Folks,

Here is another positive example of everyday people making a difference.

A group of ten friends in San Francisco made a compact between them not to buy anything new in 2006, except for food and the bare necessities for health and safety. They have mostly succeeded, and were featured in several newspaper stories, like the one below.

For Christmas, they’re either eschewing gifts, or making gifts, or finding good used stuff, and wrapping it up in newspaper and other paper that would otherwise have been put in the bin. I love this example, because it shows that, especially at Christmas, one can step out of the intense consumerism and still have a perfectly enjoyable holiday, with or without the gift-giving.

For my part, I haven’t gone quite that far, but I have succeeded in finally convincing my family (after years of trying) to limit the gift-giving to the kids (under 15 yrs) and spouses. I can’t tell you what an immense relief it has been not to have to do all that shopping, and spend money I can’t afford to spend, not to mention staying off the roads and out of the stores. It has turned a holiday that I had started to regard with anxiety and dread, back into what it should have been all along: a positive and relaxed time to enjoy the company of family, full stop!

So if you’ve been running around like a madman, singing under your breath “It’s the most stressful time of the year…,” maybe you want to stop a minute and consider those examples. You might be surprised at how willing your family and friends are to follow suit. You do have the right to be a person, and not just a “consumer.”

May your holiday season be filled with joy, companionship, and relaxation!

–C

From http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/17/AR2006121701122_pf.html

Nothing New Here — And That’s the Point
In California, 10 Friends Eschew Consumer Culture to Live Secondhand

By William Booth
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 18, 2006; A01

SAN FRANCISCO — In the living room, the group gathers to share inspirational stories about the joy of finding just the right previously owned shower curtain. To the uninitiated, these people appear almost normal, at least in a San Francisco kind of way. But upon closer inspection, you see it: Nothing in this house, nothing on their bodies, none of their products — nothing is new. Everything is used.

For these people, recycling wasn’t enough. Composting wasn’t a challenge anymore. No, they wanted much more of much less.

Attention holiday shoppers! These people haven’t bought anything new in 352 days — and counting. These 10 friends vowed last year not to purchase a single new thing in 2006 — except food, the bare necessities for health and safety (toilet paper, brake fluid) and, thankfully, underwear, and maybe socks (they’re still debating whether new socks are okay).

Everything else they bought secondhand. They bartered or borrowed. Recycled. Re-gifted. Reused. Where? Thrift stores and swap meets, friends and Dumpsters, and the Internet, from Craigslist to the Freecycle Network, which includes 3,843 communities and 2.8 million members giving away stuff to one another.

These people purchased old sheets this year. Tonight’s vegetarian feast was cooked in a hand-me-down Crock-Pot. Christmas presents? They’re making them, or — shudders — they don’t give them.

They call their little initiative “the Compact,” which they say has something to do with the Mayflower and the Pilgrim pledge to live for the greater good, save the planet, renew their souls, etc. And although these modern “Compactors” say they never intended to spark a mini-movement or appear on the “Today” show, that is exactly what has happened.

Since the San Francisco Chronicle ran an article about them in February, their story of not buying has appeared on media outlets around the world — everything from Yoga Journal to Martha Stewart’s Body + Soul to the London Times. Even Oprah’s producers called.

It appears they’ve pinched a nerve. Perhaps, the Compactors suggest, many people have the same feeling that the mall just isn’t working for them anymore.

“We’re just rarefied middle-class San Francisco greenies having a conversation about consumption and sustainability,” says John Perry, a marketing executive with a high-tech firm, and one of the founding Compactors. “But suddenly, we decide we’re not going to buy a bunch of new stuff for a year? And that’s international news? Doesn’t that say something?”

Their user group on Yahoo has grown to 1,800 registered members, representing SubCompact cells operating across the country (including Washington), and around the planet. So they apparently live among us, biding their time, quietly not buying, like some kind of Fifth Column of . . . Shakers.

