Sustainable Living

What are we up to? - by Robb

2008-05-22T08:47:00.004+01:00

Here's a link to an interesting article quoting Ian Marchant, chief executive of Scottish and Southern Energy, regarding our oil addiction and it's likely looming implications.

"Energy boss foretells future scarred by oil wars"

This brings to mind some other implications of our oil addiction. Aside from the blindingly obvious , climate change, drivers should be aware that largely due to the desperate need to fuel trips to the mall people in the developing world can no longer afford basic food stuffs. Burning food based ethanol in our cars is inhumane! You don't have to take my word for it. Lester Brown at the

Earth Policy Institute

is the recipient of forty honorary degrees and a MacArthur Fellowship, among numerous other awards, Brown has been described by the Washington Post as "one of the world's most influential thinkers." (Wikipedia) Check out his writing on food security in this lecture;

WORLD FACING HUGE NEW CHALLENGE ON FOOD FRONT
Business-as-Usual Not a Viable Option

Can we remember the Exxon Valdez disaster? The oil is still wreaking havoc in the ecosystem as Exxon continues to avoid it's obligations to Prince William Sound and the people who depend on it in,

Cordova Alaska

How about the plastic choking the oceans and it's life that we all depend on for food, carbon sequestration, and inspiration. Many oceanographers believe that the oceans are close to ecological collapse. Huge quantities of petrochemical rubbish are swirling in the north Pacific.

"The UN Environment Programme estimated in 2006 that every square mile of ocean contains 46,000 pieces of floating plastic,"

The North Pacific Gyre

Sorry to be so gloomy but I'm sick of all the glad handing green washed eco consumerism promising us that if we just do this or buy that we won't need to change anything else about our bloated, wasteful, unethical, greedy, war mongering lifestyles. Business as usual is not an option in any context, not just food.
Much of the science suggests that a 2ºC rise in global temperature is locked in, with it's attendant sea level rise, impacts on water scarcity and food production. All those impacts will be a fond memory to your grandchildren as they begin to experience 5ºC to 7ºC rises due to our negligence. The rising tide of information has washed away the sand from our buried heads. We won't be able to say "Oh we didn't know, the Fox channel didn't tell us about it", what will be crystal clear is, we knew and we didn't care. We chose to burn food, over-heat and cool our homes, over-consume anything we could get our hands on, spend our resources building theme parks instead of solar and wind power plants, we even chose to build more coal fired power plants and removed mountaintops so we might never have to risk missing an episode of "Lost"!
As we did so, the rich got richer, the poor got poorer, and millions of people died, as well as most of the wildlife on the planet. Is that the future you want?

To quote the Tragically Hip "Desperate times call for desperate measures"
Find something substantive and do it, give up your car, go off grid, grow your own food, build sustainable communities, protest war, buy local or better yet don't buy at all, become a citizen not a consumer.

Addicted To Oil - Video by Harry Shearer

2008-05-21T07:33:00.002+01:00

Addicted to oil - by Blanche Cameron

2008-05-18T20:13:00.013+01:00

Blanche Cameron is one of the lecturers on my MSc course and is the founder of RESET.
She has graciously granted permission for me to post this lecture here on Sustainable Living. I am honoured to do so. - Robb

“Might as well face it, I’m addicted to oil…”

Blanche Cameron
Graduate School of the Environment
April 2008

"The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."
Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management. Robert L. Hirsch, SAIC

“‘America is addicted to oil.’ It was a catchy line in President Bush's State of the Union address in 2006. But in truth, few administrations have done more to feed America's oil addiction than this one”. David Sandalow, Washington Post, Feb 3rd, 2006

Overview
Fig. 1: President G. W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney, 2006
(Associated Press)

What is our relationship to oil? “What did Bush mean when calling for the United States to "break this addiction"? Why was a Texas oil man urging Americans to "move beyond a petroleum-based economy"? (Sandalow, 2006)

The phrase "addicted to oil" is not new. But its powerful emotional resonance and strong association with alcohol, tobacco and drug use imply a judgment about the dangers of oil use that has been very unpopular. Politicians have been wary of mentioning that our current society without oil – as it stands – would collapse. Indeed, until very recently, the whole concept of Peak Oil was nowhere near their (public) agenda.

However, we are seeing a move towards wider public acceptance of these issues and greater understanding of the need to transition to other forms of energy generation and use.

The question is not so much whether our society is addicted to (dependent on) oil, but whether understanding our relationship to oil as ‘an addiction’ can inform our approach to engaging communities – individuals, politicians and local leaders - in how to transition to a low carbon society?

This paper relies particularly on work from Prochaska and DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model (1982) and Rob Hopkins’ research for his masters thesis in Energy Descent. It will look at our relationship to oil as it is today – a healthy and creative use of resources for vital economic and social development? A means for millions - even billions - of people to break out of the poverty trap? Or an addictive dependency which is slowly poisoning us and threatens ultimately to be the means of our own destruction?

What time is it?

“Earth’s resource systems are on overload”. (Painting the Town Green, p5)

It is time to wake up. In fact the alarm clock has already gone off, but someone keeps putting it under the pillow! In Six Degrees, Mark Lynas eloquently explores the implications of continuing to pollute at current levels. Even if we were to stop emitting CO2 right now, we would still be dealing with the consequences for the next century at least. What are the tipping points? What are ‘safe’ levels of carbon in the atmosphere? 500ppm? 450ppm? Or 350ppm? We are already at 380ppm with no sign of a reduction any time soon.

So what is stopping us taking action? Are we addicted to oil? What prevents our political leaders from turning off the taps? How are we going to kick the biggest baddest habit the world has ever known?

Addiction or Dependency?

There is no universally agreed definition of the term ‘addiction’. Definitions used by organisations like the American Psychological Association, define an addict as:

“individuals with a physiological dependence on one or more illegal drugs” (DiClemente, 2003)

In other words, a purely biochemical addiction. However this has recently been expanded:

“at the other end of the spectrum, the object of addiction can be ‘any potent experience’ and involves compulsive and destructive behaviours of all kinds…addiction does not have to be chemical or physical but can extend to experiences that are strictly psychological” (Booth, 2004).

