I don't agree with Global Warming.  Most Vermonters seem to.  The Global Warming (GW) theory is simply assumed to be correct.  Strictly speaking, it’s gone from a theory to an axiom.  If your research goals and data collection methodology are aimed at adding to the body of literature ‘proving’ GW, you can feed at the trough! USD 400 million in “stimulus” money just went into the research kitty.  

Literature proves nothing.  Literature should give you something new to think about, challenge you, get you out of your muddy rut.  Here’s a relevant bit of literature. H. L. Mencken wrote that "the fundamental aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed, and hence clamorous to be led to safety, by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."

GW may actually be a huge distraction. From what?  For openers, when’s the last time you read something about pollution? The poisoning of our planetary economic base?  Why is soil-building and sequestering carbon neglected?  The soil can hold more carbon than the ‘works of man’ can belch out… so why focus on the belching and not on the soil?  Why are most of the products available in my local natural foods coop, chock full of the products of Monsanto seeds and industrial agriculture which destroys the topsoil… such as soy/canola oils and high fructose corn syrup?  

Rather than tell you what you need to think and believe in order to be accepted in the circles in which you wish to travel, here are some very interesting sources – books for our times. I hope to give you some new texts to think about, some reading that challenges your accepted beliefs.

Time's Up! An Uncivilized Solution to a Global Crisis by Keith Farnish.

Time’s Up challenges the imagination, pushing the reader to examine exactly why human behaviour may be leading to our extinction.  It asks the reader to create alternative plans, plans that may lead to a sustainable future.  

One of the refreshing aspects of Time’s Up is that Farnish does not fall back on the two-pronged arguments of Malthus and Calvin… that there are too many people, and that there is a solution in getting rid of the rabble (or letting them die off) because they’re damned anyway.  The author dismisses the fluff of the Left, such as buying green products and hybrid commute/mall-mobiles, as the path to sustainability, demanding that we look deeper into ourselves, to connect with one another outside the milieu of contemporary industrial civilisation:

Industrial civilization has to end…sooner or later it will collapse, taking much of its subjected population with it …in a catastrophic manner.  This may not happen for 50 or 100 years, by which time global environmental collapse will be inevitable.  That is one option; the other is for it to die, starting now, in a way that those who have the nerve and the nous to leave it behind can save themselves and the natural environment…

The only problem that I had with the book is regarding behavioural changes. Here, the author puts effect before cause, for (he suggest) it may come down to how we raise our children.  A good source on that subject is Neufeld & Mate’s Hold On to Your Kids and Liedloff’s Continuum Concept.  In other words, success may require skipping a generation and concentrating on making the children better than we are.  

‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy by Michael Lynch, New York Times: August 24, 2009 and Interview with Bob Hirsch - The Stonewalling of Peak Oil, Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas (USA): September 7, 2009

When I have a theory or a belief, I go looking for evidence to disprove it. For Peak Oil, wishful thinking about new technology doesn’t count. Two compelling articles are ‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy, and The Stonewalling of Peak Oil.  One is from a voice of authority about energy, with close ties throughout the industry as well as Cambridge Energy Research Associates.  The other is a cry to recognize Peak Oil and to ‘do something’ about it.  Hirsch almost had me!  

‘Peak Oil’ Is a Waste of Energy takes the tack that the previous track record (on oil) is a guarantee of future performance, and that those are the analysts to whom we should be paying attention.  Does that sound familiar from Wall Street?  As for world instability, ‘the solution, as ever, is for the industry to shift investment into new regions.’  What Lynch does not mention is the increasing cost of doing so, the cost of the US empire’s sprawl, the fact that the military sprawl has produced the largest single world-consumer of the oil that the sprawl serves to secure, about half of the total oil by some estimates.  It’s significant, whatever your estimate.  

Lynch taxonomizes as ‘Chicken Littles’ the Men in Washington who are convincing policymakers that ‘oil, being finite, must increase in price.’  The ultimate goal of your Man in Washington is to get money, get power, get influence.  $400 millions for Global Warming research is a lot of power and influence.  How much more can be had through threatening that the world will run out of oil?  Give us money, we will create a boondoggle!  Wall Street got as-yet-untold trillions using the simple Dr. Seuss word, unless.  How much can phonies milk from debt financing --- for Peak Oil research?  There’s a niche there.

But ultimately, if Peak Oil is officially sanctioned and then forever studied, that’s the best way to kill it.  I recommend the latter Stonewalling article, so that you can recognize the classic bait-switch, designed to emasculate dissent by first affirming and encouraging it, then dissipating its energy into nothingness.  Running gulags, false flag attacks, conspiracies --- too expensive.  

In Stonewalling, oil industry alumnus Bob Hirsch stonewalls Peak Oil through a kumbaya affirmation--- and then recommending to...reasonably get more decision-makers involved in:

    1) recognizing the problem and.

    2) helping to elevate it to the highest levels of government, so serious action can begin.
I must ask a question. In the Empire, what happens to the truth, when elevated 'to the highest levels of government'?

Kumbaya, or stonewalling a problem though affirmation - is a thoroughly American impulse, dramatised clearly in George Orwell’s books.  Bernie Sanders’ votes are firmly pro-Empire.  Back home, he tells environmentalists, leftists, and people who are losing their homes or otherwise hurting, just what they want to hear.  Whom does 'Bernie' really represent?  Is he genuine, or an unwitting shill?