The online Compact community ( http://groups.yahoo.com/group/thecompact) spends enormous amounts of typing-time discussing things most Americans probably do not. Such as how to make soap. Or whether a mousetrap counts as a safety necessity. Or how to explain to your children that Santa Claus traffics in used toys.

“And people hate us for it? Like it drives them nuts?” This is Shawn Rosenmoss, an environmental engineer in the original San Francisco group. Some have called the Compactors un-American, anti-capitalist, eco-freak poseurs whose defiant act of not-consuming, if it caught on, would destroy the economy and our way of life.

Kalle Lasn, editor of Adbusters magazine, who advocates taking a 24-hour timeout of the consumer merry-go-round, has promoted Buy Nothing Day since 1992, urging citizens to resist the urge to splurge on the day after Thanksgiving, the kickoff to the holiday shopping spree.

Lasn claims that millions of people have stopped shopping on Buy Nothing Day, although he admits there is no way to know for sure. But Lasn does know that Internet discussion about the movement has grown, and so, too, the backlash — against the backlash.

“I go on talk radio shows, and I’m amazed by the anger of some people, the Chamber of Commerce president who calls up and says, ‘You’re trying to ruin the economy,’ ” Lasn says. “I sympathize. I know you have to pay your rent, but try to take the larger view. We consume three times more than we did right after World War II. These things are connected.”

“I think it upsets people because it seems like we’re making a value judgment about them,” says Rosenmoss, who has two children. “When we’re simply trying to bring less . . . into our house.”

What are the rules to this particular game? “People are really into the rules,” Perry says, “as if it were a game, which it kind of is. I like that part of it. Figuring out how to do what I need to do without running out and buying something.”

The rules are simple — and flexible. The original Compactors decided they would get to vote on anything in the gray areas.

One member recalls asking permission to purchase a new toilet brush, contending that it was a health issue. Overruled. How about a new house key? Allowed. New tubes of shampoo, toothpaste, sunscreen are okay, but skin bronzer would be frowned upon.

At the potluck supper, the family dog is playing with a toy, which looks like a ball of yarn. Technically, it is new, and thus a Compact breaker. “But if she eats it,” points out Rachel Kesel, a professional dog walker, “then it’s food.”

“We all have our little weaknesses,” says Kate Boyd, a schoolteacher and set designer. Her challenge was getting used bicycle shoes, plus a used helmet and pump. Three buys through Craigslist through three sellers. “It was more of a hassle than going to the bike store,” she says, but more interesting, too. “You get to meet new people.”

The greatest challenge of the Compact? “The strangest things,” Perry explains. For example, he cannot find used shoe polish.

Then there are modern dilemmas. Is it better to buy a battery (allowed, if recycled and rechargeable) for a cellular phone for $70 or just have the company give you a new free phone if you switch providers?

Clothes? Easy, they say. Vintage stores. Consignment shops. Or more down-market, your Goodwill, your Salvation Army. Or your own closet, likely filled with outfits.

Toys? The easiest. Perry and his partner, Rob Picciotto, a high school language teacher, have two adopted children. “I take Ben to Target sometimes and we’ll play with the toys and then leave,” Picciotto says. The kid seems happy.

“I broke down and bought a drill bit,” Rosenmoss says. The Compactors nod their heads. “I just wanted it and I needed and I did it.” The group members understand. They’ve had their drill-bit moments.

But not a lot of them. Asked what they bought that broke the Compact, the list was not long: some sneakers, the drill bit, a map, and for Sarah Pelmas and her newlywed husband, Matt Eddy (fellow Compactors), some energy-efficient windows for the house renovation. The 1920s house, they remind us, was purchased used. Indeed, they painted it with recycled paint.

“By being so strict with yourself, you learn to take a deep breath,” Kesel says.

“You learn to do away with the impatience.” Boyd says, “You see that the craving will pass.”

One Compactor points out that the group’s members are not really denying themselves much. Boyd says that, for example, by buying less new, “I drink way better wine now.” Also allowed: services. So they could buy a massage if they wanted to. They can go to movies, theater, concerts, museums, bars, music clubs and restaurants. They can fly, drive (and buy gas), stay in hotels.

