24 Jun 2008
Here is an article from one of our local newspapers published last Friday, which takes a Transition-tinged look at the current oil crisis.
Why Oil Crisis Could be Trigger for a Better Future. Western Morning News. 20th June 2008
Crude oil prices trading at a record 140 a barrel. Truck driver strikes leading to panic buying at petrol stations across the country. Saudi Arabia promising to pump more oil after desperate calls from world leaders. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the global economy’s third oil price shock.
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19 Jun 2008
Here’s just a quick and not really fully-formed thought for a Thursday morning. I have finally, as part of the Transition Town Totnes Solar Hot Water Challenge‘, signed up to get solar panels put on our roof. Took a while, but I am going for flat bed panels rather than evacuated tubes (to see why read this). The plan is to get them up while there is still some summer sun to take advantage of. The question I find myself asked though when I tell people about it is “but what is the payback on them?” Now I have to say honestly that I have no idea, I haven’t sat down and worked it out, but what intrigues me is that nature of that question.
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16 Jun 2008
I guess, as what Albert Bates terms a ‘post-petroleumologist’, you would imagine that I would be philosophically opposed to diggers, earthmovers, and other forms of fossil fuel powered equipment. I think it would be fair to say that until I encountered permaculture, I saw them, mostly due to seeing the extraordinary damage that such machines can wreak on road-building protests, as inherently wicked. When I sat down to read Bill Mollison’s Permaculture, a Designer’s Manual, I was surprised to find that a book on earth repair had an entire chapter dedicated to earthmoving. Seemed somewhat incongruous. Now, however, I am a convert, and I was honoured that my garden was visited by one this weekend.
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4 Jun 2008
A while ago, on a very hot day indeed, I went to London to be one of the speakers at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPOG, not to be confused with OGOPOGO, a Loch Ness monster type supposed creature reputed to live in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia, Canada). The meeting was called Becoming a Low Carbon Society, and I was speaking along with Shaun Chamberlin who spoke about Tradeable Energy Quotas, and Simon Snowden from Liverpool University, who talked about, among other things, Oil Vulnerability Audits.
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3 Jun 2008
Using Natural Finishes: lime and earth-based plasters, renders and paints. A step-by-step guide. Adam Weismann and Katy Bryce. Green Books. 2008.
The first book on natural building I ever read was Becky Bee’s book ‘The Cob Builder’s Handbook‘. What was so refreshing about it was that it was a building book written by a woman, and it was as intuitive and accessible as it was technical, and much of it read like a cookbook in its descriptions of the materials. This same spirit has gone on to pervade the growing natural building movement, a playful, intuitive and inspired rethinking of the creation of shelter that does much more than just keep the rain off.
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Here is an article from one of our local newspapers published last Friday, which takes a Transition-tinged look at the current oil crisis.
