Wilberforce: Endless Growth is not Sustainable

Armed with a suitcase full of cash and more blonde beauties than Richard Branson, businessman Dick Smith announced his Wilberforce award at the FEX Market Site in Sydney on Wednesday 11 August 2010.

The award is designed to give a one million dollar prize to anyone under 30 who can impress Dick by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy.

Dick Smith is one of Australia’s most recognised individuals. After a successful business career in retailing and publishing, Dick has become well known as a restless adventurer, making many pioneering and record breaking flights by helicopter, aeroplane and balloon.

The $1 Million Wilberforce Award

It has become obvious to me that my generation has over exploited our wonderful world – and it’s younger people who will pay the price. Like many people my age, I’ve benefited from a long period of constant economic and population growth – we are addicted to it. But sooner or later this consumption growth will have an end. We appear to be already bumping against the limits of what our planet can sustain and the evidence is everywhere to see.

Right now I believe we could be sleepwalking to catastrophe because we are failing to both acknowledge that there are limits to growth in a finite world and to prepare for a more sustainable way of organising our economy. In the 19th Century, empires were built on the labour of slaves, and it was believed economies would collapse if slavery was abolished. But brave people like William Wilberforce fought to end the slave trade – and economies still flourished. We need brave people like Wilberforce today, and I want to encourage a new generation of clear-thinking and inspiring young leaders.

So today I am announcing Dick Smith’s Wilberforce Award – $1 million to go to a young person under 30 who can impress me by becoming famous through his or her ability to show leadership in communicating an alternative to our population and consumption growth-obsessed economy. I will be looking for candidates whose actions over the next year show that they have what it takes to be among the next generation of leaders our incredible planet so badly needs.

Candidates will need to have a firm belief that we can have a viable and strong world economy that is no longer obsessed with growth for its own sake, but instead encourages both a stable population and sustainable consumption of energy and resources. They must be able to communicate that we cannot continue to squander the resources that will be needed by future generations, and they must also be able to communicate a plan that offers an alternative to our growth addiction.

Like the Nobel Prize, you will not apply for the Wilberforce Award. Over the next twelve months I will be following the media throughout the world to see who is the most outstanding individual in not only making a significant contribution to this important issue, but who also becomes famous through his or her contribution to the debate.

One year from now I will announce the winner of the $1 Million Wilberforce Award. The Award will go towards advancing the momentum the winner will have already achieved.

Book: The Post Carbon Reader

The Post Carbon Reader
Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises

Edited by Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch
In the 20th century, cheap and abundant energy brought previously unimaginable advances in health, wealth, and technology, and fed an explosion in population and consumption. But this growth came at an incredible cost. Climate change, peak oil, freshwater depletion, species extinction, and a host of economic and social problems now challenge us as never before. The Post Carbon Reader features articles by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key drivers shaping this new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and systems resilience. This unprecedented collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary—as well as the most promising responses. The Post Carbon Reader is a valuable resource for policymakers, college classrooms, and concerned citizens.

Table of Contents

Preface Richard Heinberg and Daniel Lerch, Editors
Foreword Asher Miller

Part I - Introduction
1. Foundation Concepts

• Richard Heinberg: "Beyond the Limits to Growth"
• Richard Heinberg: "What is Sustainability?"
• Bill Rees, "Thinking 'Resilience'"

Part II - Planet
2. Climate

• Bill McKibben, selection from Eaarth
• Richard Douthwaite, "The international response to climate change "
• Mark Sandler, SIDEBAR: "Cap and Dividend in the U.S."
• David Orr, selection from Down to the Wire

3. Water

• Sandra Postel, "Water: Adapting to a new normal"

4. Biodiversity

• Stephanie Mills, "Peak Nature?"

Part III - Civilization
5. Food

• Michael Bomford, "Energy and the food system"
• Wes Jackson, transcript from 1/25/10 presentation at Univ. of California - Berkeley
• Erika Allen, transcript from 1/24/10 conversation: "Growing community food systems"

6. Population

• Bill Ryerson, "Population: The Multiplier of Everything Else"

7. Culture & behavior

• Peter Whybrow, "Dangerously Addictive"
• Gloria Flora, "Remapping Relationships: Humans in nature"
• Bill Rees, "The Human Nature of Unsustainability"

Part IV - Modern Society
8. Energy

• Daniel Lerch, selection from Post Carbon Cities
• David Hughes, "Hydrocarbons in North America"
• David Fridley, "Nine Challenges of Alternative Energy"
• Tom Whipple, "Peak Oil and the Economy"

9. Economy

• Josh Farley, "Ecological Economics"
• Richard Douthwaite, SIDEBAR: "Money and Energy"
• Michael Shuman, "The Competitiveness of Local Living Economies"

