Micki "Mickipedia" Krimmel's LA-based startup NeighborGoods.net launches nationwide throughout the USA today (before, the service was only available in Southern California). The big idea: borrow and lend stuff with your neighbors instead of buying things new. From Micki's launch announcement:
NeighborGoods.net offers a unique service by building upon the success of sites like Craiglist and Freecycle. Inspired by their ability to encourage re-use and keep waste out of landfills, NeighborGoods goes one step further to help people get more value out of stuff they actually want to keep. Members can safely borrow a lawnmower, lend a bicycle, or earn some extra money by renting a DVD collection. NeighborGoods is like Craigslist for borrowing. NeighborGoods provides all the tools to share safely and confidently including transparent user ratings and transaction histories, privacy controls, deposits, and automated calendars and reminders to ensure the safe return of loaned items.Intro video embedded above, and available here on Vimeo.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Most Excellent: NeighborGoods - sharing stuff instead of buying
Here at LOVESalem HQ we've been mulling over trying to create a neighborhood-based tool exchange using a Googledocs spreadsheet . . . . But the universe was listening and sent this nifty tool our way. Like Freecycling only better, because you can share stuff that you want to keep instead of just giving it away. (Thanks to LOVESalem foreign correspondent Jeff N for the lead.)
A rerun worth returning to
People who panic when they learn of peak oil see a terrible future for themselves and society. Although I didn’t panic when I first learned of peak oil, I did experience a feeling of dread. I looked into the future and saw the possibility of social turmoil and hunger. This seems to be a common reaction, and most people move through the experience in hours or days as they gradually see that the gloomy future is not inevitable.
Monday, June 28, 2010
Budget problems? What budget problems? Salem has money to burn
Oh Contrare, Mon Sewer, Salem's got money to burn. Remember, nothing's too good for the Consulting Class:
Every day, the Gusher in the Gulf spews millions more barrels of oil into the world ocean and the daemon powered by our addiction to oil grows more powerful and more vengeful. Every week, our capacity to maintain the carburban living arrangement declines yet further. And every month, the inescapable reality that we can't rely on reviving an oil-powered economy grows ever more unavoidable . . . except in Salem, where a powerful clique with representatives from the Oregon Highway Department (Motto: Cars Rule), Salem, Marion and Polk Counties, and the local council of governments get together to stick their fingers in their ears and shout "I can't hear you! I can't hear you!" at anyone who points out the manifold absurdities of planning for a third auto bridge even as usage of the other two is heading for a steep decline.-Councilors are expected to approve an amendment to the existing Salem Willamette River Crossing intergovernmental agreement with the Oregon Department of Transportation. The purpose of modifying the agreement is to establish a cooperative effort to prepare an environmental impact statement that would help pinpoint a location for a third bridge over the Willamette River in Salem and to obligate funds to the project. The City initially contributed $200,000 to the project. That figure has since increased to $390,000.
Read more: http://www.statesmanjournal.com/article/20100628/NEWS/6280315/1103#ixzz0sAJF2w7Y
Alas, we're at the monumental stage now, that phase that collapsing societies pass through on their way to extinction. Just as the Mayans and Egyptians and countless other cultures did, we've reached the point where the folks in charge would rather see the whole thing come crashing down than change the habits that are leading to the collapse. After WWII ended, some South Pacific Islanders built airplanes and control towers out of bamboo, hoping that this absurd behavior would lure back the wealth of cargo that the war brought (hence, "cargo cults"). So too, large engineering contracting firms constantly whisper in officials' ears that that, if we just pour pavement like we did in the good old days, the good old days will return.
