MEXICAN SWINE FEVER

The fact that you are reading this is a confirmation that you have "Mexican Swine Fever". This is the companion disease that accompanies Mexican Swine Flu aka Influenza Type A (variant H1N1).

In contrast with Swine Flu which is primarily a viral infection of the respiratory system, Swine Fever is a disease of the mind activated by a complex signalling process, the main vector of which is the Main Stream Media. I hesitate to call it the main stream "news" media because the word "news" carries with it connotations of impartiality, accuracy and trustworthiness. As this could be debated let me just say that the media is simply a pipeline of content, rather like a water supply (or a sewer) some of which is good to receive, some of which is poisonous and some of which is just noise.

In the Chemistry lab a small inert chip of glass is often used to help solutions in test-tubes boil evenly. This chip provides an irregular surface for liquids to vapourize against and thus boil off without making a mess. The outbreak of Swine Flu in Mexico is the bumping granule around which much activity is boiling - and most of what is given off is Swine Fever. The Fever has in turn raised the temperature of the environment and is concentrating attention away from the financial collapse, which must be a welcome relief to the banking industry.

The reason that this relatively small outbreak has generated such a lot of concern is simply that the test-tube in which the flu has been incubated (or liberated*) has been growing increasingly hotter, having been cooked under the sequential bunsen burners of SARS, Avian Flu and earlier, AIDS, Ebola etc.

It is too early to tell whether this is the "Big One" or whether this will simply be a trial run for the systems and procedures put in place in airports, hospitals and Pandemic Emergency Manuals around the world. Regardless of whether the Swine Flu is a real or a virtual emergency the seeds have been sown for a harvest at least of income via "Big Pharma", if not in a harvest of lives.

If feeling the affects of Swine Fever it might be a good time to check how well prepared you are for the real thing. Do you have stocks of the basic essentials - food, water and toilet paper.

* Dr Leonard Horowitz claims Mexican swine flu is not only a deliberately engineered disease but one which is race specific - see http://www.sott.net/articles/show/183179-Horowitz-Swine-Flu-Is-Genocide-For-Profit

Strategy for National Transition

Big Question – How does Transition Towns NZ develop a strategy for National Transition?

When big picture questions arise in conversation as this one did with Colleague Laurence the other day I find it hard to resist their challenge.

This question is a tremendously broad canvas and begs several major assumptions:

1. it assumes that a strategy for national transition is desirable.
2. it assumes that a strategy for national transition is attainable.
3. it assumes that Transition Towns have more than two pennies worth to offer.
4. it assumes that a voluntary organisation with few paid staff can make a contribution to the enormous task of reorganisation of an entire nation that would in the normal course of events be the responsibility of a large well educated well funded public service.
5. it assumes that those in charge will actually be interested.
   

Assuming that the answer to the above is generally in the positive we then face the tricky task of defining terms so that the problem can be framed and measures set up so that we might know whether we are proceeding in roughly the right direction. If we can do this and satisfy ourselves that the underlying assumptions are broadly acceptable - then we might have an approach that we can tease out parameters and drill down to the sub-questions below. This approach could of course be caricatured as a classic left-brain, top-down, hierarchical-male strategy, which does not mean it is any better or worse than any other approach, it just is one approach and perhaps the most obvious.

Another approach is to imagine that the whole country has already made a transition to a lower energy future and to paint a picture of what it looks like and how the journey to it was made. This back-cast vision might be a fairly patchy rendering; some bits highly detailed and coloured, other bits barely sketched at all. Like painting a picture without any pencilled outlines this approach requires a good understanding of one’s subject, its structure, details and surface features for it to be more than a wishful fantasy. The more knowledge that can be brought to bear - other countries, towns or cities that have made significant shifts towards resilience, then the more the vision is a projection which is anchored with real world understanding.

A third option might be to develop a strategy by working in a painterly fashion perhaps starting with a splash of paint or a found object, perhaps an old factory or vacant lot and using it as the stimulus to build a picture of the future. A serendipitous “abstract for art sake” approach whilst unusual and strangerous could certainly liberate thinking and perhaps tumble out some good ideas that could not be generated any other way.

Prophetic visions have a long and credible history in many cultures which should not be over-looked. Whether prophetic insights are received as a result of spiritual inspiration or the neuro-chemistry of a sensitive individual, (or a combination of both), the visions of gifted prophets have provided guidance for communities struggling to travel from present certainties into uncertain futures. Although the format and content is a little different from a white discussion paper, the raw power of the spoken word can perhaps do immeasurably more than kilograms of carefully weighted discourse. If ever there was a time when so many on the planet face certain tribulation, it will be when oil production peaks and declines along with most every other resource. The need for outside help will become ever more apparent.

