|
Termination of the fossil-fuels society
Written by Jan Lundberg
Culture Change Letter #108 - August 11, 2005
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=
view&id=21&Itemid=2.html#cont
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Based on today's intensifying trends, warning signs and an understanding of history, one must be ready to see the fossil-fueled phase come to an end most abruptly. When common practices cannot be maintained and too many people suddenly scurry for scant supplies, the desired resource dries up. This causes ramifications that quickly compound whatever triggered the crisis.
At this writing, crude oil futures have passed the $65/barrel mark. In this column we have been anticipating heavier, rapid changes to economics and social order: petrocollapse (see previous reports).
Fossil-fueled civilization has spanned all of modern times, even though its reign will have been short. But its length has been the most damaging event in the planet's history during humans' existence. To really fix today's vast, complex, fossil-fuel-based problem, the culture that created it must be eliminated. Forces beyond anyone's control will bring this about.
What will we be left with? Forget Walmart, celebrities' plastic smiles, and another $286 billion to pave over more good land. Finally! "The Revolution will not be televised," as the Last Poets advised three and a half decades ago.
One does not look forward to no lights, refrigeration and what have you. Those who anticipate a future without "universal" material luxuries should not be considered bent on depriving others of what are called necessities in the U.S., although most of the rest of the world does without them. However, if the petroleum-dependent societies are going to revert to what is really the long-term norm -- that of subsistence farming and very low energy use, as predicted recently by writers such as James Howard Kunstler and Richard Heinberg -- it can only be healthy to anticipate the coming absence of appliances and whatever else passes for wealth in the consumer economy.
Not only have global warming and a massive wave of extinction been irrevocably launched; a road-based transportation mode has overrun much of the planet, and petrochemicals are an unmitigated disaster despite their convenience and versatility. An overall replacement for the dysfunctional fossil-fueled system is the honoring of the Earth's natural processes that provided wise tribes with the wherewithal to live for millennia. This statement is a heresy to those who love today's cities and who therefore would only reform our terminal civilization. It is as if their fossil-fuel tradition is deeply rooted.
Much of what passes for nice and proper in today's fossil-fueled culture is unworthy of preservation. Most of the world's people are assaulted daily by commercialism and toxicity as an extension of capitalistic exploitation. When the effects of runaway technology are seen as an assault on nature and they isolate humans into being consumers, "the baby needs to be thrown out with the bath water." This does not at all mean cutting our own throats if we are committed to positive change. In fact, there are helpful if daring steps to take now (read on).
To sketch in the details of what could be tomorrow's Utopia is useful but not the task of this essay. Visions from Culture Change and others such as Ecocity Builders, and the eco-village and permaculture movements are making the attempt. It is as if we are in a dark night trying to describe a new place the dawn will bring, and we are unable to see what the landscape will look like or how populated it will be. We must leave assumptions behind, particularly if they are the product of a failed system of a dying culture.
Even if we cherish certain aspects of civilization, e.g., an impressive city such as Paris, perhaps very little can survive petrocollapse. So it serves us well to reject the basic concept of fossil-fueled (and, by extension, nuclear-powered) civilization. If we trace its creation, fossil-fueled society had to do with generating maximum profits via boom and bust development and subjugation of peoples and their environments. If we think about the purposes and benefits of fossil fueled civilization, the price is too high. The main march of history must end and give way to an entirely new sense of respect for all humanity and all living things.
To get on with terminating the planet-threatening fossil-fueled lifestyle and the built infrastructure strangling the world, we should first list some absurdities that negate the "progress" of fossil-fueled civilization:
- shipping food thousands of miles
- loss of self-sufficiency in food, water, medicines, etc. in one's home region
- killing abroad for oil
- the holocaust of global car crashes
- loss of hand-craft skills
- commodifying life's essentials that had always been free
- effects of crowding such as diminished freedoms
Wind energy and other "renewables" have been available since before petrocollapse appeared certain, but renewables have failed to gain a significant foothold. Now it is too late to revamp the whole economy. More meaningful action than the technofix is required immediately, and more technology would primarily extend the status quo. Those who imagine that universal hot running water and ubiquitous computers are necessary for life believe we must preserve our technical accomplishments at all costs.
In truth, the imperative to terminate fossil-fueled civilization is the greatest adventure today and perhaps ever in history. As the fall of this civilization is already starting -- no matter if China, for example, serves to maximize global consumption -- the encouragement of inevitable change is an opportunity for positive creativity.
In our lives, changes often impact us badly when we are unprepared. But when a conscious change is undertaken to advance one's desired goals, there is more control and enjoyment. Julia Butterfly told the Auto-Free Times, in her first cover-story interview by a national magazine, that some people wait to have "change hit them upside the head like a two-by-four." Taking risks for changing one's life can be hazardous, but how can eliminating fossil-fueled dependence be a risk? Clinging to massive energy use in an overpopulated world, by enacting only a Kyoto-Protocol level of change, for example, is a scientifically understood formula for failure of our precious, delicate, common global climate.
In the absence of any activist group with courage that enjoys a mass support base, individual and affinity-group actions are required to strike at the fossil-fueled beast by demonstrating low-energy-consumption living. Additionally, high-profile monkey-wrenching that does not smack of terrorism can serve to educate.
A tiny list:
- Potatoes stuck into exhaust pipes are a harmless but clear statement if a note explaining the action is placed on the windshield. Motorists would get the message and tell others.
- By the same token, bicycle riders should be given hugs, gifts and reverence.