10. Cities, towns, and suburbs

• Warren Karlenzig, "The Death of Sprawl"
• Deborah Popper and Frank Popper, "Smart Decline in Post-Carbon Cities"
• Hillary Brown, "Buildings"
• John Kaufmann "Local Government in a time of Peak Oil and Climate Change"

11. Transportation

• Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, "Post-carbon mobility"

12. Waste

• Bill Sheehan and Helen Spiegelman, "Climate Change, Peak Oil and the End of Waste"

13. Health

• Cindy Parker and Brian Schwartz, "Human Health and Well-Being in an Era of Energy Scarcity and Climate Change"

14. Education

• Zenobia Barlow and Michael Stone, "Smart by Nature: Schooling for Sustainability"
• Nancy Lee Wood, "Community Colleges"

Part V - Next Steps
15. Building resilience

• Chris Martenson, "Personal preparation"
• Rob Hopkins "Transitioning community"

16. Vision for a post-carbon century

• Asher Miller, "What Now? The Path Forward Begins with One Step"

"Better than Growth" released by Australian Conservation Foundation

Arguing for something beyond economic growth

Australian Conservation Foundation has published an outstandingly well produced paper on how we can redesign our ways of living based on something other than economic growth and all its attendant troubles.


"Most australians don’t agree that their only goal in life is to increase their financial wealth and consumption – but too often our economic policy treats us as if we do. in reality, our quality of life depends on having time for family and friends, a strong sense of community, and a healthy natural environment. our economy should help us achieve those goals.

We can do better than a narrow vision of economic growth, and this report shows us how. Better than Growth explores the best practical thinking from around the world about how to improve economic measurements and align our economies to long-term environmental and social wellbeing."

[via Transition Network]

Bogotá: Building A Sustainable City

Bogota: Building a Sustainable City - documentary by PBS e2 series. Narrated by Brad Pitt. During his tenure as mayor of Bogota, Colombia, Enrique Penalosa was both revered and scorned for his urban planning and transportation policies. His public works projects, which largely favored the pedestrian experience, were unlike anything previously built in Bogota. Penalosa describes the environmental and social importance of minimizing automobile culture.

Conference on Ecomonic Degrowth Presentations

From Friday 26 to Monday 29 March 2010 the Second International Degrowth Conference took place at the historic building of ‘Universidad de Barcelona'. 500 scientists, civil society members and practionners from more than 40 countries attended the conference.

Thirty years ago, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen published a book in French with the title “Demain la Décroissance” (Degrowth Tomorrow) (1979). The organizers of the Economic Degrowth Conference says, “Aujourd’hui la Décroissance” (Degrowth today). The economic crisis of 2008-09 brings a new perspective. Economic degrowth can be good for the environment but it must be socially sustainable.

The 2nd international conference on economic degrowth for ecological sustainability and social equity followed from the first international conference (Paris, April 2008), that took place with the support of the European Society for Ecological Economics, Club of Rome (Brussels/Europe), Telecom Sud-Paris and SERI (Sustainable Europe Research Institute)

Conference Presentations

Managing degrowth: Employment, Security and the Economy under a Degrowth trajectory

• Blake Alcott: Degrowth and ‘unemployment’; Guaranteed jobs?
• Gjalt Huppes & Ruben Huele: Degrowth with an aging population; increasing leisure for improving the environment. The key role of pensions and their funding
• Richard Douthwaite: Why the global debt burden means there will be no recovery
• Colin C.Williams & Richard White: Transcending the depiction of market and non-market labour practices; implications for degrowth

Beyond Sustainable Development: Sustainable Degrowth towards a Steady-State Economy

• Brian Czech: The Chicken/Egg Spiral; "Reconciling" the Conflict Between Economic Growth and Environmental Protection with Technological Progress
• Daniel W. O’Neill: Measuring progress towards a steady state economy
• Ernest Garcia: Sociology and de-growth: social change, entropy and evolution in a way-down era
• Nicholas A. Ashford: Pathways to Sustainable Development; Co-optimizing Economic Welfare, Employment and Environment
• Ernest Garcia: Sociology and de-growth; social change, entropy and evolution in a way-down era
• Jacques Lauriol: L’Economie de la Fonctionnalité; Une voie nouvelle pour une décroissance soutenable

Degrowth, Capitalist Institutions and Democracy

• Pascal van Griethuysen : Implementing Degrowth; Evolutionary Economic Perspectives:
• Barbara Muraca: Growth, Degrowth, and Justice; A scrutiny of ethical and anthropological assumptions in growth and degrowth

Growth is unsustainable. Long live degrowth?

