Pre-Apocalypse?

I think a lot about the post-apocalypse... not that I think what's coming is an apocalypse. The changes to come will be major and completely life-altering on a personal and a global scale, of which in the end we as a planet are greatly in need. We all know of the damage we're doing environmentally to the globe, and many of us know the societal damage we're also doing with the exploitation of third world countries. And then a few of us realize the spiritual implications of our destructively consumptive habits these past few generations.

Anyway, while keeping the future in mind, and while remembering and learning from the past, maybe we should still try to focus on the present a little bit. On this "pre-apocalyptic" era. What better position could we be in? We know where we are, where we came from, and where we're going, so we could do what we want with the now! With where we are right now.

We can make now a time of change and of rooting into nature and enriching our spirits and creating community. We can now unplug our TVs and go outside and have a fire in the park and collect leaf compost for our gardens and support our local organic veggie market and go have tea and cake with our parents or friends. It's not about changing to fuel efficient light bulbs as it is to turn stuff off in the first place. Taking a sponge bath instead of a long hot shower. Walking to a neighbour's instead of driving to the box mall. Well, you get the idea.

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #6

USELESS JOBS -> VALUABLE UNPAID WORK -> ENLIGHTENMENT

I'll venture to say that most of the work we do in the "developed" nations is valueless, if not directly or indirectly destructive to the health and welfare of our world and its people. Now, take down corporations that promote consumerism at all costs and we lose millions of office jobs and manufacturing jobs and transportation jobs and jobs that are not essential to our well-being and that of our Earth. Instead we will have time to do and need to do volunteer work, raise our children, care for our elderly, grow food and store food and share food, care for our land and its fauna, talk with one another, educate ourselves and each other, share stories, think about our role on this planet and the meaning of life and become conscious beings with awakened hearts.

Meaningful work on the eve of the big change

Here is part of a letter I wrote to the good folks at Community Solutions about doing/finding meaningful, helpful employment for artists like myself:

I am an illustrator and graphic designer, and my husband is an illustrator and graphic novelist. For income we work on what most people in our field would be thrilled to work on -- books and magazines for children and adults with numerous publishers, and we're able to make a decent living at it. (However we still can't afford to buy a house or go on vacations.) I find it more and more frustrating and dissatisfying to be working on materials that, in the end, perpetuate our socially and environmentally destructive culture. What kind of work can we possibly do with our skills that will not only provide us with a living wage, but also assist in the transformation our community desperately needs?

I wonder if our earnings need to come from citizens as taxpayers (ie. by working for the government) or from citizens as consumers (ie. by working for corporations); doubting there is much work for artists in government circles, would it be ethical to make people have to buy our goods in order for us to earn a living, or does this perpetuate the consumer cycle that is the big problem in the first place? I think of all the new boutiques and online shopping venues that sell artists' creations without the middleman, but in the end the products sold are just more energy- and resource-intensive junk, albeit beautifully and creatively hand-made. I'm currently working on a comic book about a girl preparing for peak oil, which is very satisfying work, and am hoping that if it gets published I can not only earn a little income from it, but that it helps to plant the seed of change in people's minds.

As an aside, I also find that our economic system does not support a healthy low standard of living (I believe that a low standard of living is ideal, as long as it meets basic needs and affords plenty of time for family and personal development). A quarter of our income goes to taxes, another quarter to rent, and another quarter to childcare, and what's left is supposed to take care of all other expenses and savings. Not only is this unreasonable, but it seems to force employees (including freelance artists like myself) to continue corporate work in order to pay enough to cover all these costs. I'm sure you can sense my intense frustration about this through my e-mail. My apologies if this is inappropriate. But what can we do? Do we all just put our talents away to start farming, or open a neighbourhood herbal tea shop-slash-bookstore?

That is an exaggeration, of course, but is the essence of my question about what kind of paid work individuals of varying skills can do while engaging wholeheartedly in Plan C.

I'm very much looking forward to hearing what they suggest.

Becoming non-possessive

There's something about science fiction novels written by women. I love works by Octavia Butler, and just finished reading The Dispossessed by Ursula K. Le Guin, a sci-fi story of a man raised in a communalist/anarchist utopia and the contrasts with its capitalist/archist neighbouring planet. As much as the man's home planet is idealized, it is also painted as complex, bleak, hard, imperfect, and contradictory. Anyhow, I'd like to share my favourite passages...


