“Although aviation is a relatively small industry, it has a disproportionately large impact on the climate system. It presently accounts for [approximately] 4-9% of the total climate change impact of human activity.”
“A special characteristic of aircraft emissions is that most of them are produced at cruising altitudes high in the atmosphere. Scientific studies have shown that these high-altitude emissions have a more harmful climate impact.”
Contrails, “the long plumes of exhaust that can be seen in the sky behind airplanes,” “trap heat that would otherwise escape from the earth, which contributes to global warming.”
“Right now there is no climate-friendly alternative to the kerosene fuel burned by airplanes, and there is no indication that solar or hydrogen-powered aircraft can be expected anytime soon. In terms of efficiency, it appears that improvements in current aircraft technology have nearly reached their limit.”
(There is additional information about these global warming impacts on that page.)
“Today businesspeople and middle-class vacationers regard air travel as a normal and affordable, if increasingly tedious, option for getting from anywhere to anywhere else in a few hours. But as fuel becomes scarce and costly, airlines will go bankrupt and consolidate; most planes will be grounded and mothballed; routes will be cut. Small cities will lose commercial service altogether. Whole terminals at larger airports will be closed permanently.
Air service will continue to connect large cities, but flights will be fewer and slower (speed reduces fuel efficiency), with every seat filled. And those flights will be much more expensive.
In short, we will be returning to the days of the Jet Set, when only the wealthy flew. People were simply less mobile in the 1950s than they are today. And the future will likewise be characterized by declining mobility. The implications are far-reaching and take a while to appreciate. Think of the impacts to tourism, (including all its subsidiary components such as the hotel industry and the car rental companies), universities, far-flung families, the entertainment industry, scientific research. . . . ”
(Those remarks are linked to the more in-depth energy analysis in Mr. Heinberg’s books.)
Basically, permablitzes are community landscaping events, during which land is re-worked based on permaculture principles. Permablitzers generally have been re-working others’ private property (e.g. their backyards) during these events
(so far, at least).
“For those who haven’t been to one, a permablitz is a kind of one day permaculture-styled backyard (or frontyard) makeover, with free workshops, fun and food — all based on volunteerism and a model of reciprocity. Anyone can come, and for many it’s their first experience with permaculture design or food gardening. If you come to three or so, we can help organise one at your house.”
“They can be fantastically good days helping people on the road to some serious food production, and some beautiful gardens can result.
“The permablitz concept started here in Melbourne in 2006 through a collaboration between permaculture student/teacher Dan Palmer and a South American community group in Melbourne’s outer eastern suburbs. I was lucky enough to be involved in the first one thanks to my friendship with Dan. Since, we’ve blitzed all around the city, with renters, in housing estates, on big properties, on tiny ones, in community gardens and schools”
“Nobody funds us — so far our efforts organising and administering blitzes (except working with the Dandenong Development Board, and running courses) have been entirely voluntary. There’s an evolving loose knit crew of people who chip in. We’re looking at incorporating as a non-profit soon though so some of this will be a bit more formalised soon.”
“We’d like to see more local blitz groups form, so the concept can spread nodally. The command and control alternative sounds like too much work anyway”
“We’ve got a short manual for people wanting to organise blitzes elsewhere. Email us permablitz@gmail.com if you’d like a copy.”
“It’s unfair to call the US auto industry dinosaurs, as some now do. It’s certainly unfair to the dinosaurs. The ‘Terrible Lizards’ did not lay the basis for their own extinction or that of myriad other species. The original dinosaurs (who scientists now tell us were neither all that terrible nor lizards), were great examples of success and adaptation, good enough to rule the planet for 150 million years. The US auto industry is the opposite. It’s not just that the Terrible Metal Lizards opposed fuel efficiency standards. Of course, they did. They also promoted gas-guzzling SUVs as a lifestyle must. They cranked out cars many did not want to buy. They wielded heavy clout in Congress, and were able to sponge off public funds in the name of saving jobs as they have yet again. Having received $ 25 billion earlier, their hats are in their outstretched hands again.”
On Saturday, May 23rd, this documentary will be streamed online -
This documentary will be shown here — between 9:45am and 10:45am EST.
(Here’s when it will be shown in other time zones. In the UK, people will be watching the documentary in the afternoon, rather than the morning. That time block is part of the schedule for a Transition Towns conference in London, England on that day.)
The documentary is about the Transition Towns movement, which (much like the former Relocalization Network) basically is a collective effort to make localities (e.g. portions of larger cities) more autonomous and sustainable. This Transition network has been expanding out from its current base in the UK.
“After years of growing fat on the back of profits building ever bigger cars, trucks and SUVs, the executives of Detroit’s ‘Big Three’ automakers – GM, Ford, and Chrysler – are expecting seriously lean times ahead. Some say they might not even survive.
[On November 6th,] with cap in hand they traveled to Washington to ask for financial aid from the federal government because of the bleak prospects for their industry. They asked for federal aid for up to $25 billion in loans, which is in addition to the $25 billion in low-interest loans to be available from the Energy Department to assist them in developing more fuel-efficient vehicles. That is $50 billion in total.
They met the [(supposedly)] Democratic big guns such as the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid. Afterwards, Pelosi issued a statement saying the group discussed ‘how to protect hundreds of thousands of workers and retirees, safeguard the interests of American taxpayers, and use cutting-edge technology to transform blue-collar jobs to green-collar jobs for generations to come.’
But the industry has to take some blame for this: they have been busily building bigger cars and SUVs on which they make more money. Go to any car show and yes there would have been a couple of token green concept cars, but the main show was still built around sex, speed and power.”
This video is an excellent overview, but it isn’t flawless, and it doesn’t cover everything. For instance, it’s oversimplistic — to say the least — when the creator(s) suggest that there are only two future scenarios for us to choose between.
For a much more comprehensive overview of where we might end up in the future, see Heinberg’s book PowerDown. (I highly recommend that book — and others that Heinberg has written in recent years — but I don’t mean to suggest that all of the answers can be found there, or in any other set of books or videos for that matter.)
“As oil crosses $100 on its way south, not even a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico and a statement from OPEC that the cartel will cut production by over 500,000 barrels per day seems capable of halting the bloodletting”…
… “Wasn’t the price of oil supposed to rise endlessly? Wasn’t the world supposed to end by now? What happened? What does it all mean?” …
There are many important grounds to rollback Wal-Mart and other companies like Wal-Mart (because of unacceptable and even outrageous exploitation of workers, and many other problems), but today I’ll be raising issues surrounding fossil fuel consumption that we focus on in Post-Carbon London.
Basically, we promote alternatives to fossil fuel usage and dependencies –
through alternative energy sources (such as solar power), through improved energy efficiencies (in home appliances, in some cases), and — most importantly — through changes to our way of life. Rejecting big box stores and big box shopping is one way to challenge the fossil fuel consumption in our lives today.
What I appreciate about this article is -
a. The tagline about how “The ‘When’ Doesn’t Matter” — a message that is repeated at the end of the article (and at the end of the exerpts quoted here)
b. How the article clearly communicates the concept of world peak oil. (See the start of the exerpts below.)
