Join us as we bike around New York City with Doug Gordan, the co-host of The War on Cars Podcast. We explore a wide array of fascinating topics about reshaping our communities and reclaiming our public spaces. From his passionate advocacy work and the undeniable social benefits of choosing bikes over cars, this rider story is a thought-provoking journey into the world of urban mobility and sustainable transportation.

    Riding bikes and walking are critical for lowering carbon emissions.

    Declaring a War on Cars - YouTube

    Nate Hagens, the director of the Institute for the Study of Energy & Our Future, ran the numbers: “One barrel of oil has the same amount of energy of up to 25,000 hours of hard human labor, which is 12.5 years of work. At $20 per hour, this is $500,000 of labor per barrel.” A barrel of oil costs about seventy dollars at this week’s market price.

    What do our lives and our world look like without fossil fuels? For example, imagine the full process and energy that goes into the flour used in a simple loaf of bread.

    To Save the Planet, Should We Really Be Moving Slower? | The New Yorker

    The 2000-watt society is an environmental vision, first introduced in 1998 by the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich (ETH Zurich), which pictures the average First World citizen reducing their overall average primary energy usage rate to no more than 2,000 watts (i.e. 2 kWh per hour or 48 kWh per day) by the year 20502050, without lowering their standard of living.

    The concept addresses not only personal or household energy use, but the total for the whole society, including embodied energy, divided by the population.

    Two thousand watts is approximately the current world average rate of total primary energy use. This compared, in 2008, to averages of around 6,000 watts in western Europe, 12,000 watts in the United States, 1,500 watts in China, 1,000 watts in India, 500 watts in South Africa and only 300 watts in Bangladesh. Switzerland itself, then using an average of around 5,000 watts, was last a 2000-watt society in the 1960s.

    2000-watt society - Wikipedia

    It’s impressive how large wind turbines have gotten, and, as a result, how far the prices have come down. The only limiting factor seems to be the speed at which they can be produced.

    Wind turbines are already skyscraper-sized – is there any limit to how big they will get?

    Interesting news in my local town, a new cobalt and nickel processing facility for lithium-ion batteries. Fredericktown’s history is largely based upon lead mining in the 1800s. Mine LaMotte was the beginning of that. The area also has rich deposits of cobalt and other elements. So they’ll be doing both mining and processing.

    Mixed feelings. On the one hand, this will, no doubt, be a new source of local pollution. They claim that the goal is “to supply clean, domestic and ethically sourced battery metals, free from child labour and human rights abuses that it sees as currently plaguing the cobalt supply chain.” But, you know, the reality will be that there will be toxic by-products.

    That said, I have an iPhone and numerous devices that use these batteries. We really should be sourcing materials locally when possible. It’s irresponsible and unethical to turn to other countries for materials for devices we’ll be using if those materials are available here. The facility is about 5 miles from my place and is surrounded by various farms. Will be interesting to see how it develops.

    Missouri Cobalt close to finishing key facility for cobalt, nickel production

    Nate Hagens' podcast, The Great Simplification is always a deep, but very understandable and enjoyable dive into current, near and long term implications of how we’re living on the planet.

    “Growth Until Not”

    Douglas Rushkoff, “The Ultimate Exit Strategy”

    Short, excellent animated video explaining the origin of fossil fuels and providing context for what it means in relation between carbon and climate collapse.

    [m.youtube.com/watch](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SNYxy2rY7fA)

    Help Send iPads to Barefoot College in India

    Fraser Speirs, who helped set up the world’s first whole-school 1:1 iPad program at the Cedars School of Excellence, has launched a campaign to buy and ship iPads to the Barefoot College in India. The Barefoot College is an organization in India that works with women, offering educational and advocacy programs designed to improve village life in a variety ways. The base is the development of capacity to grow their economies and standards of living through training not only in the use of appropriate technology but with a goal of trainees becoming trainers.

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    Apple starting work on new solar farm in CA

    Apple’s been on a very impressive roll and I’m not talking about it’s ever evolving line of mobile devices and computers, but rather its continuing build-out of solar farms. In 2012 they completed their Maiden North Carolin data center with its own on-site solar power facility which is the largest privately owned solar array in the U.S. Since then they’ve completed work on a facility in Prineville Oregon that utilizes “micro-hydro” and another solar facility in Reno Nevada is set to come online in 2015.

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    Cooling and heating at the same time!

