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


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: 

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