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WHAT'S NEW
July 2010
July 15: The Smart Taxes Network has just submitted an Implementation Paper to the Irish Government which aims to provide policymakers with guidance on the implementation of Site Value Tax in Ireland, assessing actual and possible obstacles, and providing solutions. You can read a summary and download the full report here.
June 2010
June 4: We are delighted to learn that the Africa Centre for Holistic Management and Allan Savory have won the 2010 Buckminster Fuller Award. Allan Savory was our Feasta lecturer for 2009, and Feasta was interviewed at length about the value of Mr. Savory's work before the award was announced. His lecture "Keeping Cattle: Cause or Cure for Climate Crisis?", was instrumental in his being selected for the award. It summarises his ideas about using livestock to restore degraded land and address climate change. You can find out more about Mr Savory's work at the Savory Institute website.
June 3: Feasta is moving: as of Monday June 7th 2010 the Feasta office will be based in Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary. Our postal address will be Feasta Ltd, Main St, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary, Ireland. Our existing land line will be forwarded until we get a new one up and running, and you can also call our mobile at +353 (0)86 364 2728.
Cloughjordan has a vibrant and active community and we look forward to building strong relationships and sharing resources and experiences there. We will be sharing an office with Mendes Go Car, a sustainable transport consultancy, and in the same building as Cultivate's Cloughjordan branch and the North Tipperary Enterprise Park (which is in the process of establishing an enterprise centre on the Eco-Village site). We will continue to hold many of our meetings and member events in Dublin.
May 2010
May 18: The Liquidity Network group, which is developing a debt-free currency, submitted this entry to the Your Country, Your Call contest, which will award two €100,000 prizes later in the year. An article in the May issue of Construct Ireland magazine about the group's plans is here.
You can also download a powerpoint file of a talk that Richard Douthwaite recently gave at the Degrowth conference in Barcelona here.
March 2010
March 15: The report Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production, by David Korowicz of Feasta and the Risk/Resilience Network, is now available for download. The report argues that the defining dynamic of our civilisation is the withdrawal of energy from a complex and integrated system adapted only to growing. A managed "de-growth" is impossible; what is required is rapid emergency planning coupled with a plan for longer-term adaptation. Read summary
February 2010
Feb 14: Videos of all of the presentations from Feasta's New Emergency Conference can now be viewed for free on the conference website.
January 2010
Jan 11: The Liquidity Network group, which is working with Future Proof Kilkenny to launch an electronic currency system in the city, has just published a leaflet outlining the system. It can be downloaded here. More detailed questions about the way the system will operate are answered here.
December 2009
Dec 19: You can now view a free video of the 2009 Feasta lecture by Allan Savory, "Keeping Cattle: Cause or Cure for Climate Crisis?".
Dec 8: We are saddened to learn of the recent death of Dr Peter Read. He was a proponent of the use of bioenergy for climate change mitigation, and he gave one of the presentations at Feasta's 2008 Will Howard Memorial Lecture, "Climate Change: First the Bad News, Then The Good". Read more
November 2009
Nov 23: 
Feasta member and director Anne B. Ryan has announced that all royalties from her book Enough is Plenty will go to Feasta. It is currently available through Amazon as well as some bricks-and-mortar bookshops. If your local bookseller doesn't have it, you can ask them to stock it (be sure to give them the ISBN number, which is 978-1-84694-239-6). Find out more about the book, and place online orders in time for Christmas, here.
October 2009
Oct 20: We're pleased to announce that Kinsale is the first winner of the FEASTA Anne Behan Community Sustainability Award for Transition Initiatives on the island of Ireland. Read more
September 2009
Sept 25: We're delighted to welcome Anne B. Ryan onto the Feasta board of directors, following her election at the Feasta AGM on September 16th. Anne has been a schoolteacher, a freelance writer and researcher and is currently employed as a lecturer in adult and community education at the National University of Ireland Maynooth. She is the author of Balancing your Life: A practical guide to work, time, money and happiness (2002) and Enough is Plenty: public and private politics for the 21st century (2009) (see www.enoughisplenty.net). She is particularly interested in how all citizens can develop their capacities for leadership. She lives in Co Kildare, Ireland.
August 2009
Aug 4: Over on the Oil Drum website you can now download a presentation given by Feasta's David Korowicz at the ASPO/Oil Drum conference in Alcatraz, Italy in June 2009. The talk is entitled "Things Fall Apart: Complexity, Supply Chains, Infrastructure & Collapse" .
July 2009
July 27: The Strategic Policy Committees which are being set up by the Irish local authorities are currently looking for people to represent the Environmental Pillar of social partnership. If you are a Feasta member and are interested in participating, please contact Michael Ewing and let us know by August 31. See the Environmental Pillar website for details about the application.
July 7: David Wasdell, the systems dynamicist who spoke at two Feasta events last year, believes that natural systems are already contributing to climate change rather than damping it down. A paper on this which he prepared as a briefing for the World Forum on Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford this week can be found here. It argues that a runaway warming will develop unless urgent action is taken.
