Hello,

This is an invitation to join the Bristol Social Forum egroup. As a subscriber
you will receive 1 digest per week of emails sent to the group, as well as being
able to email your events, news, and resource requests or offers to all 1,000+
subscribers. Bristol Social Forum is intended for regional events and campaigns,
not national cut n paste news articles.

To join our egroup please send a blank email to the address below and then wait
for, and reply to, the confirmation message:

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Join the Bristol Social Forum egroup and take your pick of the wide range of
regional events and campaigns taking place on a regular basis. As a subscriber
you are not required to adhere to a party line or political platform beyond
recognising that posts should not be discriminatory on the basis of gender,
ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or disability.

Visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bristolsocialforum

We look forward to receiving your subscription request.

Many thanks.


Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

Hello - please join Direct Action Against War,

To join our network of over 1,500 U.K and Global subscribers, please send a
blank email to the address below and then wait for, and reply to, the
confirmation message:

directactionagainstwar-subscribe@yahoogroups.com

KEY NOTE: As a subscriber you will receive less than 2 digests per week.

PURPOSE: As the world bathes in the glow of the Obama honeymoon, the 'War On
Terror' continues to be waged as the 'War Without End'. Meanwhile, the U.K now
has 9,000 troops deployed in Afghanistan, in a war which has been waged for
longer than World War II, at an intensity not seen since World War II. Military
analysts have described this war as unwinnable, yet U.S and U.K forces continue
to dig deeper into this quaqmire.

We cannot engage in wishful thinking that U.S foreign policy has fundamentally
changed. Obama's intentions may be good, but he is up against an entrenched
military industrial complex at home which shows no sign of ending the 'War
Without End'. DAAW continues to exist as an outlet for Direct Action groups and
individuals which have not made the same mistake as many other groups which have
wound up their activities.

PRIORITISE DAAW FOR EARLY NOTICE OF EVENTS: Due to our size and reach, relative
to much of the network, priortising DAAW as the place to post early notice of
Direct Action events means events can be redistributed to 100's of smaller
groups which DAAW subscribers are subscribed to. Sending events at short notice
elimates this potential gain.

Visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/directactionagainstwar

We look forward to receiving your subscription request.

Thanks,

(A DAAW moderator)

Dear All
I think this link is worth sending on. It came from a very good friends
daughter who works for Action Aid. Well worth a watch, even if most of
it, is obvious, to most of us.

--
Love, life, peace and freedom      Peter  (Le M)




-----Original Message-----
*From:* Anella Wickenden [mailto:Anella.Wickenden@...]
*Sent:* 20 May 2009 10:46


Here's that film I was telling you about:
http://www.storyofstuff.com/index.html



probably one of the most useful 20 minutes of my life!



Anella XX



ActionAid is a registered charity No. 274467 and a company limited by
guarantee
Registered office: ActionAid, Hamlyn House, MacDonald Rd, London N19
5PG, UK
Registered in England and Wales - Company No. 1295174

Season¹s Greetings and
Best wishes for 2008 from

Here's wishing everyone a great 2008!

Best wishes,

Matthew

--
Matthew Trevaskis
matthew@...

For electric vehicles, recharging installations and accessories
ecodrive  PO Box 255  Penzance TR18 9AA
Tel: 0845 4-NO-FUEL  (0845 466 3835)
Fax*: 0845 466 4624
http://www.eco-drive.co.uk
*Fax modem will receive faxes electronically (without using paper) 8am-6pm
Mon-Sat

Start your "carbon diet" as your New Year's Resolution!  Saving 10%
year-on-year will mean that you will be down to 50% by 2015.  Now that's
"trim!"




[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Hello - please join our Direct Action Network.

DIRECT ACTION AGAINST WAR ((DAAW))

To join our network of over 1,500 U.K and Global subscribers, please send a
blank email to the address below and then wait for, and reply to, the
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KEY NOTE: Messages are sent out in roughly twice weekly digests so as not to
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PURPOSE: George Bush, when threatening Iran, talks of the spectre of 'World War
III'. Until now, a US/Israeli military strike on Iran seemed a dangerous
possibility. Now it has become an imminent reality. It is well past time to move
beyond the comfort zone of A-B demonstrations (important as they are) and
towards direct confrontation and opposition to our own illegal military states.

DAAW is a well moderated e-group. Most events or actions which are asking more
than just the signing of another petition, or which are more than just another
march from point A to point B, will be considered for approval as a form of
Direct Action.

The Group Guidelines Can Be Read Here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/directactionagainstwar/message/2757

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Once subscribed send messages to: directactionagainstwar@yahoogroups.com
Visit us: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/directactionagainstwar

If you have difficulty subscribing email: daawtalk@...

ATTACHMENTS: Please don't send attachments to the group, as they are
automatically removed due to the spread of viruses. Please send all info in
plain text.

DIRECT ACTION AGAINST WAR ((DAAW))
        Nervous about who has your email address? Protect yourself with
AddressGuard, new from Yahoo! Mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

REGIONAL ANTI-WAR NEWSLETTER : OCT / NOV 2007
[Covering South & South West, Wales & West Midlands]

Welcome to the contents page of this Regional Anti-War Newsletter.
Publicising events in the South & South West, Wales & West Midlands.
Please visit the links below to read the newsletter in full:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26915
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/10/383117.html

NOTE : Environmental Events Are Included In This Edition.

PURPOSE : This regional newsletter is sent out twice yearly to the South & South
West, Wales & West Midlands. Its purpose is to provide a snapshot of active
groups & contacts across those regions, in the belief that making links between
groups & individuals is vital for effective campaigning & action.

OVER 100 EVENTS & ITEMS!


CONTENTS CODE : ~ Regional Level Events… + National / International Events

01)    +  Iraq Study : 1,220,580 Murdered Since Invasion
02)  ~+  Pledge Against An Attack On Iran  + Cluster Bombs
03)    +  World Against War Conference  + Related : 1st Dec
04)  ~+  Unsafe Nuclear Application @ AWE Burghfield
05)  ~+  AWE Aldermaston Blockade + Related : 12th Nov
06)    +  Global Poll Shows UK Want Nuclear Free World
07)  ~    MORE Bristol & Bath Events
08)  ~    MORE South & South West Events
09)  ~    MORE Wales & West Midlands Events
10)  ~+  MORE National / International Events

For A Downloadable, Printer Friendly Version, Visit:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26915


GROUP DESCRIPTION : This newsletter is produced by Bristol Stop-The-War
Coalition to publicise events & activities in opposition to the so-called 'war
on terror'. We are composed of groups & individuals with a wide variety of
political & religious views. We are politically non-aligned, but we are also
committed to oppose any racist backlash. Bristol STW is not a 'membership'
organisation. Any one or group opposed to the 'war on terror' can consider
themselves part of Bristol STW, or can continue to be publicised by us while
choosing to organise independently of the Coalition. We don't claim (or seek) a
monopoly over anti-war sentiment & activity in the city & recognise that many
groups & individuals have their own ways of opposing the 'war on terror'. We are
also dependent on individual donations for our funding, so if you are able to
make a donation please send a cheque or postal order, payable to: Bristol Stop
The War Coalition. Post: BSTWC c/o 23 Monmouth Rd, Bristol BS7
  8LF. Or you can email us privately : bristolstopwar@...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For general enquiries email: bristolstopwar@...
For News Around Bristol Visit: http://www.bristol.indymedia.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware of a
fraction of the horrors unleashed in Iraq." - Author Arundathi Roy at the World
Tribunal on Iraq, Istanbul, 2005. http://www.worldtribunal.org/

... SAY YES 2 PEACE ... SAY YES 2 PEACE ... SAY YES 2 PEACE ...

---------------------------------
One email account is enough. Simplify your life by switching other accounts into
Yahoo! Mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

REGIONAL MEDIA EXPANSION

Apologies for cross posting. If you are part of an organisation, please pass
this information on to other groups across the South West.

BRISTOL INDYMEDIA NOW ACCEPTS NEWS FROM:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/

Bristol
Somerset
Gloucestershire
Wiltshire
Bath
Dorset
Devon
Cornwall / Kernow

Bristol Indymedia - Read It, Write It, Your Site, Your News...
  http://bristol.indymedia.org

Contribute An Article:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/publish.php
How To Contribute Articles Guide:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25376

Add To The Calendar:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/whatson/calendar.php
Add To The Calendar Guide:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=26062

Editorial Guidelines:
  http://bristol.indymedia.org/editorial.php
.........................................................



---------------------------------
One email account is enough. Simplify your life by switching other accounts into
Yahoo! Mail.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

Avaaz.org - The World in Action
----- Original Message -----
From: Ben Wikler - Avaaz.org
To: pete@...
Sent: Thursday, May 03, 2007 12:37 AM
Subject: Don't let them ignore it


         Dear Avaaz Member,

             The world's leading authority on climate change has announced that
we have the ability to prevent a climate catastrophe -- but only if our leaders
act NOW. The G8 is 5 weeks away. Click to tell your leader to take immediate
climate action!
             Take Action Now
       This Friday, the official body of the world's top climate scientists will
release a historic report. Their findings: humankind has the power to stop
climate catastrophe. But to do it, politicians need to act--and fast.

       The science is now crystal clear that it's not enough for individuals and
corporations to go green. Government action is required. Our political leaders
will be responding to this report over the next few days. But politicians have
shown time and again that they won't listen to science unless their bosses--we,
the people--tell them to. Click below to send a personalized message directly to
your national leader:

       http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_leaders

       Last month, we aimed for 150,000 signatures on our climate action petition
-- and we did it! Now we have just five weeks until the G8 summit, our best
chance this year to get the world's most polluting governments to change course.
We need a massive outcry from millions of people around the world to make sure
this Friday's report leads to a genuine commitments at the summit.

       It will take a movement like no other in history to force the 188
governments to shift the world off fossil fuels. And we have just a few weeks to
build it. But the power of the internet puts this movement within reach. You
have the power to reach anyone on earth--so, please, forward this email to
everyone you know, post it on your blog, tell your friends and your family. And
get started by sending your own message to your leaders:

       http://www.avaaz.org/en/climate_action_leaders

       Years from now, once we've won this fight, our victory will seem like it
was inevitable. But at this moment, it is your work--joining with others around
the world to turn scientific facts into political action--that makes it
possible.

       We're glad to stand with you,

       Ben, Iain, Ricken, Graziela, Paul and the Avaaz Team

       PS - Here are some links on the Climate Scientists' report:

       The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Homepage:
       www.ipcc.ch

       George Monbiot – The Guardian:
       http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2069395,00.html

       France 24:
      
http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070502\
152617.u19nj8p4&cat=null

       Sydney Morning Herald:
      
http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/top-global-scientists-gather-on-climate-c\
hange/2007/04/30/1177788024609.html

       Do not hit reply to this email to unsubscribe. Please click on this link
to unsubscribe from all future mailings.



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.........................................................
More 'Votes' Than Evening Post - Publish Your News!
SOUTH WEST & CARDIFF WELCOME

PUBLISH YOUR NEWS
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE ARTICLES - A Brief Guide
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25376

Bristol Indymedia now routinely gets more 'Votes' than the Evening Post 'This Is
Bristol' website, according to the Google PageRank method! If you do a 'Bristol'
on UK Google, Bristol Indymedia comes out at around 7th - 8th place, and jostles
for position with the 'This Is Bristol' website. Join in with the movement to
democratise Bristol's corporate dominated media landscape; Publish Your News
Now! It's only a click away! Click the 'Submit An Article' button and your story
will appear on the right-hand newswire within minutes of posting.

BRISTOL INDYMEDIA - Read It, Write It, Your Site, Your News...
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/

PUBLISH YOUR NEWS
(South West Welcome)
http://www.bristol.indymedia.org/publish.php

Even though our newswire carries the banner 'Read It, Write It, Your Site, Your
News...' it seems that not everyone is yet aware that this means exactly what it
says. The 'Submit An Article' button, in the top-right corner, takes you to our
article submission form. All you need to do is fill in all the form, click the
'Preview Before Publishing' button at the end of the form, to check it looks ok,
and then click 'Edit Again' or the 'Publish!' button. If you have any problems
filling out the form, or with uploading articles, please see our brief guide at
the top of this email.

PUBLISH YOUR EVENT
(South West Welcome)
http://bristol.indymedia.org/whatson/calendar.php

If you have an event to promote you can use our calendar too. Again, just
like with the newswire, all you need to do is click 'Add Your Event' and
follow the instructions, and your event will be immediately displayed in the
calendar. If your event has an interesting report attached to it, then you
can turn that into an article too, on the main newswire, to go with your
calendar entry.

GUIDELINES
Only if your article is outside of, or breaks, guidelines will it be moved from
the right-hand newswire.
http://bristol.indymedia.org/editorial.php

BRISTOL INDYMEDIA - Read It, Write It, Your Site, Your News...
http://bristol.indymedia.org

---------------------------------
  What kind of emailer are you? Find out today - get a free analysis of your
email personality. Take the quiz at the Yahoo! Mail Championship.

[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

REGIONAL ANTI-WAR NEWS : MARCH / APRIL 2007
[Covering South & South West, Wales & West Midlands]


Welcome to the contents page of this Regional Anti-War Newsletter.
Publicising events in the South & South West, Wales & West Midlands.
Please visit one of the links below to read the NEWSLETTER IN FULL:
VISIT: http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25996
OR: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/365180.html

PURPOSE : This regional newsletter is sent out twice yearly to the South
& South West, Wales & West Midlands. Its purpose is to provide a
snapshot of active groups & contacts across those regions, in the belief
that making links between groups & individuals is vital for effective
campaigning & action.

NOTE : Environmental Events Are Included In This Edition.


4th ANNIVERSARY OF IRAQ WAR
(See Section 1 For Regional & National Events)

Post Your National News On: http://www.indymedia.org.uk
(Regional IMCs Can Be Found On The Left Hand-Column)


CONTENTS CODE : * New Section...  ^ Updated Section...
~ Bristol / Regional Events... + National / International Events...


01) *~+  March 20th: Regional & National Events
02) *~+  Aldermaston Blockades: March & April
03) *  +  Hands Off Iraqi Oil Teach In: 24th March
04) *~+  Fairford Retrials: Latest Info
05) *  +  Faslane 365 Continues
06) *  +  BBC Ban Anti-Blair Record
07) *~    MORE Bristol & Bath Events
08) *~    MORE South & South West Events
09) *~    MORE Wales & West Midlands Events
10) *~+  MORE National / International Events

For A Downloadable, Printer Friendly Version, Visit:
http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25996


GROUP DESCRIPTION : This newsletter is produced in association with
Bristol Stop-The-War Coalition to publicise events & activities in
opposition to the so-called 'war on terror'. We are composed of groups &
individuals with a wide variety of political & religious views. We are
politically non-aligned, but we are also committed to oppose any racist
backlash. Bristol STW is not a 'membership' organisation. Any one or
group opposed to the 'war on terror' can consider themselves part of
Bristol STW, or can continue to be publicised by us while choosing to
organise independently of the Coalition. We don't claim (or seek) a
monopoly over anti-war sentiment & activity in the city & recognise that
many groups & individuals have their own ways of opposing the 'war on
terror'. We are also dependent on individual donations for our funding,
so if you are able to make a donation please send a cheque or postal
order, payable to: Bristol Stop The War Coalition. Post: BSTWC c/o 23
Monmouth Rd, Bristol BS7 8LF. Or you can email us privately :
bristolstopwar@...


EDITORIAL : A WOUNDED PREDATOR IS MORE DANGEROUS
Jeremy Clarke of Bristol-Stop-The-War writes: "Four years ago this month
the USA, with British support, set out on the latest stage of its bid to
control the Middle East & the oil supplies of the region (See Section
3). Superior technology ensured some initial military successes, but
today, for all the horror they inflicted on Iraq, Bush & Blair have
failed. The vast majority of people in Iraq have opposed the occupation.
The Americans have tried to create divisions among the Iraqi people to
enable them to maintain control. American & British casualties mount.
What support there was for the invasion in the USA & Britain has rapidly
disappeared.
The American & British people are clear that they were led into war on
the basis of lies. As Blair & Bush plan to leave office those seeking to
take their places are trying to distance themselves from the debacle. In
Britain, government ministers, who in 2003 could have resigned, & had
some impact on Blair's decision to support the invasion, now try to
distance themselves from the adventure, as if they were never really
involved. Only Blair & Bush, & their close circles, still try to justify
the invasion in anything but the vaguest terms.
It would be easy to think America wouldn't dare to try the same trick
again. But we musn't forget that the people of Iraq (& Afghanistan) are
still living under occupation; hundreds of thousands have been killed;
life for those who have survived is worse than before the invasion. So
much for liberation & re-construction. As Noam Chomsky pointed out in
the Guardian, "A predator becomes even more dangerous & less predictable
when wounded. In desperation to salvage something, the administration
might risk even greater disasters."
One 'greater disaster' is already underway - Bush's so-called 'surge'.
This is a further attempt to pacify the Iraqis & quell all opposition to
the occupation. It stands as little chance of success as earlier
attempts - the result will be more Iraqi deaths & more destruction. The
other 'greater disaster' being prepared is an attack on Iran -
re-running the WDM pantomime of 2002/3. The anti-war movement in the USA
& Britain has been tremendously successful in ensuring that the invasion
& occupation has stayed at the top of the political agenda in both
countries. The 4th anniversary of the invasion offers us an opportunity
to remind people of these 'greater disasters' - actual and potential.
END THE OCCUPATION OF IRAQ - DON'T ATTACK IRAN."


TO READ THIS REGIONAL NEWSLETTER IN FULL:
VISIT: http://bristol.indymedia.org/newswire.php?story_id=25996
OR: http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/03/365180.html


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For general enquiries email: bristolstopwar@...
For News Around Bristol Visit: http://www.bristol.indymedia.org
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


"Even those of us who have tried to follow the war closely are not aware
of a fraction of the horrors unleashed in Iraq." - Author Arundathi Roy
at the World Tribunal on Iraq, Istanbul, 2005.
http://www.worldtribunal.org/

... SAY YES 2 PEACE ... SAY YES 2 PEACE ... SAY YES 2 PEACE ...

--
James Venables

This documentary is the real 'Inconvenient Truth' - Gore's solutions are
little more than watered down piffle; just buy some different lightbulbs
and everything will be fine!
However, I disagree with the final conclusion of the reviewer below,
which is 'that we need to build a giant lifeboat/ark/galleon of
adventure' (I nearly choked on my coffee when I read that one). To my
mind, we are already in a lifeboat, we just need to decide how many it
can support and how many have to be thrown overboard. If we don't it
will sink with all hands. That is the ultimate 'Inconvenient Truth'; one
which needs to be faced but no one will discuss.
If you want copies of either documentary (avi/mpeg4 format), let me
know. WAWTG had not been released yet but is due to be released shortly;
it was previewed at the Sundance Filmfest.
see the trailers here: http://www.whatawaytogomovie.com/trailers.html
aw.
  >

WHAT A WAY TO GO: LIFE AT THE END OF EMPIRE, Another CarolynBaker.Org
Exclusive, By Carolyn Baker at www.carolynbaker.org

February 28, 2007 | filed under bakers-blog |

A REVIEW OF THE DOCUMENTARY "What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire",
by Tim Bennett and Sally Erickson

I didn’t say it would be easy; I just said it would be the truth.

Morpheus, from “The Matrix”

If anything is not easy to watch but absolutely the truth down to one’s
toenails, it is Tim Bennett’s and Sally Erickson’s doggedly transparent
documentary, “What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire.” Nothing less
than a 123-minute cat scan of the planet and its twenty-first century human
and non-human condition, this documentary is indeed, “in your face” but
with reverence, poignancy and solemnity yet sending world-class denial
artists running to re-watch “Little Miss Sunshine” another one hundred
times. While viewing it, I could see in my mind Carl Jung puffing on his
pipe and pensively whispering under his breath, “Human beings can only
handle so much truth.”