My favourite dessert is a sherry trifle – at least it will do for the moment. A combination of sponge, jelly, custard, whipped cream, slices of strawberries & peaches all laced liberally with a rich fortified wine. To see a beautifully formed trifle blended, chilled, set and decorated in its great crystal bowl is to see a vision indeed. Perhaps the best approach is to cook up solutions in every corner of the kitchen and bring them together for a grand tasting and debate. Following which we might (if we are not overfed) concoct a hearty vision of National Transition from some simple well blended ingredients.

Ladies and gentlemen – a penny for your thoughts please.

WHY DAIRY COWS MOO!

The industrial dairy complex has leapt to the forefront of wealth transformation[i] in Godzone country[ii] and has received much criticism from environmentalists.

Such people see the affects of dairy farms as damaging our landscape. Whilst there is some truth to their argument, it is by no means the whole truth, for it is hard to enjoy the landscape if you are unemployed, and the development of the dairy sector is employing many people. Simply blaming the farmers for the affects of agricultural intensification overlooks the situation as one symptom of a greater disease.

At one level the dairy industry illustrates a parasitic relationship between farmers, cattle and the land. At another level it reflects a greater parasitism between the state-corp[iii], communities and the land. The dairy industry is a metaphor - for as any tourist will understand, cows are not the only creatures that can be milked. If we feel milked by a system, it is not so much the money that we feel being drained, but our very energy. The ensuing enfeeblement reduces our ability to think about the ever-changing present that bears down upon us, let alone ponder the future. Until we realise this, it is all too easy to inhabit that “clueless” existence that JH Kunstler refers to. Like placid bovines it is enough to trek from pasture to milking shed, from work-house to out-house and back each day.

To what extent have individuals, families and groups of people become cattle equivalents in a vast financial milking system? At what point does symbiosis graduate from benevolent parasitism into a malignant virus? Do we need to experience burnout before the penny drops that the energy required to service a consuming lifestyle exceeds our capacity to deliver it? Must we wait until we are indebted or worse - bankrupted? Once such insight percolates our consciousness and we gaze at the grass beyond, how long before we find that the path is impeded by invisible, electrified fences?

Constructed with the greatest care and deliberation, we occupy paddocks of conformity tailored to our human shape. We find ourselves fenced with barriers no less real than the galvanised railings of a rotary milking shed. If conformity to one’s peer group is the first fence to clear, the second is much higher and more impenetrable. This is the legal obligations that our society surrounds us with and in which we become enmeshed on many different fronts. It only seems fair that if we borrow money that the lender should receive a reward for the use of the funds which could have been put to another use. [A little bit of milk in exchange for grazing]. It only seems fair until there’s a drought and grass (and milk) are hard to produce and cannot be yielded in the agreed quantities. Money lenders don’t think like farmers, they don’t need to factor seasonal variations such as recessions into their repayment schedules; they can always recover their capital in kind. Even if required to write off colossal sounding sums in bad debts, the over-all picture is the greater concentration of cream in the separator.

What holds this high tensile system together is a bovine willingness to conform. This conformity like money and debt is legislated out of thin air for good and useful reasons. Like money and debt, conformity to Law is captured on wafer fine sheets of cellulose and inhabits the vacuum between ink and the concepts in our heads. Like the money industry, the conformance industry has secured its place in the courts of power. Like Siamese twins Money and Law are two sides of the same coin. One cannot exist without the other, they must both be accepted, they are both owed fealty. For the most part they are accepted unquestioningly, at least until we want to make any significant change to our material situation. For significant material change almost always results in the need to borrow finance over two decades to do it. Wisdom unfortunately doesn’t come until one loses something of value.

“Ah – you want a new house/ship/factory do you. Well – we have a deal for you! Do you want to re-locate or do you want to build?” At this point even the dumbest of us know that our aspirations are being handled with the delicacy of a cattle prodder. And so we proceed somewhat tremulously if it’s our first home along with a herd of others being shifted from an outer paddock to a holding pen. Our progress along the race of life is maintained at a steady speed by the barking of dogs, the crack of alkathene pipe on rump and the comforting throb of a distant milking shed - until we come to the stockyards. Here we are weighed and assessed by a succession of vetinarians, stock-agents and haulage workers to determine our value to others as an investment opportunity. If we make the grade and suffer no deformities such as a poor education or a criminal record we are drafted. “Do you have life insurance?”