"A child free from the guilt of ownership and the burden of economic competition will grow up with the will to do what needs doing and the capacity for joy in doing it. It is useless work that darkens the heart. The delight of the nursing mother, of the scholar, of the successful hunter, of the good cook, of the skillful maker, of anyone doing needed work and doing it well -- this durable joy is perhaps the deepest source of human affection and of sociality as a whole."

"The means are the end. Only peace brings peace, only just acts bring justice!"

"You cannot buy the Revolution. You cannot make the Revolution. You can only be the Revolution. It is in your spirit, or it is nowhere."

"No man earns punishment, no man earns reward. Free your mind of the idea of deserving, the idea of earning, and you will begin to be able to think."

Thank goodness for the internet

Reflecting on the skills we need to survive and thrive in a post-oil world, it becomes obvious that we lack so many living skills that used to be passed on from generation to generation. They're all but forgotten in the developed world now, thanks to so much of our livelihood being made in office buildings and shops and on computers, instead of using our hands and heads to make what we need to live day to day and year to year.

I think that when resources begin to dwindle due to gas shortages, most of us will be caught completely off-guard, and scramble and panic and feel at a desperate loss of what to do, how to feed ourselves and keep warm and safe. This is why it's a good thing almost all our information comes from the internet. Not only are there a lot of excellent sources for everything from post-oil survival to homesteading, growing food in the city, collecting and purifying water, and even home-made recycled oil car engine refurbishing, the internet is the quickest way to find and share this info.

I used to think that a post-petroleum world meant no electricity along with no gas-powered transportation and energy, but I'm thinking now that there's more awareness and interest in oil-free energy, so it's becoming increasingly more plausible that even if auto transportation dwindles to almost nothing, computers will likely continue to hum away, especially as they become more efficient requiring less electricity and possibly even just powered by some solar cells. Maybe the sun will in the end help power the sharing of skills and info we need to live sustainably as it also sheds light on how quickly our current way of life is coming to an end.

Home Grown

Though it's been an age since I've posted on this blog since becoming a new mother, surviving and thriving in this city in a post-oil reality is still constantly on my mind. In fact, even more intrinsically since it's my daughter's future that matters to me most.

So I was delighted to see that in this week's NOW magazine (Toronto's weekly news and entertainment rag), the "ecoholic" focus was all about growing food at "home", ie. in the city. Below are all the great articles that they printed which I'd like to share with all my non-Toronto friends and readers:

The Future of Farming in Toronto
Making Use of the City's Wasted Spaces
The Right Tools
Can You Dig It? What to do about toxic soil
Home Grown, Introduction to planting at home
and
Gardens to Fight the Recession

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #5

GETTING FIT & EATING HEALTHFULLY

This post will likely have some critics -- then again, it might get some sounds of agreement, as well. I apologize if this sounds shallow in any way, because I know that habits, health and fitness are largely a matter of choice. Nonetheless, this is what I think: the end of petroleum will naturally mean being more physically active, and eating in a way that is better for our bodies.

Yes, I look forward to the day when I'll be more self-mobile, walking and biking exclusively, instead of taking the car because I'm in a hurry to get somewhere or haven't figured out how to haul a large load of groceries effectively. To when I'll not be sitting in front of the computer 8 hours a day, and instead be toiling outside to produce my own food and raise some chickens, rabbits and sheep.

Eating healthfully will be a natural byproduct of (relative) food scarcity. Sure, the first few years might be enormously challenging, and we'll "starve" compared to our excessive over-indulgent eating habits at present. But I have much faith in the abundance of permaculture practices applied to growing and raising food in small spaces, even urban settings, and hopefully in large, reclaimed public spaces in neighbourhoods for farm-scale production. Eating healthfully will be inevitable when there's no more fast food, processed "food", imported out-of-season produce, mercury-laden fish and pesticide-coated fruits and vegetables. We'll eat less, we'll eat seasonally, and we'll eat naturally.

