The Oil Drum

We would like to find two or three contributors for TOD:Local.

What do we want? TOD:Local should be kind of laboratory/testing ground/etc., for others to learn about ideas and solutions and failures, whether they be policy, political, or technical. It should also be a place where local and state policymakers can come together to talk about these things.

Some ideas:

1. Best Practices - Demonstrating how local communities are adapting or can adapt to peak oil by becoming more sustainable.
2. Cultural essays - with or without a local bent, but something about challenging misconceptions or misguided behavior given the implications of PO
3. Policy Process and Alternatives - What are we doing at a local/state level, and how are we doing it?

Email me at the eds box if you are interested...

Enjoy!!

The Ohio State University Department of Public Health is sponsoring a web-based teach-in today, which they would like TOD readers to help publicize.

Converging Environmental Crises:
A Teach-In on Energy, Climate Change, Water, Agriculture and Population

Thursday, April 10, 2008
11:00am to 4:00pm EDT
http://sg60.oar.net/Environmental_Crises/

It's free!! Gail's talk is up already at the link above, as are (or will be) talks by Friends of TOD Rep Roscoe Bartlett, Dan Bednarz, Jason Bradford and Bill Catton. There is also a live link to the teach-in as well. If you are having difficulty connecting, the last page of this PDF gives some troubleshooting tips. It doesn't work with Safari, and you cannot be using pop-up blocker, among other things. It may not work if you are behind a firewall.

More information about the Teach-in at this link: http://www.theoildrum.com/node/3781

Just in the last hour, TOD went over 10 million unique visits in just over three years. Thanks very much to the TOD community!

[Clarifying note by Super G] What's being measured is the number of unique visitors in a day. When a person views the site five times in one day, it counts as one visit; when a person views the site on five separate days, it counts as five visits.

Note added April 10: If you are having difficulty connecting, the last page of this PDF gives some troubleshooting tips. It doesn't work with Safari, and you cannot be using pop-up blocker, among other things. It may not work if you are behind a firewall. You can test in advance.

The Ohio State University Department of Public Health is sponsoring a web-based teach-in, which they would like TOD readers to help publicize. The basic information is as follows:

Converging Environmental Crises:
A Teach-In on Energy, Climate Change, Water, Agriculture and Population

Thursday, April 10, 2008
11:00am to 4:00pm EDT
http://sg60.oar.net
Select "Converging Environmental Crises" in the Pull-Down Menu

The teach-in is free, and has a fairly strong peak oil component. The organizers are Dan Bednarz and Mac Crawford. A few high-lights:

11:30am Congressman Roscoe Bartlett provides a 15 minute introduction.

11:45am Terry Tamminen, former director of the California EPA, talks about whether it is really possible to address climate change in time, and what steps might be needed.

12:15pm Gail Tverberg, AKA "Gail the Actuary," talks about the economic impact of an energy downturn.

12:45pm William Catton PhD, author of Overshoot: The Ecological Basis of Revolutionary Change, talks about living on a finite planet, and reaching a carrying capacity bottleneck.

1:30pm Dick Jackson MD, PhD, environmental health expert, talks about pollution related issues.

Yeesh, three years (as of 22 MAR). 9.7-plus million unique visits to the main site (5.4 million in the past year alone) and 23.6-plus million unique page views, and many more at the continental sites. 2.3-plus million absolute unique visitors (according to google analytics and sitemeter) to TOD:Main. A 501c3 in gestation. A lot of smart people just trying to get smarter. There's a lot going on around here.

Mostly, all of that is because of you, the readers. We wouldn't do this if we didn't think people were listening and helping us spread the word, even as oil gets bearish for a while. Thank you from all of our staff.

Even more importantly, there are now more websites (most of them in our blogroll, but there are others) and more smart people talking and thinking about energy and our future than there were when we started this thing three years ago, and that's a good thing. We need to have as many informed discussions as we can.

At TOD, we try to be the bridge between the doomers, the technopians and the cornucopians, to present as many sides of the myriad arguments as we can, so that we do not become too rooted in any mode of thought. This allows us to test raw ideas through your eyes and critical thinking in a way that doesn't happen most places. We don't tell you what to think, we just ask that you think critically and empirically. Most days, it feels like we are walking an ever-narrowing knife-edge with icy gusting winds blowing across a shrinking and very loosely anchored tightrope (nice Goosey, way to mix a few metaphors there...). Anyway, you get the point: this is not easy.

It is still quite rewarding to be a part of helping the world realize that we need to be having these discussions now more than ever. This (sometimes dauntingly and overwhelmingly) complex topic continues to fascinate and grow in salience and importance--we will do everything we can to ensure that The Oil Drum continues to be a medium where these high quality discussions take place without cutting into folks' ability to speak freely.

I am surrounded by an amazing set of people with mind-blowing talents, all part of a diverse community respectfully presenting evidence and argument. I learn from all of you, and I am thankful every day for each one of you and what you bring. Thank you dear people for doing what you do.

Please remember that it is all of you who create and reinforce the norms that shape the environs here. You make this space; without you, it's just blown bandwidth.

Somebody I think a lot of, Jerry Michalski, shared a concept with me a while back, which he learned from Quaker meeting: "Speak only if it will improve upon the silence."

We thank you for continuing to improve upon the silence here at The Oil Drum.

Who knows what the future holds other than that change will occur and time will pass. We have informed guesses, and some of them will be right, some will be wrong. Either way, we will be here while we have the means to keep the lights on and the will to persevere.

Happy Birthday, TODers. Happy Birthday indeed! May the next year continue to bring all of you community, happiness, insight, and understanding.

During the Sixth annual ASPO conference in Cork, Ireland in 2007, Nate Hagens and I were interviewed for the event's DVD. The 5 disc DVD box set (available here) contains all the conference material and a number of interviews including ours.

Below the fold you can watch our interviews. As ever your insightful comments on the content are welcomed but we are also interested in your thoughts on video as a communication medium and what future video could have on The Oil Drum. Also see the video Luís de Sousa made last month: Olduvai 2008 movie.

I made some minor changes to the code that lays out the comments. If the comment threads do not have their usual "nested" appearance in your browser, try clearing your browser's cache and reloading the page (added 1/4 10:10a EST). If the problem persists, please leave a comment with your operating system version and browser version.

Matt Savinar's on Coast to Coast tonight--likely starting in the second hour. No idea for how long.

http://www.coasttocoastam.com/ or listen to your local affiliate.

Big Gav has a new Bullroarer up at ANZ. Stoneleigh has a new E&E RoundUp at TOD:C.

And under the fold, an event worth celebrating...

• The ODAC Newsletter (Europe) (10/21)
• The Canadian Energy and Environment Round-Up (10/21)
• Daily As-Yet-Unnamed-Set-of-Links from Aus/NZ (10/22)