Bicycle Parking Solutions

Considering how much land area and how many buildings are dedicated to parking automobiles, it is ironic that bicycle parking is a problem in major urban areas, but it is. Finding ways to efficiently and securely park more bicycles at public transportation hubs is important as we transition out of the automobile.

Smaller cities with large bicycle populations such as Copenhagen and Amsterdam use multi-level parking lots. A new lot at the central train station in Amsterdam can accommodate 10,000 bikes with security guards to prevent theft.

Tokyo is a sprawling mega-city and many people use a bicycle to commute to their local train station, so a more dispersed approach to parking is appropriate. Despite Japan's very low crime rate, bicycle theft is common. It is not usually done for money, as the common city bike here is inexpensive (around $150). Rather, a bike is stolen because someone stayed out too late and missed the last train and steals a bike to get home.

New computerized parking machines securely store anywhere from 600 to 6000 bicycles each, with no risk of theft or damage and eliminate having to search through hundreds or thousands of bicycles to find one's own.

The article containing this video can be found here: The Guardian UK

Happy cycling. ~ Isis

Bohemian Bankruptcy

- A tragedy by Drag Queen

Heads In The Sand

Government failure to acknowledge oil supply crunch risks conflict and threatens the climate -

There is an imminent oil supply crunch that governments have failed to acknowledge or act upon, the impacts of which will be felt throughout every aspect of modern society which is heavily reliant on oil, according to a new report published by campaign group Global Witness today. Governments have not taken on board the four underlying oil production factors which clearly show there is a problem. Heads in the Sand outlines these factors - declining output, declining discoveries, increasing demand and insufficient projects in the pipeline - which clearly show that the world is facing an imminent oil supply crunch. Some of these factors have been apparent for many years. [1] Governments and multi-lateral agencies have failed to recognise the imminence and scale of the global oil supply crunch, and most of them remain completely unprepared for its consequences. The report calls for governments to officially acknowledge the crunch and to shift urgently into safe sustainable energy alternatives.

"The world's governments have been asleep at the wheel. Their collective failure to recognise the imminent end of the oil age means we have lost a decade in which action could have been taken to develop alternatives and avert the worst outcomes of a dramatic drop off in the supply of oil," said Simon Taylor, Director of Global Witness. "Recognition of the oil supply crunch would have injected a sense of urgency and increased ambition for safer emissions reduction targets, both of which are sorely missing in the lead up to Copenhagen."

For most of the past decade, the International Energy Agency (IEA) held an over-confident view about future oil production. But starting in 2007 and most dramatically in 2008, its position began to shift, when it projected a near 50% decline in conventional oil production by 2020 and a significant potential gap between supply and demand by 2015. [2] These factors should have rung alarm bells, yet the apparent lack of government response has been astonishing.

The report argues that it was a long-overdue breakthrough for the IEA to acknowledge the imminence of an oil supply crunch. But their suggested remedy of investment of over a billion dollars every day to 2030 is highly unlikely to bridge the supply-demand gap. [3] Massive investment cannot change the underlying fundamentals which clearly indicate a need to move away from oil. Global Witness blames governments for not facing up to these factors and recommends that rather than spending increasingly large sums of money chasing increasingly hard to reach oil, the world should be investing in safe and sustainable alternatives.

"A world without enough oil is unlikely to be a peaceful place. Our near-total dependence on oil for food production and transport mean that decreasing availability of oil is likely to lead to food shortages and increased geopolitical tension. It threatens the nascent global governance reform agenda and could cause major international conflict over resources. The poorest will be pushed to the back of the queue and inequality will grow, which in turn will feed social unrest," said Charmian Gooch, Director of Global Witness.

Original Article here: Global Witness

Download the report here: Heads in the Sand: Governments Ignore the Oil Supply Crunch and Threaten the Climate

Vandana Shiva on Global Warming, Agriculture

How refreshing to hear someone speak about peak oil, climate change, globalization, and food, who sees the whole picture and makes very clear sense of it all.

Vandana Shiva is a Physicist - (Ph.D from the University of Western Ontario) - and founder of the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Ecology . She is recognized the world over as she has been an effective environmental activist and ecofeminist for all her adult life and is presently one of the leaders of the International Forum on Globalization.

I think you will find this both insightful and uplifting - Isis.

Part I - 10:51



Part II - 9:44

Orwell News Services

I haven't watched TV in many years, aside from odd moments in the waiting room of our local veterinary office. The news I get is through sources on the internet - some are newspapers, some television services, and others, well "others", who have direct knowledge of various developments and/or contacts with same. The benefit is that I get to filter out the commercial brainwashing as well as most of the crap that passes for "news", and select only those stories I want to read or investigate. [Don't talk to me about the "History Channel" or "Discovery Channel" et al - much of that is propaganda as well.]

Recently, Jon Stewart at Comedy Central lambasted CNN - "the most trusted name in news" - for not living up to it's self-proclaimed status. Isn't it ironic that one might turn to a comedy channel to find accurate news analysis?

I debated with myself about posting the clip, but then today the news in the USA (not in Japan - don't know about other countries) was dominated by the story of a helium balloon which got away and in which, it was SPECULATED, was a 6 year old child. (Shades of the non-chase of the NOT GUILTY Mr. O.J. Simpson.) Three seconds of viewing said balloon would confirm to anyone that it was not behaiving in a way that indicated there was any load on board, and that it was obviously not large enough to carry a 6 year old dog, let alone a boy. Never mind. Wars, economics, US health care be damned, this was NEWS!!!

With that story, the scales in my mind were tipped. Here is Mr. Stewart's brilliant piece about CNN (and by extension, all American news networks). Best of all, it's funny... (caution - profanity)

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
CNN Leaves It There
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

Mainstream media sucks....and, I'm afraid ladies and gentlement, time for this post is up. We'll just have to leave it there...

~Isis

Inspiration

William Kamkwamba was recently interviewed by Jon Stewart:

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
William Kamkwamba
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Ron Paul Interview

An Inconvenient Truth About Renewable Energy

New York Times
Alternative Energy Projects Stumble on a Need for Water

By TODD WOODY
Published: September 29, 2009

AMARGOSA VALLEY, Nev. — In a rural corner of Nevada reeling from the recession, a bit of salvation seemed to arrive last year. A German developer, Solar Millennium, announced plans to build two large solar farms here that would harness the sun to generate electricity, creating hundreds of jobs.

But then things got messy. The company revealed that its preferred method of cooling the power plants would consume 1.3 billion gallons of water a year, about 20 percent of this desert valley’s available water.

The article goes on to describe the reasons why these plants require so much water and how many projects in Nevada and California are running into to problems due to water constraints. Well worth your time. ~Isis

Read the entire article here: NEW YORK TIMES