May 2009
May 20: Confirmed speakers at the upcoming Feasta conference "The New Emergency: Managing Risk and Building Resilience in a Resource Constrained World" now include Alex Evans, Dmitry Orlov, Richard Douthwaite, Ludwig Schuster and Dan Sullivan. The conference presents a timely opportunity for leading thinkers and stakeholders to explore systems based solutions relating to diverse topics such as food and energy security, money and finance reform, carbon emissions, resource depletion and managing the use of the commons. Read more
March 2009
March 19: The Anne Behan Community Sustainability Award for Transition Initiatives will be presented every year by Feasta to the community in Ireland which, in the opinion of a panel of judges, has done most to build local resilience, economic self-reliance, to strengthen itself socially and culturally and to protect and enhance its natural environment. Read more
February 2009
February 2nd: Feasta believes that a radical monetary reform is one of the keys to sustainability and a number of members are currently working to establish a debt-free exchange system which they plan to introduce to overcome the problems created by the failure of the present debt-based system. You can find details of the project here.
December 2008
December 7th: Comhar, the Irish Sustainable Development Council, has published A Study in Personal Carbon Allocation: Cap and Share. This report of was launched by Minister of the Environment, and contains two detailed studies about Cap and Share by AEA Energy & Environment and Cambridge Econometrics. Email for a hard copy of the report.
November 2008
November 29th: Recordings of the 2008 Feasta Lecture are now available to download, including an introduction by Richard Douthwaite and a lecture by Chris Cook on Capital Partnerships.
More Information
A recording of a presentation made by David Wasdell at Tallberg is also available in high and low quality. This presentation is similar the one he gave at the Will Howard Memorial Lecture.
November 20th: In response to the financial crisis, an article written by Richard Douthwaite Sustainability or Bust: How Ireland Might Avoid Bankruptcy with Energy Innovation was recently published by Construct Ireland Magazine and details proposals that a number of Feasta members have been working on. Further discussion here.
Two related papers After the Meltdown by David Korten, and From the ashes of the crash by NEF have also been uploaded to the discussion boards.
November 20th: Three members of Feasta were involved in the preparation of the Irish Institute for European Affairs report The Climate Change Challenge: Strategic Issues, Options and Implications for Ireland published at the end of September. Our contribution on the economics of climate change which was written a year ago has been published by the IIEA as an Occasional Paper and can be accessed here.
October 2008
October 15th: Feasta has been awarded multi-annual funding from the Irish Department of the Environment for two policy research projects:
Carbon Cycles and Sinks - to develop policies which will enable the Irish land mass to become a carbon sink rather than a source of greenhouse emissions. This project will be led by Richard Douthwaite, and Corinna Byrne has been hired as project coordinator and lead researcher.
Smart Taxes - to research, design, develop and adapt fiscal and market-based mechanisms to increase environmental, social and economic sustainability in Ireland. This project will be led by Emer O'Siochru, and Ellie Cuffe has been hired as project coordinator and lead researcher.
October 15th: Feasta recently completed a research project for the Irish Environmental Protection Agency to assess the adequacy of the Environmental Impact Statements prepared for major road projects in the past and to devise a better assessment system for future projects from a complete sustainability perspective.The Synthesis Report and all other documents can be downloaded here.
September 2008
September 3rd: The BRICSA countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) are likely to play key roles in deciding the type of climate agreement that follows Kyoto. How likely are they to favour Cap amd Share? Feasta intends to produce studies of the effects that C&S might have on each. The pilot study, of the likely effects on South Africa, has just been completed by Jeremy Wakeford of South African New Economics and can be downloaded here. It will be used as a model for the remaining four reports.
August 2008
August 28th: Feasta is launching an ambitious new project for addressing climate change on an international level. Just as a group of Swiss citizens, who were tired of appealing to warring armies to treat civilians and prisoners decently, set up the International Red Cross 150 years ago by calling a conference and inviting the governments that bothered to attend to subscribe to the IRC's principles, we intend to adopt the same approach on climate change. Find out more about the project in Feasta's discussion forum here.
July 2008
July 30th: Chinese speakers can read an overview of Feasta's framework for addressing climate change, including a description of Cap and Share, in Chinese here. 气候工程,经济持续稳定发展的基础.
July 28th: You can now watch multimedia presentations of all five seminars in Feasta's seminar series Converging Crises, Policy Responses. These seminars took place in June and July 2008 and were presented by David Korowitz, Bruce Darrell, Richard Douthwaite, Emer O'Siochru and John Jopling. Their themes were "The Future's Not What It Used To Be", "Planning For Food Security", "The Need For Benign Inflation", "Reclaiming the Commons" and "Global Governance for Climate Change". You can also watch an introduction and launch by Richard Douthwaite and Eamon Ryan, the Irish minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources. More information
June 2008
June 19th: We have a new phone number at the Feasta office: +353 (0)1 661 9572.
