Lehigh Valley Beyond Oil

(Arctic) Melt onset earlier than normal

Larry Menkes — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 19:15:36 -0700

Coordinator HUB

Envisioning a world of $200-a-barrel oil

Larry Menkes — Wed, 02 Jul 2008 09:54:53 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

Here's a shocker: Electricity bills are heading up. Way up.

Larry Menkes — Mon, 16 Jun 2008 11:55:08 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

ECLA PA Helps Green Freedoms Way, TRailways to History Project

Larry Menkes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:54:11 -0700

ECLA PA helping to create a green "Ambitious, fantastic" project in Ivyland and Johnsville, (Warminster) PA

Once slated for destruction, both the Centrifuge Building, the world's largest and most powerful dynamic flight simulator, at the Historic Johnsville Naval Air Warfare Development Center, and Hobensack's Mill, one of the original buildings in historic Ivyland, PA have been saved from the wrecking ball by a couple of unconventional visionary developers.

How this came to be is as fantastic as anything else in the story. It actually started many years ago.

On a sunny summer afternoon in 1971, 13 year-old Bob Cremeans sat beside the New Hope and Ivyland Railroad tracks behind Hobensack's Mill in Ivyland, Pennsylvania, waiting for locomotive repairs. Bill Hobensack, the mill owner, found him and chewed him out for being so idle. Shortly after that conversation Bob dreamed of seeing the mill restored to its former glory, decked in red, white, and blue bunting.

Thirty years later, Cremeans answered a newspaper ad placed by Italo Cosantino, current owner of the mill now called Seasons Hearth and Patio. The two formed a business relationship and the dream awoke.

A half-mile down the tracks from Ivyland, Sam Cravero was busy settling his business, Concealed Technology Services, into new office spaces at the centrifuge building. He was also remodeling unused space for prospective tenants. The building at the old Johnsville Naval Air Defense Center was a relic from WW II and the dawn of supersonic flight.

Cravero didn't realize that he also bought the world's largest and most powerful dynamic flight simulator. After a chance 2007 encounter with Cremeans, Cravero knew he had a date with the history of the American race for space.

Calling their collective vision "Freedoms Way" the two held an open house on May 16 for local and national elected leaders, and representatives from area organizations.

The sites will house a new aerospace museum, celebrating Warminster's little-known but essential contribution to the race to the moon. Ivyland will be host to a new museum of agriculture and industry, celebrating their unique contribution to the American Centennial and growth of Bucks County.

The two also recognized opportunities created by rising fuel prices and concern for the environment. They called in Larry Menkes, a relocalization coordinator for the Post Carbon Institute, and a cofounder of Warminster Township's Energy Advisory Council. Menkes assembled a "green-ribbon" pre-planning team to install efficiencies to slash operating expenses by cutting CO2 emissions.

Cravero and Cremeans plan railroad stations at both sites to allow tourists and history buffs to travel between the two by rail. They'd like to establish regular rail service between Warminster and New Hope with other historic stops along the way.

The local press fell in love with the dream. One paper called the plan 'Ambitious' and 'fantastic'. The two visionaries are calling on everyone to get aboard and find their ambitious or fantastic place in the project.

A non-profit corporation called the Ivyland Foundation for Historic and Architectural Preservation was created to oversee the museums. Interested parties may now purchase $100,000 shares to invest in and own a part of this. You can reach Bob Cremeans at 267.253.6108 and Sam Cravero at 215.444.9411.

Additionally the two museums will link up with the Moland House in nearby Hartsville, where George Washington forged the historic alliance with the Marquis de Lafayette and turned the tide against the British during the Revolutionary War. Also connected will be at least two more related aerospace buildings in nearby Warminster Community Park; Craven Hall, a key building from the founding of Warminster, two centuries ago; a new John Fitch museum, where the first American steamboat was built; and the Wings of Freedom museum at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station and Joint Reserve Base in Horsham, PA, also in the neighborhood.

The ECLA PA has been intimately involved in the sustainable planning of this project. Bill Marston, AIA, LEED II, and Dean of the ECLA Academy, was consulted on creating a pre-planning team thAt included Sandy Wiggins, outgoing chairman of the US Green Building Council, Scott Kelly the, the Philly AIA's "green guy", and a veteran of numerous local LEED projects, Harold Finigan, who restored Fort Mifflin, Chris Zelov, founder of the Knossus Project, Todd Ballantyne from the Environmental Home Store, Susan Halteman, curator of the Harold Pitcairn Wings of Freedom Museum at the NAS JRB in Willow Grove (Horsham), PA, Kent Baird, co-founder of Bucks County Sustainable Business Alliance, Don Borden, of Delaware Valley College, and others.

This unique project is another example of how a Relocalization chapter can be a key player in sustainable development in a community. The ECLA will be launching another sustainability video-discussion series at the Centrifuge beginning Friday, June 13 at 7:30 PM. (see listing in the "events pages"). The videos will be screened in the same theatre where astronauts from Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo trained for their historic missions.

ECLA PA: the Earth Charter Lifeboat Academy of Pennsylvania

Escape From Suburbia - Sustainability Video Discussion Series

Larry Menkes — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 16:07:05 -0700

Start: 2008-06-13 19:30

End: 2008-06-13 21:30

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

New energy, new conservation will cost us a tiny fraction of the cost of not acting.

