July 19, 2006 at 4:58 pm
· Filed under Energy Descent, Food
Re-localising our communities and food systems
Richard Heinberg and David Holmgren
Monday September 4th 2006 8.30am to 5.30pm Northcote Town Hall, 189 High Street Northcote
While the historic peaking and decline in world oil supply is becoming more widely discussed in the media, it is a bad news story to rival climate change. Richard Heinberg […]
Permalink
July 14, 2006 at 2:39 am
· Filed under Emergency preparedness
Writes Philli in California:
Community Emergency Respoonce Team (CERT) is a federally sponsored program, by Citizen Corps, to increase emergency preparedness in any and all US communities. It's a fabulous and little-known organizing tool. Any community can start up a CERT program. A good way to maximize the effectiveness of the program is for the city […]
Permalink
July 6, 2006 at 1:01 am
· Filed under Housing and stuctures, Suburbia
The Congress for the New Urbanism took place on Rhode Island 1-4 June 2006.
From wikipedia:
New urbanism is an urban design movement whose popularity increased beginning in the 1980s and early 1990s.
There are some common elements of new urbanist design. New urbanist neighborhoods are walkable, and are designed to contain a diverse range of housing […]
Permalink
July 4, 2006 at 6:16 pm
· Filed under Housing and stuctures, Local Economy and Livelihoods
Jago Dodson informs us via Energy Bulletin of his new report, written with colleague Neil Sipe, examining the spatial vulnerability of Australian urban areas to fuel price and mortgage interest rate rises.
An earlier paper "established a basic method for assessing oil vulnerability via a spatial index that measured a combination of car dependence and socio-economic […]
Permalink
June 30, 2006 at 5:28 pm
· Filed under Local Economy and Livelihoods, Suburbia
An August 2002 conference in Casey, Building Sustainable Communities on the Urban Fringe brought together council planners from around Victoria, particularly the outer suburbs, as well as representatives of State Government and academia.
Topics included:
Local case studies highlighting the relationship between planning, community development and wellbeing;
Examples of successful integrated planning;
Exploring strategies for achieving integrated local […]
Permalink
June 28, 2006 at 10:07 pm
· Filed under Housing and stuctures
I was quite blown away by these stats — based on US figures — but no doubt quite similar here in Australia. About half the energy used in the US goes into constructing, heating, lighting and maintaining the nation's buildings.
That's taken from an article by the Rocky Mountain Institute's Greg Franta based on IEA […]
Permalink
June 26, 2006 at 8:24 pm
· Filed under Housing and stuctures
I'd like to draw your attention to two reviews of the book Continuous Productive Urban Landscapes (Architectural Press, 2005) edited by British architect Andre Viljoen. I met Andre a year ago in Dublin after he presentated at the FEASTA Food Security in an Energy Scarce World conference, so while I haven't read the book I […]
Permalink
June 8, 2006 at 1:52 am
· Filed under Community building, Energy Descent
This is a short video interview of Megan Quinn, Outreach Director of The Community Solution, inteviewed by Davie Philip of Sustainable Ireland. The interview took place at the Local Solutions to the Energy Dilemma conference in New York on April 27-29 2006.
Sustainable Ireland will be launching a 'Powerdown Project' in the near future […]
Permalink
June 5, 2006 at 11:02 am
· Filed under Education, Energy Descent
Megan Quinn sent through an article containing this quote from Karen Berney, a US-based community health consultant:
“The goal of Peak Oil education is to bring about change in people’s knowledge, attitudes, and practices,” Berney said. “To do so they must take ownership of the problem, and develop their own solutions.”
She added that adults […]
Permalink
June 1, 2006 at 2:01 pm
· Filed under Community building
This came in the mail from the wonderful Sustainability Street project of Vox Bandicoot - a concept which started in Darebin and is spreading around the world!:
Calling all Westgarth residents …
Let's make Westgarth's streets Sustainability Streets!
Would you like to have friends round the corner, grow your own vegies, or have fun learning about […]
Permalink