Post Carbon Newsletter #16 June 2006

1. Julian in June: recap

2. Relocalization Network Breaks 100!

3. Working Assets nomination

4. Featured board member- Debbie Cook

5. Oil Depletion Protocol Project Launched

6. June on the Energy Farm

7. Featured Post Carbon Group: Local 20/20

8. Calendar of Events

9. Next Newsletter Preview

1. Julian in June: recap

Post Carbon Institute Director Julian Darley has been criss-crossing the country to speak to local elected officials, architects and small business owners. These groups are all critical players in the effort to relocalize and prepare for the onset of fossil fuel decline, and all responded well to the Post Carbon message.

In Providence, Rhode Island, Julian and Post Carbon Fellow James Howard Kunstler presented to the Congress for the New Urbanism. Julian discussed the need to prepare our cities through creating "low energy" density, European style. In Burlington, Vermont, at the EF Schumacher/Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE) conference, Julian highlighted the vulnerable relationship between fossil fuels and our global economy, and introduced local renewable energy-backed currency as an important part of protecting against economic and monetary instability. And in Petaluma, California, Julian and Post Carbon Fellow Richard Heinberg talked to elected officials about their front-line role in analyzing and preparing for local vulnerabilities brought on by a decline in energy.

Julian's presentations for these and other events are available for downloading at www.postcarbon.org/research/thinktank/presentations.

2. Relocalization Network Breaks 100!

We've got two great new milestones for the Relocalization Network to tell you about.

First, we've powered through the 100-group mark, with Big Sur Powerdown, and we'll have more groups to add before the next newsletter.

And Post Carbon Institute is proud to announce that the Relocalization Network now has its own dedicated website. This website is your website. We want to make it easier for your group to do a great job building your organization and getting out the relocalization message. Please check it out, and let us know how we can make it work better for you. If you belong to a group that hasn't signed up yet, there's an application page with an information package and an application form.

This summer, there will be at least two documentaries in production featuring people from Local Post Carbon Groups working on Relocalization strategies in their communities. Journalist target="_blank">Dave Strongman will be starting his journey in Vancouver and finishing in South California, using still photography and audio recording. You can follow his journey on target="_blank">www.relocalize.net/davidstrongman.

And producers with Peak Moment Television will be photographing from Portland through Washington State, and may end up visiting us in Vancouver. Peak Moment Television is a project of the Alliance for a Post Petroleum Local Economy (APPLE).

3. Working Assets nomination

Post Carbon Institute has been officially nominated to become one of a select group of 50 nonprofits who may be eligible for special gifts from Working Assets, a socially responsible wireless, long distance and credit card company. Every year, Working Assets distributes part of the company's revenues to nonprofits nominated by Working Assets members.

4. Featured board member- Debbie Cook

A big Post Carbon Institute welcome for our newest board member, Huntington Beach (CA) City Councilwoman Debbie Cook. She became involved with the Institute after hearing a talk by Post Carbon Institute director Julian Darley. "I love this issue because it crosses all political lines," Cook told us. "I know that solving this problem is going to be a bottom-up process. When I explain peak oil to another elected official, and I see her eyes light up, it feels good."

Cook will have ample opportunity to talk with her fellow elected officials about Peak Oil, serving on a slew of regional boards, including VP for the Orange County Division of the League of California Cities.

Cook has a long history of involvement with environmental issues in California. Prior to her election to the Huntington City Council, she served on the Bolsa Chica Land Trust legal team that set a precedent in protecting coastal habitat. She also made history in Huntington Beach in 1990 by successfully qualifying a Charter Amendment that protects public beach and parkland from sale, lease, or commercialization without voter approval. Cook holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Earth Science from Cal State Long Beach, and a Jurisdoctorate from Western State College of Law.

We are excited to have someone with Debbie's enthusiasm for Post Carbon Institute's mission. Her rich experience in local and regional politics will significantly strengthen the Institute's ability to work with local governments to plan for Peak Oil.

5. Oil Depletion Protocol Project Launched

We are happy to report on the launch of the Oil Depletion Protocol Project, a major new initiative to bring the nations of the world together to reduce oil consumption.