Larry Menkes — Sun, 11 May 2008 19:45:57 -0700

One of the real benefits about being part of the Post carbon Institute is the credibility it confers when we respond to irresponsible journalism. The article in question is the lead editorial in today's The Intelligencer (wwwphillyburbs/intel.com). The following was my response. I hope they print it, though at 469 words it's a bit long. They've printed longer.

RESPONSE TO INTELLIGENCER EDITORIAL SUNDAY MAY 11, 2008
New energy, new conservation will cost us a tiny fraction of the cost of not acting.

The lead editorial in the May 11, Sunday edition of the Intelligencer, "Nothing's for free: new energy, new conservation will cost us", takes issue with Governor Rendell's assertion that his $850 million Green Jobs, Energy Independence Strategy (SS HB-1) will not cost the taxpayers. This "straw man" debate ignores the real and very deadly issue of the costs of continued inaction to the economy of Pennsylvania, the nation, and the world.

The proven truth is that every dollar invested in energy conservation and renewable energy has been repeatedly shown to return $4 to $10 or more in savings and benefits to taxpayers. As a trained energy auditor I see proof of that every day. Merely eliminating inefficient use and the ubiquitous waste of energy can save taxpayers billions of dollars.

Instead of haggling over what such programs will initially cost, and what they might return a little later, we do much better to look at the cost of inaction. The best work on that was the Review completed in October 2006 by Sir Nicholas Stern, head of the (UK) Government Economic Service.

"..the Review estimates that if we don’t act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing at least 5% of global GDP each year, now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimates of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more."

The editorial implies that the Governor's claim that his proposals won't cost the taxpayer anything is "nuts". What is really insane is Pennsylvania's continued failure to take meaningful local action to address global climate change. And since Pennsylvania is the third worst CO2 emitter in the United States, and twentieth worst emitter of any political jurisdiction in the world we have a lot of catching up to do. An $850 million down payment on long overdue action is chickenfeed when compared to the alternative. The possibility of inaction costing 20% of Pennsylvania's GDP "now and forever" is the real risk and the real benchmark to watch. And it's a cost our children would pay.

And that is just the financial risk. What about the secondary costs? The report concludes: "Our actions now and over the coming decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the depression of the first half of the 20th century. And it will be difficult or impossible to reverse these changes."

Is that the legacy we want to leave our children and grandchildren? Is this how our generation wants to be remembered? To deny that this could happen is the greatest insanity of all.

Larry Menkes: Coordinator
ECLA PA (a Relocalization chapter of the Post Carbon Institute)
(215) 328-9128 home 267.992.8020 cell
Sustainability advisor to the Ivyland Foundation for Historical and Architectural Preservation
Bucks County Environmental Stewardship Council
Delaware Valley Green Building Council Residential Working Group

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

RUNNING ON EMPTY

Larry Menkes — Thu, 01 May 2008 10:02:34 -0700

ECLA PA: the Earth Charter Lifeboat Academy of Pennsylvania

Any ideas where to get a rainbarrel locally?

wsharp — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 12:18:04 -0700

Does anyone know where I could get a couple of rain barrels to save roof water and a compost bin locally to the Allentown or surrounding areas? Thanks.

Werner Sharp

Lehigh Valley Beyond Oil

Wallace Broecker on Climate: The Bad News and Some Hope

Larry Menkes — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 10:34:01 -0700

ECLA PA: the Earth Charter Lifeboat Academy of Pennsylvania

GEARING UP FOR MEETING THE CHALLENGES OF GROWING PUBLIC AWARENESS OF PEAK OIL, AND GLOBAL CLIMATE CHANGE

Larry Menkes — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 11:24:50 -0700

I've been watching the growth of public awareness of the "triple-threat" (peak oil, global climate change, and global resource depletion) in the "public mind" for more than a decade, and decades longer for the environment. I've stopped wondering when I could shift my efforts from getting people's attention to the issues to my true goal, helping the public begin to cope with the effects in their lives.

I believe that in the northeastern United States, that time has come. As I've asked (myself and others in and around the Relocalization network) before, will we be ready to shift our focus and efforts from education about the existence of peak oil and global climate change, to activities to prepare the public for worse news and help them to mitigate the effects.

Moreover, there are events on the horizon that foretell more public concern for the environment and sustainability. The beginning of spring and fall in these parts have been reliable moments, sure to bring news of ice melting at the poles. This year is no exception. Earthweek, A Diary of the Planet, and other sources lead with headlines like "Antarctic Collapse" (www.eatrhweek.com). This year's news about regeneration of winter ice in the vicinity of the North Pole was positive for total area regenerated, but negative on ice thickness. We can reasonably expect another ice-free summer in the Northwest Passage and the polar region north of Russia.

