The Emperor's New Clothes

Like the famous short tale by Hans Christian Andersen, our current leaders stand before us saying one thing when a totally different reality is evident to even the youngest members of our society.

According to Wikapedia:

In his tale, an Emperor who cares for nothing but his wardrobe, hires two weavers who promise him the finest suit of clothes from a fabric invisible to anyone who is unfit for his position. The Emperor cannot see the cloth himself, but pretends that he can for fear of appearing unfit for his position or stupid; his ministers do the same. When the swindlers report that the suit is finished, they dress him in mime and the Emperor then marches in procession before his subjects. A child in the crowd calls out that the Emperor is wearing nothing at all and the cry is taken up by others. The Emperor cringes, suspecting the assertion is true, but holds himself up proudly and continues the procession.

Here in the waning days of Summer 2010, I find myself referring often to the current similarities to this strange tale written in 1837. I wish that President Obama could stand before the American public, and state that the growth paradigm we have been operating under for the past 150 years, is now history, and that we must for the sake of our children, and their children, create a sustainable economy.

If the President of the United States or the Secretary of the Treasury, or the Chairman of the Fed were to make this proclamation, he would either be assassinated before the end of his speech, or simply carted away and heavily medicated under the guise of "national security." If this reality was openly acknowledged, our current economy and army of investors working away at developing and selling fantasy financial products on Wall Street, would crash and burn in a matter of hours.

I am here to proudly say, and ask all of you reading these words, to yell at the top of your lungs, "The Emperor Has No Clothes!" We are rapidly approaching the edge of an abyss that could make the Great Depression, look more like a slight economic correction if we do not change our direction.

Along with the creation of renewable energy technologies, re-localized food production, made in America campaigns, and rebuilding America's passenger railroads, we need to acknowledge that "sustainable growth" is an absolute impossibility and it is time to seriously engage in how we can transition this great nation to a sustainable economy we can believe in.

The Road Ahead

On a recent vacation to Costa Rica earlier this summer, I spent more hours than I had wanted experiencing the driving conditions first hand. For many of the main roads, driving is pretty similar to my Colorado experience. But when you get into the secondary roads, the ones that take you to many of the wonders of the country, the driving becomes a very different experience. The combination of changing road widths, potholes, washboard and the ever present passing cars and trucks made driving a real challenge. I remember turning to my wife and saying, welcome to our future. We are going to see a lot more of this in the U.S.  Now a month later I see this article in the WSJ.

"The Road to Ruin"
January 17, 2010

Outside this speck of a town, pop. 78, a 10-mile stretch of road had deteriorated to the point that residents reported seeing ducks floating in potholes, Mr. Zimmerman said. As the road wore out, the cost of repaving became too great. Last year, the county spent $400,000 on an RM300 Caterpillar rotary mixer to grind the road up, making it look more like the old homesteader trail it once was.

Paved roads, historical emblems of American achievement, are being torn up across rural America and replaced with gravel or other rough surfaces as counties struggle with tight budgets and dwindling state and federal revenue. State money for local roads was cut in many places amid budget shortfalls.

But this change is not all bad. It will increase the trend toward localization, but it slows us down, and will ultimately create a number of very local jobs to keep the roads in usable condition.

Understanding the Oil News of the Day

One of the more challenging aspects of the entire Peak Oil conversation is the fear of "running out of oil." I can stand here today and tell you with 100% confidence, we will never run out of oil! Why is that? Because there is still a lot it in the ground, and as we continue looking we are quickly seeing that the vast majority of the oil that is left is getting harder and more expensive to get out of the ground and refine into gasoline.

For example. A few years ago in 2006, British Petrolium (BP) announced that it hat hit it big with the Kaskida field in the Keathley Canyon region of the Gulf of Mexico. A very sophisticated and expensive submersible called Deepwater Horizon, drilled the well to 32,500 ft in 5,860 ft of water and encountered an 800 foot deep pocket of sand which was saturated with oil. In 2009 they drilled a second exploritory well and learned that the oil pocket extend into another part of the same canyon. Three years and two wells.