Judith Levine, author of “Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping,” went really cold turkey in 2004 with her husband. The couple split their time between Brooklyn and Vermont. She applauds the Compactors, but says that not buying stuff for a year is only taking it halfway. Not going to the movies and restaurants for a year — now that’s cutting back.

Amazingly, the Compactors have all decided to renew their pledge for another year. There are, naturally, things they miss, and so they’ve decided to give themselves one day next month when they can buy a few things they really need new.

Like? “I need a drain snake,” Perry says. Is that not pitiful?

Pelmas is dying for new pillowcases. Used pillowcases, even this group agrees, are rather disgusting.

Lessons learned?

“We didn’t do this to save the world. We did this to improve the quality of our own lives,” Perry says. “And what we learned is that we all have a lot of more stuff than you think, and that you can get along on a lot less stuff than you can imagine.”

Staff writer Sonya Geis in Los Angeles contributed to this report.

Folks,

Building on the previous post about the CFR report, here’s a new article I wrote for Energy and Capital, about some radical developments at the government and policymaking levels that bode great things for the renewable energy sector.

–C

(more…)

Folks,
Here’s my latest, going out to the newsletters & other peak oil sites today. It’s my investigation into the “elephant”-sized oil find in the Gulf of Mexico that was announced in September. As you might expect, I found that the reality didn’t quite measure up to the hype.

–C
(more…)

Folks,

I’m catching up the blog today with some of the articles I have written for the free Angel Publishing newsletters. (If you want to read the ones I’ve written for the premium subscriptions, I’m afraid you’ll have to pony up!)

Here’s the first, about the recent extension of the federal tax credits for solar.
Originally published at http://energyandcapital.com/editorials.php?id=323
(more…)

Folks,

I am pleased to announce that I have a new gig, writing for a family of investing newsletters. Their support will enable me to continue my efforts, beyond this blog, and with a much wider readership. They’re totally hip to peak oil (in fact, they’ve built several of the newsletters around it), they’re young and smart and insightful, and I’m honored to join their crack team of investors and pundits.

The company, Angel Publishing, publishes seven free “e-letters” on investing in various niches, and eight premium subscription letters, packed with stock tips and valuable insights. See their whole list of newsletters and prices here.

I am currently writing for two of the free e-letters, Wealth Daily and Energy and Capital, as well as a premium e-letter, Green Chip Stocks. I am writing two or three pieces a week, and I will repost some of that material to the blog, as time and permission allows.

Here is the first piece I wrote for them. It’s a high-level view of everything that this blog is about, and much of what I’m about, and will probably serve as a guide to topics I will be exploring in depth for the newsletters. It’s long, but hopefully, worth your while. Print it out, check it out, pass around to your friends, and most importantly, send me your feedback.

Stay tuned to this space, and to the abovementioned sites, for much, much more!

–C
(more…)

Folks,

This recent WSJ article expressed something that has long bothered me about the way that the press usually handles energy and climate change–as if they were separate issues. They are as intimately connected as my left hand and my right, but hardly anybody writes about that. Either the article is about the benefits of biofuels, or it’s about the climate effects of burning away forests to plant croplands. It’s about economic improvement programs in remote and impoverished parts of the world, or it’s about the effects of those programs on the native ecosystems. But almost never both, at once.

Well, just as there is no free lunch, there is no way to increase production of alternative fuels without also incurring some “externalized” costs somewhere else. And it’s about time that we understand that. Maybe we need to start telling newspaper editors that we can handle the truth, that we do have an attention span longer than your average TV commercial, and we want more well-rounded coverage of this stuff.

This article presented a balanced view of some new “sustainable” programs to grow biofuel feedstocks in Indonesia. Good stuff. Kudos to the WSJ.

