The costs of globally tight oil supplies are already being felt by Vermonters whose budgets are stretched to heat their homes and put food on the table. There is little to no response at the federal level. At the state level, the Energy Affordability and Climate Change bill that was passed by the state legislature but vetoed by the governor would have been a positive step. Vermont, with cold winters and economic dependence on tourism, has a lot of adjustments to make.

This section, an appendix from Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, will help you (a municipal elected official or staff member) develop a volunteer-based task force to inquire into the vulnerabilities your community faces in peak oil, and to develop recommendations for response actions.

The U.S. government's Energy Information Administration announced bad news on the fuel front. The announcement, predicting that gasoline prices are due to go up another 20 cents a gallon in the next few weeks, has been reported on widely. But the real message to take from this announcement is that the EIA is seeing, and starting to report, a real change in the oil markets.

Charles Lockwood interviews Post Carbon Institute President Julian Darley about peak oil and what it means for the shape of human settlement. From the October edition of Urban Land, published by the Urban Land Institute.

Oil shortages are a lot less simple than having to turn down the A/C and line up to refill the gas tank. For one thing, models predict that once production starts slipping, it’ll slip fast – far faster than it’ll take to replace our needs with wind, solar or even nuclear. And in the last five decades, we’ve become dependent on petroleum in countless ways, and seemingly insignificant disruptions in supply can have far-reaching repercussions.

It is surprising that the world economy has managed to carry on growing strongly despite the recent rise in oil prices. There's growing recognition of the finite limits to global oil production, but also growing demand that probably can't be offset by efficiencies in developed countries. While it's hard to connect the current US economic slump with oil prices, the impact of rising prices will be felt sooner or later.

The transportation bill that failed in Seattle this week signals a change in the way that the public thinks about transportation choices -- they want to consider the climate. A few tips for policy-makers who want to make sure their proposals will work in this new political reality: estimate climate impacts in advance, look for solutions that are both cost-effective and climate friendly, and improve land use patterns.

Numerous reasons are given, but the end message from OPEC representatives is the same: oil prices are going to hit $100/barrel and probably continue rising. Consuming countries, they argued, will simply have to deal with the fact that new pockets of oil are getting far harder and more expensive to tap.

Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty is a guidebook on peak oil and global warming for people who work with and for local governments in the United States and Canada. It provides a sober look at how these phenomena are quickly creating new uncertainties and vulnerabilities for cities of all sizes, and explains what local decision-makers can do to address these challenges.

Smart municipalities are planning and preparing for energy vulnerability and climate change. Peak Moment TV interviews Daniel Lerch, author of newly-released "Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty," the first major guidebook for local governments on peak oil and climate change.