together: practical tools to grow EcoVillages and Intentional Communities
(book) -
Richard Heinberg
Keynote to the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair 2004 DVD -
Randy Udall Keynote
to the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair 2003 DVD -
Ross Gelbspan talk
in San Francisco on Climate Change DVD -
The Party's Over
Booklet - Help raise awareness of our energy predicament by having
PCI send a 16 page booklet synopsis of Richard Heinberg's The Party's Over
on your behalf. Send one to your congressperson and local officials, friends,
family, and colleagues; we'll include a letter from Post Carbon Institute. Links
to purchase The Party’s Over Booklets: Send
one within U.S. $1 - Send
one Outside U.S. $1.50 - handy
5 pack $5
Thanks for your interest, encouragement and support in 2004.
Julian Darley, Dave Room and Celine
Rich
The Post Carbon Institute encourages the following courses of action:
- Begin building Parallel Public Infrastructure (we are working on research
and guidelines) - Write letters to the editor of your newspapers and to your local politicians--
(mention Peak Oil and Gas) - Tell your friends and neighbors what's happening
- Start a Post
Carbon Outpost - Forward this newsletter to others
- Support our efforts by becoming a href="http://www.postcarbon.org/index.php?page=membership">member
The Post Carbon Institute newsletter is designed
to inform you of the work of the Institute, which is to help educate
and prepare communities for a world of declining oil production. For
North Americans and those in the British Isles and New Zealand, peak
oil is compounded by heavy dependence on now declining natural gas production.
Help us get this message out to the rest of the world -- please forward
this email and encourage your friends, family members, co-workers, planners,
policy makers, and politicians to subscribe.
Post Carbon Institute is an Initiative of MetaFoundation.
Metafoundation, Incorporated in Eugene, Oregon
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