 We've been gearing up this past month for the release of Richard Heinberg's next book, Blackout: Coal, Climate and the Last Energy Crisis, which will published in June by New Society Publishers. His schedule has kept him busy with presentations and interviews, including one we feature this month with the Italian magazine Consapevole. Richard will be speaking in New York City and Washington, D.C. in late June as part of the book launch — check our events calendar for the latest venues and times.
Our growing team of Fellows has kept busy, too. Bill McKibben is on a round-the-world tour promoting the 350.org campaign, the October 24th Global Day of Action on Climate, and the need to build a global movement on climate change. Rob Hopkins and Daniel Lerch are featured in a newly-released DVD of The Powerdown Show, a 10-episode series by Ireland's Cultivate Centre on the Transition movement. And Dave Hughes and Bill Rees are both featured in interviews with Canadian publications.
As usual we feature news from our friends at Transition US and selections from our partner websites Energy Bulletin and Global Public Media. And be sure to check out the Post Carbon Bookstore Spring Blowout Sale before it ends on Thursday June 4th: 40-65% off all items, including Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty and the ever-popular Oil Age Poster.
Also, we're putting out a call for volunteer translation checkers. If you speak Italian, Croatian, Czech, or French fluently and would like to offer a couple hours of your time, read on.
But first, we're pleased to announce further additions to our team of Fellows...
Contents
1. New Fellows & Advisors
As part of Post Carbon's new direction, we're adding more experts to our team to help people make sense of the global challenges at hand. We're pleased to welcome the following colleagues as our newest Post Carbon Fellows and Advisors:
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New Fellows
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David Orr is the Paul Sears Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Senior Advisor to the President of Oberlin College. David is the author of six books, including the widely praised Ecological Literacy (1992) and Earth in Mind (1994/2004); and Down to the Wire: Confronting Climate Collapse. |
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Michael Shuman is Director of Research and Public Policy at the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies (BALLE). Michael has authored, coauthored, or edited seven books, including The Small Mart Revolution (2006) and Going Local (1998). |
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Anthony Perl is Director of the Urban Studies Program at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, British Columbia. He has authored or co-authored four books, most recently Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil (2008). |
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New Advisors
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Colin J. Campbell is the founder of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (ASPO). He has served in executive positions with Shenandoah Oil, Amoco, and Fina, and was Chairman of the Nordic American Oil Company. As a leading expert on oil depletion, he has lectured and published widely, writing five books on the subject, the latest being Oil Crisis (2005). |
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James Howard Kunstler is the author of four non-fiction works, including his ground-breaking book on the peak oil crisis, The Long Emergency (2005). His most recent work is the fictional World Made by Hand, a novel of America's post-oil future. |
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Richard Gilbert is a former Toronto City Councillor and a consultant focusing on transport and energy issues. His most recent book, written with Anthony Perl, is Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil (2008). |
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2. New Content by Post Carbon Staff
Read and listen to the latest content by our Fellows, Board and Staff anytime on the front page of our website Here are some selections from the last month:
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Somebody's Gotta Do It
Commentary by Richard Heinberg • May 4, 2009
Hi. My job is trying to save the world, and I'd like to tell you a little about my line of work. It's not all a bed of roses. The biggest problems with trying to save the world are: first, that it doesn't always seem to want to be saved; and second, that those of us trying to save it can't agree on why it needs saving or how to go about doing so. Let me explain... Read more |
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Giù nel picco? Mi ci ficco
Interview of Richard Heinberg • April 2009
I believe that life can be better without fossil fuels and without economic growth in the forms we are familiar with. Instead of increasing our population and our consumption of resources, we could be increasing our quality of life—better public health, environmental quality, and greater cultural richness. It is simply a matter of what we aim for and how we measure 'progress'... Read more |
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To Plan for Emergency, or Not? Heinberg and Hopkins debate
Commentary by Rob Hopkins • May 27, 2009
For a while now, Richard and I have been discussing the tension between longer term planning for resilience and the more immediate and pressing responses demanded by sudden and rapid change. It is still an ongoing discussion, but we thought now would be a good time to open up the conversation for your thoughts. What follows is the series of email exchanges we have had since late last year... Read more |
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3. Post Carbon Fellows in the Media
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Bill McKibben on building a climate action movement
Yale Environment 360
Author Bill McKibben first warned about global warming and its implications for the planet in his 1989 book, The End of Nature. In an interview with Yale Environment 360 editor Roger Cohn, McKibben described why he is working full time on the issue, why he thinks a citizens' movement is essential... Read more
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'The Powerdown Show' DVD now available
The Powerdown Show is a 10-part video series made to accompany a unique active learning course by Cultivate Centre (Ireland): "Community Powerdown - Training for Leadership, Livelihoods and Local Resilience." These accessible 20-minute episodes feature engaging animated sequences, and interviews with Post Carbon Fellow Rob Hopkins, Post Carbon Program Director Daniel Lerch, and other experts... Read more | Sample an episode
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An Inconvenient Talk
The Walrus (Canada)
Dave Hughes has a lot to say about hydrocarbons, mainly how there's no possible way to keep running the engine of a modern global economy for much longer at the pace we're burning them. Which is why you felt compelled to join him in the black chill of this late-autumn morning. Because that seems like a pretty big deal...Read more
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'Greenest city' plan touts economic growth
The Vancouver Courier
University of British Columbia professor Bill Rees adjusts his eyeglasses, strokes his salt-and-pepper beard and leans forward to speak. "Society hasn't faced the fact that the economy has to shrink," says Rees, in the rehearsed manner of a veteran lecturer. "We should be in a planned recession, not the full blown uncontrolled collapse as it is right now..." Read more |
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4. Transition United States
A monthly update from our friends at Transition US.
