How are rising oil prices affecting the summer tourist season and cities that depend on vacationers? The news isn't all bad, especially for destinations that cater to local and regional tourism. The long term trends are indeed shifting, however, with unclear prospects for business travel and the tourist dollars it generates.

This excerpt of Daniel Lerch's presentation at the Spirit of Red Hill Valley 2007 lecture in Hamilton, Ontario, categorizes some of the short and long term challenges that peak oil will present to local governments. A good introduction for colleagues who may have heard of peak oil but don't associate it with local issues.

This report, from the organization Architecture 2030, seeks a way to rapidly meet the goal of 350 ppm of atmospheric CO₂ and finds it in a coal moratorium and efficiency codes.

This week, Architecture 2030 released an unprecedented guide for every city, county and state in the nation to swiftly meet their greenhouse gas (GHG) reduction targets through existing building codes, asserting that meeting reduction targets through existing codes is the critical ‘missing piece’ to getting major reductions underway immediately.

Post Carbon Institute's Julian Darley and Richard Heinberg present the facts and relevance of peak oil for local policymakers. What is peak oil? What's the evidence? Why don't we just drill for more? How does this relate to climate change? And what can policymakers do in the face of these daunting challenges? A good introductory video.

Two years ago, when Portland created the Peak Oil Task Force, it sounded apocalyptic. Not anymore. Summer of 2008 may be remembered as the moment we awoke from our long national gas binge. Whether oil production has peaked or will do so in a few decades is almost academic. Every fill-up knocks home the realization that we can't afford to go on like this.

The wide open spaces of Oklahoma's cities and towns mean that their residents are heavily reliant on cars to get around - part of the reason that Tulsa and Oklahoma rated last on Common Current's rating of US cities' readiness for high gas prices. Commuters find themselves carpooling and counting the gallons in ways they haven't since the 70s.

Some are reducing paving; others reverting some roads to gravel. Cities pool purchasing power, raise bond money, try new techniques to stretch their road repair budgets as the price of asphalt, a petroleum product, rises.

It's not about virtual energy, it's about real energy. And it will save you travel energy: the Virtual Energy Forum is a two day online-only event focused on how leading companies can adopt better energy management practices to cut cost, while at the same time adopting clean energy alternatives -- presenting alternative energy technologies, policies, and best practices in a live, interactive environment.

The 8th Annual New Partners for Smart Growth: Building Safe, Healthy and Livable Communities Conference will be held January 22-24, 2009 at the Albuquerque Convention Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.