This will be at Kapiti Uniting Church.

You can attend either or both events.

We will meet for the Pot Luck between 5.30 and 6pm with the meal starting at 6pm. Or you can arrive 7.15 for the Documentary to start at 7.30pm.

The Documentary we will be showing is Home.

Home is a 2009 documentary by Yann Arthus-Bertrand. The film is almost entirely composed of aerial shots of various places on Earth. It shows the diversity of life on Earth and how humanity is threatening the ecological balance of the planet.

For more information about the Documentary Home visit its bio on Wikipedia at
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Home_(documentary)

To watch the film visit its web page at www.home-2009.com/

Topics include:

• Quick Breads
• Media Skills for Community Groups
• Warmer, Drier, Healthier Homes
• Worm Farming
• Introduction to Ukelele
• Paekakariki Ukes
• Earthships: what, how and why?
• Eco Cleaners
• Introductory Home Brewing
• Sushi
• Composting

Download the program PDF www.ttk.org.nz/files/Winter_Skills_Programme.pdf

To book a place in any workshop email
sustainable.communities@kapiticoast.govt.nz or phone Stacey Gasson on 905 0560.

It looks like things are starting to happen again with TTK.

We had a Tea/Coffee catch up about TTK today, Sunday 27th June 2010, which was attended by 17 people. It was great to see such interest again in TTK, I think we all met some new people and much lively discussion was had, the Tea, Coffee & cakes were nice too.

From this meeting it was decided to have a Pot Luck dinner evening followed by a film possibly in August at the Uniting church. When dates are confirmed I will email the TTK mailing list.

Watch this space for further info when it becomes available.

Andrew

Watch it below or Interview link here:http://www.wordpress.peakmoment.tv/conversations/?p=378

Crash Course link here: http://www.chrismartenson.com/crashcourse

I really liked his “strongest recommendation” in the interview to “don’t do it alone, to find other people to be in community with as we move through this information” (near the very end of the video). If you relate to this and want to connect with someone who has watched the crash course and recommends it to everyone send an email to info@ttk.org.nz

Recently, a 55 page paper called Tipping Point: Near-Term Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production (PDF warning) was published as the joint effort of two organizations:

Feasta, a leading international think-tank exploring the interactions between human welfare, the structure and operation of human systems, and the ecosystem which supports both, and,

The Risk/Resilience Network, an initiative which was established in order to understand energy induced systemic risk, the scope for risk management, and general and emergency planning.

This paper talks about the likely systemic impacts of peak oil, including the possibility of collapse. With a long publication such as this, it is difficult to know how to present a reasonable subset of the material. In this post, we are publishing the Summary as Part 1. Our tentative plan is to publish three additional excerpts from the paper later. Those who wish to read the paper now can download it from the link above.

The lead author of this publication is David Korowicz. You may remember him for his talk at the Oil Drum/ASPO Conference at Alkatraz, Italy last summer called Things Fall Apart: Complexity, Supply Chains, Infrastructure & Collapse.

Tipping Point

Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production

An Outline Review

Summary

The credit crisis exemplifies society’s difficulties in the timely management of risks outside our experience or immediate concerns, even when such risks are well signposted. We have passed or are close to passing the peak of global oil production. Our civilisation is structurally unstable to an energy withdrawal. There is a high probability that our integrated and globalised civilisation is on the cusp of a fast and near-term collapse.

As individuals, and as a social species we put up huge psychological defences to protect the status quo. We’ve heard this doom prophesied for decades, all is still well! What about technology? Rising energy prices will bring more oil! We need a Green New Deal! We still have time! We’re busy with a financial crisis! This is depressing! If this were important, everybody would be talking about it!

Yet the evidence for such a scenario is as close to cast iron as any upon which policy is built: Oil production must peak; there is a growing probability that it has or will soon peak; energy flows and a functioning economy are by necessity highly correlated; our basic local needs have become dependent upon a hyper-complex, integrated, tightly-coupled global fabric of exchange; our primary infrastructure is dependent upon the operation of this fabric and global economies of scale; credit is the integral part of the fabric of our monetary, economic and trade systems; a credit market must collapse in a contracting economy, and so on.

We are living within dynamic processes. It matters little what technologies are in the pipeline, the potential of wind power in some choice location, or that the European Commission has a target; if a severe economic and structural collapse occurs before their enactment, then they may never be enacted.

Our primary question is what happens if there is a net decrease in energy flow through our civilisation? For it is absolutely dependent upon increasing flows of concentrated energy to evolve and grow, and to form and maintain its complex structures. The rules governing energy and its transformation, the laws of thermodynamics, are the inviolate framework through which all things happen- the evolution of the universe, the direction of time, life on earth, human development, the evolution of civilisation, and economic processes. This point is not rhetorical, access to increasing flows of concentrated energy, which can be transformed into work and dispersed energy, is the foundation upon which our civilisation stands. Yet we are at a point where these flows are, with high probability, about to begin decreasing. We should intuit that an energy withdrawal should have major systemic implications, for without energy flows nothing happens.