NASA Goddard Institute reported that 2007 was tied with 1998 as the second warmest year in the last century. The 14 warmest years on record have all occurred since 1990. "The greatest warming in 2007 occurred in the Arctic and neighboring high latitude regions." "The large Arctic warm anomaly of 2007 is consistent with observations of record low geographic ectent of Arctic sea ice in September, 2007." According to James Hansen, "Barring a large volcanic eruption, a record global temperature exceeding that of 2005 (the warmest year in over a century) can be expected within the next few years, at the time of the next El Nino', because of the background warming trend attributable to continuing increases in greenhouse gases." (parens, ours)

Closer to home the price of gasoline went above $5 a gallon in parts of California, locally well above $3 a gallon, with diesel well above $4 a gallon. Newspaper and other media reports of automobile commuters and truckers feeling the squeeze, and an ominous growing trend among homeowners going broke as energy costs begin to exceed mortgage payments. Requests for certification of energy efficient new homes is at an all-time high and rising. The need for assistance from owners of existing homes is not high because many don't even know that help is available for them.

Toward that end I've stepped up my acceptance of speaking engagements and setting up my Post Carbon booth at more events. I've been so busy I've had scant time to post these on this website but a layoff at the hearth shop where I work has allowed me today to focus on doing that. See the events section for the new Friday evening video series I've been trying to launch. We've secured an excellent venue in Hatboro, PA and expect at least two more dates to finalize this week.

A project I've been working on in connection with the hearth shop has morphed into the Ivyland Foundation for Historical and Architectural Preservation (IFHAP). The original site, a nearly 4.5 acre commercial tract in Ivyland, has two historical buildings still in continuous use since the founding of Ivyland a few years before 1874. The five buildings on the site are slated to be restored and/or renovated as "green" and LEED certification will be sought, although there is interest in going "net-zero".

IFHAP has caught the interest of the new owner of a building housing a centrifuge used for the testing and training of early astronauts at the Naval Air Development Center in Warminster, also known as the Johnsville base. We are developing a charrette for creating a LEED certified renovation there with an excellent group of "green" professionals. Tomorrow we will hold the fourth tour of the facility for members of the pre-planning team.

Although we came in just after renovations began on first floor office rental spaces the remaining interior office spaces there, as well as meeting rooms, the cafeteria, and other specialized rooms are already getting a treated to non-toxic VOC paint and other healthy wall, floor, and ceiling materials and furnishings. The owner is convinced that getting the facility certified will help him attract and keep tenants, and keep energy costs for his own business manageable in a time of energy uncertainty and potential insufficiency.

The "green" renovation will also enhance the opportunity to create an aerospace museum on the site using that facility and others nearby. A partnership is being established with the Harold Pitcairne Wings of Freedom Aircraft Museum of the Delaware Valley Historic Aircraft Association at the Willow Grove Naval Air Station (NAS JRB) in nearby Horsham. A large lobby and small theatre located in the building will be used for that. Our environmental and sustainability video series will probably eventually find a home there.

As you see, we've been very busy. Our Dean of the Academy, Bill Marston AIA, LEED II, is deeply involved in steering this project in the right direction and keeping us on course for more and better successes. ill, by the ay is involved with a group in Philadelphia, Green Village Philadelphia, that's bringing in Paulo Lugari, founder of Las Gaviotas in Colombia, to Philly from May 1-4, 2008. Green Village Philadelphia is one of many reasons why Philly is regarded as one of the top ten sustainable cities by several sources. You can get further information on this at: or 215-922-2345.

I'm sure there's more I could write (not being known for brevity) but I have to have my delayed lunch and get down to Hatboro to post flyers for the new video series.

recruiting allies

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

Is Suburbia Sustainable When Energy Costs Are Skyrocketing?

Larry Menkes — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:16:36 -0700

Start: 2008-04-04 19:30

End: 2008-04-04 21:30

Coordinator HUB

Is Suburbia Sustainable When Energy Costs Are Skyrocketing?

Larry Menkes — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 08:13:38 -0700

Start: 2008-04-04 19:30

End: 2008-04-04 21:30

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

Shell Oil CEO Predicts Oil Shortage Within Seven Years

Larry Menkes — Sun, 03 Feb 2008 19:45:30 -0800

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

The Story of Stuff Premiers to Rave Reviews: Proves Value as Relocalization Tool

Larry Menkes — Thu, 27 Dec 2007 10:37:07 -0800

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

THIS IS WHAT PEAK OIL LOOKS LIKE

Larry Menkes — Sun, 16 Dec 2007 15:54:20 -0800

The following was compiled and submitted by Mike Ewall of the Energy Justice Network, and Action PA. Some of the information is not readily available in any other known source.

Hi folks,

I recently completed (painstakingly) piecing together a chart showing
coal price trends since 2000 and got this, as well as charts I've
made of oil, gas and uranium prices (since 1986, 1976 and 1987,
respectively), up on our website. I also found a 10-year ethanol
price trend chart, and added that as well.

See: http://www.energyjustice.net/peak/

This represents the most complete and up-to-date data available from
the Energy Information Administration (coal, oil and gas) and other
sources (for uranium and ethanol info).

You'll see that oil and gas prices were very stable until 1999, when
both started rising dramatically. Oil prices are now 4-5 times their
historical average. Gas prices are 3 times their historical
average. Coal prices have roughly doubled in that time.

Uranium prices were also quite stable until 2004. They're not about
9 times their historical average and are projected to increase to 15
times their historical average within the next year.

