Post Carbon Institute
What Now? Redux
Back in December in blisteringly cold Copenhagen, tens of thousands of activists, government workers, lobbyists, and world leaders came together for what many hoped would be a diplomatic breakthrough. Though the weather was cold, conditions seemed ripe: Environmental groups across the globe had worked hard to generate a strong display of public will, culminating in 350.org’s Day of Action earlier in October, which CNN called "the most widespread day of political action in the planet's history.” Bolstered by the announcement that President Obama would attend the talks personally, hopes were high for meaningful engagement on the part of the United States after more than a decade of inaction.
It seemed to many environmental organizations and their supporters that their international strategy might finally pay off. They were mistaken and left Copenhagen only with questions: What had gone wrong? Why did world leaders punt on the biggest crises facing our planet? And the most important of all: What now?
At Copenhagen, representatives from the Obama Administration told activists straight to their face: You’ll have to make us do this. And your movement is just not big enough.
Fast forward seven months, to blindingly hot Washington D.C., and we have the same result—though this time it was Congress’ turn to punt, despite a great deal of behind-the-scenes negotiations. Senator Kerry (D-MA) said, "We believe we have compromised significantly, but we're prepared to compromise further."
Despite that display of, um, generosity, Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) explained, this time they were just not big enough. Unable to get the 60 votes needed to break a Republican filibuster, no climate legislation will move forward in the Senate this year. Since they’re likely to have even fewer votes after the midterms, this does not bode well for hopes of a national policy any time soon.
This is a double blow because the one outcome of COP 15—the Copenhagen Accord—is predicated on countries voluntarily setting and meeting domestic targets. So the lack of national climate legislation also means that our only hope for meeting our 2020 reduction targets is the EPA’s authority, which is likely going to be challenged in court for as long as the delayers can manage. That, or further steep declines in economic activity, like what has happened recently in the UK.
Gladly, I’m no Beltway insider, and my assumptions should be read as just that. But the way I see it, this result (or lack thereof), is not much of a surprise. Four of what are likely many reasons:
1. The Kerry-Lieberman bill was so badly flawed that not even the Big Green environmental groups could hold their noses enough to back it. Though they had staked their strategies, dollars, and reputations on getting something, anything passed before the likely loss of Democratic Party majorities in Congress, they saw that this bill could in fact be worse than no bill.
2. Our leaders’ allegiance to the mythical god of growth trumps their concern over the proven chemistry and physics of global climate change. The irony is rich, of course, considering that even after a veritable iceberg of evidence corroborating anthropogenic global warming, fabricated “scandals” like climate gate still somehow send the media into paroxysms of doubt and politicians diving for the nearest rock (likely to be underwater in about 30 years). In the meantime, there’s a wholly unsubstantiated belief shared by politicians, pundits, and plebeians of all stripes that without endless economic growth our entire universe would spontaneously implode.
And so, anything that could be viewed as putting our economic “recovery” at risk is simply a bridge too far, particularly in the run-up to mid-term elections.
3. Senate Republicans determination to block any bill that hit the floor. You’ve got to give Senate Republicans credit for their single-mindedness, and ability to wholly divorce their legislative positions from the love I’m sure they feel for their children and grandchildren. That takes a special level of determination and obstinacy.
4. The Obama Administration is simply not serious (enough) about our energy and climate crises. That was made abundantly clear in his oval office speech on June 15th when in the midst of the worst environmental disaster in our nation’s history, his tepid response was this:
So I am happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party—as long they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. Some have suggested raising efficiency standards in our buildings like we did in our cars and trucks. Some believe we should set standards to ensure that more of our electricity comes from wind and solar power. Others wonder why the energy industry only spends a fraction of what the high-tech industry does on research and development—and want to rapidly boost our investments in such research and development. All of these approaches have merit, and deserve a fair hearing in the months ahead.
No specific call to action, no plan offered up. Just an invitation to explore ideas. It was clear in that moment that President Obama was not prepared to stick his neck out for substantive energy and climate policy. Not even when Americans were shaking with anger over the ongoing Deepwater Horizon Gulf spill.
And so here we are again, asking, “What Now?”
More and more in my conversations with environmental groups, activists, and funders, it seems their focus is shifting from the international to the national to, now, the state and local level. For several reasons, I think this is a smart strategy.
In my next post, I’ll touch on the politics and possibilities of local action. Then, I’ll toss out an idea for getting Sarah Palin to serve as the ultimate spokesperson for national climate legislation. Trust me, she won’t like it.
You Can be a BILLIONAIRE Without Even Trying!
Dems Roll Over, Abandon Climate Bill. Will Citizenry Follow Suit?
And so we have it. At noon today (PST), we saw the predictable collapse of Democrat resolve to address the most serious crisis of our times.
So what. Big surprise.
The most likely bills were horrifically flawed (don't get me started on the Kerry Lieberman joke, the one where the punchline was my childrens' future). The public demand for truly significant, timely progress on energy and climate simply isn't there. This was never going to happen in the first place.
We can point fingers at Washington, DC, but we should be pointing them at ourselves. We allow our votes to be taken for granted. We equate online activism with real-world pressure. We talk smartly of responsible consumption and equitable resource distribution--while waiting in line to purchase new iPhones. We hold hands when we should be holding feet to fire. We self-identify as consumers, not citizens. We elect, time and time again, fellow citizens with no track record of caring about our issues. We believe that Tweeting counts as activism. We make excuses like, "Lesser of two evils" and "Incremental change is better than slipping backward." (To be crystal here, I am including ME in 'we'. I work on these issues every single day, and still I fail in my personal life to be a notable example of resilient living.)
It's not that we don't care. Or don't believe that the earth is warming and action must be taken. We, as a nation, emphatically do.
It's that we haven't yet commited to making meaningful progress, as individuals or as a society. We must remember that every daily action has a reaction (somewhere, some time), and behave like informed citizens who give a damn. We know what to do. We even know how to do it. We know what the future can and should look like. We know how to get there. Everything is in place for a rapid and orderly transition to relocalized, resilient communities.
The 10-10-10 Global Work Party has the potential to be Day One of that transition. Beyond shovels in soil, we can use it to start the political transformations needed right now all over the world. New blood, new values, new determination to do right by this planet. Who knows, maybe even new parties who will leave the old guard behind in the dust of work boots and wheelbarrows.
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P.S. Here's a great overview by Joseph Romm at Grist.
The peak oil crisis: thinking about China
With 1.3 billion people, China is unlikely to reach current U.S. energy consumption per capita for some time, if ever, but to double energy consumption in the last ten years is still an impressive achievement. But keep in mind that the average American is still consuming five times as much energy each year as the average Chinese. China had not been expected to overtake the US for another five years, but the global recession reduced U.S. consumption and China's strong economic rebound in the last sent Beijing's consumption soaring.
Interestingly, Chinese officials immediately denied that the IEA's announcement was correct. This is not because the Chinese do not want to be the world's number one energy consumer, but because they do not want to be known as the number one polluter and contributor to global warming emissions. As global temperatures set new records, Beijing would rather be thought of as the leader in efficient use of energy and developer of renewable technologies, rather than as a giant pollutant-belching smokestack, which may be closer to the truth for much of China's energy comes from coal.
The key issue for the next few years is whether China can keep up its frenetic growth. Earlier this year, after a heavy dose of financial stimulus and much loose lending, China's GDP was growing at an annual rate close to 12 percent. Keep in mind that China's definition of GDP growth does not exactly square with what is used in other countries. So while China's economic growth may be spectacular by OECD standards, it may not be quite that spectacular. When inflationary pressures appeared last spring, Beijing tightened up on lending which seems to have cut inflation, taken a point or two off of GDP growth, and cut back on industrial production.
Whether Beijing's formula of mixed capitalism and state control of key enterprises will prove to be durable over the long run has yet to be seen. What we do know, however, is that a few more years of surging energy consumption will soon be playing havoc with energy prices around the world. Even with GDP growth down to 8 or 10 percent each year, China seems to be on course to import at least an additional 500,000 barrels a day (b/d) on top of the 5.4 million b/d imported in June. Beijing's oil imports have doubled in the last five years. Given that other Asian states are increasing imports and the Gulf oil exporters are consuming increasing amounts of oil, something has got to give. That of course will be prices.
There are a few dark clouds on Beijing's horizon, however. Labor unrest is growing and the realities of China's decades of neglect for the environment are closing in. Natural and man-made disasters -- droughts, floods, hurricanes, melting glaciers, polluted air and water, falling aquifers - are accumulating at an alarming pace. Someday these problems, especially when they cause persistent food shortages, are going to reach the point where they impact the nation's ability to sustain any kind of economic growth. However, the consequences of these problems do not seem imminent.
Like everyone else, Beijing is about to fall victim to rapidly increasing oil prices, and eventually, shortages brought about by peaking world oil production. The government clearly recognizes this and has embarked on multiple programs to increase the efficiency of its energy use, increase production of renewable energy, and to buy up at top dollar as much foreign coal, oil and natural gas production as anybody is willing to sell them. This will in turn prove to be a major problem for the oil importing OECD countries that will see their sources of foreign oil disappear more quickly than anticipated.
For now the Chinese economic juggernaut appears ready to keep moving along right into the age of oil depletion. While the country has social and environmental issues none appear to be a hindrance to continued rapid economic development for the immediate future. With massive reserves of foreign exchange, Beijing should be in best position of any major oil importers to weather at least the initial stages of much higher oil prices.
The next few years are likely to be critical for should China keep increasing its imports of oil and even coal at anywhere close to their current rates of increase, major price spikes in the world's oil markets seem inevitable. The U.S. and OECD may not do too well economically in the next few years, but their oil and coal consumption are unlikely to take more than minor dips. These dips in consumption are unlikely to be enough to offset increasing oil consumption in Asia and the oil exporting nations.
China's new status as the world's number one energy consumer may or may not last long, but it serves as a reminder that there are serious troubles ahead.
Originally published July 21 at Falls Church News-Press
Photo credit: Emily Wiltshire
Dear Candidate - What will you do if growth is over...?
(Intro: In talks with friends (not of the PO cloth), I've recently sensed more consideration of the possibility that economic growth may not return and what that might imply. As such yet I think there is a vast dissonance that such a possibility is not remotely discussed in political circles. The essay below the fold was adapted from the Institute for Integrated Economic Research website (under construction)- I've been working with the people there lately on what possible benign trajectories exist in a world after growth.)
Fig 1: Official and alternative scenarios for U.S. GDP growth
To me, one of the most surreal phenomena one encounters these days is that no country, no established economic research institute (that I'm aware of), and no international organization (such as the IMF) publicly discusses scenarios that don't plan for a return to stable economic (GDP) growth. Even Greece's government, after 2012, expects growth, which would allow the country to slowly reduce its monster debt load. Similarly, the U.S. government forecasts annual average (real) growth rates of 4.4% for the years 2012-2014, and 2.4% thereafter until 2020. This theme is globally ubiquitous. (ADDENDUM: Today Lloyds of London said global institutions are underestimating impacts of peak oil).