Booth also argues that society is addicted to the growth economy, as without it “people would lose their livelihoods as opposed to merely forgoing the pleasure of more consumer goods or having to experience the discomfort of unrealised consumption expectations”.

Other writers, such as Berman (1981) state that “addiction, in one form or another, characterises every aspect of industrial society…dependence on alcohol (food, drugs, tobacco…) is not formally different from dependence on prestige, career achievement, world influence, wealth, the need to build more ingenious bombs, or the need to exercise control over everything.”

This can happen at an individual or a society level. To a large extent our relationship to the use of fossil fuels is determined by the way our society is structured. There are problems with using the addiction metaphor, for example, the question of whether we have a choice to fossil-fuel our habit or not. If society functions as an addict, then our actions are strongly linked: relying on car use to commute to work, food supply chains to supermarkets for our food, energy to heat and power our homes.

This is what is called lock-in (Jackson, 2005), in that we are unable to change due to institutional factors beyond an individual’s control. The answers here would lie in decisions at local authority, regional and national level: public transport, work closer to home, housing closer to places of work, local food strategies, etc.

Many have linked the concept of addiction to dependence on cheap fossil fuels. In 1981, Rifkin wrote “Addiction! There is simply no other way to accurately describe America’s energy habit!”. Chomat (2004) uses addiction as the central metaphor in his book ‘Oil Addiction’:

“We are oil addicts, human beings who have created an industrial empire that can exist only so long as it can continue to guzzle vast amounts of energy. It is time to face up to the truth and its consequences”.

Similarly, the concept of ‘recovery’ is common: “a prompt weaning from our addiction to black gold” (Cochet, 2004).

Rob Hopkins argues in his masters thesis, “Energy Descent Pathways: evaluating potential responses to Peak Oil” (2006) that:

“rather than an addiction to oil per se, the issue is an addiction to energy services, that is the work that energy - specifically non-renewable energy – makes possible”

“Stuck on you…”

Oil is embedded in every almost aspect of our lives, in our food, in our housing, clothes, utilities, essentials and luxuries, in our jobs and our recreation. We have a relationship with oil, and there are of course many perceived benefits to this relationship.

For those with access to it, it is easy, practical, labour saving, powerful, cheap…
On the other hand, it is a destructive relationship: environmental pollution and degradation of habitat, atmosphere, water sources, food supplies, economies, governance, relationships, underpins all industrial processes and reinforces global social inequity.

Without a universal definition of addiction, perhaps dependency is a better description. The World Health Organisation (WHO) give six criteria that constitute a dependency, which really highlight the comparison with individual dependency and societal dependency on non-renewable energy services. Each of these criteria present questions which would form a fascinating study of our ‘unhealthy relationship’ with renewable energy use.

The WHO states that “three or more of the following manifestations should have occurred together for at least one month or, if persisting for periods of less than 1 month, should have occurred together repeatedly within a 12-month period”:

1. “A strong desire or sense of compulsion to take the substance”.

This could be seen in Western society’s determination to wage military campaigns to sustain access to oil supplies (Klare, 2002) and the degree to which energy issues underpin much of international geopolitics (Heinberg, 2006).

2. “Impaired capacity to control substance-taking behaviour in terms of its onset, termination, or levels of use, as evidenced by: the substance being often taken in larger amounts or over a longer period than intended or by a persistent desire or unsuccessful efforts to reduce or control substance use”.

Efforts by governments to restrain fossil fuel use have been largely unsuccessful, particularly because of wariness about ‘interfering’ with the market. Mechanisms such as the Oil Depletion Protocol (Heinberg, 2005) and carbon rationing through Tradable Energy Quotas (TEQs) (Fleming, 2005) are only just gaining political support.

3. “A physiological withdrawal state when substance use is reduced or ceased, as evidenced by the characteristic withdrawal syndrome for the substance, or by use of the same (or closely related) substance with the intention of relieving or avoiding withdrawal symptoms”.

Serious ‘withdrawal symptoms’ were seen with the fuel protests in the UK in 2000; it became clear how vulnerable our ‘just in time’ food supply system is and how we are pretty much only 3 days away from anarchy. Within 3 days of the start of the fuel depot blockades, supermarket shelves were dangerously empty and food rationing was imposed in a number of towns (Chrisafis, 2000). Cuba underwent its own rapid and shocking transformation when its oil supplies from the Soviet Union were cut off in 1989 at the fall of the Soviet bloc.

4. “Evidence of tolerance to the effects of the substance, such that there is a need for significantly increased amounts of the substance to achieve intoxication or the desired effect, or a markedly diminished effect with continued use of the same amount of the substance”.

This is slightly problematic as consumption of oil per capita in the UK recently feel slightly, due to a manufacturing activity moving to other countries. However, dependency is still dependency, whether smoking 40 cigarettes a day or moving down to 30. We are also still dependent on this ‘outsourcing’ of manufacturing so perhaps this should be included in the overall picture of energy dependency.

5. “Preoccupation with substance use, as manifested by important alternative pleasures or interests being given up or reduced because of substance use; or a great deal of time being spent in activities necessary to obtain, take or recover from the effects of the substance”.

The case has been argued that in order to sustain the lifestyle cheap oil and gas make possible, people in developed nations work longer hours than any previous generation (Durning, 1992). A 2002 survey found that one in six of those surveyed said they were working more than 60 hours per week, as opposed to one in eight two years before (BBC News 2002). The decline of communal social activities and the increased amounts of time spent watching television (up 63% since 1999, BBC News 2004) highlight the effects of the growth economy on our collective “important alternative pleasures or interests”.

6. “Persistent substance use despite clear evidence of harmful consequences, as evidenced by continued use when the individual is actually aware, or may be expected to be aware, of the nature and extent of harm”.

“The drugs don’t work…”

The harmful side effects of fossil fuel use are increasingly clear, documented, even largely accepted, and yet fossil fuel demand and use continues to rise sharply. Climate change is estimated to cause in the region of 160,000 deaths per year and that this could double by 2020. The World Health Organisation estimates that 150,000 deaths in 2000 were directly attributable to climate change (drought, heat exhaustion, flooding, etc). Globally, cars are responsible for 1.2 million deaths per year (Peden et al, 2004). Yet governments continue to invest heavily in practices supporting the expansion of car use and aviation (£30 billion allocated for new roads in the UK 2006-2016, construction of Heathrow Terminal 5 and Runway 3, etc). The Kyoto Protocol has struggled for ratification by those with most influence on the international stage.

