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Driving home from a visit to a community gardening project this controversial statement was made by the local permaculture guru. A bit over-simplified I thought to myself. Well, I've been keeping an eye open... Since July 2007 I have been posting to Ecowar, a blog at Blogspot, whenever I encountered news and information supporting (or countering) the statement linking human conflict to spoils of the Earth. And I have actively sought out this type of information. Still am too.

So burn this into your mind: between 2007 and 2008 the IEA radically changed its assessment. Until this year's report, the agency mocked people who said that oil supplies might peak. In the foreword to a book it published in 2005, its executive director, Claude Mandil, dismissed those who warned of this event as "doomsayers". "The IEA has long maintained that none of this is a cause for concern," he wrote. "Hydrocarbon resources around the world are abundant and will easily fuel the world through its transition to a sustainable energy future."(7) In its 2007 World Energy Outlook, the IEA predicted a rate of decline in output from the world's existing oilfields of 3.7% a year(8). This, it said, presented a short-term challenge, with the possibility of a temporary supply crunch in 2015, but with sufficient investment any shortfall could be covered. But the new report, published last month, carried a very different message: a projected rate of decline of 6.7%, which means a much greater gap to fill(9).

You better watch out! Better not cry! Better not pout! I'm telling you why, Santa Claus is comin' to town. He's making a list and checking it twice. He's going to find out who's naughty and nice. Santa Claus Is Comin' To Town. We better watch out. We better not cry. While Santa checks his list twice, so too might you and I. The ebony chunks Old Saint Nick might place in our stocking, contrary to what coal corporation sponsored commercials might claim, are not clean. Nor is this source of energy cheap. When used as a resource for power, this sedimentary rock is dirty, deadly, and digs deep into the pocketbooks, and personal lives, of those the industry touches. In America, that may be you and me.

# Kathleen McGinty-Former Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Head: McGinty served as a top environmental official under President Clinton, and she has promoted renewable energy legislation in Pennsylvania while working with utility companies. # Mary Nichols-California Air Resources Board Leader: Another former Clinton official, Nichols is working on the development of rules to limit heat-trapping emissions from power plants in California. Nichols is Senator Boxer's top pick for the job. # Ian Bowles-Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Leader: Bowles worked with officials from other Northeast U.S. states to open the first American market for trading greenhouse gas permits. # Kathleen Sibelius-Kansas Governor: Sebelius vetoed the Kansas legislature's attempt to overrule the denial of a permit to expand a coal-fired power plant. # Lisa Jackson-New Jersey Environmental Commissioner: Jackson is the current co-chair of Barack Obama's environmental transition team. She has worked at the EPA for 15 years and has focused on hazardous waste clean up and enforcement in New Jersey. # Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.-Environmental Lawyer: Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. is probably the most well-known candidate on the shortlist:

According to a new report, the cumulative impact of developing Canadian tar sands over the next 30-50 years could be as high as 166 million birds lost, including future generations. Written by scientists from the Natural Resources Defense Council, Boreal Songbird Initiative, and Pembina Institute, the peer-reviewed paper suggests that avian mortality from continued development of Canada's tar sands would provide a serious blow to migratory bird populations in North America. 10 votesBuzz up! "This report is yet another wake up call to the government in Alberta, as it confirms that the cumulative impact of oil sands development is on an unsustainable trajectory," said Pembina Institute's Simon Dyer, a contributing author to the report.

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) is today expected to adopt the most radical global warming plan in the U.S., and possibly the world. If passed, it will force individuals, as well as the state's utilities, refineries and large factories to fundamentally change the way they do business, and slash greenhouse gas emissions. The plan will outline for the first time how people and businesses will be required to meet the state's 2006 'Global Warming Solutions Act' and transform California into a global leader in the fight against climate change. The board will be in session all day to consider approval of the AB 32 Scoping Plan to Reduce GHG Emissions in California. Key aspects of the plan include: * The creation of a carbon-credit 'cap and trade' market designed to give the state's major polluters cheaper ways to cut emissions; * A Low Carbon Fuel standard; * Stringent transport related greenhouse gas targets; * A target of generating 33% of the states's electricity from renewable energy by 2020; * Ambitious vehicle efficiency measures; * Implementation of a high speed rail system; * A radical green building strategy.