The above graph is one organization's view of the general magnitude of risks facing societies. Whether or not you agree with their projections is secondary to their ranking in mainstream discussions. On a long term horizon, clearly the health of our environment is of upmost importance. And, along with climate change and other potential externalities, resource depletion issues of various stripes pose large risks to the system as we know it. But before we face the long term we have to go through the short term, which will have to navigate the energy/debt/growth gauntlet. For all the effort being undertaken internationally to address climate, little if any is being made towards building bridges through and past a period of declining growth and wealth. Cognitive dissonance meet group think...
Given the stakes, it is quite worrying that in all the institutionalized economic projections of late, decline or zero growth aren't even mentioned as a possibility. One can speculate why this is the case, but I think there is significant evidence that only limited efforts- if any - are being allocated to understanding the possible consequences and required mitigation strategies of such a trajectory. I'm not so sanguine about the fact that so few people seem to be ready to think the not-so-unthinkable.
We have no insurance for no-growth scenarios
Given the constraints in natural resources, our currently unprecedented levels of debt on a global scale, and the absence of ideas for the next grand "leap forward" for mankind, it seems plausible that we might have to bid adieu to economic growth, and not just for a year or two, but for a long time. Some models at IIER (and other whisper numbers at boutique firms and the blogosphere) suggest the chances for steady economic growth after 2010 are below 10-20%. Even if you disagree with such low odds and put the probability for "more growth" to, say, 80%, doesn't it seem a bit irresponsible to not at least consider the other 20%? Not buying insurance for a risk that might hit you with some pretty negative consequences with a one in five chance strikes me as not the best strategy for a resilient and forward thinking society.
Consequences of "no growth" are quite unpleasant
Our current world is about as prepared for "no growth" as is a fish to walk on land. All our current claims systems, the credit outstanding, including government debt, our pension expectations, our savings, our hopes and dreams, are mostly focused on a "there will be more tomorrow" mentality. Should this "more" disappear as a possibility, we will likely not just see small implications, but rather a disruptive destruction of both perceived wealth and security, accompanied by the shattering of hopes and dreams, the perception alone which might cause further trouble in our highly complex societies. Choosing to go forward to a world with different aspirations than growth might have some unexpected positive surprises. But one could argue the worst will happen if we run into such a world completely unprepared. This is why we urgently need policymakers to face the risk of "no-growth," to understand possible implications and to work on transition approaches.
Why not use upcoming elections to ask a few questions?
So with elections coming up in a number of places, particularly for mid-term this fall, why not ask some questions to those people who want our vote? Why not at least instill awareness, concern and caution into the candidates who wish to represent us in the future? Why not have them ask themselves how they'd deal with a situation where they can no longer promise "more" to their constituents, but instead have to think about how to make "less" more appealing to everyone...?
Dear candidate - have you ever... ?
Below is a draft of a letter to an imaginary politician up for election later this year:
Dear ______________
You are currently running for office as _____________________ in ____________________. As you know, we are living through economically tough times, and I hear a lot about how the economy can be brought back to stability and prosperity.
However, have you ever considered that economic growth might actually not return? That we might have to build a societal infrastructure based on less?
If so, what would be your plans to mitigate such a situation, to make sure that life can go on for your constituents in a future where "more each year" is no longer possible?
Or alternatively, if you don't have any plans - are you 100 percent certain that growth and prosperity will ever return, and if so, why is it that you see no risk worth looking at?
I am personally as worried about the risk accompanying awareness of "no more growth" in the foreseeable future than I am about the reality of no growth. But my real concern is about the absence of anyone making any plans for either possibility.
With that backdrop, here are tonight's Campfire questions:
=====================================================================
1. Is there a reason why this kind of letter shouldn't be sent to real people who want our vote?
2a. Would a candidate addressing these issues/questions stand any chance of winning?
2b. If not, might such a candidate, even in a losing effort, influence the election issues and as a result positively impact transition efforts away from growth based economy?
Originally posted July 11, 2010 at The Oil Drum
The Real Environmental Disaster
So—whew—the bleeding seems finally to have been staunched, three months after BP stabbed its hole in the bottom of the sea. It’s disgusting that it took that long to stitch it up, but there’s every sign that after the first few weeks everyone was working it, stat. BP tried “junk shot” and “top kill,” skimming ships and low risers; the feds went with daily briefings, multiple Cabinet secretaries, retired admirals. Some 17,500 National Guardsmen, 1,900 ships. Twenty billion dollars. “From the beginning,” said the president, “we have worked to deploy every tool at our disposal to respond to this crisis.”
Originally published July 20, 2010 at The Daily Beast
The Peak Oil Crisis: A Mid-Year Review
It now appears that the run-away oil well will soon be brought under control and will stop gushing into the Gulf. While the litigation, cleanup, and economic impact of the sub-sea blowout are likely to go on for years, if not decades, the world's attention will soon shift elsewhere. Even now the economic and employment impact of the administration's drilling embargo is moving to center stage as attention shifts to the possibility of a US political upheaval at the mid-term elections -- now less than four months away.
The state of the U.S. and other OECD economies clearly is not good. The most telling economic report was a poll conducted by the PEW research center two weeks ago which says that more than half of America's working adults have been directly affected by the recession by unemployment, pay cuts, reduced hours, or working at part-time or poorer paying jobs than they previously held. Six out of ten Americans say they have cut down on spending and borrowing due to their economic circumstances. This is a far cry from the statistical fiction that only 9.5 percent of us are unemployed and devastating news for an economy built on consumer spending and confidence. In comparison to numbers like this, other economic news and hype pales into insignificance.
No wonder that, according to a recent Washington Post poll, 58 percent of Americans are mad at President Obama, 68 percent mad at Congressional Democrats, and 72 percent mad at Congressional Republicans, and 62 percent want to throw somebody out of office in hopes of finding a shining knight who will solve their economic problems. If only it were as easy as going out and voting.
Interestingly, six in ten surveyed by Pew believe that the economic situation will be better soon and that the recession is only temporary. This alone vividly illustrates how poorly the true state of the global economic situation is understood and the size of the shock that most of us are in for.
Nearly everyone will admit that continuing oil shortages and that high (above $100 a barrel) oil prices would be devastating to the prospects for economic recovery and that persisting very high (say above $200 a barrel) oil prices would send the U.S. and many other economies into a deep, long-lasting depression. The problem is that few are willing to consider seriously the accumulating evidence that increasing oil prices and eventually oil shortages within the next few years are as inevitable as the sunrise. Most of us have no thoughts about the issue other than the current price of a gallon of gas. Among those who appreciate that the world's petroleum resources are finite, few understand the proximity of the crisis.
Most of us have no thoughts about the issue other than the current price of a gallon of gas.So where do we stand in mid-July 2010? While, the U.S. and OECD economies may not be doing so well, the global demand for oil has recovered nicely. After taking a two-year 3 percent dip in obeisance to the economic downturn, global oil consumption is now reported to be back in the vicinity of its 2008 high of 86.6 million barrels a day (b/d) for 2010. While U.S. demand is down a million barrels a day or so, demand from China and India are up more than enough to offset what is called "weak" US and European consumption. The International Energy Agency (IEA) tells us that it currently expects world demand to increase by 1.3 million b/d next year to a new annual high of 87.8 million b/d.
As nobody who carefully watches global oil production expects it to increase in coming years, we are left with "total productive capacity" which is currently estimated by the IEA to be 89.7 million b/d. This is about 3 million b/d above what we are currently using - maybe. Most of this spare capacity is supposed to be in Saudi Arabia; a land of eternal optimism where oil reserves never go down no matter how much is pumped up and sold. Many are skeptical that all of this "spare capacity" is really ready-to-go, reasonable quality, sustainable, production capacity. If not we are in worse shape than we believe.
It does not take much arithmetic ability to figure out that if we are currently using some 86 million b/d, and that we can go to 89 million at best, and that we are supposed to be increasing demand at around 1.5 million b/d each year, then something has got to give in the next 24 months. That something is called price - of barrels of oil or gallons of gasoline if that is what is the most meaningful to you.
It is interesting to note that the IEA says that global oil production dropped by 575,000 b/d in May and another 255,000 b/d in June or 830,000 b/d in the last two months. Because of the excessive secrecy in many oil producing states, some of these numbers are squishy - the only number that counts is the one on your gas pump. Three or four dollar a gallon gasoline may again become a reality in America before most people think and with it will come much harder economic times.
Originally published July 14, 2010 at Falls Church News-Press
The 50-year farm bill
In Brief
We need new strategies for agriculture that emphasize efficient nutrient use in order to lower production costs and minimize negative environmental effects. The trouble is, the best soils on the best landscapes are already being farmed. Much of the future expansion of agriculture will be onto marginal lands where the risk of irreversible degradation under annual grain production is high. As these areas become degraded, expensive chemical, energy, and equipment inputs will become less effective and much less affordable.
The sooner successful alternatives are available, the more land we can save from degradation. Our vision is predicated on the need to end the ecological damage to agricultural land associated with grain production—damage such as soil erosion, poisoning by pesticides, and biodiversity loss. The most cost-effective way to do this and stay fed is to perennialize the landscape.
At The Land Institute, we’ve spent the past 30 years devoted to developing herbaceous perennial grains to be grown in mixed species polycultures. The result is crops with deep root structures that can survive the winter and stay in the soil year after year. This not only reduces the need to crop, turn, and plant seeds each year—the largest energy input in agriculture—it also keeps carbon in the ground, reduces harmful runoff by eliminating tilling, and prevents biodiversity loss by restoring prairie systems.
Our first farmer-ready crops will be available on a limited scale in a decade, but we believe it’s time the government came up with a plan to start our transition toward a sustainable agricultural future. That’s why we advocate using the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s current five-year plans as mileposts in a 50-Year Farm Bill. We do not seek USDA funding from this bill for The Land Institute or any other particular organization.
The transition of agriculture from an extractive to a renewable economy in the foreseeable future can now be realistically imagined. Our proposal is ambitious, but it is necessary and possible. We have little doubt that we can make the agricultural transition fast enough to stay ahead of the adjustments imposed upon us by climate change and the end of the fossil-fuel era. If we humans can keep ourselves fed without destroying the planet in the process, we’ll have a chance to solve our other problems.
Key Concepts
- Current U.S. agricultural production is renowned for its ability to feed the nation and alleviate food shortages in other parts of the world. However, that production comes with significant and increasing threats to biodiversity and ecosystem function.
- Those threats—such as soil and wind erosion, nutrient depletion, salinization and toxic buildup in soils, water depletion, and harmful runoff—stem primarily from the production of annual grains, including rice, wheat, and corn.
- Perennial plants can solve many of the problems perpetuated by annual grains while maintaining agricultural production, but more research is required.
- American agriculture is guided by five-year farm bills and heavily entrenched subsidies. A 50-Year Farm Bill based on the transition to perennial agriculture would move the U.S. to sustainable agricultural production.
- Perennial agriculture could be a model for parts of the world with more serious agricultural production problems than those in the U.S.
