ICA Denver Paper on Environmental Sustainability

As we said, IN PROCESS... Email us your comments. Comments in red are from Sunny Walker.

                                                         ICA Denver
                                                Concept Paper for Proposed Work in Colorado
                                       Concerning Environmental and Energy Resource Sustainability

Introduction
Oil depletion and global warming are well-documented issues about which many governmental initiatives are under consideration. Addressing policy alone will not make the changes that are now urgent. Local action is required.

However, many people are still unaware of the broadly held consensus among peak-oil researchers (many within the oil industry) which could dramatically affect their lifestyle. Namely, that our demand for oil will out-pace our global ability to produce it between now and the year of 2037 (See Appendix on “What is Peak Oil?”). Many people are also unaware that scientific suggestions to mitigate the adverse effects of oil depletion, rather than helping will instead have a negative impact on the recommendations to address global warming and vice versa. While we are beginning to understand that human activity is a significant factor that contributes to oil depletion and global warming, adapting life-style patterns to become planet-friendly poses daunting challenges, such as:

1.Identifying common entrenched images that sustain behaviors which we need to change due to our precarious situation.
2.Reducing our lifestyle of consumption.
3.Minimizing the adverse effects of oil depletion, climate change, and economic, instability by working together with local communities, governments, and industry.
4.Creating collaborative models that bring together diverse entities to act efficiently and effectively on a scale far greater than the world has seen before.

These four challenges require that we, as a society, understand that change is no longer simply an option for the faraway future, but is an imperative requiring action now. If communities throughout the United States and the world plan and act with imagination and creativity, we may find that a future with less consumption may be preferable to the present.

The following paragraph does not logically fit between the ones above and the ones after. In addition, I believe the paragraphs which follow are too “deep” for ordinary citizens to understand. They could form the basis of a charting/educational exercise in a community meeting - I’d recommend that perhaps a few sentences (if any) be used here and the rest be in the appendix as a sample “study article” with an accompanying sample “chart” and sample ORID questions to demonstrate how ICA can help ordinary citizens wrap their minds around this complexity. We are NOT experts here - thus extra pages are not needed.

Move this paragraph to the section on How ICA Denver Can Help Address This Major Issue.
ICA Denver facilitators bring a wide breadth of knowledge and experience to facilitating diverse groups in a wide variety of contexts. Although ICA-Denver facilitators are not consultants that bring expert analysis to bear on substantive issues, they are skilled at eliciting the full range of perspectives and wisdom from the groups with whom they work. Communities are encouraged to bring in necessary substantive expertise to educate and advise them of possible avenues to pursue. After education, however, comes the opportunity for action. Here, ICA-Denver excels in its capacity to apply useful processes to help communities wrap their arms around difficult, complex issues, forge consensus, and take effective action. See appendix for examples.

Move to Appendix as sample “study article”
Why the interrelationship between oil depletion and global warming mean that community re-localization and self-sufficiency are the keys to resilience

The end of the Age of Cheap Oil (which lasted from 1859 until the present - a blip in geological time of about 150 years) is near at hand. For a society dependent on cheap oil, this means an enormous change. Yet, a future with less oil could be preferable to the present, if communities throughout the United States and the world plan sufficiently in advance with imagination and creativity. Two questions, at this late date: Is there enough time for advance planning? Is starting now soon enough?

What is Peak Oil?
Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of global petroleum extraction is reached, after which time the rate of production enters terminal decline. Thus, current global production systems cannot produce enough oil to meet the current global demand.

The Hirsch report, the commonly referred to name for the report entitled, “Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation, and Risk Management”, was created by request for the U.S. Department of Energy <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_Department_of_Energy> and published in February 2005. It examined the likelihood of the occurrence of peak oil <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil>, the necessary mitigating actions, and the likely impacts based on the timeliness of those actions. (2)

What does peak oil mean for the world?
The introduction of the Hirsch report begins as follows: "The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking."

