ASPO Liveblog
sastyk | October 11, 2010First and foremost, thank you so much to John Bell, Molly Davis and Niepoliski for their aid and comfort while I was head down in the conference. I admit, I had no idea that I would be going every single second of each day, and running on quite so little sleep. I think realistically, being on the board and being able to blog the conference are fundamentally incompatible, and next year, I probably won't try it. But thanks to my friends and allies, you at least got the beginnings of a picture of what was happening. There's so much information being shared there - someone called it "like…
sastyk | October 10, 2010Final report from John on the ASPO Conference
I am back on the train to New York, reviewing what occurred in the last three days. Thinking over what I learned in the talks given on an autopsy of the Gulf Oil spill brings to mind the ones given in the "Message, Media and Outreach" section.
There was no question that in the speaker's minds that the Gulf accident was the result of a series of almost inexplicable mistakes by the crew on the rig. There was a profound lack of communication between various levels of command both on the rig and above. As the errors were discussed, the realization…
sastyk | October 9, 2010Anthony Perl says America doesn't have to wait for Congress in order to reduce oil consumption from the transportation sector.
by guest blogger Molly Davis
**my second and last blog entry from the ASPO-USA conference**
Discussions on Capitol Hill over the need to reduce fuel consumption often end up offering solutions that require significant movement on the part of policymakers. Pass a climate bill that puts a price on pollution? Pass an energy bill that mandates a high renewables supply? Pass a transportation bill that shifts highway funding to public transit? Easier said than done.
But Dr…
sastyk | October 9, 2010John reporting from the ASPO conference.
I first saw one of them when I was having an early dinner on the first day of the conference. A man in a yellow chicken suit was riding up one of the escalators. He didn't have the head on.
My wife came to town the second day to do some sightseeing at the Capitol while I remained entombed in the bowels of the hotel all day. When I first had a chance to talk to her, she told me how two people in chicken suits were handing out flyers outside of the hotel, one of which she took. Its title was "Oil Production: Is the Sky Falling? Or has the world…
sastyk | October 9, 2010The first day of the ASPO conference involved a lot of smaller sessions, most of which I missed because I was speaking or at the press conference and congressional briefing. The congressional briefing was a wild success - absolutely packed. The press conference was smaller (we were competing with the IMF and several other events) but the press follow up has been pretty good. Since what I care most about is ASPO's ability to extend the message out to the overwhelming majority of people who have no idea that their life is going to change, this was useful and interesting.
Day two (Friday)…
sastyk | October 8, 2010John reporting from the ASPO conference.
I may have been trained as scientist, but when it came down to choosing among three competing and valuable breakout sessions in the same time slot, I choose "Peak Oil: Scenario Planning: Preparing for the Days Ahead" with John Michael Greer, André Angelantoni and Dick Vodra instead of the far more techie "The Outlook for Net Exports of Oil, Natural Gas and Coal". Similar choices had to be made with the next two sets of breakout sessions with "Message, Media and Outreach" winning out over "Analysis from The Oil Drum" and "Peak Oil: Investing Beyond…
sastyk | October 8, 2010Like how classily your blogiste introduced her co-bloggers before they put up their first posts? How gracefully I've managed to make everything work? Yeah, me neither.
I must plead sleep deprivation and exhaustion - since I arrived in Washington at 3am on Thursday morning, I've not had time to touch my computer - I've been going at a dead run. Or I was running until I started drinking wine on an empty stomach in the early evening, after which it probably wouldn't have been a great idea to either run or type. I'm sorry. Bad blogiste!
Anyway, let me belatedly both thank and welcome my three…
sastyk | October 7, 2010Greetings, I'm John Bell, one of the people helping Sharon live-blog the ASPO conference in Washington D.C. Sharon has asked us to introduce ourselves and tell her readers why we are attending the conference. I am writing this as I travel to Washington D.C. on the train.
First, I have help start Transition Westchester, a currently unofficial Transition hub for Westchester County, NY. Westchester County comprises the immediate northern suburbs of New York City. Currently, Transition Westchester is trying to inform the people of the region of the issues of peak oil, climate change and the…