Across the farmlands of the U.S. and the world, climate change overshadows an ecological and cultural crisis of unequaled scale: soil erosion, loss of wild biodiversity, poisoned land and water, salinization, expanding dead zones, and the demise of rural communities. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) concludes that agriculture is the “largest threat to biodiversity and ecosystem function of any single human activity.”1 Up to 40 percent of global croplands are experiencing soil erosion, reduced fertility, or overgrazing.2 It is likely that agricultural acreage worldwide will expand over the next two to three decades, especially as the human population increases to eight to 10 billion people. The same thing that drives climate change helps drive the agricultural crisis—cheap fossil fuel.
In the U.S., commodity subsidies that focus on bushels per acre, an industrial model that much of the world wants to imitate, continue to drive this increasingly unsustainable agricultural economy. Over the past century, the number of farms in the U.S. has declined as the average farm size has increased. At the same time, the number of commodities per farm—such as corn, wheat, barley, soybeans, alfalfa, tobacco, potatoes, pigs, and chickens—has decreased from an average of five to just one product.3 American agriculture is guided by five-year farm bills and heavily entrenched subsidies. Export policy is the driver designed to offset our nation’s balance of payments deficit, which includes the purchase of foreign oil.
We need a long-term, conserving vision to counteract these trends. Five-year farm bills should be mileposts in a 50-year journey to end degradation of our agricultural capital. Where do we begin? The United States is a big country, and the ecological mosaic is daunting. There are the soils of the upper Midwest, deep and rich in nutrients from the Pleistocene’s scouring ice and watered by the moisture favorably blown from the Gulf of Mexico. What have we done with this land? Soil erosion, nitrogen fertilizer, and pesticides have seriously degraded this gift of good land, the best contiguous stretch in the world. In California, rich valleys and reliable snow pack in a Mediterranean environment lessen the problem of soil erosion. But there is spraying, salinization, accumulation of toxins in the delta, and loss of farmland to sprawl.
One could continue the inventory, but the point is that each region has its own problems and opportunities. We must acknowledge that all successful corrections will be local. And that plays to an often-overlooked point: The decline of fossil fuels will require a higher eyes-to-acre ratio, which means more farmers on the land. Cultural and ecological adaptation become one subject.
Looking broadly, the USDA and the secretary of agriculture should see that our first order of business should be to prevent our soils from eroding and declining in quality—they are the source of most of the nutrients that feed us. If our soils are protected, the water falling on them can be protected and properly used on its trip to the atmosphere, ocean, or aquifer. The United States has about 400 million acres of cropland, with around 36 million acres placed in the Conservation Reserve Program.4,5 The secretary of agriculture must look at the aggregate use of these croplands. At any one time, 80 percent of that land grows annual crops. The other 20 percent is in perennials, such as pastures or hay, although, to be clear, sometimes in a rotation with annuals such as corn or sorghum.
Such an overview quickly draws one’s attention to the core of what might be called “the problem of agriculture”: essentially all of the high-yield crops that feed humanity—including rice, wheat, corn, soybeans, and peanuts—are annuals. With cropping of annuals, alive just part of the year and weakly rooted even then, comes more loss of precious soil, nutrients, and water.
The Land Institute Summary of the possible. Protecting our soils with perennials.
A. 2010: Hay or grazing operations will continue as they exist. Preparations for subsidy changes begin.
B. 2015: Subsidies become incentive to substitute perennial grass in rotations for feed grain in meat, egg, and milk production.
C. 2020: The first perennial wheat, Kernza™, will be farmer-ready for limited acreage.
D. 2030: Educate farmers and consumers about new perennial grain crops.
E. 2045: New perennial grain varieties will be ready for expanded geographical range. Also potential for grazing and hay.
F. 2055: High-value annual crops are mainly grown on the least erodible fields as short rotations between perennial crops.
But the problem of agriculture is about more than the annual condition. It is also about growing crops in vast, unnatural monocultures. This makes harvest easy, but there is only one kind of root architecture in any given field; the living roots are not there year-round, and therefore, manage nutrients and water poorly. Waste of both is the rule.
The trouble with agriculture is not a recent development. Soil erosion and soil salting brought down civilizations long before the industrial and chemical era. Why the crisis now? Simply, a surge in human population—which has doubled from about 3.3 billion in 1965 to almost 7 billion now—with land lost to sprawl and the remainder used far more intensively, and the accumulation of large dead zones in our oceans.
What is the alternative? Prudence requires one to first look to nature, the ultimate source of our food and production, no matter how independent we feel we have become. If we look at essentially all of the natural land ecosystems within the ecosphere, from alpine meadows to rainforests, we see that mixtures of perennial plants rule.6 Annuals are opportunists that sprout, reproduce, throw seeds, and die. Perennials hold on for the long haul, protect the soil, and manage nutrients and water to a fine degree. In this regard perennials are superior to annuals, whether in polyculture or monoculture. The Land Institute’s long-standing mission has been to perennialize several major crops, such as wheat, sorghum, and sunflower, and domesticate a few wild perennial species to produce food like their annual analogs. The goal is to grow them in various mixtures according to what the landscape requires. With the pre-agricultural ecosystem as the standard, the institute is attempting to bring as many processes of the wild to the farm as possible, below as well as above the surface.
A 50-Year VisionFive-year farm bills address:
- Exports
- Commodities
- Subsidies
- Some soil conservation measures
- Food programs
A 50-Year Farm Bill would be a program using these bills as mileposts, adding larger, more sustainable goals to existing programs:
- Protect soil from erosion
- Cut fossil-fuel dependence to zero
- Sequester carbon
- Reduce toxics in soil and water
- Manage nitrogen carefully
- Reduce dead zones
- Cut wasteful water use
- Preserve or rebuild farm communities.
Because these perennial crops will not begin to be ready for the farmer on any appreciable scale for another quarter-century, we must make do by perennializing the landscape in other ways. A first step should be to increase the number of pastures and have fewer livestock in the feedlot by phasing out subsidies for production-oriented grain commodities, that industry’s lifeblood. Saving the soil and allowing water to improve is more important than having too much meat or corn sugar.
What about California and elsewhere across the mosaic, where soil erosion is less serious? First, perennials are superior for managing nutrients and water.7 Second, species mixtures can form barriers to outbreaks of insects and epidemics of disease. So nature’s example can be referred to no matter where the landscape. This will start what Wendell Berry calls a “conversation with nature,” which begins with three questions: What was here? What will nature require of us here? And what will nature help us do here?
To address these issues, the following proposal for a 50-Year Farm Bill is offered for action.
A 50-Year Plan for ChangeCurrent USDA planning uses five-year plans that are really just instruments for protecting our current failing system. They address exports—designed to offset the nation’s deficit, including the purchase of foreign oil—commodity subsidies that focus on bushels per acre, subsidies, food programs, and some soil measures. We suggest using the five-year increments to build a radically different type of agriculture: a 50-year vision of perennial, low-impact agriculture.
In the short run, this plan will encourage farmers to increase the use of perennial grasses and legumes in crop rotations. This will help protect our soils and reduce the need for fertilizer, while preparing farms for the use of perennial grains.
Pastures and perennial forage crops are already available in permanent stands and rotations. We propose incentives that would maintain the present perennial acres and increase their presence in rotations. When perennial grains become available, they will require no financial subsidy, since they will represent a compelling alternative.
As more of our acreage switches to perennial agriculture, and with the 50 years of concerted investment in research, education, and incentives envisaged in the plan, we can expect to see perennial crops increase from 20 to 80 percent of the land.
American agriculture is widely used as a model for the rest of the world. Although a U.S. perennial program would not solve all agricultural problems, it could be helpful around the world: Some perennialized grains could be planted elsewhere. Many techniques developed to perennialize U.S. agriculture could be applied to native plants in other countries. American expertise could be exported much as it is today, to help with the sustainability problems of agriculture elsewhere. In other words, the same American approach to improving agriculture that led to the first worldwide Green Revolution could lead to a sustainable green revolution.
At the Heart of the Plan
Scott Bontz/The Land Institute
We recognize that breeding perenniality into a broad spectrum of grain crops will take time. Even so, prototypes have thrived for several years in Kansas.8 As their yields increase, they will replace their annual relatives—one prototype in as few as 10 years. Initially, these crops will be released on a limited scale, and researchers will work with farmers on agronomic problems, such as seeding density and planting time, as they arise.
Wheat has been hybridized with several different perennial species to produce viable, fertile offspring. We have produced thousands of such plants. Many rounds of crossing, testing, and selection will be necessary before perennial wheat varieties are available for use on the farm. Kernza™ is our trademark name for Intermediate Wheatgrass, Thinopyrum intermedium, a perennial relative of wheat. Using parental strains from the USDA and other sources, we have established genetically diverse populations. In 2009, we harvested 30 acres and planted an additional 126. The overall nutritional quality is superior to that of annual wheat.
Grain Sorghum is a drought-hardy feed grain in North America and a staple human food crop in Asia and Africa, where it provides reliable harvests in places where hunger is always a threat. It can be hybridized with the perennial species Sorghum halepense. We have produced large plant populations from hundreds of such hybrids and have selected perennial strains with seed size and grain yields up to 50 percent of those of annual grain sorghum.
Illinois Bundleflower, Desmanthus illinoiensis, is a native prairie legume that fixes atmospheric nitrogen and produces abundant protein-rich seed. It is one of our strongest candidates for domestication as a crop. We have assembled a large collection of seed from a wide geographical area and have a breeding program. We see this plant as a partial substitute for the soybean.
Sunflower is another annual crop that we have hybridized with perennial species in its genus, including Helianthus maximiliani, H. rigidus, and H. tuberosus (commonly known as Jerusalem Artichoke). Breeding work has turned out strongly perennial plants. Genetic stabilization will improve their seed production.
Upland fields of annual rice are highly vulnerable to erosion, yet millions of people in Asia depend on them. In the 1990s, the International Rice Research Institute achieved significant progress toward breeding a perennial upland rice using crosses between the annual Oryza sativa and two wild perennial species, Oryza rufipogon and O. longistaminata.9 The project was terminated in 2001, but the breeding and genetic populations were transferred to the Yunnan Academy of Agricultural Sciences in southwestern China, where work has been continued with funding support from The Land Institute. The focus is now on the more difficult work with the distantly related O. longistaminata, which, when crossed with rice, produces plants with underground stems called rhizomes.10 In recent breakthroughs, a small number of perennial plants with good seed production have been produced.
Corn and soybeans are two species that, more than any other crop, we need to perennialize. Corn is a top carbohydrate producer, typically grown on more than 70 million acres annually.4 Until soybean acreage increased, corn caused the greatest amount of soil erosion in the United States. It will be a challenge to perennialize this crop, but serious consideration is being given to doing so by exploring two main paths. 1) We could obtain genes from a few distant relatives of corn that are in the genus Tripsicum. All are perennial and at least one is winter hardy. 2.) The other, more likely route would be to cross with two much closer perennial relatives of corn. Unfortunately, both species, Zea perennis and Z. diploperennis, are tropical and not winter hardy. Further research is clearly necessary before we can replace traditional corn.