Divided into four parts, Waking On The Train, The Train And The Tracks,
Locomotive Power, and Walkabout, the film begins with Tim Bennett’s
personal saga of awakening in the eighties from lifelong slumber.
Recounting the realities he has subsequently discovered is a tedious litany
of human and planetary horrors that only those ready to awaken with him are
likely to endure. To their credit, Bennett and Erickson offer no “happy
ending chapter” at the end—no list of quick and painless fixes. Nothing
about the world humans have created in the past several thousand years is
painless, and nothing they might contemplate doing to remediate it could
ever be quick. “What A Way To Go” is nothing less than two physicians
presenting a diagnosis of terminal cancer to a patient who currently feels
and looks “just fine”. Still another metaphor might be the one that Bennett
and Erickson present in the documentary’s first chapter, namely, that of a
suicidal individual standing on a ledge at the top of a very tall building,
contemplating jumping to his death. It is an image to which the filmmakers
return several times as the film progresses.

The issue of denial is addressed head-on as the documentary’s numerous
interviewees name it and its consequences. Those individuals include:
Thomas Berry, Richard Manning, Stuart Pimm, Ran Prieur, Paul Roberts,
William Schlesinger, Richard Heinberg, Chellis Glendinning, Derrick Jensen,
Jerry Mander, and Sally Erickson. Specifically, Derrick Jensen speaks of
the energy that it takes to remain in denial, and how humans who stop
clinging to it discover that as a result, an enormous amount of energy is
freed up to do whatever work the planet’s terminal state calls them to do.

“What A Way To Go” names Peak Oil, climate change, mass extinction, and
population overshoot, as the four pivotal and daunting challenges that
humans must address and resolve if any species are to remain on planet
earth. Equally terrifying, in my opinion, are two symptomatic offshoots of
these four: nuclear holocaust and global economic meltdown.

So how do humans—that species which unlike all the others, is in the
process of rendering earth uninhabitable—reverse the nightmare we have
created? While for many of us, it may seem like a no-brainer, Bennett and
Erickson emphasize that unless the issues are unveiled and talked about, no
hope for solution exists. Given the documentary’s unrelenting reminders of
the lethal trajectory to which the human race has committed itself, the
filmmakers’ insistence on breaking one’s own denial system is a crucial
first step to all others.

As an historian I particularly appreciate Sally Erickson’s assertion in the
film that in order to begin addressing the issues, we must develop a
historical perspective and understand how we arrived at this point in human
history. This is exactly what I have attempted to do in my
recently-published book U.S. HISTORY UNCENSORED: What Your High School
Textbook Didn’t Tell You. Americans in particular are loath to investigate
causes and prefer to hastily “move on” to solutions; however, without
understanding causes, it is impossible to construct viable solutions.

Especially validating for me was the perspective this documentary lends to
the issue of Peak Oil in relation to climate chaos. While experts on
hydrocarbon energy such as Richard Heinberg leave no doubt in the viewer’s
mind that Peak Oil is a frightening reality, those same experts, including
Heinberg, acknowledge the gargantuan climate change monster that could
surpass Peak Oil not only in its consequences but how quickly those
consequences manifest the collapse of civilization and make the planet
uninhabitable.

As for the tiresome “technofix” argument—you know, the one that says that
because humans are the superior specie and have created such highly
sophisticated civilizations, we will ultimately invent technology that will
adequately reverse the “Big Four” pivotal challenges, Daniel Quinn, author
of Ishmael and The Tales Of Adam, compares humans living in developed
countries to people living in very tall brick buildings who every day go to
the bottom of their building and remove 200 bricks and bring them to the
top of the building. Obviously, such ludicrous behavior is unsustainable
and will inevitably result in the demise of the building’s foundation and
its collapse.

Ultimately, “What A Way To Go” meanders into the root causes of our
planetary nightmare: our disconnection from ourselves, each other, and the
earth; the cultural stories that have been forgotten and replaced with
newer, self-destructive ones about growth, domination, and hubris; the
systems we have created and the addictions that feed those systems, and of
course, our denial.

In Part Four, “Walkabout”, we are given not hope, but the challenge of
creating options, the first being, the decision to grow up, forsake our
denial, and become adults. Richard Heinberg reminds us that, “We have been
so infantilized by civilization that we can no longer survive without it.
As all of this starts to shift and change and disintegrate and collapse
there’s the opportunity, in fact, to come back to ourselves. To grow up,
fundamentally, as people and as a culture.”

Both Erickson and Bennett have incorporated their own children into the
documentary with brief comments from Erickson’s daughter and Bennett’s son.
Erickson herself states that in terms of future generations, “I think
they’re going to look back and shake their heads and say, ‘What happened to
those people? How did they lose sight of such basic things.’?”

Earlier I used the analogy of two physicians announcing to a patient that
she/he has terminal cancer, and it is appropriate here to ponder what
cancer actually is, namely, the growth of cells out of control, thus the
more archaic reference to a cancer as a “growth.” Growth has become for
Western civilization a cancer that is destroying its inhabitants, the
ecosystems, all other forms of life on earth and the planet itself. Or as
the author, William Kotke notes, “Civilization is a mental/material world
of culturally transmitted illusion.” Growth must cease, and it will cease,
whether we choose to participate in that process or whether we don’t.
Civilization will collapse, and that collapse offers opportunity as well as
crisis. It may occur suddenly, or it may transpire as the economies and
infrastructures of developed nations are hollowed out over time.

Appropriately, Bennett and Erickson have chosen the subtitle, “Life At The
End Of Empire.” In his recent book Nemesis, historian Chalmers Johnson
notes that an empire and a democratic republic are inimical to each other.
Where one exists, the other cannot. If a nation chooses empire, its
democratic republic will dissolve and ultimately perish. Should it choose
to retain democratic republic, it must forsake empire; it cannot have both.
The United States has chosen empire, and its citizens are allowing the
shredding of its Bill of Rights and the evisceration of its civil
liberties. All empires inevitably collapse, and everyone reading these
words is living that collapse in this moment.

At this writing, world financial markets are reeling from yesterday’s
sell-off bloodbath in China and Europe. The day before, a U.S. government
auditor warned that U.S. debt to other nations is spiraling out of control.
Virtually every project of Western civilization is unsustainable,
especially its debt. An equally frightening but enormously important
documentary that every thinking American must see is “In Debt We Trust”
which illumines another locomotive out of control, imminently headed for a
bottomless chasm. While I don’t wish to prognosticate that this week’s
plunge of financial markets is the beginning of that economic train wreck,
I know that the centralized financial systems which manage the United
States government are behaving like the individuals mentioned above who
carry the bricks from the bottom of their building to the top of it,
leaving the foundation in peril of collapse. The fundamental difference is
that when the American people behave in such a manner, they remain in the
building and will be victimized by the collapse, whereas members of
centralized financial systems have helicopters waiting at the top of their
buildings which allow them to abscond with the bricks, turn them into gold,
and deposit them offshore.

While no one wishes to jump off the ledge like the one on which the man at
the beginning of “What A Way To Go” has perched himself, there is a sense
in which all of us must either jump or have something far more momentous
than our physical existence annihilated. The documentary quotes Andre Gide:

One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the
shore for a very long time.

In the final moments of the documentary, Bennett offers an invitation to
the viewer: “Let’s jump off the train and build a boat…a lifeboat, an ark,
a galleon of adventure and imagination destined for unknown lands. Build it
now. The ice is melting. The waters are rising. We’re going to have to let
go of the shore.”

Bennett concludes the documentary by stating that he doesn’t know if he
will survive the collapse but that he is committed to showing up in the
world and telling his truth. It’s almost as if his physical survival is
much less urgent than that commitment—in which case, I must concur with his
and Erickson’s message: What a way to go!

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601082&sid=a5fGvKAGFgFE&refer=canada

Carbon Dioxide Levels Are at 820,000-Year High, Scientists Find

By Alex Morales

Feb. 26 (Bloomberg) -- Atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide are at their
highest in 820,000 years, scientists examining a 3- kilometer (2-mile)
ice core from Antarctica have found.

Carbon dioxide acts to warm the Earth by trapping the sun's energy. The
United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change on Feb. 2 said
man-made emissions of greenhouse gases like CO2 are very likely causing
global warming, and warned that average temperatures may rise by as much
as 6.4 degrees Celsius (11.5 Fahrenheit), and sea-levels by 59
centimeters (23 inches) by 2100.

In November 2005, scientists working on the European Project for Ice
Coring in Antarctica (EPICA) wrote in the journal Science that the
carbon dioxide levels haven't been exceeded at any point in the past
650,000 years. Scientists have since analyzed the remainder of the
3,270-meter ice core, and are likely to publish their results ``fairly
soon,'' said Eric Wolff, of the British Antarctic Survey, which was a
partner on the project.

``The top line answer that we've said for the 650,000 years would be the
same, except we could lengthen the time period to 820,000 years,'' Wolff
said in an interview in London at an event to mark the start of
International Polar Year, a concerted drive to gather scientific data
about Antarctica and the Arctic. ``The concentrations that we're seeing
now are still the highest.''

Carbon dioxide in 2005 reached a concentration of 379.1 parts per
million, the World Meteorological Organization said on Nov. 3. That's
the highest level ever recorded, and an increase of more than a third
from 280 ppm since industrialization began in the late 1700s. the
historic level for 650,000 years fluctuated in a band broadly between
180 ppm and 300 ppm.

Historic Concentrations

The historic concentrations of so-called greenhouse gases can be
determined by examining air bubbles trapped in the ice thousands of
years ago. While the ice core analyzed extends back 890,000 years, the
bottom 70,000 years' worth of ice core isn't useable, Wolff said, adding
that his European colleagues working on the study haven't yet submitted
a paper for publication.

``They're trying to cross the `T's' and dot the `I's' before they submit
it,'' he said.

Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway,
Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom all contributed scientists
and funding to the EPICA drilling program. The Ice core was extracted
from the Concordia Dome C scientific base at about 75 degrees south on
the Antarctic plateau.

International Polar Year (IPY) includes 228 different studies involving
50,000 scientists, students and support staff in more than 60 countries.
Those projects will generate a total investment of $1.7 billion in polar
studies, about two thirds of it funded already, according to IPY
Director David Carlson.

To contact the reporter on this story: Alex Morales in London at
amorales2@... .
Last Updated: February 26, 2007 08:16 EST

http://lists.riseup.net/www/info/globalnetnews-summary)

End-time for USA upon oil collapse
Written by Jan Lundberg
Culture Change Letter #100
http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6&Ite\
mid=2
A scenario for a sustainable future

It is becoming clear to more and more energy analysts that the United
States of America as we know it will not endure for long. However, the
U.S. may not last at all, if oil collapse and the birth of a sustainable
culture play out freely. Primarily considering the implications of "peak
oil," let us explore key unforgiving trends, dispassionately, so as to
arrive at a truthful and hopefully constructive vision for the future.

Most scenarios reflect wishful thinking or influence from the mass
media, academia and industrial interests. Rather than predictions such
as the promise of a technologically green consumer society -- a popular
preference -- a clear analysis must include all the main elements
however unpalatable. To create a better world we must first deal with
hard reality. What is ahead that we cannot change? When that question is
faced honestly, the possibility is greater to affect future change in a
positive way. And there is hope in the resurgence of community and
renewed appreciation of nature.

I am a petroleum-industry analyst, although I last saw any money from
the oil industry back in 1988 when I told Exxon and Mobil I was
terminating my market research business. My office then became an
environmental institute, and I proceeded to get a much clearer picture
of oil's place in the world than from my previous sixteen years known
for publishing "the bible of the oil industry," the Lundberg Letter. My
understanding of oil and energy in the economy and culture has brought
me to my present analysis about the end of the United States of America.

Here are my limits on my objectivity: I have no investments other than
wanting to see family and friends do especially well in terms of health
and happiness in the extremely turbulent phase ahead. I am further
biased in wanting the Earth to have maximum biodiversity, but either the
web of life holds or it will not. I will shed no tears over the
disappearance of General Motors, for example, which is teetering
already. Such a corporation -- found guilty for destroying dozens of
cities' electric rail trolley service -- is an enemy of the planet and
of the people.

The fall of the U.S. may be the swiftest empire collapse in world
history. It is obvious that the U.S. population and the nation's
infrastructure is heavily petroleum dependent. The U.S. peaked in oil
production (extraction) in 1971. The world may be peaking now, as some
evidence indicates, or in a few short years. As a severe energy shortage
is on tap as soon as the gap between supply and demand is felt by the
market, and the Earth gives noticeably less oil than just recently,
there will be a cascade of impacts on the economy and people's lives.

So it will not matter how much oil is still in the ground, or if other
ways of obtaining and using energy are more renewable and greener: A
massive shut down of petroleum supply brought about by market panic and
economic collapse will terminate corporate globalism and the political
landscape as well. [As discussed in this essay and in links at the end,
production of other forms of energy cannot substitute for petroleum and
will not be maximized for readiness anyway.] Many aspects of modern
society are at a breaking point already, whether one looks at the Iraq
war over oil, the housing market bubble, U.S. debt and deficits, or the
prospects of damaging weather from the fast distorting of the planet's
climate.

Not only will the sudden oil shortage ahead mean the Final Energy
Crisis, the present economy only works on growth: so even a plateau of
global petroleum extraction -- what seems to be happening now, although
it is being called "insufficient refining capacity for poor quality
crude oil" -- would mean the house of economic cards collapses on its
own. Recovery from such an event, even if not from oil shortage, would
appear impossible because supplies of oil would be among the commodities
suddenly scarce, and this would have a terminal effect on much economic
activity and people's lives.

With so much local business and self-sufficiency destroyed by
Walmartization, costs of urban sprawl, medical costs and the drain of
militarism, impacts from oil collapse will be brutally thorough in the
U.S. and almost as thorough in all other industrialized societies.
Security, leadership and individual self-responsibility we have almost
none: "We have met the terrorist and the terrorist is us," to paraphrase
Walt Kelly's Pogo.

I decided to outline my scenario of the end of the United States after
co-hosting a talk show on San Francisco radio with Martin Matthews. We
got a call in on the air from a lady wanting to know if there were any
relevant politicians to deal with peak oil. I came close to suggesting
Congressman Roscoe Bartlett, who quoted me on the effects of peak oil
before Congress on C-SPAN television. But the Congressman's office had
told me he would not be seeking higher office. Martin and I continued
our conversation over some Arab food and I outlined my end-of-the-USA
outlook. Later that same day, June 16, 2005, I conferred with Lonnie
Maxfield of Jivan Institute in Olympia, Washington by telephone. He
asked me if I thought the U.S.A. would survive long beyond this time in
history. We agree the U.S. will not last.

The social fabric has been unraveling for several decades, and the lack
of solidarity or social cohesion is one of the reasons there must be a
collapse in the U.S. -- after all, do you see community-spirit on the
rise and an actual transition underway to a sustainable and ecologocial
society? As this series of essays has explored, people are driven apart
by materialism and trying to separate themselves from nature.

Susan Meeker-Lowry, author and editorial contributor to Culture Change,
points out that people are noticing climate change and the prospect of
tighter energy supplies, and are seriously worried about the
implications such as heating their homes and paying their taxes. "But we
need to be dealing with these issues as a community, not as individual
family units. We need to be creating safety nets for ourselves,
preparing for the day when the bills won't get paid because there's no
more money and we need to defend our homes from the wealthy who will try
and take them away for nonpayment of mortgage or taxes," she says.

Energy fantasy and reality

What about a "solar economy" or "the Hydrogen Economy"? Won't technology
save us, when it's so clear that SUVs are so inefficient and silly?
Can't the great American public meet the challenge of dwindling energy
supplies and "take back America" by electing at least another Jimmy
Carter who's more reasonable about energy?

The problem with renewable energy is that it's not so renewable. The
energy production ratio of non-oil energy extraction is comparatively
poor. Additionally, the present infrastructure is entirely geared toward
petroleum which allows for our vast, consuming population size.
Renewable energy will have its niche in local applications, but it will
never power a global economy. Renewable energy will not replace a fleet
of vehicles, just for the reason that not enough rubber trees can meet
the demand of the necessary tires. The existence and claims of renewable
energy have mainly served to obscure the urgent need to simply slash
consumption of energy -- whatever the production mode. It may be too
late to remake the U.S. infrastructure to run commerce and
transportation on, say, renewable-energy powered trains, even if they
were very energy efficient and were ready to manufacture on a huge scale.

There are short-term signs and indicators that the U.S. has worn out its
already slim welcome the world over. That has not stopped the U.S.
rapacious military industrial complex and its financial and political
juggernaut, as depicted in John Perkins' book Confessions of an Economic
Hit Man. Another "intelligence" caper and bloody coup or invasion is
always in the bag of tricks of the U.S., whether or not the rest of the
world wants an end to the interference and rip-offs. The prestige of the
U.S. may not be of much concern to the zealot U.S. neo-conservatives or
greedy marketeers, but the game is certainly all too clear -- as the
Downing Street Memo and other evidence reveals. Climate change is more
blood on the U.S.'s hands, as the nation is the biggest greenhouse gas
emitter and will not even cut back on the easy waste in energy consumption.

Yet, world opinion and a social movement much stronger than the weak
anti-war movement in the U.S. do not comprise a significant opposition
to the U.S. There is not even clarity on who the enemies of the U.S.
really are, when Osama bin Laden and his group had been U.S. operatives
and not seriously targeted by the long arm of the (U.S.) law. So, absent
a huge military/terroristic attack on the U.S. that would really bring
it to its knees, which may involve nuclear weapons, I examine more
certain factors and outcomes: the effects of oil collapse.

An informative analysis, Last Days of America?, by Stuart Rodman, is on
the Culture Change website. It is a force-of-nature kind of exploration
on how today's oil-war mongering society is going to be unsuccessful in
sustaining itself, rather than a political analysis of the
post-oil-collapse USA. Rodman writes,

"We live in an America long since petroformed by the oil industry from a
land of independent family farms and businesses, to a nation dependent
like serfs on their lord, on the barons of oil for everything from fuel
to fertilizer. Today as we watch without protest, a new Feudalism is
being forged worldwide by their mighty armies, our indignation subdued
by the prospect of fueling our SUVs with cheap ill begotten oil. And
we... kill for them. " Rodman opens his essay with a quote by Jay
Hanson, the creator of dieoff.org: "An 'energy-limited economy' is one
where more energy cannot be had at any price. The global economy will
become 'energy-limited' once global oil production peaks…."

There is no Plan B for coping with a terminal oil shock to the economy.
Therefore, a breakdown of society must ensue, starting with "the trucks
will not be pulling into Wal-Mart or Safeway," as I was quoted in
Congress on May 12, 2005. When people cannot get transportation to their
jobs, business stops. People will be panicking first about gasoline, and
then about how much food and water they have -- tragically trying to
protect those meager supplies in an unforgiving urban environment.
Nature has been made to stop offering up the simple essentials of life,
when the privatized fortress and paved-over toxic cities rely on money
and cheap energy to move everything around the world. The world as we
"know" it will end but we'll get to know the world as it really is a lot
better.

Die off will kick in first in terms of riots and killings by armed
marauders, and "the police and military will not be able to keep order
more than a few days, if at all" [my statement in Congress]. Next will
come starvation, and cannibalism can only get people so far --
especially with rampant disease and lack of clean water to drink.
Starvation will take care of perhaps 95% (ninety-five per cent) of the
petroleum-dependent populations in the U.S. and perhaps elsewhere in
modern industrialized countries. Did I mention overpopulation? The
simple fact is that population has far overshot the ecological carrying
capacity of the whole planet, especially in the fossil fuelish/foolish
U.S.A. And petroleum is how food is grown, distributed, packaged and
prepared.

After two months, most of the starvation will have had its effect
because only the largest and strongest men can fast 50 days perhaps
(with good water supply). Malnutrition and poor water quality will take
out millions of people afterwards, as was seen in Iraq after the Gulf
War during U.S.-imposed U.N. sanctions.