Happily there is, of course, time to make the transition now. In a year or two, I'll have a home which I'll own and start to convert into the self-sufficient mini-eco-village I dream of, and begin the toiling and growing and making and working. And my 13-year-old car will likely be dead by then, too.

Struggling with moral purity?

Give up the struggle. Let it go. Throw it away.

After reading an interview with Derrick Jensen in Briarpatch magazine, it all became crystal clear to me. It's irrelevant whether a vegetarian is wearing leather shoes, or peak oiler owns a car. Why should the person's integrity get questioned when the point is that we're fighting a good fight, that needs to be fought?

I got the best quote from the editor of the magazine, which he got from CrimethInc:

"Purity is the opposite of integrity--the cruelest thing you can do to a person is make her ashamed of her own complexity."

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #4

COOLER CITIES IN THE SUMMER

When I leave the city to hang out at my country cabin, it is always noticeably cooler out there, by at least 5 degrees if not 10. The city is an incubator in the summer, with a blanket of smog hovering above us, trapping in the heat produced by the million cars and trucks (and factories and construction sites and industry...) always on the go. As vehicles retire permanently, the smog trap will (hopefully) cease to form, and the main source of heat (and pollution) will also be quieted. Ahhhhh. Of course, the concrete and buildings and glass towers will be a heat sink forever, but time might also allow green growth to slowly cover these thermal surfaces and turn into a cooling source of moisture and shade. Can you imagine it?

Winters will also change. Temperatures will drop for the same reason as above for summertime, which will mean the return of actual snow. It might even stay white longer. Our lake will be thankful for not being fed salt and brine, too.

The upside of biofuels

In my recent post "Ethanol will not save us", I summarized what I thought to be the many disadvantages with ethanol as fuel production. I still think this is true, though have found out about a few endeavours that make biofuels as a byproduct of fuel production, as opposed to a crop that replaces fuel (and hence food) production.

Greg Herriott of Hempola (Oilseed Works Inc.) founded the company in 1995 after several years of research and development in the field of industrial hemp. The company went on to invent hemp flour and launch its Omega 3 salad dressings in 1999. Around 2000, the company began to see a steady increase in demand for its hemp flour resulting in an over-supply of hemp oil. Herriott then developed and launched in 2001, its all-natural wood finish to bolster oil sales. Next, the work on its bio-fuel project began. Today, Oilseed Works Inc., is actively marketing its Flour Power program to farmer groups, commercial bakeries and developing countries. The basis of Flour Power is the sustainable cultivation and conversion of each harvest into a combination of food and fuel - primarily flour and bio-diesel. Cellulose material from these harvests also holds excellent potential as a feed stock for ethynol production.

And EverPURE: a pioneering, farmer-based, biodiesel co-op for Ontario, is a branch of the Everdale Environmental Learning Centre, one of the most innovative environmental agriculture centres in Ontario. Everdale houses a bio-fuel co-op that turns food waste into fuel. It is a defining principle of Everdale's work on biofuels that they are made entirely from recycled food by-products, thus avoiding a fuel-versus-food conflict on scarce farmland.

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

—WENDELL BERRY

Thanks to my new friend Bonita Ford for sending me this wonderful and timely poem about feeling the bigger picture.

Ethanol will not save us

This is what I'm hearing in the news:

A growing proportion of American farmland -- about 20% -- is now being used for growing crops to produce ethanol. This is taking food away from people, to be replaced with food for machines. It is raising the price of food because there is less room and fewer farmers to produce it. It is costing Mexicans and latinos in the southwestern US twice as much to buy their staple food, corn, to the point of being unaffordable to millions. And that it would take 100% of the existing corn production in the US right now to produce a mere 12% of the fuel needed. Ethanol is also an energy-intensive substance, taking almost as much energy to produce as is produced from it, with only a net energy gain of 25%.

And information that's not in the news but can be easily found is about the environmental impact of producing corn. This monocrop requires chemical fertilizers and pesticides to produce, as well as enormous amounts of water. And right now the United States are experiencing record levels of drought and water shortage. Corn crops can quickly render a farmland infertile after a generation or less. Just like fossil fuels, ethanol is a short-sighted solution with permanent consequences that affect the livelihood of people and the health of the environment.