The report concludes:
·World oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.
·Oil peaking will adversely affect global economies, particularly those most dependent on oil.
·Oil peaking presents a unique challenge (“it will be abrupt and revolutionary”).
·The problem is liquid fuels (growth in demand mainly from the transportation sector).
·Mitigation efforts will require substantial time.
o20 years is required to transition without substantial impacts
oA 10 year rush transition with moderate impacts is possible with extraordinary efforts from governments, industry, and consumers
oLate initiation of mitigation may result in severe consequences.
·Both supply and demand will require attention.
·It is a matter of risk management (mitigating action must come before the peak).
·Government intervention will be required.
·Economic upheaval is not inevitable (“given enough lead-time, the problems are soluble with existing technologies.”)
·More information is needed to more precisely determine the peak timeframe.
Cf. appendix 1, end notes 3, 4, 5.
How can peak oil be mitigated and when should mitigation efforts begin?
The Hirsch Report urges a crash program of new technologies and changes in manners and attitudes in the U.S. and implies that more research and development are needed. The report cites the peaking crude oil supply as the main reason for immediate action.
As for the global usefulness of the Hirsch conclusions, as of 2004 the U.S. share of global oil consumption was about 26%, while its share of population was only 4.3%, Europe took 11% of global oil while having a population of about 6.8%. An average car in Germany uses about 8.1 liter <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L> per 100 km, the U.S. consumption - 16.2 l. In U.S. terms <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miles_per_gallon> 1 gallon delivers 44 miles in Germany but only 22 in the States. (6).
Climate Change
Another significant trend, which is more widely known, is climate change, specifically global warming caused by ever increasing levels of carbon deposits - most notably carbon dioxide - into the atmosphere. There is vast consensus among climate scientists that the temperature of the earth is rising due to human activity (most notably - burning fossil fuels that emit carbon dioxide into the atmosphere).

What is Climate Change?
Climate scientists who have studied long-range climate change (over millions of years by studying, among other things, glacial ice records) have demonstrated that the earth’s temperature rises and falls in somewhat of a regular, and therefore predictable, pattern. But for the last 40 years, the global temperature has increased several orders of magnitude beyond what could have been predicted (extrapolated) from past data. The consensus among climate scientists is that there’s a natural increase in the earth’s temperature, which has been gradually increasing since the end of the ice age 10,000 years ago. Indeed, the planet has been warming and the glaciers have been melting all this time and that trend continues.

How significant is the Human Factor in Climate Change?
Added to this predictable trend of global warming that occurs though natural causes, is a sharp additional increase in the earth’s temperature manifested by radically accelerated glacial ice melt (and other phenomena) that exceeds predicted warming and ice-melt by several orders if magnitude. This additional warming directly corresponds to global oil consumption data, that is: as global oil extraction (and combustion) has increased, so too has the temperature of the earth increased in direct proportion. As extraction rates have escalated in recent years, so too has temperature rise escalated in direct proportion. Not only is this increased temperature well beyond that which can be predicted by typical warming trends, but it directly corresponds to increased levels of carbon emissions into the atmosphere caused by burning fossil fuels.

How are Peak Oil and Climate Change Related?
A growing group of researchers believe that resource depletion (particularly oil) and climate change (particularly global warming) are inextricably intertwined. They say that each dynamic on its own is leading to a significant crisis that presents monumental challenges. Both dynamics happening together, they find, are cause for very serious concern. Some researchers predict that sharp economic decline, perhaps a worldwide depression, is likely to occur within the next decade. These researchers assert that there are three inextricably interrelated pillars of global concern: peak oil; climate change; and pending serious economic instability. (7)

Some analysts have noticed that traditional approaches to studying peak oil and climate change are typically done in isolation. The scope of each problem and recommended solutions for mitigation are typically looked at independently. Solutions for mitigation of peak oil typically exacerbate the problem of climate change and solutions for mitigation of climate change contraindicate many of the traditional solutions for the mitigation of peak oil. A comprehensive study of peak oil and climate change as inextricably interrelated phenomena has only just begun in earnest in the last couple of years and has not yet become a widely accepted standard of practice. Clearly, recommended solutions for mitigation of peak oil and climate change, studied as inextricably interrelated phenomena, are far more complex than when each is looked at independently. (8)

The Prospect of Energy Decent
Some believe that global energy production can be developed to fill the widening gap between oil consumption and oil production.   Other researchers believe that even if fossil fuels and alternative fuels (solar, wind, geothermal and bio-fuels, etc.) were developed to their full capacity, per capita energy consumption will still decline radically*. Some predict a crash leading to mass extinction in 20 years. Many others believe that such a crash may be avoidable if concerted efforts to increase community resilience supported by government policy are launched immediately. *assume this is because there just won’t be enough as population continues to grow, and also demand in countries not now using much? (Incredible gloom and doom. Fear of something of this magnitude will not drive behavioral change or even interest, given it is not out there in the media - not to say it shouldn’t be - but since it’s not, I don’t think it’s in our best interest to come at the issue through fear.)