This is what peak oil, coal, gas and uranium looks like. Biofuels
(or "agrofuels" as more people are starting to call them) are
following similar trends, based on the rising costs of nitrogen
fertilizers that are made with large amounts of natural gas. These
fertilizer imports have tripled (from 14% to 42%) since 1991 (and
mostly since 1999) as our domestic nitrogen fertilizer production has
largely moved to other countries, chasing the gas supply. Our
ability to grow our food, as well as the ability to grow
agriculture-based biofuels, is becoming very dependent on imported
fertilizers -- a proxy for importing natural gas, which isn't as easy
to import without liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal capacity
drastically increasing.

Anyway... feel free to use/share this, but if you do, please give
credit. The raw coal price data isn't public and it took me a ton of
work to graphically piece together the shorter snapshots that EIA
makes available.

These charts are also available in my "energy technologies"
powerpoint, which you can find here: http://www.energyjustice.net/resources/

Mike Ewall
Energy Justice Network
215-743-4884
catalyst@actionpa.org
http://www.energyjustice.net

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

Recovering From 1 Week at Energy Auditor Classes

Larry Menkes — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 19:21:27 -0800

I'm about ten days back from a week off after Thanksgiving. I attended an intensive course on home energy auditing. My email failed on return and just got baxck up yesterday. I'm wading through almost 700 emails.

When I get closer to the light at the end, I'll make a full report. For now, all I can say is that if I thought I knew something about home energy efficiency, and I did think that, I was wrong. There is a lot to it, and I'm glad that I had an audit done to my house a few yerars back. The Resnet HERS course is very thourough and can come close to putting actual numbers to the work they advise.

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

MAGLEV WIND TURBINE

Larry Menkes — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 18:58:10 -0800

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

Matt Savinar (LATOC) Predicts Peak Oil Will Lead to End of Life As We Know It.

Larry Menkes — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 14:03:12 -0800

Coordinator HUB

Unexpected Growth in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide

Larry Menkes — Sat, 10 Nov 2007 15:05:15 -0800

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

ECLA PA's Elephant In Living Room Post Makes NY Times' Andrew Revkin Dot Earth Blog

Larry Menkes — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 19:48:03 -0700

ECLA PA's Coordinator comment posted on New York Times' Andrew Revkin's Dot Earth blog

Sometimes staying up past my bedtime to post an item pays off. I responded to an interesting item in Andrew Revkin's new blog, Dot Earth. I didn't expect it to get published but a flurry of replies led me back to: http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/10/30/ice-on-air/#comments. There it was, to my surprise and delight. I've reprinted it below, with a snippet of Revkin's blog.

#3.
October 30th,
2007
10:21 pm

The elephant in the living room that almost no one is talking about is that global warming may have entered a new state of disequilibrium. That could easily signal a significant, if not complete, melting in the Arctic and Greenland. This year’s ice melt was “so vast and rapid it unnerve(d) the experts” at a recent conference on the subject at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks.

The real issue seems to be that few of us are acting appropriately given the risks. The stakes could not be higher. It is quite possible that conditions in the Arctic are further proof that the warnings from eminent scientists like James Lovelock and Jim Hansen are substantially correct. It may already be too late to prevent significant sea-level rise .

If this is even possible, prudence dictates that nothing short of an all out international program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions would constitute an acceptable effort to stabilize this condition.

Of course, the psychology of catastrophe is such that we’d have to fight our natural tendency to get stuck in denial, anger, bargaining, and depression for long enough to regain whatever is left of the advantage of early, appropriate action. If we are to survive it may well require us to make a substantial shift in our thinking and actions.

— Posted by Larry Menkes

The article I was responding to was the following, with another Delaware Valley connection:

October 30, 2007, 12:44 pm
Ice on Air

By Andrew C. Revkin
icebreaker in arcticThe Coast Guard icebreaker Healy in the Arctic last summer (Credit: Dave Withrow/United States Coast Guard via Associated Press

I discussed the extraordinary retreat of Arctic Ocean sea ice this year, and the implications of opening northern waterways, on Marty Moss-Coane’s Radio Times show on Monday on WHYY radio in Philadelphia.

Here’s the station’s summary of the hour: “This summer, Arctic ice in the the Northwest passage melted enough to open up this historic travel route. We discuss the environmental, economic, and political implications of this change with Andrew Revkin, who reports on the environment for The New York Times and wrote “The North Pole Was Here” and with Michael Byers, professor of international law and politics at the University of British Columbia.” An mp3 audio file of the show is online here.

Have a listen and post your thoughts.

You can also hear the amazing chugging, huffing, crunching sounds that the thick Arctic sea ice makes as floes drift and collide on our site here."

Coordinator HUB

Confronting the Triple Crisis: the Problems & the Solutions. A Report on the IFG, IPS , GPET, Teach-In

Larry Menkes — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:38:25 -0700

Two members of the ECLA PA attended the landmark Teach-In at GWU in Washington, DC on September 14, 15, 16 2007. I intend to write up a report but have been swamped by numerous events and presentations since then. There were 22 plenary sessions and a number of workshops crammed into the 3 day schedule. There were no scheduled breaks. which made for what was literally a jam-packed weekend.

A high point of the event was an absolutely excellent and funny 18 minute video on the problems and the solutions prepared by Anne Leonard. She has declared that it will be made available sometime in October to those of us who signed up for it. She also declared her intention to make it available, online, at no charge. We'll post an alert when we get it.