The U.S. and the International Red Cross will be powerless to prevent
the disintegration of the food system and the workings of equitable
distribution -- already a major problem that undermines faith in the
present system and nation. People will be looking to their own immediate
geographical areas to secure survival, as travel will be limited to
using one's feet, bicycles, horses, and sailboats. Some fuel will exist,
but it will be hoarded and killed for (as it is now in an Iraq War).
Already, we can see how the U.S. as we know it will be mostly powerless,
helpless and irrelevant -- although still dangerous or helpful in its
throes. Florida will keep its oranges and Maine its lobsters.

I don't foresee large populations of humans living in cities with large
buildings if energy is a problem and food has to be grown by others, on
land outsite the paved-over portion, and brought in. In any event, after
enough time for buildings to age, decay or come down from earthquakes, I
don't see the energy and materials available for keeping huge-buildinged
cities humming. We are talking about scale: smaller cities with
intelligent design for density could endure and thrive. We may discover
the upper limit of green cities, hopefully without again going too far
beyond ecological carrying capacity. But It is worth remembering that
the Agricultural Revolution that led to today's monumentally
unsustainable civilization involved cities that by necessity heavily
exploited people and outlying land, despite "the hanging gardens of
Babylon." Cities have been romanticized, but they are an abomination
compared to pristine nature.

The U.S. has been based on an orgy of resource appropriation and waste,
as in a party with no tomorrow. "Party's Over!" - the first two words of
my review of Beyond Oil - The Threat to Food and Fuel in the Coming
Decades (Gever, Kaufmann, et al) published in Population and
Environment: a Journal of Interdisciplinary Studies, Spring 1990. [An
excerpt of my review written in 1988-89 is at dieoff.com/page20.htm ]
The party known as the U.S. is all but over except in the minds of
oblivious revelers already being kicked out of the house (of nature and
the world community). However, sober heads will start to prevail as the
new dawn breaks.

The picture starts to brighten

Before I paint my picture of hope that I believe is based on solid
analysis, let us first examine the common assumption that people are
going to behave as ruthlessly as ever. Here is the reason I believe we
need not expect feudalism, mafia kingdoms and the like: upon oil
collapse and the passing of the era of material abundance, people will
have learned a lot about the failings of the previous culture. It didn't
work, and anything that wants to follow in its footsteps will probably
be viewed askance and be questioned and rejected. There may even be the
equivalent of a new universal religion that appreciates the Earth and
the need to get along in harmony with other species and one another.

After the devastation of the petroleum-powered civilization and its
broken, smoldering aftermath, there will not be any other choice than
sharing the world. If not, and sustainable models do not become the
rule, then humanity will not pull through to keep evolving biologically.
We are flirting with extinction in several ways: climate change, nuclear
holocaust, and infertility from plastics, pesticides and other threats.
Only with careful, respectful "precision living" that corrects all past
mistakes of significance, can the human race endure -- given we are not
already too far along in bringing about extinction of other species as a
prelude to our own extinction.

As soon as people try to rebuild life as working members of a community,
because they found right away that they needed each other to grow,
gather, hunt and prepare food, a quasi tribal social system will form
that looks out for members and maintains armed defense. However, after
the rediscovered practices of mutual aid and cooperation bear fruit,
there is too much proof of the value of solidarity and sharing resources
and skills for there to be a serious threat from the outside. Die off
will have taken care of even desperados who scrounged as lone wolves for
a while. Life will for a long time not be much better for members of
community, as they must eat strangely such as vermin for protein,
perhaps cooked over furniture fires.

There will be little threat from within the tribes and the emerging
bioregional nations, when the past is rejected for its unworkable,
inequitable system that brought about ruin. The excesses of the past
brought about the need for a nonmaterialistic culture. Private property
as we know it will cease. Those who imagine their "castles" will protect
them and insulate them from the human family will find they need help
from others once the hoarded supplies are gone. Survivors surrounding
the "castles" may be in a position to take what they want without fear
of police cars and the national guard showing up. And, with a low
population, there will be plenty of land to try to work with, to derive
food, shelter, clothing and warmth. New social norms and tribal law will
help break from the past and possibly outlaw incipient reversion to the
failed system of exploitation of people and nature. In any case, the
"new" model of sharing and cooperation will outdo in productivity any
vestiges of the old models of selfishness and trying to insulate oneself
or one's family from the surrounding changed world.

The U.S. will thus cease to exist, except perhaps in name for a while,
as some patriots cling to the dream or illusion of a romanticized
nation. But in practical terms, distant capital cities and bureaucracies
will have little to offer surviving towns and communes that got no help
in erecting a new, workable political entity based on local land
possession and utilization. The energy for military action to enforce a
reunification, or to subjugate, will be missing. As the spirit of
liberation spreads from those who came together as equals to reinvent
human society, any hold outs of today's virtual slaves -- who are
somehow still being fed -- may quickly abandon their masters in hope of
survival and a better life.

The main long-term job for our collective hope for survival will be
restoration of the wounded Earth, as in decommissioning roads and
allowing streams to embrace spawning fish again. Communities will have
to reward those workers engaging in this essential repair of nature.
There is little that can undo climate change already launched by decades
of emissions, but tree planting will sequester carbon. Another way to
reduce atmospheric heating is to cut down on the urban heat island
effect: pavement and rooftops raise city temperatures. This mistake of
"development" will have to be undone, because painting these urban
surfaces white (sunlight-reflective rather than heat-absorbing, as in
icecaps versus asphalt) would be impractical. Any available energy will
have to be used for jack-hammering roads and bulldozing away the road
bed, for example, because depaving with hand tools is hard enough with
thinner pavements of driveways and parking lots.

Just as important will be baby-sitting the nukes. Nuclear power stations
cannot be neglected or be subject to lack of back-up electricity. An
elite of sacrificing members of the human family will have to guard the
weapons of mass destruction and the nuclear waste that we have all been
saddled with for hundreds of thousands of years into a compromised future.

This is our world, take it or leave it. Most of us will leave it
sometime soon, in any country that is heavily petroleum dependent. But
the survivors may do well, as in the lower-populated aftermath of the
Black Death in the 14th century.

- Love and peace, Jan

*****

Further reading:

The Nature Revolution, short story by Jan Lundberg:
http://www.culturechange.org/e-letter-6cont.html

Energy production ratio (or net energy, or return on energy invested:

http://www.eclipsenow.org/Facts/alternateenergy.htm

http://www.abelard.org/briefings/energy-economics.asp#eroe

Ted Trainer's writings, including The Simpler Way:

http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/

and Ted Trainer's Thoughts on the Transition to a Sustainable Society

http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D75.ThoughtsonTrans.html

Stuart Rodman's "Last Days of America?" on this website:

http://www.culturechange.org/issue20/Last%20days%20of%20America.htm

http://Dieoff.org

The Long Emergency by James Howard Kunstler, Atlantic Monthly Press,
2005, New York, NY. www.groveatlantic.com

Green Cities and the End of the Age of Oil

http://www.commongroundmag.com/2005/cg3206/greencities3206.html

"Collapse And Its Discontents," by Dmitry Orlov

http://carolynbaker.org/archives/collapse-and-its-discontents-a-carolyn-bakerorg\
-exclusive-by-dmitry-orlov

February 01, 2007 | filed under bakers-blog |

[Many readers are familiar with Dmitry Orlov, who lived through the
collapse of the Soviet Union and from his experience offers options for
surviving the collapse of Western civilization as we know it.--CB]

It's been a couple of years since I started writing on the subject of
economic collapse, as it occurred in Russia and as it is likely to occur
here in the United States. Thus far, I remain reasonably content with my
predictions: it's all lining up, slowly but surely.

Militarily, the US, followed by Israel, seem to have landed themselves
in a cul de sac of their own creation, having squandered much treasure
on useless high-tech weapons while losing infantry battles against
motivated freelancers, with the eventual effect of losing access to the
oil fields in the Middle East. Economically, Peak Oil appears to have
actually transpired some time in the summer of 2005, and is now slowly
coming into focus in the rear view mirror, just as it's supposed to.
Politically, the country has wobbled leftward, only to rediscover that
its other Capitalist party also happens to be its other War party.
Internationally, hoisting the American flag is now considered a lewd
gesture, and this will probably remain so for quite some time, since
honor and reputation happen to be among the most difficult things to
reclaim. Financially, the US economy has degenerated into a sort of
cargo cult, where people feel that they can continue to attract recycled
petrodollars by dancing around piles of internet servers with their cell
phones and their laptops.

In short, steady as she goes, and I see no reason to start worrying that
history will prove me wrong. But that is where the satisfaction ends,
and the problems begin.

A dispassionate and ironic approach is all well and good. However, my
very own mother accuses me of unsympathetic sang froid in understating
the horrific suffering endured by the Russian people when I describe how
much better-prepared for economic collapse they were than the United
States currently is. So, for the record, I am talking about a die-off,
shattered lives, a missing generation of children, and much that is
precious and irreplaceable burned or buried under a tide of violence and
filth. I also know that endlessly recounting tales of horror and misery
is the surest way to lose one's audience, as my mother would no doubt be
willing to demonstrate. Others have accused me of Schadenfreude: of not
being sufficiently dispassionate, but of greeting the troubles and the
signs of the coming collapse with glee. This is an ad hominem argument,
boiling down to "you say such things because you are the sort of person
who enjoys saying such things." Again for the record, I do not feel
gleeful, see above as to why. But, to be truthful, I am not a big fan of
the American lifestyle. I prefer to stay out of the suburbs, I rarely
drive, and I do my best to avoid flying. I don't feel that the prospect
of it all eventually going away is a bad thing. In fact, I am very much
looking forward to all the fresh air, although once pollution-induced
global dimming goes away, global warming will proceed at a redoubled
rate, and we will be forced to seek higher ground further north sooner
rather than later - a prospect that does not fill me with glee either.

I suppose that if I were the sort of person who derives a deep feeling
of contentment from pursuing the suburban lifestyle, extreme car
dependence, shopping at malls and big box stores, jetting around, and
daydreaming about full spectrum dominance, I would not be talking about
collapse, because I wouldn't have the foggiest notion of such things.
This lifestyle seems like sheer misery to me, but I recognize that
tastes do differ. Moreover, it must be something of a blessed state, not
knowing anything about resource depletion or global warming or collapse,
or not caring to know. "Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we all
die," says the preacher, and who am I to disagree? When people do find
out about these things, they sometimes go through a bout of acute
psychological distress, and only eventually settle down to some internal
compromise. I feel almost guilty when I bring someone out of this
blessed state, because it feels wrong to be breeding discontent among an
otherwise pacified and well-controlled populace. They are like children
when they first find out about death, and before they are consoled with
stories of angels and heaven, or, in this case, hydrogen fuel cells,
ethanol, biodiesel, wind farms, hybrid vehicles, or whatever other
eco-props happen to be on hand. Still, they often end up with a nagging
worry that not enough is being done.

Such consolations are not as convincing as we would hope, and the
nagging worry starts some of us on the road to questioning everything:
the living arrangement, the job, the life. Some people go as far as
questioning the value of technological civilization, and wondering if it
is on a path to planetary-scale self-destruction. They can then become
extremely tiresome and tedious company, and breed discontent in everyone
they come into contact with, talking incessantly about melting ice caps,
drowning polar bears, Texas-sized fields of floating plastic debris in
the Pacific Ocean, dead sea birds, fish going extinct, dying coral
reefs, and so forth. "Enough!" you might say to them. "If the challenge
is to avert planetary self-destruction, then let's all get on the same
page: formulate a project plan, define the next steps, and start
executing." Then you realize that the person you are talking to is
serious, and the situation becomes awkward.

Because, you see, there really is not much to be done, on a global
scale, and most serious people sense that intuitively. The biggest "if"
in the world is the one in sentences that start "If we all..." If we all
reduce our ecological footprint to a sustainable level, then there
wouldn't be anyone left out to increase theirs at our expense. An
additional complication is that we cannot make such a huge reduction
because the current human population of the Earth far exceeds its
carrying capacity: a lot of people would have to die. If this sort of
thing has to be part of our little project plan, then doing absolutely
nothing becomes the more ethically acceptable option, albeit a
distressingly impotent one.

In a culture that prides itself on keeping busy, doing nothing is
actually a lot harder than doing something. I was recently invited to
fly to Alaska to do a presentation, but declined the invitation, because
it seemed ridiculous to me to burn a few more barrels of kerosene and
drown a few more polar bears for the sake of informing a group of
Alaskans that it's time for them to consider moving south. To inspire
them, I could have told them stories of settlements in the Russian
arctic that froze when their winter fuel deliveries failed to happen. As
always happens, not all of them had been evacuated. I could have also
told them that fuel isn't necessary for humans to survive arctic
winters. All you need is a good double-sided fur parka with matching
pants, boots, and mittens (wolverine fur for the trim around the hood,
please, because it doesn't ice up), an igloo, a fat-burning lamp
(because months of total darkness are not healthy, and because sewing
fur and leather and working bone and flint into tools is hard to do in
the dark), and a pile of frozen animal carcases to chew on. You hack off
hunks of frozen meat and put them inside the parka until they thaw. For
something to wash them down with, you stuff a skin bag full of snow and
put it inside your parka until it melts. It's been done this way for
thousands of years, but if we are now on our way to a completely
different planet, one without much ice and snow, then all bets are off.

I somehow felt that drowning a few more polar bears for the sake of
telling Alaskans what Alaskans should know better than me in any case
was the wrong thing to do: the hypothetical benefits of my trip did not
justify the quantifiable harm to the environment. But everyone I
discussed this with seemed less than pleased with my decision: I got
points for being consistent, and not much else. Plenty of other people
have no such qualms, and feel that the means justify the ends. For them,
the same industriousness that is destroying the earth can be used to
save it. They fly and drive to attend conferences, champion various
social and environmentalist causes, and organize energy-consuming,
environment-damaging campaigns with the goal of saving energy or saving
the environment. According to the news, this doesn't seem to be solving
any of the big problems, or even stopping them from growing worse.

The one large and uniquely solvable problem, and therefore the one Al
Gore chose as his example of environmentalist victory, is the Montreal
protocol limiting the discharge of CFCs into the atmosphere. Most other
problems are too complex to organize around, and so the environmental
movement has failed to check either mass extinction and habitat
destruction, or deforestation, or land and water degradation, or
overpopulation, or carbon emissions, or a host of other, equally
intractable problems. Overpopulation - the mother of all problems - is
hardly even discussed, because every woman has the right to have a child
(at least one, and that's already too many), and also, I think, because
babies are really cute. In spite of our superficial cleverness, there is
a requisite base level of mindlessness to being human, and it sets
bounds on what we can do collectively to control our numbers. We can
pretend to be able to control nature, for a while at least, but we can't
even pretend to be able to control our own natures and appetites. Nature
will have to do it for us - but then it always did and always will.

We can be sure that the living will not always outnumber the dead, as
they do now, and that the flow of humanity will reach a peak and start
to ebb. Based on everything I have seen and experienced, I can imagine
that once the downward slide begins, it will not be a smooth transition,
but an abrupt, wrenching change. The downward slide will acquire a logic
and a momentum of its own. Taking the specific example of oil, which a
lot of people focus on, I can't imagine that, a few years down the road,
we will still be looking at annual production shortfalls of just a few
percent. I imagine the number to be closer to 100% - not a slowdown, not
a recession, but a collapse. I am also sure that we, collectively, will
have little idea that this is happening. Once the lights go out for good
in your neighborhood, nobody but your few nearest neighbors will know
what is happening to you, and you will know of the larger world no more
than you presently know of the goings on in the various places that are
already largely in the grip of a permanent blackout, like Zimbabwe or
North Korea. Our one world is fragile artifact, and places within it
only exist while they have electricity, scheduled flights, and bottled
water for the foreign journalists to drink.

If our last hope is that economic collapse will put a stop to our
rampaging and trampling of what's left of the ecosystem just shy of the
point of no return, and even if it does happen this way, each of us will
be disappointed. Because collapse will not be televised, you will not
know that it has happened. You will only know that it has happened to
you. And so it is only fair that I warn you: caveat emptor! Collapse -
for you, the putatively satisfied consumer of information products - is
a faulty product that will fail to please you. If, however, you have
already dropped out of the ranks of satisfied consumers, then for you
collapse is already well underway, and you have far more pressing things
to consider than tilting at the windmills of climate change or obsessing
over countless other issues of global import. Collapse, it turns out in
the end, is a single-use product. Properly applied, it produces a deep
and abiding feeling of dissatisfaction. In this, and this alone, it is
quite excellent.

From: <rheinberg@...>
Subject: MuseLetter for February
Date: Sat, 3 Feb 2007 08:49:34 -0800

MuseLetter #178 / February 2007

My aim in this essay is to explore the history of the terms sustainable
and sustainability, and their various published definitions, and then to
offer a set of five axioms (based on a review of the literature) to help
clarify the characteristics of a durable society.

The essence of the term sustainable is simple enough: ³that which can be
maintained over time.² By implication, this means that any society, or
any aspect of a society, that is unsustainable cannot be maintained for
long and will cease to function at some point.

It is probably safe to assume that no society can be maintained forever:
astronomers assure us that in several billion years the Sun will have
heated to the point that the oceans will have boiled away and life on
our planet will have come to an end. Thus sustainability is a relative
term. It seems reasonable to take as a temporal frame of reference the
durations of prior civilizations, which ranged from several hundreds to
several thousands of years. A sustainable society, then, would be one
capable of maintaining itself for many centuries into the future.

However, the word sustainable has become widely used in recent years to
refer, in a general and vague way, merely to practices that are reputed
to be more environmentally sound than others. Often the word is used so
carelessly as to lead some environmentalists to advise abandoning its
use.1 Nevertheless, I believe that the concept of sustainability is
essential to the understanding and solution of our species¹ ecological
dilemma, and that the word is capable of rehabilitation, if only we are
willing to expend a little effort in arriving at a clear definition.


History and Background

The essential concept of sustainability was embodied in the worldviews
and traditions of many indigenous peoples; for example, it was a precept
of the Gayanashagowa, or Great Law of Peace (the constitution of the
Haudenosaunee or Six Nations of the Iroquois Confederacy) that chiefs
consider the impact of their decisions on the seventh generation to come.

The first known European use of sustainability (German: Nachhaltigkeit)
occurred in 1712 in the book Sylvicultura Oeconomica by German forester
and scientist Hannss Carl von Carlowitz. Later, French and English
foresters adopted the practice of planting trees as a path to ³sustained
yield forestry.²

The term gained widespread usage after 1987, when the Brundtland Report
of the World Commission of Environment and Development defined
sustainable development as development that ³meets the needs of the
present generation without compromising the ability of future
generations to meet their own needs.²2 This definition of sustainability
has proven extremely influential, and is still widely used; nevertheless
it has been criticized for its failure to explicitly note the
unsustainability of the use of non-renewable resources, and for its
general disregard of the problem of population growth.3

Also in the 1980s, Swedish oncologist Dr. Karl-Henrik Robèrt brought
together leading Swedish scientists to develop a consensus on
requirements for a sustainable society. In 1989 he formulated this
consensus in four conditions for sustainability, which in turn became
the basis for an organization, The Natural Step.4 Subsequently, 60 major
Swedish corporations and 56 municipalities, as well as many businesses
in other nations, pledged to abide by Natural Step conditions. The four
conditions are as follows:

1. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature¹s functions and
diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of
substances extracted from the earth¹s crust.

2. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature¹s functions and
diversity are not systematically subject to increasing concentrations of
substances produced by society.

3. In order for a society to be sustainable, nature¹s functions and
diversity are not systematically impoverished by physical displacement,
over-harvesting, or other forms of ecosystem manipulation.

4. In a sustainable society, people are not subject to conditions that
systematically undermine their capacity to meet their needs.