- Preparedness drills should be carried out whereby a community's food or water supply is cut temporarily, of course with the consent of all concerned, to dramatize today's extreme dependencies.
- disruption of school classes and other institutional meetings should be undertaken to speak extemporaneously about the peak of global oil extraction and the implications for business-as-usual. There are artful ways of doing this, if we take the example of the Yippies who burned dollar bills in public and kissed each other during university lectures devoted to maintaining the loveless status quo.
Why must this urgent approach take precedence over the possibility of reforming the system from within? The global economy is the enemy if it runs on polluting fuels and sets people up for devastating deprivation once petroleum shortage hits "without warning." Therefore, a John Kerry presidency upholding "free" trade agreements and pledging to keep subsidizing the price of gasoline is a non-starter.
Daniel Quinn wrote in his 1999 book Beyond Civilization that programs serve the (flawed) system and do not offer a replacement vision. So nothing substantial is fixed. What I got for the first time, from this book and two of his other great books of our time, The Story of B and My Ishmael, is a clear sense that reforms and programs do not solve the inherent flaws of civilization and our unjust society. A new vision or a better model, in place of the existing social system, is the only sensible course.
Quinn points out that a culture's visions are more powerful than programs, and that both visions and programs can turn out ugly. Programs attempt to protect the environment, for example, but only to keep it from becoming even more degraded than it is. Programs can be essential but ultimately inadequate because they are essentially reactive: "...they only make bad things less bad. They don't bring into being something good, they only drag their feet against something bad... If there's no new vision for us at the end of the road then we are going to die, because programs (useful as they are) just don't have the capacity to keep us alive indefinitely."
Can the word "reforms" be substituted for "programs"? To write this essay, I asked him what he might have on the subject of reform in his books. He refreshed my mind that he had instead written about programs and vision. He refered me to his theme-index for his books at the end of Beyond Civilization, which I recommend to anyone. I reread today with pleasure some of his observations:
"The tribe, in fact, is just a wonderfully efficient social organization that renders making a living easy for all -- unlike civilization, which renders it easy for a privileged few and hard for the rest... The tribal way isn't [necessarily] the right way, it's just a way that worked for millions of years, in contrast to the hierarchal way, which has brought us face to face with extinction after a mere ten thousand years."
The original title of this essay was "Ending the idiotic fossil-fuels existence". I altered it to "Termination of the fossil-fuels society" for the sake of credibility. I originally flashed on this whole concept while sitting in a restaurant on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley. I had a very odd feeling about our civilization, a feeling which very few people probably ever had a number of years ago. Things are more absurd every day. When one takes a serious look around at society's set up, the overwhelming madness is clear. For example, one of the mind-blowing mini-analyses of our materialist culture is what Daniel Quinn pointed out: the food is locked up. What's hard for many to grasp is how, if society and Western Civilization do work, more reforms and programs are inadequate and even may be the wrong approach at this hour in our deepening dilemma.
What is idiotic is the pursuit of the "unending" existence of fossil-fueled society, in all manifestations: electronic music, plastic tables, natural-gas heated food, SUVs powering noisily by, and, craziest and saddest of all, thinking that maybe this is heading in a good direction someday somehow.
I want culture change not just because I want to see the ecosystem saved for biodiversity. I want community which will help save the ecosystem and see social justice, and I want people to enjoy their time on Earth. Fossil-fueled culture gave up community and can barely help itself address real problems. If you want culture change too, tell others.
Links and further reading:
Petrocollapse: Culture Change Letter #101: http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=14&Itemid=2
"End-time for USA come oil collapse"(CCL #100): http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=6&Itemid=2
Plan B package: "Preparations and policies for petrocollapse and climate distortion" (CCL #104): http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=17&Itemid=2
"Surfing the tsunami of change: following up with Plan B preparations" (CCL #105): http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task
=view&id=18&Itemid=2
Plan B Project: http://www.planbproject.org
Citizen Petroleum Councils (Culture Change Letter #11): http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-11cont.html
Daniel Quinn's website: http://ishmael.org
The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler, Atlantic Monthly Press, 2005, New York, NY. www.groveatlantic.com
Peak Oil and Community Solutions - second annual conference, Sept. 23, 2005, Jan Lundberg and Richard Heinberg among speakers. Yellow Springs, Ohiohttp://www.communitysolution.org/05conf1.html
Julia Butterfly Hill's Circle of Life foundation: http://circleoflife.org
To donate to Culture Change, please visit http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm
(secure on-line donating)
Previous Culture Change Letters:
http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-archive.html
[Key quote: "Indeed scientists in Alaska are already studying migratory
birds for avian flu, as migrating fowl from both Asia and America cross
paths in Alaska. "We could potentially have overlap of viral strains
from the Americas and Asia," Jonathan Runstadler, at the University of
Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology, US, told the Associated
Press." Pay attention.
This disease is getting legs... or wings. -- MCR]
Deadly bird flu found across Asia
16:55 11 August 2005
NewScientist.com news service
Shaoni Bhattacharya
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7834
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
Avian influenza is sweeping across Asia, killing birds in Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia. And the strains found in Russia and Kazakhstan are the deadly H5N1 virus, say officials.
Furthermore, the strain found in Russia appears to be the same genetic sub-type as that recently found in migratory birds in China – hinting the virus could be carried much farther, possibly even to Europe and the Americas.
Thailand , Cambodia, Vietnam and Indonesia have suffered 57 human deaths from the H5N1 virus out of 112 cases, according to the latest figures from the World Health Organization on 5 August. On Wednesday, the world animal health body, the OIE also said bird flu had spread to the Tibet region of China.