UPDATE: Today's Peak Oil Review (POR) has the second half of a good interview with Jeff Rubin that sheds some light on whether Salem needs a third auto bridge:
POR: Is there a growing number of economists who are getting the resource depletion story, or is it still business as usual?Rubin: I think more economists are coming around. I can just see that from the number of economists who respond to my blog. I think what’s happening is that economists are beginning to realize that, yes, the supply curve—meaning, the higher the price of oil, the more oil we’ll find—has a big problem in that much of the new oil that we’ll find, like tar sands or deep water, we won’t be able to afford to burn. Economists’ responses will be that $150 oil will give us new forms of supply but that those prices will send a lot of motorists to the sidelines. Sure, we can produce 4 or 5 million barrels a day out of the Athabasca tar sands or Venezuela’s heavy oil, but the prices to produce it translate into $7-a-gallon gasoline. Can we really afford to burn that? They are starting to understand that depletion is more an economic term than a geologic term because we not going to hit the absolute limit of oil supply; as we’re keep drilling towards the bottom of the barrel, it’s going to get too expensive to bring out what’s left.POR: Who in the oil industry gets peak oil?Rubin: I think everybody gets peak oil in some sense because, you know, what’s BP doing drilling in a mile of water at the Macondo well, or planning to develop the Tiber field which is much deeper below the ocean floor? Or for that matter, what’s Suncor doing in the tar sands? We’re there because that’s all that’s left. They may not want to articulate it as peak oil, but their actions speak louder than their words. When you’re spending billions of dollars on new tar sands production where you need $90 to $100 a barrel to provide adequate economic returns on your investment, you can call it whatever you want but I call it peak oil.POR: Speaking of CERA, Daniel Yergin wouldn’t call anything peak oil. If you had to pick the four horsemen of false oil optimism, the list would include Cambridge Energy Research Associates, the US EIA, OPEC, and a voice or two from industry — maybe BP and ExxonMobil. What’s going to make them change their tune so they don’t postpone acknowledgement of this looming reality?
They had a pilot project in Fort McMurray (Alberta) in 1920, so this is not a new discovery. Neither is the Orinoco. The only thing that’s new is that, not only are these seen as commercially viable sources of supply, but now a recent CERA report says these are going to be the single largest source of supply of US imports. What do you call that if it’s not peak oil?Rubin: I’m not sure that it’s really going to matter what those folks think or say any more because those folks, especially CERA and the International Energy Agency, have lost so much credibility on this issue that I don’t think people are going to be terribly concerned about their view on oil supply.POR: Any comment on the Pickens plan and shale gas?
They’ve been so patently out to lunch in the last five years about oil supply that I don’t think that’s where people are looking for such information.
I think that what’s happening in the Gulf of Mexico is bringing things into focus. Once Americans get over their initial rage at BP, they’re going to ask themselves the more fundamental question which is “why are we drilling a mile below the ocean floor?” The answer they’re going to get may not be called peak oil but for all intents and purposes that’s the answer they’re going to get. If the deepwater Gulf of Mexico was Plan A, and Plan A is now off the table, Plan B can only be one thing: consume less oil. You can call it peak oil, or you can call it $150 to $200 oil prices, but it basically all takes you to the same place—we’re to consume less. . . .Rubin: Two comments. First of all, I think what’s happening in the Gulf is going to raise the environmental bar, not just for deep water but also for shale gas. There are a number of environmental issues surrounding shale gas drilling and we’re going to find that many jurisdictions may not be as open to shale gas development as the industry believes, particularly when it comes to contamination of ground water.
Secondly, we can substitute natural gas for oil for a whole lot of things, and we have. For furnaces, for power generation, as a feedstock for petrochemicals—we can make that substitution. But oil packs four times the energy density of natural gas and that’s why oil is our transport fuel. Yeah, there’s 130,000 natural-gas-powered vehicles in the United States, but out of a vehicle stock of 245 million, that’s not going to do the trick. So the Pickens plan doesn’t mean anything until we can use natural gas as a widespread transportation fuel, and we’re a long way off from doing that.
What I say about the Pickens plan is the same thing I say about growing corn to feed our gas tanks and a lot of other stuff; instead of learning how to turn cow shit into high-octane fuel, we have to learn how to get off the ropes. In other words, the adjustment has to be more on the demand side than on the supply side. I’m sure that’s not a message that North Americans want to hear, but it’s the message that $7-a-gallon gasoline will deliver loud and clear in the near future.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Urban Hen News, Salem edition
The city council's discussion of the proposed chicken-keeping ordinance has been postponed until July 12 (instead of June 28). City staff members have been working on a draft ordinance for councilors to consider, but are unable to finalize it in time for next week's meeting. Therefore, please plan on attending Salem City Hall at 6:30 pm on July 12 at 555 Liberty St, Room 220, to show your support for this ordinance.
As always, I will keep you posted and forward the meeting agenda and draft ordinance to you as soon as they are available.