–C
Crude Awakening
As Alternative Energy
Heats Up,
Environmental Concerns Grow

PONTIANAK, Indonesia — Investors are pouring billions of
dollars into “renewable” energy sources such as ethanol, biodiesel and
solar power that promise to reduce the world’s reliance on petroleum. But
exploiting these alternatives may produce unintended environmental and
economic consequences that offset the expected benefits.

Here on the island of Borneo, a thick haze often encloses
this city of 500,000 people. The cause: forest fires that have blazed
across the island. Many of them were set to clear land to produce palm oil
— a key ingredient in biodiesel, a clean-burning diesel fuel
alternative.

1

Patrick Barta

At a new oil-palm plantation, the hillsides have been cleared and terraced.

The bluish smoke is at times so dense that it leaves the
city dark and gloomy even at midday. The haze has sometimes closed
Pontianak’s airport and prompted local volunteers to distribute face-masks
on city streets. From July through mid-October, Indonesian health
officials reported 28,762 smog-related cases of respiratory illness across
the country.

“I feel it in my breath when I breathe,” said Imanuel
Patasik, a 26-year-old delivery man, as he sat in one of Pontianak’s many
open-air coffee shops on a recent evening. When the smoke is really bad,
he wears a mask to work, but still wakes up the next morning feeling sick.
“It’s part of life here,” he sighed.

Seasonal rains have helped quell the fires over the past
few weeks. But the miasma of smoke from Borneo and the island of Sumatra
— an annual phenomenon that blankets large parts of Southeast Asia in
smog — underscores a troubling dark side of the world’s
alternative-energy boom. Among other problems, the fires in Indonesia spew
millions of tons of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the
atmosphere, experts say. In doing so, they exacerbate the very
global-warming concerns biofuels are meant to
alleviate.

Such side effects are not an isolated problem. In
Indonesia, Malaysia, Canada and elsewhere, forests are being slashed for
new energy-yielding crops or other unconventional fuels. In India,
environmental activists say, water tables are dropping as farmers try to
boost production of ethanol-yielding sugar.

“Let’s be brutally frank: [The push for alternative fuels]
is going to cause significant changes for the environment,” says Sean
Darby, an equities analyst and expert on alternative energy companies at
Nomura International in Hong Kong. He is most worried about the strain on
water resources caused by accelerated crop production. Water, he says, is
“just as precious” as oil.

Some experts are also concerned that crops for biofuels
will compete with other farmland, possibly driving up global costs of
basic food production.

It’s not clear how serious these problems will become — or
whether they eventually will be resolved through new technologies and
stricter environmental measures. Proponents of alternative energy,
including some palm oil industry executives, say the dangers are
exaggerated and are outweighed by the benefits new fuels promise.

“We’re unfairly targeted,” says M.R. Chandran, former chief
executive of the Malaysian Palm Oil Association. He contends that the
timber industry and local farmers are much to blame for destroying
Indonesia’s forests.

The alternative energy field “is almost like the Internet
in terms of the pace of how fast all this is changing,” says Chris Flavin,
president of Worldwatch Institute, an environmental organization. He
believes that new technologies could help resolve some concerns over
collateral damage. One of the hottest, for example, is called cellulosic
ethanol, which uses different kinds of waste — including municipal
garbage — to create fuel.

In the U.S., questions about corn-based ethanol are
swirling in academic and agricultural circles, in part because of the work
of a Cornell University professor. David Pimentel, who teaches
environmental policy, has long held doubts about the fuel’s value. He
argues that expanding corn production for biofuels would deplete water
resources and pollute soils with added fertilizer and chemicals. It would
also require huge volumes of traditional energy for farming equipment and
ethanol-conversion facilities — a toll that could nullify gains from the
less-polluting fuel produced.

Other studies, including reports by researchers at the U.S.
Department of Agriculture, have reached much more optimistic conclusions
and have criticized Mr. Pimentel’s methodology.

Big Implications for Business

Critiques of alternative energy — even if they prove to be
exaggerated — could have big implications for business. Last year,
investors globally poured a record $49 billion into energies such as solar
power, ethanol and biodiesel, according to New Energy Finance, a
London-based firm that specializes in analyzing renewable energies. That
was a 60% increase from the previous year.

