peak oil

David Suzuki & Jeff Rubin Address Our Economy’s Disconnect With Reality

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I had the good fortune this week to be in the audience during Dr. David Suzuki and Jeff Rubin’s Eco Tour stop in Winnipeg, part of a cross-country book tour. Dr. Suzuki is a world-renowned geneticist and Canadian television personality who has hosted the CBC science show, The Nature of Things, for 31 years. He has become one of the most articulate and public voices speaking up for a sane environmental policy, in the face of runaway climate change and biodiversity loss. Mr. Rubin was formerly the chief economist for CIBC and is now a best-selling author whose latest book is entitled The End of Growth (his previous one was Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller).  An ecologist and an economist – not a pairing that one sees very often, but one that should be happening a whole lot more.

Both men spoke for about 15 minutes about their perspectives on the looming crises in both the economy and the environment. Rubin highlighted how peak oil isn’t about how much oil reserves in total the world has, but rather how much oil can be retrieved in a way that generates profit; even with triple digit oil prices, it just isn’t economically feasible to go after high-risk reserves. Rubin also asserted that triple-digit oil prices dampen down global economic growth, which has been propped up by cheap oil prices for decades (hence the title of his book). Of course, he said a whole lot more but that was his intro.

Suzuki started off by reminding us that, despite our amazing technological advances and sophisticated industrialized way of life, we humans are, after all, animals. We need to breathe air and drink water and consume food to survive. And yet, inexplicably, we continue to pour pollution into our air and pump toxic chemicals into our water and our soil. He posed the question “why is it that the market, which is something that humans have created, dictates what our ecosystem is used and abused for, rather than the other way around?” The market, Suzuki asserts, has become what dragons were in medieval times – the scary, untouchable monster that humans had to look out for and fear. It’s time that humans realized that, just like dragons, the market is a creation of the human imagination and our fear of it needs to disappear the same way our fear of dragons did hundreds of years ago.

During a short question and answer session that followed their short presentations, I asked for both of their responses to the International Energy Agency’s 2011 World Energy Report, which warned that if fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed (by 2016), the world will lose for ever the chance to avoid catastrophic climate change. Jeff Rubin’s response was that the IEA based it’s calculations on a world whose GDP was growing by 4% a year, and he doesn’t think this will happen, for the reasons he outlines in his book, related to the high price of oil. He also places some faith in human ingenuity and technology. David Suzuki, on the other hand, responded by discussing Australian author and intellectual Clive Hamilton’s recent book, Requiem For A Species; the species Hamilton is referring to in the title is humans. The book focuses on how and why humans have ignored the warning of science about global warming until now, so that now it is too late.

My head wanted to believe Jeff Rubin, and believe that we still have the time and ability to turn this crisis around, but in my heart I felt the pain and sadness that Suzuki clearly feels about this issue, and the truth of Hamilton’s message. I haven’t given up hope – I can’t, I have two daughters who are going to be living in the world that we have created – but I do know that the situation is bleak. The only response I know is to keep doing what I can to change the outcome through education and activism, while at the same time preparing for the “Great Disruption” in our economy and personal lives that is about to happen to all of us, whether we are ready for it or not. And, while I’m at it, I plan on spending time with the people I love, doing things that feed my spirit.

David Suzuki at Toronto EcoTour, photo: C. McNamara

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Photo: Occupy Canada

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Graphic: Give a Shit About Climate Change (www.facebook.com/giveashitaboutclimatechange)

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More links:

Suzuki Cautions Resource Rich Saskatchewan

Suzuki, Rubin Book Tour Links Ecology, Economics

On Fossil Fools And Fracking Lies

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Yes, there is oil in the ground – we just can’t afford it. The folks over at the Post Carbon Institute have just put out this video on the propaganda Big Oil is busy spreading in response to the peak oil crisis:

In recent months we’ve seen a spate of articles, reports, and op-eds claiming that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called “new technologies” that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of “unconventional” oil. “Don’t worry, drive on,” we’re told.

But as Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg asks in this short video, what’s really new here? “What’s new is high oil prices and … the economy hates high oil prices.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4uKgU7krWzE]

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We can fall for the oil industry hype and keep ourselves chained to a resource that’s depleting and comes with ever increasing economic and environmental costs, or we can recognize that the days of cheap and abundant oil (not to mention coal and natural gas) are over.

Unfortunately, the mainstream media and politicians on both sides of the aisle are parroting the hype, claiming — in Obama’s case — that unconventional oil can play a key role in an “all of the above” energy strategy and — in Romney’s — that increased production of tight oil and tar sands can make North America energy independent by the end of his second term.

