Enacting Kyoto Protocal City by City

[news]

Mayor urging other U.S. cities to enact Kyoto Protocol

seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/212425_kyoto17.html

[sage]

I like the idea of doing this as well. Can we get the city of Azusa involved in this as well? I wonder if it is possible to do this State by State as well?


Here is another related article:

Study highlights global decline - The most comprehensive survey ever into the state of the planet concludes that human activities threaten the Earth's ability to sustain future generations.
news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4391835.stm

[ProfessorM]

Here is an interesting theory that I thought would be interesting to bring up.

Leaving suburbia, entering hell
Peak oil crisis will turn OTP subdivisions into slums atlanta.creativeloafing.com/news_humbug.html

[Sparky]

Interesting and it would be scarry if even only a little part of it happened. This is something that probably has never even been discussed by most Americans, including myself. I went to see the link at the bottom of the page and it did not work. So I did a quick search to see if I could find the correct URL and here is what I found under the authors name:

jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com/

www.kunstler.com/

[Sparky]

Here are a couple more links that I found while looking at this issue. Some are not directly related:

The Coming Global Oil Crisis
www.hubbertpeak.com/

Resurrecting Classical Land Use Patterns
www.villageat.org/

Car Free
www.carfree.com/

Notes On Human Stupidity
piltdownman.blogspot.com/

www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.net/BreakingNews.html

peakoil.com/

[sage]

I recently read an article related to this that sumarizes some of the points. The Long Emergency - What's going to happen as we start running out of cheap gas to guzzle?
www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/7203633?pageid=rs.NewsArchive&pageregion=mainRegion&rnd=1111677340423&has-player=true

Gesh, if something like this happens, I think that we would have to turn our park into a community vegetable garden. Imagine the number of industries that would just fall apart....the airline industry, manufacturing, trucking, etc. The US should make sure that we have at least a thousand years supply of oil for emergency vehicles, like fire trucks, police, etc. Unemployment would snowball into something way bigger than the deep depression of the 20's. Would we become more high tech (which is also dependant on petrolium) or would be go back to horse and buggy days? As a country, we have been irresponsible with our resources. It is too bad that our country does not really believe in protecting its resources for future generations as well. I wonder if it would also mean the end of space travel. Think about it, even our window frames are made out of petrolium based products. Of course, there are other sources of energy, but they are not inexpensive to make or develop, or necessarily as efficient. It even takes petrolium to make the solar cells.

[ProfessorM]

Oil for transportation is only the tip of the ice berg when it comes to the trouble we may be in. It's true that getting around in our car driven cities will become difficult and that transport of vital supplies will be challenged. But oil is far more pervasive in our society than we sometimes realize.

Possibly the biggest threat to our lifestyles from a constriction in oil supplies is the production of food. The fertilizers, herbicides and pesticides that modern agriculture relies on are petroleum based. Without these chemicals the intensity of farming we rely on is impossible. To boot the vast majority of our food comes from industrial scale farming made possible by automation, powered by gas. Stripped of the chemicals that make industrial food production possible, we will need to revert to a much more labor intensive method of food production... it will change the face of our society making us much less industrial and more agricultural. And some of the best agricultural land that we had has been replaced by homes and office buildings.

Shelter will also become a challenge. As gas becomes more expensive so will building supplies. Beyond direct petroleum products in the construction process there are the products which require a tremendous amount of energy to make, cement, glass, aluminum, steel, I suspect we will need to rethink how we house ourselves. Monster starter mansions in the suburbs may not only become impossible to sustain, they may become impossible to build.

With all the options on the table available as solutions, they will not be able to replace oil in all its tasks. We will be forced to adapt our life styles to suit the reality of finite energy reserves.

-Solar and wind power will power your lights and small appliances, but powering hot water tanks, stoves and heating your house is, at this point, too demanding for the typical installation.

-Micro-hydro, geothermal and tidal energy may be better a fulfilling your desires as they can produce more energy, but they are location based, not the answer for most people.

-Hydrogen is a great tool for storing energy in a portable state (though really flammable). Unfortunately, making hydrogen uses more electricity than it will later release, so as an energy source it's a bit of a bust.

-Personal nuclear reactors a la cold fusion? Imagine the implications of equipping a home with what could amount to a personal nuclear bomb.

[Sparky]

I think that this is a topic that most people are affraid to even consider the possibilities, not alone, plan for the future, which in this case, is not that far off. I guess we will just panic after it is too late. It is kind of a disfunctional way to approach the problem and could lead to the downfall of the financial ability of this country. But in general, I think people don't want to consider it or plan for it.

Mass transit will become more important in the future as well as nuclear energy.

I do wonder if Azusa will be better off than the other cities in the area, being that Azusa has its own water an power company. The power coming from the dam. The water coming from the river. I can't wait to get better shopping options in Azusa as well.

[surfermom]

I think that Azusa should plan for this, even though our country is not. We should make plans to become as pedestrian and bike friendly as possible. It is vital that the downtown be developed into a downtown that we could do our regular day to day shopping. I think that the Azusa Gold Line will help us to work towards a reliable public transportation system. Once that is open, we should look into the possibility of getting a small bus that looks like a trolly car to pick up people at central locations around the city to the Gold Line locations and downtown. That would reduce the need to use a car. I'm going to use the Gold Line to work and back once it has been opened. And I have decided that my next car is not going to be a SUV. I'm willing to do what I can. I think that we will be forced to anyways. Might as well start now.