Seeing the need for an accounting or indicator scheme by which to
measure sustainability, Canadian ecologist William Rees in 1992
introduced the concept of the Ecological Footprint, defined as the
amount of land and water area a human population would hypothetically
need in order to provide the resources required to support itself and to
absorb its wastes, given prevailing technology.5 Implicit in the scheme
is the recognition that, for humanity to achieve sustainability, the
total world population¹s footprint must be less than the total
land/water area of the Earth (that footprint is currently calculated by
the Footprint Network as being about 23 percent larger than what the
planet can regenerate, indicating that humankind is to this extent
operating in an unsustainable manner).

In a paper published in 1994 (revised 1998), professor of physics Albert
A. Bartlett offered 17 Laws of Sustainability, with which he sought to
clarify the meaning of sustainability in terms of population and
resource consumption.6 Bartlett¹s criticisms of the careless use of the
term, and his rigorous demonstration of the implications of continued
growth, were important influences on the present author¹s efforts to
define what is genuinely sustainable.

A truly comprehensive historical survey of the usage of the terms
sustainable and sustainability is not feasible. A search of Amazon.com
for sustainability (January 17, 2007) yielded nearly 25,000
hits‹presumably indicating several thousand distinct titles containing
the word. Sustainable yielded 62,000 hits, including books on
sustainable leadership, communities, energy, design, construction,
business, development, urban planning, tourism, and so on. A search of
journal articles on Google Scholar turned up 538,000 hits, indicating
thousands of scholarly articles or references with the word
sustainability in their titles. However, my own admittedly
less-than-exhaustive acquaintance with the literature (informed, among
other sources, by two books that offer an overview of the history of the
concept of sustainability)7 suggests that much, if not most of this
immense body of publications repeats, or is based on, the various
definitions and conditions described above.


Five Axioms

As a contribution to this ongoing refinement of the concept, I have
formulated five axioms (self-evident truths) of sustainability. I have
not introduced any fundamentally new notions in any of the axioms; my
goal is simply to distill ideas that have been proposed and explored by
others, and to put them into a form that is both more precise and easier
to understand.

In formulating these axioms I endeavored to take into account previous
definitions of sustainability, and also the most cogent criticisms of
those definitions. My criteria were as follows:

§ To qualify as an axiom, a statement must be capable of being tested
using the methodology of science.

§ Collectively, a set of axioms intended to define sustainability must
be minimal (with no redundancies).

§ At the same time, the axioms must be sufficient, leaving no glaring
loopholes; and § The axioms should be worded in terms the layperson can
understand.


Here are the axioms, each followed by a brief discussion:

1. (Tainter¹s Axiom): Any society that continues to use critical
resources unsustainably will collapse.


Exception: A society can avoid collapse by finding replacement resources.


Limit to the exception: In a finite world, the number of possible
replacements is also finite.


Discussion: I have named this axiom for Joseph Tainter, author of the
classic study, The Collapse of Complex Societies, which demonstrates
that collapse is a frequent if not universal fate of complex societies,
and argues that collapse is directly related to declining returns on
efforts to support growing levels of societal complexity with energy
harvested from the environment. Jared Diamond¹s book Collapse: How
Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed similarly makes the argument that
collapse is the common destiny of societies that ignore resource
constraints.9

This axiom defines sustainability by the consequences of its absence,
i.e., collapse. Tainter defines collapse as a reduction in social
complexity‹i.e., a contraction of society in terms of its population
size, the sophistication of its technologies, the consumption rates of
its people, and the diversity of its specialized social roles. Often,
historically, collapse has meant a precipitous decline in population
brought about by social chaos, warfare, disease, or famine. However,
collapse can also occur more gradually over a period of many decades or
even several centuries. There is also the theoretical possibility that a
society could choose to collapse (i.e., reduce its complexity) in a
controlled as well as gradual manner.

While it could be argued that a society can choose to change rather than
collapse, the only choices that would substantively affect the outcome
would be either to cease using critical resources unsustainably or to
find alternative resources.

A society that uses resources sustainably may collapse for other
reasons, some beyond the society¹s control (as a result of an
overwhelming natural disaster, or of conquest by another, more
militarily formidable and aggressive society, to name just two of many
possibilities), so it cannot be said that a sustainable society is
immune to collapse unless many more conditions for sustainability are
specified. This first axiom focuses on resource consumption because that
is a decisive, quantifiable, and, in principle, controllable determinant
of a society¹s long-term survival. The question of what constitutes
sustainable or unsustainable use of resources is addressed in axioms 3
and 4.

Critical resources are ones essential to the maintenance of life and
basic social functions‹including (but not necessarily limited to) water
and the resources necessary to produce food and usable energy.

The Exception and Limit to the Exception address the common argument of
free-market economists that resources are infinitely substitutable, and
that therefore modern market-driven societies need never face a
depletion-led collapse, even if their consumption rates continue to
escalate.8 In some instances, substitutes for resources become readily
available and are even superior, as was the case in the mid-19th century
when kerosene from petroleum was substituted for whale oil as a fuel for
lamps. In other cases, substitutes are inferior (as is the case with tar
sands as a substitute for conventional petroleum, given that tar sands
are less energy-dense, require more energy input for processing, and
produce more carbon emissions). As time goes on, societies will tend
first to exhaust substitutes that are superior and easy to get at, then
those that are equivalent, and increasingly will have to rely on ever
more inferior substitutes to replace depleting resources‹unless rates of
consumption are held in check (see Axioms 2–4).


2. (Bartlett¹s Axiom): Population growth and/or growth in the rates of
consumption of resources cannot be sustained.


Discussion: I have named this axiom for Albert A. Bartlett because it is
his First Law of Sustainability, reproduced verbatim (I found it
impossible to improve upon).10 The world has seen the human population
grow for many decades and therefore this growth has obviously been
sustained up to the present. How can we be sure that it cannot be
sustained into the indefinite future? Simple arithmetic can be used to
show that even small rates of growth, if continued, add up to absurdly
large‹and plainly unsupportable‹population sizes and rates of
consumption. For example: a simple one percent rate of growth in the
present human population (less than the actual current rate) would
result in a doubling of population each 70 years. Thus in 2075, the
Earth would be home to 13 billion humans; in 2145, 26 billion; and so
on. By the year 3050, there would be one human per square meter of
Earth¹s land surface (including mountains and deserts).


3. To be sustainable, the use of renewable resources must proceed at a
rate that is less than or equal to the rate of natural replenishment.


Discussion: Renewable resources are exhaustible. Forests can be
over-cut, resulting in barren landscapes and shortages of wood (as
occurred in many parts of Europe in past centuries), and fish can be
over-harvested, resulting in the extinction or near-extinction of many
species (as is occurring today globally).

This axiom has been stated (in somewhat differing ways) by many
economists and ecologists, and is the basis for ³sustained yield
forestry² (see above) and ³maximum sustainable yield² fishery
management. Efforts to refine this essential principle of sustainability
are ongoing.11

The term ³rate of natural replenishment² requires some discussion. The
first clue that harvesting is proceeding at a rate greater than that of
natural replenishment is the decline of the resource base. However, a
resource may be declining for reasons other than over-harvesting; for
example, a forest that is not being logged may be decimated by disease.
Nevertheless, if the resource is declining, pursuit of the goal of
sustainability requires that the rate of harvest be reduced, regardless
of the cause of the resource decline. Sometimes harvests must drop
dramatically, at a rate far greater than the rate of resource decline,
so that the resource has time to recover.

This has been the case with regard to commercial wild whale and fish
species that have been over-harvested to the point of near-exhaustion,
and have required complete harvest moratoria in order to re-establish
themselves‹though in cases where the remaining breeding population is
too small even this is not enough and the species cannot recover.

Axiom 3 is implied in the Natural Step¹s third condition.


4. To be sustainable, the use of non-renewable resources must proceed at
a rate that is declining, and the rate of decline must be greater than
or equal to the rate of depletion.


The rate of depletion is defined as the amount being extracted and used
during a specified time interval (usually a year) as a percentage of the
amount left to extract.


Discussion: No continuous rate of use of any non-renewable resource is
sustainable. However, if the rate of use is declining at a rate greater
than or equal to the rate of depletion, this can be said to be a
sustainable situation in that society¹s dependence on the resource will
be reduced to insignificance before the resource is exhausted.

This principle was first stated, in a more generalized and more
mathematically rigorous form, by Albert A. Bartlett in his 1986 paper,
³Sustained Availability: A Management Program for Non-Renewable
Resources.² 12 The article¹s abstract notes:

If the rate of extraction declines at a fixed fraction per unit time,
the rate of extraction will approach zero, but the integrated total of
the extracted resource between t=0 and t=infinity will remain finite. If
we choose a rate of decline of the rate of extraction of the resource
such that the integrated total of all future extraction equals the
present size of the remaining resource then we have a program that will
allow the resource to be available in declining amounts for use forever.


Annually reducing the rate of extraction of a given non-renewable
resource by its yearly rate of depletion effectively accomplishes the
same thing, but requires only simple arithmetic and layperson¹s terms
for its explanation.

Estimates of the ³amount left to extract,² mentioned in the axiom, are
disputable for all non-renewable resources. Unrealistically robust
estimates would tend to skew the depletion rate in a downward direction,
undermining any effort to attain sustainability via a resource depletion
protocol. It may be realistic to assume that people in the future will
find ways to extract non-renewable resources more thoroughly, with
amounts that would otherwise be left in the ground becoming economically
recoverable as a result of higher commodity prices and improvements in
extraction technology.

Also, exploration techniques are likely to improve, leading to further
discoveries of the resource. Thus realistic estimates of ultimately
recoverable quantities should be greater than currently known amounts
extractable with current technology at current prices. However, it is
unrealistic to assume that people in the future will ever be able to
economically extract all of a given resource, or that limits of
declining marginal returns in the extraction process will no longer
apply. Moreover, if discovery rates are currently declining, it is
probably unrealistic to assume that discovery rates will increase
substantially in the future. Thus for any non-renewable resource
prudence dictates adhering to conservative estimates of the ³amount left
to extract.²

Axiom 4 encapsulates Bartlett¹s 7th and 8th Laws of Sustainability. It
is also the basis for the Oil Depletion Protocol, first suggested by
petroleum geologist Colin J. Campbell in 1996 and the subject of a
recent book by the present author.13 The aim of the Oil Depletion
Protocol is to reduce global consumption of petroleum in order to avert
the crises likely to ensue as a result of declining supply‹including
economic collapse and resource wars.

Under the terms of the Oil Depletion Protocol, oil-importing countries
would reduce their imports by the world oil depletion rate (calculated
by Campbell at 2.5 percent per year); producers would reduce their
domestic production by their national depletion rates.


5. Sustainability requires that substances introduced into the
environment from human activities be minimized and rendered harmless to
biosphere functions.


In cases where pollution from the extraction and consumption of
non-renewable resources that has proceeded at expanding rates for some
time threatens the viability of ecosystems, reduction in the rates of
extraction and consumption of those resources may need to occur at a
rate greater than the rate of depletion.


Discussion: If axioms 2 through 4 are followed, pollution should be
minimized as a result. Nevertheless, these conditions are not sufficient
in all cases to avert potentially collapse-inducing impacts.

It is possible for a society to generate serious pollution from the
unwise use of renewable resources (the use of tanning agents on hides
damaged streams for centuries or millennia), and such impacts are to be
avoided.

Likewise, especially where large numbers of humans are concentrated,
their biological wastes may pose severe environmental problems; such
wastes must be properly composted.

The most serious forms of pollution in the modern world arise from the
extraction, processing, and consumption of non-renewable resources. If
(as outlined in Axiom 4) the consumption of non-renewable resources
declines, pollution should also decline. Thus, in theory, if a society
is following the terms of Axiom 4, these pollution problems are less
likely to arise in the future.

However, in the current instance, where the extraction and consumption
of non-renewable resources have been growing for some time and have
resulted in levels of pollution that threaten basic biosphere functions,
heroic measures are called for. This is of course the situation with
regard to atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases, especially in
relation to the burning of the non-renewable resource coal; it is also
the case with regard to hormone-mimicking petrochemical pollution that
inhibits reproduction in many vertebrate species. In the first instance:
merely to reduce coal consumption by the global coal depletion rate
would not suffice to avert a climatic catastrophe. The coal depletion
rate is small, climate impacts from coal combustion emissions are
building quickly, and annual reductions in those emissions must occur at
high rates if ecosystem-threatening consequences are to be avoided.
Similarly, in the case of petrochemical pollution, merely to reduce the
dispersion of plastics and other petrochemicals into the environment by
the annual rate of depletion of oil and natural gas would not suffice to
avert environmental harms on a scale potentially leading to the collapse
of ecosystems and human societies.

In the case that reduction in emissions or other pollutants can be
obtained without a reduction in consumption of non-renewable resources,
for example by using technological means to capture polluting substances
and sequester them harmlessly, or by curtailing the production of
certain industrial chemicals, then a reduction in consumption of such
resources need only occur at the depletion rate in order to achieve
sustainability. However, society should be extremely skeptical and
careful regarding claims for untested technologies¹ abilities to safely
sequester polluting substances for very long periods of time.

This axiom builds upon Natural Step condition 2.


Evaluation

These axioms are of course open to further refinement. I have attempted
to anticipate criticisms likely to be leveled at them, which will
probably be of the sort that says these axioms are not sufficient to
define the concept of sustainability. The most obvious of these is worth
mentioning and discussing here: Why is there no axiom relating to social
equity (similar to the Natural Step¹s fourth condition)? The purpose of
the axioms set forth here is not to describe conditions that would lead
to a good or just society, merely to a society able to be maintained
over time. It is not clear that perfect economic equality or a perfectly
egalitarian system of decision-making is necessary to avert societal
collapse. Certainly, extreme inequality seems to make societies
vulnerable to internal social and political upheaval. On the other hand,
it could be argued that a society¹s adherence to the five axioms as
stated will tend to lead to relatively greater levels of economic and
political equality, thus obviating the need for a separate axiom in this
regard. In anthropological literature, modest rates of resource
consumption and low population sizes relative to the available resource
base are correlated with the use of egalitarian decision-making
processes and with economic equity‹though the correlation is skewed by
other variables, such as means of sustenance (hunting-and-gathering
societies tend to be highly equitable and egalitarian, while herding
societies tend to be less so). If such correlations continue to hold,
the reversion to lower rates of consumption of resources should lead to
a more rather than less egalitarian society.14

Will local, national, and international leaders ever shape public policy
according to these five axioms? Clearly, policies that would require an
end to population growth‹and perhaps even a population decline‹as well
as a reduction in the consumption of resources would not be popular,
unless the general populace could be persuaded of the necessity of
making its activities sustainable. However, if leaders do not begin to
abide by these axioms, society as a whole, or some aspects of it, will
assuredly collapse.

Perhaps this is sufficient incentive to overcome the psychological and
political resistance that would otherwise frustrate efforts toward true
sustainability.


Notes


1. Eric Freyfogle, Why Conservation Is Failing and How It Can Regain
Ground (Yale University Press, 2006)

2. World Commission of Environment and Development, ³Our Common Future²
(1987),
www.are.admin.ch/are/en/nachhaltig/international_uno/unterseite02330/

3. Albert A. Bartlett, ³Reflections on Sustainability, Population
Growth, and the Evnironment‹Revisted.² Renewable Resources Journal, Vol.
15, No. 4, Winter 1997-1998, 6-23.
www.hubbertpeak.com/bartlett/reflections.htm

4. www.naturalstep.org

5. William E. Rees and Mathis Wackernagel, Our Ecological Footprint (New
Society, 1995). www.footprintnetwork.org

6. Bartlett 1998, op. cit.

7. Simon Dresner, Principles of Sustainability (Earthscan, 2002); Andres
Edwards, The Sustainability Revolution: Portrait of a Paradigm Shift
(New Society, 2005)

8. Julian Simon, ³The State of Humanity: Steadily Improving.² Cato
Policy Report, Vol. 17, No. 5, 131.

9. Jared Diamond, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
(Viking, 2005); Joseph Tainter, The Collapse of Complex Societies
(Cambridge University Press, 1988)

10. Bartlett 1998, op. cit.

11. E.g., Simone Valente, ³Sustainable Development, Renewable Resources
and Technological Progress² in Environmental and Resource Economics Vol.
30, No.

1, January 2005, 115-125.

12. Albert A. Bartlett, ³Sustained Availability: A Management Program
for Nonrenewable Resources.² American Journal of Physics, Vol. 54, May
1986, 398-402

13. Richard Heinberg, The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil
Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse (New Society, 2006).
www.oildepletionprotocol.org

14. See, for example, Marshall Sahlins, Stone Age Economics (Aldine, 1972).

Gerhard Lenski, Power and Privilege (University of North Carolina Press,
1977); and Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity (Calder and Boyars, 1974).
--

We're on the verge of climate catastrophe: that's the verdict of today's
report from the world's top climate scientists. If we carry on with
business as usual, the prognosis for planet Earth is more droughts,
heatwaves and floods, stronger hurricanes, melting ice-sheets and rising
sea levels. The message to the world's governments couldn't be clearer:
it's time to act.

So what's Blair doing? He's ushering in a new generation of coal power
plants... A number of energy companies are putting in applications to
build brand new coal plants - the first to be built in 20 years. This
coal rush is the inevitable result of Blair's love affair with the most
polluting fossil fuel; coal use has risen under Blair.

The UK now emits more carbon dioxide than 112 of the world's smallest
countries combined. So this morning, we at Greenpeace put the
responsibility for these emissions at the government's doorstep, tipping
four tonnes of coal at the entrance to Blair's environment department:

www.greenpeace.org.uk/blairdumpsclimate

Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the oil barons are apparently panicking
about the severity of today's report. The ExxonMobil-funded American
Enterprise Institute, which also has close links to the Bush
administration, has offered scientists and economists $10,000 a pop to
undermine the report.

We'll keep you posted on the new coal power stations as things develop.
Right now, we're working with MPs, councils, architects and engineers to
spread the word about the real solution to the UK's dependence on fossil
fuels. Decentralised energy can more than double the efficiency of power
stations (Woking Council cut its emissions by 77 per cent).

Please take a moment to visit the site and see how you can help:

http://www.greenpeace.org.uk/whatarewewaitingfor


Thanks for your action,


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"pacifism is a cult" - my favourite Jensen quote.
aw.

  >

An Interview with Derrick Jensen
Tearing Down the Master's House
http://www.counterpunch.org/engel08122006.html
By ADAM ENGEL

Engel: The title makes it pretty clear, but what's the message of
Endgame." We're at the end of our rope?

Jensen: We are in a crisis. We are literally in the midst of 'the
Apocalypse.' The dominant culture is not going to change. What I'm
saying in "Endgame" Volumes 1 and Volume 2, is if you really believe the
culture must change, what does that mean for your strategy and your
tactics? For the most part we all say we don't know because we don't
talk about it. The reason we don't talk about it is because we are all
so busy pretending that things are going to somehow magically work out
if we can just buy fair trade or something.

Engel: Do you think you'll reach the "general public," or are you, if
you'll pardon the term, "preaching to the converted?"

Jensen: My audience consists mainly of people who already recognize how
bad this culture is and I want to push them to become more radical. It
doesn't really matter to me if they are left or right. I get asked quite
often if I'm an anarchist. If they want to put a label on me, that's
fine. What is most important to me is to live in a world that is not
being murdered. We can put whatever label we want on that. Honestly what
this culture has done to the planet needs to be stopped. Working to stop
this culture from destroying the Earth can certainly take many forms.
Everything from working within the system to working at rape crisis hot
lines at women's shelters to knocking out the infrastructure that is
killing us.

Engel: What about the "mainstream" -- like Al Gore and his "save the
environment by merely 'fixing' the system" crusade?

Jensen: I'm doing this little book right now with Stephanie McMillan
about 50 simple things you can do to stay in denial while the world is
being murdered and it's based on Al Gore going around the country
showing this film. It's great that he's increasing awareness, but
according to the filmmaker, Timothy S Bennett, who's directing a
documentary, "What a Way to Go: Life at the End of the Empire," if every
single American did every single thing that Al Gore's suggest that that
would reduce carbon emissions in the US by about 22%. The scientific
consensus at this point is to avert further disaster carbon emissions in
the U.S. need to be reduced to at least 75%.

