TRANSITION - The West Coast Scene

Finally, a shaky roadmap toward sustainability, in troubling times. I'm Alex.

This week we go for the Transition movement - West Coast style.

What started with Rob Hopkins in the village of Totnes,England, is evolving in North America. We hear from early adopters in Colorado, Los Angeles, and Vancouver.

Our guests are Michael Brownlee from Boulder, Joanne Poyourow from Village L.A., and Vandy Savage from Vancouver.

We top that off from with two speakers I recorded at a Village Vancouver meet-up, Ann Pacey and Ross Moster.

It's crammed full of ideas for your own action plan.

The Village Vancouver meeting gives you some ideas of how you can run your own group.
First of all, there were notices in local event listings, on the Net, and through word-of-mouth, about the meeting. About 35 people came, to a free meeting room in a local community centre. Budget for the event: zero.

There was a long table to receive the pot-luck food that arrived with the participants (and there was almost more than could be eaten). This was important because the meeting was held around 6:30 pm, after a working day, and before many people got a chance to have dinner. The food was vegetarian, home-made, some of it locally grown.

Everone gathered around one large table to start. There was a round of introductions - and I was amazed at the gathered talents of people there. We could have run a small city with just the folks who showed up. And produced a lot of food.

Then Ross and Anne did an introduction to Transition for any newcomers. They showed a film clip of Rob Hopkins, and another of urban farming in Cuba, where the Soviets suddenly cut off oil. The Cubans had to grow their own due to the American embargo, with very low oil. It was amazing - from the video "Power of Community." An example to us all.

We also got brief reports from local organizing groups. One person reported a local money system that was working well. Even a few area merchants were accepting "Dunbar Dollars".

Most groups seemed organized around areas of a few blocks, or at least walking distance. About a half dozen participants were gay or lesbian, and there was talk of organizing along those lines as well.

Then everyone broke up into local areas, to communicate and strategize. The real work of the evening. I left quite hopeful that we might at least survive with dignity.

Everyone involved admits Transition isn't the perfect answer. It may fail. But it beats giving up - and you can get involved directly, without counting on rotten politicians.

If oil becomes expensive like gold, or stops. If the climate shifts. If the economy falls apart. These neighborhoods are working now, to keep going. Community building. Transition Towns. You get a peak into the West Coast scene, this week on Radio Ecoshock.

Next week we'll continue with another look into "Deep Transition" with Dr. Carolyn Baker. Expect other surprise guests.

Alex Smith
Radio Ecoshock

TRANSITION LINK-FEST

The Wikipedia Transition entry, to get an introduction, and more links.

LINKS TO GUESTS IN THIS RADIO ECOSHOCK SHOW:

MICHAEL BROWNLEE

His page.

Key article: "The Evolution of Transition in the U.S."
by Michael Brownlee, Transition Colorado, Nov 26, 2010


CRITICISM OF "DEEP TRANSITION" BY ROB HOPKINS


U.S. NATIONAL ORGANIZATION: - with links to transition groups around the country.


BLOG BY ROB HOPKINS, founder of the movement. Updated 5 days a week


COLORADO GROUP

Colorado networking site

LOS ANGELES

Also this running Transition L.A. blog.


Our guest Joanne Poyourow's blog.


The Cluk Trek - a tour of local L.A. chicken coops....


VANCOUVER CANADA - Village Vancouver



OTHER SOURCES:

A regular Transition online newspaper.


This Transition Network site, based in the UK, which has this alphabetical listing of 713 Transition Towns around the world.


Transition Info in other languages.

RAPID POPULATION DECLINE - OR BUST

Radio Ecoshock February 4, 2011.

Welcome to Radio Ecoshock. I'm Alex Smith.

When it comes to "the population bomb", our feature speaker today makes Paul Ehrlich sound like an optimist. Now that it's over 30 years into the tragedy of exploding humanity on a small planet.

Jack Alpert says it's time for "Rapid Population Decline or Bust." That bust may haul down civilization, taking us back thousands of years. In Roman Times, there were about 100 million humans on the planet. It turns out, with reasonable scientific investigation, that is the maximum sustainable population - 100 million - to live anything like our current lifestyle, in the developed world.

This year of 2011, somewhere on the planet, the seven billionth baby will be born, along with almost half a million more babies, that very same day.