Several Australian species of the soybean genus Glycine are perennial; they are difficult to breed with soybean but are potential targets for direct domestication, without crossing with soybean. Our exploration of perennializing soybeans has been very limited. For now, we are working to make Illinois Bundleflower a satisfying substitute.
To mimic a natural ecosystem will require some degree of crop diversity, and there is potential for many more perennial grains, including rosinseed, Eastern Gamagrass, chickpea, millet, flax, and a range of native plants. We have elected not to wait until perennial grain crops are fully developed to gain experience with the ecological context in which they will grow. At The Land Institute we have established long-term ecological plots of close analogs in which to compare methods of perennial crop management. Our perennial-grain prototypes, including Kernza™ and bundleflower, allow us to initiate long-term ecological and production research in these plots. For other crops we are forced to use analogs, but eventually, true perennial grain mixtures will replace them. Additionally, ongoing studies of natural ecosystems, such as tallgrass prairie, provide insight into the functioning of natural plant communities. The prairie is now, and will always be, a valued teacher.
Who Will Pay?We propose that, over an eight-year period, federal funding would sponsor 80 plant breeders and geneticists who would develop perennial grain, legume, and oilseed crops, and 30 agricultural and ecological scientists who would develop the necessary agronomic systems. They would work on six to eight major crop species at diverse locations. Budgeting $400,000 per scientist per year for salaries and research costs would add less than $50 million annually. This is less than 10 percent of the amount that the public and private sectors have been spending on plant breeding research in recent years.
Implementation will depend on endorsement by the secretary of agriculture, the president, Congress, nonprofit organizations, corporations, and citizens. The Land Institute will offer free germplasm and more than three decades of experience with perennials to the project.
ConclusionEssentially all of nature’s ecosystems feature perennial plants growing in species mixtures, systems that build soil. Agriculture reversed that process nearly everywhere by substituting annual monocultures. As a result, ecosystem services—including soil fertility—have been degraded. Most land available for new production is of marginal quality that declines quickly. The resulting biodiversity loss gets deserved attention, soil erosion less.
Perennialization of the 70 percent of cropland now growing grains has the potential to extend the productive life of our soils from the current tens or hundreds of years to thousands or tens of thousands. New perennial crops, like their wild relatives, seem certain to be more resilient to climate change. Without a doubt, they will increase sequestration of carbon. They will reduce the land runoff that is creating coastal dead zones and affecting fisheries and maintain the quality of scarce surface and ground water. American food security will improve. It won’t be easy to overturn 45 years of American policy and centuries of turning to annuals. There are entrenched interests that can slow change—just look at the recent battle over healthcare in the U.S. Congress—but the social stability and ecological sustainability resulting from secure perennial food supplies make the fight worthwhile. A 50-Year Farm Bill will buy time to confront the intersecting issues of climate, population, water, and biodiversity.
AcknowledgmentsThis paper was written with indispensable assistance from Land Institute scientists Stan Cox, Lee DeHaan, David Van Tassell, Jerry Glover, and Cindy Cox. Wendell Berry, Joan Jackson, Fred Kirschenmann, and Ken Warren provided editorial help. Joe Roman, Jack Fairweather, Tess Croner, James Dewar, Arjun Heimsath, and B. B. Mishra gave valuable reviews and assistance.
References- Cassman, KG & Wood, S. Cultivated Systems. In Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Global Ecosystem Assessment Report on Conditions and Trends 741–789 (Island Press, Washington, DC, 2005).
- Wood, S, Sebastian, K & Scherr, SA. Pilot Analysis of Global Ecosystems: Agroecosystems (International Food Policy Research Institute and World Resources Institute, Washington, DC, 2000).
- Dimitri, C, Effland, A & Conklin, N. The 20th Century Transformation of U.S. Agriculture and Farm Policy (U.S. Department of Agriculture, Economic Information Bulletin 3, 2005).
- USDA. National Agricultural Statistic Service. (2007).
- Pollack, S & Perez, A. Fruit and tree nuts situation and outlook yearbook (pdf). (2007). www.ers.usda.gov/publications/FTS/2007/Yearbook/FTS2007.pdf
- Chiras, DD & Reganold, JP. Natural Resource Conservation: Management
- for a Sustainable Future, 9th ed. (Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ, 2004).
- Randall, GW & Mulla, D. Nitrate nitrogen in surface waters as influenced by climatic conditions and agricultural practices. Journal of Environmental Quality 30, 337–44 (2001).
- Cox, TS, Glover, JD, Van Tassel, DL, Cox, CM & DeGann, LR. Prospects for developing perennial grain crops. BioScience 56, 649–659 (2006).
- Sacks, EJ, Roxas, JP & Sta. Cruz, MT. Developing perennial upland rice I: Field performance of Oryza sativa/O. rufipogon F1, F4 and BC1F4 progeny. Crop Science 43, 120–128 (2003).
- Cox, TS et al. Breeding perennial grain crops. Critical Reviews in Plant Sciences 21, 59–91 (2002).
Wes Jackson is President of The Land Institute
Originally published July 7, 2010 at Solutions Online. reproduced under Creative Commons License.
Clean Energy, Brown Fields, Wild Spaces
[Excerpt] One of the best things about my work in green project development is that I get to see how innovative projects inspire new policies, which in turn open doors for more exciting new projects. My favorites are the ones that move us to a clean energy economy, help communities, create jobs, and clean up the places most affected by our dirty industrial past.
Canada's Energy Superpower Delusion
This is a review of Chapter 8 of Open Canada's Report: A Global Positioning Strategy for a Networked Age
First off, Canada is not now, nor is it ever likely to be, an “Energy Superpower”. This term was first used by Prime Minister Harper on the eve of the 2006 G8 meeting1. As evidence he stated:
'Canada is the world's third largest producer of gas, seventh in oil production, the biggest hydro-electric generator and the biggest supplier of uranium. Alberta's tar sands are second only to Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil reserve.'‘Harper also stated Canada believes in "a free exchange of energy products based on a competitive market - not self-serving monopolistic political strategies."'Harper is an economist by training. Mainstream economics demands growth, and growth in GDP is historically highly correlated with growth in energy consumption. Notwithstanding the fact that they are finite, fossil fuels currently provide more than 80% of Canada's energy. Mainstream economic assumptions that the "invisible hand" of the markets will somehow find an alternative to fossil fuels at the scale they are currently used is a pipedream. No combination of renewable and nuclear energy can come close to the energy throughput currently provided by fossil fuels. The Canadian practice of liquidating non-renewable energy resources as fast possible to stoke economic growth is a sell-out to the energy security of future generations.
The "Energy Superpower" mindset of Harper and the authors of the Open Canada report show they are not in sync with the geological realities of the energy production and consumption trajectory the world and Canada are on. Let's look at the facts putting Harper's statements into perspective and then at the conclusions of this chapter of the Open Canada report:
GAS:
- Canada may be the third largest producer of gas but ranks only 21st in the amount of proved reserves2. We are liquidating our gas reserves as fast as possible as dictated by the markets, not by any coherent energy policy. In Alberta, which produces 80% of Canadian gas, the average initial productivity of a gas well has declined by 72% since 1995, meaning we have to drill nearly four wells today to equal one average well in 1995.
- Canada's gas production is declining at 8.7% per year3, and the Alberta Energy and Resources Conservation Board projects a further overall decline in Alberta production of 35% from 2009 levels by 20194, which is likely a best case scenario.
- Of the major gas producers in the world, only Canada has a lower reserve to production ratio than the US.
OIL:
- Comparing Canada's oil sands to Saudi Arabia light oil is like comparing apples to oranges. The purported 174 billion barrels of recoverable oil in the oil sands is very energy- and capital- and time-intensive to produce compared to easier conventional oil. As a result, oil sands require much longer timeframes to ramp up production. Exuberant forecasts of five million barrels per day by 2025 have been toned down to perhaps three and a half5, which is still nearly triple current production. The BP Statistical Review of World Energy includes only "Oil Sands under Active Development" in its yearly global reserve reporting6. This puts Canada 11th, not second, to Saudi Arabia as the mantra of the Alberta and Canadian governments state (the balance of the 174 billion barrels are reported by BP as an external line item recognizing its fundamental differences).
- The Open Canada report states "...oil sands produce $30 billion to $40 billion in annual revenues (depending on oil prices)". These are gross, not net, revenues. At an average oil price of $70 per barrel, including the discounts for the price of bitumen, and an all-in average production cost of $40 per barrel, the oil sands net about $14 billion. Only a very small fraction of this net revenue is recovered by governments in the form of royalties.
- The Open Canada report also fails to note that Canada imports 0.77 million barrels per day into the Maritimes. This oil is purchased on the world markets in competition with other major oil importers such as the US and Japan. As of March, 2010, if one subtracts imports from exports, Canada is a net exporter of 1.1 million barrels per day7. Canadian net oil exports currently amount to less than 3.6% of the global oil export market8.
URANIUM:
- Although Canada ranks number one in the world for uranium production it ranks fourth in uranium reserves. Canada has s a reserve to production lifetime of 35 years, the lowest of any major uranium producer9.
HYDRO:
- It is true that Canada is the biggest hydro-electric generator, but more than 60% of available sites have been developed, and hydro developments are associated with major environmental impacts.
A couple of fundamental facts underlie any discussion of energy in Canada:
- Canadians are among the highest per capita consumers of energy in the world, exceeding even Americans, and currently consume five times the world average. More than 80% of this consumption is fossil fuels. The lifestyle of Canadians is underpinned by cheap energy.
- Canada has been liquidating its inheritance of non-renewable fossil fuels as fast as possible in the name of economic growth. There are currently few restrictions other than the markets on the liquidation of these one-time resources that underpin Canadian energy security.
The Open Canada report advocates expanding market options to speed the liquidation of Canada's fossil fuels. These include the construction of the Enbridge Gateway pipeline for oil sands exports from Edmonton to Kitimat on the West Coast as well as the construction of an LNG export terminal in Kitimat. Apache has supported the Kitimat LNG export proposal and has also advocated building a 500 kilometre pipeline to connect Kitimat to gas supplies in northeast BC and Alberta.
In reality, there are no worries in having our number one customer for oil sands production accept our product – period. Mexico, the number three oil exporter to the US behind Canada and Saudi Arabia, has experienced a collapse in what was the number two producing field in the world – Cantarell – and may soon become an oil importer. Compared to the majority of oil suppliers to the US, Canada is a model of political stability and reliability.When push comes to shove, the Americans, being the greatest oil addicts on earth, will take our oil as there will be few alternatives.
As for exporting gas, this is a delusion, based on hype from the US of the potential of shale gas deposits, which is defied by falling Canadian production (now 8.7% per year). Overall declines in Canadian gas production without drilling are 21% per year due to natural depletion, and even replacing this production is going to be very difficult, as evidenced by the steep declines in AERCB forecasts10, let alone growing it for export.