The key to understanding the implications of peak oil is to see it not just directly through its effect on transport, petrochemicals, or food say, but its systemic effects. A globalising, integrated and co-dependant economy has evolved with particular dynamics and embedded structures that have made our basic welfare dependent upon delocalised ‘local’ economies. It has locked us into hyper-complex economic and social processes that are increasing our vulnerability, but which we are unable to alter without risking a collapse in those same welfare supporting structures. And without increasing energy flows, those embedded structures, which include our expectations, institutions and infrastructure that evolved and adapted in the expectation of further economic growth cannot be maintained.

In order to address these questions, the following paper considers the nature and evolution of this complex integrated globalised civilisation from which energy is being withdrawn. Some broad issues in thermodynamics, the energy-economy relationship, peak oil, and the limits of mitigation are reviewed. It is argued that assumptions about future oil production as held by some peak oil aware commentators are misleading. We draw on some concepts in systems dynamics and critical transitions to frame our discussion.

The economics of peak oil are explicated using three indicative models: linear decline; oscillating decline; and systemic collapse. While these models are not to be considered as mutually exclusive, a case is made that our civilisation is close to a critical transition, or collapse. A series of integrated collapse mechanisms are described and are argued to be necessary. The principle driving mechanisms are re-enforcing (positive) feedbacks:

• A decline in energy flows will reduce global economic production; reduced global production will undermine our ability to produce, trade, and use energy; which will further decrease economic production.

• Credit forms the basis of our monetary system, and is the unifying embedded structure of the global economy. In a growing economy debt and interest can be repaid, in a declining economy not even the principle can be paid back. In other words, reduced energy flows cannot maintain the economic production to service debt. Real debt outstanding in the world is not repayable, new credit will almost vanish.

• Our localized needs and welfare have become ever-more dependent upon hyper-integrated globalised supply-chains. One pillar of their system-wide functioning is monetary confidence and bank intermediation. Money in our economies is backed by debt and holds no intrinsic value; deflation and hyper-inflation risks will make monetary stability impossible to maintain. In addition, the banking system as a whole must become insolvent as their assets (loans) cannot be realised, they are also at risk from failing infrastructure.

• A failure of this pillar will collapse world trade. Our ‘local’ globalised economies will fracture for there is virtually nothing produced in developed countries that can be considered truly indigenous. The more complex the systems and inputs we rely upon, the more globalised they are, and the more we are at risk from a complete systemic collapse.

• Another pillar is the operation of critical infrastructure (IT-telecoms/ electricity generation/ financial system/ transport/ water & sewage) which has become increasingly co-dependent where a systemic failure in one may cause cascading failure in the others. This infrastructure depends upon continual re-supply; embodies short lifetime components; complex highly resource intensive and specialized supply-chains; and large economies of scale. They also depend upon the operation of the monetary and financial system. These dependencies are likely to induce rapid growth in the risk of systemic failure.

• The high dependence of food on fossil fuel inputs, the delocalisation of food sourcing, and lean just-in-time inventories could lead to quickly evolving food insecurity risks even in the most developed countries. At issue is not just food production, but the ability to link surpluses to deficits, collapsed purchasing power, and the ability to monetize transactions.

• Peak oil is likely to force peak energy in general. The ability to bring on new energy production and maintain existing energy infrastructure is likely to be severely compromised. We may see massive demand and supply collapses with limited ability to re-boot.

• The above mechanisms are non-linear, mutually re-enforcing, and not exclusive.

• We argue that one of the principle initial drivers of the collapse process will be growing visible action about peak oil. It is expected that investors will attempt to extract themselves from ‘virtual assets’ such as bond, equities, and cash and convert them into ‘real’ assets before the system collapses. But the nominal value of virtual assets vastly exceeds the real assets likely to be available. Confirmation of the peak oil idea (by official action), fear, and market decline will drive a positive feedback in financial markets.

• We outline the implications for climate change. A major collapse in greenhouse gas is expected, though may be impossible to quantitatively model. This may reduce the risks of severe climate change impacts. However the relative ability to cope with the impacts of climate change will be much greater as we will be much poorer with much reduced resilience.

This will evolve as a systemic crisis; as the integrated infrastructure of our civilisation breaks down. It will give rise to a multi-front predicament that will swamp governments’ ability to manage. It is likely to lead to widespread disorientation, anxiety, severe welfare risks, and possible social breakdown. The report argues that a managed ‘de-growth’ is impossible.

