If I have a son someday, remind me to tell him how much he does not want to join Boy Scouts. From Harper’s weekly review:

The Boy Scout National Jamboree was held at Fort A.P. Hill, Virginia. The Senate passed the Support Our Scouts Act of 2005, guaranteeing the Boy Scouts the right to use federal land whether the organization discriminates against atheists and gays or not. The Senate also noted that holding the Jamboree on a military base gave U.S. soldiers the opportunity to practice the “preparation, logistics, and leadership” needed in combat.

Check out this creepy photo of Bush speaking at the Jamboree with a giant ARMY balloon in the background. Pretty blatant. And just how offensive is that balloon with the head of a Native American chief? Ugh.

I’m outraged over the House of Representatives’ passage of both CAFTA and the energy bill in the past week.

First, CAFTA. The final vote was 217-215. The first vote, 47 min. before that was 180-175. In that 47 minutes, pro-CAFTA Republican lawmakers scrambled around the floor and out in the hallways to bribe other Reps over to their side. “GOP leaders told their rank and file that if they wanted anything, now was the time to ask…” Yup, this is what democracy looks like in America. Count on CAFTA to extend all the rotten impacts of NAFTA. This really sucks.

Second, the energy bill. I found it tragically ironic that the night I was talking with new people at our latest Portland Peak Oil meeting on the imperative of conservation and preparedness for the future of scarce fossil fuels, the energy bill had just passed - bloated to the gills with oil and gas industry perqs and stripped of even the acknowledgement that climate change exists, much less stipulating any action in facing it. At the last moment, after conference had ended, Tom DeLay went and inserted $1.5 billion in pork. Uncommon Thought has the full scoop here. It’s amazing to me that the vast majority of Americans will have no idea what kind of legislation passed.

• One of my biggest pet peeves is when people don’t do what they say they’re going to do, especially when they honestly seemed really eager do said thing. Oh, and when people don’t respond to imperative e-mails requiring a one-minute reply. Hate this. When people you know check their e-mail every day don’t get back to a simple question for four days or…never at all.

• Spent five hours earlier helping a friend pack and schlep moving boxed. Right now, I’m sitting outside at an indie coffee shop in nineties weather. Just had a bottled IPA and it made me so freakin’ drowsy and the world so dreamy that I’m now drinking a strong iced coffee to wake up. Tonight we, Portland Peak Oil, are showing “The End of Suburbia”, a peak oil doc, in SE Portland and I expect 80+ people, including many local sustainability movers and shakers. Should be a blast. I love this city.

• Saturday, Jeremy’s leaving for a two-week tech (Oracle) training in, get this, Bushkill, Pennsylvania. Ironically, it’s a fairly conservative area. I kept accidentally calling it Killbush, PA until Jeremy told me I better get it right or the Secret Service will be after me.

• There’re all sorts of entries around the blogosphere where pro-choicers are admitting their resignation due to the Roberts Supreme Court nomination. I too feel it’s only a matter of time before Roe v. Wade is overturned and abortion becomes a state by state decision, which will be a tragedy for lower income women. I’ve outlined my thoughts on abortion already here (I do not think abortion is “a necessary evil” like many; I don’t think there’s anything evil at all about it - in fact, I side with this post) and all I gotta say in light of Roberts is “blue cohosh”.

• I’m disappointed that nine inch nails and Tori Amos tickets this summer are over $40 each. Screw that. (Although I did pay $65 for Dead Can Dance’s reunion show in September in Seattle.) Recently discovered music I enjoy: Gas, Eluvium, Esem, Secede, and Proem - yeah, pretty much all IDM and ambient.

• I’ve been going for many long rides lately on my new graduation bike. I like to ride even in the crazy heat, and always for an hour or more at a time. It’s weird… I really get off on the sheer determination of it.

Gotta run.

This post, at a recently discovered, terrific blog, really touched me today: The Worst Day.

I haven’t blogged much about politics this year because 1) it seems there are a zillion other blogs that write about political issues each day better than I could, and 2) my disgust at this administration and the world’s power elite has already been made obvious and I often just don’t feel like repeating myself ad nauseum. This is not to say I don’t still follow current events. Of course I do, probably with a more careful attention. I can see more clearly than ever before the motives behind atrocity and corruption.