Of course others will die. All told, the number of humans on Earth increases by about 217,000 a day, and climbing.

This crushes people, economies, governments, other species, and the whole global environment. As can see in the Middle East, the crisis has arrived.

It is time to hear from Dr. Jack Alpert, of the Stanford Integrated Research Laboratory. Long ago he invested seat belts, saving hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps millions. He went on to research perculiarities in the human brain and personal functioning. Strange human traits that could end this civilization, to dangle on the edge of extinction.

Those are strong words - and this is a strong radio program. I don't recommend this program for the severely depressed, or impressionable young children, say aged 9 or under. Save this one for the grown-ups, and young people whose lives are threatened.

There are three reasons why Jack Alpert will never be popular, and why this radio program is difficult to make, and difficult to listen to:

1. Jack admits he is not a master communicator. He is an engineer often operating in fields before their time, before social acceptance.

2. the material is difficult to communicate. It must cross boundaries where conversation has been hidden or forbidden. At times, he is trying to express his studies into the limitations of the human mind - but those same limitations prevent people from readily understanding it.

3. the subject and options are so horrible, we don't want to hear it, much less think about it.

The food riots have already begun to bring down governments, threatening us with chaos,. With the spectacle of mass suffering and starvation all over the world, - the heart-break will enter even the most prosperous houses, like an accusing ghost over the dinner table.

We must try!

The scene of this recording was an unassuming living room, in the home of a Greenpeace founder, in the City of Vancouver, where Greenpeace was born.

Six of the brightest minds around gathered to hear Jack Alpert, and to again work through the endless question: "What Is To Be Done?".

Plus one Alex Smith, with not enough microphones. Permission granted to record what I could. My main microphone went to Jack Alpert.

Then I did three follow-up phone interviews, go get audio suitable for radio. The interviews are with:

Rex Weyler, Greenpeace Co-founder, historian for that organization, regularly published pundit on the environment and Peak Oil.

Dr. William (Bill) Rees, the co-inventor or the ecological footpring, an amazing thinker and scientist at the University of British Columbia.

Vandy Savage, a community organizer, project leader and person extraordinaire.

In a week or so, I'll get those interviews posted separately at ecoshock.org, on the "Population" page of our Audio-on-Demand menu (right on the main page). In the meantime, if any listener wants to make a transcript of these interviews, I'd love to have them, and would add them to this blog. Write me: radio //at// ecoshock.org.

READ MORE (with lots more from Jack Alpert, quotes and all)

Gimme Shelter - blog and links you need

RADIO STATIONS, FOR BUMPER MUSIC CREDITS, SEE BOTTOM OF THIS POST

How to make buildings that use 10% of current energy needs.

Here is a bonanza of links you want for this Radio Ecoshock special on Passivhaus and Net Zero construction, including two free workshops.

[The full workshop by Guido Wimmers on Passivhaus, held at the Sustainable Building Center in Vancouver, is just over 80 minutes long. You can download the whole recording by Alex Smith of CFRO, here:

Part 1 49 min CD Quality 46 MB or Lo-Fi 11 MB; Part 2 CD Quality 39 MB or Lo-Fi 9 MB


Guido Wimmers Ecoshock interview from 100402 show, 21 min CD Quality 20 MB or Lo-Fi 5 MB


BUILDING SANITY An earlier one hour workshop on super-low energy houses, office & municipal buildings with Dr. Guido Wimmers. Over 12,000 already built in Europe. Reduce Fossil fuel consumption, bills & emissions (!) by 90%. Ecoshock Show 080613

A blog where you can see photos of Austria House, Canada’s first true Passivhaus building. (Takes a minute or two to load all the photos, be patient, wait before scrolling down…)


#2 Jamee DeSimone on Net Zero construction building in Ontario, Canada. Straw bale insulation, sustainable materials. Vancouver 100313 1 hour CD Quality 56 MB or Lo-Fi 14 MB


Tom Pittsley solar mass windows, video page. Tom’s web page.

Another you tube video on passivhaus, this time from
Nabih Tahan, a Berkeley architect, explaining the theory behind a "passive house".