Another high point for this author was a late, quiet dinner with Kevin Hansen and David Korten at TGIF's after the first evening's sessions. Not much to say here except that it was mostly about relaxing, eating, and recovering from the intensity of the first three hours.

My overall impression of the Teach-In is that the crisis is more grave than I previously estimated. BUT the solutions are more numerous, and most have been proven to be effective.

The 60+ plenary speakers represented a small fraction of the global talent and expertise that is being applied to our collective situation to create solutions. We cannot stop climate change but we can choose to act in ways to lessen it's impact on our children, grandchildren, and the future of the world as we've come to know it.

It will require, substantially a new way of thinking, and of living on our increasingly fragile spaceship Earth. Our situation demands becoming totally conscious of what it isw e do in every act that impacts the Earth. It demands action, now, and by all.

The Energy Bulletin has a report that I'm posting as a reprint.

Published on 6 Oct 2007 by EarthWatch Ohio. Archived on 6 Oct 2007.
Confronting the Triple Crisis

by Thomas J. Quinn
A Washington D.C. teach-in on climate change, peak oil and global resource depletion included a presentation from an Ohio nonprofit organization on how to curtail energy use in housing, transportation and food production. The teach-in, entitled Confronting the Global Triple Crisis—The Problems and The Solutions, featured some 60 speakers from 16 countries and attracted close to 900 people to George Washington University over three days in mid-September.

Megan Quinn Bachman, outreach director for The Community Solution in Yellow Springs, Ohio, detailed her nonprofit’s efforts to deal with “converging calamities,” including the coming peak and decline in worldwide oil production which will result in oil shortages and skyrocketing prices. “Community is a vision of the future where we conserve and share scarce local resources rather than deplete, destroy and battle over seemingly abundant distance resources,” Bachman said. “It is a vision where we consume far fewer resources, but have a better life, filled with valued relationships rather than valued possessions.”

Joining Bachman on the podium were authors, academics and activists including, as Bachman pointed out in introducing one panel, some of the “world’s foremost experts on issues of peak oil, gas and coal, local and ecological economics, sustainable lifestyles, community, overconsumption and more.” These included author, environmentalist and global warming activist Bill McKibben; Richard Heinberg, author of The Party’s Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies, and Helena Norbert-Hodge, a pioneer of the worldwide localization movement and author of Bringing the Food Economy Home.

Bachman called for curtailing energy use through retrofitting the existing 90 million residential structures and 5 million commercial buildings in the U.S. She said Community Solution has a number of model housing-retrofit projects underway “as we try to determine what the most effective structural and lifestyle changes are to reducing home energy use.”

In transportation, Community Solution is working on a ride-sharing system it calls “Smart Jitney,” which aims to increase vehicle ridership from 1.5 persons per vehicle to 4-5 with the use of existing vehicles and current cell phone technology. But Bachman said this is a short-term strategy, and in the longer term by “revamping local and regional economies, living, working and shopping in the same area, we’ll be able to utilize the more sustainable options of walking, bicycling and mass transit.”

Bachman also called for less fossil fuel use in food production through more locally grown food, eating less and curtailing energy-intensive meat consumption. She pointed out that two-thirds of the U.S. population is obese or overweight as Americans overconsume food just as they do energy, water and other resources. “When we shift to using fewer fossil fuels, start to repair and rebuild the damaged soil and grow more real food, we’ll need vastly more human labor to do it,” Bachman said. “This includes more full-time farmers for sure, but all of us producing some food is the most efficient, sustainable and secure agriculture.”

And that’s just the kind of plan Community Solution has in mind for Yellow Springs, a town of 3,700 people outside Dayton. The non-profit has land for a model neighborhood community it calls Agraria, which will include small “passive” houses that do not need heating or cooling systems, plus vegetable gardens to provide food for neighbors to share. Agraria would help to produce a web of interdependent social and economic relationships and serve as an educational and cultural center to transform Yellow Springs, Bachman said.

The Agraria plan was developed after Bachman and others with the nonprofit went to Cuba in 2004 to do a documentary, “The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil.” The film details the grass-roots-based urban agricultural revolution and renewable energy movement that swept through this island nation after its oil lifeline, the Soviet Union, collapsed in the early 1990s. “I believe that this is how the change will take place, not from above, but from within,” Bachman said. “From individuals and communities and eventually entire nations pioneering a better way to live on this planet.”

The teach-in, sponsored by the International Forum on Globalization and Institute for Policy Studies, was subtitled, “Powering-Down for the Future—Toward an International Movement for Systemic Change: New Economies of Sustainability, Equity, Sufficiency and Peace.”

CD/DVD recordings of plenary sessions and workshops at the teach-in are available. Go to www.conferencerecording.com and www.ifg.org for more information. For more information about The Community Solution, go to www.communitysolution.org.

Coordinator HUB

Arctic Melt Unnerves the Experts

Larry Menkes — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:47:47 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

2007 Arctic Ice Melt Unnerves the Experts by its Speed and Scope

Larry Menkes — Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:40:21 -0700

The Arctic ice cap shrank this past summer to an extent unparalleled in a century or more, reported The New York Times this morning. The poles, canaries in the mine of global warming because of their sensitivity to global temperature, have recently experienced unprecedented summer ice losses, but this year's Arctic melting dwarfs all prior events.