We are all [EAGER]to celebrate Salem's long overdue backyard chicken policy so the delay is a little disappointing, I know. In anticipation of the day chickens finally become legal here, consider attending Portland's annual chicken coop tour on Saturday, July 24 from 11:00 to 3:00. It's a great way to get some coop-building ideas for your own backyard. Also, I have been told the Portland Urban Farm Store will have chicks available all summer long, so there is still hope
that you can get your coop built and buy "legal" chicks by fall!
Thank you and hang in there, it WILL happen!
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
General Custer relied on a survey much like this before his last campaign
Your Input Is Needed!Read over the questions and answers and you see a survey that's more accurately described as a push poll -- the chance for business groups to stuff the ballot box with votes for government to do more of A, or B, or C, depending on whether the voters personally benefit the most from A, or B, or C.
Decision-makers from the Cities of Salem, Keizer, Turner and Marion and Polk Counties are working together to develop an Economic Opportunities Analysis (EOA) for the Salem Keizer region. A regional EOA identifies the regional competitive advantages and opportunities for long term economic growth. EOAs generally are created to ensure that there is enough land to meet regional employment and community objectives.
Your input needed on the regional economic study. Weigh in! Take the five minute survey now at http://bit.ly/cmUuTF”. The online EOA Survey will be open until July 30, 2010.
You can find additional information at www.mwvcog.org/planning/eoa or contact Suzanne Dufner the Council of Governments at (503) 540-1616 or sdufner@mwvcog.org.
Thank You!
Kimberly Moreland,
Senior Planner
503.588.6173, x7511
kmoreland@cityofsalem.net
What are the real barriers to economic development in Salem-Keizer? How about:
(a) that the bedrock source of America's wealth and preeminence (oil) is at or near the final peak production rates (meaning that an inexorable, unstoppable decline begins, just as huge nations like India and China are wanting to ramp up demand);
(b) that peak oil means the end of economic expansion in a system designed to require continuous expansion and very badly suited to contraction, which will wipe out huge stores of capital;
and (c) that this occurs just as we need to invest massive amounts of capital in renewable and non-carbon-based energy supplies to have any prayer of limiting the destruction of climate chaos.
We've seen the planning mindset shown in this survey before: it's the same one that got the US mired in Vietnam and that General Custer displayed before his grand finale: a complete and total failure to engage with reality and a fantasy belief that planners can make plans and set goals without considering the forces that would tend to work against attainment of them.
Monday, June 21, 2010
In other news, Americans expect magic ponies to ride to the rescue
Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.
WORD: In America as in Salem
JH Kunstler nails it again:
Right after President Obama gave his vapid speech last week, he traveled to Ohio to brag about how much federal stimulus money was going into "shovel-ready" highway projects there. I sincerely believe that the last thing we need right now in this country is more and better highways. Every president since Jimmy Carter has acknowledged that there's a problem with our extreme oil dependency, but none of them have made the short leap to understand that we have a more fundamental problem with car dependency. Someone paying attention to the mandates of reality would get the choo-choo trains running from Dayton to Columbus to Cincinnati to Cleveland [for LOVESalem readers, insert "and from dawn to midnight, hourly, from Eugene to Portland to Seattle to Vancouver" here] - and he would tell General Motors to get into the business of making railroad cars so we don't have to import them from Canada.
Reality is telling us to downscale and get different fast. Quit doing everything possible to prop up the drive-in false utopia and all its accessories. Get local. Tighten up.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Whacking the Old Folks
Bill Greider rates up there with Amy Goodman and Sy Hersh as a fearless reporter who is unafraid to ask the questions that make the powerful unhappy and to tell the truth no matter what.