Here is what this show is all about: (READ MORE)

BUMPER MUSIC CREDITS:

It Takes More Than A Hammer And Nails, Jesse Winchester, Let the Rough Side Drag 1976, 4:33

The House That Dirt Built, The Heavy, The House That Dirt Built, 2009, 18 sec

Building A House, The C.R.S. Players, If You're Happy And You Know It, 2005, 56 sec

Hammer and Nails, The Staples Singers, Freedom Highway, 1965, 2:25

Gimme Shelter, The Rolling Stones, Let It Bleed, 1969, 4:30

Gimme Shelter

NOTE: A FULL BLOG WITH ALL THE LINKS WILL BE POSTED THURSDAY APRIL 1ST

Unless you are a farmer or one of the last rugged outdoors adventurers, 90 percent of your time on Earth is spent inside buildings. We are snails who don't know we are snails.

Naturally, we dream of the perfect home. That's a cheap day-dream. It's expensive to really do it. But the biggest cost, whether you build, buy, or rent - is the energy needed to run all these buildings. Eighty percent of the long-term cost of a building is energy use, not construction. And that is before peak oil and climate pressures really kick in.

Our electricity provider has already announced an increase of 25% over the next three years. Given the new oil demand from China, and more oil use by exporting countries, the cost of oil is just going to go up and up. Will it reach a point where you have to decide between heating or cooling your home or office, and eating? For some of our poorest citizens, that's already happening.

For you personal security in troubled times, and for national security, we need to slash the energy used in buildings. Did I mention that numerous studies show buildings contribute more than a third of carbon emissions to our overloaded atmosphere?

I'm Alex Smith. This Radio Ecoshock program is all about solutions. You will hear a prominent pioneer in the "Passivhaus" technique - buildings that use as little as 10 percent of the energy guzzled by our current structures. I'll interview architect Guido Wimmers, and tell you where to download two free passivhaus workshops. You'll get ideas that can revolutionize new building, and help guide renovations to existing ones.

We'll talk to another construction pioneer, Tom Pittsley. He's testing a super-low energy house in Massachusetts, where the windows grab solar power to heat the home, even in New England winters.

Then we'll listen in to another workshop, this time on a Net Zero building project in Ontario Canada. Jamee DeSimone explains how to use planet-friendly materials, including lots of straw, to make long-lasting energy misers. Again, you'll be able to download the full workshop, for free.

The building industry has been key to the economy in many countries. But many of the sky-scrapers and carbon-copy mansions won't survive Peak Oil and climate disruption. Already, as I explained in the Radio Ecoshock Show for June 6th, 2008 some of the old structures built during the cheap energy era are being torn down or retrofitted at a huge cost. I'll put a link to the program, called "Building Madness" in my April 1st blog for this show.

We can't afford to keep wasting massive amounts of energy, and we can't live in the future climate if we do. Join me, in this exploration of new ways to go, from the ground up.

Alex

Surfing Waves of Trouble

This is Radio Ecoshock - on the triple threat. Peak Oil, climate change, and the crumbling economy. How will you respond?

Hear indie journalist Kurt Cobb ask and answer some of the embarrassing questions. We start out with collapse, and try to recover, just like everybody else.

Our second guest, Carolyn Baker, has already moved into post-peak reality. Her books, her blog, and her seminars help people prepare, physically and psychologically. Living in the slump, and coming out whole.

We'll round up with the big cover-up in the North. Canada's oil patch prime minister appoints climate deniers to key research boards, slashes research, and muzzles top scientists.. Shades of George Bush! How they keep Canadians, and the rest of the world, in the dark. That is Graham Saul, of Climate Action Network, interviewed by Stephen Leahy.

All to 350 tunes, let's go.

Full details, with links, in the next blog entry.

Alex

Buying Into A Dying World

Attics, basements, and garages are loaded with the plunder of past shopping. Some people rent storage lockers just to hold all their extra stuff. Dumps are filling up with brand new items, never used, but tossed out. There's even a TV show called "Hoarders" - a reflection of the national preoccupation. Do all these THINGS really make us happier?

In this Radio Ecoshock program, we examine the two extremes of consumption: the Americans who use up more of the world's resources than any other people; and the slum dwellers who use practically nothing.