June 9th: The Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements is running a competition to design "a complete climate policy framework to succeed the Kyoto Protocol in the post-2012 period." Cap and Share could fit the bill very well. Entries are due by July 1 and there are an unspecified number of $3000 prizes. If you're interested and have some time to spare to help promote Cap and Share, please read more.
June 5th: You can now watch a video of the Feasta presentation from June 3rd at the Cork Environmental Forum (CEF), on Sustainable Economics and the Global Ecosytem. The video is available on the CEF website here.
May 2008
May 30th: Over on Oliver Moore's blog you can read a recent interview which Feasta's Richard Douthwaite did for the Irish Examiner, in which he discusses farming's future sustainability.
May 29th: Two important documents are being printed today. One is "Cap and Share - A fair way to cut greenhouse emissions", a 32 page Feasta booklet explaining how C&S could be used to halt climate change at a global level. You can read a summary and download the entire paper here. Hardcopies will be available next week for €5, postpaid. Paid-up members will be posted a copy free if they .
The other is a 106-page report commissioned by Comhar, the Irish national sustainable development council, from a British consultancy on the way Cap and Share could be used at a national level to control Ireland's greenhouse emissions. It is very favourable to C&S and shows that it is superior to a carbon tax. This report can be downloaded here (PDF document, 1.3 MB). Printed copies will be available next week for €25 postpaid.
May 24th: Feasta recently made a submission to the Irish Department of the Environment, Heritage & Local Government on their guidelines for Sustainable Residential Developments in Urban Areas. You can download this submission from our land and housing page.
May 4th: We have now uploaded David Wasdell's delivery of the "bad news" at the presentation Climate Change: First the Bad News, Then the Good. You can download it in QuickTime format from our multimedia page.
May 4th: Two recent Feasta presentations are now available for download from our multimedia page. They are Beating the Bust: Land Value Tax by Dave Wetzel (10th April 2008), and Peter Read's delivery of the "good news" at the presentation Climate Change: First the Bad News, Then the Good (18th April 2008). The "bad news" from David Wasdell will be available shortly.
Will Howard (1951-2008)
 | Will Howard setting off on his cycle ride to Brussels in 2007 to promote Cap and Share. |
Will was born in Cambridge on 14th December 1951. His father, Dr Harold Howard, was Deputy Director at the Plant Breeding Institute there, and bred potatoes to be resilient to various insects. The story goes that he was working on two varieties of potatoes and came home and asked his family for names.
Tribute to Will Howard
Will had his own way of learning that he had a terminal illness - he wasn't
going to give up. He was going to fight it. He was going to live as long as
he could because he had campaigning to do. He continued fighting his illness
so that he could keep campaigning right to the last.
Read more...
March 2008
March 31st: Feasta has moved. Here is our new address:
Feasta Ltd.,
14 St Stephen's Green
Dublin 2
Ireland
February 2008
Feb. 6th: over the next few weeks we will be uploading the recent Environmental (Ecological) NGO submission to the Irish National Sustainable Development Strategy to this website. The EENGO is an umbrella group of Irish NGOs which includes Feasta, and the submission discusses the urgent need for a change in Irish governmental policy on the environment. It emphasises the need for effective risk management, a focus on wellbeing rather than GDP as a goal, recognition of commons rights in addition to information, communication and participation rights, and decentralised and democratised energy and carbon capture.
You can currently download the executive summary and first chapter from this page. You can also participate in a discussion of the first chapter on the Feasta forums here.
December 2007
Dec.31st: You can now download the Feasta Annual Lecture Who Owns the Sky by Peter Barnes. Peter explores how a Cap and Rebate system is our best bet for an ethical and economic framework to stabilise the climate. He also describes the possibilities of a "new operating system for Capitalism" in which trusts are used to establish a balance between Common Wealth and Private Wealth.
You can also view or listen to a brief description of Cap and Share given by Richard Douthwaite after the lecture.
Dec. 7th: Comhar, the Irish National Sustainability Council, has contracted AEA Energy and Environment, a major British consultancy, to analyse Feasta's Cap and Share concept as a tool to control Ireland's road transport emissions. The policy analysis part of the report should be completed by the end of February and, if the verdict is favourable, another consultancy, Cambridge Econometrics, will be given a contract to use its E3ME model to explore the effects that this use of C&S would have on the Irish economy in comparison with using a carbon tax or fuel excise duty to achieve the same result. Both studies are to be completed by July so that, if the overall conclusions are positive, the government has the option if introducing C&S in its budget in December 2008.
October 2007
Oct 12: You can now download the lecture Peak Oil: The End of Economic Growth by Charles Hall. Charles Hall has developed the concept of EROI, or energy return on investment, and this lecture focuses on the past, present and future energy cost of energy itself, and how that is likely to effect investments, economic growth and discretionary spending.