(see: www.nytimes.com/2007/10/02/science/earth/02arct.html?th=&emc=th&pagewant...)

Andrew C. Revkin, reporting on a new study by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said, "The pace of change has far exceeded what had been estimated by almost all the simulations used to envision how the Arctic will respond to rising concentrations of greenhouse gases linked to global warming."

In each of the prior three summers scientists have stated that the Arctic sea ice melt has been much greater than their prior predictions and estimates based on weather modeling. This year's data elevates their observations into a new dimension. The data begins to take on a "hocky-stick" appearance that signals a critical threshold. This occurs where a natural system experiences a "phase change" into an entirely new state or condition. In this case it could mean the end of summer ice at the top of the world and a retreat of winter ice toward an essentially ice-free state.

The implications of this could be enormous. Not only would the fabled Northwest Passage over Canada and the Northern Sea Route over Russia open to shipping during the summer months, a boon to those dependent on low-cost sea transport, but the possibility of mineral extraction from the polar sea bed seems more affordable.

On the downside, loss of polar albedo (the reflectivity of heating rays from the sun back to space) could accelerate ice losses from land-masses like Greenland. In the unlikely event that all of Greenland's ice cover melted, global sea levels would rise by as much as 23 feet. Such a massive amount of fresh water entering the polar seas could produce disastrous effects, slowing or stopping the deep ocean conveyor, the system that transfers warmer tropical waters up the US eastern seaboard toward Greenland and western Europe that moderates their winter temperatures.

The unremitting avalanche of bad news from the cryosphere adds urgency to need to slow global warming. Changing practices attributed to human activities and eliminating the production of greenhouse gasses as rapidly as possible is the only way to do this.

Yet without some palpable assault on the lower latitudes, like a large sudden rise of sea-levels, human societies will likely continue to act as if nothing really serious is happening.

Jared Diamond, the Pulitzer Prizewinning author of "Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed", documents similar reactions from other societies and cultures. Although there are several parallels in some of the reasons for failure unearthed by Diamond, the one that most closely resembles our modern predicament is quite surprising to the researchers. "Contrary to what (they) would have expected, it turns out that societies often fail even to attempt to solve a problem once it has been perceived." Some of this is attributed to selfish behavior and a clash of interests between people.

Whatever the causes, humanity seems to be on the brink of the unparalleled catastrophe predicted by Albert Einstein. His prescription was for us to substantially change the way we think. At the moment the reductionists seem to be having their way.

How this all turns out will depend on the actions or inactions of everyone who has a stake in the outcome. Unfortunately, those who have the most to loose have yet to be born and their voice, if any, must from our mouths or not come at all. At the moment, the silence is almost deafening.

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

PA Electricity Rate Cap Due to Expire in 2010: Consumers Will Suffer

Larry Menkes — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 19:54:34 -0700

Yesterday's AP article on the coming expiration of electricity rate caps in Pennsylvania, printed in today's Intelligencer is tepid warning about what PA consumers will be facing in 2010. The article, Who Will Pull The Plug on The Rising Use of Electricity? by Marc Levy of the Associated Press carries a sub-heading that says, "In a couple of years, caps expire and rates are expected to soar.

It's time to pull the plug on electricity waste. And we need everybody to pitch in and do their fair share. The effects of energy waste hurt all of us and the time to end the waste is now.

This is a theme that the Post Carbon Institute, the ECLA PA, and others have been pushing uphill for years. It's good to see this story in print in the mainstream press. Maybe we're reaching the crest. Consumers who use the next three years preparing for a major rate hike will be amply rewarded. Those who wait too long will paty a heavy price. When the rate caps were lifted in Maryland recently the utility proposed an 82% rate hike.

It's also gratifying to read, "The subject is getting attention this year, and figures to get more this fall, as Rendell ratchets up pressure on the Legislature to approve his sweeping plan to subsidize clean energy projects and cut electricity costs. A pillar of his plan is conservation, and one of the ways he wants to do it has utilities worried.

Rendell wants to require utilities to invest in conservation projects when it's cheaper than buying more electricity to meet rising demand. The idea is to flatten demand instead of letting it continue to rise every year, advocates say.

"That's a lot cheaper than building another power plant," said Sonny Popowsky, the state's utility consumer advocate.

It also could mean stringing fewer new transmission lines across the land, Popowsky and others say. And at 4 cents per kilowatt hour, conservation programs are substantially cheaper than the 10 cents or so it costs for every kilowatt hour of electricity, conservation advocates say."

Utilities have been paying consumers to cut demand for decades. When the local power company in Southwestern Connecticut, Connecticut Light and Power, reimbursed their customers for the incremental (additional costs over the usual) costs of energy efficient devices like compact fluorescent lamps which cost around $25 each in the late 1980's. This kind of deal gave rise to the now popular saying, "negawatts are cheaper than megawatts."

Since more than half of all energy used in the northeast is wasted there are ample opportunities to avoid the worst of the rate cap effects. Energy audits and surveys will soon be worth their weight in gold. The roughly $400 cost of a home energy audit could pay for itself in less than a year. Yet few people are aware of the real story of the energy they waste. Few people even know what they pay annually for electricity.