A recent poll asked Americans what one word they would use to describe Bush and the most popular negative was the word “incompetent”. That struck Jeremy and I as understandable, but terribly misinformed. This administration is actually quite competent in furthering its agenda …it just doesn’t share the same agenda as many Americans. That someone would call this administration “incompetent” reveals the degree to which that person still has faith that the federal government shares his agenda. The administration’s actions are very intentional, and with that much power, effective propaganda and wealth at their disposal, who wouldn’t be competent at achieving what they in fact desired? I would use the word “dangerous” to describe Bush’s presidency. Dangerous to living beings, rights, and real dignity.

I think I just feel a certain amount of resignation, but not in the newbie sense of “oh it’s all so overwhelming, what could I possibly do about it all” nor in the weary, middle-aged activist way. My resignation is more akin to an acceptance that civilization is really fucked up and that we human beings are generally behaving in a terribly suicidal fashion and I’m not convinced we can ever get our shit together before we either wipe ourselves out or the planet wipes us out. Resignation that feels like this is the path we’re heading down, and I don’t know if a course correction will ever happen. Now, I believe awakening is possible, but I don’t see how the world’s humans are going to undergo some mass awakening. For example, I think that if Americans were to rise up en masse against this occupation in Iraq and demand a change in leadership, it would be effective. However, I don’t think Americans rising up en masse like that would ever happen.

I’m completely convinced that in the next 10 years, there will be substantial infrastructure and economic collapse (see my recent peak oil entry). I see more being possible in the realm of activism and change then than now. More ecologically sustainable living will become imperative. Also, in unstable times, there is more urgency around community building and spritual awakening. Then again, we could also see a great deal of the opposite.

That all said (and very cursorily, at that; I apologize), I’ve been finding that the most satisfying and difference-making activism I can think of is that on a local and small scale. Years ago, I used to have this huge sense of duty to make a large-scale, lasting difference in the world; that my life would feel incomplete without that. I don’t feel that way at all anymore. My integrity now lies with loving and supporting what’s here and now and sustainable.

I was going to blog about all sorts of things tonight, but it’s too damn hot. See, it’s 90 degrees and it rarely reaches 90 in the Northwest and we don’t have air conditioning. Ugh, my Pitta is full-on aggravated.

Here is one link, the best news I read all weekend: All-Female African Village Still Thriving After 10 Years (via Heather Corinna).

The all-female village of Umoja, Kenya is celebrating its tenth anniversary this year as a prosperous community after ten years of struggle and opposition. Umoja, meaning “unity” in Swahili, was founded ten years ago by a group of homeless women who had been left by their husbands because they were raped. The husbands claimed that their wives had shamed them and their villages…

Do read the whole article. I posted lots of links on the sidebar to bear us through this weather. The ugly dog is my new favorite thing.

Entry long time coming…

Part I:

President Bush has been briefed on the end of cheap oil… have you?

We will soon start seeing ads put out by Chevron for its new campaign: Will You Join Us. Rather than advertising some new “high-performing” gasoline, this campaign is a public admission of the end of cheap oil and a PR move designed to get YOU, Mr. and Ms. Public, to consider the oil companies your allies as the shit hits the fan over the next few years. Get ready for a probable economic downturn this winter.

For those of you still in the dark (I blogged about peak oil a few months ago), here it is in a nutshell: there’s strong evidence indicating that the globe may have reached peak oil, which means we’ve pumped out half of the world’s known supplies. While one’s first reaction is “So? That means one half is left,” the bad news is that after peak, oil is much more difficult and expensive to extract and refine. Thus, the oil we’ve been using for the past 70+ years has been the light, sweet, “gusher”, cheap stuff. The explosively exponential rise in human population over the past 70 years has been predicated on cheap, easily accessible oil. In fact, economic growth as we know it is dependent upon cheap energy. Think of everything from auto transportation, small and large-scale shipping, plastics, medical infrastructure, industrial agriculture that uses huge quantities of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, etc. Did you know that for every one calorie the average American consumes, more than ten calories of fossil energy went into putting it on her plate? Well, things are about to change radically.

Here’s the kicker - there is no combination of renewable and alternative fuels that could possibly ramp us up to present levels of consumption in the short period of time we have. Solar, wind, hydropower, biomass/biodiesel, all of these are great on a small-scale basis, within your property, neighborhood or small town. But none of them are going to deliver what cheap oil does with the short time and the large scale we have. I’ve noticed many people, while willing to acknowledge the fact of peak oil, seem to have this vague notion that magically we’re just going to roll on over to alternative fuel sources. There’s this dangerous sort of blind faith that we’ll all be taken care of. Upon research and honest reflection, though, a myriad of serious questions arise. Do we really think we’re going to convert 200 million or so cars in the U.S. overnight? Do we really think that we have the land that it takes to grow the amount of biomass necessary to fuel existing infrastructure?

