Thoughts For The Day |
|
Sit down and be quiet. You are drunk, and this is the edge of the roof. -- Rumi The world has never faced a problem like this. Without massive mitigation... the problem will be pervasive and will not be temporary. Previous energy transitions were gradual and evolutionary. Oil peaking will be abrupt and revolutionary. -- The Hirsch Report, 2005 It is quite likely that the time interval before the global peak occurs will be briefer than the period required for societies to adapt themselves painlessly to a different energy regime. -- Richard Heinberg We have at most ten years—not ten years to decide upon action, but ten years to alter fundamentally the trajectory of global greenhouse gas emissions. -- James Hansen, Director Goddard Institute for Space Research, NASA The Long Emergency is an opportunity to pause, to think through our present course, and to adjust to a saner path for the future. We had best face facts: we really have no choice. The Long Emergency is a horrible predicament. It is also a wonderful opportunity to do a lot better. Let's not squander this moment. -- Albert Bates (paraphrased) Inherent within the challenges of peak oil and climate change is an extraordinary opportunity to reinvent, rethink and rebuild the world around us. -- Rob Hopkins The real issue of our age is how we make a graceful and ethical descent. -- David Holmgren I believe that a lower-energy, more localized future, in which we move from being consumers to being producer/consumers, where food, energy and other essentials are locally produced, local economies are strengthened and we have learned to live more within our means is a step towards something extraordinary, not a step away from something inherently irreplaceable. -- Rob Hopkins The most radical thing you can do is stay home. -- Gary Snyder ...I have become fascinated by how we apply these principles to whole towns, whole settlements, and in particular, to how we design this transition in such a way that people will embrace it as a common journey, as a collective adventure, as something positive... -- Rob Hopkins How can we design descent pathways which make people feel alive, positive and included in this process of societal transformation? -- Rob Hopkins The future with less oil could be preferable to the present, if we are able to engage with enough imagination and creativity sufficiently in advance of the peak... -- Rob Hopkins It takes a lot of cheap energy to maintain the levels of social inequality we see today, the levels of obesity, the record levels of indebtedness, the high levels of car use and alienating urban landscapes. Only a culture awash with cheap oil could become de-skilled on the monumental scale we have. -- Rob Hopkins Your Energy Descent Action Plan should feel like a holiday brochure, presenting a localized, low-energy world in such an enticing way that anyone reading it will feel their life utterly bereft if they don't dedicate the rest of their lives towards its realization. -- Rob Hopkins The Transition process is one of acting as a catalyst, unlocking the collective genius and enthusiasm of the community, and harnessing the untapped power of engaged optimism. -- Transition Town Totnes As a species, we'll be transitioning to a lower energy future whether we want to or not. And it's far better to ride the wave than be engulfed by it. -- Ben Brangwyn The Transition movement is the most exciting, most hopeful, most inspirational movement happening in Britain today. -- Caroline Lucas, European Parliament The Transition movement has harnessed the collective call to action and is a glue that is mending the torn fabric of our communities. -- Cliona O'Conaill Those who are involved in Transition Initiatives are part of one of the biggest and most important research projects underway anywhere in the world. You are catalyzing those around you to ask the questions that government still finds it very hard to ask, but that are essential to our collective survival. You are acknowledging that it is with us that real change begins, and that it is up to us whether we accept this responsibility or shy away from it. -- Rob Hopkins In the face of almost certain uncertainty, our job is to rise to the occasion, to evolve—in our thinking, our perspectives, and in our commitment to make this transition as positive as possible. We will probably become some new kind of human at the end of it all—-it is that big and that important. -- John L. Petersen, A Vision for 2012: Planning for Extraordinary Change All things are possible once enough human beings realize that everything is at stake. -- Norman Cousins The uncertainty of our times is no reason to be certain about hopelessness. -- Vananda Shiva The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The next-best time is now. -- Chinese proverb Treat the Earth well. It was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children. -- Kenyan Proverb Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them. -- Albert Einstein If everyone on the world enjoyed the same level of natural resource consumption as a typical Canadian citizen, we would need three planets to support us. This is clearly unsustainable. -- www.bioregional.com I can’t understand why people are frightened of new ideas. I’m frightened of the old ones. -- John Cage He who would travel happily must travel lightly. -- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry Our society lacks a feedback loop for controlling technology: a way to gauge intended effects from actual effects later on. -- Kevin Kelly Don’t follow trends - start trends. -- Frank Capra We share the earth not only with our fellow human beings, but with all the other creatures. -- The Dalai Lama We are living on this planet as if we had another one to go to. -- Terri Swearingen Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet. -- Albert Einstein If we do not change our direction, we are likely to end up where we are headed. -- Chinese Proverb If we use fuel to get our power, we are living on our capital and exhausting it rapidly. This method is barbarous and wantonly wasteful. A far better way would be to avail ourselves of the sun's rays. -- Nikola Tesla Only after the last tree has been cut down. Only after the last river has been poisoned. Only after the last fish has been caught. Only then will you find that money cannot be eaten. -- Cree Prophecy We have forgotten who we are, we have lost our sense of wonder and connectedness, we have degraded the Earth and our fellow creatures, and we have nowhere else to go... -- Earth Charter I'd put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don't have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that. -- Thomas Edison (over 100 years ago!) Anything else you're interested in is not going to happen if you can't breathe the air and drink the water. Don't sit this one out. Do something. -- Carl Sagan Our world has enough for each person's need, but not for his greed. -- Mahatma Gandhi If you want to see an endangered species, get up and look in the mirror. -- John Young, former Apollo astronaut We all moan and groan about the loss of the quality of life through the destruction of our ecology, and yet each one of us, in our own little comfortable ways, contributes daily to that destruction. It's time now to awaken in each one of us the respect and attention our beloved mother deserves. -- Ed Asner Out of clutter ... find simplicity. From discord... find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity. -- Albert Einstein Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the people of the earth. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. -- Chief Seattle The ecological crisis is doing what no other crisis in history has ever done -- challenging us to a realization of a new humanity. -- Jean Houston Until man duplicates a blade of grass, nature can laugh at his so-called scientific knowledge. -- Thomas Edison The old Lakota was wise. He knew that man's heart, away from nature, becomes hard; he knew that lack of respect for growing, living things soon led to lack of respect for humans too. -- Luther Standing Bear
There is a very real chance that our collective path will not be a linear extrapolation of the present. Our individual challenge is to accept the possibility that the future may be quite a departure from the present. -- Chris Martenson - The Crash Course One cannot discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time. -- Andre Gide Dick Cheney has stated publicly that the American way of life is not negotiable. The trouble with that statement is that if you refuse to negotiate, you automatically get a new negotiating partner called "reality". -- James Howard Kunstler Climate Change makes the carbon reduction transition essential. Peak oil makes it inevitable. Transition initiatives make it feasible and viable (as far we can tell so far...) If we wait for governments to act, it will be too little, too late; if we act as individuals, it'll be too little; but if we act as communities, it might just be enough, just in time. -- Rob Hopkins Never doubt that a small, group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has. -- Margaret Mead It is not a sign of good health to be well-adjusted to a sick society. -- J. Krishnamurti The peaking of world oil production presents the U.S. and the world with an unprecedented risk management problem. As peaking is approached, liquid fuel prices and price volatility will increase dramatically, and, without timely mitigation, the economic, social, and political costs will be unprecedented. Viable mitigation options exist on both the supply and demand sides, but to have substantial impact, they must be initiated more than a decade in advance of peaking. -- The Hirsch Report for the US Department of Energy, 2005 |
|
|