But commercializing many alternative fuels relies on
political support in the form of government subsidies or tax incentives.
So the rise of local resistance could jeopardize the new fuels’ economic
viability.

This is particularly true for palm oil, a once-mundane
commodity whose price has climbed about 31% so far this year. The spike is
partly attributable to demand for biofuels.

In October, a European Parliament committee recommended a
ban on all biofuel made from palm oil, citing fears that the crop
encourages deforestation in tropical countries. In Indonesia, activists
helped block an $8 billion Chinese-backed project that would have created
one of the world’s largest palm-oil plantations.

And last month, one of Britain’s largest power companies,
RWE npower, a subsidiary of the German power giant RWE AG, said it
would abandon a project that was to use several hundred thousand tons of
palm oil a year to generate power. An environmental group, Friends of the
Earth, had complained that the project would contribute to unsustainable
global demand for palm oil, contributing to rain-forest destruction in
South East Asia. RWE npower said it dropped the project because it
couldn’t secure an adequate supply of sustainably grown palm oil.

Most consumers still think of palm oil mainly as a source
of cooking oil. The oil is squeezed from bunches of red fruit that grow on
oil palms, primarily in Malaysia and Indonesia. But the oil can also be
processed to make fuel. Then it’s mixed with conventional diesel to form a
hybrid energy source — for instance, 80% regular diesel and 20% biofuel
— that can be pumped directly into fuel tanks.

Biodiesel offers lots of upsides. Renewable crops such as
palm oil reduce the need for fossil fuels such as petroleum whose supplies
are finite. It also burns more cleanly than carbon-based liquid fuel,
releasing fewer of the gases thought to cause global warming.

As oil prices have surged, a number of companies, including
Chevron Corp., have announced plans to build or invest in biodiesel
plants. In a recent report, Credit Suisse analysts said there’s enough
refining capacity under development to produce as much as 20 million
metric tons of fuel annually by late 2008. That capacity, more than twice
that of today’s levels, would “easily soak up” all the world’s available
palm oil — creating even more demand for plantations.

Indonesian authorities hope to capitalize on such demand to
bring economic growth to impoverished regions. The government is offering
low-interest loans for plantation companies, with a goal of adding 3.7
million acres of new plantations over the next five years, an area more
than half the size of New Hampshire. Officials maintain this can be done
on designated land areas without causing widespread environmental
damage.

Different Outcome

But what’s happening on the ground in Borneo suggests a
different outcome. Among the world’s most fabled islands, Borneo — which
is divided between Indonesia and Malaysia — is considered by
environmentalists to be one of the last great tropical wildernesses. It’s
home to rare and unusual species, including the wild orangutan, the
clouded leopard and the Sumatran rhinoceros.

It’s also home to some of the world’s last headhunters. The
indigenous Dayaks resurrected the grisly practice as recently as the late
1990s in interethnic clashes. Some Dayaks still live in villages that can
only be reached by river, and sleep in wooden “longhouse” buildings on
stilts.

A fire at this oil-palm plantation near Pontianak, Indonesia, made some local villagers sick.

In the 1800s, Dutch and British traders began carving up
parts of the island to produce rubber and other commodities. Later,
Malaysian and Indonesian timber barons devastated millions of acres of
forest logging tropical hardwoods. Today, only a little more than half of
Borneo’s once-ubiquitous forest cover remains, according to WWF, the
global conservation organization.

Now, the palm-oil boom threatens what’s left. In West
Kalimantan, a province along the western coast, the palms cover about
988,000 acres or more, up from less than 37,000 acres in 1984. Fleets of
orange and mustard-colored trucks ply the province’s few paved roads,
ferrying the oil to river ports.

The plantations have meant jobs and opportunities for many
Dayak families. Some have even taken ownership stakes in the
operations.

