Spring is here again - Seasonal update

It has been a very busy for the past few months. Most of January and February were spent at OUR Ecovillage. Late March found us out in Bountiful, Creston and Cranbrook visiting friends and family. For two weeks in April we travelled to Independence Missouri for Community of Christ World Conference. May has seen the slow return of Spring to Vancouver Island. Our garden is still not planted. I'm still trying to decide what I want to be when I grow up. On the other hand, Jan has been working steadily on her university portfolio and it has paid off beautifully. Yesterday she was accepted into the Peace School at Royal Roads University in Victoria for a MA program in conflict analysis.

I fully intend to write some entries about World Conference, Bountiful, our garden, etc. -hopefully in the next couple of weeks. For the time being, I have to prepare for a course on energy conservation and renewable energy that I will be co-teaching at OUR Ecovillage on Friday...

Oil above $86 as traders eye Gulf crude spill - Yahoo! Finance

The previous posting referred to "unidentified projects" that might fill the growing gap between the supply and demand for oil. This unprecedented oil spill in the offshore Gulf of Mexico will certainly delay bringing many of these to reality.


Oil above $86 as traders eye Gulf crude spill - Yahoo! Finance

The Imminent Crash Of The Oil Supply : Information Clearing House - ICH

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Too much happening to find time to write - most of it is good though!

On the other hand, this is a big wake-up call for all of us. Unless we make some serious adjustments soon, we may be facing a unpleasant wake-up call to reality in the very near future.

It is definitely worth reading.


The Imminent Crash Of The Oil Supply : Information Clearing House - ICH

The Oil-to-Natural Gas Ratio Is Spiking Again -- Seeking Alpha

More important news on the oil front. Interesting comparison between oil and natural gas supply and demand profiles. Well worth reading!


The Oil-to-Natural Gas Ratio Is Spiking Again -- Seeking Alpha

CBC News - Money - $85 oil powers loonie toward parity

Here we go again - more evidence of the incredible tangle between North America's energy dependent economy and the price of oil. How high will oil prices go this cycle before the economy crashes - considering the already weakened economic conditions?


CBC News - Money - $85 oil powers loonie toward parity

Oil Caused Recession, Not Wall Street | Energy Bulletin

I just ran across this excellent article on the correspondence between oil price and the recession of 2008-2010. It is worth the read and serious consideration - especially when we are entering another phase with economic growth prediction without increasing crude oil production.


Oil Caused Recession, Not Wall Street | Energy Bulletin

New Developments at O.U.R. Ecovillage

For the past 8 weeks, I've been volunteering 4 days/week at O.U.R. (One United Resource) Ecovillage in Shawnigan Lake BC. O.U.R. is a community dedicated to theoretical education and practical demonstration of how human beings can live in healthy relationships with each other, the earth, creation and The Creator. O.U.R. has been developing for the past 10 years under the talented leadership of Brandy Gallagher and a growing group of community residents and volunteers. I've written about O.U.R. in earlier entries. Kailee volunteered and lived at O.U.R. from February till September in 2009. She completed an internship in sustainable food production, a certificate course in Permaculture design, recently added a Permaculture Teacher's Training program and Jan attended a workshop in natural building techniques.

Each day that I visit O.U.R., it seems that something is new and different. Last year, Kailee and the other members of the garden team made a major extension to the food production area and the natural building school almost completed the exterior of a new house. So progress is nothing new and in spite of this, the pace of change seems to be quickening. The educational portion of O.U.R. closes down in October and usually the community slows down for the winter. However, this year a government-sponsored Job Creation Program employed 8 people full-time on a permaculture-based landscaping project. This team of dedicated individuals have almost doubled the size of the garden, completed a path through the conservation area, developed grey water and rain water management systems, created a new pond, built new terraces with stone and tire retaining walls and added a labyrinth to the sanctuary garden. Every day is a new surprize!

As all of this incredible change is highly visible. However, I've discovered that there is another level of change that requires just as much work and yet, it is totally invisible. Most of my work is in this category. It includes things like setting up computer-based project management systems, assisting in new ways to raise funds for community operations, helping to define a business plan that enables community members to become financially independent and working towards a coop-based model of community ownership. While this level of change is not apparent to visitors at O.U.R., it does have some level of objective existence . Even if it is only on a computer screen or printed out of a piece of paper.

Beyond this, there is an even deeper level of change that occurs every day at O.U.R. This level of change also requires difficult and often painful work, and yet it leaves no visible tracks in the outside world. These deeper and invisible changes happen in the hearts and minds of everyone who lives in the community, works on its projects or visits the ecovillage. For some people, it is an exposure to an entirely different way of life. For others, it is a long and arduous journey for long-time friends who improve their communication and challenge their understandings as the ecovillage moves towards greater levels of maturity.

This process of improving relationships between individuals and the community, creation and The Creator is the real work of O.U.R. Ecovillage.

Upside down weather this winter

When you have a discussion about global warming, it is amazing how every event can be given tremendous significance - by both sides. In fact, I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard someone say "I sure wish global warming would hurry up" in the middle of Winter. Part of this problem is a sincere confusion between weather, which changes rapidly and is highly variable, and climate which is best understood as a long term average of the seasonal weather events.

