Click on the headline (link) for the full text.
Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage
Peak Oil and Sustainable Medicine, Part 1
Dan Bednarz, PhD, and Didi Pershouse, CCH, LAc, PUB
How is peak oil affecting our health care system? What will it look like in ten to fifteen years? Is anyone talking about it? At least two people are!
Dan Bednarz, PhD, left his position as Associate Director of the Center for Public Health Practice at the University of Pittsburgh in 2005 to devote himself full-time to speaking and writing on the topic of peak oil and how it affects health care. His website is www.healthafteroil.wordpress.com He is interviewed here by Didi Pershouse, CCH, LAc, founder of the Center for Sustainable Medicine, and author of the Sustainable Medicine Manifesto. Her website is www.sustainablemedicine.org.
And the conversation continues: The next conversation between Pershouse and Bednarz–in which Pershouse talks about Cuba and other current models of sustainable medicine–will be posted shortly.
A complete audio version of this interview can be heard at: www.archive.org/details/PeakOilAndSustainableMedicine
(12 July 2009)
Transport in Transition. A Guest Piece by Peter Lipman
Peter Lipman, Transition Culture
How, and how far, will we travel if we make the changes we need to in order to thrive in a carbon constrained society? For a range of interlocking reasons, the conclusion of this paper is that we will be happier, healthier and more resilient if we radically change from our current patterns to ones that fit into a relocalised world. In that world we will travel far less far and fast, overwhelmingly walking, cycling and using public transport.
…This means that if we want to move to a world in which sustainable modes of transport dominate, we have to ensure that the locations we all need to access in order to prosper and thrive are within reach by foot, bike or public transport. At the same time we have to think very hard about the kinds of physical infrastructure we create, as the environment we create impacts enormously on the choices we then (feel able to) make. And, of course, we need governments to have coherent, joined up policies that address people’s needs rather than just national budgets. A survey by Which? showed that, overwhelmingly, when it comes to health care people don’t want to travel a long way to get to a better hospital – they just want good provision nearby.
If, in addition to having a long way to go to reach our destination, we encounter a hostile environment when we step out of our front doors, we’ll tend to react defensively, often retreating into what seems to be a safe refuge of a car. On the other hand if we emerge into a space which welcomes people generally (not just travelling but also for example socialising and playing) then we’ll tend to react expansively, feeling able to walk or cycle. But of course it won’t help if that welcoming environment comes to an abrupt stop at the end of our street – so it needs to continue all the way to our destination.
(29 July 2009)
How Local Rebuilding Efforts are Working in New Orleans
Anisa Baldwin Metzger, Worldchanging
Four years after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the Gulf Coast, the struggle to rebuild continues. In the days after the 2005 storm, when the levees were breached in several locations, about 80 percent of the city was flooded. While the area is going through a painful recovery, it is giving everyone lesson after lesson on how to undertake such a massive effort.
It’s no surprise that the volume of rebuilding activity is high: federal funds are pouring in for just this purpose. The surprise is how that volume is playing out, through small organizations who are daring enough to allow for experimentation and who know the value of strong partnerships. This network of non-profits and start-ups is taking on the daunting challenge of rebuilding while respecting the identity and character of a place so rich with history.
You might think, as I did, that what New Orleans really needs is a couple of large contractors dedicated to building back large swaths of the city, repairing what can be repaired and rebuilding what needs to be rebuilt. We want to get people back in safe, solid homes, and there is ample frustration at how long everything takes to get done in the city. On top of the issue of slowness, the reality is that large companies are usually better able to invest time in research and development and therefore to foster innovation. But it seems that the community of small players that has risen out of the recovery process is not only making residents and local business-owners feel more like a part of the rebuilding process but is also allowing support and room for growth within the building industry in a way that would not be possible in a larger-scale operation.
…Hundreds of organizations are trying to come up with effective solutions that will not only work for New Orleans but will also provide templates for whatever may be the next international disaster. The best result, as EnviRenew development consultant Will Bradshaw says, “would be if we do figure out, out of all this messiness, and in many different ways, how to package all of this for use elsewhere, in other places that may need it.” The biggest relief organizations in the world are still learning from the successes and failures of their response to Hurricane Katrina. The City’s preparation and evacuation for Hurricane Gustav in 2008 was, by all accounts, miles ahead of what was done to prepare for Hurricane Katrina. But many of the most successful and creative solutions are being carried out by smaller-scale operations that allow room for experimentation, pull in neighborhood groups and local businesses, and partner with a wide variety of the city’s many non-profits and start-ups. It may not be the fastest, or even the cheapest, way to get stuff built, but New Orleanians don’t want just ‘stuff.’ They want a built environment that reflects and serves well the city’s funky, lilting, jumbled identity. And that takes some creativity.
(27 July 2009)