That sounds promising on the surface, but let's take a minute to drill down a bit deeper (pun most defiantly intended). This is not like drilling a 500 foot well in your backyard and hitting a gusher. British Petroleum went out 250 miles southwest of New Orleans, and with a very specialized submarine went down over a mile to the bottom of the Gulf and then proceeded to drill a 5 mile deep well to discover sand soaked oil.
That is an incredible feat. And a very expensive one as well. The bigger challenge is what will be necessary in both time and money to create an ongoing pumping and refining complex to get this oily sand out of the ground, pump or ship it hundreds of miles to the nearest refinery and do what needs to be done to make this liquid ready to be used in your car or truck. That process can easily take 10 years to accomplish. If BP is very fortunate and the oil field turns out to be a "Super Giant Field" with at least 5 billion recoverable barrels of oil, this discovery will feed the world at our current rate of usage for 90 days. If you want even more details about the challenges of this kind of project, please read this.

So this is what BP calls hitting it big!

The challenge we are faced with is not running out of oil but figuring out how we will ever afford oil that takes this level of effort to get out of the ground and into our gas tanks.

I suggest we seriously focus on how to re-organize ourselves to avoid needing that oil in the first place.

I think creating Peak Communities may be a big part of the answer.

Introducing Peak Community

Over the past 35 years I have had the privilege of working on a wide variety of efforts all aimed at creating a more sustainable society. These have included recycling, aquaculture for waste water treatment, neighborhood composting systems, bike sharing, mass transit, urban agriculture, green construction and mixed use developments.

Since the early 1990's, the concept of cohousing, environmentally-sensitive clustered neighborhoods, has become established here in the United States. Started in Denmark, it has evolved to adapt to the realities of American Culture as well as our changing economic landscape. Over that time, the residents of these neighborhoods have learned a tremendous amount about how to work together and to design, build and organize their homes to improve their energy efficiency while developing of strong relationships between neighbors.

But now even more is required if we are to transform our communities to adjust to the demographic and economic tidal waves heading our way. The issues of sustainability, green construction, food production, renewable energy and walkable communities need to be woven together with the inter-personal lessons we have learned creating and living in cohousing communities over the past 20 years. The result of this merging of innovative ideas is a concept I am calling “Peak Community.”

What kind of a future can we create, which is both spiritually uplifting, and increasingly sustainable for our environment?

Over the next few months I will be posting blog entries which explain the various components of this emerging concept of Peak Community. I hope you enjoy them.

Renewable Energy and the Emerging Green Economy

As 2009 ended, the price of oil rose to $79.62 a barrel  (December 31, 2009) 71 percent higher than a year ago. From reliable sources such as oil economist Matt Simmons and postings on The Oil Drum, many see that the United States will most probably shift to natural gas as a transition fuel supply replacing hard to reach and expensive sources of oil. By now it must be obvious that renewable energy sources, e.g. solar, wind, geothermal and the promising area of algae, are the logical long term sustainable solutions for our national economy. 

Abraham Paiss & Associates was fortunate in 2009 to become the public relations, marketing, and web design firm for one of Colorado's leading solar engineering and construction companies: SolSource Inc. Headquartered in Denver, SolSource is a highly experienced designer and installer of solar electric and solar thermal systems for homes, businesses, municipalities, schools, and the military. During 2009 we assisted SolSource in its announcement of a 1.2 MW solar photovoltaic system for Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado. When installed in 2010 this installation will be the largest solar array on a U.S. Air Force base in Colorado. You can read about it in an AP story written in the Denver Post.

Helping schools lower their utility bills and incorporate renewable energy into the school curriculum is another focus of SolSource. In December, Jeff Scott, company founder and president, visited Academia Sandoval Elementary School in Denver to teach children how much energy is produced from the 9.8 kW solar system on their school roof in the first use of an online data monitoring system in the Denver Public School system. We feel honored to work with an excellent solar energy company and are looking forward to supporting SolSource in its pioneering work ahead in 2010.

From the Ground Up: Creating a Year-Round Sustainable Food System

When we think about our basic needs, creating a secure year-round food supply rises to the top. While our Federal Government supplied billions of dollars to support the crumbling financial system and auto industry, we see a much more critical need to direct funds to help Americans grow food close to where they live. We see American food security as a critical need that requires our best thinkers and attention. to bring back farming close to where we live and to make food production economically viable. 