As far as other fuels, coal is the last thing we want to be burning more of what with global warming, nuclear is a really pricey and scary option, natural gas has peaked, and hydrogen is a joke (it’s a fuel carrier, not a fuel source). Still think that the market will save us? Read this and think about energy return on investment (EROI). My point is that we’re undoubtedly going to experience a scaling back and the only question is one of severity. Will there be a massive crash or more of a “long emergency”?

The more I read and talk with others, the more my entire perspective on the future shifts. I am firmly convinced that life, culture, society, and the world as we know them will not look like this five/ten years from now. Peak oil is what I refer to as a “mother issue”, meaning that other issues fall into line behind it; it makes a lot of usual concerns secondary in comparison. For example - Environmental: Peak oil is the crowning issue here. If Americans in the Northwest are freezing through a winter ten years from now due to inaccessible heating fuels, they’re not going to think twice about chopping down the last of the old growth trees or using dirty-burning coal to cook their food. - Political: The invasion of Iraq, the U.S.’ buddy-buddy relationship with Saudi Arabia, China’s expanding miltary and alliance with Venezuela - all of these point back to securing precious remaining oil supplies. This is the “perpetual warfare in our lifetimes” that Bush and Cheney were talking about. This and the implementation of neoliberal economies are the real agendas underlying the war on terrorism. - Societal: The U.S. government/neo-cons/FBI/CIA know what’s (not) coming down the pipeline. The Patriot Act, the bankruptcy bill, the robbing of the Treasury… all of these are steps towards ensuring that the American citizenry will be as controlled, helpless and compliant as possible when things really start to turn. We cannot depend on our national government, only on local community.

The end of cheap energy is not a maybe; it’s not a conspiracy theory, and its ramifications are already starting to be felt. A really great book to start with, for those seeking more info, is Richard Heinberg’s Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World. Also check out the book’s web site. Read Here Comes the Nutcracker. In addition, I furl (publically bookmark) web sites and articles about energy and peak oil all the time - keep up here.

Part II:

In light of all of this, the recommendation is a focus on localization and community-building; what Heinberg refers to as “building lifeboats”. The past few months, I’ve been involved with a local group we call Portland Peak Oil to discuss and prepare for the consequences of the coming end of cheap oil. The core people met through Meetup.com about a year ago and I joined when there were 10 people or so in April. In early June, a number of us went to see Mike Ruppert of From the Wilderness speak (for three hours about upcoming peak oil-induced global conflict), and I got to make an announcement from the stage about our local group. A week later at our monthly meeting, 40+ people showed.

Since mid-June, we in the core circle have begun forming working groups like ‘Preparedness’ and ‘Public Outreach’ and discussed the formulation of a steering committee to manage group decisions and business. A local church donated use of their huge dining hall every Wednesday night and we’ve decided to take advantage of the free space by holding events, speakers, film showings and the like there each week. When we decided to use a laptop, a projector, and a white sheet on the wall to show “The End of Suburbia”, a peak oil documentary, free last Wed. evening, people in the group tacked fliers all over the city, posted to online community calendars, and one of us even got Portland-based talk show host Thom Hartmann to announce the showing on KPOJ, the local Air America affiliate. The result: over 90 people came to the film and many signed up to return and get involved.

I’ll doing the bulk of the work to launch a web site at portlandpeakoil.org - this is my major July project. The group is growing so quickly that we core members are racing to keep up! New members who have already heard of peak oil are so excited when they come to meetings because this is a terribly scary future we’re facing and it’s a relief to 1) know that others are knowledgeable and proactive and 2) that there’s lots of work, not just worrying, to be done. Topics of interest include permaculture, natural building, pooling skills, getting to know one another, supporting local vendors, our financial futures, and more. I’ll be blogging about group activity every so often; stay tuned.

Those in the Portland area wanting to get involved, e-mail me and I’ll send you details about our e-mail list and upcoming meetings and activities!

My heart goes out to London, one of my favorite cities, today. The attack today is really sad. Roger and others, I hope you and your family and friends are alright.