The Open Canada report advocates a "National Green Energy Policy" for Canada, which involves, among other things, re-branding the oil sands through technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) to mitigate their carbon footprint. The futility of CCS at scale to mitigate such emissions is the subject of a separate analysis (involving energy waste, complexity, scale, etc.). Moreover, the much maligned ecological footprint of the oil sands is currently related to the extraction of only four billion barrels of oil, not the mess that will be left after extracting the 27 billion barrels "under active development" or the purported 174 billion barrels ultimately available. An alternative focus for the Open Canada report should have been a "National Green Energy Security Policy" for Canada, recognizing the one-time nature of fossil fuel endowment and its importance for future Canadian energy security. As well, fossil fuels will be needed to build the infrastructure required for a much lower energy footprint, which is the only way forward to a more sustainable future...
The Open Canada report does, however, make some sensible recommendations, which include:
- Imposing a carbon tax, which will provide an incentive to reduce consumption and create resources to build infrastructure necessary to lower energy footprints.
- The creation of a "Clean Energy Fund" from the revenues of the carbon tax to finance lower impact and alternative energy technologies.
- Recognizing the need to reduce the rate of expansion in the oil sands – these resources are not going away, and they will likely be needed for the foreseeable future.
Suffice it to say there is really only one sustainable way to reduce emissions from non-renewable fossil fuels and promote energy security, and that is figuring out every conceivable way not to burn them in the first place. This will involve:
- Recognizing the finite nature and crucial importance of intrinsic energy resources to current well-being and the construction of infrastructure to lower energy throughput.
- Understanding that the holy grail of economic growth is not worth liquidating our one time heritage of non-renewable resources as fast as possible.
- Developing a policy to restrict the plundering of Canada's intrinsic non-renewable energy resources by all comers.
Energy is a commodity unlike any other as it underpins all aspects of modern industrial society. The finite nature of non-renewable fuels demands a comprehensive plan to manage the power-down that will occur, whether we like it or not. Canada needs a comprehensive strategy to manage this transition. Although the Open Canada report provides some sensible recommendations, it fails to recognize the longer term trajectory we are on with the supply of fossil fuels and energy security for future generations. Failing to address these issues is at our peril.
1 www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060715/g8_harper_060715/20060715?hub=Canada
2 BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010
3 Statistics Canada retrieved July, 2010
4 Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board Report, June, 2010 http://www.ercb.ca/docs/products/STs/st98_current.pdf
5 2010 CAPP Crude Oil Forecast, Markets and Pipeline Report www.capp.ca/getdoc.aspx?DocId=173003
6 BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010
7 Statistics Canada retrieved July, 2010
8 BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2010
9 World Energy Council Survey of Energy Resources Interim Update 2009 www.worldenergy.org/documents/ser_interim_update_2009_final.pdf
10 Alberta Energy Resources Conservation Board Report, June, 2010 http://www.ercb.ca/docs/products/STs/st98_current.pdf
A version of this article was published in July 8, 2010 in The Mark
India cuts gas subsidy in favor of greener investments?
Dehli Metro, Phase One
Is India trying to turn a corner toward more sustainable economic development with its recent reduction in fossil fuel subsidies?
India's decision to completely cut gasoline subsidies last month has created national protests, as new unsubsidized gas prices rose to about $4.60 a gallon. The country has also reduced subsidies to natural gas, diesel and kerosene, all to balance a budget and reportedly redistribute money for economic development, including the planning of cities with more sustainable energy and transportation.
Gasoline will no longer be sold below cost by producers and retailers in India, as it had been until the late June announcement was made to end the subsidies, which have been cut $5.2 billion. That leaves the remaining government and state owned fuel companies subsidy spending at about $11.5 billion this fiscal year.
India has embarked on a program to develop new and greener cities, and to redesign existing cities for greater sustainability as its urban population swells in the wake of a national population that is forecast by the United Nations to surpass China's population by 2030.
The nation is moving from its agrarian roots to a service-based economy that has been boosted by the rise of the companies in information technology, health care and other professional services.
Clean technology areas being investigated for large-scale implementation with urban development include infrastructure investments in PV solar, geothermal energy, and advanced wastewater treatment. A new metro rail system in Delhi that opened a major line earlier this year is now one of the world's largest.
Indeed, India--like China--may be on a course to reinvent itself for the 21st century.
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active consultancy based in San Anselmo, California. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings.
Originally published July 6, 2010 at the Green Flow blog of Common Currents.
Some Reflections on ‘The Big Society’….
A few people have asked me what my thoughts are on the whole ‘Big Society’ concept being promoted by the new British government. I have attended a couple of events over the last week that have given me space to think about it all, so here I am with a few reflections. Last week I attended the Community Land Trust conference, and yesterday I was at the launch of the Sustainable Development Commission’s ‘The Future is Local’ report. So, for those new to the idea, the ‘Big Society’ idea is David Cameron’s big idea, focusing on localism, returning power to local communities, making central government smaller and shifting its role to the devolution of power wherever possible, calling for “a massive, radical redistribution of power”. Here he is talking about it….
At the CLT conference, the new Housing Minister, Grant Shapps MP, gave a rousing talk about how the government is committed to CLTs (albeit in a slightly altered version called ‘Local Housing Trusts’), and wants to see them everywhere. They want to see communities taking charge of creating their own housing, raising their own financing and building housing which is in community ownership in perpetuity. All sounds great.
One part that was slightly alarming was when he said that in the forthcoming ‘Localism Bill’, there will be a provision that if 90% of a community supports a development, it will be able to bypass the planning process. This raises a number of questions. 90% of which population? Street? Neighbourhood? Parish? Town? How do they vote? Then, even if you did get 90% support, is it really, at a time where the need is to promote zero carbon housing, sensible to allow housing to bypass planning? Will it just lead to rubbish housing?
At the ‘Future is Local’ launch yesterday, the various speakers offered different insights to the whole Big Society discussion. Will Day of the SDC said that the aim of the report is to explore “integrated area-based approaches to upgrading infrastructure”. The thinking goes like this: we have x million homes that need to be retrofitted, the government has no money (well, not much), and we need to promote retrofitting and use that to also create energy security, quality of life, a sustainable economy (fascinating term that…) and jobs. The idea is that a piecemeal approach isn’t anywhere near as cost-effective, the ideal is to work street-by-street and to use that also as an opportunity to engage communities.
Richard McCarthy of the Department for Community and Local Government spoke next, starting by talking about why localism is important. It is about, he said, giving people the freedom and space to develop their own responses, free of government regulation and interference. For him, the Big Society represents “an opportunity for things to happen at a local level”. The new government plans to get rid of Regional Development Agencies and of Regional Spatial Strategies, and to reprioritise Local Plans, and for those plans to focus on neighbourhood led plans.
Mike Reardon of the Greater Manchester Environment Commission spoke about the work they are doing there to retrofit the city. He said that they are looking at the process trying to work out how to maximise the economic benefits to the city of the retrofitting work, working on, as he put it, “the engine of retrofitting”. The challenges they have faced, he said, are their own capacity and capability, realising that there is a significant skills gap, and that they need a new workforce capable of delivering it, hence they are planning to create “A Low Carbon Centre of Excellence” (sock darning MScs…).
Ged Edwards of Sustainable Blacon Ltd talked about the fascinating work they are involved with in a suburb of Chester, which offered some insights into what a post-EDAP Transition initiative might look like. Blacon is an area of significant disadvantage, and Sustainable Blacon are focusing on 4 things, green transport, green energy, green spaces and green social enterprises. They are set up as a not-for-profit, with 3 functions, firstly offering services, secondly working as a regeneration consultancy, and lastly promoting Sustainable Blacon. Their board is made up of resident stakeholders, organisational stakeholders, and expert advisors.
The last, and the most challenging speaker, was Philip Blond of Respublica, who was interviewed recently here at Transition Culture. Blond is one of the architects of the Big Society concept, and has the ear of David Cameron, for whom he acts as a great inspiration. I took a lot of notes of his talk, which I will reproduce here because it will inform some of the following discussion. What, he asked, is the great difficulty with all this talk of localism? The fact that there is not actually much society, society has become very disassociated.
Very few people out there are ready to engage, the poorest people are 2.5 times more likely to be lonely than the wealthiest. People, he continued, no longer associate, there has been a diminution of social capital, the different classes mix less often than they used to. So how do we get to a more associated society? The answer, he argued, is to begin where people are at.
What we need is a Big Society, and that requires something for people to associate with first. What do we do when there is no collective identity? How might we, in an increasingly fractured society, get people to form together in groups? The environmental movement has, he argued, gone about things in a very dangerous way. It took an issue of concern to all, and captured just one part of the political spectrum which meant that those on the Right and in the Centre had no interest in it. Secondly it has failed to communicate carbon reduction in a way that anyone can visualise and care about.
The solution, he proposed, is to begin where people are. If their idea of environmental work is to beautify their place , or plant trees, then start there. What people will gather around and form groups around will vary between communities, it might be crime, or it might be beautifying an ugly place. These projects can then become hubs for other projects. The state’s role, he said, is to “facilitate civil association”. The aim should be to create different groups with different intents, and then provide quick wins for these groups.. the role of civil servants then becomes to facilitate this.
In many ways, the new political landscape which I hope I have captured in the above snapshots looks like one in which Transition should feel instinctively at home. Indeed, I do think that the ‘Big Society’ agenda creates a space in which Transition initiatives should really be stepping up to the plate, and seizing it with both hands. Local community-led responses, delivering the low carbon agenda from the ground up, facilitating inward investment, returning power to local government and so on, all offers a new context that Transition initiatives should seize with both hands. There is a very real difference though, between the concepts of ‘localism’ and ‘localisation’.
Localism is about the devolution of power, a devolving of decision making to the lower levels, to communities and to local government. Localisation is about shifting the focus of economic activity to local markets, to meeting local needs, where possible, though local production. Localism certainly creates a more conducive context within which localisation can flourish, but localism, as promoted by the current administration, still takes place within the wider context of globalised economic growth, which in turn drives energy dependency and carbon emissions.
I do however have some problems with this new localism agenda. As I listened to Blond’s talk, I thought, well is it actually true that we live in a country with not much society, that society has now disassociated? I remember just before the election hearing Eddie Izzard, who had just run all around the country, doing 50-something marathons for charity. He said he didn’t believe in ‘Broken Britain’.. everywhere he had gone people were much more community focused than he had expected. My experience from visiting Transition initiatives is that community is there, everywhere, sometimes more obvious than other places, but the point is that community will organise when it wants to, it doesn’t need permission from government.
In the short film at the top of this post, Cameron says “I don’t believe that civil society springs up of its own accord”. Well there are thousands of community organisations around the country, run mostly by volunteers, Transition initiatives, Low Carbon Communities, Greening groups and so on, none of them waited for permission from government. They certainly sprang up of their own accord. What matters is for the State to offer such projects meaningful support, and to remove the obstacles strewn in their paths.
Perhaps they might say, for example, that for communities wanting to install community owned renewables through a community ESCO, or similar model, they will put up 50% of the money, matching whatever the community raises through community share options or bonds. Perhaps the £10-15,000 loans soon to be offered to homeowners for retrofits on a ‘Pay-As-You-Save’ basis could also be offered for individuals so as to raise the initial capital for a community energy company. Perhaps government might give communities first refusal on land zoned for development, and allow the use of compulsory purchase orders by community groups for sites they want to develop. Perhaps they might introduce something like the Low Carbon Fund which has run so successfully in Scotland, to which community groups can apply for anywhere between £1,000 and £1,000,000 for low carbon projects.