Two additional presentations from the 2005 Food Conference are available for viewing. The presentations by David Holmgren and Micheline Sheehy Skeffington were prepared last year but we failed to provide links to them (apologies from Bruce).
August 2007
Aug 13: Feasta is looking for a new office. We need one office room and a meeting room in Dublin. Ideally we could join with another environmental organisation. If you know of any such place, please.
July 2007
July 16: The Environmental Audit Commission of the United Kingdom Parliament is investigating the feasibility of introducing Personal Carbon Allowances to control greenhouse gas emissions. Feasta member Laurence Matthews was invited by the EAC to supply information about Cap and Share. His submission is here (pdf document, 220K). More...
June 2007
June 22: The Feasta climate group has participated in the current review of the workings of the EU's emissions trading system by proposing that all Europe's transport emissions should be capped and tradable permits for the tonnage of carbon dioxide involved distributed each year to every adult EU resident. You can find its submission here (pdf document, 250K). The group has also suggested that Ireland should reduce its road transport emissions by the same method, Cap and Share. A paper on this is here (pdf document, 125K). A PowerPoint presentation made to the 'Emissions trading and road transport sector' conference on 1 May at the Energy Institute in London is here (750K). Similar presentations have been made to Comhar, the Irish National Sustainability Council and to the Senior Managers' Forum of the Irish Department of Transport.
June 21: The team working on the Envisioning Ireland's Energy Futures project for the Irish Environmental Protection Agency has submitted its report (pdf document, 750K). The appendix can be downloaded here (pdf document, 2.5 MB). Feasta will hold a one-day seminar to discuss its conclusions when the EPA publishes it in the Autumn. The strongest conclusion is the need to move to a low-carbon economy as rapidly as possible, even if this slows down economic growth. The report also anticipates the development of rural biorefineries and the re-location to the countryside of energy-intensive manufacturing so as to be close to renewable energy sources.
June 13:
Feasta is delighted to announce the appointment of Morag Friel to the new position of Members' Agent for the organisation. This position, based in Feasta's Dublin office, was created to reflect a renewed emphasis on encouraging and supporting our members to realise their projects, and to help establish and enrich connections between those seeking either to work together or just to get to know one another. Morag has 13 years' experience working with various ecologically and socially minded organisations, including Dublin Cohousing, the Dublin Food Co-op and The Village Project.
April 2007
April 25:
A briefing paper entitled Towards a sustainable transport system (PDF format, 1.1 MB) was prepared by Richard Douthwaite, David Healy and Kevin Leyden to inform the proceedings of the Comhar Conference "Towards Sustainability in the National Development Plan 2007-2013" - 4th to 6th October 2006, and is now available on this site. The paper shows that the Irish transport system has developed over the past few years in a way which has made it less sustainable by becoming, on a per capita basis, more heavily dependent on one increasingly scarce non-renewable resource - oil - than perhaps any other system in Europe. This dependency has arisen largely because of the recent under-priced, uncontrolled growth in the use of the private car. After discussing the effects of this policy of encouraging heavy car-use, the report then turns to look at the policies and techniques that are available to rectify the situation.
March 2007
March 9: The Climate working group has revised two of its discussion papers - The Great Emissions Rights Give-Away and Emissions Rationing and the Oil Price Crisis - and brought them up to date. Copies were distributed at a conference in Brussels on March 19th. Another discussion paper, this one on Cap and Share, the emissions rationing system the group has devised, is in preparation. If you would like to take part in the group's e-mail discussions, send a message to .
January 2007
Jan 25:
We have added a Member Websites page to this site, which provides links to the websites of full members of Feasta. If you are a full member and would like to add in a link to your website, please log in to the members' area and click on "profile" in the top menu, then fill in the information about your website on the form provided. If you aren't a full member and are interested in becoming one, please see our membership page.
Jan 7:
Two recent Feasta submissions have been uploaded to the website. One was made to the UK Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee which is considering international climate policy post-2012. You can read the submission here. The other submission was made in April 2006 to the UK's All-Party Committee on Climate Change, and you can read it here.
Jan 5:
An article written by Richard Douthwaite for Construct Ireland magazine, "From Recession to Renewables", is now available for download in pdf format here (604K). Also available on the website now is a paper on why confusion exists about when the oil peak will occur.
Oil peak ignored
The Irish Government's Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources published its Energy Green Paper, a discussion document on the country's future energy supplies, on October 1st, and invited anyone interested to comment by December 1st. The Green Paper can be downloaded here in pdf format. The 98 comments the Department received have been posted on its website, here. Amazingly, the Green Paper ignored the near-certainty that global oil production will peak within the next 25 years. The only submissions which criticised the Department for this came from Feasta and from people associated with it or influenced by it. Individual Feasta members who made submissions were Cleland McVeigh, Michael Layden and Roger Adair who submitted as the Northwest Group, and Phoebe Bright who submitted as Vivid Logic. Oisin Coughlan, a member of the Feasta Climate Group, made a submission on behalf of Friends of the Earth, and Eamon Ryan, TD, submitted one for the Green Party. The Consumers' Association of Ireland submission calls for energy rationing, a result of our links with that organisation. (Please note that all submissions are in pdf format). You can read Feasta's own submission in html format here and in pdf here.