Whacking the Old FolksWilliam Greider | May 20, 2010In setting up his National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, Barack Obama is again playing coy in public, but his intentions are widely understood among Washington insiders. The president intends to offer Social Security as a sacrificial lamb to entice conservative deficit hawks into a grand bipartisan compromise in which Democrats agree to cut Social Security benefits for future retirees while Republicans accede to significant tax increases to reduce government red ink.Obama's commission is the vehicle created to achieve this deal. He ducks questions about his preferences, saying only that "everything has to be on the table." But White House lieutenants are privately talking up a bargain along those lines. They are telling anxious liberals to trust the president to make only moderate cuts. Better to have Democrats cut Social Security, Obama advisers say, than leave the task to bloodthirsty Republicans.The president has stacked the deck to encourage this strategy. The eighteen-member commission is top-heavy with fiscal conservatives and hostile right-wingers who yearn to dismantle the retirement program. The Republican co-chair, former Senator Alan Simpson, is especially nasty; he likes to get laughs by ridiculing wheezy old folks. Democratic co-chair Erskine Bowles and staff director Bruce Reed secretly negotiated a partial privatization of Social Security with Newt Gingrich back when they served in the Clinton White House, but the deal blew up with Clinton's sex scandal. Monica Lewinsky saved the system.Any recommendations require fourteen votes, and Obama has at least five loyalists who will protect him-Senators Dick Durbin and Max Baucus, Representatives Jan Schakowsky and Xavier Becerra, and former SEIU president Andy Stern. On the other hand, if Obama really wants to make a deal, these commissioners will very likely support him.The people, once again, are kept in the dark. The Obama commission will not report its recommendations until after this fall's elections-too late for voters to express objections. Both parties assume they can evade blame by holding hands and jumping together.What's extraordinary about this assault on Social Security is that a Democratic president is leading it. Obama is arm in arm with GOP conservatives like Wall Street billionaire Pete Peterson, who for decades has demonized Social Security as a grave threat to the Republic and has spread some $12 million among economists, think tanks, foundations and assorted front groups to sell his case. If Obama pulls the deal off, this will be his version of "Nixon goes to China"-a leader proving his manhood by going against his party's convictions. Even if he fails, the president will get some protective cover on the deficit issue. After all, he is targeting Big Government's most beloved and trusted program-the New Deal's most prominent pillar.Obama's initiative rests on two falsehoods spread by Peterson's propaganda-the notion that Social Security somehow contributes to the swollen federal deficits and that cutting benefits will address this problem. Obama and his advisers do not say this in so many words, but their rhetoric implies that Social Security is a big source of the deficit problem. Major media promote the same falsehoods. Here is what the media don't tell you: Social Security has accumulated a massive surplus-$2.5 trillion now, rising to $4.3 trillion by 2023. This vast wealth was collected over many years from workers under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) to pay in advance for baby boom retirements. The money will cover all benefits until the 2040s-unless Congress double-crosses workers by changing the rules. This nest egg does not belong to the government; it belongs to the people who paid for it. FICA is not a tax but involuntary savings.As a candidate, Obama assured voters that any shortfall was in the distant future and could be easily resolved with minor adjustments. As president, he has abandoned this accurate analysis and turned rightward without explaining why. He faces an awkward problem, however. Despite conservative propaganda, cutting Social Security will have no impact on the deficit problem that so stirs public anxiety. The White House knows this, and some advisers admit as much. So why is the president targeting Social Security?Paul Volcker, former Federal Reserve chair and adviser to the president, declares, "In my view, we can deal with the Social Security problem fairly promptly." Cutting benefits, Volcker adds, "is not going to deal with the deficit problem in the short run, but it's confidence building." John Podesta of the Center for American Progress, another adviser, agrees but says, "Reforms could starkly demonstrate to skeptical debt markets that the United States is willing to take on a politically difficult fiscal issue."In other words, targeting Social Security is a smokescreen designed to reassure foreign creditors and avoid confronting the true sources of US indebtedness. The politicians might instead address the cost of fighting two wars on borrowed money or the tax cuts for the rich and corporations or the deregulation that led to the recent financial catastrophe and destroyed vast wealth. But those and other sources of deficits involve very powerful interests. Instead of taking them on, the thinking in Washington goes, let's whack the old folks while they're not watching.This issue is a seminal fight with the potential to scramble party politics. If Democrats can no longer be trusted to defend Social Security, who can be? The people from left to right overwhelmingly support the program (88 percent), and a majority (66 percent) believe benefits should be increased now to cope with the loss of jobs and savings in the Great Recession.Citizens can win this fight if they mobilize smartly. We can do this by arousing public alarm right now, while members of Congress face a treacherous election and before Obama can work out his deal. Some liberal groups are discussing a "take the pledge" campaign that demands senators and representatives sign commitments to keep Hands Off Social Security Benefits. If politicians refuse to sign, put them on the target list for November. Barack Obama is standing on the third rail of politics-let's give him a warning jolt. Published on The Nation (http://www.thenation.com )
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