One of the bits I struggle with is the idea that government’s role is to devolve responsibility to communities, to devolve leadership. In one way, I love it. Of course communities have a key role to play in Transition in the wider sense, and need to be given that responsibility and trusted to take some leadership. Transition has long argued that without active communities taking leadership, national decarbonisation/resilience building will struggle. However, climate change, and the need to cut emissions sharply, also very much need strong government. In Germany and Denmark, emissions have been cut by decisive and focused government action, while also empowering communities.
We need the empowerment of communities, the enabling of community responses, but we also need strong, imaginative government based on a strong agenda of slashing the nation’s emissions. I’m not sure that we have that. For example, I live in Devon. Almost every planning application for wind farms are refused by the predominantly conservative Council. So, if the move then is towards local communities being able to decide whether they want wind farms or not, we’ll probably end up with even less. Without strong government, we will never get anywhere near the nation’s targets for installed wind capacity. We need both.
Of course the cynic might point out that the reason for the Big Society is the sweeping cuts in public spending that are only just beginning. If you replace the word ‘localism’ with ‘privatisation’, it is not that different in some ways from the Thatcher government’s agenda. There is a challenge within it around what people are actually capable of doing in their spare time. Working full time, and also running a school? Working, managing a family, looking after an ailing relative, and running a Community Land Trust? Of course there are incredible people out there who do that, but it will have its limits unless people are supported in other ways too.
Having said that though, I welcome the potential that the Big Society represents. It offers a context within which Transition can really step up to the plate. It explicitly states that it wants to see communities stepping up and taking control, and that can only be to the good. It has lots of hooks onto which Transition groups can hang their projects, and it also raises lots of questions which Transition initiatives have hard-won experience they can feed into.
We need inspired, motivated communities taking ownership and responsibility, but over that, I would argue, we also need to be laying localisation, seeing that, for example, retrofitting Manchester could stimulate not just new trainings, but also a wide range of other potential businesses and livelihoods. While localism is a great first step, it will be when localisation is woven in too that we really start to get somewhere interesting. When the Big Society meets the Local Economy, then we’re really moving, and it is that localisation piece of the puzzle that Transition brings to this discussion. This brings us to the need to redefine resilience, not as a state of maximum preparedness for the ghastly, but as a desired state, as a positive. But that’s a subject for a later post…
Anyway, I would love to hear your thoughts on this…
Originally published July 6, 2010 at Transition Culture.
A government says NO to airport expansion
The British government's recent decision to cancel construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow airport marks a major milestone in our adaptation to post-carbon mobility. This is the first time that a government has canceled plans for major aviation infrastructure expansion due to global, rather than local, concerns about environmental degradation. In past decades, airport expansions in North America, Europe and Japan have scaled back when surrounding communities mobilized against the prospective increase in aircraft noise and motor vehicle traffic. But no political jurisdiction has been willing to read the writing on the wall with respect to aviation's future, until now.
Aviation is the most carbon-intensive mobility mode, and it's practically continual growth since the introduction of jet aircraft in the 1950s is not sustainable on either an energy or climate protection basis. Yet many jurisdictions continue to plan for 3 - 5 % annual growth in air travel, in perpetuity, pouring billions into runway and airport terminal infrastructure that will be obsolete on the day they are opened.
The UK's new government has prioritized expanding its high-speed rail network to substitute for short and medium-distance flights. Given the current economic crisis, the funds to both both high-speed rail and Heathrow's third runway were not available. Rather than postpone the rail expansion that would expand Great Britain's future mobility options, the government opted to pull the plug on a new runway that would become a stranded asset within the coming decade.
Responding to the predictable howls of outrage from air industry lobbyists, Great Britain's Transport Minister of State for Transport, Teresa Villiers, simply stated 'We decided to make Heathrow better rather than bigger'. Such prescience merits an award for post-carbon insight and reveals just how newly elected governments can accomplish key changes to prepare their society for a sustainable post-carbon future. People will look back on July 1, 2010 as a very important day of decision in sustainable transportation.
photo credit: Wessex Archaeology on flickr
A government decides NOT to expand
The British government's recent decision to cancel construction of a third runway at London's Heathrow airport marks a major milestone in our adaptation to post-carbon mobility. This is the first time that a government has canceled plans for major aviation infrastructure expansion due to global, rather than local, concerns about environmental degradation. In past decades, airport expansions in North America, Europe and Japan have scaled back when surrounding communities mobilized against the prospective increase in aircraft noise and motor vehicle traffic. But no political jurisdiction has been willing to read the writing on the wall with respect to aviation's future, until now.
Aviation is the most carbon-intensive mobility mode, and it's practically continual growth since the introduction of jet aircraft in the 1950s is not sustainable on either an energy or climate protection basis. Yet many jurisdictions continue to plan for 3 - 5 % annual growth in air travel, in perpetuity, pouring billions into runway and airport terminal infrastructure that will be obsolete on the day they are opened.
The UK's new government has prioritized expanding its high-speed rail network to substitute for short and medium-distance flights. Given the current economic crisis, the funds to both both high-speed rail and Heathrow's third runway were not available. Rather than postpone the rail expansion that would expand Great Britain's future mobility options, the government opted to pull the plug on a new runway that would become a stranded asset within the coming decade.
Responding to the predictable howls of outrage from air industry lobbyists, Great Britain's Transport Minister of State for Transport, Teresa Villiers, simply stated 'We decided to make Heathrow better rather than bigger'. Such prescience merits an award for post-carbon insight and reveals just how newly elected governments can accomplish key changes to prepare their society for a sustainable post-carbon future. People will look back on July 1, 2010 as a very important day of decision in sustainable transportation.
photo credit: Wessex Archaeology on flickr
The Peak Oil Crisis: The Real Gulf Crisis
At last report BP was making progress on the relief wells that are being drilled to plug the runaway well in the Gulf. The London Times reports that BP hopes to penetrate the casing of the leaking well and start pumping in well-sealing mud in about two weeks. Let's hope something works.
In the next few weeks, or if things do not go well, perhaps months, the leaking well will be plugged, fishing hopefully will resume, the tourists will return, and the whole matter will be left to lawyers who will spend decades arguing how much New Orleans strip clubs that lost business during the oil spill should be remunerated by BP.
Someday, however, it will become apparent that the real disaster is taking place 150 miles to the south at BP's multi-billion dollar Thunder Horse oil platform that was supposed to extract a billion barrels of oil at a rate of 250,000 barrels a day (b/d). Production at Thunder Horse began in May of 2008 and by the end of the year had reached 170,000 b/d. Then something unexpected happened; instead of production increasing to the rated 250,000 b/d, production began to drop at 2-3 percent each month so by the end of 2009 production was down to 60 or 70,000 b/d. As BP is under no obligation to tell us what is going on, little news other than mandatory federal production reports have been released.
While new oil discoveries are trumpeted widely, failing projects, especially multi-billion dollar ones, just seem to fade away. Another Gulf project know as Neptune is not doing too well either. Neptune was expected to produce 50,000 b/d. The platform peaked at 40,000 b/d in August 2008. Sixteen months later production was down to 16,000 b/d. It now looks as if the platform that was supposed to produce 150 million barrels of crude will produce on the order of 33 million. The pattern emerging here is that deepwater oil production is not only dangerous, it may not be all it is cracked up to be.
The international oil companies that are drilling in deep water certainly are not about to connect the dots for us, but independent observers say it is looking like our new deepwater oil wells are only going to be producing some 10 or 20 percent of initial estimates. Deep water oil is a whole different game with which no one has much experience. None of the deepwater fields have been producing long enough to have established any track record as to just how much oil can ultimately be recovered from deep beneath the sea where temperatures and pressures are extreme.
Now all this might be of academic interest until we recall that, outside of Iraq, there are few places left to drill on dry land with much potential. The few good dry land and shallow water sites left are firmly in the hands of national oil companies, whose first job is to ensure that their domestic oil market is fully supplied with cheap oil for their citizens. If there is any left over, they will be happy to sell it to foreigners.
The next question is what the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be for deepwater oil.A recently released BP document shows that before the Deepwater Horizon explosion, the company was basing its whole future on production from deepwater wells. There is little doubt that there is a whole lot of oil deep below the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Brazil and the east coast of Africa. The industry hype says there is at least 100 billion barrels or even more. Keep in mind that this is only three years of global oil consumption and even in the best of circumstances; it would take decades to extract.
Right now there are two issues regarding deepwater oil.
First is how much can be extracted. If it turns out that 10 or 20 percent of initial estimates is all that can really be recovered, then the cost of this oil will be prohibitive. Deepwater wells were running $100 to in some cases $200 million per well drilled. Platforms that drill and support multiple wells can easily get into the billions of dollars before they are producing. If these wells unlimitedly yield only a fraction of what their planners were hoping for, there are going to be some very broke oil companies, or some very expensive gasoline in our future.
The next question is what the fallout from the Deepwater Horizon disaster will be for deepwater oil. The U.S. has already imposed a moratorium on further drilling until the causes of the blowout are fully understood. This moratorium alone is almost certain to add substantially to the costs of drilling in deepwater. Add to this the new and most likely tougher drilling regulations and the development and deployment of a new generation of blowout preventers that work reliably and we are going to see some very high cost oil coming from offshore wells.
All this says that we may not be getting half of our oil from deepwater wells 10 or 15 years from now. Unless there are some major advances in vehicle mileage, the oil that we get from offshore just may be too expensive to put in our gas tanks.
Originally published at Falls Church New-Press
Bunkers ‘R Not Us: Correcting Boston Magazine’s Take on this Movement
The End is Near, Inc.
This is the title of the recent full-spread article in Boston Magazine about me, my work and our community. It’s due out in hard print on Sunday with the Boston Globe. It is already available on-line here.
Unfortunately, the article relies too much on sensationalistic stereotypes and includes some troubling distortions. My chief concern is that the story told through a very few limited, out of context and edited quotes paints a picture of Becca and me as doomsayers with a bunker mentality. Nothing could be further from the truth.
We somewhat reluctantly agreed to have our whole family included in this very public article, opened our home for several days for the effort, and are now wrestling with the impacts that will stem from the fact that our best efforts have now been tagged as “The End is Near Inc.” -an unfortunate mischaracterization that completely misses what we are really about while implying that we do this for the money.
And though the editor has agreed to remove it in the online edition, the print edition contains a 100% Photoshopped creation of me in a bunker, instead of the actual photo of me in my (completely normal, albeit messy) home office that was taken. We did not have a chance to review the content or the images prior to publication, which will never happen again.
Look at what they did with a gray screen shot (before then after) without ever indicating that they'd do such a thing let alone seeking my permission:
Yikes. To be completely clear; I do not have a bunker, do not know anybody who does, have never advocated that anybody build one, and utterly distance myself from the cultural stereotyping that is implied by the idea of a bunker and all associated imagery.