Willingly and even gratefully we step into a new working life that a long and subtle process of indoctrination has prepared us for. It’s as exciting as taking a credit card for a walk in an electronics shop. Just who is taking who for a jog anyway? Did I mention artificial insemination, drenching, vision and values programmes and other forms of continuing professional development to keep us in line and on target? It’s only now in the short spaces of sentience between caffeine boosted periods of feverish workload that the fear starts to come up like a cold pale moonrise on a windy night. Between the shreds of cloud we start to see demons mocking us as we work our life away. If we have any insight - we shudder and groan.

The lowing of the workforce is initially tempered with prescriptions of alcohol, television, lotteries and sporting diversions. As time goes on it is followed by prozac generics and whatever spiritual disciplines we can lay our hands on to dampen the neuro-chemistry of despair without damaging production. However the milking shed is working hard in competition with others just like it. Competition leads to reduced margins which lead to cost cutting and deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance inevitably leads to breakdowns and the milk cannot be harvested properly leading to losses of profit.

Eventually the farmer is bankrupted and if the cattle have a nice farmer who is interested in his animals’ welfare[iv] then they get sold to another farmer down the road or sent to the freezing works where they undergo sudden changes in body temperature and configuration. If the cows are unfortunate enough to have a farmer like Farmer Enron who cares little for his cattle, the cows will be left in their stalls to chafe at the railings and to savour the pain of debt in their bulging udders. This pain brings realisation and knowledge and soon the sound of mooing cattle can be heard all over the farm.

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[i] Not wealth generation but transformation of environmental capital into financial capital.

[ii] Godzone = New Zealand

[iii] State-corp = Marriage of Government + Commerce (aka The System)

[iv] All farmers understand their dependence upon the health of their stock – but this is not really a story about farmers.

Can You Survive On $20NZD Per Week?

Here is the first of my case studies of people, their gardens and their dependence on food procurement systems. I have decided to adopt a one page format and focus on the main issues that the particular case illustrates.

In this study Jeremy has taken a rather frugal approach as you can read in this.

CHROMATIC SCALING - 1

The words - meltdown, collapse, tsunami, bubble burst, train wreck have appeared in news items across the world in connection with financial markets.

Those who don't live in a fabricated reality of denial understand that systems that we depend on are not only suffering stress, but are being deformed. What follows is an essay on the subject of system collapse and the ways we might be able to get a rough fix on the state of things. This is presented in 7 pages.

REVIEW – NZ ENERGY STRATEGY TO 2050

The New Zealand Energy Strategy to 2050, (NZES), published October, 2007 is part one of two government papers to provide guidance about New Zealand’s energy future. The first part “Powering Our Future” covers the over-arching issues and the policy direction with government initiatives set forth to drive the policy. The second part (not covered in this review) is an action plan aimed at those responsible for running households, businesses and industries.

Part One – Powering Our Future is a comprehensive assessment of the NZ energy landscape. From the outset it is abundantly clear that the NZ Govt is aware of the criticality of the energy flows necessary to maintain the economy and the social cohesion it provides. It is also aware of the affects that society has on the natural environment. It paints a picture of a diverse and interconnected set of energy industries in a world that is rapidly changing and a world that is pushing the limits of the underlying resources. Any strategy looking 40+ years into the future is ambitious particularly in the flux of our time in history. When that strategy attempts to pilot a path through the conflicts of economy and the environment that ambition is enormous.

A great deal of effort has gone into planning the strategy and the document has a consistency at macro and micro-levels. The policies are backed with plenty of diagrams, illustrations and textual information. The diagram of NZ’s energy flows on page 107 (inset) is a masterpiece of graphical representation. The tone is positive and with the evidence of the research on the page it creates a feeling of reassurance. For a lay-person such as myself, (Architect), the NZES required an investment of concentration and mental space in order to fully digest the complex subject of a nation’s energy future. The glossary of acronyms and definitions at the rear of the document was essential.

The agenda presented in the strategy is the paramount importance of living sustainably. As such there were no surprises and the directions advocated appear to be in the nation’s best interest. Some effort was devoted to prepare the public for the roll-out of potentially unpopular policies such as the (carbon) Emissions Trading Scheme and NZ’s energy obligations to off-shore entities such as OECD that contribute to NZ’s energy equation are mentioned. The difficulties that energy providers have had getting projects off the ground because of the Resource Management Act were also addressed.