You could argue that oil is as essential to life and its processes as food or oxygen. However, the petroleum interval is very short – how on earth did we manage before oil? We certainly need energy, so at what point does a healthy need become an unhealthy dependency? Hopkins reports a conversation with Michael Rust in 2006, who expressed it very well:

“We have survived for thousands of years without oil but if we were to remove it tomorrow without changing the structure of our society, we would experience total breakdown”.

This looks like dependency to me…

Rehab?

The environmental movement has been acting a little the family members who are there to support the addict through kicking the habit. But what messages to do they give? What do they say to help? Does it help? Other lectures in this module cover this in more detail but some of the key problems with the way the environmental movement communicates the issues seem to be:

• Elitism – that environmentalists own the environmental movement, we are the keepers of the flame, saviours of the world etc.
• Obscure terminology – ‘sustainability’, ‘photovoltaics’, ‘transition’ (the hardcore of environmental conversations) are often not meaningful to people outside ‘the movement’, and maintain an elitist atmosphere.
• Judgmentalism – I’m more environmental than you, “it’s your problem, you cause climate change not me, by…” (not recycling, using your car, flying off on holiday, not caring…etc); ‘holier than thou’, when we all rely on and use energy services of one sort or another.
• Too many problems without enough solutions
• Solutions which may seem very unattractive, difficult or meaningless (will recycling my plastic bags really ‘save the planet’?)
• Evangelism: be pure and simple and happy like me, live with less, find spiritual connection - most people are not motivated by this status-poor ascetic approach – ‘giving stuff up’ is not attractive in a consumer society.

Our dependency is caused by all of us - society, the whole ‘family’. Solutions in dependency treatment often rely on the family working together, as the dependency is often a result of the family’s construction, stories, beliefs about itself. If this applies also to our dependency on oil, it means that all aspects of society will need to work together with common aims and common terms of reference, wean itself off oil.

People do change their own individual behaviour when they feel a direct, positive impact on themselves, their families or loved ones. If there is no direct benefit – financially, socially, health, security or otherwise – they are unlikely - or at least much less likely - to be motivated purely by altruism, philanthropy or the greater good. People who are motivated to take this kind of action are a small minority, and even they still need to believe that their actions are meaningful or will have, eventually, some kind of impact.

The mainstream public expect action on climate change at government level, in the form of intervention, investment and incentives, public transport, tax reform, etc. But government policy is based on an increasing supply of information, believing this to be what changes individual behaviour. People just need to be informed of the need. This is the market-led model: supply information and get people to demand companies reduce the environmental impact of their products/manufacturing processes/transport etc. But most people feel powerless to change these things.

People are concerned about climate change and feel the need for action, but:

“Climate Change is within people’s sphere of concern but not within their sphere of influence” and: “People feel out of control of decisions affecting their lives”
(Painting the Town Green, 2006)

Fossils fuels? Come off it…!

Whatever means used to get off a ‘drug’, the ‘addict’ is more likely to stay off in a supportive environment which helps move them away from negative behaviour patterns and environments (‘bad’ friends!). This environment might also include education and opportunity – alternative patterns of behaviour which are more rewarding and produce real benefits for the addict; in other words, creating a way of living which is better and more attractive than the existing one.

In terms of our dependency on fossil fuels, this is what Rob Hopkins calls creating a “parallel public infrastructure”: local systems that replace our dependency on fossil fuels with support through lower energy systems; good public transport, local food production and medical services, local building materials and renewable energy generation, a strong sense of community and mutual reliance - and a local council system that really involves that community.

Making fundamental changes to our basic systems takes time. Many of the final actions need to be taken at a local authority, regional or national level. However, people in these positions – councillors, politicians – can also be motivated or not to take certain actions, particularly with decisions that they fear might be unpopular with the electorate. It is not that change can come from below, from grass roots – in fact, it only comes from below. Rio, Kyoto, the U.S. Mayors’ Agreement - are all the result of a chain of actions and reactions by concerned individuals. Political and corporate change has been brought about by individuals making conscious decisions to make change in our lives and to demand that this is acted on at policy level.

In Alcoholics Anonymous, the famous 12-step process helps individuals go through the difficult process of weaning themselves from alcohol dependency:

1. The bottle has me down. My life is a mess. (Awareness of having a problem)
2. There is help. (Awareness of support)
3. I let a higher power take over. (Seeking that help)
4. I need to look at my life. (Assessment)
5. I admit all I did wrong. (Personal responsibility)
6. I want to be free. (Willingness to change, seeking a better way of life)
7. I ask a Higher Power to help me be free (Moral or ethical purpose and support)
8. I ask: Who did I hurt? How can I fix it? (Assessing the damage)
9. I try to fix things if I can. (Repairing the damage – moving to action)
10. I check up on myself. I am honest (Monitoring and assessment? To see if it is really working)
11. I ask a Higher Power for help to live the right way. (Education and training – studying at CAT!)
12. I live by these steps and get better. I try to help other alcoholics. (Putting it into action, living it, helping others, lobbying, being the change we want to see in the world).

The principle at the heart of recovery for AA is Personal Responsibility.

“I am responsible. . .When anyone, anywhere, reaches out for help, I want the hand of A.A. always to be there. And for that: I am responsible.”
(The Oath, Alcoholics Anonymous)
So, are we seeing any signs of a society attempting to quit? In the last 18 months we have seen serious indications that all levels of society and community are taking action. Four reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007, The Hirsch Report, media coverage that has never been so great, Climate Action Network, national marches on Climate Change, Climate Reduction Action Groups (CRAGs), anti-nuclear protests, lock-ons at Ffos-y-Fan open face coal mine, and the exponential growth of the Transition Movement.

