There’s a new bottom-up force for tackling climate change and preparing for Peak Oil. It’s called, the Transition Towns initiative. Starting from the town of Totnes in Devon, over 100 towns, and villages, and even a Forest and a City, have already signed up. They all help one another through the Transition Network, but Transition is about communities on the ground bringing together their existing projects and skills to prepare for life after cheap oil.

World demand for oil is relentlessly climbing, driven by the booming new economies such as China. The people in these countries quite legitimately aspire to the same standard of living as people in the rich West enjoy. But world population is also rising, and will reach at least 9 billion before it possibly stabilises around 2050. Quite literally, the Earth is full. We have already used half the fossil fuel oil available - the planet is not going to be able to meet the growing demands for consumption from its human population.

Of course, burning all this oil is going to wreak havoc on our climate, and the poorest will suffer the most.

Transition is a hugely positive response to these crises. By re-building resiliant, vibrant local communities, we can greatly improve our quality of life without having to increase our consumption - our ’standard of living’ - to do so.

The first Transition City is Bristol. Now a diverse and loose coalition of people in Birmingham want to make a positive start on Transition for their city. If you want to find out more, please contact me - treaclemine [at] intranet [dot] org - Transition is about whole communities working together, and every single individual has something to offer, whether their memories of coping with rationing, their skills at setting up online communications, or their enthusiasm for bringing in future generations.

A draft flyer for this project is now available.

It sounds daft, but it may soon be a reality for some poorer people. In our poorly-thought out rush to be green, the demand on many cereal crops for use as a base in biofuel production means that demand is outstripping supply. This means that prices will rise further, taking some basic foods above levels that some people will be able to afford - you drive, they starve.

As global oil production has or is about to peak, the switch from fossil fuels is a good thing, but not enough has necessarily been done in developed countries to reduce energy consumption rather than just switching from fossil to biofuels. The availability of an alternative fuel source has meant most people have become complacent about the problem, without realising or understanding that there is not productive enough land in the world to grow crops for fuel and food.

Of course, with higher relative incomes and a better standard of living, it is not the people in developed countries that will feel the negative effect of biofuels first, it is those in the developing countries, who it is predicted will also suffer the early effects on global warming more than most.

Today, the UN FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation)  stated that world cereal production in 2007 is on track to reach a record level of 2 095 million tonnes, a rise of 4.8 percent over 2006 levels. But with stocks at their lowest level in over two decades, total supplies would still be barely adequate to meet increased demand, boosted by the fast-growing biofuels industry.

International prices for most cereals have risen significantly in 2006/07 so far and are likely to remain high in 2007/08, according to FAO’s latest Crop Prospects and Food Situation report. As a result, the cereal import bill of the low-income food deficit countries (LIFDCs) is forecast to increase by about one-quarter in the current season.

Peter Harper has been a key figure in ‘alternative technology’ circles since the 1970s. He loves to examine all aspects of ’sustainability’, often reaching insights which contradict the ‘green concensus’. He says,

“‘Alternative technology’ suggests hardware ‘magic bullets’ which will solve environmental problems. But it rarely works out so neatly. Very often, the best answers are ‘alternative to technology’.

“Consider solar water-heating collectors.

Continue Reading »

From BBC News website…

A solution for the world’s energy crisis may come in the form of a pig.

American oil company ConocoPhillips and Tyson Foods, the world’s biggest meat producer, have announced that they will produce diesel from pork fat.

Cows and chickens will also be transformed to power motor vehicles.

The companies say that this renewable source of energy will be cleaner than conventional diesel. It is hoped that it will be available at petrol stations by the end of the year.

“It is chemically equivalent to diesel itself,” said Geoff Webster, who is managing the scheme for Tyson Foods, in an interview with the BBC World Service.

“It has lower Carbon Dioxide, it is zero sulphur, so many positive benefits for the environment.”

Read the full article.

Describing themselves as “Europe’s leading eco-centre”, CAT aim to: “… offer solutions to some of the most serious challenges facing our planet and the human race, such as climate change, pollution and the waste of precious resources. … demonstrate practical ways of addressing these problems. … show that living more sustainably is not only easy to attain but can provide a better quality of life.”

They go on to say, “Averting a massive environmental disaster is not out of our reach, although if we continue to treat the early signs with apathy, it soon will be. We address every aspect of the average lifestyle - the key areas we work in are renewable energy, environmental building, energy efficiency, organic growing and alternative sewage systems.”