How ICA-Denver Can Help Address This Major Issue
Highlighted are words that need definition for average citizens.
Researchers encourage communities to prepare for “energy decent.” They believe that if communities work closely together, designing and implementing bio-mimicry human production models (e.g. permaculture and other models designed to produce no waste) that our lifestyles will be sustainable long into the future, the production of goods and services will be much more efficient, and waste will be completely eliminated.   An example of “no waste” would be useful, given that until I learned how it could work and who was already doing it and how (Media party of thousands at Elitch’s before the DNC began and Folsom Field in Boulder), I couldn’t BEGIN to conceive of it as a reality.

Strengthening local communities by building local resilience implies not only a significant shift toward increased local production of goods and services, but also a substantially increased need for effective collaborative models that will enhance how people work together. ICA-Denver has considerable experience and expertise in just such facilitative models.

Specific Services
1.Facilitation Services
ICA-Denver is known for its expertise in facilitation. Collectively, ICA-Denver associates have rich and expansive experience working with diverse, multicultural groups around the world.   They employ methods that release personal insights, form meaningful conclusions, and build resolve for action. Using proven methods to assist participants to reach sustainable agreements, ICA-Denver facilitates consensus building based on the premise that consensus-based agreements result in commitment to action.

Associates apply image analysis to identify images that dampen creativity and innovation and block individuals and communities from achieving their desired outcomes. Utilizing this process, the Institute of Cultural Affairs and ICA-Denver associates have designed programs that have been replicated across and among communities in many parts of the world. They have trained partner agency personnel, communities, and individuals assuring quality and effective applications of consensus principles. In addition, the Institute of Cultural Affairs’ Imaginal Education design process has been taught in several universities across the U.S. and abroad.

2.Participatory Methods Training
ICA-Denver conducts training in methods of active participation. Through the Technology of Participation^® (ToP^®) courses, ICA-Denver has locally trained hundreds of individuals and teams, including community leaders, youth leaders, nonprofit service providers, government and business employees in effective group methods. Associates also provide on-the-job mentoring and coaching while designing and implementing community planning sessions. Through its international affiliations, ICA-Denver is able to provide facilitators from around the world to best suit the needs of its partners and clients.

Potential Programs
Need to add a section here - i.e. what would ICA Denver’s help look like?

Appendix I- End Notes

1. (Insert) - Letter from CERT / Others???

2. Conservative energy expert Robert Hirsch says the world would need 20 years to prepare for peak oil. But according to some experts, declining global oil production could just be a few years away. Authors of the Hirsch Report were not asked to assess when the global peak is likely to occur; however they do survey the range of forecasts projecting a peak date anywhere from 2005 to 2037. Regardless of the precise date the peak oil arrives, the report concludes that world oil peaking is going to happen, and will likely be abrupt.

3. The Hubbert Curve is one example that shows past and present petroleum extraction rates and forecasts future rates:

Source: The Hubbert Curve for the Whole Earth - How close are we to peak oil? http://www.planetforlife.com/oilcrisis/oilpeak.html

The Hubbert curve projects the rate of oil production over time, and is the main component of Hubbert peak theory <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_peak_theory>. It was first proposed by geophysicist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geophysicist> M. King Hubbert <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._King_Hubbert> in the mid 1950s during his tenure at the Shell Oil Company <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_Oil_Company>. ^{[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubbert_curve>} Note: links in the paper are fine for onscreen reading, but NOT for printed versions - must be spelled out if included. The Hubbert curve has gained a high degree of popularity in the scientific community for predicting the depletion of various natural resources, as well a prominence in peak oil <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peak_oil> discussions.
Basing his calculations on the peak of oil well discovery in 1948, Hubbert used his model in 1956 to accurately predict that oil production in the contiguous United States would peak around 1970. Actual peak oil production in the U.S. occurred in 1972-1973.
4. Increased manufacturing and economic growth in the developing world have caused increased demand for oil.
Increasing demands from India and China (approximately 2.5 billion people- about one third of the world population) are significantly increasing the global demand for oil. Many peak oil researchers predict that this means the price of oil will probably begin to escalate much more sharply than the world has ever seen. Some sources predict $300 per barrel oil by 2010 and $1000 per barrel oil by 2020. The cost of oil in 1988 was about $15 per barrel and in 2008 it peaked at $140 per barrel but has settled to around $110 for the time being.