The Transition Movement has also borrowed from the research around addiction, to develop its own processes for change. These steps, which have informed the structure for developing a Transition Town process, are based in part on research from DiClemente’s Stages of Change Model:

Fig. 2: The Stages of Change Model (DiClemente, 2003)

This Stages of Change Model, common in the corporate and drug dependency worlds, understands that people are human, fallible, prone to relapse and go through many stages - denial, head in the sand, awareness, acceptance etc - before they are ready to take action.

The Transition Movement also recognises the need for help through these early stages of pre-contemplation and contemplation, long before action can be generated. The following is the Transition Movement’s own 12-step process:

#1. Set up a steering group and design its demise from the outset
#2. Awareness raising
#3. Lay the foundations
#4. Organise a Great Unleashing
#5. Form sub groups
#6. Use Open Space
#7 Develop visible practical manifestations of the project
#8. Facilitate the Great Reskilling
#9 Build a bridge to Local Government
#10 Honour the elders
#11 Let it go where it wants to go…
#12 Create an Energy Descent Plan

For full details of these steps, see the Transition Initiatives Primer in the module book. I have included them here though to illustrate perhaps why the Transition Movement is proving so popular and may experience more success than other models:

• It cannot be ‘owned’ by one small group of individuals, who control the process – it is steered by a temporary group with processes that aim at the maximum involvement of the whole community.
• It understands that you have to start from where people are, not where you would like them to be.
• It accepts that we are not all motivated to action simply by receiving information – it is not enough simply to tell people the problem and what to do about it.
• There is a long process of awareness raising and taking a community along together
• Its strength is in mutual support and development, bringing in all ages and abilities, with their skills and knowledge.
• It understands that our Transition affects every aspect of life.
• It has an inbuilt flexibility to adapt to new information or changes in priorities – essential to prevent becoming a static, stagnant talking shop.
• It is a long term project, designed to produce real, meaningful, permanent, visible change.

Rocky descent or crash landing? Evolution or revolution? Gradual change or cold turkey?

Perhaps the future is brighter than it might appear, with popular community level action, political awareness of the problems we face and summits with climate change and energy security firmly on the agenda.

Indeed, Bush and the west appear to be moving away from oil. What is the best means of descending the energy ladder and getting off oil? With such a very addictive and structural problem, are equivalent ‘methadone substitutes’ the answer in the short-term, just to bridge the current gap in energy generation from renewables? Can we turn to ‘Clean coal’, Biofuels, Hydrogen or Nuclear as a quick fix to solve our dirty and destructive habit?

“Soon after the President's speech, the White House released a fact sheet explaining the elements of its new "Advanced Energy Initiative." This Initiative, according to the White House, will consist of $236 million in proposed increases for six clean energy programs in FY 2007. This is hardly a transformational new program.

Furthermore, three of the programs in the Advanced Energy Initiative relate to electricity generation and are therefore essentially irrelevant to the problem of oil dependence, since only a tiny fraction of our electricity (less than 3%) comes from oil. A fourth program focuses on hydrogen fuels, with a payoff several decades away.

It turns out that only two items in the "Advanced Energy Initiative" will help to break our oil addiction in the next generation—a $59 million proposed increase for a Biorefinery Initiative and $6.7 million proposed increase for research on batteries. These proposals are fine as far as they go, but utterly unequal to the task.”

Conclusions

The world is now realizing the problems that Biofuels – or any mass-produced, monoculture approach - brings, and that all the technologies currently being considered by mainstream politicians create more problems than they solve.

Dependency is a problem which takes work at a deep structural level, with long-term approach and support for the ‘addict’. There may be relapse, but with the right support – whether practical, emotional, psychological, technical – a transformation can occur.

It is a difficult journey with no guarantees. But one thing is clear, if we don’t get off this unhealthy dependency soon, we face the dubious honour of being the last generation who had the opportunity to just say ‘no’.

Fig. 3: Trucks are loaded with sugar cane, which will be used to produce biofuels, in Brazil. (Photograph: Paulo Whitaker/Reuters)

Bibliography

Berman, M. (1981) The Re-Enchantment of the World. New York, Bantham.

Booth, D. E. (2004) Hooked on Growth: economic addictions and the environment. Oxford, Rowman and Littlefield Publishers Inc.

Chrisafis, A (2000) Rationing keeps NHS Afloat. The Guardian. Friday September 15th 2000. http://www.guardian.co.uk/petrol/story/0,7369,368702.00html

DiClemente, C. C. (2003) Addiction and Change - How addictions develop and addicted people recover. New York, Guildford Press.

Durning, A. T. (1992) How Much is Enough? – the consumer society and the future of the earth. London, Earthscan Publications

Fleming, D. (2005) Energy and the Common Purpose – descending the energy staircase with Tradable Energy Quotas. London, Lean Connection Press.

Heinberg, R. (2005) How to Avoid Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse. Museletter No. 160 – August 2005. http://www.museletter.com/archive/160.html

Hopkins, R. (2006) Energy Descent Pathways: evaluating potential responses to Peak Oil. Transition Culture

Hounsham, S. (2006) Painting The Town Green. Green-Engage.

Jackson, T. (2005) Motivating Sustainable Consumption – a review of evidence on consumer behaviour and behavioural change. Centre for Environment Strategy, University of Surrey.

Klare, M. (2002) Resource Wars – the new landscape of global conflict. New York, Palgrave Macmillan.

Peden, M., Scurfield, R., Sleet, D., Mohan, D., Hyder, A. A., Jarawan, E., & Mathers, C. (eds) (2004) World Report on Road Traffic Injury Prevention. World Health Organisation.

Sandalow, D. (2006) Feeding the Oil Addiction. ‘The Washington Post’, February 3rd, 2006

Ecotips No 3 about No. ONE (urine)

2008-05-09T08:52:00.004+01:00

An entertaining if somewhat goofy look at the value of Wee. Close the nutrient cycle!

For a more in depth discussion of using urine in the garden download episode 29 of Emma Cooper's gardening podcast at The Alternative Kitchen Garden Website.

HOMEGROWN REVOLUTION - Radical Change Taking Root

2008-05-08T08:22:00.002+01:00

Path to Freedom presents 'A Homegrown Revolution' A collaboration of selective media clips which feature their urban homestead and farm which focus on the need of radical action -- growing food in the city.

