NYC Local Energy Solutions Conference
Posted by Glenn on April 22, 2006 - 4:39pm in The Oil Drum: Local
[Editor's Note: Note Location Change to Cooper Union for the Second Two Days. They are also holding a full slate of events next week]
The schedule has been posted for the upcoming NYC Local Energy Solutions Conference. I am glad that the focus will be on solutions at the local level. The event is being put on by the local NYC peak oil meet-up group on a shoestring budget, so if you are in a position to be a sponsor, click here. I encourage anyone with a personal or professional interest to register for at least a day or two and maybe even volunteer. Moreover, please send a formal invitation to all of your local elected officials. Even if they don't come, they may take notice of the issue.
Reception - Food and conversation with the speakers who arrive in town early (we'll announce who later) at Café Wai from 6 – 8. Cost for this is $50.
Dinner - Pre Conference Dinner with the panelists – limited to 20 people. Have a chance to dine in an intimate warm setting where we've held our meetups for the year with 10 of our panelists. Cost is $125
Attend both reception and the Dinner for $150. Or you can choose the Full Package for $400 which includes reception, dinner and a 3 day ticket to the conference. To register for any of these events, please visit our registration site.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After the conference: Permaculture: An Introduction A two-day course with Geoff Lawton and Andrew Jones
“Permaculture (permanent agriculture) is the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems which have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is theharmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and non-material needs in a sustainable way.” - Bill Mollison
April 30-May 1 9am-5pm
$250/Lunch Included
April 30th at Neighborhood Preservation Center
232 East 11th Street
New York, NY 10003
May 1st at Sixth Street Community Center
638 East Sixth Street (between Avenue B & C)
New York, NY 10009
Make checks out to:
Local Energy Solutions LLC
PO BOx 654
New York, NY 10116
For more information email Philip Botwinick at phil [at] peakoilnyc.org
Personnel
Classic posts
Archives
- November 2008 (1)
- August 2008 (1)
- July 2008 (4)
- June 2008 (4)
- May 2008 (3)
- April 2008 (1)
- March 2008 (1)
- February 2008 (2)
- January 2008 (2)
- December 2007 (4)
- November 2007 (4)
- October 2007 (6)
The Oil Drum: New York City archives
- September 2007 (3)
- August 2007 (2)
- July 2007 (3)
- June 2007 (8)
- May 2007 (1)
- April 2007 (8)
- March 2007 (2)
- February 2007 (3)
- January 2007 (5)
- December 2006 (5)
- November 2006 (12)
- October 2006 (10)
- September 2006 (9)
- August 2006 (14)
- July 2006 (15)
- June 2006 (11)
- May 2006 (18)
- April 2006 (35)
- March 2006 (14)
- February 2006 (13)
- January 2006 (12)
- December 2005 (17)
- November 2005 (13)
- October 2005 (25)
- September 2005 (36)
License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
The other day, I read an AP article saying that numbers of rental units were declining. This Reuters article says much the same thing:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060308/us_nm/property_apartments_study_dc
So, it is one thing to talk about moving close to work, but quite another to find someplace available.
The best thing that the city can do is start rezoning a lot of the major mass transportation hubs for increased density. Then start a cycle of expanding the reach of good mass transit to service more areas and then increasing their density...rinse and repeat. This was NYC's pre-Robert Moses defacto development strategy. After a 75 year auto-obsessed interlude, this is starting to happen again in some areas but will take a long time to realize fully. It would be a lot better investment in light of PO than trying to sustain the 'burbs.
Glad to hear this is happening. I hope there will be some kind of review on this Blog about what issues and directions come out of the discussion. I lived in NYC for 19 years, until 2002, and have a lot of interest in what we can do with both 'my city', and these power-hungry urban areas in general.
I did read a great discussion in Whole Earth Catalog once, where someone wrote in about how inefficient cities were, and a New Yorker responded about how much energy is conserved in Urban life, in transport, heating apartment buildings instead of separate homes, eating at diners, etc, where one kitchen is feeding hundreds of people for every meal, etc.. AND, New York in particular is very Neighborhoody and Interactive, in my experience, and stands a good chance of finding ways to work together when it's necessary.
Bob
Urban areas existed long before the suburbs were viable because of how efficient they are in transportation, heating, lighting, etc. They are also a place where you have the great convergence of labor supply, commerce, industry, trade, ports, rail hubs, universities, government/courts, innovation etc.
Rural farms also existed for even longer period of time because many of your basic needs are co-located on site with only marginal inputs from other areas.
As for the suburbs, they are a total fossil fuel enabled enterprise. They will live or die based on the supply of cheap energy.
Our hope in organizing this conference is to bring fuel depletion and peak oil firmly into mainstream public discussion. We salute Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-MD, and other members of the Peak Oil Caucus in Congress, for calling for a national emergency program. They need our help in raising the alarm and calling for national action - and they need yours. If public awareness grows sufficiently, our elected officials will have to act, and hollow actions will be revealed.
If you are in the NYC metro area, please register for the conference, and spread the word widely. We have a great lineup of speakers. Whether you liked the CNN show or not, there's a new level of mainstream credibility about this issue, and there's never been a better time to raise the issue to friends, relatives, business associates. Ask them - how will NYC prepare for the coming energy crisis? It's a tough question, and before we can begin the process of answering it together, we must take it public.
Contact your elected officials! At www.peakoilnyc.org, we have a page with a sample letter, and contact information for local, state and federal officials. Break the silence, and contact all of them - especially Mayor Bloomberg, and City Council Speaker Quinn. On our site we have a basic list of actions individuals can take to lower their energy use, and a full report, "Preparing NYC for the Coming Energy Crisis," that catalogs a host of short and medium term policy responses for NYC.
NYC is one of the world's financial and media capitals. If we can raise the profile of the message here, it can travel nationally. Whether you're in NYC or not, think of your personal networks - which civic and business organizations can get involved in preparing for the coming difficulties? Let them know the potential consequences of oil price shocks, and ask them to get involved.
If you're not in NYC, you must have friends or relatives who are. Ask them to come to the conference.
By the way, we are all volunteers putting this together in our free time, and we're paying for the hall and speaker travel & lodging out of our own pockets. So far, registration is a little slow. We want this conference to spread the message on a local and national level, and having a full house will make that more likely.
We invite the entire peak oil community to help spread the word. Wouldn't Rep. Roscoe Bartlett want you to pitch in here? Please register if you can, and even if you can't, please spread the word, to friends, press, and elected officials.
thanks,
Dan Miner
Organizer, Peak Oil NYC
www.peakoilnyc.org
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,18543700%255E601,00.html
I have been thinking about the delivery of healthcare in a constrained, localized, post peak world, it has left me with a lot of questions and not many answers. I'll be at the conference for the 3 days, is there any plan for a noticeboard or some such, either at the conference or here to allow people to informally contact others who share such interests?
http://www.aia.org/br_cod_may06
Is sustainable design an oxymoron?
Is sustainability part of an architectural or environmental agenda?
Does the renewed interest in the environment affect both the style and substance of architecture?
What is the relationship between sustainability and form-making?
What has been the impact of sustainable design on the world?
What lies ahead for our profession, and what are our responsibilities as influencers of the built environment?
Almost $600, I think.