Engel: It should be obvious to everyone that bad things are happening,
even if you "don't believe" the facts about global warming. Just common
sense tells us that we are going to run out of oil - civilization is
going to crash- you look outside and the seasons are not what they were
20 years ago. So why speed it along? I think what people are themselves
resembles: okay if it is going to happen anyway, I might just as well
sit back and enjoy my Budweisers. So why take it down now?

Jensen: Because it is systematically dismantling the infrastructure of
the planet and the sooner it comes down the more that remains for the
humans and non- humans that come after. Even from a purely selfish
perspective, if someone were to have "brought it down" 200 years ago,
then people in the East would still be able to eat pastured chickens -
if it happened 50 years ago, people in the West would still be able to
eat Salmon. There are going to be people sitting along the banks of
British Columbia 40 years from now saying "I'm starving to death because
you didn't take out the dams that were used to create electricity that
were used to change phosphates into aluminum beer cans," and that's
inexcusable. So that's why we have to hurry it along. Because everyday
more of the ecological infrastructure is being destroyed. From a more
moral perspective of course the reason to do it is because those in
power have no right to drive us down to extinction.

There's something else. People say "what do you mean" when you talk
about "bringing down civilization." What I really mean is depriving the
rich of the ability to steal from the poor and depriving the powerful of
the ability to destroy the planet. That's what I really mean.

Engel: Why do you so few people resist, unlike in the 1960s or 1930s?

Jensen: If your experience is that your water comes from the tap and
that your food comes from the grocery store, then you are going to
defend to the death the system that brings those to you because your
life depends on them; if your experience is that your water comes from a
river and that your food comes from a land base then you will defend
those to the death because your life depends on them. So part of the
problem is that we have become so dependent upon this system that is
killing and exploiting us, it has become almost impossible for us to
imagine living outside of it and it's very difficult physically for us
to live outside of it. Also, one of the smartest things the Nazis did,
according to Sigmund Bauman's "In Modernity and the Holocaust," was to
make it seem in the Jews's rational best interests not to resist: "do
you want an ID card or do you want to resist and possibly get killed? Do
you want to live in the ghetto or do you want to resist and get killed?
Do you want to get on this cattle car or do you want to resist and get
killed? Do you want to take a shower or do you want to resist and get
killed? Every step of the way it was in their so-called "rational best
interest." We see the same thing happening today. People will keep
suffering all these indignities because if you resist there is the
theater of terror to keep you silently, submissively in line. Put you in
your place, where you belong.

Engel: The Germans were the height of civilization and the Israelis are
the height of civilization as defined by art, science, literature etc. I
don't think it is an accident that both Nazism and Zionism came out of
the same place, at the same time from the same culture and region. They
are civilized, you know, but this is what civilization does. Ernst Mayer
at the end of "They Thought They Were Free," wrote of the many
similarities between Germans and Jews. Even before Nazism the Germans
were considered, and considered themselves, "pariahs" by the rest of
Europe. They weren't put in ghettos, like the Jews, but Wiemar was no
picnic. The WWI treaty, despite Wilson, was a French and English attempt
to humiliate them.

JENSEN: Well part of it is that. If you get traumatized once you can get
PTSD - post traumatic stress disorder. Well, Judith Herman came up with
another definition which is what happens if you are raped, or beaten, or
suffer in another way not just once, but repeatedly for years in
captivity, or are raised in captivity, as prisoners are, or victims of
domestic violence or Palestinians today, or Jews once were in Europe.
Such experiences cause what she would call "complex post traumatic
stress disorder," in which the world around you is deemed a terrifying
place because it was so scary for so long. If your life is going along
okay and then suddenly you are beaten on one particular street, you'll
avoid that street because of bad associations, but it might not affect
your entire being. But if every street is dangerous, if every
circumstance is traumatic, you can come to see the world as tremendously
scary. The best way not to be scared is to control what is around you
and frankly the best way to control what is around you is to kill it.
But you can also come to believe that mutual relationships are not
possible, they can't exist, that all relationships are based on power.

Engel: You talk a lot about abusive relationships. In "End Game" you
compare the businessmen and politicians who actually control the land
and how it's used, to abusers in an abusive relationship.

JENSEN: We are in an abusive relationship with the people who control
this country and we're living in denial. Part of the problem is the
notion that people have one answer and right now science is the way to
know the world and capitalism is the way to structure an economic system
and industrialism is the way to live. I mean talk about people living in
a non-industrialized way and everybody just looks at you as if you are
insane, but the truth is that the I live in Trowa land "T-R-O-W-A" in
California, and the Trowa lived here for 12,500 years. The replacement
culture, "our" culture, has been here for 150 years and it is trashing
the place. So let's talk about what a "successful" way to live is.

One book that influenced me was Lucy Bancroft's "Inside the Minds of
Angry and Controlling Men." My father was abusive, I've written about
it. There were still things I didn't understand. For example, the notion
that abusers just lose control. Well, do abusers just become outraged
and beat up their boss? No. So that means they don't just lose control.
We have to ask what are they gaining by the act of "losing control?" We
can say the same thing about CEOs. When CEOs are destroying communities,
when they are polluting, do they dump dioxin into their own bathtub? No.
The violence flows outward. Of course, they are poisoning their own
children because you can't control land-based lines. But they don't live
in cancer alley. The thing that makes me so mad is that we fall for this
stuff again and again and again, just like an abused family. We keep
hearing, "oh, it's not going to happen again, it was an accident." When
you build a plant that produces toxic chemicals in bulk, how much of a
surprise is it when they leak?

Engel: Right - or a nuclear power plant.

Jensen: Right, or a nuclear power plant. How much of a surprise is it
when it does what one can expect it to do? The important thing to
recognize is that an abuser will twist anything to his advantage as long
as you stay in the abusive relationship. It's not possible to argue with
an abuser and win; the only way to survive is to destroy the
relationship. It only takes one person to destroy a relationship, but
it's often very difficult. The average abused woman has to leave her
partner seven times before she is really able to get away - because he
will hunt her down. Often times in the abused woman's situation she has
become financially dependent and so she runs into the same problem - how
do you get away from the abusive situation? On a large scale it is even
harder because where do you go to get away from this abusive culture
spread across the entire planet? You don't. Which is why at some point
we have got to begin to fight back.

Engel: You spend a lot of time debunking the pacifist myth that we can
somehow come to an agreement with the politicians and CEOs who are
trashing the place.

Jensen: Part of the reason I wrote the book is that when I've done talks
that have to do with violence (I should say counter-violence, fighting
against this system that is exploiting us) the response by the audience
has been really predictable. If the audience consists of peace and
social justice activists and mainstream environmentalists and also
non-activists, a lot of times they are just horrified and put up what I
call the "Ghandi-shield" to protect themselves from evil thoughts and
keep saying "Martin Luther King, Ghandi, Dalai Lama." Now if they are a
different kind of audience, if they are grass roots environmentalists,
they would do the same thing, and then come up to me afterwards and
whisper in my ear, "thank you for bringing this up." If I talk about
anything to do with fighting back to an audience of prisoners, American
Indians, a lot of people of color, the poor, survivors of domestic
violence, family farmers, their response is to look at me like - "tell
us something we don't know." I realized really quickly the difference is
that if you have suffered violence in your own body it is no longer an
abstract, or spiritual or theoretical question and so you don't make it
into something bigger than it is, it's simply a part of life and you
deal with it. It doesn't mean you do it yourself, but it means you deal
with it, it's simply a part of life! As opposed to "oh, my God - capital
V violence." I realized very quickly that pacifism is a cult, and much
like Christianity, it's a cult that can brook no heresy. So it is very
interesting that dogmatic pacifists don't want to think about it
themselves, and won't let anybody else talk about. They have to censor
everything related to violence, shut down even the mere possibility of
discussion or debate.

Engel: That's a kind of violence.

Jensen: Yeah, it is. This book was originally going to be like a
pamphlet, and I was just going to pamphlet-ize this part that would
simply respond to all the clichés pacifists throw around all the time,
because so many of them don't make any sense. One is the Audre Lord
line, "You can't use the Masters tools if it's not the Master's house."

The thing is, she's not talking about pacifism at all, and the other
interesting thing is I can tell that Audre Lord never worked in
construction because it doesn't really matter whose tools you use. You
can use anybody's tools to dismantle the master's house. In fact, there
is no master's house, there is simply a house that we pretend is the
master's and the master doesn't have any tools. We pretend that violence
is one of the master's tools. The truth is there is simply violence.
Those in power try and tell us that they own the land, that they own the
water; they try to tell us they own everything and they are trying to
tell us that they own violence. I don't think Mother Grizzly Bear agrees.

Another argument I want to shoot down is: People say, "oh, my God
Derrick you talk about fighting back but that just shows that you don't
have any love, because if you have love you can't fight back." And once
again, I don't think Mother Grizzly Bear agrees. I grew up in the
country and in my life I have been attacked by mother horses, cows,
chickens, geese, mice, spiders, hummingbirds, who thought I was
attacking their babies. So don't give me this shit that love implies
pacifism because if you love, you are going to fight back to defend your
beloved. Well, that's not true. If you have love you will do what is
appropriate and sometimes it is appropriate to fight back and sometimes
it's not.

Another thing I want to shoot down about pacifism is that violence
doesn't solve anything. Bullshit. What that means is that if violence
doesn't accomplish anything does that mean that all the Africans just
jumped on the slave ship on their own? Does that mean that American
Indians just handed the land over? Does that mean that women don't have
to be afraid everywhere in the world because of men's violence? It's
absurd. And what's more is this whole culture is based on violence and
if violence doesn't accomplish anything then I guess that civilization
doesn't exist, does it?

Engel: As you say in the book, it's all situational. Whether violence is
appropriate or not depends upon the circumstances, really.

Jensen: Pacifism is, in many cases, dogmatic pacifism. Einstein was not
a dogmatic pacifist. Or the Dalai Lama, I love what the Dalai Lama says,
which is that violence, I quote it in "End Game," I don't remember it
exactly, but it's like violence "is a very strong pill that has very
strong side effects." There you go and that is all you need to know
about this. Pacifists so far have responded very, very poorly to my book
of course. What I was thinking is that I should put out a book that is
called "End Game for Pacifists." The book would consist of 1000 blank
pages with one page in the middle that says, "Sometimes it's okay to
fight back." Because that is all that pacifists see - they ignore 1,000
pages of analysis and that is the only thing that they can see. Which
is, by the way, what happens when we get emotionally triggered - we get
stuck back in a PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) situation and we
can't see anything else at all. I have issues around water skiing that
evoke my experience as an abused child. So when I was in high school or
college if some friend talking for two hours suddenly said the word
"water skiing," that would be the only thing I would hear. Similarly,
I've noticed that pacifists are really afraid of emotion, and they are
really afraid of anger and really afraid of their own emotions. So, once
again, if they hear the possibility of fighting back, it scares them so
much that they can't see any of the other analyses.

Pacifists say I'm calling for violence and the truth is I am not. I am
calling for people to think for themselves. Look at the situation, let's
just look at it. What is happening? 90% of the large fish in the oceans
are gone. Many of us have diseases of civilization. Civilization is
killing us, it's putting us in jobs we don't like and it is killing the
planet and committing genocide against everyone it encounters and that
is what this book is ultimately about: what are we going to do about
this? What do you want to do about it and what are your gifts? As I say
near the end, that's why I go on so long, and I express my puzzlements
and I go off in one direction and then another direction. What I am
trying to do is model a process for people to go through to figure out
their own answers. What I really want is for people to think for
themselves and feel for themselves and to listen to their own land base
and to ask that land base, "What must we do?" Start a relationship with
the land where you live. Ask that land what it needs from you. Because
the truth is the land is the basis for everything. It's embarrassing to
even have to say that, but -- and this is something else I think is
really important -- the only measure by which we will be judged by the
people who come after is the health of the land base, because that is
what is going to support them. They are not going to give a shit whether
or not we were pacifists; they are not going to give a shit if we
supported Israel or we didn't support Israel; whether we voted green or
democrat or republican or not at all. What they are going to care about
is whether they can drink the water, whether they can breathe the air,
whether the land can support them. One of the important questions is to
ask what does the land need from you.

Derrick Jensen is an environmental activist, lecturer, teacher and
author of "The Culture of Make Believe," "Listening to the Land," "A
Language Older than Words," and several other books, most recently
"Endgame." He lives on the coast of Northern California. Visit his
website at www.derrickjensen.org

  >

see also:
http://www.amazon.com/Pacifism-Pathology-Reflections-Struggle-America/dp/1894037\
073
Pacifism as Pathology: Reflections on the Role of Armed Struggle in
North America
Book Description
Argues that while the ideology of nonviolent political action promises
that the harsh realities of state power can be transcended through good
feelings and purity of purpose, it is in fact a counter-revolutionary
movement that defends and reinforces the same status-quo it claims to
oppose. Churchill debunks the claims of historical pacifist victories,
and proposes ways to diminish much of the delusion, aroma of racism, and
sense of privilege which mark the covert self-defeatism of mainstream
dissident politics. An important intervention, intended to generate
badly-needed debate about the issue in the progressive community.

Iran: Pieces in Place for Escalation
"The fuel for a fire is in place".
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=GAR20070116&arti\
cleId=4483
by Colonel Sam Gardiner
Global Research, January 16, 2007

Editorial Note

The following text by Colonel Sam Gardiner (USAF, Retired) confirms our
worst fears. The US is in an advanced state of readiness to wage war on
Iran.

To reverse the tide requires a massive campaign of networking and
outreach to inform people across the land, nationally and
internationally, in neighborhoods, workplaces, parishes, schools,
universities, municipalities, on the dangers of a US sponsored war,
which contemplates the use of nuclear weapons. The message should be
loud and clear: It is not Iran which is a threat to global security but
the United States of America and Israel. Even without the use of nukes,
the proposed aerial bombardments could result in escalation, ultimately
leading us into a broader war in the Middle East.

Debate and discussion must also take place within the Military and
Intelligence community, particularly with regard to the use of tactical
nuclear weapons, within the corridors of the US Congress, in
municipalities and at all levels of government. Ultimately, the
legitimacy of the political and military actors in high office must be
challenged.

The corporate media also bears a heavy responsibility for the cover-up
of US sponsored war crimes. It must also be forcefully challenged for
its biased coverage of the Middle East war.

What is needed is to break the conspiracy of silence, expose the media
lies and distortions, confront the criminal nature of the US
Administration and of those governments which support it, its war agenda
as well as its so-called "Homeland Security agenda" which has already
defined the contours of a police State.

The World is at the crossroads of the most serious crisis in modern
history. The US has embarked on a military adventure, "a long war",
which threatens the future of humanity. It is essential to bring the US
war project to the forefront of political debate, particularly in North
America and Western Europe. Political and military leaders who are
opposed to the war must take a firm stance, from within their respective
institutions. Citizens must take a stance individually and collectively
against war.


Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, 16 January 2007
I do not accept the notion that the first casualty of war is truth.
(Col. Sam Gardiner)


The pieces are moving. They’ll be in place by the end of February. The
United States will be able to escalate military operations against Iran.

The second carrier strike group leaves the U.S. west coast on Tuesday.
It will be joined by naval mine clearing assets from both the United
States and the UK. Patriot missile defense systems have also been
ordered to deploy to the Gulf.

Maybe as a guard against North Korea seeing operations focused on Iran
as a chance to be aggressive, a squadron of F-117 stealth fighters has
just been deployed to Korea.

This has to be called escalation. We have to remind ourselves, just as
Iran is supporting groups inside Iraq, the United States is supporting
groups inside Iran. Just as Iran has special operations troops operating
inside Iraq, we’ve read the United States has special operations troops
operating inside Iran.

Just as Iran is supporting Hamas, two weeks ago we found out the United
States is supporting arms for Abbas. Just as Iran and Syria are
supporting Hezbollah in Lebanon we’re now learning the White House has
approved a finding to allow the CIA to support opposition groups inside
Lebanon. Just as Iran is supporting Syria, we’ve learned recently that
the United States is going to fund Syrian opposition groups.

We learned this week the President authorized an attack on the Iranian
liaison office in Irbil.

The White House keeps saying there are no plans to attack Iran.
Obviously, the facts suggest otherwise. Equally as clear, the Iranians
will read what the Administrations is doing not what it is saying.

It is possible the White House strategy is just implementing a strategy
to put pressure on Iran on a number of fronts, and this will never
amount to anything. On the other hand, if the White House is on a path
to strike Iran, we’ll see a few more steps unfold.

First, we know there is a National Security Council staff-led group
whose mission is to create outrage in the world against Iran. Just like
before Gulf II, this media group will begin to release stories to sell a
strike against Iran. Watch for the outrage stuff.

The Patriot missiles going to the GCC states are only part of the
missile defense assets. I would expect to see the deployment of some of
the European-based missile defense assets to Israel, just as they were
before Gulf II.

I would expect deployment of additional USAF fighters into the bases in
Iraq, maybe some into Afghanistan.

I think we will read about the deployment of some of the newly arriving
Army brigades going into Iraq being deployed to the border with Iran.
Their mission will be to guard against any Iranian movements into Iraq.

As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved
to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the
US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that
happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike.

The White House could be telling the truth. Maybe there are no plans to
take Iran to the next level. The fuel for a fire is in place, however.
All we need is a spark. The danger is that we have created conditions
that could lead to a Greater Middle East War.

[emphasis added by Global Research]

Sam Gardiner is a Retired Air Force Colonel. He is an expert in military
strategy. He has taught at the National War College. He has also taught
at the Air War College, the Naval War College and as visiting scholar at
the Swedish Defense College. His Truth In These Podia (pdf) explains the
propaganda methods used by the Pentagon to "sell the war".

See also the following 2005 Global Research review article on Sam
Gardiner's analysis of the Pentagon's Office of Strategic Influence:
America's Ministry of Propaganda Exposed, Downing Street Memo is but the
Tip of the Iceberg, by Gar Smith

if there is anything that you always wanted to do, it might be an idea
to get it done by april?
aw.
  >

January 20, 2007
Planned Attack on Iran: Bush Will Expand War Before Blair Resigns
US timetable driven by retirement of Bush’s major ally, PM Tony Blair
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CAR20070116&arti\
cleId=4494
by Michael Carmichael
Global Research, January 16, 2007
The Planetary Movement and Global Research


The Editor-in-Chief of the Arab Times reports that a “reliable source”
in Washington has provided detailed information about the forthcoming US
hard-power attack on Iran’s nuclear and oil industries.

According to the un-named sources cited in the Arab Times, the US
timetable is being driven by the retirement of George Bush’s major ally,
Prime Minister Tony Blair.

The British Prime Minister sacrificed his own popularity to back Bush’s
wars in the Middle East. Politically weakened by his loyalty to Bush,
Blair is publicly committed to step down from his office at Number Ten
Downing Street from this May.

Applying the political calculus, sources informed the Arab Times that
the month of April will be the most likely for the attack in order to
allow Tony Blair to play a leading role in the western rationale for the
escalation of the deeply unpopular war.

Analysts working for the Bush-Cheney White House predict that a
concerted military attack against Iranian targets will weaken the regime
and lead to the toppling of the government of Syria, as well.

According to statements attributed to Vice President Dick Cheney in the
Arab Times, the nation of Saudi Arabia is threatened territorially by
the Iranian regime. Many Shias live inside Saudi Arabia with their
heaviest population clusters in the oil producing regions. Last month,
Cheney went to Riyadh for an extraordinary face-to-face meeting with
King Abdullah. It is now obvious that the US plans to broaden the war by
the “surge” and the forthcoming attack on Iran would have been a major
topic of these private discussions.