This self produced, short music video was shown at Peter Seller's Cultural Art's class at UCLA followed by a short presentation by urban farmer, Jules Dervaes founder of Path to Freedom. The class focus was on the art of slow food and among other guests invited were Michael Pollan, Alice Waters and Eric Schlosser.

Like Victory Gardens of yesteryear, start your own homegrown revolution, grow your own food in your back or front yard -- for more information visit the urban homesteaders at www.PathtoFreedom.com

Since the early 80's the Dervaes family has slowly transformed their ordinary city lot into a self sufficient urban homestead.

(NOTE: This video's creation, concept, layout, sound pickups and editing was done in a marathon session of just three days so please excuse any choppy editing! )

VIDEO FOOTAGE COURTESY OF
Path to Freedom
Treehugger TV
CBS2 / KCAL9
SPA8 / Chris Klonecke
Gina Angelique / Chris Hall
EARTH RISE Dance Performance

INTERVIEWS COURTESY
Path to Freedom
Christopher Klonecke
Gina Angelique / Chris Hall
CBS2 / KCAL9

MUSIC COURTESY
"Revolution Cry"
Lifehouse / Blyss

"Paths of Victory"
Bob Dylan

"Looking Out My Backdoor"
Creedence Clearwater Revival

"Smoothie Song""
Nickel Creek

"Drive"
REM

"Green Grows the Rushes"
REM

"Footprints in the Snow"
Songs of the Hills

"Seneca Square Dance"
Songs of the Hills

New climate science from down under - by Robb

2008-05-07T08:39:00.003+01:00

Australia, once the only other developed country that made denying climate change a central government policy, has made a turnabout with a new PM. Take heart America, soon you too could join the rest of the world community to tackle this biggest of challenges.

"New Australian research showed current policies did not go far enough to manage the risks posed by climate change, according to Dr Roger Jones, a climate risk analyst with CSIRO's energy transformed flagship.

Global action was needed by 2015 to adequately reduce those risks, he said.

The research, conducted by CSIRO and Victoria University, showed even if severe emissions cuts were implemented from 2030, warming of 2.2 to 4.7 degrees could still happen by 2100.

If the present high emissions path was followed, the most likely warming was between 3.4 and 7.2 degrees."

It's not all gloom and doom however;

"Work undertaken by CSIRO showed it was very likely cuts to emissions by 2050 would pay for themselves by 2100 in economic terms."

read the whole article here:

http://news.smh.com.au/world-may-be-heating-quickly-scientist/20080507-2bul.html

Lighter side of Al Gore

2008-05-05T16:40:00.001+01:00

New Urbanism vs. Suburbanism

2008-05-03T21:25:00.002+01:00

As population and pollution problems continue to develop in our world, new solutions to existing obstacles must be cultivated. Instead of expanding roads and building more bridges for more cars to congest, we must move to a different standpoint. New Urbanism sets out to make cars a source of secondary or even tertiary transportation in an interactive setting where people can prosper together healthily and ecologically. Getting to work in today's world involves high levels of stress, and poor use of time, not to mention the virtually eliminated element of social interaction. In a New Urbanistic environment, all amenities are within about 10 minutes of walking distance from either home or work. Roads are hidden behind properties in slow speed alleys, promoting walking, bicycling and other sustainable methods of transportation. In such an environment where social interaction is encouraged and sustainable lifestyles are both implemented and encouraged, a healthy culture can emerge and prosper. New Urbanism, in a small area, brings together people of all age, income, culture, and race, setting a standard of equality among all humans, regardless of background. It is imperative that new ideas such and New Urbanism are explored and provided for people to assess for themselves. In this manner we can move forward as a whole society, leaving no one behind.

The Suffering of Change - by Robb

2008-05-02T08:55:00.009+01:00

While the Bush Administration has sticky black wet dreams about 30 years worth of oil in the arctic some of us are waking up to some basics. The answer isn't in more new cars that burn more fossil fuel even if more efficient. Einstein said you can't solve a problem with the same level of thinking that created it.

We can't consume our way out of overconsumption!

We must all simply find ways to consume less, much less, of everything.
I have been lucky for the last 2 years. I have no commute and don't drive. My wife walks to work and I walk everywhere unless we are going on one of our trips around the UK. For that we take our 10 year old diesel van powered by recycled vegetable oil based biodiesel. We could buy a hybrid or even a smart car. Why would we do that? Aside from putting us in debt, a cage we stringently avoid, buying a new vehicle to save carbon emissions is like giving an alcoholic a smaller shot glass. He'll just pour more self destruction. You need to take away the liquor. Cuba didn't respond to their oil crisis by importing or making new more efficient cars, they kept what they had going and drove less, if at all. They are now a model of sustainability.

The emissions involved in mining the metals, creating the plastics and other materials involved in making a new more efficient car, not to mention shipping all that stuff and the final product will take years to offset by the use of that vehicle. People with long commutes need to look at ways to change their lives to accommodate shorter or even better no commutes. Do it now before peak oil forces it later and you will be happier.

Folks here are complaining as gas reaches £5/gallon, that's close to $10/gallon, but always with the caveat, "What are you gonna do, you have to have it" What will it take to convince them that they can change? How do they become Enviro-mental? Research indicates that gloom and doom scarcity language won't work. It must be approached as a positive life enhancing option.

"It may very well be true that our future existence will be much more materially constrained than it is now, the way to 'soft land' there is to give it a positive spin." (De Young 2001)

My character tends the opposite direction. For instance, I have recently found it revelatory to consider recycling as a failure. Americans, myself among them, have thought for years that recycling would do the trick. Recycling is an indication of a design flaw.

“technological devices and products we use are in themselves potent sources of behavioural control...... Discrete physical properties of technologies and consumer products influence the ways in which they are used.” (Crabb 1992)

These properties have been named affordances.(Norman 1988) Items that should be recycled are actually designed to be thrown away, increasing recycling opportunities does not address the inherent design flaw. Recycling is a failure to reuse which is a failure to reduce. Shouldn’t we encourage citizens to reduce first? Shouldn’t we direct our efforts toward the cessation of the manufacturing of

“countless gadgets and products that have no defensible place in a rational energy efficient society”? (Crabb 1992)

This would address not only the use of resources involved in the personal use of products but in the creation of the products themselves. It is easy to suggest this but how to put it in to practice?