Articles:
USA Today
New York Times
New York Sun

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #3

THE END OF CORPORATE INDUSTRY

Corporations rule the world, and they're the ones driving the destruction of our ecosystems -- from industrialized agriculture to computer technology corporations -- using up clean water, clearing land for production, strip mining for raw materials, and even abusing third world labour and environmental health to maximize profit. Begone corporate pigs, I will enjoy watching you shrivel as petroleum becomes scarce or causes your products to become unaffordable. I know, this means the economy will take a huge hit. But so it goes with the artificial comforts of global capitalism. And consumers (who ultimately fund corporations) are evidently being much too slow at making the choice to STOP BUYING STUFF. The discipline will soon enough be hoisted upon all of us.

Dear Earth

From Amadea Morningstar's book "Ayurvedic Cooking for Westerners"...

Thich Nhat Hanh, the internationally respected Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, wrote recently in Love In Action (©1993) "Our Earth, our green beautiful Earth is in danger, and all of us know it. Yet we act as if our daily lives have nothing to do with the situation of the world." We imagine we are unimportant. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is our emissions from our cars eroding the ozone layer up there.

It is our inappropriate consumption which feeds unscrupulous corporations. Without it, their power cannot continue to accumulate and degrade the biosphere. What we do matters. Where will you put your weight? How do you want to live? In a way that will help save the planet and its inhabitants, or in a way which will continue to destroy it?

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #2

RECONNECT WITH THE SOIL AND THE SEASONS

I love soil, and air and sun and rain. But I'm almost never out in it, especially in proportion to how much time I spend at the computer each and every day (even weekends!). When peak oil establishes itself and we need to turn our parklands and empty spaces into farming plots, I will enjoy toiling side-by-side with friends, family and neighbours as we plant our seeds, tend to our crops, and reap the harvest. Best of all will be experiencing the seasons and moon cycles as they come, as much as I'm sure winters will be cold and hard here in Canada. Depending, of course, on how much effect global warming will have (25C in mid-April is pretty alarming, but may indicate a longer growing season for us in the north, but more droughts for the south).

Things To Look Forward To With Peak Oil, #1

READ ALL THE BOOKS I'VE BEEN MEANING TO GET TO

I don't often buy new books, and love buying second-hand books, but inevitably in my enthusiasm when I do buy books, they end up in a "must read" pile that almost never gets visited. I forget they're there most of the time! And at the end of a long day, especially in winter when it's dark by 5 and too cold to go out, I admit I like to flake out in front of the TV for a few hours. Even though I love reading! So, although my efforts are always to power off and enjoy a non-electric passtime like reading, or knitting, etc, I think a lack of electricity will help sharpen my focus -- and discipline.

And I know I'll love digging into those books that are gathering dust waiting for me!

For The Future

Well here is an answer to an earlier debate about deconstructing civilization:

For The Future, an organization that encourages a process of reassessment and revisioning of our way of life at every level of American society. The members of this organization aim to inform the public, and to stimulate dialog about how to handle the transition to a stable, sustainable way of life. For example, they work on creating a lush food forest and teaches permaculture to promote local food security, and help people heal their relationship with nature, noting that many problems are rooted in this disconnection.


The Initiative for Sustainable Small Cities

Permanently increasing oil prices and, at some point, the inability to obtain fossil fuels at any price will make much of our urban landscape more or less untenable. Politics and the economy will become more locally-organized, and some localities will adapt better than others. Since peak oil has to do with the amount of energy available to run virtually every system important to civilization, every sector of local society, economy, and culture will be affected in one way or another.

For The Future is located in a potentially viable small city, Santa Barbara. We are reaching out to organize discussions with police and fire departments, planning boards, local government, the Chamber of Commerce, and various other organizations. Our purpose is A) to communicate the reality of the implications of peak oil; and B) to explore alternative local forms of transportation, fuel and food production, housing, and employment. Our emphasis is on “new urbanism,” featuring denser development and multiuse zoning, rehabilitation of existing older neighborhoods, encouragement of locally-owned businesses and farms, expansion of public transportation, and other adaptive choices that can make a relatively pleasant and prosperous way of life possible even in the absence of cheap energy.