NZES clearly and lucidly separates vision from action. Action is teased out under main headings of :

- Resilient low carbon transport

- Security of electricity supply

- Low emissions power and heat

- Using energy more efficiently

- Sustainable energy technologies and innovation

- Affordability and wellbeing

The strategy however, has an “Achilles Heel” in its benign evaluation of future oil supply. Whilst acknowledging the advent of “Peak Oil”, the NZES adopts a so-called “mainstream” view on the matter. The International Energy Agengy (IEA) projects that world demand for oil will rise to circa 117 million barrels per day by 2030. This projection has wide support, however the IEA’s projections of future supply have been highly contested by those studying the peak oil issue. Those critical of the EIA are senior analysts and geologists who have come from within the oil industry and have formed the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO)[1]. The NZ Energy Strategy quotes IEA’s - World Energy Outlook 2006;

“the world’s proven reserves (including non-conventional oil) should be sufficient to meet demand to 2030” [2].

EIA’s own records of actual oil production in the period from 2005 to date shows the IEA supply projection to be greatly and increasingly wide of the mark. Not only is the wedge between demand and supply ever widening but it looks like a full blown delamination is happening, the consequences of which cannot be under-estimated.

One presumes that this critically important matter was carefully thrashed out in the offices of the MED prior to publication and that the final spin was adjusted for political reasons. In the currently optimistic economic environment it would be extremely difficult to come up with a publicly acceptable energy strategy based on the oil production peak that occurred May 2005, at 74.3 million barrels per day[3]. With every month that has passed since that date, it is becoming clearer that the actual supply trend is already downward. It is obvious that even without the political instability of OPEC countries in the Middle-East, real production is unlikely to ever exceed 90 million barrels per day let alone push through the 100 million barrels/day mark.[4]

An energy strategy based on the true trend-lines would be very different from the one published, and it would not create a feel-good factor. The Governors of New Zealand have therefore elected to post-pone the inevitable until circumstances make it obvious to the electorate that Draconian measures are what is actually needed. This will only result in reducing the time to prepare mitigation measures and make the affects more acute. In this the NZ government is no different to most Western governments which all founder on the shoals of a short term election cycle. The meta-problem of ever-increasing needs in an ever-depleting world, as illustrated by oil energy, will severely test the resilience of the Democratic process.

Meanwhile, the MED Discussion Paper: Options for Government Response to an Oil Supply Disruption has been quietly circulating since Sept 2006. This is a much more targeted document and does not try to set up a grand plan of managed actions to transition to a new sustainable economy. In my view a combination of both documents will form the strategy that will be adopted in the not too distant future.

Despite the crucial flaw discussed above the New Zealand Energy Strategy to 2050 is still an important document for New Zealander’s to read. There is much to learn about the issues that are unfolding and there is plenty of valuable information that is not wrong. All New Zealanders need to see how their personal choices fit into a nation’s attempt to chart a course into a very uncertain future.

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[1] Matthew Simmons (oil investment banker) is just one of many who have written extensively on the subject. A copy of a detailed analysis titled Another Nail in the Coffin (Nov 2007 ) leaves no doubt about the true state of world oil production.

[2] NZES - Box 7.1, p47

[3] This figure is for Crude Oil + Condensates.

[4] To put this into perspective, the most oil NZ has ever pumped is about one million barrels in one year (2006).

Richard Heinberg Peak Oil Update

Richard Heinberg of ASPO and author of the Peak Oil Protocol gave a talk at Victoria University of Wellington, NZ on Thursday 11 Oct, 2007. Richard first outlined what Peak Oil is about, gave some up to date statistics and discussed some of the responses that are being taken in places around the world. The main points I gleaned from his talk are as follows:

1) Conventional Oil production peaked in 2005 at 74.2 million barrels/day.

2) All liquid fuels peaked in July 2006 at 85.5 million barrels/day.

3) The energy content of all fossil fuels will peak circa 2010.

4) The 200 year period of coal availability is seriously wrong. Coal production is expected to peak in 15 - 20 years.

5) A sudden switch to nuclear energy production will exhaust supplies of uranium within an even shorter time-frame.

6) The Oil Export Quandry will exacerbate fuel depletion as follows:-

• Net oil exporting country becomes flush with money

• A boom in the local economy causes internal demand to rise

• This leads to a reduction in exportable fuel.

Net export availability of fuel is THE critical indicator to monitor.

7) Scarcity of fuel will be a bigger driver of society than fear of climate change, according to an almost buried US DOE report written in 2005.

8) Governments are not doing enough. Pressure MUST come from constituents.

9) Optimism is a deliberate attitude that must be adopted in the face of the uncertainties ahead.

10) Transition towns and sustainable communities are springing up in various places and enabling people to become optimistic about making changes that will be necessary.

Richard focussed on the positive aspects of culture change and carefully avoided exploring the gloomy mechanics of economic collapse and its inevitable conflicts. His talk was well received by the fairly full lecture theater.