My father always said, "set an example, don't take one." My policy when I think I need a market good is to first try to do without it, borrow it, or make it myself, if that fails then to source it on freecycle, if that fails then to buy it used. For instance, when we need a lampshade in the house, for the lamps I've pulled out of skips, I make it out of old plastic protein powder containers. They are durable, diffuse the light from my CFL's nicely, and come with the product contained. Again, I have to thank my father for that idea, he practiced practicality as long as I can remember.

Change, big change, is thundering down the glacier aimed right at our lifestyles. We can begin the process in advance and thus lessen the crushing consequences of impact or simply stare into the headlights.

Paradox of Choice video

2008-04-28T15:53:00.002+01:00

Here's a link to a video to remind us of Dave's excellent post on this topic.
http://www.ted.com/talks/view/id/93

Are you a Consumer or a Citizen? - By Robb

2008-04-28T15:17:00.003+01:00

To paraphrase James Howard Kunstler, stop referring to yourself as a consumer, think of yourself as a citizen. To carry it further, don't let anybody else get away with calling you a consumer, it is degrading. A citizen has responsibilities to his/her community, a consumer does not. A citizen has an opinion that matters, a consumer does not. A citizen has power, a consumer does not. We are not meat that grazes and dies for the betterment of the consuming economy, cattle to be fed upon. Become an asset to your community, not just another consumer of it. Get to know your neighbors, work together to craft a sustainable neighborhood. Consumption should be a conscious choice. Socially conscious consumption is a good first step to becoming a citizen. Consume less, consume wisely, consume as if your future depended on it. It does.

dig up your lawn!

2008-04-25T07:54:00.001+01:00

Al Gore's new video

2008-04-24T12:43:00.001+01:00

In Al Gore's brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of "generational mission" -- the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement -- to set it right. Gore's stirring presentation is followed by a brief Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates' climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future.

Off-Grid Living with Renewable Energy

2008-04-22T21:50:00.001+01:00

Life off the electricity grid, using renewable energy, with best selling author William "Bill" Kemp and his wife, living the good life with a low impact on the planet.

recent climate science again! - by Robb

2008-04-20T15:37:00.003+01:00

In March I posted a link to this page. I'm posting the information itself just because it is so important. It is from UK Indymedia

"What the IPCC Report Didn't and Couldn't Say
Scientists involved in writing the report said recently that it is already out of date and that its predictions are too conservative. Here are some very important scientific findings (not modeling) from this past year that were not allowed into the report because of a deadline of a year and a half ago for the input of scientific data. This wasn't a dastardly conspiracy, just a rather stupid rule that proved to be quite tragic in light of the alarming scientific data of this past year. Moreover, the political contingent showed up as each report was written by the scientific community, and the political hacks softened up the language every where they could, so the report is not even close to what it should be.

The sea level rise forecast is the most notably skewed. Dr. James Hansen says a more accurate forecast for 2100 is more than 5 meters without measures to reduce CO2 substantially.(1) He, and many others, have said that the report was written without the very recent knowledge of glacial acceleration feedbacks that have surprised the scientists with the rapidity of the melting and flow, making the report's forecasts much too low.

Consequently, the level of urgency that is understood by policy makers around the world will be out of touch with reality and the chance to slow the warming of the planet disastrously diminished.

[Links to the article that these statements are ripped from are provided below. You will notice that only one of these reports is from a U.S. corporate news service.]"
For references please see the site.

"2) Dec. '06 - Globe is Warming Faster Than Scientist's worst predictions. Our worst fears are exceeded by reality.

**************

Oceans
3) Jan. '07 - Earth is Losing its Ability to Absorb CO2?

4) May '07 - ... (the Southern Oceans) are beginning to release the CO2 they have stored.

5) Oct. '07 - ...the ability of (the Atlantic) ocean to absorb CO2 has dropped by half....

6) Feb. '07 - World's sea levels are rising at an accelerating rate. Sea levels are rising even faster than scientists predicted.

7) May '07 - 30% reduction in the warm currents that carry water north from the Gulf Stream.

**************

Other Positive Feedbacks
8) Mar. '07 - Tundra Disappearing At Rapid Rate. "It's like it waited until conditions were just right and then it decided to get up and run, not just walk.".....This sets up a "positive feedback," the same process that is associated with the rapidly decaying Arctic ice cap.

9) Aug. '07 - Arctic lakes are beginning to release methane and CO2. A global tragedy of monumental proportions is unfolding at the top of the world...

10) Nov. '07 - The increase in forest fires in the boreal forests have weakened one of the earth's greatest terrestrial sinks of carbon dioxide.

**************

CO2
11) Feb. '07 - Carbon dioxide rate is at highest level for 650,000 years.

12) Oct. '07 - New CO2 evidence means climate change predictions are 'too optimistic' Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are increasing much faster.... than scientists have predicted....

**************

Glaciers
13) Jan. '07 - Glaciers (water supply) Melting 6 X Faster Than '80s

14) Sept. '07 - Glaciers are moving much faster towards the sea because of previously unknown factors. (Greenland ice is) advancing toward the sea at seven miles per year, compared with three and a half miles before.

**************

Polar Ice
15) Jan. '07 - The Pace of Arctic Global Warming is Staggering. "....the change "is happening so extremely fast, much much faster than we have seen in thousands and thousands of years. "Climate change in the Arctic is not coming. It is here,"

16) Mar. '07 - ... the Antarctic Peninsula is warming faster than anywhere else on Earth, and glaciers are in massive retreat.

17) April '07 - .... the (sea ice) that we've observed is actually declining much faster than the models have shown.

18) Sept. '07 - 'Remarkable' Drop in Arctic Sea Ice Raises Questions

**************

19) Jan. '07 - Reduce CO2 in Ten Years, or Climate Will be Out-of-Control. 'If we fail to act, we will end up with a different planet'

20) July '07 - No Link Between Cosmic Rays and Global Warming

*****************************************************

Recent Temperature Records -
*****************************************************

21) 2005 was the Warmest year on Record.

22) 2006 was the 5th Warmest on Record.

23) 2006 was the 2nd Warmest Year on Record for the U.S.