Book review: Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn

Somebody recommended to me that I read Ishmael by Daniel Quinn. I'm glad I did.

This is a fiction novel with the premise of an intelligent gorilla trying to teach a human about how it came to be that our species is destroying our life-giving planet. Despite several little holes in the arguments here and there, the story is very good at helping the human (and us, the readers) try to think completely differently about humans as animals vs. humans as rulers of the world. Questions are asked such as, when did humans, during the course of our evolution, change from being a part of nature just like apes and slugs and fish, to manipulators of the natural world? And why? But most crucial is, can we undo the destruction we've wreaked on our planet? I'll give away the answer: the only way is to once again be a part of nature's cycle submitting to what the land gives us, and relinquish our self-imposed role of warriors against natural forces.

The thesis is that we humans have taken on a god-like role over the "natural world" thinking we can control it to our benefit, when the truth is, the world is not ours to control. And our attempts to do so yeild the results we see today: famine in third world countries, climate change, extinction of species, melting of glaciers, pollution of air, water and soil, over-population, wars, depression, unfulfillment, addiction...

As with the thesis of David Korten's The Great Turning, the glimmer of hope is that perhaps our role as the human race is to see what our acts of ignorance and arrogance can do, learn from our erroneous ways, and spark a re-birth as a more enlightened family with a vision of harmony and humility on Earth.

Here is a blog post by Steven McEvoy reviewing books "that will change your life", including Ismael.

Crude oil has hit $100/barrel

I thought it would take longer to reach this number, say another year or so, but here it is.

It's the dead of winter in the northern hemisphere, so my brain really starts to hurt as I think about how to heat my home (a rented apartment) using less energy, and how to eat local seasonal food at this time of year. I know one day we'll have little choice in these matters, but they are the most basic of life's necessities. Food and shelter. Let alone transportation or the rest of globalized industry that chugs along as if life desperately depended on it.

I'm going to go out on a limb, here. I believe the origin of all modern problems in our world is civilization. It seems that as soon as villages become larger, organized civilizations, it's the beginning of the end, from depleting land in over-producing food, greed and heirarchies, to wars and conquests, pollution, species extinctions, and of course peak oil.

If that's what I think the root of the problem is, then it goes that I believe the answer is in the deconstruction of civilization. A return to a village mentality. Sustainable communities based on nature, the seasons, and love and respect for oneself, one another, and one's life source.

Our task as humans may not be infinite technological advancement, but rather to foster an awakened discipline for infinite harmony.

Kindling

Just a simple photo of a stack of kindling up at my off-grid cabin in the country. It's so nice to just gather fallen branches from around the land, and breaking them into kindling for a fire to warm our stove on chilly autumn nights.

While we were driving...

...oil was peaking.

The Energy Watch Group, who reports to the German Parliament, just released a study stating that the Peak in Oil production was 2006 and we can expect 3-7% declines annually from here on out with half of current global supply being erased by 2030.
 
Read the article here.

My eco-vision (edited)

Thanks to a recommendation by my friend Jenny at Grassroots, The Toronto Star wrote a little article about my green aspirations. You can read it on their website or see below:


Click to enlarge

I might also add a few personal points. Such as, the general belief is that if everybody does a little something, it will make a difference. But it's not what everyone is doing, or who's actions are inspiring people. Forget about others. Tap into what kind of relationship you want to foster with nature, with the essence of life and what gives us life. I don't wonder whether I can make a difference or not. I just know that I can't, with a clear conscience, remain asleep and hence be part of the problem.

How to survive, and thrive, in the city post-oil

You may not know this about me, but for several years I've been gathering knowledge for how to survive in my city after petroleum is long gone and electricity, plumbing, food supplies, etc, become unreliable. I've been preparing by compiling an urban survival guide for Toronto, but it can be applied to any city or town that has come to rely entirely on imported sustenance but must soon become self-reliant and sustainable. Consider it permaculture on a metropolitan scale.

This kind of information should be free for the taking, so I've been posting my findings here, on:

The Post-Oil Survival Guide for City Dwelling

Baby steps: weaning off of plastic

I spoke recently to a friend who mentioned she has no plastic tupperware or storage containers in her kitchen. As simple as this sounds, it really struck me, since every kitchen I know has and relies heavily on plastic containers. I found it refreshing and an obvious, easy step towards becoming less petroleum-dependent, and of course makes our home environment more natural.