CAT has recently expanded their online presence. As well as their main Information Web site, and Green Shop they now have a Discussion Forum site, and are part of the new UK Earth Centre Network site. There are a huge range of ’solutions’ out there - what’s lacking is the will to put them into action across the country and the world. Read, learn and act?

From BBC Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/6516893.stm

In principle, biofuels sound great. You use a sugary or starchy plant and some chemistry and you have a fuel that can power cars, buses, trucks etc. The perfect solution to our dependency on the black stuff (oil that is, not Guiness!)

However, when you start using agricultural land to produce crops for fuel rather than crops for people, or you clear-cut old rainforest to plant palm (as is happening in some parts of the world), then alarm bells should start ringing.

Far from being the answer to our oil-prayers, biofuels may well contribute to hunger and starvation amongst the world’s most needy people, as well as wholesale species destruction in the tropical rainforests. The reason is that there isn’t enough land in the world to produce the food the world needs and biofuels too.

Now, even the oil companies are expressing concern that they cannot meet the UK target of 5% biofuel on the forecourt by 2010 whilst still protecting wildlife.

Food riots in Mexico

Already, President Bush’s highly subsidised drive to get fuel from the Prairies has triggered food riots in Mexico because it has pushed up the price of corn.

Governments face a real challenge - deep down, they know that they need to reduce car use, yet they have encouraged a society which revolves around the car - out-of-town shopping centres with poor or no public transport links, housing developments on green-belt land, again with poor or no public transport links. Batten down the hatches, I think we may be in for a rough ride.

The UK has become only the seventh nation in the world to have more than two gigawatts (GW) of operational wind power capacity.

The milestone was passed on Friday when the Braes O’Doune wind farm, near Stirling, began producing electricity.

Trade and Industry Secretary Alistair Darling described it as a “major landmark” for the UK wind industry.

The government has set a target for 10% of electricity to be generated from renewable sources by 2010.

The 36-turbine Braes O’Doune wind farm, built and operated by Airtricity, has a generating capacity of 72 megawatts (MW), enough to supply electricity to 45,000 homes in the area, according to the British Wind Energy Association (BWEA).

Maria McCaffery, BWEA’s chief executive, said passing the 2GW mark, equivalent to two coal-fired power stations, was a “tremendous step forward”.

For more information: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/6344215.stm

A round-up of the week in climate change from the Climate Change News blog.

“This week the blogosphere has been dealing with questions of transport, future energy solutions, negawatts as a source of energy, carbon offsets, weird weather, China’s development and environmental devastation, and continued business innovation.”

Includes concerns about the sustainability of biofuels,

“We need to stop the web of biodiversity being destroyed by monocultures grown in the name of climate change mitigation. And we need to speak out against anybody, no matter their scientific degree or qualification, who claims that monocultures can stabilize the climate”

a study of how to meet energy demands affordably through efficiency, and a look at carbon offsets offered by MyClimate. Many links to original news articles.

“Make hay whilst the sun shines” is an old saying. Maybe I could change it to “Make solar electricity whilst the sun shines and use wind turbines when it’s windy”, but what about when it’s neither sunny nor windy?

We will be faced (or rather our governments will), with some choices about energy production for the population in the not too distant future. Unless some new technology comes along that generates bountiful energy with no nasty side effects, we are faced some stark choices.

Renewables (wind, solar, wave) etc certainly need additional investment and commitment from governments so they can be producing an even greater percentage of power to the national grid than they currently do (and relatively, the cost of electricity generation using these ways will become cheaper as they are more widely adopted and the cost – both in materials and to the environment, of the other ways increases). In some parts of the UK hydro-electric is a clean source (although not necessarily if excessive land has been lost due to damming rivers), so the rest comes back to oil, coal, gas and nuclear. Continue Reading »

“Spiralseed and OrganicLea cordially invite you to the launch of ‘EARTH WRITINGS’ by Graham Burnett,

Sat 13 Jan 2007
4pm onwards

The Hornbeam Centre, 458 Hoe Street, Walthamstow London E17
(near the Bakers Arms - 5 minutes walk from Walthamstow Central BR)

This event will be preceded at 2pm by a talk ‘Introduction to Permaculture’ by Mark Warner of ‘Naturewise’ All welcome! Please feel free to pass this message onto anybody who might be interested.

www.spiralseed.co.uk/earthwritings

–
Graham Burnett: Integrated Design for Local Environmental Resources”