And on Monday, Mongolia confirmed cases of the H5 virus as 80 wild ducks, geese and swans were found dead. “The H5N1 outbreak in wild birds appears to have extended its range to include Western Mongolia,” writes Peter Cowen, at the College of Veterinary Medicine, North Carolina State University and animal disease assistant-moderator of ProMed Mail, an infectious diseases mailing list.
“Previous reports have located an H5N1 virus in both Russia and Kazakhstan, some 1000 kilometres west. It would be very important to determine whether all three outbreaks have a similar genetic composition,” he adds.
“Highly pathogenic”
The Russian outbreak, in the Novosibirsk region of Siberia, started on 23 July, and tests show it is H5N1. “The preliminary results of sequencing show that the isolate can be considered highly pathogenic,” says a report (pdf format) sent from the Russian ministry of agriculture and food to the OIE on 5 August.
The laboratory results in the report further reveal that the Russian strain appears to be the same as previous pathogenic strains of bird flu seen in China and Hong Kong.
Genetic sequencing of a particular fragment of the virus relating to its virulence shows it is “analogous to the sequence of the highly virulent [H5N1 sub-type] found in three species of migratory water birds during the epidemic in May and June on Qinghai Lake in China, writes Evgueny Nepoklonov, head of the main veterinary department at the Russian ministry.
Sequence data from virus that infected a turkey in the Novosibirsk village of Suzdalka, links the virus back to even older outbreaks: “According to the sequence data, the cleavage site structure is practically identical to that of the highly pathogenic strain of sub-type H5N1 isolated in Hong Kong in 1997,” says the Russian report.
The turkey virus was also subjected to a phylogenetic analysis, which shows evolutionary history, of a crucial flu gene - the neuraminidase gene. This provides additional evidence of link to the Chinese migratory bird outbreak. “The preliminary data on the neuraminidase structure show that it is practically identical to that of the isolate from bar-headed geese (Anser indicus) from Qinghai Lake,” says Nepoklonov.
Transmission routes
This suggests the virus could be spread by migratory birds. Previously this had been thought unlikely, with a more probable explanation believed to be that infected wild fowl got the virus from locally infected poultry after landing.
Craig Pringle, viral diseases moderator for ProMed Mail cautions that although the virus has been found in migratory birds, it is a leap to assume they can spread it to domestic poultry. He told New Scientist that it is possible the virus could have reached Russia and Kazakhstan through general trade routes.
But if migratory birds are spreading H5N1, the concern is it could spread around the globe. Indeed scientists in Alaska are already studying migratory birds for avian flu, as migrating fowl from both Asia and America cross paths in Alaska. “We could potentially have overlap of viral strains from the Americas and Asia,” Jonathan Runstadler, at the University of Alaska Fairbanks Institute of Arctic Biology, US, told the Associated Press.
He and his colleagues are to take intestinal swabs from 5000 birds of 25 species throughout the state for testing. But no Alaskan migratory birds have ever shown signs of bird flu, note the scientists.
Concerns that bird flu could spread to western Europe via migratory birds were discussed by scientists at a meeting organised by Switzerland’s Federal Veterinary Office on Tuesday in Bern. They concluded that although two infected bird species – the pochard and tufted duck – do migrate to Switzerland from Eurasia, they were unlikely to bring the virus.
Even if sick birds did survive the long journey to Switzerland, they were unlikely to come into close contact with humans or poultry, the scientists concluded.
Top Shiite Politician Joins Call for Autonomous South Iraq
August 12, 2005
By EDWARD WONG
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/12/international/middleeast/12iraq.html?
ei=5090&en=01f1e5a6e81ffbad&ex=1281499200&partner=rssuserland&emc=
rss&pagewanted=print
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Aug. 11 - One of Iraq's most powerful Shiite politicians on Thursday strongly backed demands for the formation of a semi-independent region in the oil-rich south, adding fresh turmoil to the drafting of a new constitution as the deadline for its completion draws near.
The politician, Abdul-Aziz al-Hakim, a religious Shiite with close ties to Iran, told a large gathering in the holy city of Najaf that it was "necessary" for Shiite Arabs to secure broad governing powers for the south, which is dominated by the Shiites and was long oppressed under the rule of Saddam Hussein.
Mr. Hakim has been holding direct talks with other Iraqi leaders over the new constitution, and his remarks signaled a sharpening of the position held by some Shiites just four days before the document is scheduled to be finished.
The issue of autonomous regions has become the biggest sticking point in the negotiations. Kurdish leaders, intent on preserving the broad powers of Iraqi Kurdistan in the north, have been the biggest proponents of regional autonomy, while the formerly governing Sunni Arabs, fearing an unfair division of oil resources, have adamantly rejected the idea.
Some Sunni Arab leaders on Thursday immediately denounced Mr. Hakim's call for a semi-independent southern region and said it would now be hard to finish the constitution on time.
"I don't think we will reach an agreement in four days," said Fakhri al-Qaisi, a Sunni Arab member of the 71-member constitutional committee. "There's no agreement between any of the groups. All the doors have closed. The Kurds have insisted on their demands. The Shia insist on their demands."
Until now, Shiite religious leaders in Baghdad had spoken broadly of moderate regional powers. Mr. Hakim's comments lent support to stronger demands for autonomy by mostly secular Shiite politicians in the south. "To keep the political balance of the country, Iraq should be ruled under a federal system next to the central government," Mr. Hakim told thousands of worshipers, many of whom waved green flags, a symbol of Shiite Islam. "We think it is necessary to form one entire region in the south."
