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Nichole Foss to Give Talk at The Channon (Feb 10, 2012)

What: Nichole Foss talk on the present and future crises
Where: The Channon Community Hall, near Lismore, NSW, Australia (and a stone’s throw from the PRI’s Zaytuna Farm)
When: 10th of February, starting at 5.30 pm
Cost?: Donation at door

Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth (TAE), where she writes under the name Stoneleigh. She and her writing partner have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance, energy, environment, psychology, population and real politick in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state of crisis and what we can do about it. Prior to the establishment of TAE, she was editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and finance.

Foss runs the Agri-Energy Producers’ Association of Ontario, where she has focused on farm-based biogas projects and grid connections for renewable energy. While living in the UK she was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level.

Her academic qualifications include a BSc in biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate diploma in air and water pollution control, an LLM in international law in development from the University of Warwick in the UK. She was granted the University Medal for the top science graduate in 1988 and the law school prize for the top law school graduate in 1997.

During her talk she plans to discuss the many converging factors that are contributing to the predicament we face today, and how individuals can build a ‘lifeboat’ to cope with the difficult years ahead.

At her presentation, Foss will describe how our current financial system is an unsustainable credit bubble grounded in ‘Ponzi dynamics’, or the logic of the pyramid scheme. She warns that most people are woefully unprepared to face the consequences of the devastating deflation that is now unfolding.

What makes this crisis different from past financial calamities? Foss will argue that this one has developed in the context of the fossil fuel age, which will prove to be a relatively brief period of human history. We have already seen oil reach a global production peak, and other fossil fuels are not far behind, she says. While there is still plenty of fossil fuel in the ground, production will fall, meaning that there will be less and less energy available to power the economy at prices we can afford to pay.

Societies have gone through boom and bust cycles before — for example, Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble and the ‘Real’ Great Depression of the 1870s — but most people in the Western world today will face this crisis without the knowledge or means to provide the basics of their own survival. Our industrial system has nearly destroyed the individual capacity for self-reliance. Foss will argue that individuals and communities that take steps now to prepare stand a much better chance to thrive in a changing world.

As an energy analyst Foss will also discuss the current coal seam/shale gas ‘fracking’ mania (see here, here and here) and present convincing arguments as to why this is just another financial bubble waiting to pop.

This is a rare opportunity to hear first hand from someone who has drawn together the big picture of what the future holds for us and presents it in a factual logical frame work that allows us to a gain deeper insight into events currently unfolding around us. With this knowledge we can then better adapt to the challenges ahead.

The talk is on at The Channon Community Hall Friday the 10th of February, starting at 5.30 pm, with the talk beginning at 6 pm.

3 Comments

  1. Having read Nicoles work for some years, I know this presentation will be well worth the effort to attend for those not familiar with her work.

    If it is not possible attend the presentation, I highly recommend visiting her website and paying for her presentation “A Century Of Challenges” available streaming on the web ($12.50 US) also available to order on DVD from the site. If you are strapped for cash and cannot afford the presentation I highly reconnected visiting the site, scroll down and look on the RH side, for the “TAE Primers” threads for further insight.

    I have given out 37 copies of the presentation on disc so far to family and friends, (with instructions to donate to TAE for the privilege) it has changed the lives of everyone who received it, many of whom have since become “preppers” and or involved in Permaculture. Those of us who tried to raise the issue of peak oil with family and friends more than 10 years ago will know the feeling of being “the weirdest person in the room”, I found giving out this presentation a much better way to inform them without the stress and familiar glazed look on their faces.

    I have a slightly different view regarding Peak Oil and financial collapse. TPTB have been well aware of the issues since at least 1972 (see the Club of Romes “limits to growth”). I think the PO “plateau” since 2005 indicates an arbitrary production limit agreed by TPTB. I believe this production limit, and the Global Warming meme, has been arranged to manage energy decent. The concurrent financial mechanisms set up globally since the early 70’s were intentional, and are designed to keep and increase TPTB hegemony during energy decent. A managed collapse is upon us IMO.

    I realise my views are contentious, minority views, and further that many readers will strongly disagree with my take on these issues, lets agree to disagree on those points rather than derail the thread. We all need to work together on the inevitable outcomes regardless of opinions on cause/priority of issues.

    I remain a committed Permaculture practitioner regardless of my opinions on PO/Financial collapse/CAGW. My PC efforts will address all these issues just as yours will, regardless of the differing priorities we might assign to global environmental issues.

  2. No, Pete, this just will not do. It’s complete blasphemous sacrilege to have peak oil beliefs outside of the ‘norm’ permaculture view on this topic! ;)

    Recant, I say, come back to the fold of familiar peak oil beliefs and all will be forgiven!

    (For those who struggle with my weird sense of humour, I should note that I’m just joking here….)

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