U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT BARACK OBAMA: The pursuit of a new energy economy requires a sustained all-hands-on-deck effort, because the foundation of our energy independence is right here in America, in the power of wind and solar, in new crops and new technologies, in the innovation of our scientists and entrepreneurs and the dedication and skill of our workforce. Those are the resources that we have to harness to move beyond our oil addiction and create a new hybrid economy. The team that I have assembled here today is uniquely suited to meet the great challenges of this defining moment.

The New York Times has a review of a book on the history of horse power (Horses at Work: Harnessing Power in Industrial America), including a segment describing an energy crisis caused by an outbreak of horse flu in the 1870's - A World of a Different Color. Once upon a time, America derived most of its power from a natural, renewable resource that was roughly as efficient as an automobile engine but did not pollute the air with nitrogen dioxide or suspended particulate matter or carcinogenic hydrocarbons. This power source was versatile. Hooked up to the right devices, it could thresh wheat or saw wood. It was also highly portable - in fact, it propelled itself - and could move either along railroad tracks or independently of them. Each unit came with a useful, nonthreatening amount of programmable memory preinstalled, including software that prompted forgetful users once it had learned a routine, and each possessed a character so distinctive that most users gave theirs a name. As a bonus feature, the power source neighed.

The Natural Resources Defense Council, one of the nation's most powerful environmental groups, has managed to persuade Bank of America, one of the nation's leading financial institutions, to take a measured stand against certain surface mining practices. At the N.R.D.C.'s Switchboard blog, Rob Perks, director of the organization's Center for Advocacy Campaigns in Washington, said the group managed to persuade Bank of America executives to visit several mountaintop mine sites in Appalachia - including Kayford Mountain, which has been laid low by mountaintop mining methods.

In the US, the Californian desert and the Mid-West plains are ideal locations for solar and wind energy plants. In the UK the Scottish Highlands and Welsh mountains have the highest winds in the UK. These locations have similar characteristics - great resources for renewable energy generation, but limited grid infrastructure and not many people. Hundreds and in some cases thousands of miles of new expensive, high voltage grid infrastructure is needed in these key locations to transport green energy to areas of high demand - the big cities. This grid infrastructure is both expensive and geographically extensive.

Tribal resources with focus on windpower

Inhabitat has a report from Bulgaria on the continuing impasse between Russia and the Ukraine over Russian gas exports - Gazprom Crisis Engulfs Europe. Home heating price increases have certainly been a major concern for recession-strapped households in northern climates, but the possibility of having one's heat completely shut-off in this new era of natural resource 'muscle flexing' and bitter political show-downs is perhaps a whole new energy policy boiling point in Europe and beyond. Russia's decision this week to turn off the flow of gas from its Gazprom pipelines to the Ukraine, which in turn forced many European countries to rely on their (in some cases virtually nonexistent) gas reserves, demonstrates the dire need to identify alternatives to Siberia and the Middle East for our massive oil and gas dependencies. Given that my family and I are currently in Bulgaria for six weeks, we are experiencing the Gazprom gas cut-off crisis first-hand. This issue will not be going away any time soon, despite the band-aid patches that will crop up over the next few weeks and months.

In 1970 James Gustave Speth co-founded the Natural Resources Defense Council, which has become one of America's most well-endowed and high-profile environmental organizations. He worked in the White House under President Carter, chairing the Council on Environmental Quality; when Bill Clinton and Al Gore were elected in 1992, Speth was a senior adviser to their transition team. He spent the 1990s as the administrator of the United Nations Development Program, where he integrated environmental sustainability into the agency's poverty-fighting mission. Thus, what follows--his call for a radical departure from the movement's current strategy--comes from the ultimate environmental insider. --The Editors I grew up in a small town on the Edisto River in South Carolina in the 1940s and '50s. As a boy, I often swam the Edisto, though at first I could not buck the river's current. But as I grew older and stronger, I was able to make good headway against it. In my environmental work for close to four decades, I've always assumed America's environmental community would do the same--get stronger and prevail against the current. But in the past few years I have come to the conclusion that this assumption is incorrect. The environmental community has grown in strength and sophistication, but the environment has continued to deteriorate. The current has strengthened faster than we have and become more treacherous. It is time to consider what to do besides swimming against it.