Mr. Hakim's remarks followed a meeting he had Wednesday in Najaf with Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the most revered Shiite cleric in Iraq. The ayatollah told Shiite politicians last week that he supported the concept of autonomy, though he did not make specific recommendations.
Throughout the drafting of the constitution, the country's major ethnic and sectarian groups have bargained hard on a variety of matters, but no single issue has inspired more frustration or ill will than the definition of regional powers. Mr. Hakim's remarks highlighted the division just days before the Aug. 15 deadline, when the National Assembly is supposed to approve a draft of the constitution, paving the way for a popular referendum on the document in October and national elections in December.
The Bush administration has put enormous pressure on the Iraqis to stick to the timetable, in hopes that the process will help drain the Sunni Arab insurgency of some of its wrath and bolster flagging American opinion about the war in Iraq.
Mr. Qaisi, the Sunni leader, said Sunni Arabs could not approve of the creation of autonomous regions, as in a confederation, because that would lead to a breakup of Iraq. "We want the unity of Iraq," he said, "and we want to preserve this unity."
The guerrilla war continued to roil the country on Wednesday, as Iraqi officials reported that at least seven people, including three Iraqi soldiers and an intelligence officer, had been killed. The American military said a marine died in a roadside bomb explosion in Ramadi on Wednesday, and an unmanned aerial drone crashed near the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday night.
An Iraqi official involved in the trial of Mr. Hussein and his aides said Thursday that the tribunal was getting closer to setting a firm date. The tribunal is expected to give Mr. Hussein's lawyers a definite date at the end of this month, and the official said the trial would almost certainly take place in mid-October at the earliest. Once a date is set, Mr. Hussein's lawyers will be given at least 45 days to prepare, said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because tribunal officials are supposed to limit their public statements.
The movement for southern autonomy that Mr. Hakim supports has been gathering momentum over the summer. Politicians in the south, particularly in the city of Basra, have been lobbying drafters of the constitution to enshrine the right of provinces in Iraq to break off into autonomous regions, similar to Iraqi Kurdistan. The south could profit enormously from such an arrangement - it has 80 to 90 percent of Iraq's vast oil reserves and the only ports in the country. Many southerners say they are frustrated that the central government in Baghdad does not allocate more oil revenue to their impoverished region.
Many of the Shiite politicians who initially backed the idea of southern autonomy are secular. The most powerful supporter has been Ahmad Chalabi, a vice prime minister and a former Pentagon favorite. Mr. Hakim is the first leading religious Shiite figure to lend his backing in such a public way.
Mr. Hakim's party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, founded in the 1980's in Iran, wields considerable power in Basra and the rest of the south. It heads a coalition that has a majority of the seats on the Basra governing council, and its armed wing, the Badr Organization, controls many of the senior positions in the Basra security forces. Religious Shiite mores have taken hold in Basra, and Mr. Hakim's portrait is plastered along streets and police checkpoints throughout the city.
Mr. Hakim's comments on Thursday came at a huge public gathering in Najaf marking the death of his older brother, Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, a much-loved cleric killed by a car bomb in August 2003.
Some Shiites have supported creating a region out of Al Basra Province and neighboring provinces, while others have pushed for a much larger region that would also encompass the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala.
But there are also Shiites who vehemently oppose any move toward autonomy. Moktada al-Sadr, the young rebel cleric who led two uprisings against the Americans last year, and Ayatollah Muhammad Yacoubi, another radical cleric with ties to Mr. Sadr, have both denounced the movement, saying it goes against the concept of central Islamic rule.
Abdul Razzaq al-Saiedy contributed reporting from Baghdad for this article, and an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Najaf.
Past the Peak
How the small town of Willits plans to beat the coming energy crisis
By R. V. Scheide
http://www.metroactive.com/papers/sonoma/08.10.05/willits-0532.html
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
A few miles north of Ukiah, Highway 101 shoots upward into Northern California's coastal mountain range, climbing and weaving up the Ridgewood Grade, leaving the vineyards of Mendocino County behind on the valley floor. The four-lane section of superslab peaks at Ridgewood Summit, the highest point on a road that stretches from Mexico to Canada. It then gently slides down into Little Lake Valley, where, at the first stop light on the highway north of the Golden Gate Bridge, it reaches the city center of Willits.
An enormous iron arch spans main street downtown; it once welcomed visitors to "the biggest little city in the world," Reno, Nev. It has since been repainted the green and red colors of Christmas and beckons visitors back to a simpler time.
Willits is a timber town. Weathered men in flannel shirts rumble by in four-wheel-drive pickups and logging trucks. The town boasts the longest continually operating rodeo in the United States. One of the local museums proudly displays steam-powered logging equipment. The Ridgewood Summit serves as a cultural as well as a geographic divide. This is where rural truly begins in Northern California.
But not all is as it seems in this rustic little town. Since at least the 1970s, the promise of a simpler life has lured a large number of Bay Area hippies, alternative types and other societal dropouts to the woods of Mendocino and Humboldt counties in what came to be known as the "back to the land" movement. These so-called ecotopians, many of whom are still around today, sought to escape what they saw as the pollution, corruption and dehumanization of modern urban life. Here in Willits, they battened down the hatches and waited for the end of the world.
It took a little while, but it appears that the end of the world has finally caught up to them.
