Peak Oil (1)

I assume that I will be writing about peak oil more than once, and hence number the title. Peak Oil (1).

This is a topic of interest and concern to me, and is, really, in a relationship with climate change. The two sisters that will change the world.

We went down to the Cactus Festival a week ago, and had a great time riding on a very peculiar twirling boot ride and eating cotton candy. I also met and talked to a small group of people who are trying to organize Dundas as a transition town. I, of course, was standing there with a ridiculous plastic battery operated bubble making gun (wondering how my kids had suckered me into that one). Regardless, it was nice to make contact, I was glad they were there. I have regularly checked their website and it has not be updated recently.

The idea behind a transition town is that, when the effects of peak oil begin to be felt, we are going to have to live more simply and sustainably. Gardening, permaculture, chickens in the backyard. Bartering.

What is peak oil? Good question! Why don't we hear about this more?

Very simply, the concept of peak oil is "the point in time when global oil production has reached a maximum. From here on, production rates will decline and our modern economy which was based on cheap and abundant fossil fuel will have to switch to renewable sources of energy." (quoted from Dundas in Transition brochure)

Essentially, it becomes more and more difficult and expensive to get oil out of the ground (e.g. tar sands, deep sea drilling), the cost of oil and gas will become extremely high and have a serious affect on the cost of goods, the economy, etc.

Lettuce driven to Ontario in trucks will be financially prohibitive. Heating homes and driving cars extremely expensive.

So I find it a worrying topic, as I look around my life and see how dependent I personally am on oil and gas, and I realize that oil is finite and becoming more difficult to get.

Nuclear power plant in the tar sands, anyone? yay.

Movie ending angst

I do love seeing movies, and watch many at home.

The other day Jeff and I went to a movie theater and saw Inception. Great movie, I really enjoyed, and will need to see it again to understand all of the ins and outs. The ending, and I will not go into any detail at all to save the movie for those who have not seen it, provided me with some angst. I googled "Inception movie ending" so I could have a deeper understanding of the end, but, really, it will require another viewing.

The movie that really contributes to my movie ending angst was Remember Me. Ugh. I am a sucker for the romantic comedy, and while I did not make this particular choice did sit down to watch it for its entire 113 minute running time. The basic plot is boy and girl both individually suffer from horrible tragedy in their personal lives, boy and girl meet through a strange set of circumstances, they fall in love, their deep love provides some healing ... yay, happy ending. Unfortunately, as the happy ending unfolds, ominous music plays. Uh oh. The boy (actually he is 22, his name is Tyler, and he is played by the actor who plays Cedric Digory/Edward Cullen... handsome, pale, bushy eyebrows) is in one of the twin towers, the date is September 11, 2001, and he dies. What a waste of time.

Why did I watch that movie? All of the energy I put into watching Tyler confront his Dad, audit classes, ride in bike, fall in love... to watch him die. I do get that tragedy occurs, sad things happen; however, this particular ending was weak, contrived, ruined the story, and gave me movie ending angst.

Climate change: I don't get it

I don't get it. There is a massive ice island, four times the size of Manhattan (in other words, really really big) has broken off from Greenland's Petermann Glacier. Extreme drought in Russia, massive monsoon floods in Pakistan. To me, clear signs that the climate is changing, the planet warming. And meanwhile, climate change talks in Bonn moved the global discussion backwards from the extremely weak Copenhagen talks. Argh.

I don't get it.

The tragedy is that there are so many things we can do, at every level, to radically change the situation. And yet the world sits, and doesn't change its behaviour, and poor people and nations are going to suffer and wealthy nations and corporations are going to grasp and struggle over the few remaining drops of oil buried deep within the earth.

Lawn mania

We returned from a holiday yesterday. It seemed as though we were away for a long time, but in reality it was only about 10 days. The kids and I did a loop of cottage country - driving north east to a friends' cottage and then south west to a family camp.

Not much has changed here in the suburbs. The cars are in their driveways, and come and go, just like ours. The lawns are neatly kept, with various levels of neatness and beauty. No surprisingly, our lawn is, well, on the low level of beauty - in the eyes of the neighbours at least. I kind of like it, as there are many natural plants and flowers (some people call these natural plants weeds, but their perspective has been shaped by a distorted lawn ideology).

We were allowing the natural plants to grow unabated, and truly there were some monster dandelions. At the recent neighbourhood get together, we were kindly mocked for the disarray, so we made some efforts to improve the look. Compared to our neighbours'lawns, it is a weed forest... or a weed rebellion, quietly occurring here in the suburbs.

Hey hey, ho ho, lawn mania has got to go!