24) '06 Dec. the Warmest December on Record

25) January '07......................Warmest on Record

26) April '07...........................Third Warmest on Record.

27) January-May period.............................tied with 1998 as the Warmest on Record

*************

11 of the past 12 years are the warmest on record, and '07 is clearly on track to make it 12 in a row.

Skeptics say that this is normal 'variability' of the climate. But the more you read of the data of late, you see that it is only varying in the wrong direction.......... everywhere they look.

Don Beck "

Remember the earth has a 35 year thermal lag, these are just the cumulative effects up to the and including the 70's! Please refer to number 11 and 12 above. Just since 2000 the rate of increase in emissions has tripled.

Time to drought proof your home and garden, invest in off grid renewable energy systems instead of entertainment, pay off your mortgage, learn a skill that is truly productive, rip up your lawn and plant food instead, keep chickens, and start forming close ties with likeminded neighbors. Learn to live sustainably now, don't put it off. Teach your children.

Mountaintop Removal Video

2008-04-18T15:51:00.001+01:00

This is a 2-minute abbreviated version of a mountaintop removal video featured on ilovemountains.org. The video features Woody Harrelson and shows how the mountains and culture of Appalachia are being destroyed by a new form of coal mining called mountaintop removal

Stop Coal! - By Robb

2008-04-18T15:26:00.003+01:00

As oil gets more and more expensive to extract, currently we get 17 units of energy out of every 1 we invest, down from 100 at the beginning of the oil boom, resources that have better return will increasingly look more attractive. Coal has an 80/1 ratio. Coal is the absolute worst way to generate electricity in terms of carbon dumping to the atmosphere. There is no leeway left. Latest science indicates the situation is much more dire than the IPCC reports indicate, the science for those date back to 2005. Check out this fellows writing for more info, Thomas Homer-Dixon. You can also listen to one of his speeches here, Radio Ecoshock. We have a few choices left but they are dwindling. In another 20 years there will be one, geo engineering. Are you willing to leave this to tinkering with the planet on that scale?

There should not be another coal fired power plant built on this planet. Please see the Architecture 2030 discussion on this topic. They propose cutting consumption via our choices relating to the built environment which is absolutely necessary but we must also look at our personal consumption within our buildings as well. How many TV's do we need, how many computers, clothes dryers, ipods, dishwashers, hair dryers, cell phones, stereos, and security systems to protect all this junk. By continuing to demand more electricity to power our unsustainable lifestyles we are tacitly approving mountaintop removal and the construction of more coal fired power plants. Cut your demand now or leave a world of hurt to the children.

Food part 4 - Urban Agriculture - by Robb

2008-04-14T07:35:00.004+01:00

Most of us rely on supermarkets, our grandparents relied on local produce supplied by locally owned markets and grew their own. Since then the food supply has been largely taken over by corporate interests. This is true in Europe and the U.S. We have Tesco, you have WalMart.

“.......the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation cite Belgium, France and the UK as ‘extreme examples’ where only 10 percent of retail units account for more than 80 per cent of food distribution. (Food and Agriculture Organisation, 2002) Supermarkets’ reliance on economies of scale and repeatable quality standards inevitably favours larger suppliers and the use of chemicals in preference to environmentally benign agricultural methods. In contrast urban farms and community gardens, tends to be characterised by the use of organic methods and the local sale of produce.”

Urban Agriculture (UA) allows the use of organic waste for composting reducing landfill usage as well as partially remedying the breakdown of nutrient flows which are destroying our oceans and inland waterways, nutrients in the form of oil are pumped from the ground, shipped to refineries, processed into fertilisers, shipped to the farm, sprayed on the earth, washed into the water sources and thence into the sea or transported as food to the consumer and eventually landfilled or flushed down the sewer as waste. We are eating oil. UA offers an alternative to the high food/nutrient miles paradigm of the supermarket distribution model.

This reliance on supermarkets to the detriment of local food production leaves the urban dweller, particularly the poor, vulnerable to supply issues such as price hikes due to rising costs of energy and water as well as crop failure due to drought and future energy shortages, a virtual certainty with global warming and peak oil. Additionally the poor increasingly find themselves in ‘retail deserts’ as the large supermarkets fail to adequately serve more and more poor neighborhoods after having driven the local food supply network out of business or out of town. This leaves fast food as the primary option for many of the developed worlds most vulnerable with all it’s attendant health implications. Fast food as well as other highly processed foods have impacts beyond health.

Studies done in the 70’s, sparked by the oil shortages of that era, indicate that, for example the embodied energy in a typical loaf of white bread is primarily attributable to fertilisers and transport.(Chapman 1975) Here’s how it looked at that time with a total of 5.6kWh/loaf;

Retail
8.6% shop heat and light
12.2% transport
Bakery
9.4% non wheat ingredients
23.6% baking fuel
8.3% packaging
5.0% transport
Milling
2.2% packaging
2.0% other
7.4% milling fuel
1.4% transport
Farm
11.6% fertiliser
7.3% tractor fuel
0.4% other

Fertilisers and transport made up 37.6% of the energy embodied in a loaf of bread. While industrial processes have become more efficient since then, packaging and transport have increased. A study done in Britain in 2000 found that the embodied energy in the food consumed by a typical family of four household was 265kWh/m2 (Vale 2000) while the energy used by a typical house at that time was 257kWh/m2. If the energy used by the family car is included the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions of the food used by the household is roughly equivalent to the equivalent carbon dioxide emissions used in the house and for personal transport. (Kramer K.J. et al., 1999) Agriculture has a large equivalent carbon dioxide emission impact because petro chemical fertilisers release nitrous oxides which are 300 times more potent as greenhouse gases than CO2.

It has been suggested that if the UK switched entirely to food produced organically, locally and consumed in season, greenhouse gas reductions in excess of 40 million tonnes/year would result, a 22% reduction in total UK CO2 emissions. (Stanley 2002)

Until about 1920 the food produced in the US released an equal amount of energy upon consumption as the energy used to supply and produce it. By 1970 the energy used to produce food in the US had multiplied on average by a factor of 8. (Steinhart & Steinhart 1971) The energy ratio in the UK by 1968 was .2, the amount of energy derived from edibles divided by the energy used to produce it, thus for every joule of energy released by the food 5 joules were used to produce it. (Leach 1976) Neither figure takes into account packaging, transport, refrigeration, processing, and marketing.