Working with Richard Heinberg, one of the world's foremost Peak Oil educators, we are laying the groundwork for the successful adoption and implementation of the Protocol. Richard's book about the Protocol, The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse, can be preordered (entitling you to a 20% discount) through New Society Publishers.

We are currently putting the finishing touches on the Oil Depletion Protocol website, which will be ready for your online viewing soon at www.OilDepletionProtocol.org.

The website will have information on:

• oil depletion
• the need for the international Oil Depletion Protocol
• how you can personally adopt and support the Protocol
• how you can urge local, state, and national elected officials to endorse the Protocol
• ways to reduce your oil dependency

You will also be able to share tips, ideas, and experiences that hasten the transition to a less oil-dependent lifestyle, and you can learn what others have done to make this transition.

Over the coming months, we will be adding interactive website tools, such as a carbon calculator, as well as informative outreach and educational tools to publicize the Oil Depletion Protocol. We will keep you posted on the progress of this very important initiative.

6. June on the Energy Farm

June has been an eventful month at the Local Energy Farm demonstration (in Vancouver, BC). The sun has come out and the battle between persistent weeds and the array of energy crops that have been planted continues to take place. We have planted our final crop for the year, Kenaf. Kenaf is an extremely fast growing non-wood paper alternative and is also being looked at for its potential as biomass.

In other news, we are in the process of constructing a small two-stage biogas digester which we hope to have completed and running by next week. Volunteer involvement remains integral to the project; their commitment has been and is the backbone of the planting and maintenance of our food garden.

Finally, we had our first official visit to the farm. Californian Congressional Candidate Byron DeLear stopped by to check out what is happening on the farm and enjoyed a quick tour of the project.

If you would like more detailed news of the Energy Farm network, please email energyfarm@postcarbon.org.

7. Featured Post Carbon Group: Local 20/20

Local 20/20 in Port Townsend, Washington State, USA has been with the Relocalization Network since January of this year. The Group Coordinator Steve Hamm said that Local 20/20 had been going through the usual growing pains, but had been making good progress training members to develop and implement mapping and inventory assessments of local resources and needs.

Local 20/20 recently held a well-attended bus tour of their community. The tour visited the newly completed City Hall that is currently seeking Silver Certification as a Green public building. The next stop was a Park-n-Ride location that has biodiesel buses, electric bikes, scooters and a small EV truck. The tour stopped at a number of private homes that demonstrated different construction methods, including concrete and earth, grass roofs, and rastrablock, a method of home building involving recycled styrene and cement blocks. The houses featured examples of solar-heated water systems, gray water systems, solar cookers, and community gardens. At the end of the tour, the participants ate homemade pizza cooked in a cob-and-mud oven baked at a local eco-village.

To get involved or to find out more about Local 20/20, visit their website.

8. Calendar of Events:

5th International ASPO Conference July 18 & 29 San Rossore, Italy

Richard Heinberg will represent Post Carbon Institute and introduce the Oil Depletion Protocol Project at the Fifth International Conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO) in San Rossore (near Pisa) in Italy, on July 18-19, 2006. ASPO was founded by world Peak Oil expert Dr. Colin Campbell. According to the ASPO website:

"ASPO is a network of scientists, affiliated with European
institutions and universities, having an interest in determining the date
and impact of the peak and decline of the world's production of oil and
gas, due to resource constraints."

The conference will feature international experts and researchers from
around the world, who will be meeting outdoors in a park in San Rossore.
(The park is a few kilometers from the leaning tower of Pisa.) For more
information about the conference, click here.

Global Public Media features a number of interviews with Dr. Campbell where you can learn more about his work and ASPO.

9. Next Newsletter Preview

• Watch for news about the energy-harvesting machines we are building and installing at the Vancouver Energy Farm and an announcement about a new energy farm demonstration in California.

• Begin implementing Relocalization strategies in your community


• Start a Local Post Carbon Group


• Forward this newsletter to others
• If you're not a member yet, then please sign up
  
• Support our efforts by donating

Post Carbon Institute is an initiative of Metafoundation, a 501c3 registered charity chartered in Eugene, Oregon