Click on the headline (link) for the full text.

Many more articles are available through the Energy Bulletin homepage

Theodore Roszak's "Making of an Elder Culture" on peak oil
Theodore Roszak, Second Journey

..every institution in our society will be transformed as its population drifts further and further from competitive individualism, military–industrial bravado, and the careerist rat race. It is as if the freeways of the world will one day soon begin to close down, starting with the fast lane and finally turning into pastures and meadows.
— from The Foreword to The Making of an Elder Culture

One way to evaluate the prospects of Eldertown might be to start from the viewpoint of one of the more apocalyptic environmental groups. The peak oil movement focuses tightly on the issue of energy, the Achilles heel of industrial society. Convinced that global oil production will soon peak — or perhaps already has — the peak oilers predict a horrendous cascade of disasters in our near future. Cars, lacking fuel, will vanish from our lives. Suburbs dependent on commuting will have to be abandoned. Big-box stores will be empty as both the goods and money for consumption disappear. Big homes, too expensive to heat or cool, will stand untenanted. At the extreme, this is of course an unlivable world. But short of that, if one looks at the lifestyle such radical changes demand, are we not dealing with choices that elders are far more apt to make than a younger population? Smaller homes or condos in more densely populated centers. Less driving or no driving at all in private cars. Lower consumption. To be sure, environmentalists, who have never given any attention to aging, are apt to feel none of this will happen soon enough, but surely it is of some importance that one is working with rather than against a powerful demographic trend.

In the near future, as a growing retirement population fans out across the land seeking a new phase of life, we can expect a plethora of schemes for small-town restoration, efforts to turn the backwater into communities of character, many of them healthcare based. However it comes about, the private automobile may one day become an industrial relic, part of a pattern of life that belonged to the world that came before the longevity revolution.

The challenge for city planning will be to transform what started out among seniors as culturally barren Sun City retirement communities (“glorified playpens for seniors,” as Maggie Kuhn called them) into the sort of vital, decentralized cosmopolitan nodes many boomers will prefer. That opportunity is at hand. Culture once available only in metropolitan centers now comes our way via road companies and traveling exhibitions. The rest can arrive by satellite, phone line, mail order, and broadband. Lewis Mumford, our premier historian of cities, recognized this possibility soon after World War II when he predicted the “etherialization” of cities. The result might be an “invisible city ... penetrated by invisible rays and emanations....If a remote village can see the same motion picture or listen to the same radio program as the most swollen center, no one need live in that center or visit it.”

Today Mumford would have included the enormous potential of broadband transmission via the World Wide Web among those “rays and emanations.” Here is a sector of our economy that is more than ready for the elder culture. ...

Theodore Roszak is the author of 15 works of nonfiction, including The Making of a Counter Culture, Person/Planet, and The Voice of the Earth, and of five novels, including the critically acclaimed The Memoirs of Elizabeth Frankenstein. He was educated at UCLA and Princeton and has taught at Stanford University, the University of British Columbia, San Francisco State University, and the State University of California – East Bay, where he is emeritus professor of history. He lives in Berkeley with his wife Betty.

The Making of an Elder Culture, from which this excerpt is taken, will be published this September by New Society Publishers
(Spring 2009)
Theodore Roszak takes up a theme that's been on my mind lately: what's going to happen as the phalanx of baby-boomers enters seniordom, at the very moment peak oil is hitting?

-BA

Senior Cohousing: A Community Approach to Independent Living
Charles Durrett, New Society Publishers
No matter how rich life is in youth and middle age, the elder years can bring on increasing isolation and loneliness as social connections lessen, especially if friends and family members move away.

Senior cohousing fills a niche for this demographic -- the healthy, educated and proactive adults who want to live in a social and environmentally vibrant community. These seniors are already wanting to ward off the aging process, so they are unlikely to want to live in assisted housing. Senior cohousing revolves around custom-built neighborhoods organized by the seniors themselves in order to fit in with their real needs, wants, and aspirations for health, longevity and quality of life.

Senior Cohousing is a comprehensive guide to joining or creating a cohousing project, written by the U.S. leader in the field. The author deals with all the psychological and logistical aspects of senior cohousing, and addresses common concerns, fears, and misunderstandings. He emphasizes the many positive benefits of cohousing, including:

* Better physical, mental, emotional and spiritual health
* Friendships and accessible social contact
* Safety and security
* Affordability
* Shared resources.

