John Michael Greer  wonders whether the Transition Town Movement is engaging in "premature triumphalism." As a part of the initiating group in Transition Town Montpelier, which on Tuesday received official recognition from the international transition folks, I doubt it.

We're happy if people even notice what we're up to.

Luckily, there's a chance Monday for everyone in the central Vermont area to find out more about Transition Towns and judge for themselves. Naresh Giangrande, co-founder of the first Transition Town, Totnes in the UK, will speak on “Transition Towns: From Oil Dependency to Resilient Communities.” The talk is Monday, November 24, 7 pm. Unitarian Church, Main Street, Montpelier. We're being contacted by people as far away as Maine and Massachusetts who want to hear the talk, so come early!

Greer provides a nice summary of the Transition Town movement:

Those of us who follow the details of monthly or weekly oil data reports have long been awaiting the International Energy Agency's 2008 edition of their annual World Energy Outlook. The IEA has long been a cockeyed optimist about future oil availability, along with the US Energy Information Administration. But the IEA has been indicating since this summer that they were revising their future projections of oil availability downward. Would the new report constitute a recognition of imminent peak oil from a Very Official Institution?

The new report came out today.

You can read the slides (PDF) for the presentation to the press or the executive summary (PDF) for free. The full report costs €120 in PDF format. 

Fortunately, the good analysts over at TheOilDrum.com are on the case, with a series of articles over the next couple weeks. Nate Hagens kicked off the series today, with an overview.

The nickel version: The report has a Jekyll-and-Hyde feel of being written by competing camps of urgency and complacency. On the one hand, the IEA warns that global trends in energy supply and consumption are unsustainable, and that an energy revolution is needed. On the other hand, they say that oil is available for world needs for  the next several decades, with sufficient investment. On the third hand, they say that the world needs to bring on line the equivalent of six new Saudi Arabias in the next 22 years--an almost magical feat.

More under the fold.

There's a fight brewing in the U.S. House over who will chair the Energy and Commerce Committee in the next session. Michigan Representative John Dingell now holds the chair. California Representative Henry Waxman wants it.

According to Frank O'Donnell at Gristmill, the battle is decades old between Waxman, who wants more regulation for clean air, and "Tailpipe Johnny" Dingell, who apparently thinks clean air regulations would hurt the auto industry in his home state.

Peter Welch told me Friday he supports Waxman. If Congress and the Obama administration are to move quickly on meaningful climate change legislation, it sounds to me like Waxman is the far better choice.

Waxman now chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which Welch serves on.

I got a call early this morning saying that there will be a "spontaneous" action against Vermont Yankee at the Statehouse this morning. I guess if it's still being organized the morning of the event, that's pretty close to spontaneous. Anyway, folks are gathering on the Statehouse lawn at 11 am.

Vermonters are eager to switch to locally generated, locally owned, renewable energy. As governor, Jim Douglas has repeatedly retarded the state's move in that direction. I've recently both documented some of the effects of his veto of last year's energy bill, and I've looked more broadly at his obstructionism on energy.

I've now learned that the legislature is getting ready to push back against an energy program that the administration has changed so much as to make it unrecognizable, maybe even non-compliant with the law. We'll see if they move fast enough to effect change: The administration's version is already on the street in the form of a Request for Proposals (RFP), and multiple organizations in the state have begun working on their proposals, which are due in three weeks.

What's in dispute is the watered-down version of an all-fuels efficiency utility, as passed in this year's omnibus energy bill, Act 92.

The following interview considers the feasibility of wood being a
primary heating-fuel source for Vermont. New wood stove technology,
combined with sustainable forestry, offers a real opportunity for
Vermont to become more energy independent. According to the Vermont
Department of Forests, Parks and Recreation, Vermont’s landmass is 78
percent forest with 4.5 million acres of woodland and an average of 26
cord of standing wood per acre, for 117 million cord of total standing
wood.

Damn it! 

Our tomato crop is way down this year from
last.  In 2007 our garden produced more than 230 pounds of
tomatoes that we canned, dried and froze, and enjoyed all the way up
through the middle of July of this year.  But with less than a
measly 125 pounds from this year’s garden, I was starting to
panic.  How would I fill the gap?  Would I have to resort to
buying canned tomatoes in the grocery store?  

He writes this in the midst of the so-called debate over the so-called plan to bailout the Wall Street financial institutions mired in a demise of their own making. By now, the bailout will have long passed, and the heavy, sinking truth of its failure might well be rearing its tragic head. Recession. Depression. Whatever it is, it’s going to hurt, and he’ll feel it, too.   

(I first examined the falling price of oil in August. The price of oil has dropped further, so it's time for another look.)

Someone told me with relief recently that gasoline is $2.99 a gallon. I was reminded of an editorial cartoon in late 2005 or early 2006, showing someone filling up before and after hurricane Katrina. In both pictures, a guy holding a gas nozzle is looking at the pump and exclaiming, "Gas is $2.50 a gallon!" Before Katrina, he has a look of outrage on his face. After Katrina, he wears a broad grin.

Lower gas prices aren't enough to produce many broad grins these days, against the current economic turmoil and the widespread predictions that the economic downturn is likely to get worse and last years. Still, the drop in oil prices is reinforcing some people's beliefs that oil price rises were a speculative bubble.

As with bubbles, the price of oil has gone up and then back down, though only back down a bit. It looks to me like supply and demand are sufficient to explain the price fluctuations.

First, let's look at the big picture: The price of oil is still high.

Shelburne Farms apparently has a policy of not allowing bicycles on the property, or at least groups of bicycles. The Shelburne Farms hostess told the visiting HPV Burlington Bike Fest group on Saturday that she turned down the group's request to visit when a representative first called them. They think the roads are too narrow for bicycles at Shelburne Farms. (I can't figure that one out, since cars are wider than bicycles, but never mind...)

The first caller told HPV Burlington Bike Fest chief organizer Phil Hammerslough what happened, and Phil called the Shelburne Farms hostess. "I know," she said, "You want to know why we don't allow bicycles here."

"No," replied Phil. "I want you to understand that we're not bicycles, we're velomobiles. I'll send you pictures." Twenty minutes later, she called Phil back and said, "Yes, of course, the velomobiles are welcome here." 

And so I joined the dozens of human-powered vehicle (HPV) riders (a.k.a. cyclists) who rode from City Hall Park to Shelburne Farms and back on Saturday, as one part of the HPV Bike Fest. Photos and more explanation below the fold...