• Latest Climate Findings for Copenhagen
Conference
WORTH A LOOK!
Rob Hopkins on
Peak Oil, Climate Change &
Transition
The Transition Towns movement, which is
currently active in more than 250 (and counting!) cities and towns
around the world, including Boulder
and Denver, began in the UK less than five years ago mainly
through the initiative of permaculturist and peak oil educator Rob
Hopkins.
As Rob explains it,
Transition is inherently inspiring, viral and self-organizing. Once
set in motion, it quickly took on a life of its own. The movement is
motivated by the question: How can our community respond to the
challenges and opportunities of Peak Oil and Climate Change? The key
goal is to rebuild community resilience and self-reliance in a world
that is dangerously at risk of disruption due to overdependence on
fossil fuels.
Despite rejecting a formal
leadership role, Rob remains one of the Transition movement's most
eloquent and impassioned spokesmen. Rarely was this more apparent
than when he delivered a brief but brilliantly incisive talk at the
TED Conference in Oxford, UK in July 2009. In less than 17 minutes,
Rob manages to lay out the argument for Transition as perhaps the
most appropriate response to the challenges of peak oil, climate
change and economic disorder.
You can see his entire
talk HERE.
Highly recommended!
QUOTABLE:
The word dilemma characterizes a
situation in which one must choose between two disagreeable options.
This is a good description of the human condition in the early 21st
century. Had our species foreseen and begun to adapt to resource
limits back in the 1950s or even the '70s, the transition
to sustainable levels of population and
consumption might have been fairly painless. But now there really
are no easy paths from here to a workable future.
– Richard Heinberg, Museletter
210
With riches has come
inexcusable waste. We have squandered a great part of what we might
have used, and have not stopped to conserve the exceeding bounty of
nature, without which our genius for enterprise would have
been worthless and impotent...
You are receiving this
newsletter because you have expressed interest in EarthWorks Expo
and in living more sustainably. Please share this information with
others. Thank you!
John Michael Greer to Keynote at
EarthWorks Expo 2010
John Michael Greer is a
prolific author, scholar of ecological history, environmentalist,
influential blogger, organic gardener and Druid leader. His blog The
Archdruid Report is one of the most respected weekly
commentaries on the social and economic implications of peak oil and
the impending end of cheap energy. His 2008 book The
Long Descent: A User’s Guide to the End of the Industrial
Age has been
hailed as one of the most original, incisive, sobering
yet ultimately hopeful books yet written on the peak oil topic. In
its 2009 sequel, The
Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak
World, Greer
describes the eventual emergence of a truly sustainable society from
the wreckage of today’s energy-mad, eco-destructive, self-consuming
global civilization. Greer is also founding director of the Cultural
Conservers Foundation and, since 2002, Grand Archdruid of the
Ancient Order of Druids in America.
His keynote address at EarthWorks Expo
is titled The Long Road to the Green Future. Concerning
this topic, Greer points out that many
discussions of peak oil, and the broader crisis of industrial
civilization in which peak oil plays a central part, assume that the
challenges we face can either be solved by technical fixes, or are
so far beyond our control that global catastrophe is imminent. But,
he says, neither of these views does justice to the complex
predicament in which the misguided choices of the recent past have
landed us. Instead of a bit of tinkering or an apocalyptic collapse,
the future before us is a long and difficult age full of crisis and
possibility. While the decline and fall of industrial civilization
may be a foregone conclusion, our own actions here and now can help
plant the seeds of the green societies of the
future.
Don't miss this rare opportunity to
experience a truly brilliant thinker expound on some of the most
pressing issues of our time. Plan now to see John Michael Greer at
EarthWorks Expo 2010.
Green
News Highlights
Green Holiday Gift Ideas That Give Without
Taking
Every year at this time, pundits pop out of the
woodwork with lists of holiday gift ideas. For readers of this
newsletter, most of the available lists might be less than
appealing. But Andrew Michler has compiled one that’s geared to a
green lifestyle. Andrew is a LEED accredited building professional
and founder of Baosol Sustainable Building Consulting who lives
off-grid in a nearly zero energy self-built home in northern
Colorado. See his illustrated gift list HERE.
And here's another
approach, courtesty of Boulder Weekly.
Talk Back to Climate-Change
Deniers
In our last newsletter, we reported that
growing numbers of Americans doubt the reality of climate change,
even though the scientific consensus is more solid than ever.
It doesn’t help, of course, that private emails hacked
recently from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit
appear to suggest that some scientists at that prestigious UK
facility may have jiggered some data, triggering calls for a sweeping
review of their work. Regardless, the argument for human-induced
climate change is based on hundreds of studies by thousands of
scientists in dozens of countries and is not undone by the alleged
misbehavior of a few. It is also true that in matters as complex as
climate change, good scientists do not always agree. The current
consensus, though strong, is not unanimous. Still, when conservative
nay-sayers seize on the email controversy as proof that climate
change is a hoax, it’s time to push back. With the most important
international climate conference in a decade about to convene in
Copenhagen, it wouldn’t hurt to arm yourself with detailed answers
to some of the most frequently heard arguments from the
climate-change skeptics. Scientific American offers a brief
guide to setting the record straight; see it HERE.
Latest Climate
Findings for Copenhagen Conference
A new report titled Copenhagen
Diagnosis – Updating the World on the Latest
Climate Science is available online for anyone who wants a
relatively brief but authoritative overview of the facts driving
global concern about climate change.
The one-page
Executive Summary lists the following key issues:
• Surging greenhouse gas
emissions from fossil fuel use are up nearly 40% since
1990
• Recent data continue to
demonstrate human-induced warming
• Acceleration of melting
ice-sheets, glaciers and ice-caps
• Rapid Arctic sea-ice
decline
• Sea-level is rising faster
than previously projected, and sea-level predictions have been
revised upward
• Delay in action risks
irreversible damage as “tipping points” approach
• Hence, the turning point in
global commitment to fight climate change must come soon, or it will
come too late.
See and download the complete
Copenhagen Diagnosis HERE.
The 4th annual EarthWorks Expo takes place May 22-23,
2010 in Denver, Colorado. Visit us online at www.earthworks2010.com.
Thank you!
one of the most original, incisive, sobering
yet ultimately hopeful books yet written on the peak oil topic. In
its 2009 sequel, 
Every year at this time, pundits pop out of the
woodwork with lists of holiday gift ideas. For readers of this
newsletter, most of the available lists might be less than
appealing. But Andrew Michler has compiled one that’s geared to a
green lifestyle. Andrew is a LEED accredited building professional
and founder of Baosol Sustainable Building Consulting who lives
off-grid in a nearly zero energy self-built home in northern
Colorado. See his illustrated gift list 
In our last newsletter, we reported that
growing numbers of Americans doubt the reality of climate change,
even though the scientific consensus is more solid than ever.
It doesn’t help, of course, that private emails hacked
recently from the University of East Anglia Climate Research Unit
appear to suggest that some scientists at that prestigious UK
facility may have jiggered some data, triggering calls for a 