Hope Shand | October 10, 2008
Original article

Peak oil, skyrocketing fuel costs, and the climate crisis are driving corporate enthusiasm for a “biological engineering revolution” that some predict will dramatically transform industrial production of food, energy, materials, medicine, and the ecosystem. Advocates of converging technologies promise a greener, cleaner post-petroleum future, where the production of economically important compounds depends not on fossil fuels but on biological manufacturing platforms fueled by plant sugars. It may sound sweet and clean. But the “sugar economy” will be the catalyst for a corporate grab on all plant matter as well as the destruction of biodiversity on a massive scale.

The future bioeconomy will rely on “extreme genetic engineering,” a suite of technologies currently in early stages of development. It includes cheap and fast gene sequencing, made-to-order biological parts, genome engineering and design, and nano-scale materials fabrication and operating systems. The common denominator is that all these technologies - biotech, nanotech, synthetic biology - involve engineering of living organisms at the nano-scale. This technological convergence is also driving a convergence of corporate power. New bioengineering technologies attract billions of dollars in corporate funding from energy, chemical, and agribusiness giants, including DuPont, BP, Shell, Chevron, and Cargill. Read the complete Post.

Terrific library of free short videos courtesy of the show brought to you by Metro Vancouver - check out their site!

A Talk By Peter Newman, Professor of Sustainability, Curtin University, Australia.

Friday, January 9, 2009
5:30 – 7:00 p.m.
Room 1400
SFU Vancouver - 515 West Hastings St.

Peter Newman and Tim Beatley have written two new books, one on Resilient Cities, the other on Green Urbanism Down Under. They are on a North American tour in January beginning in Vancouver as it was here that the gestation of the Resilient Cities book began. Peter will speak about how cities are under threat from the financial crash and especially need to avoid pushing solutions such as road building and urban sprawl that were only responsible for the sub-prime meltdown. A new approach to urban development needs to be forged out of the down-turn that can at the same time enable cities to respond to the deep challenge of peak oil and climate change. Some hopeful directions will be outlined based on cities from around the world, including cities down-under.

Dear Friends and Colleagues

As many of your know, I was among a group of young environmentalists who travelled Alberta by bike in 2007 attempting to wrap their head around one of biggest industrial mega-projects in the world: the Alberta tar sands. We went from one small town to the next, meeting with the locals and asking one question: how has the tar sands boom impacted your life? The 3-week long bike trip was a fact finding mission, a story telling adventure and a life-changing experience for all involved.

The culmination of that trip is the recent release of a book entitled Journey To The Tar Sands (www.tothetarsands.ca) co-authored by 12 of the cyclists, as well as a feature-length documentary (www.tothetarsandsfilm.ca) which was recently featured at the Calgary International Film Festival.

I have been keen to share the stories that we heard and experienced in Alberta with others here at home. So I am particularly excited to say that we have been able to bring a screening of the film and the official BC launch of the book to the North Shore as part of a national tour. Please consider yourself invited to the event, which will take place on Monday Jan 19th, from 7pm to approximately 9pm at the Kay Meek Centre in West Vancouver (http://www.kaymeekcentre.com/). I have attached a poster and I would appreciate your help in inviting others and spreading the word. A similar event is also being planned for Jan 20th at UBC if you know anyone who might be interested in that.

The film is rated PG and recommended for people of all ages who are interested in any of the following: youth activism, cycling, Alberta, the oil industry, journalism, storytelling, First Nation issues, labour issues, food, social justice, grassroots organizing, personal change, group living, climate change, the environment, the economy, and saving the world!

Hope to see you there.

Aftab

Canada’s vast forests, once huge absorbers of greenhouse gases, now add to problem
By Howard Witt | Chicago Tribune correspondent
January 2, 2009
Original article

VPO Note: a perfect example of Overshoot. The only good solution to this symptom of the real problem is reduction of human population and consumption.

VANCOUVER — As relentlessly bad as the news about global warming seems to be, with ice at the poles melting faster than scientists had predicted and world temperatures rising higher than expected, there was at least a reservoir of hope stored here in Canada’s vast forests.

