Here at Post Carbon Cities we've got a lot to prepare for in the next few months, what with a two-day whirlwind tour of Minnesota next week, a webinar for Canadian local governments hosted by Federation for Canadian Municipalities at the end of the month, and a slew of upcoming conference appearances, including the American Planning Association's annual conference, SOLAR 2008 and Sustainable Ireland's Convergence festival!

So for this week's blog post I'd just like to draw your attention to a few things worth checking out at the start of what promises to be a year of profound change -- and I don't just mean in terms of American politics, but in terms of our efforts on energy and climate uncertainty:

First, there's Tuesday's Year in Review article by top peak oil commentator and former CIA analyst Tom Whipple. In a field still largely dominated by petroleum geology wonks, Whipple stands out as an exceptionally insightful and informed peak oil writer who's able to pull together the complexities of the problem in clear and understandable terms. And for a year in which supply constraints and the weakening dollar played a greater role in oil price hikes than the usual suspects of military action and catastrophic weather, Whipple's analysis brings a lot of clarity to what really happened in 2007 -- and what we might expect for 2008. Whipple also writes a weekly Peak Oil Review which, together with Richard Heinberg's monthly MuseLetter and EnergyBulletin's daily feeds, is a great way to stay on top of this rapidly developing issue.

Next is Bill McKibben's article in last week's Washington Post, Remember This: 350 Parts Per Million. For the last few years many in the climate change community have pointed to 450 parts per million CO2 as the threshold we should not cross if we hope to avoid catastrophic effects from climate change like the melting of the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets and a subsequent rise in sea level of giant proportions. McKibben himself spoke of the 450 ppm target as recently as in the October 2007 issue of National Geographic. But in December, James Hansen, director of NASA's Goddard Space Institute, announced that 350 parts per million CO2 is actually the more realistic threshold. Unfortunately, we're already at 383 ppm (at least) and rising. McKibben's article, as well as a recent piece by Alex Steffen at WorldChanging, are a good introduction to this new challenge and what needs to change in response.

And finally, there's the recent upload to YouTube Laurel mentioned last week, in which somebody excerpted audio from our 2005 Global Public Media interview with Robert Hirsch (lead author of a now-famous peak oil reportfor the U.S. Department of Energy) and made it into a succinct, engaging seven-minute video presentation. Nothing necessarily new in here, but I like it because it's an easy way to refresh yourself (or educate others) about the real problems we face in global fossil fuel depletion -- and, at a time when peak oil videos now seem to range from the apocalyptic to the salacious, it's a very approachable piece to forward on to colleagues.

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