We are at the cusp of rapid and severely disruptive changes. From now on the risk of entering a collapse must be considered significant and rising. The challenge is not about how we introduce energy infrastructure to maintain the viability of the systems we depend upon, rather it is how we deal with the consequences of not having the energy and other resources to maintain those same systems. Appeals towards localism, transition initiatives, organic food and renewable energy production, however laudable and necessary, are totally out of scale to what is approaching.

There is no solution, though there are some paths that are better and wiser than others. This is a societal issue, there is no ‘other’ to blame, but the responsibility belongs to us all. What we require is rapid emergency planning coupled with a plan for longer-term adaptation.

Original article Published Mar 22 2010 by The Oil Drum

27 - 28 March 2010

9am - 4pm Sat,  10am - 4pm Sun

Kāpiti Primary School, Rimu Rd, Paraparaumu

Where: Reikorangi Community Hall, Akatarawa Road

When: Monday 29 March 7.30pm

Free entry - Everyone welcome! Dr Martenson’s crash course is a grass roots movement, started as a one man band and has has met with rousing success over the past year.

Here are some of the highlights:

• Roughly 1.5 million views of the Crash Course (via the web site, YouTube, Torrent downloads, DVD purchases, and external sites hosting the video)
• 26,000 DVDs sold
• Currently available in English, Spanish, and French, with Italian, Portuguese, German, Polish, and Chinese translations on the way; all translations completed exclusively by volunteers
• 3 million site visits (www.chrismartenson.com)
• Alexa ranking of 45,155 as of October 23, 2009 (the top 0.03% of website traffic worldwide)
• Featured in the Washington Post, on PBS, and on Financial Sense Newshour with Jim Puplava, among others

Dr. Martenson recently spoke at the United Nations in New York to a sold-out audience, and was asked to give a keynote lecture at the UN’s upcoming sustainability summit in Brazil. Just this past week, he completed a speaking tour in Europe that included a lecture to still another packed audience at the British House of Parliament!

This guy started out trying to bring a message to Americans about what was coming and why. He fully predicted the present financial crisis long before it happened.

Perhaps the most amazing aspect of this story is the human-interest angle on Dr. Martenson himself. He refuses to charge money for the amazing work he’s done. Instead he makes his Crash Course available for free (via the Internet) to anyone who wants it.  His message truly gives the average person the understanding of Economy, Energy and Environment and how these inter-relate to sort out our current crisis.

For more information please contact Amanda.vickers@yahoo.co.nz

216 Ngatiawa Rd. ph 293 8403 ]]> http://ttk.org.nz/?feed=rss2&p=425 http://ttk.org.nz/?p=411 http://ttk.org.nz/?p=411#comments Sun, 21 Feb 2010 09:17:53 +0000 AndrewRK http://ttk.org.nz/?p=411 A really interesting read.

http://scienceblogs.com/casaubonsbook/2010/02/what_does_collapse_mean_and_wh.php

Some food for thought for our meeting on the 1st of March.

How are you willing to act to make a better world for you, your family and those around you?

What inspires you to make positive changes?

Transition Towns Kapiti is a community of people wanting to ensure a resilient future by making a difference now.

By building local resilience, we will be able to collectively respond to whatever the future may bring in a calm, positive and creative way. And by remembering how to live within our local means, we can rediscover the spirit of community and a feeling of power, belonging and sharing in a world that is vibrant, just and truly sustainable.

We invite you to be a part of a positive future, one with:

more community spirit
less excess consumption
more local & healthy food
less fossil energy dependence
more care for natural resources
less loss & extinction of biodiversity
more responsible living on our planet
less vulnerable to global political & economic instability
more prepared for civil defense emergencies

We want you to help shape TTK in 2010. Here’s how!

• Think about how you would like to see TTK grow this year
• What can you contribute to help us get there?
• Come and share your ideas at a public meeting:

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Monday 1 March
7:30pm
Paraparaumu Community Centre (next to library off Rimu road)

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Some background

What is a Transition Town?
A Transition Town is a town building resilience to the challenges, and opportunities, of Peak Oil and Climate Change. From Transition Initiatives UK.

What have other TTs done/doing?
See Transition Towns NZ.

What has TTK done so far?
Some of the things TTK we have been involved with so far are:

• Showing documentary films once a month for the last 2 years.
• A gardening club.
• Creating a local produce directory as part of the 100 mile diet.
• Have had stalls at a number of festivals in the area.
• Created a draft Transition Manual for the Kapiti Coast. See this post.
• Built a website (you’re on it).
• Partnered with KCDC in distributing eco bulbs to every household in Kapiti.
• A team is working on creating a Food Forest.
• Hold a Monthly Seed Swap meeting – Seedy Sundays.

What are some of the opportunities TTK can look into?

• Local food
• Reskilling / Community education
• Alternative currencies and community finance
• Civil defence / Emergency response
• Building community
• Sustainabilty
• Alternative technologies
• Community aid
• Permaculture
• Crafts
• Support networks
• …and so on and so on and so on