December 2006
Dec 20:
Feasta has issued a press release (pdf format, 76K) in response to today's proposal by the European Commission concerning emissions of greenhouse gases from aircraft. We believe that the Commission's proposal would distort competition between all forms of transport, hand windfall profits to airlines rather than citizens, and would fail to provide a model for the overall reform of the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. We suggest an alternative approach which would involve placing a limit on emissions and other environmental damage from the entire transport sector. You can read about this in more detail in a background briefing (pdf format, 188K).
Dec 14:
You can now download the 2006 Feasta Lecture Re-Thinking progress: Well-Being as the Focus of Policy by Nic Marks. Nic Marks is the head of the Centre for Well-Being at NEF (The New Economics Foundation) and has recently set up a new global measure of progress, the Happy Planet Index, which shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world.
Dec 1:
This website has been expanded to include a range of new multimedia files, a new members' area, and discussion forums, and we have given it a new look to reflect the changes. Some of the topics currently being discussed are linked to from the left-hand column on this page.
November 2006
Nov 13:
Emissions Entitlements in California
Below are links to two handouts which were prepared by Feasta member Mike Sandler to bring to a meeting in Sacramento with California Environmental Protection Agency staff about learning from the European TradingSystem (ETS), and how California can create a cap and trade system whichprovides Individual Emissions Entitlements.
Individual Emissions Entitlements & Cap and Trade in California (PDF document, 712K).
Learning from the European Trading System/ Important Decisions in a Future Cap and Trade System (PDF document, 172K).
Nov 9:
A German-language version of Richard Douthwaite's book, The Ecology of Money, is now available for download from this website. The book is in PDF format, and 524 K, so is probably best handled by right-clicking on this link and selecting "Save Target To Disk".
October2006
Oct 23:
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is now online.
August 2006
Aug 18:
A new paper written by Richard Douthwaite and Emer Ó Siochrú for CORI, "The Economic Challenge of Sustainability", gives an overview of Feasta's ideas about economic growth, money systems, peak oil, and the need for a land value tax and for citizen carbon quotas. You can read it online here, or download the pdf version here.
Additionally, Feasta recently made a submission to the Department of the Environment, in response to its recent consultation call with regard to Development Plans. You can download Feasta's submission in pdf format here. The Department's Draft Development Plan is available on their website, also in pdf format, and can be downloaded from this page.
July 2006
July 26:
An updated and expanded edition of Richard Douthwaite's book The Ecology of Money has recently been published, and you can read the online edition here.
June 2006
June 12:
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is now online.
May 2006
May 15:The Climate and Energy group's campaign to get the EU's emissions trading system radically reformed is gathering pace. The campaign website has been operating for a few weeks but will only go public later this month. Make sure you read Brian Davey's blogs on the site - they are very good. A PowerPoint presentation (2.16 MB) to explain what's wrong with the way the EU ETS is structured was shown by Nicola Creighton at the UN Commission for Sustainable Development meeting in New York last week. You can read a background briefing on the campaign issues here.
April 2006
April 26:
An audio recording of a talk given on April 19th by Dr David Fleming on nuclear power, together with responses by John McGuirk of the Freedom Institute and Nuala Ahern of the Green Party, can now be downloaded from this site in mp3 format. This talk took place at the 11th Convergence Festival.
David Fleming's talk (49:36, 5.7 MB)
John McGuirk's response (10:59, 1.2 MB)
Nuala Ahern's response (8:56, 1 MB)
April 19:
Why Nuclear Power Cannot Be A Major Energy Source
Nuclear power promises much. It is based on a processwhich does not produce carbon dioxide. It is produced in arelatively small number of very large plants, so that it fitseasily onto the national grid. And there is even the theoreticalprospect of it being able to breed its own fuel. So, what's theproblem?
This document, written by David Fleming, was published by Feasta in collaboration with the New Economics Foundation. It can be read in html format here and downloaded in pdf format here (400 K).
March 2006
March 11:
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is now online.
March 1:
The EU's emissions trading system should be scrapped in its present form and replaced with a much fairer, less distorting system, according to a new briefing paper from Feasta's Climate and Energy working group. The paper lists twelve reasons why the scheme is misconceived and proposes that, instead of emissions permits for 45% of the EU's greenhouse emissions, currently worth €170 billion a year, being given free to 11,500 giant companies, permits for 100% of the emissions should give given on an equal per capita basis to every EU resident. "The atmosphere belongs to everyone, so permits should be given to everyone" says Richard Douthwaite, who helped write the briefing paper."The big firms are already charging their customers for the permits they are getting free." Each person in the EU would receive permits worth around €850 a year if the Feasta approach was adopted. The Briefing paper can be found here in html and here in pdf format.