The country’s 1.2 million square miles of trees have been dubbed the “lungs of the planet” by ecologists because they account for more than 7 percent of Earth’s total forest lands. They could always be depended upon to suck in vast quantities of carbon dioxide, naturally cleansing the world of much of the harmful heat-trapping gas.

But not anymore. Read the complete Post.

By Matthew Burrows
Georgia Straight 12/2/7/08
Original Article

VPO NOTE: VPO has been pushing for a peak oil task force for over a year, and now Councilor Andrea Reimer is answering the call. Time is short - please write in to city hall and voice support for this task force. Much of the work has already been done by the proposed members individually and is waiting to be taken off the shelf. We need to move into implementation immediately.

Mayor Gregor Robertson and Coun. Andrea Reimer are promising they will make Vancouver ready for peak oil.

“We have to address peak oil,” Robertson told the Georgia Straight at City Hall. “That’s a hard reality.…I think it could end up compounding the looming challenges we face with oil supply and an economy that’s totally dependent on cheap energy right now.”

Peak oil refers to the point at which the rate of global oil production maxes out, sending the supply of the resource into an inevitable decline.

In October, the U.K. Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security released a 43-page report entitled The Oil Crunch. The report anticipates peak-oil-related problems hitting the U.K. starting in 2011 and says the threat posed by peak oil is greater than that of terrorism.

Robertson and Reimer both say that lower oil prices don’t mean that action on peak oil should wait. Read the complete Post.

by Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica and David Hasemyer, The San Diego Union-Tribune - December 21, 2008 11:23 am EST
Dec. 22: This post has been corrected.
Original article

This story was co-published with the San Diego Union-Tribune and also appears in that newspaper’s Dec. 21, 2008 issue.

Lake Powell, the Colorado’s River largest reservoir (David McNew/Getty Images)The Colorado River, the life vein of the Southwestern United States, is in trouble.

The river’s water is hoarded the moment it trickles out of the mountains of Wyoming and Colorado and begins its 1,450-mile journey to Mexico’s border. It runs south through seven states and the Grand Canyon, delivering water to Phoenix, Los Angeles and San Diego. Along the way, it powers homes for 3 million people, nourishes 15 percent of the nation’s crops and provides drinking water to one in 12 Americans.

Now a rush to develop domestic oil, gas and uranium deposits along the river and its tributaries threatens its future.

The region could contain more oil than Alaska’s National Arctic Wildlife Refuge. It has the richest natural gas fields in the country. And nuclear energy, viewed as a key solution to the nation’s dependence on foreign energy, could use the uranium deposits held there.

But getting those resources would suck up vast quantities of the river’s water and could pollute what is left. That’s why those most concerned are water managers in places like Los Angeles and San Diego. They have the most to lose.

The river is already so beleaguered by drought and climate change that one environmental study called it the nation’s “most endangered” waterway. Researchers from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography warn the river’s reservoirs could dry up in 13 years.

The industrial push has already begun. Read the complete Post.

Urban gardening course for gardeners of all levels

The Farmhouse Farm is a new urban farm located in South Vancouver, dedicated to providing fresh local produce as well as offering city dwellers educational opportunities around growing food and building sustainable urban communities. We are in our second season of our vegetable home delivery program, and are offering a ten week course in urban food production skills entitled “Be Your Own Farmer!” that we would like to share with members of your community garden. Information on the course and our farm project is listed below, and we would greatly appreciate if it could be passed on to community gardeners or any other interested people. If you would like more information on our project or would like a presentation or workshop for your garden or other organization, please feel free to contact us!

Thanks and happy gardening,
Rin and the Farmhouse Farm Read the complete Post.

George Monbiot puts the question to Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency - and is both astonished and alarmed by the answer

George Monbiot

The Guardian,

Monday 15 December 2008

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/dec/15/oil-peak-energy-iea

From Monday’s Globe and Mail

December 15, 2008 at 12:00 AM EST