Having said this, I can't help but think that something unusual is going on. While the Canadian prairies have been suffering with a long frigid Winter, Southern Georgia has been experiencing a highly unusual snowfall and Washington DC has been paralyzed by blizzards, Winter passed us by on Vancouver Island. Last year our pond was frozen from November to March and we had 5 feet of snow in January. This year, the pond only froze for about a week in November. We have new ducklings on the pond, the grass is green, trees are budding and in Victoria, there are amazing blossoms on the trees through much of the city.

You only have to turn on the TV to see what this means to Vancouver's Olympic games. Much of the snow that they do have is being convoyed by trucks and helicopters from hundreds of kilometers away.

Now this is a weather event - and we were expected to have a la Nina event this year. Just the same, I would like to see the stats for other la Nina years and see how often there was snow in 49 of the 50 states - and at the end of February.


49 states dusted with snow; Hawaii's the holdout - Yahoo! News

Oil Demand Up; What About Supply? -- Seeking Alpha

Today the IEA reported that oil demand is increasing from 84.9 million barrels/day in 2009 to 86.3 million bbls/day in 2010. Most of this increased demand is coming from Aisa. The IEA further predicts that demand will increase by 1.2 MBBL/day over the next 5 yrs to 90.9 Mbbls/day in 2014.

Unfortunately, supply is not showing any signs of increasing.

My prediction - just read the comments at the end of the attached article -

Or, for the short version, any recovery in the US economy will trigger an instant spike in oil prices. As soon as prices near $150/bbl, you will see another economic collapse that will be at least as severe as 2008/2009. This will likely occur before 2012.

There is another possibility, and that is China's banking system will have a severe setback and this will drastically reduce their demand levels. This could give us another 3 yrs or so before the next major price spike.

Oil Demand Up; What About Supply? -- Seeking Alpha

Evil flourishes when good men (and women) do nothing.

There is an email message circulating, attributed to a Dr. Emanuel Tanay that makes parallels between the average German during the Nazi era and present-day Muslims. The email begins like this:

"A man, whose family was German aristocracy prior to World War II, owned a number of large industries and estates. When asked how many German people were true Nazis, the answer he gave can guide our attitude toward fanaticism. 'Very few people were true Nazis,' he said, 'but many enjoyed the return of German pride, and many more were too busy to care. I was one of those who just thought the Nazis were a bunch of fools. So, the majority just sat back and let it all happen."

The email then goes on to compare the story of the Nazi regime to the Islam of today.

"We are told again and again by 'experts' and 'talking heads' that Islam is the religion of peace and that the vast majority of Muslims just want to live in peace. Although this unqualified assertion may be true, it is entirely irrelevant. It is meaningless fluff, meant to make us feel better, and meant to somehow diminish the spectre of fanatics rampaging across the globe in the name of Islam.

The fact is that the fanatics rule Islam at this moment in history. It is the fanatics who march. It is the fanatics who wage any one of 50 shooting wars worldwide. It is the fanatics who systematically slaughter Christian or tribal groups throughout Africa and are gradually taking over the entire continent in an Islamic wave. It is the fanatics who bomb, behead, murder, or honor-kill."

I certainly agree that it is the fanatics within Islam who commit these atrocities and they have appropriated the name of Islam to support their cause. However, he also goes on to claim that the majority of Muslims are silent and therefore somehow complicit with these actions. I strongly disagree with this claim. I have some very good friends in the Muslim community and they certainly speak out against violence. Yet there still seems to be alot of discrimination against them.

Long lists of violent acts committed by Japanese, Russians, Rawandans, Nazis and Muslims are given in great detail. Somehow the author doesn't mention the violent acts committed by Christians. In fact, the Nazis and Russians were predominantly Christians. Of the many global conflicts that were listed, somehow the author missed that Darfur is actually Muslims killing Muslims and Rawanda was Christian killing Christian (Rawanda is 56% Catholic, 26 % protestant and 11% Seventh Day Adventist). He also didn't mention that there are many more instances of Christians killing Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan than there are examples of Muslims killing Christians.

It also seems odd to me how much outrage there is over a suicide bomber and his victims and yet we don't seem to get as angry about the innocent men, women and children that are killed by predator drones, bombs, or just being at the wrong place at the wrong time. Somehow we don't get as upset by the fire bombing of Dresdan and Tokyo or the Atom bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki as we do when others commit similar violent acts.

The goes on to state:

"History lessons are often incredibly simple and blunt, yet for all our powers of reason, we often miss the most basic and uncomplicated of points:

Peace-loving Muslims have been made irrelevant by their silence."

I would argue that Peace loving people of all faiths are equally to blame. As Canadians and Americans, our soldiers are occupying Muslim countries and they are killing people - many of them innocent women and children - in our name. If we don't speak out, we are also guilty. This is especially true of Christians as we are the followers of the Prince of Peace.

I hope and pray that people of all religions (and otherwise) will wake up and realize that killing is always an offense to God - regardless of the name or nation that tries to justify the action. Speak out and tell our leaders that violence is not an acceptable solution - especially when this violence is used to further corporate interests.