Today, there are a lot more choices for introducing energy efficiency in homes, offices, and factories. A quick trip the the federal government's "Energy Star" website will demonstrate that point. And today many electrical generators are reaping high dividends for financially helping their customers install energy efficient appliances and other technologies.

Some greedy, regressive power generators prefer to continue the discredited "business-as-usual" strategy. After all, meeting the rising demand for electricity without helping consumers to be energy efficient creates a lot of business and growth for them. And, it helps big coal because that's where more than half of our electricity comes from. And that's also where a lot of pollution comes from. It's a primary source of acid rain, athsma, lung cancer, and other health miseries. It's good for the health care system and insurance companies because the commonized, or deferred costs of wasting electricity makes a lot of money for a lot of influential people. It kills and shortens the lives of many of them, too, but they seem to be less concerned than they ought to be. If they vacation often enough in pristine regions like Kennebunkport, west Texas, Santorini, and Cannes their exposure is lessened and superb preventive medical care handles the rest.

If there is a moral to this it might be, "let the consumer beware". Today it is relatively inexpensive to remediate energy waste. Simple conservation measures like turning off lights that aren't needed, installing a digital 7 day programmable thermostat, to automatically turn the heat and air conditioning down when buildings are unoccupied can go a long way to cut electricity bills. Energy Star appliances also help. Any refrigerator or air conditioner more than five or ten years old is an energy hog compared to products of todays technology.

As we approach the end of the rate caps there will be a scramble to find the quick fixes. But by then it will be too late for many. In the atmosphere of further deregulation and the end of "caps" it will be a seller's market. Hapless consumers will pay through the nose for whatever they can get and miss out on energy savings that can be enjoyed today and for the next three years. This savings can buy a lot more efficiency for those who recognize the advantage.

As usual the low-income consumers will suffer most and be least able to pay the increases. Maybe Pennsylvania should consider a remedy already in use in more energy-wise regions of the world. We could ban the sale of incandescent light bulbs and other outmoded, inefficient technologies. In that way, we'd automatically lower home lighting demand by almost 75%, while significantly cutting our electricity bills.

We could require utilities to help their consumers cut energy use. We could require "smart metering" to lower peak demand, a large driver of high electricity rates and the construction of unneeded new generators. We could end the subsidies for coal and include the cost of treating black lung disease as a user fee for anyone burns coal. We could end the commonizing of the incredibly high costs asociated with electricity generation. If we were really efficient we could save a lot of mountain tops in West Verginia and other coal rich states. We could save a lot of rivers and streams. We could save a lot of lives and make life easier for those many of us who live downwind of a coal-fired power plant.

The AP article didn't offer much in the way of solutions. It conceded that "everyone from governments to owners of large homes has to be willing to undergo a major attitude change in an electricity-loving society". I don't think we are conscious enough of our energy use to love electricity that way. We'll find out what people really love when we see our bills double, and peak oil will see to that in short order with or without lifting the rate caps.

For those of us who love our children and grandchildren the choice, when we think about it, will be easy. The time to think about it is now, while we still have the time, the money, the health, the environment, life as we know it, and choice. On January first, 2011 we'll all have our fingers in the sockets. How badly we get shocked will depend on whether or not we had the sense to change our bulbs, turn off the switches, and pull the plug on energy waste.

Coordinator HUB

Window to Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change Closing; EU Should Press for Immediate U.S. Action

Larry Menkes — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 16:28:22 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

ECLA PA Responds to NY Times' "Feel Good vs Do Good" Response to Global Warming (9-11-07 p-1 Science Times)

Larry Menkes — Thu, 20 Sep 2007 15:55:16 -0700

Since the mid-nineteen eightees I've been an avid reader of the Tuesday New York Times because they have an interesting science section called the Science Times. I have never been moved to write a response before this, although I probably should have. But the Scitimes (as they are known online) and their correspondent, John Tierney, went over the line in an area of our mutual concern and I had to write the following reply.

On 9/13/2007 8:21 PM I wrote:

Dear Scitimes editors and John Tierney,

Bjorn Lomborg, who enjoyed the page 1 cover story in this Tuesday's NYT Science Times (A "Feel Good' vs Do Good' Response to Warming: Findings, by John Tierney.) Lomborg says that the best strategy is to make the rest of the world as rich as New York, so that people elsewhere can afford to do the things like shore up their coastlines and buy air conditioners. That's a pretty dumb thing to say for a man of his credentials, unless he has a rewarding conflict of interest.

And, if he, or John Tierney think that "preparing for the worst in future climate is expensive" they might check out the expense of not preparing for global warming. The Stern Report was very clear about the potential for expenses of as much as 20% of global GDP if we fail to prepare in a timely fashion. Yet only 1 to 5% of that GDP could probably forestall catastrophic effects if we begin now.

"For every £1 invested now we can save £5, or possibly more, by acting now." (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6096084.stm)

I wonder if he realizes that, according to reliable sources like the World Watch Institute and the Earth Policy Institute, if China and India joined the New Yorkers in affluence it would take 3.5 earths to supply all the natural resources they'd need.