The World Watch Institute has released it's annual report. "State of the World 2010, Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability" is 262 pages of solutions from around the world. You can buy it from worldwatch.org for $19.95 as a paperback, or $9.95 as a downloadable ".pdf" file (requires the free Adobe Reader).

I interview the project director, Erik Assadourian. We start by noting the total disconnect between governments and economists encouraging consumers to get out and buy to save the economy - versus the plain facts that resources are getting harder to find, the forests and land are being devastated, and the atmosphere is damaged by all the useless spending.

Why do we do it? We were raised to shop. Kids grow up with millions, if not billions of ads everywhere we look. Why do we wear corporate logos on our clothes, like walking billboards? Why do we need walk-in cupboards, multiple shoe racks, garages full of big-boy toys seldom used?

Rush Limbaugh nearly had a heart attack when the sacred advertisers were threatened by this rather brave World Watch report. It didn't help when the British Guardian newspaper came out with the headline "US cult of greed is now a global environmental threat, report warns."

The sub-head was "Excessive consumption has spread to developing countries and could wipe out efforts to slow climate change, Worldwatch Institute says."

Assadourian replied, saying the report wasn't trying to blame Americans - who were simply indoctrinated into a culture developed since World War II. The answer isn't blame, but a willing shift, a transformation to a survivable way of life.

Here is the Earthscan blog entry where Assadourian (sort of) agrees with Rush.

In our Radio interview, Erik and I discuss a little of the psychology, and the horrible statistics. But we spend longer looking at key institutions that could help us move away from shop-till-the-planet-drops lifestyles.

These include the greening of world religions, early childhood education (keep those toddlers away from TV!), the way Universities groom us to accept corporate symbols as self expression, the role of media, and so on.

But Worldwatch goes further, with chapters on things like converting agriculture to Permaculture (with Albert Bates), and a lot of other good ideas from all over.

Counter-consumerism hasn't exactly caught on, but there are some examples we can try. Of course, our previous week's guest Keith Farnish says this is all window-dressing for a civilization that has to collapse to save the biosphere. You decide.

Incidentally, Keith's blog entry for February 9th is titled "Monthly Undermining Task, February 2010: Time To Break The Ads." Whether is straight sales, or "green" products, Farnish says it's time to end advertising, before it ends us.

IS IT THEM, OR IS IT US?

Then we look at the other part of the world, the 3 billion people who create hardly any carbon emissions. Most of them live in "illegal settlements", with no government services, no police, no fire, no hospitals, no schools, and little hope.

Except, as our next guest David Satterthwaite tells us, the so-called "slum dwellers" are self-organizing to improve their lot, in many parts of the world.

Dr David Satterthwaite is a senior urban planner for the International Institute for Environment and Development, a non-profit based in the UK. He's traveled to the poorest parts of cities all over the world. He's the editor of the Earthscan Reader in Sustainable Cities, and co-author of many other books, including "Adapting Cities to Climate Change: Understanding and Addressing the Development Challenges."

Satterthwaite has also researched the role of consumerism, in the developed versus developing world. If you were wondering, when it comes to climate change is it "them" (increasing population in the "Third World") or is it "us" (Western-style consumers) - the verdict is in: it us!

Here is a link to a press release from the IIED "Study shatters myth that population growth is a major driver of climate change."

Here are a few factoids from that press release:

"Dr David Satterthwaite of the International Institute for Environment and Development analyzed changes in population and in greenhouse gas emissions for all the world’s countries and found that between 1980 and 2005:

* Sub-Saharan Africa had 18.5% of the world’s population growth and just 2.4% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions

* The United States had 3.4% of the world’s population growth and 12.6% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions

* China had 15.3% of the world’s population growth and 44.5% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions. Population growth rates in China have come down very rapidly – but greenhouse gas emissions have increased very rapidly

* Low-income nations had 52.1% of the world’s population growth and 12.8% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions

* High-income nations had 7% of the world’s population growth and 29% of the growth in carbon dioxide emissions.

* Most of the nations with the highest population growth rates had low growth rates for carbon dioxide emissions while many of the nations with the lowest population growth rates had high growth rates for carbon dioxide emissions."

Asked about the human failure (so far) to tackle either carbon emissions or urban poverty, Satterthwaite said we have a duty to keep on trying, even when facing apparently hopeless situations. I agree.