Suburbia's End
A boyish 37-year-old with a Ph.D. in biology, Dr. Jason Bradford only relocated to Willits from Davis with his wife, Kristin, a medical doctor, and their two children last August. Initially interested in energy issues while studying climate change in the Andes several years ago, Bradford didn't really know what he was getting into when he decided to sponsor several screenings of The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of the American Dream just two months after arriving in town. Hosting a film that proclaims human civilization is going to run out of oil and is therefore doomed doesn't usually guarantee a visit from the welcome wagon. But then again, Willits isn't most towns. Bradford's initial invitation to view the film has blossomed into a popular movement that aims to, in the words of one member, "reinvent the town."
"Thirty people showed up the first time," he says. A number of people stayed to chat after the movie, and sensing local interest in the topic, he hosted another showing. Sixty people turned up that time. Ninety came to a third presentation. Bradford, who'd never really led anything larger than a small research team, could feel the momentum building. "Oh, shit!" he thought. "What do I do now?"
As it turned out, Bradford didn't have to do too much to keep the ball rolling, other than volunteering all of his spare time. That's because there's a current running through Willits that harmonizes exactly with what needs to be done to prepare for what petroleum experts call "peak oil." That current is supplied in part by the very same ecotopians who flocked to the region in the '70s. Under Bradford's leadership, they've teamed up with concerned professionals, local government officials and ordinary citizens to form the Willits Economics Localization (WELL) project. It appears to be one of the first civic groups in the United States dedicated to preparing for the coming energy crisis. But if other communities are to have any hope of retaining some semblance to the lifestyles they've grown accustomed to during the age of cheap oil, it definitely won't be the last.
Peakocalypse Now
Put simply, peak oil theory states that we've already burned through half the oil that ever existed. Competition for what remains will turn increasingly vicious as the supply dwindles, as we are already witnessing with higher prices at the gas pump and the increasing number of casualties in the Middle East, where the world's largest remaining oil reserves are located. At the current rate of consumption, some experts estimate that the remaining supply will be exhausted by 2042. When that happens, the world as we know it will certainly change and perhaps perish. Many experts are convinced that if we don't start conserving now, the end of oil may come even sooner.
That's where the back-to-the-landers come in. They may have dropped out, but they still needed to turn on. Problem was, PG&E didn't go out to the woods, and portable gas generators weren't quite as light and powerful in the '70s as they are today. So they turned to such alternative energy sources as wind and solar power. That legacy can be found in Willits today in such successful renewable energy businesses as the Applied Power Corporation and nonprofit research firms like the Renewable Energy Development Institute (REDI), which counts the city of Sacramento among its clients.
On a sizzling July afternoon, Bradford and the core members of WELL met at the REDI Haus--a 1950s home in downtown Willits refurbished with natural-fiber rugs and hemp window shades, and powered entirely by photovoltaic cells--where they prepared for that evening's community meeting. Most of WELL's core members are older than Bradford and have lived in Willits much longer. Brothers Richard and Phil Jergenson, inventors who've dreamed up products that include a life-sized erector set for adults, moved here in 1978. Phil is president of REDI; Richard has gained local fame with inventions such as the Sol Train, a solar-powered rail vehicle.
"We were fortunate to grow up when this was the book to have on your coffee table," says Richard, 54, slapping a dog-eared copy of the Whole Earth Catalog. He serves as one of the group's archivists, and his collection of Willits memorabilia includes a copy of the second issue of the locally published Mendocino Grapevine, featuring original tree-hugger cover art by R. Crumb, as well as fliers from the first Solar Expo and Rally in 1978, an event that eventually morphed into the Solar Living Center and Real Goods, the popular environmentally correct merchandise store in Hopland. He refers to WELL as "the usual gang of disgruntled individuals trying to change the world."
Lanny Cotler, 64, who describes himself as an "entrepreneur, revolutionary and successful Hollywood scriptwriter," fits right in with the gang and serves as its video archivist. You may have seen some of Cotler's work: The Earthling (1980), Backtrack (1990) and Heartwood (1998), the latter starring the late Jason Robards and set in a small town strangely similar to Willits. Ten years ago, Cotler began shopping around an idea for a sitcom, Off the Grid, based on "the kookiness of a town as it goes off the grid." He's still shopping it around today, but with the advent of peak oil, Cotler feels that "it would be more of a reality-based show now." At this evening's meeting, he's giving a presentation on the necessity for media outreach.
Thin, hawk-faced Brian Weller, 59, is the group's self-described "resident alien," a British native who's served as an organizational consultant for such major corporations as British Petroleum. Weller is extremely proficient at managing small- and large-group dynamics, a skill that has proven invaluable during WELL's first months of existence. When it comes to a topic as large and frightening as peak oil, he explains, "there are different scales of what people are able to think about. I'm helping WELL understand the process as an emerging social organization. This process will be achieved through people, and people have different perceptual filters and different agendas, both open and hidden."
Put another way, Weller means that the stakes are incredibly high. The consensus among peak oil experts is that the reduction in oil will translate into an enormous fall in global population, perhaps as much as an 80 percent decrease. (Keep in mind that cheap petroleum permeates the global economy, from transportation to manufacturing to agriculture to medicine.) Just prior to the 1992 Earth Summit in Brazil, President George H. W. Bush famously said, "The American way of life is not negotiable." Peak oil says everyone must give up something, a fact that can be difficult for individuals and groups to accept.
Ad-Hocracy
Weller helps facilitate communication when such hidden agendas block progress, ruffling as few feathers as possible. He's fond of noting that the Chinese ideogram for "crisis," weiji, is made up of two characters, one signifying danger and the other opportunity. He finds both elements present in the crisis presented by peak oil. "This is a trend that plays against the overall trend of globalization," he notes. "We feel there's been an erosion of well-integrated communities. We want to reinvent what it means to be a community."