In sum, the anti-peak-oil article was more interesting and informative than the one that was pro.  Search for both the Lynch op-ed and the Hirsch interview online.

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty by Daniel Lerch

So what do we do about it all? Post Carbon Cities is a municipal planning guide that can be used at a local level to allow a community to survive what may be coming.  

At the end of the day, if Peak Oil is wrong (perhaps the Black Swan of Cold Fusion suddenly appeared), are these preparations the right and responsible thing for a community to do anyway?  Or simply a waste of time?  You decide.

When reading this book, what struck me is that planners, for the most part, do not have this information. Action is often reaction, after the fact --- often to a perceived problem rather than an examination of root causes.  This book offers them a chance to get out of the trenches and examine their trade in a wider context.  The approaches have been documented in ‘early-actor’ cities; one needn’t take the risk of being the first.  The author also discusses the benefits of widening the economic base rather than narrowing it by scaring away economic activity through forced and hasty conservation measures.

Lerch not only acknowledges uncertainty in all things, but embraces it, challenging the reader to take advantage of ‘unusual opportunities’.  He spells out not only ‘what your city can do’ but provides information relevant to rural land-use planning as well.  After reading this book, I gave it to the fellow who heads our local planning commission here in central Vermont.

Food Not Lawns: How to Turn Your Yard into a Garden And Your Neighborhood into a Community by Heather Flores

This book is a jewel, as it condenses many resources into one, and makes landscape architecture accessible to anyone with a shovel and an eye on dumpsters.

True, I was bored during the book’s very long first part; as the author tried to convince me of the merits of deleting lawns. Captain Obvious says that I wouldn't have started the book in the first place if I hadn't already been convinced.  

Then Flores caught my attention by writing about Hügelkultur.  Hügelkultur is an ancient technique used in Central Europe to this day, which locks up great stores of carbon and nitrogen in the soil for gradual release.  It’s also a great way to build up a raised bed quickly without having to pay for lots of topsoil trucked in.

Here’s how Hügelkultur works.  Put rotting wood on ground, in low spot you wish filled, or in hole.  Cover with dirt.  Done.  Successive generations of organisms (including your own progeny) will enjoy the slow steady release of nitrogen into the soil; the carbon will remain fixed.  

There’s evidence that this technique had been practised in Central America and the Amazon Basin in prehistoric times, and the soil fertility remains to this day.  There, they charred the wood first; hence today’s trendy term, Biochar.  I don’t think that charring the wood is necessary in our Vermont microclimates; but if you’ve got some partially burnt wood, by all means throw it in the hole.  Use your own judgment (cedar is probably out because if its unique biochemistry).

At first the wood will actually take some nitrogen from the surrounding soil. This is because the carbon in the decomposing wood demands it.  Just add manure.  Better to use already-rotting wood, or old firewood cut but abandoned, or pieces that they don’t want because they’re unsuitable for the Vermont Mystique.  If you’re paying the going rate in central Vermont - $250 per cord delivered - you want it to look beautiful.  I find unwanted wood on a regular basis, dumped roadside or at the Middlebury Transfer Station.  That underscores the need to read Time’s Up in my ‘green’ community, a place that doesn’t have so much as a bike rack.  

Flores writes about a number of other techniques from water gardening and home water recycling with respect to Yeomans’ Keyline Plan (in which soil formation is rapid, not slow), remaking the landscape along natural contours to slow down the water cycle and retain the water in usable forms (such as biomass).  In this classic book, Yeomans recognised that Japan had done that for centuries, in order to sustain a high population density over time, and delved into the soil biology.

Flores also covers seed stewardship and community activism, giving you enough information to actually do the things that she recommends, and with re-used materials scavenged from anywhere.  Of course, the prerequisite is to delete that relic of English manorial affectation, the lawn.

Contrast the Flores plans to the $50,000 landscaping proposals that we see showcased by ‘green’ architects and builders here in Vermont, and ask the question ‘How many Vermonters could afford a landscaping makeover, on a Vermont salary?’  At the end of the day, we must, whatever our economic caste.  Buy, borrow or steal Food Not Lawns, just skim the first part about the evils of lawns; the good stuff is later.  Much information is online at www.foodnotlawns.com.  The Keyline Plan is currently out of print, but you can search for an online version.

An aside: Heather Flores is a graduate of Goddard College, but now lives on the West Coast of this continent.  Why has Vermont failed to attract and retain brains such as this? In what ways could we change, in order to reverse the brain drain process and create a viable Free Vermont?

So What Do All These Book and Article Recommendations Mean?

In short, it means inform yourself, make up your own mind.  It means, listen to others, especially if they disagree with your beliefs, and ‘make connections’, as Keith Farnish writes.

It also means that there’s way too much information out there.  You have to pick and choose.  Don’t waste your time with what’s comfortable or affirming, it might even be intended to mislead you… the proverbial stranger with the bag of candy.  

It means, learn forgotten skills and invest in tools with a high use-value.  It means, build soil.

Collapse may be inevitable.  Or I could be wrong.  The world is full of uncertainties.  Taleb’s Black Swans lurk everywhere.  I don’t know, you don’t know, the experts don’t know (although many swing around after the fact and pretend to have predicted the previous surprise).  If Collapse does not happen next year, if I am off by a few decades, this does not disprove the theory. 

If anything, it delineates the fragility of civilization, ergo the need to build permaculture, relocalize Vermont’s economy, build connections, and rebuild our political system from the bottom up.  

Regardless of what’s coming.