In a separate statement, the highly respected US security expert, Col.
Sam Gardiner (USAF retired) presents the sequence of tactical maneuvers
that will unfold and precede the launch of the US military assault
against targets in Iran - a project that Col. Gardiner deems to be an
escalation by stealth leading to a broadening war in the Middle East.

An expert tactician, Col. Gardiner predicts,

As one of the last steps before a strike, we’ll see USAF tankers moved
to unusual places, like Bulgaria. These will be used to refuel the
US-based B-2 bombers on their strike missions into Iran. When that
happens, we’ll only be days away from a strike"


In 2003, Bush and Cheney ordered the launch of the war in Iraq on the
18th and 19th of March. These dates now appear to fall within the window
of opportunity for operational relevance with a heightened period of
intensity running from mid-March through mid-April.

In the interim, we can expect to see an escalation of what Col. Gardiner
and others have termed, perception management - the deliberate
manufacture of propaganda by the Bush-Cheney government - a task that
was briefly conducted by the Office of Strategic Influence that was
established shortly after 9/11.

Ex-Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, closed the Office of Strategic
Influence when the exposure of its blatant disinformation operations
precipitated an international outrage.

According to SourceWatch, Rumsfeld stealthily resurrected OSI in a
variety of new guises: the Office of Global Communications; the
Information Awareness Office (IAO) and the CounterInformation Team.

The next military moves will be tactical as outlined by Gardiner, and
they will be timed in syncopation with a blizzard of anti-Iranian
propaganda emanating from the perception management agencies under the
control of the Pentagon.

Following the defeat of President Ahmadinejad’s preferred candidates in
local Iranian elections last week, it is now perfectly clear that a US
attack would strengthen his increasingly unpopular government.

Voices from every part of the political spectrum in Iran are now
haranguing President Ahmadinejad who has conveniently left Tehran for an
extended tour of Latin America. With Ahmadinejad’s popularity dropping
sharply, he will welcome the Bush-Cheney plans for war, because they
will allow him to wrap himself in the flag and play the role of defender
of the faith.

According to ING Wholesale Banking, the economic consequences of a US
attack on Iran will be dire. Financial experts predict sharp reactions
in the markets, and they are already recommending selling Israeli
stocks. The impact on Brent Crude will be dramatic with predictions of
price surging to $80 per barrel paralleled by steep plunges in stock
prices. Expert analysts predict dramatic drops in: the US dollar;
government bond yields; stock markets and industrial raw materials with
spikes in oil and gold prices.

According to the latest polls, two-thirds of the American people support
negotiations with Iran and oppose a US military attack against Iran that
would broaden an already deeply unpopular war.

Last week, Senator Joseph Biden (D-Delaware) warned Secretary of State,
Condoleezza Rice, that any broadening of the war against Iraq by an
attack across the border into Iran would trigger a constitutional crisis
in America.

The stage is now set for a historic political confrontation in America
that will rival the Watergate crisis of the 1970s.

Michael Carmichael is Chairman & Chief Executive Officer, The Planetary
Movement, Oxford, UK and a frequent contributor to Global Research.

http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/2007/01/law-of-life-and-law-of-death.html

Thursday, January 11, 2007
The Law of Life and the Law of Death
by Juan Santos

1/11/07

1. The Great Emergency: Global Warming, Mass Death and Resource Wars in
the 21st Century


"We are the watchers. We are the witnesses. We see what has gone before.
We see what happens now, at this dangerous moment in human history. We
see what's going to happen, what will surely happen unless we come
together---we, the Peoples of all Nations---to restore peace, harmony
and balance to the Earth, our Mother."

--Chief Arvol Looking Horse, from White Buffalo Teachings


At the Sundance Film Festival Al Gore declared, "We have a category five
denial of this issue [global warming]. I believe our political system is
broken, however, I have optimism and hope. A rebellion is gathering."
But rebellion isn’t what Al Gore is fostering. Speaking at NYU against
what one commentator called a “stately backdrop of American flags,”
Gore’s comments were focused on “uplift,” and calls to action slathered
in a “thick layer of patriotism” and good old capitalist know-how. He
seemed oblivious to irony, saying of the US, “Our natural role is to be
the pace car in the race to stop global warming."

The feel good approach Gore pushes is dead wrong: Economic growth and
saving life on Earth are not compatible goals. Industrial civilization
isn’t harming the Earth, it’s killing the Earth. The system has long
since passed the limits of growth - it can’t be sustained.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year analysis of the world's
ecosystems sponsored by the Worldwatch Institute, showed that 15 out of
24 ecosystems essential to human life are "being pushed beyond their
sustainable limits," toward a state of collapse that may be "abrupt and
potentially irreversible." These ecosystems and the civilization that is
killing them are both approaching an endpoint.

People are calling Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth the most terrifying
movie you will ever see – but really, Gore’s film is a soft sell, one
that underestimates the dangers we face and that veils not only the root
causes of global warming, but the drastic military responses the US is
planning in the event of an abrupt shift in the climate.

Call it Category 4 denial. Gore ignores the real problem. Global heating
isn’t “caused” by CO2, it’s caused by industrial production and those
that profit from it – capitalists in oil, gas, coal, electricity and
automobiles, among others. And the system isn’t “broken,” no matter what
Gore claims. The system is producing what it’s supposed to produce;
power and profit and the corollaries of power and profit; denial and death.

For those addicted to power and profit, who are “winning” at the expense
of all life, global warming is business as usual.

Try telling an abusive alcoholic he’s taken one drink too many, that
animals and plants, even other people, are not objects, that he’s beaten
his wife one too many times, or that, as Brother Malcolm put it, the
chickens are coming home to roost. Unless he’s hit bottom, he’s not
listening. Even George Bush has publicly acknowledged the obvious: the
system is addicted to oil. But he’s not listening.

The analogy to addiction is not facile and the denial of the crisis we
face is no accident; it is both conscious and deliberate. In this
system, denial of suffering is the key to success. The ability to
distance themselves from the meaning of their actions is what put those
who are on top on top in the first place.

Look at Exxon and its global warming disinformation campaign. They’ve
spent millions on propaganda to consciously deceive us about the reality
of global warming and the impending mass death it implies, much like the
Nazis told their victims they were heading for a shower, not a gas
chamber, like the cigarette capitalists told us smoking carries no harm.
But the genocide the Nazis perpetrated was not this extreme. This is
different. This is not ethnocide or genocide.

This is omnicide. Life on Earth is in the balance.

The stakes, the costs of this crime and its coverup, could not be
higher. World renowned paleoanthropologist Richard Leakey tells us,
“Whatever way you look at it, we're destroying the Earth at a rate
comparable with the impact of a giant asteroid slamming into the planet,
or even a shower of vast heavenly bodies."

Within 50 years a million species will be extinct. Within 100 years 50%
of all species now living - 5 million forms of living beauty - will be
gone forever. Within a mere 30 years, a quarter of all mammal species
may be gone.

Today, bears are no longer hibernating in the north of Spain. With the
melting of polar ice, the Polar Bear is on its way out. The Orangutan
has ten years left.

Fish are starving to death in the Great Barrier Reef – the unthinkable
equivalent of primates starving in the jungle. In the meantime, the
jungle, the Amazon Rainforest, which provides 20% of the world’s oxygen,
will be a savannah, or perhaps a desert, by 2100.

Forty percent of the world’s species will die with the Amazon.

The new Age of Extinctions is being driven by global heating, ozone
depletion, toxic chemicals, habitat destruction, and invasive or
infectious species. The cause isn’t just CO2, it’s our whole way of
life. The Earth is in its most profound crisis since the mass
extinctions of the Eocene period, 54 million years ago.

Before that, two hundred and fifty million years ago at the end of the
Permian era, 95% of all species perished due to runaway global warming,
warming that occurred due to the same kind of positive feedback loops
that we see emerging in today’s heating trends. Scientists call it The
Great Dying, a period in which life on Earth was all-but wiped out.

The Permian mass extinction was apparently caused by a series of
gigantic volcanic eruptions, triggering a runaway greenhouse effect.
Geologists have said the impact of this "post apocalyptic greenhouse"
was so severe that only one large land animal was left alive. 100
million years would pass before species diversity returned to its former
levels.

In light of such potentials, how many people are willing to wager that
the world scientific community is wrong and that George W. Bush – the
idiot savant of the Christian Fascists – is right when he claims the
verdict is still out on global warming? How many will be willing to
leave the fate of the Earth, of their children and their children’s
children, in the hands of propagandists for ExxonMobile? The impact of
global heating - on humans alone - would be almost beyond imagining.

James Lovelock, who developed the Gaia Theory – the scientific theorem
that Earth acts as a single self-sustaining, self-balancing organic
system – tells us that by 2100 there will only be 500 million humans
left on Earth. The Earth, he says, will no longer be able to sustain
more than that. There are 6.5 billion of us now; by 2050 that number
will rocket to 8.9 billion, then drop precipitously. If Lovelock is
right, only one out of 18 people will be left alive at the century’s
end. 95% will be dead. And Lovelock is only looking at global warming.
He isn’t counting the threats posed by Peak Oil or nuclear resource wars
over oil, water and arable land that, if current trends continue, will
become all but inevitable.

The glaciers of the Himalayas are disappearing. Forty percent of the
people in the world draw their water from sources directly fed by the
regular summer melting cycles of Himalayan ice and snow. Their sources
of food will melt with the glaciers. With mass starvation in Asia, the
probabilities of war over water and arable land - and of mass death -
grow exponentially.

By the summer of 2040 all of the sea ice in the Arctic Ocean will be
gone. That means that theromohaline circulation in the North Sea – the
Gulf Stream, which carries vast amounts of heat from the equator to the
North Atlantic - will cease. Even as the planet heats, northern Europe
will freeze. In Britain, for example, the Gulf Stream provides 27,000
times more heat than all current power supplies can generate, warming
that nation by 5-8C. Warm winds from the Gulf Stream eventually reach
the Himalayas, where they play a role in stimulating and regulating the
East Asian monsoon system.

With the collapse of the Gulf Stream, temperatures in Europe could fall
by 20 or more degrees Fahrenheit, creating an ecological nightmare as
farmland turns to frozen tundra, with temperatures dropping to below
-20C. Europe is currently self sufficient in agriculture, feeding its
600 million inhabitants, an obvious impossibility under such devastating
new conditions.
Would Europe, with its vast armaments and its history of colonization,
genocide and global wars aimed at re-dividing world resources and
markets, slip quietly into a frozen death - or would it find war, even a
Third World War, preferable to collapse and relentless famine at home?

The question is far from academic. Ice sheet melting from the Greenland
ice cap into the Greenland Sea and the melting of floating ice during
the 1980s caused the Gulf Stream to diminish by 80%. A recent report
shows that the Gulf Stream came to a dead halt for ten days in 2004. The
melting of the Greenland Ice Sheet and the Arctic Sea’s ice all but
guarantees the end of the Gulf Stream before mid century.

Which lands a frozen Europe might target in order to feed itself could
eventually pose an all-but insoluble problem for the sub-continent’s
rulers. A recent study by the British government shows that if current
trends continue, a third of the planet will be desert by 2100. According
to their calculations, areas susceptible to moderate drought will double
to 50% of the Earth’s surface. Areas susceptible to severe drought will
more than triple to 30% of the Earth’s surface.

Exxon-Bush Inc. would have us believe these impacts and their causes are
debatable.

Republican Senator James Inhofe would have us believe that the world
scientific community is perpetrating an elaborate anti-capitalist hoax –
the biggest hoax in human history, with the highest stakes. Rush
Limbaugh says global warming is just another way to make civilized white
people and capitalists feel guilty, the moral equivalent of a commie
plot. The Right wants to cast doubt on climate science and the impending
realities of climate chaos, because by pretending that there is a
debate, they can defer action and continue to profit. For these men, the
world itself can end, but not profit.

The fossils of our time sit in Washington, apparently inured by the
pleasures of power and wealth to the realities before us. But,
appearances notwithstanding, the ruling elites understand that we are on
an irreversible path to global heating, caused largely by the burning of
fossil fuels for the sake of production and profit. The question is what
they plan to do about it.

As resources of petroleum peak and begin to expire, the Bush regime
offers no alternative other than resource wars – war, not to end the use
of the fuels that are destroying the Earth – but to get more of them,
the last of them. Their aim is not to save the world, but to ensure
their continued ability to dominate it by controlling the rapidly
dwindling sources of oil. This, after all, is what the war in Iraq is
about, and this is the meta-madness that guides the imperial
preparations to attack Iran.

The ruling elites know exactly where we are heading and exactly what
they are doing. Quietly, they call global warming a “national security
threat.”

A 2004 Pentagon report, "An Abrupt Climate Change Scenario and Its
Implications for United States National Security," cautions US strategic
planners that in a scenario of abrupt climate change “Nuclear conflict,
mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the
world.” The report predicts that Third World countries will develop
their own nuclear threat to secure dwindling food, water and energy
supplies. By 2020, the report concludes, “catastrophic” shortages of
water, food and energy will plunge the planet toward war. The United
Nations identifies some 150 flash points where wars may be fought over
water, alone.

The Pentagon report suggests that there could be global economic
depression, destruction of technological infrastructure on a global
scale, nuclear war, mega-droughts, famine, mass migrations from Third
World countries, and widespread rioting around the world.
“Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,” the Pentagon
says. “…warfare would define human life.”

The report calls for the development of what it calls “no-regrets
strategies” by the U.S. Department of Defense.

Welcome to the apocalypse. This is the Great Emergency. The future of
all Life on Earth is in our hands, in the hands of this generation. We
have two choices: stop them, or prepare our children and grandchildren
to be among the 5% who might be so fortunate – or unfortunate – as to
survive.

posted by Jason Miller at 11:32 AM

Penzance FreeCycle is up and running - what are you waiting for?
AW
  >

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/penzance-freecycle/

The Penzance Freecycle® group was set up on 1st August 2006 to cover
Lands End to Penzance, Cornwall and the general surrounding area up to
the borders of the Hayle and St Ives Freecycle group.

The Penzance Freecycle group is open to all who want to "recycle" that
special something rather than throw it away. Whether it's a chair, a fax
machine, piano or an old door, feel free to post it. Or maybe you're
looking to acquire something yourself! Local non-profit groups are also
welcome to participate too!

One main rule: everything posted must be free. This group is part of The
Freecycle Network, a non-profit organisation and a movement of people
interested in keeping good stuff out of landfills.

Jump right in and have fun!
Check out freecycle.org for other towns and info on the movement!

DISCLAIMER: FREECYCLE NETWORK MEMBERS USE THE LIST AT THEIR OWN RISK.
Please take reasonable measures to protect your safety and privacy when
posting to the list or participating in an exchange. By joining the
list, you agree to hold neither the list owners and moderators nor
anyone affiliated with Freecycle.org responsible or liable for any
circumstance resulting from a Freecycle-related exchange or communication.

Rob - this is my point! You say "if" we can stay away from using
coal/cutting down the trees etc. To this "stay away from" we can also
add a few more: 'eating anything that moves to avoid starvation', 'being
horrible to each other', 'taking all our money out of the bank', 'going
totally bonkers when tobacco, drugs or alcohol are no longer available',
'acting on our short-term-interest biological urges and genetic
imperatives'... It is a very big 'IF'!
If anyone can convince me that the vast majority of people will behave
in the best possible way when the wolf is at the door, then I will throw
my heart and soul into Transition Penwith. Otherwise, I will maintain my
belief that smashing the system to instigate a short sharp dieoff is the
best possible outcome. Admittedly, it might only be the difference
between 99% fatalities and 95% fatalities but I still think the 4%
difference is worth striving for. I do not see that a 'low carbon world'
is either possible, nor sustainable. It has to be either a 'no carbon
world' or extinction, those to me, are the only two options?
Adam.

Rob Pickering wrote:
> snip
>
> I'm trying hard to keep optimistic that we can make a
> transition to a low carbon world - if we can just stay
> away from using coal/cutting down all the trees to
> stay warm, which may be difficult - and so making
> climate change get so out of control the world weather
> dramatically changes (and so our habitat (Water world
> - Kevin Costner??)
>
> We urgently need to be making preparations for this
> change - like starting today! - but daily life keeps
> getting in the way, and then I think 'what if my
> imagination is running away with me and the world will
> be muddling along the same old way in 20 years'...then
> I read another news story that says Russian consumer
> demand for gas is increasing and they may not have
> enough to export to Europe within 3 years...and then I
> think I must go and buy that warm coat and more
> blankets while I can, just in case my gut feeling is
> right.
>
> For latest oil price and 1 year forecast go to:
> www.oil-price.net
>
> Rob
>
>
>

Oil prices in the last 4 days have jumped $10 to $69 a
barrel! The US economy is about to collapse (dollar
prices dropping dramatically this week, their housing
price bubble must 'pop' soon, China has cut back on
the amount of US debt it is buying which has been
proping up their economy and US consumer confidence is
waning). All the major metal commodities in the world
have more than doubled in price in last 12 months.
Saudi Arabia is talking of dropping it's output even
though prices are increasing so it looks like it has
peaked (I think it hasn't increased it's output since
2004?).

I don't think there can be any doubt we are at the
beginning of a very slippery slide - and this is
probably the last winter that it's not going to be
obvious to most people.

I'm trying hard to keep optimistic that we can make a
transition to a low carbon world - if we can just stay
away from using coal/cutting down all the trees to
stay warm, which may be difficult - and so making
climate change get so out of control the world weather
dramatically changes (and so our habitat (Water world
- Kevin Costner??)

We urgently need to be making preparations for this
change - like starting today! - but daily life keeps
getting in the way, and then I think 'what if my
imagination is running away with me and the world will
be muddling along the same old way in 20 years'...then
I read another news story that says Russian consumer
demand for gas is increasing and they may not have
enough to export to Europe within 3 years...and then I
think I must go and buy that warm coat and more
blankets while I can, just in case my gut feeling is
right.