More links:

Post Carbon Institute

Business As Usual Is Over: Value Change Required For Survival

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Today’s blog posting was initially posted on 350orbust on June 30, 2010:

Chief Oren Lyons said, when speaking about Climate Change at the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues at the UN Headquarters in 2007:

We’re talking about change. People have to change. Directions have to change. Values have to change. There is no mercy in nature; nature has none. It has only law, only rule. You don’t abide the rule, you suffer the result…it’s what you do, and how you live. Business as usual is over…Value change for survival. You’re either going to change your values, or you’re not going to survive. You’re going to abide that law or suffer the consequences…Business as usual is over. Carbon is over. Oil is over. We better find something else. We better find some equity. We’re not going to have the luxury of spending $200 billion in a war. You’re not going to have the time or the money. because you’re going to be paying for the environment, for damages coming. You want to talk about the economy, you’re going to wreck the economies of the world…Change or else…Tell your leaders to get off their ass, let’s get on with life.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWiRFAvxu3k]

Chief Lyons is an Associate Professor in the American Studies Program at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He is  Faithkeeper of the Turtle Clan, Onondaga Nation, Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy). Chief Lyon has been active in international indigenous rights and sovereignty issues for over three decades at the United Nations and other forums. He is the publisher of “Daybreak”, a national Native American news magazine.

More links:

Earthkeeper Heroes

The End Of Cheap Oil: An Opportunity to Create A Better World

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“As a species with the creativity, adaptability and opposable thumbs that enabled us to create an Oil Age in the first place, we can be pretty certain that there will be life beyond it. Similarly, we may be able to prevent the worst excesses of climate change, and indeed the measures needed would almost certainly make the world a far better place. However, the point is that the world and our lifestyles will look very different from the present. It is worth remembering that it takes a lot of cheap energy to maintain the levels of social inequality we see today, the levels of obesity, the record levels of indebtedness, the high levels of car use and alienating urban landscapes. Only a culture awash with cheap oil could become de-skilled on the monumental scale that we have, to the extent that some young people I have met are lucky to emerge from cutting a slice of bread with all their fingers intact. It is no exaggeration to say that we in the West are the single most useless generation (in terms of practical skills) to which this planet has ever played host. However, the first step to the creation of a localized, low-energy-abundant future is actually visioning its possibility.”

So writes Rob Hopkins, the founder of the Transition movement and author of “The Transition Handbook: from oil dependency to local resilience.” I’m halfway through this inspiring and practical book about how to embrace climate change and peak oil as the impetus to creating a better, healthier, more community-oriented way of being on this planet. The changes that Hopkins is talking about are not simple changes, like deciding to recycle; they are significant changes in thinking and in “business as usual”. But as he (and many others) point out, inevitable and profound changes are ahead, whether we are prepared for them or not. What Hopkins, and the Transition Movement, do is to provide a roadmap for navigating those changes. As Hopkins writes:

I do not have a crystal ball. I don’t know how the twin crises of peak oil and climate change will unfold – nobody does. I don’t know the exact date of peak oil, and again, nobody does. Similarly, I don’t know if and when we will exceed the 2 degree climate threshold, and what will happen if we do.

What I am certain of is that we are going to see extraordinary levels of change in every aspect of our lives. Indeed we have to see extraordinary levels of change if we are to navigate our societies away from dependence on cheap oil in such a way that they will be able to retain their social and ecological coherence and stabillity, and also live in a world with a relatively stable climate. In terms of looking forward, many people have set out different scenarios for what the future might hold. I have trawled through a lots of these for insights as to how life beyond the peak might be.

What Hopkins emphasizes is the importance of not just being against something but to be for something positive. While standing against the destruction of the tar sands, fracking, drilling in the Arctic, etc, Hopkins reminds us to offer a vision of a better future where we are more connected to each other, and the earth, with cleaner air, cleaner water, and more equitable sharing of the earth’s bounty. Mike Nickerson, in “Living On Earth As If We Want to Stay” puts it this way:

It may be hard to imagine a civilization where the needs of all are met without depreciating the environment, where speculative capital serves real needs, and where nations and regions have the ability to make decisions in the interests of their people and the environment that supports them. However, such a system is possible.

Remember, we are a tremendously gifted species. Our challenge is not whether or not it is possible to live secure healthy lives for countless generations, our challenge is to identify the direction in which we need to move to accomplish that end, and to exercise our democratic power so that we can proceed to do so.

May you be inspired today to take a step towards establishing your vision of what a better future for your children, and mine, will look like.

Happy Birthday, U.S.A. – may you as a country live up to your promise of providing a better future for all your citizens, not just those with the biggest bank accounts!

More links:

Transition Network.org

Shifting Society’s Goals: Sustainability, A Choice to Consider

Establish Your Vision With Confidence

What’s Your Consumption Factor?

The Problem We’ve Created

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The world needs to reduce carbon emissions. While oil and gas were cheap, there were few incentives to seek newer, cleaner and renewable resources. But time is now the biggest factor. We’re running out of cheap energy and continuing to contribute to the current climate change problem. What, if anything, have we learned in the interim?