Fact Sheet: The United States and Caspian Energy Security * The U.S. continues to support multiple, independent and commercially-viable export routes to global markets for Caspian energy. * The U.S. government encourages Caspian countries to increase regional cooperation to develop energy solutions for the region. * Southern Corridor energy export routes will give Turkish and European consumers greater freedom of choice, increase competition and bring additional and diverse energy supplies to market, thus augmenting global energy security. * Since becoming independent in 1991, the former Soviet Republics of the Caspian region have attracted significant international investment in its oil and natural gas reserves, making it an important source of energy exports. * The Caspian region produces roughly 2.8 million barrels per day (bbl/d). * The Caspian region has significant natural gas resources, making it an ideal source for diversification of the European market. * Continued investment by international firms, bringing management expertise and technological advantages, is crucial to expanding energy production and increasing benefits to the host countries. * Diversity of supplies, suppliers and supply routes is a key component to enhancing global energy security.

Despite the financial crisis, it seems that wind power is moving up the political agenda everywhere. But as China and the United States continue to develop their wind resources on the ground, a question for Europe is how many windmills can be built out at sea. Inland sites are much less available in Europe than in some other parts of the world. Building windmills at sea also helps to overcome not-in-my-backyard protests from homeowners who complain that windmills are ugly and noisy.

THE graphs climbing across these pages (see graph in detail, or explore the data) are a stark reminder of the crisis facing our planet. Consumption of resources is rising rapidly, biodiversity is plummeting and just about every measure shows humans affecting Earth on a vast scale. Most of us accept the need for a more sustainable way to live, by reducing carbon emissions, developing renewable technology and increasing energy efficiency. But are these efforts to save the planet doomed? A growing band of experts are looking at figures like these and arguing that personal carbon virtue and collective environmentalism are futile as long as our economic system is built on the assumption of growth. The science tells us that if we are serious about saving Earth, we must reshape our economy.

Alaska has enough natural gas trapped in ice formations beneath permanently frozen subsoil and offshore to heat more than 100 million homes for a decade, a U.S. report estimated. Hydrates, crystalline structures consisting of gas and water locked below the permafrost, contain 85.4 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, the Interior Department's U.S. Geological Survey said in a report released today. "The hydrates have more potential for energy than all other fossil fuels combined," Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne said in a news conference. "This is a huge resource for energy, and one cannot overstate that."

Both the beauty and the fragility of the planet were on spectacular display Monday as TODAY reported on climate change and the power of water from the Ends of the Earth. Hosts Matt Lauer, Meredith Vieira, Al Roker and Ann Curry signed in simultaneously from the Western Hemisphere's longest coral reef in Belize; drought-stricken Australia, the world's driest inhabited continent; Iceland, where fire meets ice; and 13,000 feet up the flank of Mount Kilimanjaro, the "Roof of Africa," whose famous snows and glaciers are on pace to disappear within the next dozen years. Water covers 71 percent of the Earth's surface, but, as Lauer, Vieira, Roker and Curry reported, 1.1 billion people - a sixth of the planet's human population - do not have access to a clean supply of this most precious and essential resource.

The House Natural Resources Committee has just announced hearings next week into the latest scandal to grip a federal agency under the Bush administration. Turns out an Interior Department agency in charge of collecting oil and natural gas royalties was compromised for years, investigators said, alleging that employees improperly accepted gifts from oil companies, handed out sweetheart deals, had sex with subordinates and used illegal drugs. As the Los Angeles Times described it, investigators spent two years examining the cozy relationship between the energy industry and the Minerals Management Service, an obscure Interior Department agency that issues lucrative drilling leases to energy companies and then collects royalties from leases of the land, which is owned by taxpayers.

The natural gas industry refuses to reveal what is in the mixture of chemicals used to drill for the fossil fuel State regulators and Washington lawmakers though are increasingly impatient with voluntary measures and are seeking to toughen their oversight. In September U.S. Congresswoman Diana DeGette and Congressman John Salazar, from Colorado, and Congressman Maurice Hinchey, from New York, introduced a bill that would undo the exemptions in the 2005 Energy Policy Act. Wyoming, widely known for supporting energy development, has begun updating its regulations at a local level, as have parts of Texas. New Mexico has placed a one year moratorium on drilling around Santa Fe, after a survey found hundreds of cases of water contamination from unlined pits where fracking fluids and other drilling wastes are stored. "Every rule that we have improved . . . industry has taken us to court on," said Joanna Prukop, New Mexico's cabinet secretary for Energy Minerals and Natural Resources. "It's industry that is fighting us on every front as we try to improve our government enforcement, protection, and compliance… We wear Kevlar these days."