Sopravvivenza alla Fine del Petrolio

"Riflessioni, consigli e ricette per fare a meno dell'oro nero"




My book is now out in Italian with a foreword from Maurizio Pallante! You can order it from its ISBN number -- 88-88819-22-8.

I love the new cover by Pierre Druilhe and Andrea Calvetti, but you may not get the whole cartoon from the half-column-size image here at blogspot, so below is an enlargement of the detail.

Thanks to Mimmo Tringale, Cristina Michielli. Massimo Bani, Daniela Annetta and all the great folks at AAM Terra Nuovo for a fine job!

I have no immediate plans for an Italian book tour, but will be in Ireland for the Society of Utopian Studies at the beginning of July and in Portugal for the Re-Boot festival in early August. Re-Boot is part of the sustainable BOOM Festival, which gathers 20,000 young people from 64 countries to see what is happening in the realm of good news. Before then you can catch me at the Heartwood Forest Council Gathering in Shawnee State Forest, Ohio, on Memorial Day. The Forest Council features a scrumptious vegetarian menu made with local and organic food lovingly and creatively prepared. After that I am off to Grand Rapids for the International Conference on Peak Oil and Climate Change, where I am speaking on June 1st. That same day I will be speaking at the Art of Community conference in Albuquerque, via webinar, using technology provided by those good folks at New Society.

I'll be back to The Farm in time to speak at the Sonnenschein Festival on June 7 and to join the teaching cadre at our annual Permaculture Fundamentals workshop June 13-22.

If you were ever thinking of finding a good excuse to visit the Farm, our permaculture workshop is as good as it gets. See you here in June!

As I get ready to push the "publish post" button, I am looking again at that cover art of the roller coaster, and I can't help but wonder why we enjoy such amusements so much. The couple in the first car has a good look at the descent curve and they are freaked, but so are people on roller coaster rides, and they end up going back for more. The couple in the second car is clueless, and by the time they freak out, they will be in free fall, kind of like the people who took sub-prime mortgage loans. The guy in the third car is Daniel Yergen. He is whispering sweet nothings into the heads of government and business, telling them not to worry. That looks like Iron Man in the fourth car, getting ready to hit his rocket shoes and bugger on off to Mars. Good riddance, but you have to pity the poor bacteria on Mars, which are already trying to integrate the new lifeforms that arrived on all those rovers lately. Maybe they will get together and make an atmosphere. The fifth car is carrying Amory Lovins, who now acknowledges that peak oil is more real than abiogenic methane, but sees it as just further justification for a happy hypercar future, with even shorter payback periods as gas prices climb. Amory thinks the economy of the Mexican Riviera (and Mexico) can be saved by carbon-fiber passenger jets. C'mon. Really? In car number six is me, still chowing down on Bovine Growth Hormone and High Fructose Corn Syrup and wondering why I can't lose weight. I may lose it, along with my lunch, shortly. In the last car is you, waving back at me through the wonders of the internet. Hang on, people, this is about to get very exciting. What a great time to be alive!

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