I can say that I’m disappointed, but I can’t say I’m terribly surprised. The article’s publication has been an important learning experience—it’s reminded me how difficult this story is to tell to the average person. It’s a challenge to get most people to understand that while change is inevitable, it’s only bad if we fail to adapt on time and on our own terms.
The irony here is that Boston Magazine intended this to be a positive piece on the impact of my message and the large audience it’s resonated with to-date. But in relying on easy “survivalist” stereotypes to frame the story (bunkers, Mad Max references, etc), they’ve succeed in missing the forest for the trees - conveying an image in polar opposition to what we actually stand for.
The work here has been so successful because I strive at every turn to leave my opinions and beliefs out of it, which helpfully clarifies the picture for people. In allowing belief-based slants about preparation to color this article, Boston Magazine has missed out on the fact that what people really want and need right now is truth and the facts.
People are worried these days and have legitimate reasons to be. We need to meet that concern directly and honestly, while offering helpful information and guidance for building a positive future.
The most unfortunate thing about this is that Boston Magazine missed out on a really big story. The movement that’s building around this material is not a fringe thing. There are millions of people - from across the socioeconomic spectrum - thinking about this and changing their lives because of it.
My goal through this work is not to guide people to build bunkers and isolate themselves, but to invest in their communities, strengthen their resilience and create a world worth inheriting. Along the way there are indeed some necessary, but probably insufficient, steps that I think everybody should undertake as individuals, but only as a first set of steps along a continuum that moves us from being relatively isolated into connected, resilient communities. I made this abundantly clear.
I am not a part of a group "devoted to spreading the preparedness doctrine," but a card-carrying member of a movement that seeks to build a national narrative that makes sense and that is sustainable. We understand that awareness precedes understanding and that both must come before actions so, yes, we seek to raise awareness as a first step. After all, somebody has to.
If you want to help us in changing the tired story that the mainstream media repeatedly chooses to tell about this message, then I’d encourage you to read the article and comment or write to the editor to tell them what this movement is really about. If you do take the time to send along your thoughts, I would ask that you make them as factual, calm and collected as possible.
Best,
Chris Martenson
Mailing Address
Boston Magazine
300 Massachusetts Ave.
Boston, MA 02115
617-262-9700; fax 617-262-4925; editorial fax 617-267-1774
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Originally published at . Reproduced with permission
Solarize the White House
Symbols matter. When Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House in 1979, they weren’t today’s efficient electricity-generating PV panels (they produced only hot water) and the goal wasn’t to make 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue energy-independent. Nevertheless, during a historical period remembered for oil shocks and gas lines, this was a way of sending the message that changes were needed in America’s energy habits and that the President was ready to lead by example.
The symbolism was just as clear in 1986, when the Reagan White House removed those solar panels. Federal renewable energy tax credits had been rescinded, gas was cheap again, and U.S. energy goals had been refocused on maintaining access to the world’s oil—which is to say that they had essentially been militarized.
Pictures of the two occasions were and are worth about a billion barrels’ worth of words.
Today there is an effort under way to convince the current White House occupant-in-chief to use symbolism to underscore his intention to, in his own words, “seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels.” Oakland CA-based Sungevity has offered to donate and install a home solar system on the roof of the White House, and a “Globama” campaign (www.solaronthewhitehouse.com/) is being cheerfully waged to convince the Obamas that this is a good idea.
In 2009, Michelle Obama installed a White House garden; over the next year backyard gardens sprouted throughout the U.S. in such numbers that seed companies had a hard time keeping up. Of course, there were other influences at work (I recall hearing something about a recession happening then, not sure what that was all about). Nevertheless, a good and important example was set, and it benefitted the Obamas as much as anyone else: if you’re a politician it’s always good to be seen at the head of the parade rather than chasing it down the street.
For the United States, renewable energy needs to be the Parade of the Century. High-quality deposits of fossil fuels are depleting, forcing extraction industries to adopt ever-more environmentally ruinous methods of getting at deeper or poorer-quality resources (shale gas, deepwater oil, tar sands, lignite, and mountaintop-removal coal). This is already leading to steadily less-affordable and less-reliable energy. Meanwhile the burning of fossil fuels is turning Earth into a different planet from the one on which human civilization developed, and it’s not at all clear that civilization can maintain itself for long in the hotter, far more erratic climate that fossil fuels are producing. The only possible solutions are to use much less energy and to get what we use from non-fossil, ideally renewable, sources. But we don’t have a lot of time in which to make the transition.
In short, we need an enormous program of societal investment, redesign, and retooling; but to get that ball rolling, we need leadership, encouragement, examples—and symbols.
After the past couple of months of crude leakage in the Gulf of Mexico, during which the nation’s overwhelming reliance on oil has become a matter of inescapable concern for just about everyone, the President needs all the PR help he can get—and the nation needs some inspiration. There’s a cheap but useful way Mr. Obama could symbolically put himself at the head of the parade: Solarize the White House.
Lead, Mr. President.
Post Carbon Institute is a partner in the Globama campaign. If you think it's a good idea to put solar panels back on the White House, please sign the petition
Redesigning Civilization after the Stress Tests
The BP oil gusher should remind us that our civilization relies on unseen, not very well understood forces, especially energy and the environment, for our day-to-day economies.
Our institutions and communities have recently failed stress tests that pushed system designs beyond intended limits: whether it's toxic exurban real estate assets, climate-altering pollution or deepwater oil drilling.
The Post Carbon Institute just published my report, "The Death of Sprawl: Redesigning Urban Resilience for the Twenty-first Century Resource Crises." Random exurban sprawl and informed urban systems are the opposite ends of a spectrum. In this continuum, the interplay of economics, energy and natural resources management can be optimized (or wasted or ignored) through planning, design, behaviors and technology to yield astonishingly different outcomes.
The chapter will be in a Fall 2010 book being published by The University of California Press and Watershed Media.
We need to understand what stresses will hit before the levees reach their breaking point. When stresses do hit, we will better know how to respond quickly and systemically. Meanwhile, we're stuck with the impacts of scores of towns like Victorville, California, which were overbuilt during the height of 1990s and early 2000s speculation. I examine in detail just how Victorville became a poster child for foreclosures and why it is a harbinger for our economy, resources and oil use. Chances are if you are in the West, Sunbelt or Midwest, there's one of these towns out on the fringes near you.
Location of hyper-growth US Boomburbs 2000-2009 (click to enlarge)
Quickly developed and poorly planned exurban communities, called "Boomburbs," require cars for virtually every human activity outside the home, going to school, eating out, shopping, dating, seeing a movie, playing and of course, working. But working actually comprises only about 25 percent of the driving we do as a nation: the national reliance on cars goes far beyond our jobs, and is more based on how our communities and streets are designed.
(If that "Green Home" you see in so many magazines doesn't analyze how people get to and from that home, then it's probably far from being sustainable.)
The foreclosures started in these exurban areas after gas prices started rising in 2006, impacting local communities, lenders and housing or strip mall developers that formed the points of the triangle, or a pyramid, you might say. A bank, rig or smokestack regulator won't limit the flood of bad paper, crude or carbon emissions if rules can be circumvented in order to make more money. That's the point when stresses build up, exposing failures that at first seem an outlier, then become more commonplace as the very fabric of the system gives way.
Historically cheap gas was enabled by the federal government and foreign producers, combined with no-holds barred real estate development encouraged by the feds, states, and local communities, and of course the banking industry. Zero down homes are still being offered by developers and their agents in these sprawled communities. To be fair, many low-income individuals wanted to own or invest in their first home, but greed greased the transactions.
Sprawl was one of the major factors requiring more driving and more cars, leading to more time spent commuting, poorer health and ever-greater oil consumption. As a nation we needed to Drill, Baby, Drill in ever-more precarious situations, be it Iraq or the deep waters of the Gulf.
Meanwhile, the ongoing foreclosure crisis in sprawled California, Arizona, Florida and Texas is undermining a national economic recovery, and will eat away at resources for decades to come: energy, water, time, investment, and security.
Real estate prices in or near transit-served Washington DC (green arrows indicate prices going up) and in car-dependent outlying areas (red arrows mean prices decreasing): Credit: Kaid Benfield, NRDC, 2010
Even before the oil gusher, smart institutional money started to avoid sprawl like the plague for the first time. Now, there is a new wrinkle: will the BP Deepwater Horizon incident change global access to oil and the public's cognitive understanding of what burning gas and driving really mean?
So far the reaction in this nation has been to talk about developing renewable sources of energy, including wind, solar and nuclear energy. None of those forms of energy have been used to power our cars and trucks on a meaningful scale--though they will in 10-20 years--so such talk is premature.
Other nations, such as China in wind and solar, are leading US development in such technology, so we are falling down in preparing for the distant day when cars will be powered mainly by renewable energy and alternative fuels (Brazil has gained dominance in producing non-food based ethanol).
Euro nations have tempered their oil addiction by taxing gas at a higher rate while also building denser communities requiring much less driving, and allowing many people to walk or cycle to their destinations. Besides being more energy efficient for residents, these cities and suburbs are also more attractive to businesses and tourists, with their density and mixed-uses (cheese and wine markets, parks, schools and office buildings) being a big part of the charm.
China and India are embarking on ambitious programs to build new cities and redesign existing cities, which is a necessity, considering their exploding urban populations. While automotive growth is a given in these nations (China just overtook the US in auto sales last year), both nations are weighing innovative metro-area designs. Tianjin, China has an "eco-city" district (one of 40 in the nation) that is planned to have 90 percent of all trips by public transit, bicycle or walking.
Denver, meanwhile, passed an innovative update to its zoning codes this week that will make its transit-oriented planning and investments more successful, reducing auto-dependent development and integrating more mixed uses into the city's neighborhoods.
Not everyone wants to or is able to afford living in a city or dense suburbs served by transit. But as "The Death of Sprawl" illustrates, we need to find a way out of the institutional, economic and environmental hangover from the last days of cheap and easy oil.
We can deny there's a problem and continue our delusional ways, or we can put the bottle down, sober up and get to work on seeing what the rest of our lives can really be.
Warren Karlenzig is president of Common Current, an internationally active consultancy based in San Anselmo, California. He is a Fellow at the Post-Carbon Institute and author of How Green is Your City?: The SustainLane US City Rankings.
Originally published Green Flow blog of Common Currents
Introducing the Post Carbon Reader
On April 20th and May 6th of this year, two seemingly unrelated events brought to stark relief — for those willing to pay attention — that while we're good at throwing our hyper-technological, globalized economies into overdrive, we're not so good at putting them smoothly in reverse.
The Deepwater Horizon disaster and the 1,000 point "flash crash" of the stock market are but two examples of what can happen when the massively complex, inter-connected world we've built hits up against the very real limits to growth. A quick glance at world news and you can easily see other examples: a deadly tsunami caused by glacier collapse in Peru... a credit crisis in Greece threatening to topple the government in Germany... ethnic strife in Central Asia inflamed by conflicts over water, natural gas, and other resources... and so on.
This is just the beginning.
In 2009, Post Carbon Institute recruited 29 of the world's leading sustainability thinkers to answer one fundamental question: How do we manage the transition to a more resilient, sustainable, and equitable world?