Successful aging requires control of one's life, and this generation of seniors -- the baby boomers -- will find this book holds a compelling vision for their future.

Charles Durrett is a principal at McCamant & Durrett in Nevada City, CA, a firm that specializes in affordable cohousing. He co-authored the groundbreaking Cohousing with his wife and business partner, Kathryn McCamant.

Durrett's Website
(1 May 2009)
While we're on the subject, here's the book I'm currently reading. The 2nd edition is due to be published May 1. The book is laid out tastefully, as is usually the case with architect/designer authors. I was suprised to see that people start moving into senior cohousing in their early 50s. Speaking from personal experience, the older one gets, the more attractive shared housing looks. -BA

Transition Handbook now in Dutch
Rob Hopkins et al, HITTE.NU
In plaats van af te wachten wat anderen doen aan de komende olie- en klimaatcrisis, kunnen we beter zelf de handen uit de mouwen steken.
Met lokaal voedsel, eigen stroomopwekking en materialen uit de buurt worden we minder afhankelijk. Met zijn allen scheppen we een veerkrachtige gemeenschap die het individu steun biedt. Ieder van ons kan verschil maken, kan anderen inspireren, heeft kwaliteiten die van pas komen.

In Engeland zijn er al vele tientallen succesvolle Tansition Towns. Deze basishandleiding vertelt over hun ervaringen, hoe je kan beginnen, wat de criteria zijn. En ook over de stappen die je moet zetten en over het Minder Energie Plan. Transitie is een plan voor gewone mensen ter voorbereiding op het einde van het olietijdperk.

Geen gemaar, we kunnen het aan. Wie tijdig begint is het beste voorbereid.
(April 2009)
Rob Hopkins writes
The Dutch edition of the Transition Handbook has now been published, you can download pdfs of the chapters here. The story of how it was translated is great, 50 people across the region who wanted a Dutch version came together and collaboratively translated it.

Roundup: Renewables, Bike Stunts, Bee Gardens
WorldChanging
As one commenter wrote: "interesting synopses of important articles, wbhich do not appear in the media."
(24 April 2009)

Student Speakers in Dubai Call for Proper Energy Use
Emily Meredith , Khaleej Times
DUBAI - Collapse of civilisation, unemployment and dangerous consumption of oil were some of the foreboding predictions made at an environmental speaking series presented on Monday at Knowledge Village in Dubai.

Instead of policy makers or environmental advocates, the speakers were 13- and 15-year olds from high schools in the UAE, participating in the ninth oratory competition held by Emirates Environmental Group.

The speech prompts — ‘reducing water-energy footprint’ and ‘is this the peak oil era?’ — touched on issues particularly critical to the UAE, which uses costly desalination to obtain drinking water and is a net exporter of oil.

“We should not always depend on oil,” said 13-year old Sara Al Jaziri from Al Ittihad Private School. “We can’t just ignore the
other sources.”

Al Jaziri’s teammate Aseel Al Bassam argued for more solar energy use. She said her father works for an oil company.

Students learned their debate questions several weeks ago and spent free time during lunch and after school preparing. This is the ninth time the environmental group has held the bi-lingual speaking series, aimed at engaging young people in environmental debates.

Nida Ali, one of the team members from Emirates International School, Dubai, said she initially thought global demand for oil is at its peak. But after researching more, she and her teammates considered the supply and demand sides of the issue.

“If your asking about oil usage,” her teammate Nikhil Punwaney began, “it is like my Arabic marks. Sometimes high, sometimes low.”

The periodically severe and alarming words — one girl from Sharjah British School predicted that “the 21st century is just the beginning of collapse” — were offset with the props some students used. An oversized paper mache globe featuring green glittery continents and an inflatable beach ball decorated to look like the sun sat in the stairwell leading to the elevated rear of the auditorium where Ali Siddiqui sat, mouthing his speech silently before taking the stage to argue that the globe is currently at its peak for oil.
(28 April 2009)
Congratulations to the young people of Dubai who see farther and clearer than the rest of us. -BA