#post-carbon

[destinyofmints-blog]

Resilience defines the capacity of the system to assimilate disturbances without crossing a threshold into an alternate state.

[ecmjoanne]

Divest and Reinvest

What is “divestment”?  You can think of it like “un-investment.”  Or more significantly, investing your money in something else.  In this case, we’re talking about divestment from fossil fuels.  Coupled with reinvestment in clean energy and post-carbon infrastructure.

Peter Rood had a HUGE victory in December, when he took a Divestment proposal to the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles.  The resolution was passed by majority vote.  Now comes implementation, and helping lots of organizations understand WHAT TO DO now that they’ve voted to do it.

If you would like to help Peter with some internet research in support of this topic, please contact him.

Learn more:

Global Divestment Day event

Q&A about Divestment (with a good graphic)

Organizations that have made Divestment Commitments – Colleges & Universities, Cities, Religious Institutions, & more

Religious Divest and Reinvest Efforts

  from Divest and Reinvest

[zaenema-blog]

Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we're reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil and coal supplies, we're in for an exciting ride. While there's a real risk that we'll fall off a cliff, there's still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future.

[seannanigans]

I'm sorry for driving so much in the past year. If I had the money to invest in an all electric car, I definitely would. Time for a change I guess. It's all hands on deck.

[fuckyeahpermaculture]

I know some will say, "just grow vegetables" - no herding required and more calories produced per acre. This is a fair point in theory, but for our land, in practical terms, the benefits of livestock (particularly sheep) far outweigh the negatives. They have a magical ability to harvest low-grade biomass and turn it into wool, milk, horn, hide, tallow, lanoline and mutton. They are a source of very rich food that stores perfectly throughout winter. As good as nettle and hemp fibres may be, turning the plant into a fabric is way beyond me, whereas with a little more reskilling I could personally produce a warm, waterproof and hardwearing garment from a sheep's fleece.

Reskilling: Using border collie sheepdogs to herd sheep instead of quad bikes. 

(via Permaculture Magazine)

[erikaharrison-blog]

NYTimes Environment | With Eye on Climate Change, Chicago Prepares for a Warmer Future

Climate scientists have told city planners that based on current trends, Chicago will feel more like Baton Rouge than a Northern metropolis before the end of this century.

So, Chicago is getting ready for a wetter, steamier future. Public alleyways are being repaved with materials that are permeable to water. The white oak, the state tree of Illinois, has been banned from city planting lists, and swamp oaks and sweet gum trees from the South have been given new priority. Thermal radar is being used to map the city’s hottest spots, which are then targets for pavement removal and the addition of vegetation to roofs. And air-conditioners are being considered for all 750 public schools, which until now have been heated but rarely cooled.

...

via nytimes.com

[erikaharrison-blog]

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices | The Guardian

WikiLeaks cables: Saudi Arabia cannot pump enough oil to keep a lid on prices

US diplomat convinced by Saudi expert that reserves of world's biggest oil exporter have been overstated by nearly 40%

Saudi oil refinery. WikiLeaks cables suggest the amount of oil that can be retrieved has been overestimated. Photograph: George Steinmetz/Corbis

The US fears that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude oil exporter, may not have enough reserves to prevent oil prices escalating, confidential cables from its embassy in Riyadh show.

The cables, released by WikiLeaks, urge Washington to take seriously a warning from a senior Saudi government oil executive that the kingdom's crude oil reserves may have been overstated by as much as 300bn barrels – nearly 40%.

The revelation comes as the oil price has soared in recent weeks to more than $100 a barrel on global demand and tensions in the Middle East. Many analysts expect that the Saudis and their Opec cartel partners would pump more oil if rising prices threatened to choke off demand.

However, Sadad al-Husseini, a geologist and former head of exploration at the Saudi oil monopoly Aramco, met the US consul general in Riyadh in November 2007 and told the US diplomat that Aramco's 12.5m barrel-a-day capacity needed to keep a lid on prices could not be reached.

According to the cables, which date between 2007-09, Husseini said Saudi Arabia might reach an output of 12m barrels a day in 10 years but before then – possibly as early as 2012 – global oil production would have hit its highest point. This crunch point is known as "peak oil".

Husseini said that at that point Aramco would not be able to stop the rise of global oil prices because the Saudi energy industry had overstated its recoverable reserves to spur foreign investment. He argued that Aramco had badly underestimated the time needed to bring new oil on tap.

One cable said: "According to al-Husseini, the crux of the issue is twofold. First, it is possible that Saudi reserves are not as bountiful as sometimes described, and the timeline for their production not as unrestrained as Aramco and energy optimists would like to portray."

It went on: "In a presentation, Abdallah al-Saif, current Aramco senior vice-president for exploration, reported that Aramco has 716bn barrels of total reserves, of which 51% are recoverable, and that in 20 years Aramco will have 900bn barrels of reserves.

"Al-Husseini disagrees with this analysis, believing Aramco's reserves are overstated by as much as 300bn barrels. In his view once 50% of original proven reserves has been reached … a steady output in decline will ensue and no amount of effort will be able to stop it. He believes that what will result is a plateau in total output that will last approximately 15 years followed by decreasing output."

The US consul then told Washington: "While al-Husseini fundamentally contradicts the Aramco company line, he is no doomsday theorist. His pedigree, experience and outlook demand that his predictions be thoughtfully considered."

Seven months later, the US embassy in Riyadh went further in two more cables. "Our mission now questions how much the Saudis can now substantively influence the crude markets over the long term. Clearly they can drive prices up, but we question whether they any longer have the power to drive prices down for a prolonged period."

A fourth cable, in October 2009, claimed that escalating electricity demand by Saudi Arabia may further constrain Saudi oil exports. "Demand [for electricity] is expected to grow 10% a year over the next decade as a result of population and economic growth. As a result it will need to double its generation capacity to 68,000MW in 2018," it said.

It also reported major project delays and accidents as "evidence that the Saudi Aramco is having to run harder to stay in place – to replace the decline in existing production." While fears of premature "peak oil" and Saudi production problems had been expressed before, no US official has come close to saying this in public.

In the last two years, other senior energy analysts have backed Husseini. Fatih Birol, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, told the Guardian last year that conventional crude output could plateau in 2020, a development that was "not good news" for a world still heavily dependent on petroleum.

Jeremy Leggett, convenor of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security, said: "We are asleep at the wheel here: choosing to ignore a threat to the global economy that is quite as bad as the credit crunch, quite possibly worse."

via guardian.co.uk