• E. Bilancini & S. D’Alessandro: Happy Degrowth vs Unhappy Growth
• Joaquim Sempere: Degrowth; Proposals and Questions

Making it real. Practical transformations towards degrowth

• Jørgen Stig Nørgård: Sustainable degrowth through more amateur economy
• Dick Urban Vestbro: Saving by Sharing – Collective Housing for Sustainable Lifestyles
• David Barkin: Constructing alternative degrowth strategies; Experience from rural communities in Latin America

Building a Green New House

In a short, funny, data-packed talk at TED U, Catherine Mohr walks through all the geeky decisions she made when building a green new house -- looking at real energy numbers, not hype. What choices matter most? Not the ones you think.



Catherine and Paul Mohr live in Silicon Valley with their daughter Natalie and cats Loki and Tia. In addition to building a green house, they both work on designing and building surgical robots at Intuitive Surgical.

Their 301 Monroe blog has entries about our house building process including:

• “Energy” for posts that are particularly concerned with energy calculations and energy savings
• “Sustainability” spans many subjects and includes many of the energy and water and strawbale posts, but also includes posts about sustainability of other materials

The Embodied energy calculations discussed in Catherine’s TED talk can be found on the Embodied Energy Blog post.

A Green New Deal for Europe

The Green European Foundation (GEF) is the political foundation of the aisbl Green European Institute. It is one of the newly created political foundations on European level, and is funded on an annual basis by the European Parliament. GEF is publishing the Green New Deal series.
In the face of the current multiple crisis (financial, economic, social, environmental), the need for sustainable policies is self-evident. The Green New Deal is the integrated policy approach that Greens in Europe are putting forward as a solution to the crisis. The Towards Green Modernization in the face of Crisis report by the Wuppertal Institute analyzes in depth the climate, environment and energy aspects of this proposal.

Over the past year, billions of Euros have been spent in Europe, the US and other industrialised countries on so-called ‘recovery packages’ to overcome the economic crisis. However, these unprecedented amounts of public money could also be focused on fostering an ecological transformation of our economies, and not on safeguarding the economic patterns that brought about the crisis in the first place. Needless to say, this is no easy task. The present report by the Wuppertal Institute is meant to take stock of the current situation and identify the most suitable areas, the most effective instruments and the best practices for promoting this transformation.

Greening recovery packages

The report gives an overview of the “recovery packages” introduced by governments around the globe and reveals that the European Union is lagging behind the United States and Asia in terms of the Green share of those recovery plans. The authors show the economic and employment potential of a Green New Deal and that the EU has the possibility of leading the way.The report takes a pragmatic approach in the sense that it focuses primarily on how to ‘green’ immediate recovery activities in specific economic areas, and how to support the creation of framework conditions which initiate a dynamic for ecological modernisation and structural change. It also identifies key elements for the implementation of a Green New Deal.

Policy recommendations

The report ends with a series of recommendations that urge the European Union and its Member States to focus their programmes on investments that will kick-start a Green economy and provide sustainable ways out of the crisis.

Green New Deal series
The next volume of the series has also been published: Green New Deal and a European Response to the Crisis: towards ambitious macroeconomic governance of the EU

In this second volume, Francisco Padilla argues in favor of the idea of transforming the Stability and Growth Pact into a Sustainable Stability and Growth Pact.

In this recent article published by the Green European Foundation, the author argues that apart from the reforms of financial regulation that have already been announced, the European Union has to respond to the global crisis by pursuing a double objective. On the one hand, it should focus on economic reorganization, centered around eco-efficency and low carbon economy as engines of job creation. On the other hand, attention must be paid to the fight against unsustainable (public and private) debt and to the alarming increase in poverty rates, fostered in turn by wage deflation. The article maintains that only by focusing on these two conditions at the same time the European Union will be able to tackle the structural causes of systemic economic instability, exacerbated by the past 30 years of financial liberalisation.

This latter publication is so far only available in French on the GEF web page.

Energy Intensity of Countries Visualized

Gapminder World shows the world’s most important trends. The following Visualization from Gapminder World shows the energy intensity of different countries around the world, powered by Trendalyzer from www.gapminder.org. Check out the live web chart here.

Gapminder is a non-profit venture – a modern “museum” on the Internet – promoting sustainable global development and achievement of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

Feasta Tipping Point Report and the New Emergency Conference

Feasta aims to identify the characteristics (economic, cultural and environmental) of a truly sustainable society, articulate how the necessary transition can be effected and promote the implementation of the measures required for this purpose.

Feasta has released a new report Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production, by David Korowicz of Feasta and the Risk/Resilience Network, is now available for download. The report argues that the defining dynamic of our civilisation is the withdrawal of energy from a complex and integrated system adapted only to growing. A managed "de-growth" is impossible; what is required is rapid emergency planning coupled with a plan for longer-term adaptation.

Feasta organized The New Emergeny Conference last year. The videos of all of the presentations from the conference can now be viewed for free on the conference website.

