Happy New Year!
Many of us watched or listened to President Obama's State of the Union speech last week. In "Choosing Strategy Over Substance" PCI Executive Director Asher Miller mulls over the speech, coming to the conclusion that--however laudable his clean energy goals are--the President still needs to work on his energy and economic literacy.
To that end, we highly recommend that President Obama reads PCI Fossil Fuels Fellow David Hughes' essay, "Hydrocarbons in North America" (published as Chapter 17 of 'The Post Carbon Reader'). In fact, every U.S. elected official would do well to read this brief and engaging analysis of our current and projected energy future.
Please feel free to email your elected representatives a copy of Hughes' work along with a friendly note encouraging them to more deeply explore the tricky nature of our energy predicament. You can use this link to quickly find email addresses, but keep in mind a more personal appeal will likely receive more attention.
In other news . . .
the end of growth
Post Carbon Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg is putting the finishing touches on his new book The End of Growth, which is set for publication by New Society Publishers in July 2011. Given the urgency and fragility of the global economic crisis, we are serializing the draft content as Richard writes it. Follow Richard's writing process through Facebook and Twitter accounts created expressly for this publication.
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The Sound of Air Escaping
If the previous chapter had been written as a novel, one wouldn't have to read long before concluding that it is a story unlikely to end well. But it is not just a story, it is a description of the system in which our lives and the lives of everyone we care about are embedded... Read more |
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Limits to Debt
With regard to debt, what are those limits likely to be and how close are we to hitting them? A good place to start the search for an answer would be with an exploration of how we have managed to grow our debt so far... Read more |
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Stimulus Duds, Bailout Blanks
In response to the financial crisis, governments and central banks have undertaken a series of extraordinary, dramatic measures. In this section we will focus primarily on the U.S... Read more |
the post carbon reader
January saw the release of further exclusive articles from our brand new book the Post Carbon Reader.
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ENERGY: Hydrocarbons in North America
Report by David Hughes • January 24, 2011
The sheer scale of our dependency on nonrenewable, energy-dense "fossilized sunshine" is often lost on those who believe that renewable energy sources can supplant hydrocarbons at anything like today's level of energy consuption... Read more |
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BIODIVERSITY: Peak Nature?
Report by Stephanie Mills • January 3, 2011
As it has grown in numbers and technological might, the human race has become a force of geophysical proportion, on par with the asteroid that struck the Yucatan during the Cretaceous era, dethroning Tyrannosaurus rex... Read more |
latest publications
Read, watch or listen to the latest content by our Fellows, Board, Advisers and Staff anytime on our website. Here are some selections from the last month:
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Obama's Sputnik Moment: Strategy Over Substance
Post by Asher Miller • January 27, 2011
Did you hear anything surprising in Obama's State of the Union address last night? Anything truly visionary? Me neither. Of course, that wasn't the point. The SOTU was a continuation of what appears to be a strategic move to the political center... Read more |
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Global Green Cities Preview
Post by Warren Karlenzig • November 24, 2011
From Singapore's high tech congestion management system to New York's PlaNYC 2030 to Yokohama's zero-carbon emissions goal, the future greening of cities is becoming our global "Plan A" for survival... Read more |
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Desalination: Unlocking Lessons from Yesterday's Solution (part 1)
Post by Debbie Cook • January 18, 2011
There is powerful information waiting to be unleashed in water data. If it were set free it would force us to re-think how we use, develop, sell, transfer, and dispose of water... Read more |
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Don't Worry; They'll Just Change the Rules
Post by Chris Martenson • January 14, 2011
To anyone paying the slightest bit of attention, these remain very uncertain and trying times. On one side of the intellectual divide are the folks who are counting on deflationary forces overwhelming the normal credit-operated machinery of modern life... Read more |
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The Globe's Limitations: How Peak Oil Threatens Economic Growth
Video featuring Richard Heinberg • January 12, 2011
This video is the first expert evidence from a new series by The Nation on 'Peak Oil and the Changing Climate'... Watch |
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The Queensland flood is coming to your neighborhood
Article by Tom Whipple • January 6, 2011
The news this week that about one-third of Australia's coal production has been halted by massive flooding in the state of Queensland is an opportunity to look at the coal supply situation in Asia and the impact it could have on global energy prices... Read more |
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History's Wake-up Call for the Greenhouse Century
Post by Sandra Postel • January 6, 2011
In early December, as I motored away from Sky Harbor International Airport in Phoenix, Arizona, I glimpsed a sign for the Hohokam Expressway...As I proceeded to drive...I couldn't help but wonder whether the fate of modern Phoenicians would ultimately mirror that of the enterprising Hohokam... Read more |
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TEDX: 3 stories of local eco-entrepreneurship
Video featuring Majora Carter • January 5, 2011
Majora offers inspiration with 3 stories of local eco-entrepreneurship... Watch |
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fellows and advisers in the press
energy bulletin highlights
Below is a selection of recent articles and media appearing on Energy Bulletin. Energy Bulletin is now on facebook. Come joins us there!