With an abundance of such enlightened individuals in the Willits area, which has a total population of 15,000, why hasn't the community already prepared for the coming storm? The answer can be partially seen along the so-called miracle mile strip of highway south of town with its ubiquitous fast-food restaurants and strip malls defining the suburban American landscape. The same economic forces that have shaped the rest of post-WW II America have been hard at work in Willits.
"Only 5,287 people live in the city proper," Bradford elaborates. "Almost two-thirds of the population live sprawled out in the suburbs. We're a rural community with agricultural land, but none of that ag land feeds us. The average person commutes to work 28 miles per day."
As the core members of WELL discovered, such basic elements of modern suburban life are merely the tip of an enormous iceberg that shadows not just Willits, but the entire American way of life. The sheer size of the problem is intimidating, leaving only one logical solution: Chip the iceberg down to size.
From the first three showings of The End of Suburbia, Bradford attracted roughly 60 volunteers who were willing to turn up at meetings even when there wasn't a film being shown, even when it was pouring down rain. In many ways, they're a homogenous lot--mostly white, middle-class baby boomers--but they also represent a wide diversity of skills and viewpoints.
Bradford and the core members, working as a steering committee they jokingly refer to as an "ad-hocracy," originally identified 14 key areas of interest pertaining to peak oil and the community's survival that seemed to match up well with the interests of the overall membership. Eventually, these 14 areas were consolidated into six working groups: food, energy, shelter, water, health and wellness, and social organization.
"We need to figure out what we can do now, and what we can do in the future, when we don't have the resources coming in," says Brian Corzilius, 47, a core WELL member whose training as an electrical engineer landed him in the energy group. Working with energy-group members Richard and Phil Jergenson, as well as Willits City Council member Ron Orenstein and others, Corzilius helped conduct an "energy inventory" of Willits that provided the first snapshot of where the town is now--and how far it has to go.
Compiling existing data from companies and government agencies ranging from PG&E, the California Energy Commission, the Mendocino Air Quality Management District and the U.S. Department of Transportation, the group was able to determine that Willits uses more than 1,000 megawatt hours (MWh) of imported energy per day. Energy sources from outside the Willits area include propane, firewood, natural gas, electricity and--by far the largest slice of the imported energy pie--diesel and gasoline used for transportation. It appears that the 28 miles per day that the average Willits resident commutes costs the community a bundle in terms of money not spent in the immediate area.
"Annually, we have $30 million that leaves the area; 56 percent of that is for transportation," clarifies Corzilius. "Bring that money back, and you've got money to grow new local businesses." In turn, creating new local businesses reduces the number of commuting miles.
The 1,000 MWh per day figure serves as an important baseline for conservation, since every megawatt saved, according to the energy group's report, results in an annual savings of $1 million--money that doesn't have to be spent on developing new power-generation facilities. The report also estimates that there's enough unutilized space on the rooftops of city, residential and commercial structures to easily produce 25 MWh per day with solar panels, further reducing energy imports.
The long-term conservation goal, the report contends, should be a 50 percent reduction in current usage, which could be facilitated by appointing a local "energy czar." The short-term goal is much bolder: complete energy independence by 2010. That's just five years from now.
Feud Chain
The preliminary report by WELL's food group, an inventory of the food stocked by Willits' two major supermarkets and several smaller grocery outlets, reveals the fairly startling fact that none of the stores uses local vendors in their food-supply chains. "What this essentially tells us is that we have a few days supply of food at any one time," says food group member Cindy Logan. "Safeway is dependent on daily deliveries for some items." Or, as another Willits resident puts it, "What if there's a meltdown on 101 and the truck can't get into Safeway?" Or: What if there's no diesel to fuel the trucks in the first place?
To address topics as complex as localizing food supplies, WELL invites guest speakers to talk to the group. Some, such as world-renowned bio-intensive gardening innovator John Jeavons, author of the perennial bestseller How to Grow More Vegetables, didn't have to travel far: Jeavons lives in Willits. Others, such as Stephen and Gloria Decater, had to come over the hill from Yolo County, where they operate the Live Power Community Farm near Covelo.
The Decaters practice community-supported agriculture. Their 40-acre farm provides food for 160 member families, totaling some 300 people, over a 30-week growing season. The families pay a subscription that provides operating fees for the farm and a modest income for those who work it. And when the Decaters christened their farm "Live Power," they meant it. Five full-time farmhands and an array of draft horses do all the work on the farm with the exception of hay baling, which is done by tractor because the farm has been unable to acquire a horse-driven baler. Apparently, they don't make them anymore.
During their presentation to WELL in April, the Decaters used simple math to solve Willits' potential future food shortage, at least on paper. Divide the town's 13,300 immediate residents by the 300 people Live Power Community Farm can feed, and it's easy to see that all that's required to feed the town is 44 similarly-sized farms. These plots would only take up a modest 1,733 acres in total--roughly the same area as the 2.8 square miles within Willits' city limits. Because the Decaters' numbers are based on a partial diet--an unintentional vegan slate that doesn't factor in dairy or meat--the actual acreage might have to be doubled or even tripled. Still, it's doable, and in fact, it's the way things were done not too long ago, before the automobile came along. Since then, Gloria Decater told the audience, "We have not thought of farms as permanent places. As the next generation left farming and development encroached, the farms have been cashed out. . . . With peak oil, we now have a new perspective. This may not only be sad, but it's also a matter of future survival."
Green Health
In WELL, caring for the survivors of a coming calamity falls upon the health and wellness group, which includes members drawn from both the traditional and alternative medical fields.