WHY ARE GREENS AFRAID TO TACKLE POPULATION?

Almost every question and answer period I record, on climate change, has at least on guy (and it's always a man) who stands up and says (somewhat angrily):

"Why don't the Greens every tackle population growth. That's what is causing climate change. Why are the enviro's always afraid to tackle the real cause of it all?"

Well, angry guy, now you know. That's just a slick denial in the West, to avoid taking responsibility for our own role. Blame the brown person on the other side of the world for our climate-wrecking, planet-draining need to shop.

Or check out this column by the UK journalist George Monbiot, titled "Stop blaming the poor. It's the wally yachters who are burning the planet."

It's the rich bastards that do the most damage, with those multiple monster houses, big SUV's, flying around the world. What about limiting the rich? There's a campaign you won't find in mass media - even if it has to happen.

Alex Smith

GREENING PORTLAND - Your City How To

I tossed this recording of "Greening Portland" into a small line at the bottom of last week's Radio Ecoshock blog, thinking maybe a few people would be interested. To my shock, over 400 people downloaded it within two days! I didn't know that many people read my humble show notes... Thanks for being here.

I'll go into a description of this week's program and speakers, followed by a bigger question about the role of cities in solving climate change, now that we see big governments too paralyzed, or too corrupt, to act. We'll role through the latest Scientific American article, James Howard Kunstler's theory, Derrick Jensen's despair, and a glance at the ideas of Dr. Bill Rees. Maybe cities are the leaders, the only meaningful level of government?

What makes the city of Portland so desirable as a place to live? It's walkable, a national leader in bicycle commuting, and a green model in many respects.

Yet this West Coast allure also drives unique problems for Portland. Sure the economic crash brought high unemployment, as everywhere else. But Portland has become a refuge city, a place where people come seeking jobs and a comfortable social culture. That's raised unemployment and problems like homelessness. As other West Coast cities like Vancouver and San Francisco know too well, perceived success breeds it's own challenges.

To give you ideas for your own city, we're going to hear a brief from Portland's Green Mayor Sam Adams. But in a sign of the times, Adams cedes the stage to the two women who are leading the city's sustainability drive, Susan Anderson and Erin Flynn. Susan Anderson is the Director of the City of Portland Bureau of Planning and Sustainability. Erin Flynn is Urban Development Director for Portland. She's also the driving force behind Portland's new Five-year Economic Development Strategy.

Mayor Sam Adams was elected in May 2008 with a good majority, after four years on Portland City Council. In addition to his outstanding green credentials, Adams "is the first openly gay mayor of a top U.S. city" (according to Wikipedia).

All this recorded by Alex Smith of Radio Ecoshock, at the Gaining Ground Resilient Cities conference in Vancouver, Canada, on October 20th, 2009. Download this presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org.

At the end, we'll also hear a clip from Sarah Severn of the Nike corporation, which has headquarters in Portland. Did you know the "air" in Nike running shoes was actually a terrible global warming gas? (Sulfur hexafloride). We'll hear how Nike fixed that, and their other efforts toward sustainable energy.

That same morning, Sarah Severn of Nike, the shoe maker, outlined their efforts to green the corporation. She covered such things as water usage, toxics in their materials and manufacturing, and this brief on Nike and climate change. You can download Sarah Severn's full 26 minute presentation from the Cities page at ecoshock.org. (26 min, 6 MB here)

Sarah has been the Global Director of Nike's Environmental Action Team (NEAT), a department of Nike's Corporate Responsibility division. She's also on the Board of Directors of the non-profit group "Focus the Nation" ("Community and the Road to Copenhagen")

The introduction is by Rob Abbott, the corporate greening consultant, and author of the upcoming book "Conscious Endeavors: Business, Society and the Journey to Sustainability"

Find out more about the conference at gaininggroundsummit.com.

CAN CITIES SAVE THE CLIMATE?

READ MORE

Oh, and by the way, we just added our 18th station to broadcast Radio Ecoshock. It's WRFA_LP 107.9 FM in Jamestown, in Western New York State. Another is coming, in Whitehorse, in Canada's Yukon. Please write, email or call your local radio station requesting Radio Ecoshock. It's free, and ad-free, all for the cause of a better climate.

Alex.

Thanks.