Solutions & sustainability – May 24

Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Richard Douthwaite on “The Reality Report” (transcript and audio)
Jason Bradford, Global Public Media
Economist, author and founder of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability, Richard Douthwaite explains how complementary money systems stabilize economies and foster efforts to cope with peak oil and climate change. Jason Bradford hosts the Reality Report on KZYX&Z in Mendocino County, CA.

Transcript of audio interview from last October.
(24 May 2007)

Julian Darley speaks on Economics, the Money System and Capitalism (transcript and audio)
Julian Darley, Global Public Media
In these two interviews with Els Cooperrider of The Party’s Over on KZYX, Julian Darley deals head on with two aspects of economics – the money system and capitalism – which is the real driver of our unfortunate siuation. This is part of the need to question what most people call “normal life”, which is clearly increasingly pathological and nearing exhaustion, even as it climaxes. The second half of the second program deals with a range of listeners’ calls, including the need to start making things locally again as well as Post Carbon Institute’s Outposts program and and the Relocalization network that is convening.

Transcript of an earlier audio interview.
(24 May 2007)
Part Two

No Efficiency Without Controls
Jeremy Faludi, WorldChanging
Many people are working on inventions that push the efficiency envelope in lighting, heating, computers, and more. But control technologies may actually be more important–by only using what we need, we can save huge amounts of energy with existing systems, and control technologies help us take only what we need.

You may be good about turning off the lights when you leave a room, but your office-mate might not be. Occupancy sensors eliminate the need for anyone to remember. An excellent paper by researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic quotes energy savings of up to 43% for office environments, and 60% for some other environments.

…In short, all areas which are concerned about efficiency should be concerned about controls. It is an embodiment of one of the core principles of sustainable design (and nature’s design), “more intelligence, less stuff”. With the explosion of cheap computing and sensors, it should be easy to make sizeable reductions in energy and materials use that do not require better energy technologies or manufacturing technologies, but simply have smarter usage controls.
(23 May 2007)

McKinsey report urges investment in existing technologies to lower global energy demand growth (transcript and video)
Diana Farrell, McKinsey Global Institute via E&E TV
A new report out by the McKinsey Global Institute analyzes the relationship between energy demand and productivity in five main consumption sectors including the residential, commercial, road-transportation, air-transportation and industrial sectors. During today’s E&ETV Event Coverage, Diana Farrell, director of the McKinsey Global Institute, discusses the new report entitled, “Curbing Global Energy Demand Growth: The Energy Productivity Opportunity.”

Farrell explains how implementing the correct policies and investing in existing technologies could significantly lower global energy demand growth by 2020. Click here to view the full report at the McKinsey Global Institute’s Web site.
(22 May 2007)
Looks like a good exposition of the demand story, though speaker Farrell downplays the necessity for higher prices and sacrifices. The recently released report from McKinsey is seven chapters long. -BA

HopeDance special on “LOCAL”
HopeDance Magazine
Relocalization, which is basically a return to the LOCAL, is a huge topic right now. With peak oil, climate change and the trembling cry of globalization, we see the rise and the importance of Going Local, Buying Local, Supporting Local. We have published numerous articles that will explain this movement. We have two speeches by Michael Brownlee and Pat Veesart that set the tone of what is coming and what we need to do. Judy Wicks is awesome. I call her the national hero for the local, since she has done so many cool things that we cannot enter into this movement without acknowledging such a wise elder, especially since she is the co-founder of BALLE (Business Alliance For Local Living Economies). In this issue there are a number of main leaders within BALLE that will give you a more clear idea of what it all represents, i.e., Michelle Long’s interview and the interview with Bill McKibben and the review of his latest book, Deep Economy, and Eric Rumble’s brief synopsis of the burgeoning movement.

We have Barbara Wishingrad reflect on a time past in Mexico where shopping and being Local was not necessarily an option. It simply existed as most cultures have existed: local. Local contributor Anne R. Allen reports on a business in town that did not leave to the opposite side of the world or get gobbled up by a transnational. Employees gathered and bought the business. Bob Banner asks the national and international press to begin to discuss the fossil fuel usage of transporting magazines all over the country and the world while talking the talk of Being Local. Adonijah is a remarkable model of a citizen and a teacher who empowers hope and inspired activity among those who meet him, transforming minds as well as empty lots into luscious food forests.
(May/June 2007)
The articles are available online at the original.

The previous issue of HopeDance was on Transportation.

Talking Ourselves to Extinction (text and audio)
Richard Heinberg, MuseLetter via Global Public Media

This edition features content exclusive to Global Public Media: Richard Heinberg reading Museletter #181. Download the mp3 or stream the audio.

Language is a powerful meta-tool that dramatically amplifies cooperative human efforts to control the environment. Language also opens the possibility for religion and science-which otherwise would not exist. Language helped generate our current ecological dilemma. Can language help solve it?

In systems theory and evolutionary biology, the word emergence describes the development of complex systems or organs; an emergent phenomenon is one based on the interaction of simpler elements but whose characteristics cannot be predicted based on a thorough knowledge of those elements. In the course of a species’ evolution a variation may appear that is retained because it confers an advantage in terms of existing functions; but once in place, the new characteristic may act in combination with other capacities of the organism to make truly novel and unexpected functions possible. Life itself has been described as an emergent property of matter, and sensation and mind are emergent properties of higher organisms.

Human societies are dynamic, complex systems, and most of their signal features are understandable as emergent phenomena. It is a fascinating thought exercise (I’ve been at it for two decades now) to attempt to trace series of events in the past in order to identify the most decisive developments that enabled the emergence of industrial civilization. Of course, societal complexity depends on humans’ ability to capture increasing amounts of energy from their environment, and so their genetic and social attributes that facilitate energy capture are crucial. Which of those attributes are keys to understanding the entire process?
(23 May 2007)

New transcripts and translations on GPM
Global Public Media
Thanks to our volunteers, Dr. Albert Bartlett’s “Arithmetic, Population and Energy” has been translated into Spanish, and transcripts are now available for Richard Douthwaite’s appearance on the Reality Report and Julian Darley’s two part interview on “The Party’s Over” (part 1, part 2). Help ensure Global Public Media’s content has the widest possible reach- volunteer today.
(24 May 2007)
The elves at Global Public Media have been busy – more content is appearing regularly on the GPM site. Some of the new offerings appear in the items above. -BA