This represents a near ten-fold increase in the price of crude oil in the last twenty years. There are three crucial important considerations that need to be kept in mind, here. First, the rate of increase in the cost of crude oil is not linear; it is geometric. Second the crude oil extracted in the last two decades was relatively easy to get- “low hanging fruit.” Third, about half of the total global oil supplies have been used up. The volume of total know oil reserves in the world in 1859 was the about volume of Green Bay- off Lake Michigan. The approximate volume of remaining oil reserves today is about half that.

5. Peak oil is neither an issue about the size of oil reserves nor the quantity of oil they contain. It’s about the size of the “tap”- that is, the amount of oil that can be produced in a given time period. When production equals consumption- peak is at hand. When consumption exceeds production, that is when the “tap” cannot supply oil quickly enough to satisfy demand, peak oil has passed and the global price of oil sharply rises.

Since most of the easy-to-get-at oil has already been extracted, much of the remaining oil reserves require much more sophisticated and expensive infrastructure technology to extract. Some of that technology has yet to be researched let alone developed. Many oil extraction experts claim that it will take at least a decade to develop certain technologies (washing and boiling- essentially) to extract oil from shale and the vast tar sands of Canada. It will also require heretofore-undeveloped technologies to extract known oil reserves from a mile beneath the ocean floor and the Antarctic ice shelf. The point is that the technology needed to extract the second half of known oil reserves will be far more sophisticated and much more expensive than extraction technologies used to date to extract the first half of known global oil reserves. Tapping the second half of global oil reserves will be far more difficult and costly than anything the world has ever seen. With these challenges facing the global community of oil consumers- exacerbated by increasing global demand- many experts claim that it will be virtually impossible to produce oil at the same rate that it is currently consumed, let alone deal with increased demand pressures. Public policy designed to lessen environmental impacts of oil extraction would likely reduce availability of sources for crude oil and increase costs even further.

6. Insofar as part of the changes ultimately requested by Hirsch for the U.S. have been already implemented in Europe (and cum grano salis <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grain_of_salt> in Asia). The difference had been much smaller at the start of the 1970s. Europe adapted more after the different Oil shocks and enhanced the changes by introducing much higher taxes on gasoline. The differences now are not only a lack of energy saving technologies, in car building and usage, passive insulation of buildings in the U.S.. The traditional significant differences in the setup and density of settlements, share of suburbs, use of public transport and consumer behavior have been widening. Taking this into account, a peak oil shock as outlined by Hirsch will have a much more severe outcome in the U.S. compared to other parts of the world, especially Europe.

7. Other very different policy related economic dynamics such as deregulated banking in the U.S. (leading to bank failures and bailouts) and international investment policies (trade liberalization, privatization and austerity, for example), contribute to economic instability as well. Critics of corporate globalization (such as Joseph Stiglitz (Nobel prize in economics 2000, Globalization and Its Discontents, The Roaring Ninties), Jeffrey Sacks (The End of Poverty), John Perkins (Confessions of and Economic Hit Man), and so on) are concerned that international trade agreements such as NAFTA, FTAA, GATT, and so on have contributed to record high trade deficits in recent years caused by imports of outsourced goods and services that vastly outweigh exports. This, they say, imposes a significant downward pressure on the value of the U.S. dollar in the global market place and has a destabilizing effect on the entire global economic system.

Global population increase and the practice of monoculture and patenting genetically modified organisms in the corporate agricultural sector are fourth and fifth significant economic factors that many analysts say contribute to global resource depletion and radically reduced biological diversity, respectively. These dynamics, some analysts fear, ultimately contribute to further destabilizing the global economic system.

Nevertheless, many analysts are expressing growing concern that within a decade, the interrelationship between peak oil and climate change very likely will far outweigh the other factors mentioned above in contributing to global economic instability. Many analysts are worried that exponential increases in the price of oil will lead to a major global economic depression where the highest users of petroleum products will be the hardest hit.

8. Climate change, specifically global warming, is affected by increased global oil consumption.   Many researchers predict that resource depletion and climate change will lead to significant economic instability. Some analysts think that recent events may portend a profound economic impact that a looming energy crisis will engender on a worldwide basis. Other economic analysts see the precipitating factors of the current economic downturn as unrelated to resource depletion and climate change (cf. note 7). Still, many observers warn that the three related pillars of global concern: peak oil, climate change and economic instability require unprecedented attention. They suggest that there is much evidence that because all three of these dynamics (in addition to those indicated in note 7- and others) are occurring simultaneously, it would be prudent to encourage communities to prepare now for severe energy limits.