- Such business opportunities also move us forward. - Editor

I am so convinced about this from prior personal experience, I am trying to get a roofer to tackle making the roof white while adding insulation to the stylish but dysfunctional flat roofs of Santa Fe.- Editor
 

The Roof as White Knight
Since Dr. Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics, took over as energy secretary last year, he has urged Americans to help cool the planet by painting their roofs a lighter color that reflects sunlight. Now he is following his own advice: on Monday, Dr. Chu directed all Energy Department offices to install white roofs during new construction, when replacing old roofs and wherever an installation is cost-effective over the lifetime of the roof. The secretary urged other federal agencies to follow suit.
“Cool roofs are one of the quickest and lowest-cost ways we can reduce our global carbon emissions and begin the hard work of slowing climate change,” he said in a statement.
As climate change remedies go, whitening roofs is the proverbial low-hanging fruit.  Lighter-colored roofs not only reduce air-conditioning bills for individual buildings but also lessen the “heat island” effect, in which the ambient air in cities is hotter than that of surrounding regions because of a high concentration of dark, heat-absorbent surfaces like asphalt.
A 2009 study found that retrofitting 80 percent of air-conditioned buildings in the United States with white roofs would save $735 million annually in reduced energy bills while achieving an emissions reduction equivalent to removing 1.2 million cars from the road.
Another study found that increasing the reflectivity of those surfaces in urban areas with a population of over one million would offset the heating effect of 1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide emission annually, the equivalent of taking 300 million cars off the road for 20 years.
http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/07/21/in-a-climate-quest-the-roof-as-white-knight/

- We all have idols, and last week, I got to listen to one of mine. It was partly the ground-breaking Club of Rome work that influenced me away from my intended career and on to population, environment, and climate change. With such an important message, why weren’t all the City decision makers there at the talk? How do we get other cities to listen? Dr. Meadows had read our Sustainable Santa Fe Plan- great! - and while he congratulated us on its importance and value, he said that if population and consumption levels are not included in a climate plan, we can not become sustainable. It’s true. If we cut our emissions, for example 50%, but double the number of people, we have not become more sustainable.

For those of you who have been reading Climate Today for at least a year will not have had any surprises- his talk covered Peak Oil, population growth, the lag time of climate change, the need for local adaptation and relocalization, voluntary simplicity with reduced consumption, etc.

Here are a few gems from his talk that are worth remembering and sharing:
- 50% of all the oil consumed by humans has been consumed since 1984, creating a world we now view as normal, but this high energy usage can not continue.
- We are moving into the “Post Petroleum Age.”  In 2006, 9 billion barrels of oil were discovered, but we consumed 31 billion barrels that year. World consumption of oil is currently 5 to 6 times the amount that is being discovered, so we are using up our savings account, which can not continue.
- Prepare yourself for less available energy. It appears now that the government in the coming years will have to resort to some kind of rationing or quotas, similar to World War II. Just raising prices harms the poor.
- The “biocapacity” of the earth has been surpassed, and we are currently overshooting, which, if continues, is always followed by collapse. We are now consuming 140% of resources with demands accelerating against the world’s ecosystems. These trends include not only fossil fuels but also groundwater, greenhouse gases, the destruction of agricultural soils, the degradation of natural resources, the gap between the rich and the poor, the supply of fish, etc.
- Embodied energy is the energy used to create and ship the things that we import. We have to fully recognize the energy and resources used in other places like China if we are to reach sustainability.
- The world’s population will be going back down this century. It is only a matter of how.
- It is unlikely that waiting for the Federal government will work. Politicians want to get re-elected, and therefore fail to make the essential significant structural changes required to convert to sustainability.
Thank you Dr. Meadows for speaking so frankly. - Editor

Dennis Meadows probably doesn’t mean to be a downer at a cocktail party. But the researcher, who has spent decades studying Earth’s capacity to endure human population growth and extractive economies, says we’ve run out of time to turn around our global version of the Titanic.
Call him a realist. “We’re not talking about problems our grandchildren will have to deal with. We’re talking problems we’ll deal with in the next three to five years,” said Meadows, professor emeritus at the University of New Hampshire and winner of the 2009 prize for original and outstanding achievements from the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan. Meadows thinks humans can adapt to what is around the corner, such as higher fuel costs and warmer weather. Rebuilding local food supplies, living within an area’s existing water resources and producing energy locally from renewable sources are all ways communities can prepare for what’s ahead, he said.
Meadows and colleagues from the Club of Rome, a think tank focused on global challenges, produced a report in 1972 called “The Limits of Growth.” Their research concluded humans and their economies would outstrip the earth’s resources if growth wasn’t limited.
They updated the report in 2004 and found that on a planet-wide scale, humans hadn’t made much progress on saving the Earth’s resources. “We’ve seen so much population growth and industrial growth that we’re worse off then we were 20 years ago,” Meadows said. Now, it is too late to stop climate change, he believes. “Even if you lower CO2 emission to zero, we’re still going to see climate change from existing emissions for hundreds of years.” For people in general, it means learning to live well on less, he said - less energy, less water, less stuff.
http://www.santafe.edu/news/item/researcher-talks-climate-change/
For an 8 minute video that is not as clear as his 1 ½ hour talk but gives a flavor- http://www.theoildrum.com/node/6209

- One of the ideas Dr. Meadows shared was in order to be able to adapt, we must rethink our economic system, and begin a local monetary system as a major way to adapt when the large systems do such damaging fluctuation, which appear completely inevitable. A year ago, when I went to join a local credit union, it took awhile because so many others were joining this popular new trend. Supporting local banking is a beginning.  – Editor
 