 In May we welcomed two new board members: David Johnson and Michael Brownlee, as well as four new Official Transition Initiatives: Paso Robles, CA, Portland (PDX), OR, San Luis Obispo, CA, Hohenwald, TN. The total number of US initiatives is now twenty-five. Learn more about the first steps to Transition, and read a couple of reports from Sustainable NE Seattle, our 19th Transition Initiative, and Let's Live Local, our 11th Transition Initiative.
On May 22-24, about 350 Transitioners from around the world (including representatives from the US) gathered at the Battersea Arts Centre in London for the fully-booked 2009 Transition Conference, where the premiere of the film "In Transition" was featured.
Working in pairs, our twenty-one US Trainers are looking forward to sharing their knowledge and expertise and have been busily making arrangements for Trainings with communities across the country. Learn more about what it takes to host a Training course and see a list of all upcoming Trainings.
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5. Energy Bulletin
A selection of articles appearing at our partner site Energy Bulletin this month.
Pace yourself
by Brandon Marshall |
Have you ever been immersed in an endeavor; so completely engaged in one particular activity or area of study that your field of view narrowed to the exclusion of most everything else? For better or worse, historically, I've tended toward that approach. The engineering curriculum provided me the opportunity for immersion... Read more
Photo: Phototropism/flickr |
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Halve it!
by Sharon Astyk |
| If you are new to trying to lower your impact, or just trying to save money and energy, it can be helpful to think in terms not of giving things up, but of halving them - using a combination of techniques to stretch things out a bit, and let you use or need only half as much. Because everything you halve, means half as much pollution, half as much waste, half as much money... Read more |
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When the oil gives out
by Theodore Roszak |
| One way to evaluate the prospects of Eldertown might be to start from the viewpoint of one of the more apocalyptic environmental groups. The peak oil movement focuses tightly on the issue of energy, the Achilles heel of industrial society. Convinced that global oil production will soon peak — or perhaps already has — the peak oilers... Read more |
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6. Global Public Media
A selection of articles appearing at our partner site Global Public Media this month.
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Reality Report: Peter Lawrence and Jim Merkel
As the economy shrinks so does our consumption. Do we view this as a bad thing or an opportunity? Jim Merkel, (author of Radical Simplicity: Small Footprints on a Finite Earth) and Peter Lawrence (author of The Happy Minimalist) chose to earn less money and live more simply. We'll find out how they do it, and how they like it on the "Reality Report." |
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Crop to Cuisine: Slow Money
In this episode of "Crop To Cuisine," we connect the dots between out outdated and broken economic system and our food system. We speak with founder of the Slow Money Alliance, Woody Tasch. We also visit a local farm to see how Slow Money principles can take shape and sustain a farm well into the future. We also hear from Master Gardener Carol O'Meara as the gardening season takes off. |
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Peak Moment: Corporate Couple Become Permaculture Activists
Asking "wouldn't it be wonderful if our city could feed itself?" Joe Leitch imagines if everybody in Portland, Oregon planted a chestnut tree. Pam Leitch relates how they both left the corporate world after reading the book Your Money or Your Life. As educators on sustainability and resource depletion, permaculture and social justice, they soon learned of Peak Oil. Episode 143. |
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Peak Moment: Local Living Economies - Protecting What We Love Judy Wicks' love of place, and of animals, has made widening ripples on a global scale. She has gone on to found BALLE (Business Alliance for Local Living Economies), a national network of sustainable, small businesses that promote going local. Episode 144. |
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7. Translation Checkers Needed!
We're looking for volunteer fluent speakers of foreign languages to check translations that have been done of some of our written works. If you are a fluent speaker of Italian, Czech, Croatian, or French and would like to spend an hour or two spot-checking one of these translations for accuracy, please contact Daniel Lerch, Program Director.
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