As residents are discovering, though, the spreading
plantations have deleterious effects. They can alter water-catchment
areas, destroy animal habitats and contribute to the months-long bouts of
haze that spreads hundreds of kilometers across Southeast Asia.

As fires burn deep into the dry peat soil beneath
Indonesia’s forests, centuries of carbon trapped in the biomass are
released into the atmosphere. A study presented last month at a U.N.
Climate Change Conference in Nairobi showed that Indonesia is the world’s
third-biggest carbon emitter behind the U.S. and China, when emissions
from fires and other factors are considered.

“Stopping these fires could be one way of getting rid of
some significant carbon emissions to the atmosphere,” says Susan Page, a
senior lecturer at Britain’s University of Leicester who studies carbon
emissions in Southeast Asia.

A ship on the Kapuas River, in the Indonesian section of the island of Borneo, is shrouded by smoke from forest fires.

To be sure, palm-oil plantations aren’t the only cause of
deforestation and smoke on Borneo. Loggers have degraded huge swathes of
forest. And indigenous residents have long practiced their own form of
slash-and-burn agriculture that involves setting fires to clear fields for
planting.

But Indonesian environmental officials say plantation
companies are exacerbating the problem, and some palm-oil executives
concede their industry is partly to blame. Often, companies hack down the
trees, leaving behind a mass of debris that must be removed before they
can plant oil palms. The cheapest and easiest way is simply to torch
it.

One new oil-palm plantation, four hours by dirt road from
Pontianak, offers a glimpse of the fallout from the flames.

The plantation stretches across some 2,740 acres and
features a series of blackened and largely bare hills. Charred stumps
stick up from the soil and blistered tree trunks litter the ground. In the
distance, a wall of misty jungle marks the border of the property.

Villagers nearby say smoke and flames from fires at the
site destroyed fruit and rubber trees on which they relied. They also made
many people in the area sick. One villager began acting like he was
possessed and was placed in a cage where he remained for weeks, the
village chief says.

Nearby, on a ridge overlooking the property, a man in a
floppy sun hat who identifies himself as the plantation manager says he
didn’t know who started the fires. “We are one of the victims,” says the
man, Kong Tamcheng.

Mr. Kong says his employer, an Indonesian company called
Incasi Raya Group, has a strict no-burning policy. He suggests the fire
might have been started by a careless worker flicking cigarette butts, or
by “interested parties” out to “smear” the company’s reputation.

But Untad Dharmawan, director of environmental impact
assessment for West Kalimantan, says Indonesian authorities are
investigating nine palm-oil companies for illegal burning, including
Incasi Raya Group and its manager, Mr. Kong. He displays a dossier of
photos of the Incasi Raya site, adding that his department has witnesses
with evidence the company started the fires.

Phone calls to Incasi Raya’s office in Padang, Indonesia
went unanswered.

Indonesian officials say they’re doing the best they can to
fight the fires and prevent illegal forest-clearing. Among other tactics,
they hired two giant Russian planes to drop “water bombs” and launched
projects to hand out water pumps to local villagers.

But they’re hamstrung by tight budgets and the logistical
difficulties of policing such a vast area with few roads. At best, “we can
just minimize the spread” of fires, laments Mr. Dharmawan, the provincial
environmental official.

Palm-oil companies, meanwhile, have joined with environment
organizations, energy companies and others to set up a group known as the
Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil that plans to certify plantation
companies that follow guidelines to minimize ecological damage.

Back in Borneo, Tony Hartono, head of a local plantation
association in West Kalimantan, says he still believes biodiesel derived
from palm oil will play a big role in solving the world’s energy problems.
After all, “it’s a renewable energy,” he says. “It’s our future.”

Write to Patrick Barta at patrick.barta@wsj.com2
and Jane Spencer at jane.spencer@wsj.com3

	URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116501541088338547.html
	Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) (2) mailto:patrick.barta@wsj.com (3) mailto:jane.spencer@wsj.com Copyright 2006 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Comments Off on Unintended Consequences   Copyright © 2008 GetRealList All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. FAIR USE NOTICE