December 2005
Dec 18: In October, the British Government announced that Sir Nicholas Stern, the head of its Economic Service, had also been appointed its Adviser on the economics of "climate change and development". Sir Nicholas immediately asked for submissions on, amongst other things, "The implications for energy demand and emissions of the prospects for economic growth over the coming decades." These submissions had to be in by December 9th. Feasta's submission can be found here. It sets out many of Feasta's ideas about why rich-country growth needs to be stopped and how this can be done. The full terms of reference for submissions can be found on the British Government website here.
December 13
Press Release:
World scarcity of oil and gas creates chance to accelerate response to climate change
Call for establishment of fossil fuel buyers' cartel
The recent peak in oil prices was due to the depletion of the world' s reserves rather than temporary supply problems in a number of countries, Feasta claimed at the COP-10 climate conference in Buenos Aires on Monday, December 13th 2004.
"The climate change discussions taking place here are based on theassumption that there is plenty of oil and gas still available to powerthe world economy," Richard Douthwaite of Feasta said. "That's just nottrue. The world's production of oil is about as high as it will ever goand natural gas production will stop rising in the next ten years."
Nov 30: An opinion piece by Feasta's Richard Douthwaite was recently published in the Irish Times and can be read here. "As the Montreal conference on global warming opens, we cannot hope for progress on climate change unless the approach to negotiations is drastically revised."
Nov 14: Feasta has recently made a submission to the Department of the Environment in which we suggested that Ireland should adopt an energy rationing system to help the country meet its Kyoto emissions target. The submission has been posted on the website here.
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is also now online.
October 2005
The ENLIVEN Report
The ENLIVEN project was undertaken by a partnership which was headed by Irish Rural Link, with Feasta as one of the contributors.
The project takes two small neighbouring communities in rural Ireland, chosen only because largish housing and other construction projects were being planned, and assesses their renewable energy potential. It then looks at how that potential can be realised in ways that would benefit everyone living in the communities at present and those who might move there in the future. The project's report is now available for download here.
South Africa & theOil Price Crisis
A new Feasta document, South Africa & theOil Price Crisis, examines a way in which the poor in many African countries could be protected if,as oil and gas get scarcer, their cost goes higher andhigher over the years ahead. It is being printed in South Africa and will be circulated at the national conference there which opens on October 17th.
[note added Nov 25: A more up-to-date version of this document is now available here.]
Toolkit for Sustainability Course
Exploring the root causes of unsustainability and potential solutions.
From Tuesday 18th October for 10 weeks 7.30-9.00
These 10 sessions will use FEASTA's 'Community Learning Toolkit', a CD ROM that contains readings, videos and audio recordings designed to provide the resources to enable a community of learners to explore the issues further. Starting in the Cultivate Centre on Tuesday the 18th of October, Davie Philip will facilitate the 10 evenings which will explore the issues of Money, Growth, Climate Change, Energy, Democracy, Land and Food.
Registration Cost
(includes a CD ROM and FEASTA Book): €120
Concession price of €96 available to:
- Students, OAPs and Unwaged
- Staff and volunteers from Community groups, NGOs, Voluntary and Civil Society organisations.
Cultivate Members' Price: €84
Registration: telephone (01) 674 5773 or send a cheque to Cultivate Centre
More information -http://www.sustainable.ie/cultivate/learning.htm
August 2005
Aug 14
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is now online.
July 2005
July 27:Ireland's Future and the Impact of Increasing Energy Prices
- Will oil prices continue to rise or is this just a spike?
- Are we running out of oil?
- When will the supply of oil peak?
- What will happen then?
- How can we plan when the future is so uncertain?
Almost nothing about Ireland's future energy supplies is certain except the fact that the world's supplies of oil, coal and gas began running out on the day that they were first used. There are still huge supplies of coal but oil and gas are getting scarce and the amount of energy that humanity will be able to get from these two key fuels is expected to peak within the next few years and then start to decline.
In view of the uncertainty about the date on which the decline will begin, the pace at which it will proceed and the effect that it will have on energy prices, Feasta's energy future's envisioning project has prepared four scenarios which, taken together, set the boundaries of the range of possibilities. In other words, the future should have some of the scenarios' characteristics provided that no major unexpected element enters the picture such as a widespread war, a plague which kills millions of people or a serious climate change event. To view the scenarios go to www.energyscenariosireland.com.
June 2005
June 20:You can download a two-part video of Richard Douthwaite speaking about sustainable economics at the Big Picture website.
May 2005
May 31:We have expanded our online secure form so that, in addition to paying for your Feasta membership, you can now also make a donation to Feasta or pay for a Feasta event such as the upcoming food conference (see right) using your credit or laser card.