Moreover, it disregards the looming crisis of a rising energy demand curve that will soon intersect the waning oil resources supply curve. New York City and Mr. Lomborg require a supply of cheap oil to float their assertions. It's also the kind of news that's probably unfit to print.

Larry Menkes: Coordinator
Earth Charter Lifeboat Academy of PA
soundsynergy@comcast.net

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

3 DAY DC TEACH-IN on CLIMATE CHANGE, PEAK OIL, AND GLOBAL RESOURCE DEPLETION

Larry Menkes — Tue, 28 Aug 2007 09:20:56 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy

1998 No Longer Hottest Year On Record in USA

Larry Menkes — Mon, 13 Aug 2007 18:44:11 -0700

Coordinator HUB

Congress Wakes Up to Global Warming: Our business coalition raises the stakes

Larry Menkes — Sun, 12 Aug 2007 13:04:05 -0700

ECLA PA: the Earth Charter Lifeboat Academy of Pennsylvania

Step It Up 2007 Organizer Asks, "Up For Another One?"

Larry Menkes — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 20:26:30 -0700

Coordinator HUB

Leonardo DiCaprio's "Eleventh Hour" previewed by ECLA PA

Larry Menkes — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 20:25:04 -0700

Coordinator HUB

Who's Connecting the Dots? 7/18 US National Petroleum Council Draft Report: Another Reality Check on the Road to Acceptance

Larry Menkes — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 19:42:20 -0700

There is mounting evidence that the "Hard Truths" about peak oil, global warming, and population is being taken ever more seriously in official circles. The July 18 Draft Report from the US National Petroleum Council, Facing Hard Truths About Energy: A comprehensive view to 2030 of global oil and natural gas, finally gives legitimacy to the concept of peak oil, while Roscoe Bartlett rightly accuses the report of pulling its punch.

Bartlett, along with Al Gore, is one of the leaders who long ago got over denial about global warming and peak oil. It didn't show much if they spent much time being angry, or with bargaining in the magical thought that we could find an easier, softer way out og our addiction to oil. And they didn't act depressed, at least in public. They found that blessed final stage of dealing with catastrophic news that is called acceptance. For it is only in that state that solutions and best-possible coping strategies can be found.

Of course, there is probably a similar clarity somewhere in the inner recesses of power and control. They have the financial and power resources to get, and then conceal, the best possible estimates of the "State of the World". I'm sure that some are saying theat the public can't handle a clear picture of where we're headimg. I'm also sure that the leaders of certain industries, the likes of which met with Vice President Cheyney not too long ago, would like to continue a disasterous policy of business as usual. There are many billions riding on the public believing the spin they impart.

After reading the National Petroleum Council's Executive Summary and the "five core strategies to assist markets in meeting the energy challenges to 2030 and beyond", several important statements stand out.

First they say, "All five strategies are essential, there is no simple, easy solution to the multiple challenges we face." And, first among them is, "Moderate growing demand for energy by increasing efficiency of transportation, residential, commercial, and industrial uses."

They document the growing disparity between global supplies and demand. They raise concerns about atmospheric carbon loading and call for carbon constraints through a system of direct regulation, cap-and-trade regulation, and carbon taxes or fees. Finally they address peak oil with a clarity and candor that has been rare in published, public reports.

Yet this report, together with the UN IPCC 4th Assessment Reports, the Stern Report, the announcement that in the near future the United Nations will likely be unable to provide food to regions where mass starvation is immenent due to rising food costs, continuing news about accelerating ice melt in world glaciers and the two poles, sea level rise uncertainties, Katrina and Rita, and other inconvenient truths about the lack of real recovery in the US Gulf coast from one season of mega-storms, the global crash of fishing industries, are among a series of dots that, when connected, describe an ominous potential for a historic global catastrophe for the human race.

There are other dots that the well-informed among us know, and they all seem to suggest a reasonably clear pattern. The one piece of news that few have noticed, the lack of an announcement of crash programs to address these and other realated issues, spell a probable trajectory that seems headed over a waterfall for some and over the cliff for the rest of us.

I would like to see a rapid "coming together" of all of our organizations to choose to focus on, and propose a few "first steps" solutions similar to those proposed in a recent Energy Bulletin. First among these is for a global crash program for energy efficiency and conservation. It is not THE solution but a fairly reasonable first step to end waste (always a noble thing to do), become fiscally responsible with energy and our money (which might provide funds fom the energy savings for next steps), and finally to buy the world some time to come to grips with the gravity of our collective situation.

Energy efficiency and conservation is a strategy of hope. It is something for all of us to do, which is far more productive than complaining or trying to convince someone else to start solving these problems. And an exponential grass roots movement can take hold and spark a rapidly building movement that leapfrogs the efforts of our feckless leaders and the world's power brokers. It is all a matter of choice, and acceptance.

One thing is certain, if we do our best will have few regrets no matter how this all turns out. And since population, especially an aging one, has been a huge part of the problem, those of us who are not actively making a difference during these historic days will become the most expendable in the eyes of those who will have to live most of their lives with the devil-may-care recklessness of those of us who've enjoyed the last days of the golden age of oil.

Coordinator HUB

National Petroleum Council hides the hard truths about energy instead of facing them

Larry Menkes — Tue, 24 Jul 2007 18:33:38 -0700

Philadelphia Organic Democracy