Transition Towns is a movement that began in the UK with the aim of changing urban development and urban lifestyles "from oil dependence to local resilience".  The movement is built on the assumption that the age of fossil fuels and everything that depends on oil is coming to an end, and that the way to the future is to become more reliant on local and regional networks and low-carbon technology.  The website for Transition Aotearoa (http://transitionaotearoa.org.nz/ ) brings people together "out of a desire to explore how we - and our communities - can respond to the twin challenges of climate change and peak oil."

Around the world prparations are already underway for the next great global environmental conference.  Rio+20 is the name of a conference to be held in 2012 to take stock of the changes and progress that has been made since the Earth Summit in Rio de Janiero in 1992.

http://www.earthsummit2012.org/index.php/news/331-uncsd-

I enjoy reading predictions.  It’s interesting to read what people have predicted in the past and compare them against the present.  Take  Thomas Malthus for example, the Anglican parson who, in 1798, at the beginning of UK's industrial revolution, predicted that human population growth would be checked by famine, pestilence and disease.  The increase in population is limited by the means of subsistence, he argued (Malthus T.R. 1798. An essay on the principle of population).  

More recently, Donella and Dennis Meadows, Jorgen Randers and William Behrens III published Limits to Growth in 1972.  They predicted that by continuing on the path of business as usual, the world could not support present rates of growth for more than a few decades; that even with the most optimistic development of new technologies, resource limits and limits to the planet's capacity to absorb wastes would sooner or later come into play and reverse the population growth.  

The explosion of the BP oil rig Deepwater Horizon is only the most media noticeable of the environmental destruction due ot our thirst for oil.  In the Niger River delta of Nigeria, more oil is spilled by the Royal Dutch Shell oil operations every year than the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico.  Because the BP spill threatens the beaches and fishing grounds of US citizens, it is a world-wide story.  The same destruction of habitat and livelihoods in Nigeria goes un-noticed.

Largely unnoticed, also, is the destruction of lands in northern Alberta, Canada, as a consequence of extracting tar sands, and the damage to Arctic tundra in Alaska and Canada's north from the extraction of oil and gas. 

    If you want to contemplate the mother of all clean ups, have a look at some of the news surrounding the latest BP spill in the Gulf of Mexixo. It provides startling context to the concept of remediation. How can damage on this scale be addressed, what are the mechanisms and which nations and corporates are in a position to provide immediate and effective response? What capacity exists in New Zealand to respond to such a spill?  What would the effects be of a similar catastrophe, for instance on the Taranaki coast, or in Northland?  In a situation like this what is a reasonable response, and what is a reasonable sanction?

For coverage of the spill and details of consequences see: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/environment/news/article.cfm?c_id=39&objectid=10642777

Ideas?