May 16:Two recently published documents are now available for download:
To Catch the Wind: The Potential for Community Ownership of Wind Farms in Ireland
Subsidies and Emissions of Greenhouse Gases from Fossil Fuels (508 K, PDF format)
May 7:
Feasta's latest publication, Living In The Cracks: A look at Rural Social Enterprises in Britain and the Czech Republic by Nadia Johanisova, can now be downloaded from this website in PDF format.
April 2005
April 2:
The latest Feasta e-bulletin is now online.
February 2005
Feb 15: Beyond Kyoto
Feasta has published a number of articles which discuss climate change, energy policy and monetary reform. Here are links to some of them:
The three crises: oil prices, climate change and international debt
Curing global crises: let's treat the disease not the symptoms
Climate and currency: proposals for global monetary reform
Before the wells run dry: Ireland's transition to renewable energy (online book)
More links can be found on Feasta's Energy and Climate page and Money page.
Jan 18: Feasta has moved to a new office:
FEASTA
10a Lower Camden Street
Dublin
Ireland
Tel: +353 (0)1 4053615
Fax: +353 (0)1 4054835
The e-mail address, feasta@anu.ie, remains the same.
December 2004
Dec 22: A HTML version of The three crises: oil prices, climate change and international debt has been added to the website.
Dec 14: James Robertson's review of Growth: the Celtic Cancer is now online.
Dec 10: The three crises: oil prices, climate change and international debt, a leaflet in PDF format (425K), has been added to the website.
Irish Nationwide campaign
December 1
As part of its campaign to prevent a major change in Irish building society law, Feasta has sent out a letter to every Irish TD and senator. We encourage Feasta members who live in Ireland and are interested in supporting the campaign to contact their TDs and tell them that they are concerned about the issue.
November 2004
Nov 30: A paper by Emer Ó Siochrú entitled Land Value Tax: Unfinished Business has been added to the Land and Housing section of the website.
Nov 26: The latest Feasta news bulletin is now online.
Nov 19: Growth: The Celtic Cancer, Feasta Review No2, is now available for purchase and can also be read online.
Nov 13: A press conference is to be held on the issues raised in Growth: The Celtic Cancer, Feasta Review No2, at 11am, Friday 19th November, 2004, at the Alexander Hotel, Merrion Square. The main speaker will be Dr. Douglas McColloch, chairman of the Health Economics Association of Ireland.
Speakers will include Ireland's leading health economist Dr. Douglas McCulloch of the University of Ulster, and Dr. Elizabeth Cullen of the Irish Doctors' Environmental Association, the author of a major report included in the book, which shows the disastrous toll successive governments' pro-growth policies have had on the public's health.
More...
October 2004
Oct 28: Feasta, in association with the Development Studies Centre, will be running a part-time evening course, "Understanding the Economics of Sustainability", from January 17th to March 13th 2005. The course will be given at Kimmage Manor on Monday evenings. Participants will be provided with clear ideas about why the present economic system is so damaging and unsustainable, and suggestions about what needs to be done to correct its flaws and create a more just and sustainable world. A pdf brochure for the course is available here (1.5 MB).
Oct 18: Growth: The Celtic Cancer, Why the global economy damages our health and society
A new issue of the Feasta Review will be published in November. "The aim of the Review is to present in a permanent form some of the thinking that has been going on in the Feasta network since the previous one appeared" says John Jopling, who edited it with Richard Douthwaite. "It is three years since the last issue and there's a lot to report."
Oct 12: The latest Feasta newsletter is now online.
September 2004
Sept 14: Democracy and the EU, a paper by Deirdre de Burca, has been added to the democracy section of the website.
August 2004
August 14: You can now join Feasta or renew your membership online, using our secure credit card facility.
July 2004
July 29: Feasta's submission to the Department of Finance, entitledDomestic Tradable Quotas as an alternative to Carbon Taxation, has been added to the energy section of the website.
June 2004
Feasta Money Group to fight change in Building Society law
June 11: Ireland has only two mutual building societies left - the EBS and the Irish Nationwide - and for at least ten years, Michael Fingleton of the Nationwide has made it clear that he intends that it should follow the example of the Irish Permanent and the First National and shed its mutual status. The Feasta Money Group intends to try to prevent it doing so. Here's why.
more...
June 11:
Feasta establishes the Anne Behan Community Sustainability Award
The Anne Behan Community Sustainability Award will be presented every second year by Feasta to the community in Ireland which, in the opinion of a panel of judges, has done most during the previous few years to build its economic self-reliance, to strengthen itself socially and culturally and to protect and enhance its natural environment.
more...
May 2004
May 30: The online edition of the first Feasta Review is now complete!
May 29:
Feasta initiates Climate Coalition
There are signs of increasing alarm amongst climate scientists at the pace at which global warming is gathering pace and the damage it is doing. The British Government's chief scientist, Sir David King, even went so far as to say recently that Antarctica might be the only habitable place in the planet by the end of this century if warming went unchecked.