This conference, marking Feasta's tenth anniversary, analysed the systems and the mindsets that have steered the world onto its grotesquely unsustainable current path. Discussions focussed on the new systems (financial, energy, food) and ways of thinking that are urgently required to correct the situation and bring about a rapid transition to a more secure future. Many of the ideas explored were Feasta's. Others were presented by international speakers who broadly share Feasta's analysis of what needs to be done to build a truly sustainable world.

That's it for the 100th post on the Energy Crash blog.

Energy Solution Ideas of the Buckminster Fuller Challenge

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge

Each year a distinguished jury will award a $100,000 prize to support the development and implementation of a strategy that has significant potential to solve humanity’s most pressing problems.



A Design Science Revolution

Buckminster Fuller's prolific life of exploration, discovery, invention and teaching was driven by his intention “to make the world work for 100% of humanity, in the shortest possible time, through spontaneous cooperation without ecological offense or disadvantage of anyone.”

Fuller coupled this intention with a pioneering approach aimed at solving complex problems. This approach, which he called “comprehensive anticipatory design science”, combined an emphasis on individual initiative and integrity with whole systems thinking, scientific rigor and faithful reliance on nature's underlying principles. The designs he is best known for (the geodesic dome, the Dymaxion house, car, and map, and the global electric grid) were part of a visionary strategy to redesign the inter-related systems of shelter, transportation and energy.

After decades of tracking world resources, innovations in science and technology, and human needs, Fuller asserted that options exist to successfully surmount the crises of unprecedented scope and complexity facing all humanity – he issued an urgent call for a design science revolution to make the world work for all.

Answering this call is what the Buckminster Fuller Challenge is all about.

Energy Solutions in the Idea Index

The Idea Index serves as a tool to educate, network, and help solve problems. As an educational tool, the Index is full of hopeful, exciting ideas and solutions to pressing problems. As a networking tool, the Index allows site visitors to contact the project leaders, leave a constructive and/or encouraging comment and connect with one another. It presents a fully searchable database of socially-responsible initiatives, in all stages of development, in need of further funding and support.

The Buckminster Fuller Challenge Idea Index currently lists 38 projects related to Energy problems and solutions. Some examples:

• Comprehensive Design for a Carbon Neutral World: The Challenge of Appalachia
• Oregon Wind Helyx™ Vertical Axis Wind Turbine, a.k.a. "The Urban Turbine"
• Now House™: a replicable model for reducing energy and greenhouse gas emissions in millions of existing homes

Life After Growth - Managing our Way to a Desirable Future

What if the economy doesn't recover?

Richard Heinberg has a new article about the limits to growth on the Post Carbon Institute and shorter version on The Oil Drum. The main part of it is summarized in the following four propositions.

1. We have reached the end of economic growth as we have known it. The “growth” we are talking about consists of the expansion of the overall size of the economy (with more people being served and more money changing hands) and of the quantities of energy and material goods flowing through it. The economic crisis that began in 2008 was both foreseeable and inevitable, and it marks a permanent, fundamental break from past decades—a period in which economists adopted the unrealistic view that perpetual economic growth is necessary and also possible to achieve.

As we will see, there are fundamental constraints to ongoing economic expansion, and the world is beginning to encounter those constraints. This is not to say the U.S. or the world will never see another quarter or year of growth relative to the previous year. Rather, the point is that when the bumps are averaged out, the general trend-line of the economy (measured in terms of production and consumption of real goods) will be level or downward rather than upward from now on.

2. The basic factors that will inevitably shape whatever replaces the growth economy are knowable. To survive and thrive for long, societies have to operate within the planet’s budget of sustainably extractable resources. This means that even if we don’t know exactly what a desirable post-growth economy and lifestyle will look like, we know enough to begin working toward them.

3. It is possible for economies to persist for centuries or millennia with no or minimal growth. That is how most economies operated until recent times. If billions of people (cumulatively) through countless generations lived without economic growth, we can do so as well—now and far into the future. The end of growth does not mean the end of the world.

4. Life in a non-growing economy can be fulfilling, interesting, and secure. The absence of growth does not imply a lack of change or improvement. Within a non-growing or equilibrium economy, there can still be a continuous development of practical skills, artistic expression, and technology.

In fact, some historians and social scientists argue that life in an equilibrium economy can be superior to life in a fast-growing economy: while growth creates opportunities for some, it also typically intensifies competition—there are big winners and big losers, and (as in most boom towns) the quality of relations within the community can suffer as a result. Within a non-growing economy it is possible to maximize benefits and reduce factors leading to decay, but doing so will require pursuing appropriate goals: instead of more, we must strive for better; rather than promoting increased economic activity for its own sake, we must emphasize whatever increases quality of life without stoking consumption. One way to do this is to reinvent and redefine growth itself.


You can read the full article linked at the top of this post.

21 Hours - Why a Shorter Working Week Can Help Us All to Flourish in the 21st Century

A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.