"I've been in this community for three decades, and I've always been interested in doing alternative therapy," says Marilyn Boosinger, whose expertise includes herbology and acupuncture. She hopes the group can develop an apothecary for locally grown natural medicines. "We would grow herbs, harvest them, make them into tinctures. We see natural medicine as something that is sustainable. The prescription medications and a lot of the supplies used in modern medicines may not be as available."
That's particularly important to Dr. Kristin Bradford--Jason Bradford's wife--a medical doctor who understands that many of today's pharmaceutical products depend upon petroleum for their manufacture. She's eager to learn as much as possible about alternative therapies.
"It's something that I'm not trained in, so I'm very excited to be collaborating with people who are, so I can have something to benefit my patients when the other isn't available," she says.
The health and wellness group got an added boost when Margie Handley, president of the Frank R. Howard Foundation (established by the son of Charles Howard, owner of the famed Willits racehorse Seabiscuit), which funds the local hospital of the same name, began attending WELL meetings. Handley has been the driving force behind converting the Frank R. Howard Memorial Hospital into California's first green hospital--a goal near completion--and she's sought community input in part through the members of WELL. The shelter group, for example, has drawn up architectural plans for a hospital greenhouse that employs straw bale construction and solar power for energy.
Willits city officials are also becoming increasingly involved with WELL. When $10,000 was recently freed up in the city budget, the funds were directed toward bringing in speakers to complement those who have spoken to the community so far at WELL meetings, such as the dark prince of peak oil, Santa Rosa author and New College professor Richard Heinberg, and Ann Hancock, coordinator of the Sonoma County Climate Control Campaign and past coordinator of the Ecological Footprint Project.
"We're trying to bring the city into a leadership role in this effort," says city planner Andy Falleri. Earlier this year, Falleri attended an E. F. Schumacher Society conference in Massachusetts, where establishing land trusts for small local farms like Live Power was discussed. He was surprised to discover that more than a quarter of the people attending the conference were aware of WELL, even though the group had only been up and running for six months. "A number of people had heard about the stuff Jason Bradford was doing with peak oil," he says. "I thought maybe Seabiscuit would be more widely known, but [he] wasn't."
Falleri admitted that there's still not a sense of urgency among city officials and the population at large about peak oil.
"We've got some real nice policies in Willits to reduce energy consumption, but people haven't really understood what they've meant," he says. "We've got to get to the next level and get some of these ideas implemented."
Going to the WELL
"I still think we should have called it SWELL," Richard Jergenson grumbles over organic Mexican food at Burrito Exquisito in downtown Willits. The S in his proposed acronym stood for "sustainable," but he was overruled by the ad-hocracy, which felt the term has gained too much of a lefty connotation. Even though many of the methods employed by the sustainability movement apply to the coming energy crisis, Bradford continually emphasizes that the seriousness of peak oil requires reaching out to as wide an audience as possible.
It's a hot, stuffy Monday night in July, but at the entrance to the Willits Community Center, where people are already streaming in for the meeting, Bradford's message appears to be getting across. Everybody's talking about peak oil in Willits these days, including members of American Legion Post 164, such as Keith Rosen.
"The post commander has instructed me to come to the meeting and see what the Legion can do to help with the issue," Rosen says, adding that his commander was following orders from the military veteran organization's national command. "The idea is to use the good name of the Legion to get different factions together." For Rosen, who describes himself as a "potter, welder and maker of things" who dropped out of mainstream society to come to Willits in 1970, there's no question that we must prepare for peak oil. Apparently, the Legion is in agreement.
"We [the Legion] came to the conclusion that if half the community is fed and the other half isn't, the half that isn't will feed off the other, and that's unacceptable," he says.
Bradford opens the meeting, held in the large hall beneath the Community Center's domed ceiling. About 40 people have turned out for the event, a far cry from the 200 or so that turn up for speakers such as Heinberg. Still, getting 40 volunteers to show up on a muggy Monday night is no mean feat for any organization. Bradford catches the group up with the latest news and sets them up for Lanny Cotler, who's pitching WELL's proposed media-relations campaign to the audience tonight.
Perhaps it's the heat, but the pitch doesn't go over well, even though Cotler volunteers to do all the work. The work--editing megabytes of digital footage, putting together press kits, is necessary--he urges, because, "we have a big responsibility for people who are coming behind us." The campaign will serve as a blueprint of sorts, and a record is required in order to secure government grants and other funding sources. Yet after Cotler finishes, several people in the audience express their displeasure, mainly because they crave action and perceive the media campaign as just more talk.
"It's going to bring more people into town," complains one man. "The energy of the group is going to be diverted to making a commercial about how cool we are." Several more people sound off before former BP facilitator Brian Weller steps in to smooth the situation over. Acknowledging the group's desire for action, he gently points out that the chance to act may never come if WELL doesn't eventually secure major funding, which in turn is dependent upon a public-relations campaign, and thank goodness we've got a Hollywood screenwriter who's willing to do all the work for us. Everyone appears satisfied, and the members break off into their assigned groups.
Just two members of the water group, Larry Desmond and Ree Slocum, are in attendance tonight. They're scheduled to give a presentation at the next WELL meeting in August, but both find it hard to get spare time to conduct the research into local water supplies.
"Most of the water resources we have require energy," says Desmond, noting the seriousness of the matter. "Being without power is one thing; being without water is another"--meaning, without water, you die.
Perhaps the chance to belong to an organization in which such crucial matters are at stake is what has made WELL such an easy sell.