Feasta believes that the world's politicians are not responding sufficiently urgently to the crisis and that a public campaign right across the EU is needed to strengthen their resolve. Accordingly, we worked with other organisations to set up a Climate Coalition to run such a campaign.
The first target was to get the issue raised in the current European Parliamemt election campaign. Lists of candidates were being received from every EU country in which we have been able to find a partner organisation and stars were put against the names of those which have been prepared to pledge to vote for measures in the European Parliament leading to the adoption of Contraction and Convergence as the EU's policy on the climate issue and the start of international negotiations to put it into effect.
The lists gave contact details for the candidates. We urged anyone interested in helping with the campaign to please send e-mails to some of those who haven't yet been given a star, and a note of thanks to one or two who have.
Lists of candidates
Letter sent to all listed candidates
Article on Contraction and ConvergenceMay 27: A collection of book reviews has been added to the Feasta Review website. The reviewed books cover a range of topics in the fields of economics, environmentalism and social justice.
May 21: Papers by Folke Günther, Lothar Mayer and Aubrey Meyer are now online in the Feasta Review website.
May 17: Two short updates on community-based energy in the UK and US have been added to the updates page of Short Circuit.
May 12: Papers by James Robertson, Colin Campbell, David Fleming, Kevin Healion and Michael Layden have been added to the Feasta Review website.
May 5: Feasta's response to 'Sustainable Rural Housing: Consultation Draft Of Guidelines For Planning Authorities' is now online in Web and PDF formats. The consultation draft was issued by the Department of Environment, Heritage and LocalGovernment.
April 2004
April 22: Three papers by David Korten, including the second Feasta lecture, have been added to the Feasta Review website.
April 19: Three papers by Herman Daly, including the first Feasta lecture, are now on the website. The articles are from the first Feasta Review, which we plan to have online in its entirety by the end of May.
April 13: A paper by Andy Storey, entitled The European Project: Dismantling Social Democracy, Globalising Neoliberalism, has been added to the Democracy section.
April 5: The Spring 2004 newsletter is now available to read on the website.
April 2: The Ecology of Money, a Schumacher Briefing by Richard Douthwaite, is now online in its entirety.
March 2004
March 24: A background paper for Feasta's upcoming conference on debt, climate and global justice is now online. The paper is entitled "Curing the global crisis: let's treat the disease not the symptoms", and describes a possible method for mitigating global warming and simultaneously promoting social justice.
Feasta's submission on Irish Renewable Energy Policy to the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources has been added to the Reports and Submissions section.
February 2004
Feb 24: A report on the seminar 'Strengthening the role of the Irish Higher Education community in support of sustainable development' has been added to the education section.
Feb 13: Two more transcripts from the conference Land, the Claim of the Community are now online: Business Problems, Land Solutions: the case for land and tax reform by Albert Catterall, and Congestion Charges by Dave Wetzel.
Feb 2: Democracy for an Ecological Age, a paper by Mark Garavan, has been added to the Democracy section of the website.
January 2004
Jan 31: Feasta's submission to the Mayo County Council on the Corrib Gas application is now online, in the website's energy section.
Jan 28: The entire text of Before the Wells Run Dry is now online!
December 2003
Dec 21: A transcript of the talk "On Recovering the Sacred Income", given by Fred Harrison at the conference on land organised by Feasta and the Henry George Foundation in October, is now online.
Dec 18: Feasta's Submission onRural Housingto theOireachtas Committee on Environment and Local Government is now online in PDF format.
Dec 15: A complete version (including the appendices) of Feasta'a Submission on Globalisation to the Select Committee on Economic Affairs in the House of Lords is now on the website in PDF format.
Dec 13: A pamphlet describing Land Value Tax, which was prepared for the conference on land in October, is now available online. The pamphlet is in PDF format.
Dec 12: Feasta and Friends of the Earth Ireland's Report to Comhar, the National Sustainable Development Partnership, on Subsidies and Emissions of Greenhouse Gases from Fossil Fuels has been updated. The new version is available online in PDF format.
John Jopling's note for the Sustainable Development Commission re Redefining Prosperity is now online.
Dec 8: You can now subscribe to the newsletter online, at the newsletters page.
Dec 3:Before the Wells Run Dry cover information is now on the website.
Dec 1: You can now subscribe to the discussion groups from the home page, on the lower left.
October 2003
Oct 16: New information about upcoming Feasta events.
September 2003
Sep 25:New submissions on fossil fuels and monetary policy, in 'Reports and Submissions'.
Sep 17: Past Feasta newsletters are now online, on the newsletters page. Links page has been updated.
Sep 15: Document on planning policy by Tom Dunne has been uploaded to the Reports and Submissions section.
Sep 5: You can now access Frank Rotering's articles on democracy in the Presentations section.
Sep 3: Several new documents uploaded to the Reports and Submissions section.
August 2003
Aug 11: Information about the upcoming conference on Land: the Claim of the Community is now online.