I usually store leftovers in nice bowls with a plate on top of it, but also have a soft spot for vintage "refrigeratorware" for it's fun design and fresh colours, as well as the harking back to simpler times (as in, with less technology and consumption, even though the 50's and 60's were on a massive upswing, poor ignorant souls).

Non-plastic materials like glass, metals and wood are still earth's body, that needs to get collected and processed and shipped, all of which use up resources. So we should be very picky about what we buy new, and for everything else, start hunting around at second-hand stores, yard sales, and your family's basements and attics!

We have to think about buying used goods whenever possible (as such, Value Village has become my new department store), even if we're tempted by Debbie Travis' new line of old-fashioned style drinking glasses and whatever. Using new materials for making things we either don't need or can get second-hand is, in my opinion, criminal. The exception is with highly renewable resources like straw, bamboo and hemp. For example, I needed a butter dish, and found a great old cutie at Value Village. But, I also needed a bike basket for my handlebars, and instead of getting a new metal-wire basket, I went to Chinatown and got a wicker one which will have as long a life, but can be composted when it's beyond repair. (The basket on the back is an old milk crate, my beloved hatchback trunk!)

I've also bought a supply of reuseable mesh produce bags. I take these with me to the grocery store and pop my fruits and veggies in there instead of the thin plastic dispenser bags which end up in landfills. Yes, I bought these new as I had no time to make my own, but a few of my friends are actually trying to crochet their own mesh bags, bless them! My mother spent one summer sewing up cotton shopping bags too, which have been my only grocery carriers for years now.

I hope one day plastic will be very hard to find in my home (actually, I'm sure that will eventually be the case whether I work at it or not)!

Wise words of Fukuokasan

Fast rather than slow, more rather than less -- this flashy "development" is linked directly to society's impending collapse. It has only served to separate man from nature. Humanity must stop indulging the desire for material possessions and personal gain and move instead toward spiritual awareness.

from The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka

Peak Oil comic now available!

Fresh and hot off the presses, I've just completed my first comic book, which happens to be about Peak Oil. No coincidence, it took a subject I am passionate about to finally delve into this fantastic visual storytelling medium.

Centered on three characters, our short story (28 pages) describes George, a boy, who discovers an old dinosaur bone buried in his farm land. Upon digging it out, it transforms into an incredibly selfless and powerful helper that, in one eventful day, goes from tilling George's fields to building him an entire city. Needless to say, by the end of the day the "old bone" expires, and the boy is left having to face his actions and decide what to do. His tender mother, Naida, suffers consequences of this sudden manifestation. The all-knowing grandfather, Sol, gives them both words of wisdom and helps guide George through his now-altered life path.

If you'd like a copy of this book, send me an e-mail!
Cost is $5 Canadian, plus shipping as follows:
$2 within Canada, $3 to USA, $4 International.

For a sneak peak of a few pages, go to my art blog.

Must get back to positive thinking...

Originally I developed this blog to point out all the great things happening around the world in response to peak oil, in light of all the negative, terrifying, doomsday talk that is increasing everywhere.

Somewhere along the line I got sucked into focusing on the negative and feeling compelled to share my spite for the current global situation and the people responsible. My opinions may not be popular but, although we should all be sharing our beliefs, I don't think I'm contributing much by flogging dead horses.

It may be time to get back to opening my eyes, ears and heart once again to the hope and positivity demonstrated in bright little pockets all around us.

In an era of extremes -- extreme consumption, extreme self-centeredness, extreme politics -- we need to make the extreme choice of living simply, rooted in love.

Kauai thinks ahead and plans for life after oil

Picture a beautiful, tropical island that's been ravaged by centuries of colonizing and imposed modernization, topped off with a heavy dose of tourism. Now picture that tourism has ground to a halt, and American powers are maimed at last.

Kauai is this island, and a group of its forward-thinking citizens -- The Hawaii 2050 Sustainability Task Force -- has proposed a plan to make this Hawaiian island completely oil-independent within 43 years. Looking at oil shortages, a caving-in of the import/export and tourism-based economy, plus drastic changes in food sources, this proposal recognizes the harsh realities of the near future but has a "happy ending" by looking at permaculture and permanent culture as solutions. Bravo!