This new report by nef sets out arguments for a much shorter working week. It proposes a radical change in what is considered ‘normal’ – down from 40 hours or more, to 21 hours. While people can choose to work longer or shorter hours, we propose that 21 hours – or its equivalent spread across the calendar year – should become the standard that is generally expected by government, employers, trade unions, employees, and everyone else.

The shape of the report
The report first describe the way people use their time today. Next, it looks at experiments with shorter working hours and some of their effects. It considers how our notions of ‘normal’ working hours emerge, and then set out reasons why a move towards 21 hours could help meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. Finally, it explores the main problems that arise and how these might be addressed.

In conclusion
We are at the beginning of a national debate. This report makes the case for a substantial reduction in paid working hours, aiming towards 21 hours a week as the norm. The current norm of a nine-to-five, five-day week in paid employment does not reflect the way most people use their time. Unpaid work is generally overlooked and undervalued. A much shorter working week offers very considerable benefits to the environment, to society, and to the economy. There are serious problems to confront in the transition from where we are to where we want to be: they are mainly concerned with the impact on earnings and on employers’ balance sheets. We have set out suggestions for addressing these problems, acknowledging that an important pre-condition is a strong democracy and an effective and accountable government. Our suggestions include ways of incentivising employers, compensating lost earnings, sharing unpaid time more equally between women and men, and changing the climate of opinion. None of these options will work on its own and there are doubtless many more possibilities. The next step is to make a thorough examination of the benefits, challenges, barriers, and opportunities associated with moving towards a 21-hour week over the next decade. This will be part of the ‘Great Transition’ to a sustainable future.

Check out the full report on the web site of the new economics foundation. It is available for download in pdf.

Publications by the new economics foundation

nef (the new economics foundation) is an independent think-and-do tank that inspires and demonstrates real economic well-being.

Growth isn't Possible

Four years on from nef's Growth isn’t Working, this new report goes one step further and tests that thesis in detail in the context of climate change and energy. It argues that indefinite global economic growth is unsustainable. Just as the laws of thermodynamics constrain the maximum efficiency of a heat engine, economic growth is constrained by the finite nature of our planet’s natural resources (biocapacity).

The Cuts Won't Work

Why spending on a Green New Deal will reduce the public debt, cut carbon emissions, increase energy security and reduce fuel poverty.

The Great Transition

Creating a new kind of economy is crucial if we want to tackle climate change and avoid the mounting social problems associated with the rise of economic inequality. The Great Transition provides the first comprehensive blueprint for building an economy based on stability, sustainability and equality.

The Consumption Explosion

Overconsumption, not overpopulation, is the real threat to the environment. Even the recession has had little impact on our burgeoning ecological debt.

Ecological Debt

This book explores a great paradox of our age: how the global wealth gap was built on ecological debts, which the world's poorest are having to pay for.

A Green New Deal

The global economy is facing a ‘triple crunch’: a combination of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, accelerating climate change and soaring energy prices underpinned by encroaching peak oil. It is increasingly clear that these three overlapping events threaten to develop into a perfect storm, the like of which has not been seen since the Great Depression, with potentially devastating consequences.

Hooked on Oil

How fossil fuel profits could be taxed to fund a clean energy economy.

State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures

State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability (State of the World)

"Worldwatch has taken on an ambitious agenda in this volume. No generation in history has achieved a cultural transformation as sweeping as the one called for here…it is hard not to be impressed with the book’s boldness "
—Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank

"If we continue to think of ourselves mostly as consumers, it’s going to be very hard to bring our environmental troubles under control. But it’s also going to be very hard to live the rounded and joyful lives that could be ours. This is a subversive volume in all the best ways!"
—Bill McKibben, author of Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet

"This year’s State of the World report is a cultural mindbomb exploding with devastating force. I hope it wakes a few people up ."
—Kalle Lasn, Editor of Adbusters magazine


Like a tsunami, consumerism has engulfed human cultures and Earth’s ecosystems. Left unaddressed, we risk global disaster. But if we channel this wave, intentionally transforming our cultures to center on sustainability, we will not only prevent catastrophe, but may usher in an era of sustainability—one that allows all people to thrive while protecting, even restoring, Earth.

In State of the World 2010: Transforming Cultures: From Consumerism to Sustainability, sixty renowned researchers and practitioners describe how we can harness the world’s leading institutions—education, the media, business, governments, traditions, and social movements—to reorient cultures toward sustainability.

About the State of the World Series

Worldwatch's flagship publication, State of the World, has educated a broad audience of students, journalists, policymakers, and concerned citizens about trends in sustainable development for a quarter century. The book has been published in 36 languages, and over the years it has authoritatively assessed issues ranging from population, energy, and agriculture to materials use, health, and trade policy. Topics are covered from a global perspective, with an emphasis on innovation and problem-solving. State of the World is recognized as a classic of environmental literature, having attracted luminaries from Kofi Annan to Mikhail Gorbachev to write forewords for the book. News media, policymakers, and NGOs worldwide cite the book for its cutting-edge analysis, reliability, and careful documentation of its arguments, all marshaled to speed the global transition to a sustainable world.

