Sheffield Ecology Newswire Archive

Resilience: The ability to recover quickly from illness, change, or misfortune; buoyancy; the ability to absorb shocks.

The following is a proposal to help make communities better able to respond to the coming economic shocks from resource depletion, beginning with Peak Oil, and perhaps also to shocks from other causes (such as the ongoing subprime mortgage and credit collapse). In searching for a name for the strategy, I have settled on the phrase "Resilient Communities," which comes with considerable baggage—useful baggage in this instance. Once I have described and discussed the proposal, I will offer some background materials regarding the terms resilience and resilient communities, mentioning some other projects that have used the same title or that pursue similar goals.

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Keith Mann is heading to Wakefield to give a presentation on his book about the Animal Liberation Movement 'From dusk 'til dawn' and to show the film 'Behind the mask'

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Transport from around the country, some spaces still available in Yorkshire.

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Today it was announced that E.ON's Kingsnorth power station in Kent will be the site of this summer’s Camp for Climate Action, running from 4 th to 11th of August 2008.

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Awareness of Peak Oil, Climate Change, impending global economic implosion, topsoil depletion, biodiversity collapse, and the thousand other dire threats crashing down upon us at the dawn of the new millennium constitutes an enormous psychological burden, one so onerous that most people (and institutions) respond with a battery of psychological defenses-mostly versions of denial and distraction-in an effort to keep conscious awareness comfortably distanced from stark reality. I discuss this in "the Psychology of Peak Oil and Climate Change," chapter 7 of Peak Everything, where I conclude that the healthiest response to dire knowledge is to do something practical and constructive in response, preferably in collaboration with others, both because the worst can probably still be avoided and because engaged action makes us feel better.

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The Reality Report interviews Philip Sutton of the Greenleap Strategic Institute and coauthor of a new report called “Climate Code Red: the Case for a Sustainability Emergency.”  http://www.climatecodered.net/ The report reviews disturbing new data and scientific understanding of climate change, explains why existing institutions have failed to respond adequately to the problem, and outlines an appropriate response.

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The gentrification of Leeds means that more and more urban woodlands and spaces are being sold off by the local council to build flats by corporate developers.

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Join us for
Activist skill share
Planning radical action on climate change,
Sharing ideas for the Earth First! Summer Gathering
Opposition to the UK genetic crop trials and mega-dams in Iceland
And a chance to share info on your own campaigns

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A day of talks and workshops on climate change solutions.

Sunday, February 10, 2008
10:00am - 6:00pm
Portland Building, Nottingham University Campus

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The US Air Force has announced plans for a massive $4 billion coal to jet fuel plant -- like the switch from food crop to fuel crops this is another confirmation that peak oil is here.

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In a unbelievable presentation to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas on 16th January BP's Special Economic Advisor Peter Davies (no other oil company was prepared to address this group) claimed that "there's a distinct possibility that global oil consumption could peak as a result of climate policies" -- in other words NOT because supply problems but because of a reduction in demand! If you believe that governments around the world are going all out to reduce oil demand and switch to renewables then perhaps you might believe this... Of course they are not...

The APPGOPO Press Release on this presentation, which links to a MP3 of the event, follows, this presentation is being discussed on the PowerSwitch forum:  http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6231

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There is an interesting thread on the MediaLens discussion board about the following article, "Does the progressive left really believe in climate change?".

While the following article makes good points about the left and climate change the same thing can be said of the left and peak oil — however all these things were brought together in a talk that Nafeez Ahmed gave last November.

One minor thing struck me from the MediaLens discussion, a poster there comments that:

I've seen anarchists on Indymedia arguing fiercely in support of mobile phone companies against residents living near masts who have suffered alarming health problems - on the grounds that they have no scientific proof of their complaints as compared to the mobile companies.

Which appears to indicate to me that she hasn't appreciated the extent that this site is troll'ed...

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WEDNESDAY 16th JAN - SUMAC CENTRE
245 Gladstone Street, Nottingham NG7 6HX 0845 458 9595

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Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed speaking on The Hidden Holocaust — Our Civilizational Crisis at a public meeting held on 20th November 2007 at Imperial College, London.

See also the notice of the meeting and the first three parts of a four part write-up of the talk:

1. The Hidden Holocaust—Our Civilizational Crisis Part 1: The Holocaust in History
2. The Hidden Holocaust—Our Civilizational Crisis Part 2: Exporting Democracy
3. The Hidden Holocaust—Our Civilizational Crisis, Part 3: The End Of The World As We Know It?

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Part three (see part one and part two) of an article by Nafeez Ahmed on the history of imperial genocide follows, the subject of this article was the subject of recent public meeting, The Hidden Holocaust - Our Civilizational Crisis.

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The price for West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil touched $100 on January 2, 2008, a new milestone. According to TheOilDrum.com, WTI oil price has been giving a very clear signal of pending shortage for over five years now, and in breaching the symbolic $100 a barrel mark, continues to do so. Those driving the world economy have steadfastly ignored this red warning light. In doing so, they are steering the world toward an energy disaster characterized by shortages, high energy prices, inflation, growing inequity, civil unrest and famine.

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Save the Woodhead Tunnel have organised a demonstration to further our campaign.
DATE: Saturday, 12th January 2008
TIME: 1.00 p.m. until 3.00 p.m.
PLACE: Woodhead tunnel, Western entrance (map link below)
Speakers (to be confirmed) plus Samba bands. All we need now is clement weather!

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Rising Tide International is calling for a day of action against the fossil fuel industry on April 1st 2008...

FOSSIL FOOLS DAY!

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As the pace of global warming kicks into overdrive, the hollow optimism of climate activists, along with the desperate responses of some of the world's most prominent climate scientists, is preventing us from focusing on the survival requirements of the human enterprise.

The environmental establishment continues to peddle the notion that we can solve the climate problem.

We can't.

We have failed to meet nature's deadline. In the next few years, this world will experience progressively more ominous and destabilizing changes. These will happen either incrementally -- or in sudden, abrupt jumps.

Under either scenario, it seems inevitable that we will soon be confronted by water shortages, crop failures, increasing damages from extreme weather events, collapsing infrastructures, and, potentially, breakdowns in the democratic process itself.

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Most people in modern industrial society get their food mainly from supermarkets. As a result of declining hydrocarbon resources, however, it is unlikely that such food will always be available. The present world population is nearly 7 billion, but food supplies per capita have been shrinking for years. Food production will have to become more localized, and it will be necessary to reconsider less-advanced forms of technology that might be called "subsistence gardening."

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