Like us, our Fellows see five key truths:
- We have hit the “limits to growth.” This is not a moral question (or not only one); nor is it merely a question about the fate of our children and grandchildren. The truth is that we have no choice but to adapt to a world of resource constraints, economic contraction, and climate upheaval. And thus the only question that remains is this: How will we manage that transition?
- No issue can be addressed in isolation. Thankfully, recognition of these crises has grown in recent years. However, all too often they are viewed in isolation. We must connect the dots in order to get to their source — not just their symptoms — and to maximize what little time and resources we have to address the enormous challenges they pose.
- We must focus on responses, not just solutions. As John Michael Greer says, we face a predicament, not a problem. “The difference is that a problem calls for a solution; the only question is whether a solution can be found and made to work and, once this is done, the problem is solved. A predicament, by contrast, has no solution. Faced with a predicament, people come up with responses.”
- We must prepare for uncertainty. While the general trends are clear, it’s simply impossible to predict, specifically, how world events will unfold. Therefore, it’s critically important that we aim to build resilience on the individual and community scales. Resilient people and resilient communities are characterized by their ability to manage unforeseen shocks while maintaining their essential identity.
- We can do something. The bad news is that we simply cannot avoid hardship or suffering in the journey from a fossil fuel- and growth-dependent world to communities that live within ecological bounds. The good news is that we can prepare and make positive changes in almost any area of our lives and the lives of our communities. How much and how successful those efforts are all depends upon the thought and effort we invest.
The first step, as we saw it, was to aggregate the most current, systems-oriented thinking about these interconnected threats, as well as the most promising responses. I'm proud to announce the outcome of this effort — The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crises — will hit bookstores and classrooms in October 2010.
The Reader includes 35 essays by 28 Post Carbon Institute Fellows, including Bill McKibben, Richard Heinberg, Stephanie Mills, David Orr, Sandra Postel, Michael Shuman, Wes Jackson, Erika Allen, Bill Ryerson, Gloria Flora, and many other leading sustainability thinkers.
We're pleased to be partnering with Watershed Media and University of California Press to distribute this much-needed resource as broadly as possible. University of California Press is offering a 20% discount for early orders. Just follow these instructions.
Free DownloadsOver the coming weeks and months, we'll be posting free pdf downloads of many of the articles included in The Post Carbon Reader. The first two, by Fellows Sandra Postel and Warren Karlenzig, have just been released.
Sandra's piece — "Water: Adapting to a New Normal" — looks at how these shortages will affect growth in the United States.
Warren's — "The Death of Sprawl: Designing Urban Resilience for the 21st Century Resource & Climate Crises" — analyzes the high, true cost of urban and exurban sprawl in the United States and proposes multiple appropriate responses.
Sign up for our monthly newsletter for new releases or check the downloads page regularly.
Deepwater Horizon: The Best-Case and Most-Likely Scenarios
Even in the best possible case, the consequences of the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico will be severe and ongoing (see the first paragraph of “Deepwater Horizon: The Worst-Case Scenario”).
What would make the difference between the worst and best cases? That difference would flow not just from a single factor, but from a confluence of many through three main tributaries: luck, competence, and courage.
If we are to see the best—which is just the least-bad—outcome from the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, we will need some luck. We will need for there to be no major hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico this season to disrupt oil recovery and relief-well drilling efforts. We will need the well casing deep below the seabed to maintain enough integrity so that relief wells can succeed in “killing” the original well. And we will need for the relief well drillers to intersect the initial Deepwater Horizon borehole on the first try.
Which is a nice segue to our second tributary—competence. Those relief-well drillers had better be well rested and highly skilled. Similarly, workers capturing the oil leaking out of the blowout preventer, and cleaning up the oil already seaborne, will need training and smarts. Let’s hope that the engineers and technicians who are doing this important work are not overruled by profit-obsessed executives, as happened on the ill-fated Deepwater Horizon drilling rig in the days and hours leading up to its fateful explosion.
Courage is possibly the pathway to a best-case outcome that is most accessible to short-term human intervention, unless you happen to believe that we can dramatically influence our luck through some sort of collective cathartic ritual (might be worth a try, but how to organize it?). I’m willing to take for granted the competence of the good people working on the technical problems related to well-kill and cleanup. But courage hardly deserves to be taken for granted. True, some would say there’s not much more we can do to increase our presumed will-power than we can to improve our luck: after all, our human choices are mostly constrained, if not tightly determined, by genetics and circumstances. No one knows just how much wiggle room we actually have in terms of free will and courage; but, if there is indeed some substantial amount, it might make all the difference in the world at this historic juncture.
It would take courage, will, and foresight, for example, to begin building a new economy in Louisiana and the other Gulf states. Take away both fishing and the oil industry and there’s not much left (other than some gambling in Biloxi and the tantalizing varieties of sin and jazz in the French Quarter). That’s why even the devastated fishers in south Louisiana still staunchly support more drilling. But oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is near its peak for a number of reasons, not least of which are declining discoveries and depletion of existing oilfields. The oil industry will be leaving the building fairly soon no matter what political decisions are made, and no matter how soon the current oil spill is capped and cleaned up. So: what can the Gulf states do for an economic encore? Any realistic answer will consist of a plan based on the harvesting of renewable resources at sustainable rates—but an economy that operates on that basis will have little use for highways, suburbs, and shopping malls. It will take a lot of courage for anyone—President, Governor, Senator, or Mayor—to utter this uncomfortable truth.
Image credit: The Economist
It will also take courage to do something similar for the U.S. as a whole—to set specific priorities for reducing oil dependency, and to begin an historic shift from car-centered transport and industrialized food systems. And the only way an American politician at the national level will ever be able to successfully exercise such courage is first to overcome the political influence of the fossil-fuel, automotive, road-building, and agribusiness cartels. That power shift will itself require both courageous leadership and sustained political grass-roots organizing. A reversal of certain Supreme Court decisions giving corporations all the rights of human persons would be more than helpful along the way.
If only such courage were on display, all sorts of problems could be addressed. Reducing our reliance on oil would help rein in climate change, air and water pollution, resource depletion, geopolitical intrigues, foreign wars, probably even highway accidents. Almost everyone agrees we ought to do this—so let’s just screw up our gumption and get it done!
Ah, if only it were so easy. Chalking the sticking point up to lack of courage is a handy way to put leaders on the spot while ignoring the character and constraints of the system that selected them and got them to where they are in the first place. As Jon Stewart pointed out in a devastatingly funny and sad segment last week, each of the last eight U.S. presidents has called for energy reform—including an end to oil imports and the development of renewable energy sources.
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And for the past forty years, U.S. oil imports have continued to grow and renewables have continued to provide only a relatively insignificant sliver of total American and world energy. Is the problem really a lack of courage, or could it have something to do with an entrenched political-economic system with an autoimmune disorder that makes it resist needed reform as though it were some invading disease? Oh dear, we’ve just run out of options! If we don’t believe much in luck, take competence for granted, and discount the potential of courage to make much of a difference in the current situation, there’s not much left to hope for. What will be will be.
Which brings us to the most likely scenario. As we’ve just seen, the best case is highly unlikely. Most Americans agree on the need for a major shift of energy policy, but if either party in Congress or the President actually undertook to make such a shift happen, both the corporatocracy and a sizeable section of the electorate would (at least metaphorically) have these leaders’ heads on pikes by sundown. For confirmation, we need look no further than a New York Times/CBS poll just released; the first paragraph of the related Times story reads:
“Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.”Translation: “Solve our energy problems for us—just don’t ask us to bear any inconvenience while you do it. We’re happy with our comforts and don’t want to be disturbed.”
The trouble is, those comforts are about to be taken away no matter what anyone does, and we will all be very disturbed indeed when that happens. If we don’t wean ourselves off of oil, nature will accomplish that task for us through simple depletion of the world’s remaining high quality, cheaply accessed deposits of non-renewable petroleum.
Texas geologist Jeffrey Brown has rather facetiously offered his own “plan” to reduce U.S. reliance on foreign oil: it is based on the fact that oil exporters are using an ever-greater proportion of what they produce to satisfy growing domestic demand for fuel. That means that even if world crude oil production can remain on its current plateau of about 75 million barrels per day for another decade, the amount available to importing countries will inexorably dwindle. And this in turn will lead to bitter competition among oil importers for the remaining world export capacity. We can already tell how that contest will likely go:
“U.S. net oil imports fell at 4.3% per year from 2005 to 2008 (from 12.5 million barrels per day to 11.0 mbpd), while [China and India’s combined] net oil imports rose at 9% per year from 2005 to 2008 (from 4.6 mbpd to 6.0 mbpd). If we extrapolate these two trends, at these rates Chindia’s net oil imports would exceed U.S. net oil imports some time around 2013. It’s also helpful to express Chindia’s net oil imports as a percentage of (2005) top five net oil exports. Chindia went from importing the equivalent of 19% of the combined net oil exports from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway, Iran and the UAE in 2005 to importing 27% of their combined net oil exports in 2008. If we extrapolate this trend, Chindia would be net importing the equivalent of 100% of the combined net oil exports from Saudi Arabia, Russia, Norway, Iran and the UAE some time around 2019.”Which will leave the U.S. out in the cold (with only a little help from Canada), relying almost entirely on its own domestic oil production—which can’t grow much even if we drill in every last offshore wildlife refuge. Finally, mission accomplished! We’ll be almost entirely off of foreign oil in only a decade. And getting there won’t require political courage.
If the best case is highly unlikely, the worst case is probably overblown. In my last blog post, I discussed concerns that the Deepwater Horizon well casing and the cement supporting that casing within the borehole could be disintegrating deep underground; if that is the situation, it might be difficult or impossible to “kill” the well with the relief wells now being drilled. At this point, no one outside of BP’s management and technical staff knows if such concerns are justified. On the bright side: A couple of the old hands at www.TheOilDrum.com have pointed out that, if problems with the casing were that serious, we’d be seeing significant oil leakage from around the well borehole, outside the riser—but that’s just not apparent in real-time shots from the ROV cameras.
If the casing holds out, relief wells should work. But will they do their job by August? This hurricane season is projected to be a very active one, so a most-likely scenario would include at least one significant work stoppage due to weather, pushing the final well-kill back at least a month, perhaps even to December. Weather is also likely to disrupt oil-capturing efforts in a most-likely scenario, and could dump oil-soaked Gulf waters on coastal communities and habitat.
In short: the most-likely scenario is very, very bad for wildlife, BP, Britain, Obama, the economy of the southeastern states, indeed for the overall U.S. economy. A year from now, we will be further down the road Jeffrey Brown has mapped for us, with China and the U.S. competing a little more openly for access to oil and other resources. The most-likely scenario certainly includes lots of political dithering, grandstanding, and scapegoating over the next many weeks—all to vanishingly little practical effect. In a year’s time, nearly everyone will be convinced that U.S. energy policy is in even worse shape than they believe it to be today. And in twelve months very little will have changed in terms of national energy strategies or priorities.
Which is why individuals, families, neighborhoods and communities need to be thinking about how they’re going to formulate their own energy and economic plans, starting now.
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