It is also important to eat food in season. Not only have we adapted as primates to eat food in season and thus it is a more natural and healthy practice but eating only produce in season has a large impact on energy usage and thus greenhouse gas emissions. A vegetable requiring a heated greenhouse requires 57 times more energy at 37.15 MJ/kg to produce than a vegetable locally grown in an open field at 1.55MJ/kg. Even shipping produce 2000 km from a country where it is in season is preferable as it uses only 5.8MJ/kg. (Kol, Bieiot and Wilting, 1993) The easiest way to do this is to eat locally grown seasonal produce.

Locally grown can mean many things. In the context of urban agriculture or peri urban agriculture, on the periphery of town, it can mean within walking distance or short delivery haulage. At a local farmers market stall the produce may have been grown in a field on the outskirts of town and been driven in but the customers to the stall are more likely to have walked or cycled to the stall than to have driven a car. Supermarkets on the other hand, being typically situated on busy roads, are much more likely to rely on customers arriving by car in addition to international delivery of the produce itself. Additionally, the produce at the farmers stall will have less packaging and gone through less processing.

As communities practice more and more UA the amount of food miles, packaging and processing reduces even further as the food is traded house to house and neighborhood to neighborhood. Have you planted your veggies yet?

Angry Kid

2008-04-13T10:04:00.002+01:00

A hard hitting video that reminds us of the consequences of continuing to live in an unsustainable manner. Time IS running out.

Toilet Paper and Carbon Sequestration? - by Robb

2008-04-11T20:37:00.003+01:00

We’ve just returned from 2 weeks on the Coast Path in Cornwall. When we backpack we tend to get a bit obsessive about the weight we carry. We both carry a book to read and my practice is to tear out the pages of mine as I finish them and either use them as fire starter or toilet paper. Saves weight, saves resources, and is a sure fire carbon sequestration technology. How so?
First lets look under the seat at toilet paper. The following quote is from the Sustainable Concepts Newsletter http://www.designforward.net

“Toilet paper, that ubiquitous and apparently indispensable component of modern life, is often manufactured by cutting down the world's forests. In Canada, clear-cut logging claims half a million acres of Ontario and Alberta's boreal forests each year with much of the destruction earmarked for virgin paper tissue products. Similar activity is taking place in the Southeastern U.S. Recently, Greenpeace and the Natural Resources Defense Council have started campaigns to educate the public on the environmental impacts of using these kinds of products.

The good news is that all of this industrial pressure for tissue products can be avoided simply by using recycled paper toilet tissue. In fact, if every household in the U.S. replaced just 1 roll of virgin toilet paper with just 1 recycled roll 424,000 trees would be saved!”

Article & Picture © GreenLine Paper
More Info at Kleercut... http://www.kleercut.net/en/

So what is the link to carbon sequestration? While all the business as usual folks go on about clean coal and developing carbon sequestration technology we are literally flushing away the most effective carbon sequestration technology there is, trees.
So please use toilet paper made from recycled content or even better don’t buy it at all, use recycled newspaper or old books and either put it in the bin, burn it in your woodstove, or throw it in your composting toilet. I can’t think of anything better to do with all those old Michael Crichton novels.

The World's First Bionic Burger

2008-03-24T21:59:00.005Z

True story about a man who's been saving hamburgers, cheeseburgers, and Big Macs from McDonalds for over 18 years... and they look EXACTLY the same! Visit http://www.thebestdayever.com for more information.

David Garett "Gypsy Dance" for the fun of it - from Rob

2008-03-24T15:06:00.002Z

Sometimes music sustains me.

Video - Franken Foods

2008-03-23T10:23:00.002Z

The crazy story about genetically modified foods... and what it means for your health. For more information, please visit: http://www.thebestdayever.com

Food Part 3 - GM Foods - by Robb

2008-03-23T09:49:00.004Z

Genetically Modified crops have nothing to do with feeding the world and everything to do with corporate profit through control of our food supply. Global hunger is caused by politics, war, and money not lack of supply. Green peace has loads of information regarding the threat from unsustainable farming practices and GM Foods. Rather than cut and paste from their excellent website I refer you directly to the source.

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/gm/solutions

Do a search for "7-deadly-sins.pdf", a nice expose' about Monsanto. Also the report "cool-farming-full-report.pdf" is worth having a look at as it deals with agriculture and global warming.

One aspect of this I'd like to discuss briefly is the link between meat and GM crops. Though England and much of Europe tightly restricts the growing of GM crops they don't seem to have any compunction about importing the food produced. The majority of factory farmed livestock in the UK is fed with GM feedstock. Another reason to reduce your intake of meat?

With many developing countries rushing to grow crops for biofuel, the problems of hunger and the profits of Monsanto are set to soar.

Eighth Deadly Sin Update - by Dave

2008-03-18T20:53:00.004Z

Regarding my earlier posting suggesting the addition of "Waste" as another Deadly Sin, it seems as though the Vatican has caught up with me. Here's an excerpt from the current Harper's Weekly:

The Vatican released a list of seven "social" sins, meant to complement the existing seven cardinal vices. They include drug abuse, littering, genetic tampering,excessive wealth, and creating poverty--specifically,"contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor." Perrier-Jouet announced it would sell the world's most expensive champagne, priced at 4,166 euros, or$6,485, per bottle. Spokesman Olivier Cavil said sales would be limited to 100 members of the "super-rich" global elite accustomed to "ultimate luxury."

Although the Vatican directive doesn't use the term "waste", I think "contributing to the widening divide between rich and poor" nicely incorporates the concept. True waste, as I define it, goes even a little further than that, in that a resource is not only allocated to just an elite few...but even those elite few don't end up actually using it. That must be truly galling to over-consuming elitists...the fact that there's a limit to how much resource a single organism can actually absorb, requiring that a great bulk of their treasure must simply be "wasted".
I'm reminded of an observation to be found in The Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, American satirist, aphorist and journalist:

"The only thing the rich allow the poor to keep is their distance."