To read more about Kauai's quest for post-oil sustainability,
see Juan Wilson's page.

A Crude Awakening stronger than java

Just like watching An Inconvenient Truth didn't really provide new information or a fresh perspective on a crisis some of us are perfectly aware of, A Crude Awakening simply spelled out the horrors of the oil industry in this tiny plip of history that is our life. If you're reading this blog post then you know as well as I that our current existence is an artificial, petroleum-based one that cannot be maintained. Simply put, demand is increasing and supply is dwindling. And I'm thrilled about it.

A Crude Awakening did an excellent job of summarizing the birth of the oil industry and the blind faith everyone had in its endless supply, and how it spurred an unprecedented advancement of development, travel, manufacturing and lifestyle. It was horrifying to see the graveyards of oil rigs in Venezuela's waters and Azerbaijan's fields, but it was an important image to see the future of all oil plants. The movie beautifully spelled out the connections between oil and war, government, the stock market, and made no apologies of the grim future of oil-dependent nations -- and that the future is now. Peak Oil may well have been in 2005. Or it might be in 10 years. No matter, it's been too late to start to try planning alternative energies to fully replace petrol for at least a decade already.

It's easy to feel hopeless once you have the facts of this harsh reality, as we might with the global warming crisis. But that doesn't really do much good. If you have thoughts on how we can react now to prepare for the oil crash, feel free to post your ideas. Meanwhile I think it would be best to spread the word, encourage people to wean themselves off of all things oil-based, and learn skills that will help in a time of revolutionary crisis.

My beef with eco-gifts

So many examples out there of green economy initiatives, or fair-trade goods, are based on gifts -- it's driving me mental!

Last fall at the Washington, DC, Green Festival, I was expecting to find some great, innovative companies and organizations thinking in new ways to help convert our over-consuming, eco-destructive North American culture into a conscientious and sustainable one. There were a few of these, but the majority seemed to be of the Ten Thousand Villages variety. In other words, selling imported crafts from third world countries with weak and unstable economies.

I understand that the whole point of this kind of industry is to help people from these impoverished nations to make a better living by handmaking beautiful things and have a quality of life with more opportunities and a higher income. This is honourable, but is fundamentally flawed in so many ways. Allow me to count the ways...

1) This industry perpetuates an export economy which diverts these third world citizens' energy away from building up their own sustainable habitat, to feeding an artificial market thousands of miles away. It's just a prettier version of globalization that makes us western consumers feel good about how we spend our money, but globalization it still is. Local economy is the only way for all countries to save ourselves.

2) How do these beautiful crafts get to us buyers in the first place? Just like the billions of dollars' worth of goods exported from China each year, a huge part of the problem with all export-based industries is the amount of fuel energy needed to transport consumables from halfway around the world. Although the embodied energy of the handicrafts may be lower because these goods are made by hand and with local, renewable materials, all the oil it carries from shipping is an invisible, deplorable waste of resources that, of course, just ends up in our atmosphere.

3) Gifts. Why is our society so addicted to buying gifts? How many cushion covers, letter writing sets, toys, purses, fruit bowls, candle holders, shawls, earrings and cute little boxes do we need? Our holidays and celebrations have been coopted by our relentlessly capitalist mentality to become opportunities to buy, instead of a time to simply celebrate the true essence of the occasion.

In all, the benefits to the people in the third world making these handicrafts is a short-sighted one that might seem to boost their economy in the short term, but due to the dependence on an external purchasing power, they will never be emancipated from the cycle of an export economy. And all the downfalls with this eco-gift market that make us feel so unique with the quaint splash of imported culture we purchased to accessorize our lives, are that they perpetuate our brain-numbing addiction to consumption while helping to pollute our world thanks to need to ship internationally. The answer isn't to initiate middle-man import companies that makes us feel like we're saving helpless people. The answer isn't to throw money at them (however creatively or artistically it may be motivated), but to release any dominion we have over other nations so they can flourish in their own way. What dominion, you may ask? How about the World Bank and IMF, for starters.