Convergence 13: Transition Strategies

Posted on February 24 by Josef

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This looks set to be an amazing event…

Cultivate Update

cultivate your self | community | world

Friday 22nd Feb 2008

Convergence 13: Transition Strategies

Post Carbon Cities, Transition Towns and Eco-Villages 

3rd to the 7th of April 2008 | Festival Pass: €120 until March 10th (€150 thereafter)

Bookings 01 674 5773 or Online

Attention climate activists, community workers, environmentalists, academics, change agents and cultural creatives, if you are at the leading edge of sustainability, or want to be, then this festival is not to be missed. There are only 100 tickets available for this timely event.  Book now!

Convergence brings together people and ideas to explore how communities can build resilience in a future of energy and climate uncertainty.


Featuring:

  • The Community Powerdown Symposium, two days of workshops and discussion
  • Lecture by Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities
  • Film and talk with Megan Quinn Bachman, Community Solutions, Ohio, the co-writer and co-director of The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
  • Fantastic networking opportunities  

Full Schedule 

The Rethinking Lecture : Rethinking the City for an Uncertain Future

Thursday 3rd April | 19.30 – 21.30 | €18
Daniel Lerch is the author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, the first major municipal guidebook on peak oil and global warming. He is a program manager with Post Carbon Institute, and has worked on urban planning issues for over ten years in the public, private and non-profit sectors

Vital Viewing : The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006)
Friday 4th April  | 18.00 – 19.30 | €5 (included in lecture price)
This documentary film explores the economic collapse and eventual recovery of Cuba following the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991. Following the dramatic steps taken by both the Cuban government and citizens, its major themes include urban agriculture, energy independence and sustainability. The film was directed by Faith Morgan, and co produced by our main speaker, Megan Quinn

The Transition Lecture : Plan C: Community Strategies for Oil Depletion and Climate Change
Friday 4th April | 20.00 – 22.00 | €18
Megan Quinn Bachman, Community Solution, Ohio, USA
Introduced by Ben Brangwyn, Transition Network, Totnes, UK  

The Convergence Symposium : Skilling Up For Powerdown 

Saturday 5th April | 9.30 – 17.00 and Sunday 6th April | 11.00-17.00 | €120 (Includes a light lunch on both days) (full details)

Talks, workshops and World Café discussions on how we communicate and accelerate community responses to oil depletion and climate change

With John Gormley, Davie Philip, Daniel Lerch, Megan Quinn, Ben Brangwyn, Jonathan Dawson, Anne B Ryan, Graham Strouts, Professor Peadar Kirby, Paul Allen, Tim Helwig Larson, Seamus Hoyne, Adam de Eyto, Magnus Wolfe Murray, Bruce Darrell, Dave Yaffey, Graham Strouts, Pat Fleming, Chris Chapman, Oisín Coghlan and David Korowicz

An Introduction to the Irish Transition Network
Saturday 5th April | 18.30 – 20.00 | €Free
Special networking meeting for communities involved or interested in Transition initiatives in Ireland

The Powerdown Lounge

Saturday 5th April | 19.30- 00.00 | €Free in

The basement bar in Crush at the bottom of S. Great Georges St. will be the venue for this year’s Lounge.  Enjoy local brews from the Porterhouse, chilled out music and visuals and relax with festival participants.

Convergence Events at the Village (Cloughjordan, North Tipperary) – Monday April 7th

Rural Transitions Open Space: “How will our towns and villages reduce carbon emissions and build resilience in an era of climate and energy uncertainty?”

14.00 – 17.00
Organised in association with the Cloughjordan Development Association and the Cloughjordan Business Network


Vital Viewing: The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil
18.00 – 19.30
See above

Public Presentation: Cloughjordan, a Village in Transition

20.00 – 22.00
Local, national and international speakers on how Cloughjordan can prosper in an era of climate and energy uncertainty.
Organised by the Cultivate Centre with Sustainable Projects Ireland, the Cloughjordan Development Association, the Cloughjordan Business Network and SERVE
 

Biographies 


Megan Quinn is from the Community Solutions, a non-profit
organization in the US focusing on achieving sustainability by reducing
energy consumption in the household sectors of food, transportation,
and housing. Megan co-wrote and co-produced her organisation’s
award-winning documentary, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil (2006).