All week on TVO, The Agenda with Steve Paikin is broadcasting live from the University of Waterloo where the Equinox Summit: Energy 2030 is taking place.  Yesterday’s panel discussion on “Energy: the problem we’ve created” was lively and informative.  Panel members included Marlo Raynolds from the University of Calgary and the Pembina Institute, Robin Batterham, the president of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering, and Zoe Caron, co-author of “Global Warming For Dummies”.  Also on the panel was Vaclav Smil from the University of Manitoba and author of “Energy Myths and Realities” who seemed extremely knowledgeable about the current state of our fossil fuel consumption but was completely without a vision that this could ever be different.  At one point Steve Paikin challenged him on his assertions that globally we are completely and totally addicted to oil and will never be able to change .  Paikin said something like  “Then we just carry with business as usual and kill ourselves and the planet?” and Smil responded with “well, everything has to die sometime, even the earth.” This honest, though depressing, response from Smil that reflects what many people secretly feel, though many won’t admit it. That is, we are up to our necks in the “Big Muddy” now, and there is no way out.  We (and our children and their children) are doomed.   This kind of despair breeds apathy and people who hold this view do little to work for change, so it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.  And this suits those with vested interests in fiercely resisting change just fine!

But throughout history there have been social movements that have arisen when a small group of people stood up and said “No. Enough is enough.” We have the examples of civil rights movement in the 20th century, as well as the anti-slavery movement the century before.  Most recently, just this year,  there was Egypt and the explosion of the “Arab spring”. All of these examples show what happens when a minority of people take a firm, public stand which inspires others who felt too dis-empowered and hopeless to do work for change on their own.  This is the point we are at with the climate crisis right now, embedded as it is with indigenous rights, women’s empowerment, and all that falls into the broad “environmental” category (clean air, clean water, protection from health-endangering toxins). It’s time for those of us who understand the danger to our children and grandchildren’s future to take a strong stand against the threat.

Shift happens. Are you ready to make history?

More links: 

The Agenda continues to broadcast from the Equinox Summit every night this week at 8 p.m. EST (live). It is rebroadcast at 11 p.m. and is also available for viewing online.  I know what I’ll be doing this evening, as tonight they are talking about our transportation system in “The Way We Move.”

To listen to last night’s program, click here:  Energy: The Problem We’ve Created

To go this week’s Agenda info, click here:  Equinox Summit: The Problem We’ve Created

To get a sense of the movement that is afoot, here is Paul Hawken speaking about it at the 2007 Bioneers conference:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4]

Climate Change Is A Liberal Hoax

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In this video from the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, linguist, philosopher and political activist Noam Chomsky talks about the Chamber of Commerce, the American Petroleum Institute and other business lobbies enthusiastically carrying out campaigns “to try and convince the population that global warming is a liberal hoax.” According to Chomsky, this massive public relations campaign has succeeded in leading a good portion of the population into doubting the human causes of global warming.

Known for his criticism of the media, Chomsky doesn’t hold back in this clip, laying blame on mainstream media outlets such as the New York Times, which will run frontpage articles on what meteorologists think about global warming. “Meteorologists are pretty faces reading scripts telling you whether it’s going to rain tomorrow,” Chomsky says. “What do they have to say any more than your barber?” All this is part of the media’s pursuit of “fabled objectivity.”

Of particular concern for Chomsky is the atmosphere of anger, fear and hostility that currently reigns in America. The public’s hatred of Democrats, Republicans, big business and banks and the public’s distrust of scientists all lead to general disregard for the findings of “pointy-headed elitists.” The 2010 elections could be interpreted as a “death knell for the species” because most of the new Republicans in Congress are global warming deniers. “If this was happening in some small country,” Chomsky concludes, “it wouldn’t matter much. But when it’s happening in the richest, most powerful country in the world, it’s a danger to the survival of the species.”

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FJUA4cm0Rck&feature=player_embedded]

More links:

The Nation.com

How Are We Going to Kick Our Ugly Fossil Fuel Habit? Tom Rand Has An Answer

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Tom Rand is a Canadian engineer, philosopher, author and venture capitalist who is working hard to convince our leaders that renewable energy is ready for the big time.  He says this about the current situation:

We’ll eventually kick our fossil fuel habit. We have no choice. If peak oil doesn’t dictate the terms and timing, then climate change will force our hand. And recent events in the Gulf of Mexico reveal more immediate dangers.

Yet our response to these threats remains tepid, insufficient by any measure. Serious action is aggressively opposed by those who hold out an irrational hope that business-as-usual might continue. We seem content to let nature decide the terms and conditions on which we kick the habit. Why?

I believe there is an assumption, often implicit, that underpins the North American energy debate: clean, renewable energy is just not up to the job. For the lights to stay on, and factories to hum, we need coal and oil. This assumption is why Stephen Harper talks up the tar sands as Canada’s contribution to North American energy security. This assumption is why Canada plays possum on climate change.

But this assumption is flat-out wrong.

Click here to read the full article in The Mark.

In this video Mr. Rand discusses how we can “Kick the Fossil Fuel Habit”:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=92MtzfepgXQ]

For more, check out Rand’s website, kickthefossilfuelhabit.org or join his Facebook group of the same name.