energy bulletin featured articles
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Resource revolts: the year of living dangerously
by Michael T. Klare, TomDispatch.com
Get ready for a rocky year. From now on, rising prices, powerful storms, severe droughts and floods, and other unexpected events are likely to play havoc with the fabric of global society, producing chaos and political unrest...Read more |
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Changing the frequency
by Charlotte Du Cann, Transition Norwich Blog
In one of the last entries for 2010 on Transition Culture Rob Hopkins posts his interview with Christopher Alexander, a discussion of the links between A Pattern Language and the new Transition ingredients....Read more |
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An old commons-based solution to a 21st century crisis
by Randall Amster, On the Commons
Life here in the desert southwest is richly complex and oftentimes a great challenge. A hint of frontier culture remains even as rampant growth and homogenization take hold at breakneck speed.... Read more |
energy bulletin featured media
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Peak Moment 187: Filmmaker Jon Cooksey ("How to Boil a Frog")
by Yuba Gals Independent Media, Peak Moment Television
Filmmaker Jon Cooksey is one funny guy, even while presenting the most serious problems facing humanity. In this fast-paced conversation, he gallops all over the map with five big problems, five big solutions... Watch |
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The food bubble
by Alex Smith, Radio Ecoshock
You have seen food prices going up at the local grocery store. That could be just the beginning. According to Lester Brown, a leading expert in both the environment and world agriculture... Listen |
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We need freedom of action to confront peak oil
by Nicole Foss, The Nation and On Earth Productions
Foss talks about what she calls a "false positive feedback loop," which involves optimism leading to "caution being thrown to the wind."... Watch |
transition US update
A monthly update from the US regional hub of the international Transition movement.
 We're hitting the ground running this year and we're grateful to be collaborating with such amazing people and projects all over the world. Thanks to Transition Voice for naming us as one of their "Unsung peak oil heroes of 2010." Catch Karen Lanphear of Sandpoint Transition Initiative in Idaho on NPR Marketplace talking about 'what individual cities are doing about climate change' and 'how communities are tackling climate change without politics.' (Download MP3).
Save The Date - May 14-15, 2011 - Last May Transition Initiatives and other community groups across Sonoma County, California, mobilized to plant 350 gardens in one weekend. At the end of the day over 600 projects were completed! This year Transition US is taking this challenge truly national. In coming months we will be working closely with local organizations to make it easy to bring this challenge to your community. Watch the video of last year's 350 Garden Challenge. Browse the map to find an initiative near you. |
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events
View our events calendar
 BALLE webinar: Introduction to Community Capital Strategies and Solutions
February 1, 2011, Online seminar
This first in a series of webinars is hosted by Michael Shuman, BALLE Research & Economic Development Director and Don Shaffer, President & CEO of RSF Social Finance.
Further event information. |
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 Energy Security and Sustainability on a Finite Planet
February 2, 2011, Guelph, Canada
Transition Guelph is hosting this public talk by Post Carbon Fellow David Hughes...
Further event information. |
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 Systems Thinking, Food Systems, and Leadership: Solving for Pattern
February 3, 2011, Albuquerque, NM
Post Carbon Fellow Zenobia Barlow's "Systems Thinking, Food Systems, and Leadership: Solving for Pattern," explores the implications for health policy of the foundational concepts on which the work of the Center for Ecoliteracy is based.
Further event information. |
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 Powering the Future in a Finite World
February 3, 2011, Toronto, Canada
Post Carbon Fellow David Hughes will present at this public event organised by Post Carbon Toronto at Toronto City Hall.
Further event information. |
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 Post Carbon Century: From Global Crisis to Community Resilience
February 10, 2011, Denver, CO
Post Carbon Programme Director Daniel Lerch will give this talk as part of the CU Denver College of Architecture and Planning Spring Lecture Series.
Further event information. |
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 If a Culture of Growth is Unsustainable, What Needs to Change?
February 19, 2011, Buffalo, NY
Post Carbon Fellow Bill Rees will be one of the participants in this symposium featuring an interdisciplinary cast of speakers from fields that span the social and natural sciences.
Further event information. |
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 Biochar: A Carbon-Negative Solution from the Distant Past
March 1, 2011, Missoula, MT
Post Carbon Fellow Gloria Flora will speak as part of this series, co-sponsored by UM’s Wilderness Institute and Climate Change Studies program
Further event information. |
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 Building Energy 11
March 8-10, 2011, Boston, MA
Post Carbon Fellow David Orr will be the keynote speaker at this sustainable building and renewable energy event. David will be speaking on Wednesday morning.
Further event information. |
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 Momentum 2011
March 10, 2011, Minneapolis MN
Post Carbon Fellow Majora Carter simultaneously takes on public health, poverty and climate change adaptation as one of the nation's pioneers of environment-centered urban renewal and green-collar job training and placement.
Further event information. |
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 XVIIITH International Conference of the Society for Human Ecology
April 20-23, 2011, MonteLago Village Resort, NV
Post Carbon Fellow Stephanie Mills will be one of the keynotes speakers at the conference. The conference will examine the status of, and current challenges facing, human ecology around the world.
Further event information. |
Image credit: Huntington Beach — Flickr/paige_eliz
Image credit: Illustration of Hohokam irrigation by Peter V. Bianchi |
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