(Fly Around) The World Without Fossil Fuels

Bertrand Piccard circumnavigated the Earth in a hot-air balloon. Now he wants to circle it in an airplane powered only by solar energy.

For the dawn of a new decade, adventurer Bertrand Piccard in this TED Talk offers us a challenge: Find motivation in what seems impossible. He shares his own plans to do what many say can't be done -- to fly around the world, day and night, in a solar-powered aircraft.



Bertrand Piccard was born in a family of firsts. His father, Jacques, together with Dan Walsh of the US, was the first man to reach the deepest point of the world's oceans, the Mariana Trench, in 1960. Almost 30 years earlier, his grandfather, Auguste, first ballooned into the stratosphere. While they went up and down, Bertrand went horizontal and in 1999, together with Brian Jones of Britain, completed the first-ever nonstop balloon circumnavigation of the globe, flying more than 45,000 km in 20 days.

Now, in a hangar near Zurich, a team of scientists and engineers around Piccard and co-pilot André Borschberg is building Solar Impulse, an unconventional aircraft designed to circumnavigate the Earth powered by solar energy, flying day and night (yes, when the Sun is "off"). The just-unveiled prototype has the weight of a car but the wingspan of an Airbus. Piccard hopes for test flights in the first half of 2010, and possibly a long flight in 2011, before attempting to fly around the Earth.

In a world depending on fossil energies, the Solar Impulse project is a paradox, almost a provocation: it aims to have an airplane take off and fly autonomously, day and night, propelled uniquely by solar energy, right round the world without fuel or pollution. An unachievable goal without pushing back the current technological limits in all fields...

Community Resilience Toolkit

If your neighborhood association, church organization, city planning office, or community-based organization is interested in building a more resilient community, the Community Resilience Toolkit by Bay Localize is for you.

The Bay Localize Community Resilience Toolkit guides groups in leading workshops to plan for resilience in their communities while decreasing reliance on fossil fuels. It is designed for community groups that would like to get involved in making a difference in their neighborhood, city, or county. The Toolkit offers Bay Area-specific resources and action ideas in six key sectors: food, water, energy, transportation and housing, jobs and economy, and civic services.

Why Resilience?

We live in interesting times, with far-reaching tangible impacts on our communities. Many Bay Area communities struggle to meet their basic needs even in the best of times. Now we are facing three additional major threats to our well-being:

• Economic downturn has led to high levels of job loss and foreclosures. With lower tax revenue cities and counties are cutting back services, just when more people need a social safety net.
• Climate change will directly impact communities in the Bay Area as well as throughout the world. Our region will face rising sea levels (a danger if you live or work near the Bay), heat waves, decreased air quality, and long-term decreased availability of water and food. Impacts in other parts of the world are likely to be catastrophic due to widespread hurricanes, flooding, drought, and famine. We need to do all we can do decrease greenhouse gas emissions that make climate change worse.
• Peak oil means that we are nearing or have already passed the point at which we have used the majority of easily accessible oil in the world. As the global economy is so reliant on oil, rising oil prices makes everything else more expensive. Increased oil prices are predicted to spur higher inflation, economic contraction, growing unemployment, increased poverty, and increased violence at home and around the world.

We need creative ways to make sure our communities can meet the basic human needs of all residents, while reducing reliance on fossil fuels and protecting the health of our environment for our children. This is especially true for communities that are already struggling. In order to meet the human needs of all in our communities, we need to examine and change patterns of power and distribution of resources that contribute to inequities in our society.

Fortunately, we already have local resources to face these challenges in our communities. These assets include our knowledge and creativity, relationships, institutions, infrastructure, and natural resources. We can nurture, grow, and connect these resources in creative ways to make our communities strong and resilient enough to weather these challenges.

The Community Resilience Toolkit is available free of charge for registered users.

Energy Revolution - A Sustainable Global Energy Outlook

The energy [r]evolution is an independently produced report that provides a practical blueprint for how to half global CO2 emissions, while allowing for an increase in energy consumption by 2050. By dividing the world into 10 regions, with a global summary, it explains how existing energy technologies can be applied in more efficient ways. It demonstrates how a ‘business as usual’ scenario, based on IEA’s World Energy Outlook projections, is not an option for environmental, economic and security of supply reasons.

The timing of this report is crucial. Within the coming years, decisions will be made to replace the generating capacity of the existing old power infrastructure in the OECD countries. Developing countries such as China, India and Brazil are rapidly constructing their energy infrastructure to service their economic growth.

