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A friend of mine passed me a link today to a website I was unaware of called Architecture2030. This site is put up by Mazria Inc. Odems Dzurec an architecture and planning firm in Santa Fe, New Mexico. Here’s what they say about their Architecture2030 project:

Architecture 2030 was established in 2005 and is sponsored by New Energy Economy, a non-profit, non-partisan and independent organization. Our mission is to conduct research, and provide information and innovative solutions in the fields of architecture and planning, in an effort to address global climate change. We are supported by a range of individuals, firms and charitable organizations.

Their site is interesting and well organized with some great graphics – I recommend it highly.

They talk a lot about the fact that their industry, the building industry, is a major contributor to global greenhouse gas emissions. “Unknowingly, the architecture and building community is responsible for almost half of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions annually. Globally the percentage is even greater.”

They are issuing a challenge ➡ to the building industry to do better and pointing out that we already have the techniques at hand. This ‘challenge’ is having a positive effect:

“2030 Challenge” Resolution Adopted Cities across America have just taken an historic step in addressing the issue of global warming. The US Conference of Mayors has made a commitment to reduce global warming pollution from buildings in order to protect the world for future generations. On Monday, June 5, 2006, the US Conference of Mayors adopted the “2030 Challenge” (Resolution #50) for ALL buildings. The resolution was put forward by the mayors’ of cities from the 4 corners of the continental U.S. – Chicago Mayor Richard Daley and Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, Miami Mayor Manuel Diaz and Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels. As buildings are responsible for emitting half of the green house gas emissions that cause global warming, cities are committing to implement an immediate 50% fossil fuel greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction standard for all new and renovated buildings (50% below the national average for each building type) and setting benchmarks and timelines to increase the reduction standard for new buildings to carbon-neutral by 2030 – meaning they will use no fossil fuel, GHG emitting energy to operate. Last week on May 31, 2006 the City of Santa Fe became the first city in the US to formally adopt the “2030 Challenge”. This means that all new city buildings, starting immediately, will be built to use 50% less fossil fuel, GHG emitting energy.

The Architecture2030 website also has a section ➡ which explains in clear terms what the effects of not reversing our greenhouse gas emissions will do to:

The Arctic
Plants and Animals
Hurricanes
Sea levels
Water Supplies
Coral Reefs
Human Health
Global Weather

To The Architecture2030 Website: ➡

Research thanks to Jerry S.

I’ve been following the doings and the writings of a fellow named Kevin now for sometime. Kevin is the author of the Cryptogon Blog. He’s an interesting guy who walks his talk.

He’s been concerned about a lot of the same issues I am (i.e. the coming Perfect Storm ) and he’s translated this concern into giving up a career in the financial/investment industry in Orange County, California and moving to New Zealand to start a permaculture farm in the countryside north of Auckland and to get him self off the grid and out of harm’s way.

His blog is one of the one’s listed in my Blogroll of blogs I like and read regularly. In addition to admiring Kevin for the strength of his convictions and how he takes action on them, I owe him a debt of gratitude because his blog was the first one in the world to cross-link back to mine a few months ago when I first started up here.

I don’t always agree with everything Kevin thinks or posts but that’s normal. As I heard the other day on a TV show, “If we were all identical, we wouldn’t need more than one of us, eh?”

In any case, the following are Kevin’s thoughts on what prudent people should be thinking about as they begin to think through what they are going to do and where they want to be as our joint and probably unpleasant history unfolds in the years just ahead.

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I can safely say that I have no for-sure strategies for preserving wealth in the face of the situation facing the U.S. and the world. Like I’ve said before, I don’t think it’s possible to get a grasp on the seriousness of this, a priori. If any of several different situations (financial, war/terror, energy, pandemic, weather/ecological) start to unwind, we won’t be debating gold vs. silver vs. stocks vs. bonds vs. cash etc.

I’d be investing very close to home.

Is your landbase and community sorted out? Meaning, do you have good top soil and a reliable and clean water supply? Are you friends with your neighbors? Is everyone armed? They should be.

I would suggest using your money to get your land in the best shape possible, and to buy equipment and tools that will LAST for a long, long time.

