Can cities like Salem afford to ignore the warnings that businesses are getting?

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Interesting paper here:

Reports and Papers

Sustainable Energy Security: Strategic Risks and Opportunities for Business

Chatham House-Lloyd's 360 Risk Insight White Paper
Antony Froggatt and Glada Lahn, June 2010

Download Paper here

• Businesses which prepare for and take advantage of the new energy reality will prosper - failure to do so could be catastrophic
  
  
• Market dynamics and environmental factors mean business can no longer rely on low cost traditional energy sources
  
  
• China and growing Asian economies will play an increasingly important role in global energy security
  
  
• We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike
  
  
• Energy infrastructure will become increasingly vulnerable as a result of climate change and operations in harsher environments
  
  
• Lack of global regulation on climate change is creating an environment of uncertainty for business, which is damaging investment plans
  
  
• To manage increasing energy costs and carbon exposure businesses must reduce fossil fuel consumption
  
  
• Business must address energy-related risks to supply chains and the increasing vulnerability of 'just-in-time' models
  
  
• Investment in renewable energy and 'intelligent' infrastructure is booming. This revolution presents huge opportunities for new business partnerships

Read expert comment by Antony Froggatt >>

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As goes Maine, so too should go Oregon (and the country)

It's even easier when you pass laws making those who choose the materials for the products take responsibility for those choices by making them accept the products back at the end of their useful lives. Image by chrissatchwell via Flickr

Maine's extended producer responsibility law -- huzzah!

Peak oil to lead to Predatory (Oil-Seeking) Militarism?

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A friend sent this link on and added this comment:

When your country's upper crust social "scientists" cannot face truth, facts, and consequences, what hope is there for timely adaptations? And what use are they, or perhaps more to the point, how much damage can they contribute to the cause? I guess it's not just economists who are problems, but all the rest of that lot as well. Are we about to regret the day when someone began to take them seriously and even include them in college curricula?

Aside from those dinosauristic ponderings, it's interesting to get the author's take on the effects of culture and political system on eventual outcomes. What she says makes general good sense to me, and bodes ill for many parts of the U.S. I don't see the northeast coping any better than the southeast at having their backbone ripped out - and the entire eastern seaboard is massively overpopulated.
tooj

EPIC FAIL -- corporate criminal edition

CONTEST: Best climate ideas for Salem's next mayor

OK, now that slightly more than a third of us bothered to pick who would run unopposed for the mayor's seat in November, the real work can begin: Helping her understand the opportunities and challenges Salem is going to face as a result of the massive "let's wing it and see what happens" experiment we're running to determine what happens when you pump aeons of fossil-fuel carbon emissions into the atmosphere in a century or so.

To do so, I thought I'd try something new: a LOVESalem reader contest.

That is, to help get more people thinking about how Salem can either help prevent, prepare for, or respond to the global climate destabilization experiment we're running, LOVESalem is giving away three hardbound copies* of the excellent book "The Weather Makers" by Tim Flannery to the three people who submit the most interesting, creative, and useful ideas (in my opinion) for how Salem can help prevent, prepare for, or respond to the consequences of this experiment.

To enter, put your idea(s) into a comment below. Enter as many times as you like, be as creative as you can, and anticipate objections where possible (while remaining reasonably concise). Feel free to build on the ideas of others (so long as you add something significant to them).

When it seems that the brainstorming has tapered off, I'll try to consolidate all the ideas and pick three winners. If you want the book, put an email in with your suggestions or otherwise let me know how to contact you so I can get you the book if one of your ideas lands among the three best.

[*Fine Print: Potentially this will only prove that nobody reads LOVESalem; if so, or if the ideas are all recycled or if I just can't find three that grab me as exciting, then I'll do something else with the books. In other words, while I hope to give away these three books in return for some great ideas, the books aren't guaranteed to be given away at all. Oh, and since everybody's carbon emissions are the problem, you don't have to live in Salem or even Oregon to win -- you do have to live in the US, though, because the price of mailing books internationally has gotten way out of hand. But if you're outside the US and you have a great idea for what Salem should do, feel free to speak up, as this is a problem that hurts everybody, everywhere.]

WORD: Higher Ed's Big Lie

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This is the most important unrecognized development out there -- that in an era where resource limits are the constraints (rather than human capital), increasing the amount of education that the idle cannot apply simply diverts resources from productive use to helping people mark time before being unemployed or underemployed. Helping to strap those people to huge amounts of debt at the same time is not just immoral but also exceedingly unwise.