For latest oil price and 1 year forecast go to:
www.oil-price.net

Rob

--- Adam Whaley <byrlip@...> wrote:

> Rob - it's nothing new - the same tactic used to
> instill confusion and
> doubt over the effects of smoking-induced lung
> cancer; the same tactic
> used to instill confusion over the effects of
> anthropogenic global
> warming/climate change. Anyone with half a brain can
> see the pattern!
> Here is the typical dross:
> http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15715744/from/ET/ it has
> now been debunked
> ad nauseum on the Oil Drum and countless others:
>
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/15/83857/186#more
> Crank sites like Art Bell and Rense etc do not help
> matters by plugging
> the 'conspiracy theory line' either and the Abiotic
> Oil nonsense is just
> another ploy - don't be drawn into it.
> THE DEBATE IS OVER - THERE IS NO DEBATE! Peak Oil is
> real and it is
> here. The debate should be focusing on what the fuck
> we can do about it?
> Who will (or won't) be able or capable of doing
> something about it? How
> much can (and can't) be done about it? How much time
> is there? Anyone
> who thinks that civilisation or society is savable
> in its present form
> is pissing in the wind - they are 100% part of the
> problem, not the
> solution!
> I wish Transition Penwith the very best of luck and
> it is going to need
> it. Remember - debate is often a form of
> displacement activity!
> If there is anyone out there who, having explored
> all other
> possibilities, concludes that: 1. the problem is
> unfixable and there is
> no solution; 2. that a 'transition' in the
> conventional sense is next to
> impossible; and 3. that we are better focusing on
> bringing about a crash
> as a massive damage limitation programme along the
> lines of Derrick
> Jensen's Endgame - please get in touch. There is no
> time to lose.
> If you end up wondering why not enough is being done
> about all the
> looming problems as the milestones and deadlines
> flash by, take a look
> into the psychology of 'lifeboat ethics' (google it)
> - imagine yourself
> in a locked room with a hundred people and you have
> just discovered that
> the oxygen supply is about to run out - by this time
> tomorrow there will
> only be enough breathable air for five people - how
> do you 'debate' who
> gets the remaining oxygen?
> And while I'm at it, anyone who accuses me of
> "crying wolf" should
> remember that in the fable - there was a wolf and
> everyone got eaten!
> Adam.
>
>
> Rob Pickering wrote:
> > But Adam I've just been listening to a US radio
> programme called Coast
> > to Coast with George Noory which says that we have
> nothing to worry
> > about. It talks about oil being naturally
> replenished and that the peak
> > oil issue is just the oil companys/establishment
> looking to make money
> > and take more control of the population. Have we
> got it all wrong??!
> >
> > I can't find the site I originally download the
> mp3 file from
> > (Myth.of.Peak.Oil.Art_Bell.10.12.05.[2of4].mp3)
> put as it's too big to
> > email so I've put it at  www.yurmas.co.uk/yurmas/
>   in case you want to
> > have a listen.
> >
> > Rob
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Adam Whaley wrote:
> >
> >> Culture Change's Jan Lundberg replies to the
> latest Yergin nonsense...
> >> aw.
> >>
> >> Culture Change Letter #144
> >>
> >> A disservice to the world: Oil-industry
> consultant CERA denies peak oil
> >>
> >> by Jan Lundberg
> >>
> >> Editor's note: Congressman Roscoe Bartlett's
> office asked for our
> >> reaction to the new report from Cambridge Energy
> Research Associates,
> >> Inc. (CERA) that seeks to refute the increasingly
> accepted belief
> >> that global oil extraction is peaking now or in
> the near future.
> >> Bartlett, a Republican representing western
> Maryland, is a co-founder
> >> of the Peak Oil Caucus.
> >>
> >> The following letter was sent immediately, and
> was shared with Dow
> >> Jones News which interviewed us and covered the
> story. As the nation
> >> is at a crossroads of either waking up to its
> tragic errors of war on
> >> Iraq and failing to rein in energy waste that
> distorts the Earth's
> >> climate, or, persisting in undermining humanity
> and the web of life,
> >> the CERA report is a gross disservice to the
> nation and the planet --
> >> if the report is believed with the aid of
> irresponsible news media
> >> coverage. But, if an information-campaign to
> counter CERA succeeds,
> >> this dispute is beneficial. At the bottom of our
> report on our
> >> web-page is the Peak Oil Caucus's elegant
> response to the CERA report.
> >>
> >> - - - - -
> >>
> >> I started reading the news release and
> immediately my strong feelings
> >> started to bubble up, prompting me to give a
> general reaction (1)
> >> before I subject myself to the rest of CERA's
> Big-Oil propaganda in
> >> its report. Then I'll give a more detailed
> reaction, (2). I invite
> >> you to use my text as you wish. As you may guess,
> I would like to
> >> testify in Congress on the nation's oil reality
> and what might be
> >> pursued as doable mitigation (considering the
> realities made clear by
> >> Roscoe Bartlett, Robert Hirsch, Matt Simmons and
> others).
> >>
> >> (1) It is inevitable that peak oil "theory" be
> attacked just as CERA
> >> and its clients are doing, precisely because peak
> oil is gaining
> >> credibility and cheap oil is gone forever. It is
> vital to keep in
> >> mind that oil prices are far, far higher than the
> apparent levels
> >> we've seen to date because of massive subsidies
> (direct and hidden).
> >> CERA's report comes at a time of relative lull in
> the volatile oil
> >> and energy market, when crude prices have not yet
> returned to or
> >> surpassed $70-plus levels.
> >>
> >> CERA's idea of oil's role being too important to
> question, as to
> >> oil's [alleged] longevity and reliability, is
> tantamount to a "Stay
> >> the course" attachment to nonsensical
> overdependence on petroleum
> >> that IS dwindling rapidly and inexorably daily.
> Reserves are not
> >> really increasing, and when anyone tries to
> portray this otherwise,
> >> such persons are seen to not be dealing with hard
> data or reliable
> >> sources of information. It is an unfortunate
> distraction for CERA to
> >> throw their questionable analysis into the public
> arena just when the
> >> citizenry should find convergence to deal with
> petroleum issues such
> >> as the agriculture sector's vulnerability to
> dwindling [petroleum]
> >> supply and growth of population.
> >>
> >> The role of petroleum in warming the globe is of
> course not part of
> >> CERA's concerns, as if life itself is an
> ancillary aspect of
> >> existence. Big business's blinders involve the
> specialization of
>
=== message truncated ===






___________________________________________________________
All new Yahoo! Mail "The new Interface is stunning in its simplicity and ease of
use." - PC Magazine
http://uk.docs.yahoo.com/nowyoucan.html

Rob - it's nothing new - the same tactic used to instill confusion and
doubt over the effects of smoking-induced lung cancer; the same tactic
used to instill confusion over the effects of anthropogenic global
warming/climate change. Anyone with half a brain can see the pattern!
Here is the typical dross:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15715744/from/ET/ it has now been debunked
ad nauseum on the Oil Drum and countless others:
http://www.theoildrum.com/story/2006/11/15/83857/186#more
Crank sites like Art Bell and Rense etc do not help matters by plugging
the 'conspiracy theory line' either and the Abiotic Oil nonsense is just
another ploy - don't be drawn into it.
THE DEBATE IS OVER - THERE IS NO DEBATE! Peak Oil is real and it is
here. The debate should be focusing on what the fuck we can do about it?
Who will (or won't) be able or capable of doing something about it? How
much can (and can't) be done about it? How much time is there? Anyone
who thinks that civilisation or society is savable in its present form
is pissing in the wind - they are 100% part of the problem, not the
solution!
I wish Transition Penwith the very best of luck and it is going to need
it. Remember - debate is often a form of displacement activity!
If there is anyone out there who, having explored all other
possibilities, concludes that: 1. the problem is unfixable and there is
no solution; 2. that a 'transition' in the conventional sense is next to
impossible; and 3. that we are better focusing on bringing about a crash
as a massive damage limitation programme along the lines of Derrick
Jensen's Endgame - please get in touch. There is no time to lose.
If you end up wondering why not enough is being done about all the
looming problems as the milestones and deadlines flash by, take a look
into the psychology of 'lifeboat ethics' (google it) - imagine yourself
in a locked room with a hundred people and you have just discovered that
the oxygen supply is about to run out - by this time tomorrow there will
only be enough breathable air for five people - how do you 'debate' who
gets the remaining oxygen?
And while I'm at it, anyone who accuses me of "crying wolf" should
remember that in the fable - there was a wolf and everyone got eaten!
Adam.


Rob Pickering wrote:
> But Adam I've just been listening to a US radio programme called Coast
> to Coast with George Noory which says that we have nothing to worry
> about. It talks about oil being naturally replenished and that the peak
> oil issue is just the oil companys/establishment looking to make money
> and take more control of the population. Have we got it all wrong??!
>
> I can't find the site I originally download the mp3 file from
> (Myth.of.Peak.Oil.Art_Bell.10.12.05.[2of4].mp3)  put as it's too big to
> email so I've put it at  www.yurmas.co.uk/yurmas/    in case you want to
> have a listen.
>
> Rob
>
>
>
>
> Adam Whaley wrote:
>
>> Culture Change's Jan Lundberg replies to the latest Yergin nonsense...
>> aw.
>>
>> Culture Change Letter #144
>>
>> A disservice to the world: Oil-industry consultant CERA denies peak oil
>>
>> by Jan Lundberg
>>
>> Editor's note: Congressman Roscoe Bartlett's office asked for our
>> reaction to the new report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates,
>> Inc. (CERA) that seeks to refute the increasingly accepted belief
>> that global oil extraction is peaking now or in the near future.
>> Bartlett, a Republican representing western Maryland, is a co-founder
>> of the Peak Oil Caucus.
>>
>> The following letter was sent immediately, and was shared with Dow
>> Jones News which interviewed us and covered the story. As the nation
>> is at a crossroads of either waking up to its tragic errors of war on
>> Iraq and failing to rein in energy waste that distorts the Earth's
>> climate, or, persisting in undermining humanity and the web of life,
>> the CERA report is a gross disservice to the nation and the planet --
>> if the report is believed with the aid of irresponsible news media
>> coverage. But, if an information-campaign to counter CERA succeeds,
>> this dispute is beneficial. At the bottom of our report on our
>> web-page is the Peak Oil Caucus's elegant response to the CERA report.
>>
>> - - - - -
>>
>> I started reading the news release and immediately my strong feelings
>> started to bubble up, prompting me to give a general reaction (1)
>> before I subject myself to the rest of CERA's Big-Oil propaganda in
>> its report. Then I'll give a more detailed reaction, (2). I invite
>> you to use my text as you wish. As you may guess, I would like to
>> testify in Congress on the nation's oil reality and what might be
>> pursued as doable mitigation (considering the realities made clear by
>> Roscoe Bartlett, Robert Hirsch, Matt Simmons and others).
>>
>> (1) It is inevitable that peak oil "theory" be attacked just as CERA
>> and its clients are doing, precisely because peak oil is gaining
>> credibility and cheap oil is gone forever. It is vital to keep in
>> mind that oil prices are far, far higher than the apparent levels
>> we've seen to date because of massive subsidies (direct and hidden).
>> CERA's report comes at a time of relative lull in the volatile oil
>> and energy market, when crude prices have not yet returned to or
>> surpassed $70-plus levels.
>>
>> CERA's idea of oil's role being too important to question, as to
>> oil's [alleged] longevity and reliability, is tantamount to a "Stay
>> the course" attachment to nonsensical overdependence on petroleum
>> that IS dwindling rapidly and inexorably daily. Reserves are not
>> really increasing, and when anyone tries to portray this otherwise,
>> such persons are seen to not be dealing with hard data or reliable
>> sources of information. It is an unfortunate distraction for CERA to
>> throw their questionable analysis into the public arena just when the
>> citizenry should find convergence to deal with petroleum issues such
>> as the agriculture sector's vulnerability to dwindling [petroleum]
>> supply and growth of population.
>>
>> The role of petroleum in warming the globe is of course not part of
>> CERA's concerns, as if life itself is an ancillary aspect of
>> existence. Big business's blinders involve the specialization of
>> disciplines, such as petrochemistry and mega projects of engineering,
>> to keep the world industrial economy humming, while CERA forgoes the
>> systems-approach of considering the environment and physical limits
>> of resources.
>>
>> Smaller-scale economics that revolves around local communities'
>> sustainable ecological endowment of their region is, by inference,
>> CERA's and Big Oil's foe. CERA, with its position negating peak oil,
>> is automatically against conservation on any level that would harm
>> profit-maximization from shrinking the demand pie. (I know how the
>> oil industry acts and thinks, from long-time first hand experience.)
>> Thus, CERA is against any mitigating strategy to deal with a serious
>> shortage any time in the future. To deny a possible shortage up
>> ahead relating to supply constraints -- even as we see conventional
>> oil starting to dry up from easily accessed fields, and oil
>> discoveries lag extraction by more and more -- is tantamount to
>> betrayal of the nation and humanity, and belongs in the dustbin of
>> rigid Free Market ideological faith. The religion of "growth" no
>> matter what the facts or consequences are is similar to the old
>> belief in a flat Earth.
>>
>> (2) The specious reasoning that just because past warnings of
>> shortage and total depletion did not pan out already, is not valid
>> evidence that today's knowledge of trends and oil fields is faulty.
>> Moreover, we have seen massive growth in demand that is
>> unprecedented. To ignore today's situation and point instead to the
>> possibility or fantasy of continued growth for growth's sake is much
>> like the climate-change naysayers' pathetic logic who cannot admit
>> that global warming from human activity is upon us. Nor do the
>> peak-oil and climate-change naysayers even admit that a reasonable
>> "insurance policy" is called for, even if it would offer added
>> benefits.
>>
>> In CERA's statement, "it (post-peak depletion curve) will be
>> asymmetrical - with the slope of decline more gradual and not
>> mirroring the rapid rate of increase -- and strongly skewed past the
>> geometric peak. It will be an undulating plateau that may well last
>> for decades.", [to read remainder of this essay, go to
>>
<http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemi\
d=2#cont
>>
<http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemi\
d=2#cont>>
>>
>>
>> - make sure all the address is pasted into browser.]
>>
>> * * * * *
>>
>> To support our efforts to spread the word on the challenges of
>> dependence and climate change, please make a donation to Culture
>> Change. We still need to hire a webmaster so that we can bring you
>> more coverage and step up our activist projects! Please donate
>> online via PayPal (secure) by visiting
>> <http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm
>> <http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm>>. Or snail-mail a donation to:
>>
>> CULTURE CHANGE
>> P.O. Box 4347
>> Arcata, CA 95518 USA
>> Telephone and fax: 1-215-243-3144
>> <http://www.culturechange.org <http://www.culturechange.org>>
>> Email: <info@... <mailto:info%40culturechange.org>>
>>
>> We appreciate your feedback. Our website has a Forum.
>>
>> Please send the subscription link below to others if you think they
>> might like to sign up to receive Culture Change Letters via email.
>> _______________________________________________
>>
>> __.
>>
>
> Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com
>
>
>
> Yahoo! Groups Links
>
>
>
>
>
>


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]

But Adam I've just been listening to a US radio programme called Coast
to Coast with George Noory which says that we have nothing to worry
about. It talks about oil being naturally replenished and that the peak
oil issue is just the oil companys/establishment looking to make money
and take more control of the population. Have we got it all wrong??!

I can't find the site I originally download the mp3 file from
(Myth.of.Peak.Oil.Art_Bell.10.12.05.[2of4].mp3)  put as it's too big to
email so I've put it at  www.yurmas.co.uk/yurmas/    in case you want to
have a listen.

Rob




Adam Whaley wrote:
>
> Culture Change's Jan Lundberg replies to the latest Yergin nonsense...
> aw.
> >
>
> Culture Change Letter #144
>
> A disservice to the world: Oil-industry consultant CERA denies peak oil
>
> by Jan Lundberg
>
> Editor's note: Congressman Roscoe Bartlett's office asked for our
> reaction to the new report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates,
> Inc. (CERA) that seeks to refute the increasingly accepted belief
> that global oil extraction is peaking now or in the near future.
> Bartlett, a Republican representing western Maryland, is a co-founder
> of the Peak Oil Caucus.
>
> The following letter was sent immediately, and was shared with Dow
> Jones News which interviewed us and covered the story. As the nation
> is at a crossroads of either waking up to its tragic errors of war on
> Iraq and failing to rein in energy waste that distorts the Earth's
> climate, or, persisting in undermining humanity and the web of life,
> the CERA report is a gross disservice to the nation and the planet --
> if the report is believed with the aid of irresponsible news media
> coverage. But, if an information-campaign to counter CERA succeeds,
> this dispute is beneficial. At the bottom of our report on our
> web-page is the Peak Oil Caucus's elegant response to the CERA report.
>
> - - - - -
>
> I started reading the news release and immediately my strong feelings
> started to bubble up, prompting me to give a general reaction (1)
> before I subject myself to the rest of CERA's Big-Oil propaganda in
> its report. Then I'll give a more detailed reaction, (2). I invite
> you to use my text as you wish. As you may guess, I would like to
> testify in Congress on the nation's oil reality and what might be
> pursued as doable mitigation (considering the realities made clear by
> Roscoe Bartlett, Robert Hirsch, Matt Simmons and others).
>
> (1) It is inevitable that peak oil "theory" be attacked just as CERA
> and its clients are doing, precisely because peak oil is gaining
> credibility and cheap oil is gone forever. It is vital to keep in
> mind that oil prices are far, far higher than the apparent levels
> we've seen to date because of massive subsidies (direct and hidden).
> CERA's report comes at a time of relative lull in the volatile oil
> and energy market, when crude prices have not yet returned to or
> surpassed $70-plus levels.
>
> CERA's idea of oil's role being too important to question, as to
> oil's [alleged] longevity and reliability, is tantamount to a "Stay
> the course" attachment to nonsensical overdependence on petroleum
> that IS dwindling rapidly and inexorably daily. Reserves are not
> really increasing, and when anyone tries to portray this otherwise,
> such persons are seen to not be dealing with hard data or reliable
> sources of information. It is an unfortunate distraction for CERA to
> throw their questionable analysis into the public arena just when the
> citizenry should find convergence to deal with petroleum issues such
> as the agriculture sector's vulnerability to dwindling [petroleum]
> supply and growth of population.
>
> The role of petroleum in warming the globe is of course not part of
> CERA's concerns, as if life itself is an ancillary aspect of
> existence. Big business's blinders involve the specialization of
> disciplines, such as petrochemistry and mega projects of engineering,
> to keep the world industrial economy humming, while CERA forgoes the
> systems-approach of considering the environment and physical limits
> of resources.
>
> Smaller-scale economics that revolves around local communities'
> sustainable ecological endowment of their region is, by inference,
> CERA's and Big Oil's foe. CERA, with its position negating peak oil,
> is automatically against conservation on any level that would harm
> profit-maximization from shrinking the demand pie. (I know how the
> oil industry acts and thinks, from long-time first hand experience.)
> Thus, CERA is against any mitigating strategy to deal with a serious
> shortage any time in the future. To deny a possible shortage up
> ahead relating to supply constraints -- even as we see conventional
> oil starting to dry up from easily accessed fields, and oil
> discoveries lag extraction by more and more -- is tantamount to
> betrayal of the nation and humanity, and belongs in the dustbin of
> rigid Free Market ideological faith. The religion of "growth" no
> matter what the facts or consequences are is similar to the old
> belief in a flat Earth.
>
> (2) The specious reasoning that just because past warnings of
> shortage and total depletion did not pan out already, is not valid
> evidence that today's knowledge of trends and oil fields is faulty.
> Moreover, we have seen massive growth in demand that is
> unprecedented. To ignore today's situation and point instead to the
> possibility or fantasy of continued growth for growth's sake is much
> like the climate-change naysayers' pathetic logic who cannot admit
> that global warming from human activity is upon us. Nor do the
> peak-oil and climate-change naysayers even admit that a reasonable
> "insurance policy" is called for, even if it would offer added
> benefits.
>
> In CERA's statement, "it (post-peak depletion curve) will be
> asymmetrical - with the slope of decline more gradual and not
> mirroring the rapid rate of increase -- and strongly skewed past the
> geometric peak. It will be an undulating plateau that may well last
> for decades.", [to read remainder of this essay, go to
>
<http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemi\
d=2#cont
>
<http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemi\
d=2#cont>>
>
>
> - make sure all the address is pasted into browser.]
>
> * * * * *
>
> To support our efforts to spread the word on the challenges of
> dependence and climate change, please make a donation to Culture
> Change. We still need to hire a webmaster so that we can bring you
> more coverage and step up our activist projects! Please donate
> online via PayPal (secure) by visiting
> <http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm
> <http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm>>. Or snail-mail a donation to:
>
> CULTURE CHANGE
> P.O. Box 4347
> Arcata, CA 95518 USA
> Telephone and fax: 1-215-243-3144
> <http://www.culturechange.org <http://www.culturechange.org>>
> Email: <info@... <mailto:info%40culturechange.org>>
>
> We appreciate your feedback. Our website has a Forum.
>
> Please send the subscription link below to others if you think they
> might like to sign up to receive Culture Change Letters via email.
> _______________________________________________
>
> __.

Send instant messages to your online friends http://uk.messenger.yahoo.com

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.

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\
=1

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.

Culture Change's Jan Lundberg replies to the latest Yergin nonsense...
aw.
  >

Culture Change Letter #144

A disservice to the world:  Oil-industry consultant CERA denies peak oil

by Jan Lundberg

Editor's note:  Congressman Roscoe Bartlett's office asked for our
reaction to the new report from Cambridge Energy Research Associates,
Inc. (CERA) that seeks to refute the increasingly accepted belief
that global oil extraction is peaking now or in the near future.
Bartlett, a Republican representing western Maryland, is a co-founder
of the Peak Oil Caucus.