Because renewable energy has no fuel costs, the total fuel cost savings in the Energy [R]evolution Scenario reach a total of $18.7 trillion, or $ 750 billion per year. A comparison between the extra fuel costs associated with the Reference Scenario and the extra investment costs of the Energy [R]evolution version shows that the average annual additional fuel costs are about five times higher than the additional investment requirements of the alternative scenario. In fact, the additional costs for coal fuel from today until the year 2030 are as high as $ 15.9 trillion: this would cover the entire investment in renewable and cogeneration capacity required to implement the Energy [R]evolution Scenario. These renewable energy sources will produce electricity without any further fuel costs beyond 2030, while the costs for coal and gas will continue to be a burden on national economies.

To make the energy [r]evolution real and to avoid dangerous climate change, Greenpeace and EREC demand for the energy sector that the following policies and actions are implemented:

1. Phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy.
2. Internalise the external (social and environmental) costs of energy production through “cap and trade” emissions trading.
3. Mandate strict efficiency standards for all energy consuming appliances, buildings and vehicles.
4. Establish legally binding targets for renewable energy and combined heat and power generation.
5. Reform the electricity markets by guaranteeing priority access to the grid for renewable power generators.
6. Provide defined and stable returns for investors, for example by feed-in tariff programmes.
7. Implement better labelling and disclosure mechanisms to provide more environmental product information.
8. Increase research and development budgets for renewable energy and energy efficiency.

Book: Sustainable Energy - Without The Hot Air

David MacKay, the future government energy adviser and professor at Cambridge University's department of physics, warns us in his new book Sustainable Energy - Without the Hot Air that plans for energy production in the future will not come fast and will not come cheap.

We have an addiction to fossil fuels, and it’s not sustainable. The developed world gets 80% of its energy from fossil fuels; Britain, 90%. And this is unsustainable for three reasons. First, easily-accessible fossil fuels will at some point run out, so we’ll eventually have to get our energy from someplace else. Second, burning fossil fuels is having a measurable and very-probably dangerous effect on the climate. Avoiding dangerous climate change motivates an immediate change from our current use of fossil fuels. Third, even if we don’t care about climate change, a drastic reduction in Britain’s fossil fuel consumption would seem a wise move if we care about security of supply: continued rapid use of the oil and gas reserves will otherwise soon force fossil-addicted Britain to depend on imports from untrustworthy foreigners.

We need a plan that adds up. The good news is that such plans can be made. The bad news is that implementing them will not be easy.

Part I – Numbers, not adjectives

The first half of this book discusses whether a country like the United Kingdom, famously well endowed with wind, wave, and tidal resources, could live on its own renewables. We often hear that Britain’s renewables are “huge.” But it’s not sufficient to know that a source of energy is “huge.” We need to know how it compares with another “huge,” namely our huge consumption. To make such comparisons, we need numbers, not
adjectives.

Where numbers are used, their meaning is often obfuscated by enormousness. Numbers are chosen to impress, to score points in arguments, rather than to inform. In contrast, my aim here is to present honest, factual numbers in such a way that the numbers are comprehensible, comparable, and memorable. The numbers are made accessible by expressing them all in everyday personal units. Energies are expressed as quantities per person in kilowatt-hours (kWh), the same units that appear on household energy bills; and powers are expressed in kilowatt-hours per day(kWh/d), per person.

Part I of Sustainable Energy – without the hot air builds up an illustrative red consumption stack, enumerating the energy cost of a range of energy-consuming activities; and a complete green stack, adding up all the potential renewable resources available in Britain.

The first half gives two clear conclusions. First, for any renewable facility to make an appreciable contribution – a contribution at all comparable to our current consumption – it has to be country-sized.

Second, if economic constraints and public objections are set aside, it would be possible for the average European energy consumption of 125 kWh/d per person to be provided from these country-sized renewable sources. The two hugest contributors would be photovoltaic panels, which, covering 5% or 10% of the country, would provide 50 kWh/d per person; and offshore wind farms, which, filling a sea-area twice the size of Wales, would provide another 50 kWh/d per person on average.

Such an immense panelling of the countryside and filling of British seas with wind machines (having a capacity five times greater than all the wind turbines in the world today) may be possible according to the laws of physics, but would the public accept and pay for such extreme arrangements? If we answer no, we are forced to conclude that current consumption will never be met by British renewables. We require either a radical reduction in consumption, or signficant additional sources of energy – or, of course, both.

Part II – Energy plans that add up

The second part of Sustainable Energy – without the hot air explores six strategies for eliminating the gap between consumption and renewable production identified in the first part, then sketches several energy plans for Britain, each of which adds up.

The first three strategies for eliminating the gap reduce energy demand:

• population reduction;
• lifestyle change;
• changing to more efficient technology.