We're starting to experience the national equivalent of PTSD as young people experience the Higher Ed myth unraveling in their own lives. Supposedly educated, they know that they lack any meaningful skills that anyone needs. They cannot make or maintain any of the goods that they use every day, nearly all of them do not have the slightest idea about how to grow or prepare the food they consume, the clothes they wear, or the shelter they inhabit; yet they are marked like Cain with a flaming scar, the number of dollars they owe for this "education" that has left them entirely at the mercy of others for their survival.

The elite mandarins and pundits are all talking about how we need to raise the age of retirement and get ordinary folks to scale back their expectations of what people can do for themselves collectively (i.e., through government). The reality is that if we continue with the Reagan/Bush/Clinton/Bush/Obama globalization ideal -- this weird experiment in destroying the middle class and moving to a third-world economic model of a hyper-rich elite presiding over a shattered middle that is constantly being told that they have no alternative but to accept an impoverished future of debt and insecurity -- we are stacking all the kindling we need right next to the gas cans.

UPDATE: The antidote.

Good news of the "No duh" variety

Still nice to see.

Excellent reminder from the Salem Public Library

If you live in or near Salem and are served by either of the big private utilities, you are already paying for Energy Trust services with your utility bills -- why not take advantage of them to make your home more comfortable, energy efficient, and cheaper to live in?

This is in the current Salem Public Library newsletter's "Questions to the Reference Librarians" column:

Q. I would like to make my home more energy efficient. I have a long list of possible home improvements, but am having trouble deciding what to do first. In addition to doing my bit towards making our world a better place, I want to take advantage of the tax incentives that are currently available.

A. Salem Public Library has several new books that may help you prioritize [sic -- ugh] your projects. Green Sense for the Home: Rating the Real Payoff from 50 Green Home Projects by Eric Corey Freed and Toward a Zero Energy Home: A Complete Guide to Energy Self-Sufficiency at Home by David Johnston are just a few.

You might also want to contact to Energy Trust of Oregon for a free home energy review. They will send a trained Energy Trust advisor to your home to assess your energy consumption and will provide you with a prioritized [ack!] list of improvements you can make. To schedule an evaluation, call the Energy Trust at 1-866-368-7878 or go their website at energytrust.org. Another good place to find information about energy-related tax incentives is the U.S. Department of Energy’s website at www.energy.gov/taxbreaks.htm.

Perhaps this will help: For those unable to comprehend the idea of natural resource limits

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A huge problem -- perhaps THE problem of our time -- is that humans are continuing to use carelessly a powerful technology (capitalism) that we developed in an essentially empty world of abundant natural resources. We are continuing to use empty-world logic long past the time when the world could be described as empty or resources could be described as abundant.

One of the first cases a law student encounters is the case of Ghen v. Rich, which is used to illustrate concepts of ownership under the common law -- in that case, of a finback whale carcass. The basis for the decision was the court's concern to find a rule that would promote whaling: "Unless it is sustained . . . industry must necessarily cease, for no person would engage in it if the fruits of his labor could be appropriated by a chance finder."

This 1881 case perfectly illustrates the trend that has continued ever since, and at a global scale: the purpose of the law is to facilitate conversion of natural resources, the uncountable wealth of nature that makes human life and civilization possible, into countable wealth in someone's pocket.

Humanity is like an alpine climber suspended over a deep chasm by a hugely thick manila rope -- only we are ceaselessly cutting the tiny threads that make up the rope, one after another after another, year after year, decade after decade. So far the rope hasn't parted and we haven't fallen -- so we keep plucking at the threads, snipping them off one by one wherever it's profitable to do so.

Take a U. Chicago course for free

If only those who most need this would bother watching it. Here's a review of the book used in the course, which you can take in, for free, at the links above.

5.0 out of 5 stars The next best thing to enrolling at U. of Chicago, February 24, 2007

By	raypierre (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Global Warming: Understanding the Forecast (Paperback)

I wish to commend this wonderful book written by my colleague, David Archer. The class upon which this book is based is a runaway success, and each year it seems they need to find a bigger lecture hall. When you have read the books like "The Weather Makers," and "Field Notes from a Catastrophe," and are ready for something more quantitative but still fairly gentle on the math, this is the one for you. I think it's the best source around for people who want to get a true scientific understanding of the physics and chemistry of climate change.