Taking Financial Reform into Our Own Hands
The economic crisis is not over, and the rot and malfunctioning at the heart of our banking system remains. Indeed, since the collapse, giant banks have only grown bigger and more powerful, and less responsive to the needs of the real economy. While the financial reform bill includes several worthwhile measures, it will not set the industry right. Much of what big banks have been up to over the last two decades has involved devising ways to extract ever more wealth from households and the real economy. They’ve saddled their own customers with high fees and dangerous products, swindled borrowers and investors, and more. So how do we change course and revive a banking system that is more local and responsive to the needs of communities? We can and should take financial reform into our own hands. That means moving our money—and not just our savings, but our borrowing too. Tens of thousands of people have already broken up with big banks and moved to locally owned institutions, and many communities are starting “bank local” campaigns. Another smart move some states are beginning to consider is establishing a publicly owned “bankers’ bank” modeled on the Bank of North Dakota. By serving as a secondary market for loans, BND as helped North Dakota’s community banks thrive. The state has more local banks per capita than any other. And while that’s not the only reason North Dakota escaped the Great Recession, it hasn’t hurt.
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/taking-financial-reform-into-our-own-hands
For more details on North Dakota’s improved system- http://www.newrules.org/banking/rules/bank-north-dakota and http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/reviving-the-local-economy-with-publicly-owned-banks

People need to be able to exchange goods and services at the local level no matter what happens to Wall Street and beyond. Here is some info on local currencies touted by Dr. Meadows- the step beyond local banking. - Editor
National Association of Trade Exchanges
“I’ll give you some of mine, if you give me some of yours…”  Since time began, Barter has been an honored tradition of assisting with commerce between people and businesses. Although traditional methodologies of trade between people in small communities still exists, the utilization of technology launches Barter Organizations into the 21st century.
Cutting edge technology facilitates NATE members (independently owned barter organizations) throughout North America.  This network connects thousands of clients with one another, increasing scope and customer base for those wishing to barter goods and services from one company with another within the membership base.
http://www.natebarter.com/generaldetail.asp?ID=435 (the video is encouraging.)

AND as a successful local currency example-
 

BerkShares are a local currency for the Berkshire region. Dubbed a “great economic experiment” by the New York Times, BerkShares are a tool for community empowerment, enabling merchants and consumers to plant the seeds for an alternative economic future for their communities. Launched in the fall of 2006, BerkShares had a robust initiation, with over one million BerkShares having been circulated in the first nine months and over two million to date. Currently, more than three hundred and sixty businesses have signed up to accept the currency.
http://www.berkshares.org/whatareberkshares.html

Water- Growing food needs water. Some experts predict that by 2015, two-thirds of the world’s people will live in water-stressed countries.* Even if only half of this prediction were true, it’s a serious global issue. Since life does not go on without plants, an

- There is no doubt that keeping plants alive is the essence of resiliency and absolutely the greatest challenge with a changing climate. Even if you eat nothing but meat, you are still 100 per cent dependent on plants. At a lecture this past weekend, we learned some surprising results of how soil organisms are powerful tools for plant adaptability. How many of you had beneficial soil organisms in your list of how to adapt to the future? Or how high your trees are planted? We need to get sophisticated in natural systems quickly! - Editor
A Clear Call for Federal Support on Climate Adaptation 
In his keynote address, Governor Bill Richardson outlined some more specific ways that the federal government can help state and local governments adapt. Among other things, he called for a central information portal that can be used to help plan adaptation strategies. Most notably, he also made the case for a national climate adaptation fund that would be funded by emissions allowances under a cap and trade system enacted by Congress.
Despite the repeated calls for federal assistance, no one seems to be mentioning that the most hotly debated climate bill in Congress is largely silent on the federal government’s role in helping states and municipalities adapt to climate change. Governor Richardson’s call for a community adaptation fund comes barely two weeks after the unveiling of the American Power Act, which omitted that exact provision despite the fact that it has been included in virtually every other recent piece of climate legislation.
http://www.americanrivers.org/newsroom/blog/clear-call-for-federal-support-on-climate-adaptation-5-26-2010.html

 The three “America’s Climate Choices” reports, requested by Congress during the Bush administration, come as roiling debate over climate and energy legislation in Washington and the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico cloud future energy decisions. “Together, these reports show that the state of climate change science is strong,” NAS chief Ralph Cicerone says. “The data show the reality of climate change.” The report explicitly calls for cutting U.S. carbon emissions 50% to 80% from 1990 levels by 2050, in line with goals of both the Bush and Obama administrations. “This is a wake-up call from science telling Congress to get real,” says Alden Meyer of the Union of Concerned Scientists. “Wake up and smell the carbon.”
This week, NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration independently reported that 2010 has been the warmest year so far recorded worldwide, despite a snowy winter in parts of the United States.”
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2010-05-20-climate20_ST_N.htm
For the reports:
Advancing the Science of Climate Change
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12782
Limiting the Magnitude of Future Climate Change
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12785
Adapting to the Impacts of Climate Change
http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=12783#toc

- This short video is intriguing, explaining a new program in Germany that’s overcoming significant barriers to more local organic food. Organic farmers often need more people to maintain and harvest crops, and city folks may know nothing about farming yet have a budding interest. This program creatively unites farmers, land, and novices, where the farmer plants the fields in a variety of veggies, and the members get expert guidance while they nurture and harvest the crops they’ve paid for! This program is near 6 German towns and certainly is worth keeping track of. - Editor
 

City slickers take farm plots near German cities
For the video in English- http://www.cityfarmer.info/2010/04/08/city-slickers-take-a-farm-plot-near-the-city-in-frankfurt-germany/
For the website in German- http://www.meine-ernte.de/index.html