The other strategies for eliminating the gap increase energy supply:

• “Sustainable fossil fuels” and “clean coal” are names given to carrying on burning coal, but in a different way, with carbon capture and storage. What power could we get from coal, “sustainably”?
• Nuclear power is another controversial option; is it just a stop-gap?
• A third way to get extra carbon-free power would be to live on renewable energy from other countries – in particular, countries blessed with plentiful sunshine, large areas, and low population densities. What is the realistic potential of the Sahara desert?

Part III and Part IV

The third part of the book drills down to the physical foundations of energy consumption and energy production. Eight appendices show from first principles where the numbers in the first two parts come from.

The final sixteen pages of the book contain further reference data and conversion factors, useful for applying the book’s ideas to other countries, and for translating to and from units used by other organizations.

This is a free book. David MacKay didn't write this book to make money. He wrote it because sustainable energy is important. If you would like to have the book for free for your own use, please help yourself to any of the electronic versions on this website.

Rethinking Urban Planning - Resilient City

Today’s cities are fully dependent on fossil fuels. Their economies, food supplies, public and private transportation, heating and cooling systems, and the production of materials to build them, are all energy intensive and fossil fuel dependent. Cities need to prepare for peak oil and the energy crisis.


ResilientCity.org is a website focused on developing creative, practical, and implementable urban planning and building design strategies that address our century's most important challenge: namely, dealing with the significant problems that will be associated with global warming and peak oil in the context of continued and unsustainable global population growth.

ResilientCity.org has three goals:

• FIRST: To raise awareness about the combined challenges of Global Warming and Peak Oil in the context of continued and unsustainable global population growth - and the radical changes these will require to how we plan cities and design buildings.
• SECOND: To stimulate a critical shift in planning and design thinking, leading to the development and implementation of appropriately “resilient” urban planning and building design strategies.
• THIRD: In the service of the first two goals, to compile a freely available set of resilient planning and design resources — including web links, research references, and planning and design exemplars.

Resilient Urban Planning

Planning to effectively meet the conditions and realities of a Post Carbon, Climate Responsible world will require a shift in our current understanding of what constitutes good urban design and planning. Many of the practices that we now take for granted, such as planning cities around automobile transportation, or zoning for single uses, will no longer be appropriate or economically feasible. To address the changes in urban design and planning, we have assembled the following principles for urban design and planning in a post-carbon, climate responsive building environment.

The following Urban Design Principles are all predicated on the assumption that in the future fossil fuels will all be scarcer and more expensive, and that national and local governments will have begun to address global climate change with various types of carbon taxation or rationing strategies. As a result we will be living in a de-powering world were urban planning must reflect this reality.

• Neighbourhood Structure
• Neighbourhood Food Supply
• Neighbourhood Water Supply and Management
• Neighbourhood Electrical Power Supply and Management
• Neighbourhood District Heating
• Neighbourhood Waste Reprocessing

ResilientCity.org welcomes contributions from architects, urban planners, engineers, landscape architects and environmental scientists. The site is moderated by Toronto architect and urban designer, Craig Applegath. The site makes the case for urgency, and suggests pathways and strategies for collective action.

Nature Special: Planetary Boundaries - Limits of the Earth

To avoid catastrophic environmental change humanity must stay within defined 'planetary boundaries' for a range of essential Earth-system processes, argue Johan Rockström and his co-authors in a Nature Feature. If one boundary is transgressed, then safe levels for other processes could also be under serious risk, they caution. Seven expert commentaries respond to this proposal in Nature Reports Climate Change.


The inner green shading in the above figure represents the proposed safe operating space for nine planetary systems. The red wedges represent an estimate of the current position for each variable. The boundaries in three systems (rate of biodiversity loss, climate change and human interference with the nitrogen cycle), have already been exceeded.

Planetary Boundaries

Identifying and quantifying planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed could help prevent human activities from causing unacceptable environmental change, argue Johan Rockström and colleagues in A safe operating space for humanity in Nature.

The scientists first identified the Earth System processes and potential biophysical thresholds, which, if crossed, could generate unacceptable environmental change for humanity. They then proposed the boundaries that should be respected in order to reduce the risk of crossing these thresholds.

Nine boundaries were identified including climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and phosphorus inputs to the biosphere and oceans, aerosol loading and chemical pollution.

The study suggests that three of these boundaries (climate change, biological diversity and nitrogen input to the biosphere) may already have been transgressed. In addition, it emphasizes that the boundaries are strongly connected — crossing one boundary may seriously threaten the ability to stay within safe levels of the others.

The Road To Copenhagen

In December this year, parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will descend on Copenhagen to wrangle over the details of a new global climate deal — a potential successor to the Kyoto Protocol.

As the world moves along the road to Copenhagen, Nature will be covering every aspect of the science and politics of climate change in articles that will be collected here.