"For me, it was the right thing to do," explains Slocum. "All along, I wanted to be working in a community that was sustainable. Willits is still livable and functional, but we've all gotten busy. We're small enough that we could
eventually do something." However, the question of whether that something will be enough remains. Peak oil experts such as Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler, author of The Long Emergency, the latest doom-and-gloom tome on the topic, seem convinced that the time for large-scale meaningful action has come and gone. Perhaps Willits could become what Heinberg terms a "lifeboat," carrying a few survivors to some unknown solution in the future. Or perhaps Willits will become self-sustaining, only to be overrun by starving, rampaging hordes from the cities. Shouldn't WELL establish a militia to defend against such possibilities?
"The questions of militias came up early on," says Brian Weller. "What do we do under a Mad Max scenario?" referring to the postapocalyptic science-fiction movies where rampaging hordes murder, rape and kill in a desperate battle for the last drops of gasoline. In the end, the steering committee delegates the issue to the social organization group, which in turn delegates defense issues, at least for now, to the local police and sheriff's departments.
"Most of [law enforcement's] plans deal with acute problems, like fire and disease," Bradford says doubtfully. "They haven't thought about things like long-term food security, for example."
There is, of course, another solution if the hordes come from the city.
"We'll just blow up the bridge in Hopland," Cotler says, only half-jokingly.
Bush raises option of using force against Iran
REUTERS
Sat Aug 13, 2005 11:30 AM ET
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=
uri:2005-08-13T153017Z_01_SPI329552_RTRIDST_0_NEWS-IRAN-BUSH-DC.XML&
pageNumber=1&summit=
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
CRAWFORD, Texas (Reuters) - President Bush said he could consider using force as a last resort to press Iran to give up its nuclear program.
But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, one of the most prominent European opponents of the U.S.-led war on Iraq, told an election rally on Saturday the threat of force was not acceptable.
In what appeared to be a reference to Bush's remarks that "all options are on the table," Schroeder told the crowd in his home city of Hanover:
" ... let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work."
Iran angered the European Union and the United States by resuming uranium conversion at the Isfahan plant last Monday after rejecting an EU offer of political and economic incentives in return for giving up its nuclear program.
Tehran says it aims only to produce electricity and denies Western accusations it is seeking a nuclear bomb.
The EU -- represented by Britain, France and Germany -- has been trying to find a compromise for two years between arch foes Iran and the United States.
Bush, speaking at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, was asked in the interview broadcast on Saturday whether possible options included the use of force.
"As I say, all options are on the table. The use of force is the last option for any president and you know, we've used force in the recent past to secure our country," he told state-owned Israel Channel One television.
DIPLOMACY
Washington last week expressed a willingness to give negotiations on Iran's suspected nuclear weapons program more time before getting tougher with the country, and Bush made clear he still hoped for a diplomatic solution.
"In all these instances we want diplomacy to work and so we're working feverishly on the diplomatic route and we'll see if we're successful or not," Bush said in the Israeli interview.
Bush has also previously said that the United States has not ruled out the possibility of military strikes. But U.S. officials have played down media speculation earlier this year they were planning military action against Iran.
French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy said on Friday that negotiations were still possible with Iran on condition the Iranians suspend their nuclear activities.
The governing board of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) unanimously called on Iran on Thursday to halt sensitive atomic work.
If Iran continues to defy global demands, another IAEA meeting will likely be held, where both Europe and Washington will push for a referral to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions.
Schroeder, whose Social Democrats are lagging the opposition conservatives in opinion polls ahead of September elections, said he was worried about developments in Iran because no one wants it to gain possession of atomic weapons.
"The Europeans and the Americans are united in this goal. Up to now we were also united in the way to pursue this," he said.
Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war was seen as a decisive factor in his unexpected victory in the 2002 general election, which he won narrowly after coming from behind.
But his critical stance caused serious ruptures in Germany's traditionally strong relations with the United States.
Airline screening hassles may be cut
CNN.com
Monday, August 15, 2005; Posted: 4:12 p.m. EDT (20:12 GMT)
http://www.cnn.com/2005/TRAVEL/08/13/passenger.screening.ap/index.html
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The federal agency in charge of aviation security is considering major changes in how it screens airline passengers, including proposals that an official said would lift the ban on carrying razor blades and small knives as well as limit patdown searches.
The Transportation Security Administration will meet later this month to discuss the plan, which is designed to reduce checkpoint hassles for the nation's 2 million passengers. It comes after TSA's new head, Edmund S. "Kip" Hawley, called for a broad review in hopes of making airline screening more passenger friendly.
An initial set of staff recommendations drafted August 5 also proposes that passengers no longer have to routinely remove their shoes during security checks. Instead, only passengers who set off metal detectors, are flagged by a computer screening system or look "reasonably suspicious" would be asked to do so, a TSA official said Saturday.
Any of the changes proposed by the staff, which also would allow scissors, ice picks and bows and arrows on flights, would require Hawley's approval, this official said, requesting anonymity because there has been no final decision.
"The process is designed to stimulate creative thinking and challenge conventional beliefs," said Mark Hatfield, TSA's spokesman. "In the end, it will allow us to work smarter and better as we secure America's transportation system."
The August 5 memo recommends reducing patdowns by giving screeners the discretion not to search those wearing tight-fitting clothes. It also suggests exempting several categories of passengers from screening, including federal judges, members of Congress, Cabinet members, state governors, high-ranking military officers and those with high-level security clearances.
The proposed changes were first reported by The Washington Post on Saturday.
Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
|
Termination of the fossil-fuels society