The following letter was sent immediately, and was shared with Dow
Jones News which interviewed us and covered the story.  As the nation
is at a crossroads of either waking up to its tragic errors of war on
Iraq and failing to rein in energy waste that distorts the Earth's
climate, or, persisting in undermining humanity and the web of life,
the CERA report is a gross disservice to the nation and the planet --
if the report is believed with the aid of irresponsible news media
coverage.  But, if an information-campaign to counter CERA succeeds,
this dispute is beneficial.  At the bottom of our report on our
web-page is the Peak Oil Caucus's elegant response to the CERA report.

   - - - - -

I started reading the news release and immediately my strong feelings
started to bubble up, prompting me to give a general reaction (1)
before I subject myself to the rest of CERA's Big-Oil propaganda in
its report.  Then I'll give a more detailed reaction, (2).  I invite
you to use my text as you wish.  As you may guess, I would like to
testify in Congress on the nation's oil reality and what might be
pursued as doable mitigation (considering the realities made clear by
Roscoe Bartlett, Robert Hirsch, Matt Simmons and others).

(1) It is inevitable that peak oil "theory" be attacked just as CERA
and its clients are doing, precisely because peak oil is gaining
credibility and cheap oil is gone forever.  It is vital to keep in
mind that oil prices are far, far higher than the apparent levels
we've seen to date because of massive subsidies (direct and hidden).
CERA's report comes at a time of relative lull in the volatile oil
and energy market, when crude prices have not yet returned to or
surpassed $70-plus levels.

CERA's idea of oil's role being too important to question, as to
oil's [alleged] longevity and reliability, is tantamount to a "Stay
the course" attachment to nonsensical overdependence on petroleum
that IS dwindling rapidly and inexorably daily.  Reserves are not
really increasing, and when anyone tries to portray this otherwise,
such persons are seen to not be dealing with hard data or reliable
sources of information.  It is an unfortunate distraction for CERA to
throw their questionable analysis into the public arena just when the
citizenry should find convergence to deal with petroleum issues such
as the agriculture sector's vulnerability to dwindling [petroleum]
supply and growth of population.

The role of petroleum in warming the globe is of course not part of
CERA's concerns, as if life itself is an ancillary aspect of
existence.  Big business's blinders involve the specialization of
disciplines, such as petrochemistry and mega projects of engineering,
to keep the world industrial economy humming, while CERA forgoes the
systems-approach of considering the environment and physical limits
of resources.

Smaller-scale economics that revolves around local communities'
sustainable ecological endowment of their region is, by inference,
CERA's and Big Oil's foe.  CERA, with its position negating peak oil,
is automatically against conservation on any level that would harm
profit-maximization from shrinking the demand pie.  (I know how the
oil industry acts and thinks, from long-time first hand experience.)
Thus, CERA is against any mitigating strategy to deal with a serious
shortage any time in the future.  To deny a possible shortage up
ahead relating to supply constraints -- even as we see conventional
oil starting to dry up from easily accessed fields, and oil
discoveries lag extraction by more and more -- is tantamount to
betrayal of the nation and humanity, and belongs in the dustbin of
rigid Free Market ideological faith.  The religion of "growth" no
matter what the facts or consequences are is similar to the old
belief in a flat Earth.

(2) The specious reasoning that just because past warnings of
shortage and total depletion did not pan out already, is not valid
evidence that today's knowledge of trends and oil fields is faulty.
Moreover, we have seen massive growth in demand that is
unprecedented.  To ignore today's situation and point instead to the
possibility or fantasy of continued growth for growth's sake is much
like the climate-change naysayers' pathetic logic who cannot admit
that global warming from human activity is upon us.  Nor do the
peak-oil and climate-change naysayers even admit that a reasonable
"insurance policy" is called for, even if it would offer added
benefits.

In CERA's statement, "it (post-peak depletion curve) will be
asymmetrical - with the slope of decline more gradual and not
mirroring the rapid rate of increase -- and strongly skewed past the
geometric peak.  It will be an undulating plateau that may well last
for decades.",   [to read remainder of this essay, go to
<http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=82&Itemi\
d=2#cont>

- make sure all the address is pasted into browser.]

* * * * *

To support our efforts to spread the word on the challenges of
dependence and climate change,  please make a donation to Culture
Change.  We still need to hire a webmaster so that we can bring you
more coverage and step up our activist projects!  Please donate
online via PayPal (secure) by visiting
<http://www.culturechange.org/funding.htm>.  Or snail-mail a donation to:

CULTURE CHANGE
P.O. Box 4347
Arcata, CA 95518 USA
Telephone and fax: 1-215-243-3144
<http://www.culturechange.org>
Email: <info@...>

We appreciate your feedback.  Our website has a Forum.

Please send the subscription link below to others if you think they
might like to sign up to receive Culture Change Letters via email.
_______________________________________________

See they have to wheel Yergin out bang on cue, can't be long before the
tooth fairy puts in an appearance? When the big talking heads say "don't
panic" y'all know what ya gotta do...
aw
  >

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alvdx_XH5wT4&refer=home

Global Oil Output Won't Peak for 25 Years, Yergin's Group Says

By Joe Carroll

Nov. 14 (Bloomberg) -- Global oil production will increase for at least
the next 25 years as new drilling and refining techniques make it
possible to tap heretofore untouchable reserves, according to Cambridge
Energy Research Associates, the consulting firm run by Daniel Yergin.

The world probably has 3.7 trillion barrels of oil left, more than twice
the estimates of geologists and analysts such as Matthew Simmons, of the
investment bank Simmons & Co., who argue global output is close to a
peak, said Peter Jackson, director of oil-industry research for the
Cambridge, Massachusetts, firm.

``The peak-oil theory causes confusion and can lead to inappropriate
actions and turn attention away from the real issues,'' Jackson said in
remarks prepared for a conference call today with analysts, investors
and reporters. ``Oil is too critical to the global economy to allow fear
to replace careful analysis about the very real challenges.''

The late geologist M. King Hubbert, working for a unit of Royal Dutch
Shell Plc, first put forward in 1956 the theory that output from a
specific oil deposit or region would peak and then start to decline
following a predictable curve. His ideas have gained currency as oil
prices tripled in the past five years and producers struggled to keep
pace with rising demand in China.

The theory is ``misleading'' and based on incomplete data, according to
today's report from Cambridge Energy. Worldwide oil production will rise
by more than 50 percent to about 130 million barrels a day around 2030
before output plateaus, the report said. Yergin, the firm's founder,
wrote ``The Prize,'' a Pulitzer-winning history of the oil industry.

When global crude output begins to fall around 2050, the decline
probably will be gradual, giving policy makers, industry and energy
producers time to develop new alternatives to petroleum-based fuels, the
report said.

Peak Oil Study Group

The Association for the Study of Peak Oil estimates the world has 1.46
trillion barrels of oil left and that production will peak in 2010,
according to the group's November newsletter. The group's leaders
include British geologist Colin Campbell, who helped popularize the
peak-oil theory with his 1997 book, ``The Coming Oil Crisis.''

An August report from Cambridge Energy that took issue with the peak-oil
theory was criticized by the President of the peak oil association,
Kjell Aleklett, as a money-making vehicle based on proprietary data that
the firm was unwilling to submit to impartial scientific review.

Aleklett said Cambridge Energy analysts were too optimistic about the
ability of big producers including Saudi Arabia to increase output.

Congress

U.S. Representatives Roscoe Bartlett, a Maryland Republican, and Thomas
Udall of New Mexico, formed the House Peak Oil Caucus to promote the
theory among lawmakers. Bartlett and Udall endorse the peak oil
association's prediction that output will start declining after 2010.

``There is not much time to act,'' Udall, a Democrat, told a House
Energy and Commerce Committee panel in December. ``Since oil provides
about 40 percent of the world's energy, a peak in global oil production
will be a turning point in human history.''

Refiners have used about 1.08 trillion barrels of crude since the birth
of the petroleum industry in Pennsylvania in 1859, according to
Cambridge Energy.

Undiscovered fields probably hold 758 billion barrels, followed by 704
billion trapped inside a very hard type of rock known as shale, and 662
billion in the Middle East, according to the report. The rest of the
firm's 3.7 trillion barrel total comes from untapped reserves in the
deepest seas, the Arctic and places such as Canada's tar sands and
Venezuela's Orinoco basin.

Fifth Time

``This is the fifth time that the world is said to be running out of
oil,'' Yergin said in an e-mailed statement. ``Each time -- whether it
was the `gasoline famine' at the end of World War I or the `permanent
shortage' of the 1970s -- technology and the opening of new frontier
areas has banished the specter of decline.''

Oil prices have climbed 24 percent in the past two years and touched an
all-time high of $78.40 a barrel in July. Economic growth in China,
India and the U.S. has boosted demand while hurricanes and militant
attacks crimped production in some regions, including the Gulf of Mexico
and West Africa.

Cambridge Energy Research Associates, which advises governments, oil
companies and financial institutions on energy issues, is not the only
skeptic of the peak-oil theory.

Stuart McGill, a senior vice president who oversees Exxon Mobil Corp.'s
oil and gas business, dismissed the peak theory in a Nov. 1 interview as
being without merit. Irving, Texas-based Exxon is the world's biggest
oil company, pumping more crude than every member of OPEC except Saudi
Arabia and Iran.

To contact the reporter on this story: Joe Carroll in Chicago at
jcarroll8@...
Last Updated: November 14, 2006 11:24 EST

http://www.culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=79&It\
emid=1

Peak oil activism that denies petrcocollapse
Written by Jan Lundberg

Culture Change Letter #143

Why do we publish Culture Change and put on Petrocollapse Conferences?
Hint: it has something to do with the influence of corporations on the
mainstream media and on "nonprofit" activism, and also something to do
with too many activists catering to business-as-usual politics.

The main culprits in withholding news and insight from the public
regarding energy are in places such as Washington, DC, Wall Street, and
other corporate centers. So when we take progressive activists to task
for not doing their peak oil work quite as we like, it's important to
keep things in perspective.

Several events this year that I witnessed are illustrative of peak
oilists shading the truth, whether by mistake or deliberately. The most
recent example is last month's impressive annual conference put on by
the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas - USA (ASPO-USA). May
the ensuing critique provide some constructive insight to where the peak
oil movement may be spinning its wheels.

While we're at it, is philosophy important? If the rapidly deteriorating
state of the world matters, then we need to grapple with attitudes and
viewpoints that may be rooted in self interest and that bow to the
status quo. Again, critiquing others is unpleasant, but we must refine
the debate and get as many people as possible participating. A current
example of what I believe is fuzzy thinking by hip luminaries is author
Paul Hawken. Before I launch into peak oilists' self-muzzling, let's
look at the bigger picture:

Hawken is a brilliant thinker, writer and popular speaker. One may
quarrel with his notion of "Natural Capitalism," but after he wrote that
book he was peppersprayed as a peaceful protester at the "Battle of
Seattle" on November 30, 1999, when many of us combined to shut down the
World Trade Organization's meeting. He woke up some more after that
experience. But last month Hawken told a large, adoring crowd "we are in
danger of seeing civilization disappear" as his concluding message.
Granted, this is a weighty concept, and almost everyone appreciates some
aspect(s) of civilization.

However, when we must expect 90% of today's species fished in the oceans
to disappear before 2050, those sea creatures would voice no benefit to
civilization. If we do not question the very idea of civilization, or we
don't advocate a new one -- when Western Civilization has accomplished
in short order the end of much life on Earth -- then we may be fatally
closed-minded. Is Amadeus Wolfgang Mozart's genius and beauty a
sufficient excuse for the terror of technology? (Alternatives to
civilization are discussed in culturechange.org and other publications.
Jared Diamond helped touch it off in 1987 in Discover magazine.)

There was one peak oil conference this year (not ASPO-USA) that was
designed to calm the public at the same time that the message about peak
and even petrocollapse was delivered. *The organizers knew that a major
die-off was inevitable*, but they still proceeded in the conference's
design as if there were hopeful, workable solutions available through
government agencies, community organizing, and some technological
improvements. Indeed, the organizers had already decided that their own
personal strategy was to "get out of Dodge." Given that decision, one
may as well offer radical action commensurate with the threat and let
attendees and the press decide for themselves. But that would possibly
deter some people from supporting or attending the conference.

Similarly positioned on those issues, but more extreme, was the ASPO-USA
conference Oct. 25-28 in Boston. It was more controlled and carefully
structured -- so much that some attendees felt the message of the
conference was skewed from acknowledging collapse as a part of peak oil
reality. This took away from the valuable message offered by one
speaker, Matt Simmons, who masterfully complemented the big picture: "We
have over six billion people and one billion TV sets..." and "Another
North Sea is too late." He is on record as telling a Pentagon audience
in June that the energy crisis is already here and that panic must
result. He told them that "maybe the enemy is us," and that it is
essential for the U.S. population to "grow food at home."

The ASPO-USA conference was rich in data-presentation by many talented
researchers and analysts. But it got off on the wrong foot when the
first set panelists, dealing with climate change, lacked a good grasp of
peak oil and its role in ending economic growth. *Throughout the
conference, there seemed to be a reluctance or aversion to addressing
the issue of what happens when growth ends forever. This may be
described as the elephant in the room.*

The problem with the conference can be best appreciated when considering
that speakers were from Toyota, Rand Corporation and Raytheon, among
many other groups such as the oil industry and academia. They are the
problem, generally, so voices should buck the conventional wisdom, as
some did to an extent. But the more "radical" speakers such as Richard
Heinberg and Julian Darley were a tiny portion of the total time, and
rather than take on oil crash, they focused on the Oil Depletion
Protocol and local economics, respectively. This was not enough to
achieve a balance for the overall conference message. A Wall Street
Journal reporter covered the conference; perhaps it was feared he would
not come if one of the many talk' titles suggested the ideas "Collapse"
or "Die-off."

I believe M. King Hubbert (originator of peak oil thought) and other
peak oilists would have found the Boston conference's message to be
wrongly in denial of the end of growth ahead and of the likelihood of
collapse. Colin Campbell, the geologist responsible for so much interest
in peak oil today, has spoken of an historic "discontinuity" of the
economy and society as we know it. Last year he republished on his ASPO
website the Culture Change report "End-time for USA upon oil collapse."

At ASPO-USA's conference, the "peak oil tent" (that one might assume
we'd all fit under) heard only a couple of references to "collapse." The
longest one I heard was from The Oil Drum's Stuart Staniford, who
concluded his rundown of evidence-of-peak with the claim that adaptation
to peak oil has begun, and the claim that "Peak Oil Does Not Equal
Civilization Collapse." His justification was only this shaky rationale:
"Peak is here, and since civilization is still here, we don't get
collapse from peak oil."

Upon gestating over the conference, appreciating the dynamic
presentation of data by speakers such as Matt Simmons and Charlie Hall,
but feeling there was a major aspect of the peak oil story missing, I
decided to write this report and publish it only after addresing the
organizers directly with the draft of this Culture Change letter and a
cover letter:

     Dear Dick, Steve, Jim, Scott and Tom,
     Thanks for accommodating me as press in Boston. I had a good trip
and it was very worthwhile for me to attend your conference. I'm
impressed with APSO-USA's healthy growth.
     I was glad to be in the role of observer in order to offer Culture
Change readers my view of the conference. Overshadowing the good data
and findings from speakers I heard, is my conviction that ASPO-USA or
the conference didn't permit the full range of valid thought on peak
oil. I heard complaints from others who noticed what I did: that some
speakers were selected to frame the organizers' (your) intent and
policies to give the overall impression to government, industry and
investors that a mainstream-acceptable message and image is what you
maintain at all times. I don't want to be unfair, and in that spirit I
give you a draft of my report below.
     I believe we should work together. If that's not practical, I'd like
to see ASPO-USA honor the strong belief and expectation as expressed by
some well-known peak oil figures that peak oil is truly "A turning point
for humankind" (the title of Colin Campbell's article in Culture Change
magazine, 2001). I believe you have weakened the success of having as
many as 500 peak oilists gather, when skewing the dominant viewpoint is
done for the sake of protecting business as usual (BAU) -- something you
know to be a serious error. In a world of trade-offs, you did your best.
I'm just one guy questioning things and wanting action, although not
exactly the same kind you may envision.
     I offer you a first look at my draft report, attached, and look
forward to hearing from you soon.
     Sincerely,
     Jan Lundberg
     Culture Change
     Nov. 6, 2006

If ASPO-USA is not indicating a future without growth, the organization
is part of the growth paradigm. An indication of ASPO-USA's not
understanding the full meaning of peak oil is its slogan: "Energy Action
for a Healthy Economy and a Clean Environment." Economy as singular,
rather than Local Economies, is an obsolete concept not evident to those
monitoring BAU too closely. Global trade as we've come to know it -- a
function of cheap oil -- is soon going to be history, replaced in tiny
part quantitatively by such throwbacks as a sail transport network.

Perhaps no two people share the same exact understanding or viewpoint on
peak oil and its ramifications. The scary aspects of petrocollapse are
real, and must be tempered with an idea of the positive steps one can
take to minimize petroleum dependence and improve one's life over
consumerism.

The culture that brought about peak oil is not going to solve it. Profit
and success are about to take a back seat to nature's will, while the
wisdom and cleverness of humans to fit into a greenhouse-shocked,
resource-depleted world may be the best we can hope for. Some surprise
bonuses, such as more equality and sanity, can follow the discontinuity
marked by peak oil, once we experience the catastrophe of petrocollapse
and usher in a successor culture of bioregional diversity.

* * * * *

A wealth of information is at ASPO-USA's website:
http://www.aspo-usa.com

"The maturation of Matt Simmons, energy-industry investment banker and
peak oil guru" -
http://culturechange.org/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=60&Itemid\
=33

* * * * *

Note: ASPO-USA kindly responded to the letter above, in a timely
fashion. Their position is that they are open to future public
discussion on collapse. I nevertheless felt compelled to respond:

     "I've always known you and your colleagues were well informed. My
point is that you and your colleagues do know what's happening and about
to happen. That's why Toyota and Raytheon don't belong at a serious peak
oil conference unless they are being spotlighted as the problem and
possibly having little if any future. If they really "get" peak oil,
that's another matter, but I missed those presentations. Because you and
your colleagues are so well informed, that's also why the climate change
panel on your opening night should not have assumed unending economic
growth. Or were they saying that unending growth was unacceptable and
crazy while nevertheless being planned by the government, industry and
academia?

     "The fact that there is "fear" involved in peak oil consciousness
(and regarding climate change news daily) is offset by the value of
truth, and secondly, one should consider the fear already present in the
confusing, stupid approach to the world by clueless industrial society.

     "When you say 'we are not convinced that the peak oil transition
will play out as quickly as some believe; this might take decades to
unfold; and peak oil is surely not 'the end of fossil fuels,' or the
'last days of ancient sunlight.' and "we think hardship rather than
collapse, over the next two decades at least, is probably the more
likely outcome' - okay, you are entitled to that opinion, but that
position should be debated openly, and dissenters should not be absent
from your organization or conferences. Could you agree? As an oil supply
analyst I am happy to present my dissenting view, anytime, anywhere. But
you've been reading it for years. It could just as well be said that
ASPO-USA's view is the dissenting one.

     "Funders are connected to the status quo. Those of us calling for
fundamental change and giving up on the technofix are automatically
poorly funded. Your letter did not say anything about ASPO-USA's funding
and support, and I make no assumptions or accusations about industry's
support influencing ASPO-USA's views. But moneyed interests want
something for their support, if only "level-headed sanity" or
"conservatism" - seldom a prophetic or radical message about collapse.
Now that your organization is well established, relevance should be top
priority rather than concerns about people's fear or the danger of
people learning that peak oil may not be a "transition... taking decades
to unfold" in a non-collapse.

     "I'm in this kind of journalism and activism for the learning and
the experience, although it's also nice to be able to pay some bills. I
decided it wasn't worthwhile to assure the ability to pay bills by
getting (well) paid to limit my focus on fleeting developments in the
oil market. Unfortunately, this doesn't translate into high demand as an
independent commentator on oil, energy or environment."

I accepted the ASPO-USA board's invitation to join the organization.



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