    About air conditioning:In the late 1970s, 23 percent of American homes had some form of air conditioning; today, 87 percent do. We have become so addicted that 9 out of 10 new homes are built with central air. We spend $40 billion a year air-conditioning our buildings, says the EPA, and cooling our homes accounts for 17 percent of household energy use. In return, we get — well, I’ll let author Stan Cox say it: “Air-conditioning buildings and cars in the U.

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    Solar Air Heater!

    The new solar air heater leaning up against the well/shower house where it will likely be installed as it is a near perfect south facing wall. Thermometer reading after just a minute behind the air outlet? 100 degrees and that's with outside air of 48. NICE! My guess is that this would easily heat our little shower house to a comfortable 70+ degrees on sunny days during the winter. A big thanks to Rick for building it!

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    An animal walking in the woods

    Me. Ha! I wrote that line and almost stopped because I liked the title and the simplicity of that one word in answer. But really, this post is prompted by something Greenpa over at Little Blog in the Big Woods wrote. It is something I have meant to write about for a long, long time but never did: that we have let the conveniences of modern day life come between us and the direct experience of nature.

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    Climate change and the need for drastic action

    Rob Hopkins of the Transition Town movement has an excellent post: about the need for fairly drastic 9% cuts in carbon emissions that we need to avert climate change. His post reminds me of something I wrote nearly a year ago, namely that we need a global recession. Humans have thus far proven incapable of dealing with this issue in any meaningful way. A recession or depression, though very difficult, will force the solution.

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    The right way to burn wood

    An excellent site for those that use wood as a primary source of heat. Actually, good for anyone using a wood burning stove but especially important for those that burn alot. Wood Heat.org provides all the details for burning wood most efficiently. If you’re concerned about climate change and I hope you are this is a site worth reading through. Technorati Tags: Carbon, Climate Change, Conservation, Ecology, Energy, Energy Conservation, Homesteading, Living Simply, Natural Resources, Woodburning Stove

    Understanding the Greater Depression

    Want to get a better foundational understanding of the Greater Depression that we have now entered? Here are a few blogs I’d suggest you read every day or at least a few times a week. Sites which focus on the economic system specifically: Chris Martenson The Automatic Earth The Market Ticker Sites which discuss a broader range of issues (peak oil, self reliance, homesteading, climate change, suburbia…) related to the current collapse and what will follow:

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    Climate change, global depression and consumption

    Apparently there is talk that Al Gore might be head of the EPA in the Obama administration and just over a week ago Gore wrote up a dream list which was published in the New York Times. One of my current favorite authors, Sharon Astyk, in her post A New Deal or a War Footing? Thinking Through Our Response to Climate Change wonders why there is no mention of lowering consumption.

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    Peeling the Onion: What’s Behind the Financial Mess?

    Sharon Astyk has peeled back the layers of the current economic collapse… an excellent essay worth checking out.: What is reducing the amount of productive work accomplished, and moving the money increasingly only into a few pockets? It is the high price of food. And what is the root cause of the high price of food? Well, the single biggest factor, according to a number of studies, including the UN studies, has been the move to food based biofuels.

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    Chainsaw

    I finally have a chainsaw that works thanks to a my dad who has loaned me his. It really works. It does not stop running every 2 minutes and with a sharp blade/chain it cuts through logs like soft butter. Anybody that knows me or anyone who has read this blog for awhile knows how I feel about peak oil and climate change. People that know me personally also know just how much I detest the unnecessary use of gas, especially in lawnmowers, weed eaters, air blowers, etc.

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    The Crash Course

    Want to know more about the current economic situation and coming Depression? Check out the Crash Course by Chirs Martenson. This is a fantastic series of flash video/slide presentations that explains money, inflation, and the economy. Watch it and share it. This guy does a really excellent job of presenting the history and the current situation… everyone should watch this at least once. It is… STUNNING. Pass it on. Technorati Tags:

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    Growing into tomorrow

    Over the years I’ve spent countless hours reading, learning and speculating about the future of humanity and the planet we call earth. In my first years of college in 1988-1990 I first started learning about the human rights movement, alternative agriculture, and the budding american Green movement. I founded a Green local in my college town, Kirksville, MO and I began to identify myself as an activist. Between my time away from family as well as this fundamental shift in my identity I began to notice a crack which became a gulf in how I related to my fellow humans and they to me.

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