As you may know, most of your food currently travels thousands of miles to reach your local market. With increasing oil prices coupled with unpredictable and more intense weather patterns draught and crop failure may become more common. It may not be that far in the future when one goes to the grocery store to see more expensive food items and empty spaces on the shelves.

Over the next two weeks we will be preparing a grant to submit to the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA). This new USDA Planning Grant is designed to fund special events to bring together diverse groups of experts to help solve a regional or national problem. We are focusing on assembling a group of individuals with expertise in solar greenhouse design and manufacturing, renewable energy production, compost manufacturing, seed production, urban agriculture, agricultural economy, and land planning and zoning.  Our goal is to convene a focused gathering in 2010 to develop a plan for national implementation to create an economically viable and biologically secure year-round urban food growing and distribution system.

As many of you know, we are experienced meeting planners, having put together over a dozen regional and national meetings for the cohousing industry since 1992. We have already contacted a number of national experts in the areas mentioned above who have agreed to participate if we are awarded the grant to focus on solutions for year round urban farming.

Since this USDA planning grant is based on matching funds, the USDA will match dollar for dollar actual funds raised or presenters contributing their time as an in-kind donation. Matching funds need to be in place at the time of the grant submittal by January 14, 2010. We welcome your input on individuals, companies and organizations you think would wish to participate in this meeting either as a presenter or as a donor. If you have ideas, please contact us as soon as possible. We will continue to post updated material about the USDA Planning Grant on our website.

5 Tips for Prepairing for Peak Oil

Preparing for peak oil is just common sense.

By Sami Grover Chapel Hill, NC, USA

Sami Grover

Back when gas was expensive, and food prices were rising alarmingly, it seemed like everyone was talking about Peak Oil. But fast-forward to today and folks have conveniently forgotten how reliant our entire way of life is on the sticky black stuff (and how quickly it can all unravel if supplies start to dwindle). But recent murmurings from anonymous whistle blowers at the International Energy Agency suggest that global oil reserves may be lower than reported. Much lower.

Whether peak oil means, as many people argue, the end of civilization as we know it, or simply a painful and challenging reordering of the status quo, remains a matter of debate. But either way, it makes sense to prepare yourself. Even if peak oil remains decades away, many of the things you should do to prepare for peak oil and other calamities are also simply prudent common sense, not to mention a great way of cutting your carbon emissions. So here's a list of 5 ideas to get you started preparing for peak oil—apocalypse or not.

5 Steps to Start Preparing for Peak Oil

1. Start a Garden: From learning about permaculture to planting fruit and nut trees to starting a no-dig garden, learning to grow your own food, and making sure the infrastructure is in place to do so, can be a great way to insularte yourself from future shocks—be they environmental or economic. If you are seriously worried about coming instability, it makes sense to concentrate on fruit trees and perennials first—,once you've dug an asparagus bed or planted a pear tree, you'll be enjoying harvests for years to come.
2. Green Your Home: From insulating your roof to installing low energy light bulbs, everything you do to green your home will also put you in better stead if and when energy prices rise dramatically. And if you're a believer in more profound shocks from peak oil, why not look at generating some of your own power by installing solar panels?
3. Live Within Your Means: Learning to limit your spending is not always thought of as a green activity, but it is definitely wise if you want to become more resilient to economic or social disturbance. And buying less stuff means producing less pollution too, so it's a win-win for the planet and your finances, whether peak oil is around the corner or not.You may also want to look at cutting debt, or paying off that mortgage—recent events show just how fragile our economic system can be. You could even try living mortgage-free!
4. De-oil Your Transport: Along with food and housing, transportation is one of the most energy intensive activities in the average person's life, and unlike energy used in our homes, transportation energy is almost completely reliant on oil. So look at ways you can cut back on oil use— and try to think beyond the obvious. From biking to work to carpooling to taking mass transit, cutting your transportation footprint often saves you money too. And if you want to get really serious, you can work from home. Even driving more carefully will save you money on gas.
5. Campaign for Action: Cutting your personal oil consumption is commendable, but peak oil is a societal problem. So do what you can to educate your friends, to mobilize your community, and to call for action on a political level. Whether you are calling for stricter fuel economy standards or starting a community garden, collective action makes us all more resilient to coming challenges. Take a look at our guide on How to Green Your Community for more ideas.