While I don’t think real estate makes sense anymore from the typical investment perspective, I think it MIGHT make sense IF you can own it outright and collect rent. What you’re doing is trading your paper wealth for an income stream in the future. Forget about what’s going to happen to the value of the property. Just forget that aspect for a moment, if you can. Unless we go to a Max Max scenario (which could happen) there will still be owners and there will still be renters. Your U.S. dollar denominated paper assets may have long since become worthless, but you will still be collecting the coin of the realm (whatever that happens to be in the future) from your renters.

The old “don’t put all your eggs in one basket” rule applies as much now as it ever did.

I, personally, wouldn’t go near typical buy-and-hold investments; stocks, bonds, etc. If you feel as though you have to be in paper assets, you should be using advanced hedging techniques with options to mitigate risk. You’ll be paying fixed amounts of money along the way (option expiration) to prevent potential disaster. People who were long Yahoo AND holding puts in the right ratio made out like bandits on the stock’s collapse, while the regular retail investors got decapitated.

I don’t see gold being a cure-all, but who knows!? It might go to ______ < - fill in the blank. Consider nibbling the dips under $600? That would be my best guess, if I was forced to make a guess. Oil? It could just as easily go to $45 before it goes to $200. I wouldn't go near oil, long or short. It's far too volatile. Real estate!? HAHAHA. Keep your powder dry and buy when blood is flowing in the streets. Pay cash for potential rental units that dumbsh*ts MUST sell at shocking discounts (from today's prices) to avoid bankruptcy. (If Becky and I had excess cash to deal with, which we don't, this would be our plan.) A lot of really nice apples are about to be shaken loose from the tree. This might sound weird, but it must not be overlooked. Start up some kind of business or activity that involves young men. Look at the role of young men in any failed state. You will want to have these guys on your side when things get weird. Your life might depend on it. Well, those are a few ideas to consider. Original post is here: ➡

The heatwave that has been baking California since mid-July is being blamed for about 100 deaths across the state, the authorities have said.

Most of the deaths have been in the Central Valley, where temperatures have reached 46C (115F) in some areas.

Among the worst-hit areas is Fresno, where the local mortuary is struggling to deal with dozens of bodies.

The heat has also hit the agriculture sector, killing 25,000 cattle and 700,000 poultry, farmers say.

More… ➡

Picked up the June 2006 copy of Scientific American last night and found several pieces that I liked. Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University and of the U.N. Millennium Project, has begun a new column called Sustainable Developments.

This new monthly column, in Sachs’ words, “will be about the emerging geopolitics of sustainability and the search for genuine solutions. It will show that topics usually treated through a political lens–war, terror, corruption–more and more frequently have an ecological underpinning. Global market forces can be “reengineered” to channel economic activity in a sustainable manner. Better technologies can square the circle of economic growth with sustainability. And perhaps most important, new approaches to global politics and governance itself, based firmly on the budding science of sustainability, can provide a vital bridge to future prosperity and peace.”

I like the general drift of Sachs’ column because he’s taking a systemic approach and looking at all of the factors converging on our future in a unified manner. I.e., he sees and is reporting on the Perfect Storm hypothesis even though he may call it by other names.

Here’s the opening text and a link to the full article:

Each era has its own dominating themes of global politics. The 19th century had the politics of industrialization and empire. The first half of the 20th century bowed to world wars and economic depression. The second half was overshadowed by the cold war. Our era, I believe, will be dominated by the geopolitics of sustainability.

Economic development has become a generalized global phenomenon, except in sub-Saharan Africa and a few other poverty hot spots. Even those impoverished areas will probably achieve economic takeoff with a little international help and the application of “best option” technologies. The world’s total economic throughput every year, adjusted for differences in countries’ purchasing power and measured as the gross world product (GWP), now stands at approximately $60 trillion. Over the past century, the GWP has grown roughly 18-fold in price-adjusted terms.

With that increase in economic output have come some phenomenal benefits, such as rising life expectancy and improved overall public health, and some planet-threatening adverse effects, such as massive tropical deforestation, ocean fisheries depletion, man-made climate change, violent competition over limited hydrocarbon resources, and newly emerging diseases such as SARS and avian flu (H5N1). Until now, the favorable outcomes have outweighed the bad. Yet because many of the environmental consequences are hidden from view and from our national income accounts, we sit atop ticking ecological time bombs.

More… ➡