Daniel Lerch is the author of ‘Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty’,
the first major municipal guidebook on peak oil and global warming.
Daniel is a program manager with Post Carbon Institute, and has worked
on urban planning issues for over ten years in the public, private and
non-profit sectors.



See also:

Cheat Neutral

Posted on February 5 by Josef

Tags: , , , , , | 1 comment

I’ve written before about the carbon offsetting con and in my update I mentioned the wonderful Cheat Neutral site.

Now I figured I should embed their splendid video here too for your delight and enjoyment:

Their about page is also great, and so I reproduce that here too…

About Cheatneutral

Cheatneutral is about offsetting infidelity. We’re the only people doing it, and Cheatneutral is a joke.

Carbon offsetting is about paying for the right to carry on emitting carbon.
The Carbon offset industry sold £60 million of offsets last year, and is
rapidly growing. Carbon offsetting is also a joke.

Find out more:

Five ways that Cheatneutral is like carbon offsetting:

  1. Cheatneutral tries to make it seem acceptable to cheat on your partner.
    In the same way, carbon offsetting tries to make it acceptable to carry
    on emitting excess carbon.
  2. Cheatneutral doesn’t really do much to reduce the amount of cheating in
    the world. Carbon offsetting does very little to reduce global carbon
    emissions.
  3. It seems impossible to measure how much harm cheating on someone does.
    With carbon offsetting, there is currently no practically feasible way
    of measuring how much carbon offset projects actually save.
  4. Having Cheatneutral’s services available could actually encourages you
    to cheat more. If the carbon offsetters persuade you that it’s possible
    to offset your emissions, you’ll carry on emitting excess carbon through
    your lifestyle rather than think about reducing your emissions.
  5. Cheatneutral is fundamentally the wrong way to go about solving problems
    with your relationships. Carbon offsetting is fundamentally the wrong
    way to go about tackling climate change.

Two ways which Cheatneutral is not like carbon offsetting:

  1. We don’t make any money out of Cheatneutral. Offset companies in the
    voluntary carbon market take a cut of every transaction and make a
    profit.
  2. Cheatneutral is a joke we thought up in the pub. Carbon offsetting
    presents itself as a credible solution to climate change, described by
    the government’s chief scientist Sir David King as
    “the most severe problem that we are facing today, more serious even
    than the threat of terrorism…”

What can I do instead?

  • Measure your carbon footprint. There are good resources to do this online —
    visit www.resurgence.org/carboncalculator for a good, detailed analysis of your footprint. For a slightly quicker calculator try www.carbongym.co.uk, or www.chooseclimate.org to look in more depth at the CO2 emissions associated with flying.
  • Think about reducing your carbon footprint. There are lots of easy ways to reduce the emissions from various areas of your life. You might want to think about your home,
    transport and what you eat and consume. There are lots of resources on the internet to help you reduce your emissions.
  • Learn about Contraction and Convergence. C&C is a framework for agreeing a global cap on carbon emissions. We believe that to make our individual sacrifices count, we need a global framework that caps the amount of carbon emitted, creates a timeframe for reducing emissions to a safe level, and distributes carbon credits equitably. C&C satisfies all of these, and would make carbon trading fair and effective. Good resources are www.climatejustice.org.uk and www.gci.org.uk
  • Use your influence as a citizen. You could lobby your MP for the adoption of C&C and telling them you are concerned about climate change. You can also talk to and lobby your elected representatives from local and regional and European government. You can find out who your MP is at www.theyworkforyou.com. Think about joining a pressure group, lobby group or charity that you feel shares and promotes your concerns.
  • Get together with your friends or family and discuss what you think. How we face up to the new challenges of climate change should be something everyone has an opinion on. Although individual action is needed, we also need ways to make government and businesses take a lead in responsibly dealing with emission reduction.



See also:

What A Way To Go: Life At The End Of Empire

Posted on November 7 by Josef

Tags: , , , , , , , , , | 1 comment

I just watched this.

As it says at the beginning it is very dense, but overall I think it is really rather good.

For more info about the movie visit the website

Trailer

Peak Moment 72: “What a Way to Go” - Meet the Filmmakers

It was on google video but seems to have gone:



See also:

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