Our SolFest 2004 Event Calendar (205KB, pdf) is now available. Be sure to check it out!

SolFest 2004 to be held August 21-22 is only two weeks away! It promises to be another exciting event this year. Be sure to get your tickets early. Online ticket sales run through Noon Pacific Time on Fri., Aug. 13. After that, you will need to purchase your tickets at the gate or an outlet location. Tickets are now available in California at Real Goods (Hopland), Whole Foods Market (Sebastopol and Santa Rosa), Olivers Market (Cotati and Santa Rosa), Food for Humans (Guerneville), Toyon Books (Healdsburg), Leaves of Grass Books (Willits), Mendocino Book Company (Ukiah), and Ukiah Natural Foods (Ukiah).

This year SolFest will feature Bruce Cockburn, Amy Goodman, the Charlie Hunter Trio, Vandana Shiva, Thom Hartmann, Michael Toms, Joshua Tickell, Richard Heinberg, and Julian Darley. Actress Daryl Hannah is also expected to make an appearance.

Be sure to check out portions of our event guide on our website: Ev ent Guide Cover (141KB), Vital Information (166KB), General Information (215KB), Event Calendar and Workshops (205KB), More Workshops (324KB), Sponsor & Exhibitors (172KB), and Spons or Logos & Listings (387KB).

Anyone interested in being a volunteer for the week before SolFest and during SolFest, please complete the SolFest Volunteer Form. Hard-working volunteers are what help make this event a success. Please be sure to read the volunteer job description before applying.

Also available at SolFest this year will be computers to respond to the Vote Solar Initiative (see below).

Visit SunHawk, Real Goods Founder John Schaeffer's and Nancy Hensley's off-grid, solar and hydro powered environmentally friendly home featured in Natural Home magazine, and personally meet Richard Heinberg, renowned author of The Party's Over and the newly released Powerdown at a special SolFest breakfast event to be held Sun., Aug. 22 from 9:00 to 10:45 AM. This is a fundraiser for the Solar Living Institute as part of SolFest 2004 activities. Admission to the breakfast is $25 to $100 depending upon your generosity and what you can afford. Any contribution amount over $25 is tax deductible.

We have invited other SolFest entertainers and speakers (Bruce Cockburn, Daryl Hannah, and Vandana Shiva) to the breakfast but haven't yet received confirmations of their attendance.

Due to the 15-minute ride up the hill on a dusty road and the intimate nature of this event, only the first 50 guests will be admitted. Please reserve early if you wish to come to our fundraiser.

The event ends at 10:45 for carpooling back to the Solar Living Center for the second day of SolFest festivities (see the complete schedule).

This year's Saturday night will be more festive than ever. SolFest, in conjunction with Groove Garden, is proud to present Moondance, here at the Solar Living Center, from 8-11 PM on Saturday night. Enjoy performances by Animal Liberation Orchestra, Alcyone, and the grooves of DJ Dragonfly. There will also be an eco-fashion show presented by Birdland Ranch, and some very special guests.

Make sure you plan to stick around, have an organic brew or two, and dance away your troubles at the Moondance.

Tickets will be available at the SolFest front gate for $5 with any SolFest ticket on Saturday, or at the event on Saturday night for $10.

• What: Moondance
• Where: Solar Living Center, SolFest Mainstage
• When: Sat., Aug. 21, 8-11 PM

Solar Living Institute Advisory Board Members Richard Heinberg and Julian Darley are releasing their new books. You won't want to miss reading either one of these excellent, thought-provoking works. Be sure to order your copies today.

Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post- Carbon World by Richard Heinberg -- JUST RELEASED

Avoiding cynicism and despair, Powerdown -- a follow-up book to The Party's Over -- begins with an overview of the likely impacts of oil and natural gas depletion and then outlines four options for industrial societies during the next decades:

• Last One Standing: the path of competition for remaining resources;
• Powerdown: the path of cooperation, conservation, and sharing;
• Waiting for a Magic Elixir: wishful thinking, false hopes, and denial;
• Building Lifeboats: the path of community solidarity and preservation.

The book explores how three important groups within global society - the power élites, the opposition to the élites (the antiwar and anti-globalization movements, et al: the "Other Superpower"), and ordinary people - are likely to respond to these four options. Timely, accessible and eloquent, Powerdown is crucial reading for our times.

For more info on Powerdown or to order your copy...

High Noon for Natural Gas: The New Energy Crisis by Julian Darley -- COMING AUGUST 15

Blackouts, rising gas prices, changes to the Clean Air Act, proposals to open wilderness and protected offshore areas to gas drilling, and increasing dependence on natural gas for electricity generation. What do all these developments have in common, and why should we care?

In this timely expose, author Julian Darley takes a hard-hitting look at natural gas as an energy source that rapidly went from nuisance to crutch. Darley outlines the implications of our increased dependence on this energy source and why it has the potential to cause serious environmental, political, and economic consequences. In High Noon for Natural Gas readers can expect to find a critical analysis of government policy on energy, as well as a meticulously researched warning about our next potentially catastrophic energy crisis.

For more info on High Noon for Natural Gas or to order your copy...

SolFest Special on all Solar Energy Workshops through August 22. SAVE UP TO $160.

Renewable Energy 5-Day Intensive
Aug. 30 - Sept. 3, 2004 -- Hopland, California

This course combines a number of our most popular classes into a single five-day package. Pick and choose the classes you want at the normal daily rate, or sign up for the whole package. This workshop includes information on conservation and efficiency, an overview of solar energy options, wind power, solar hot water, and biodiesel. For more information...

5-Day Hands-On Permaculture and Garden Workhop
Sept. 4-8, 2004 -- Hopland, California

Learn basic introduction to permaculture as a whole systems design science, permaculture design ethics and principles, zone and sector analysis, permaculture design process, site assessment, planning, patterning and cycles, plant placement, guilds and planting, double digging and half-digging, soil health, biointensive gardening and all you need to know for your winter garden design, preparation and planting. Participants will get hands-on experience with harvesting, maintaining, planting and installing the following: herb spiral, biointensive raised garden beds and mini-farm, compost bin, worm bin, compost tea station, sheet mulch and cover crop, tree guilds, water catchment swales and aquaculture. This workshop is taught by Katherine Steele and Benjamin Fahrer. For more information...

You can take the first two days of this workshop for $200 as an introduction to permaculture, take the last three days as a hands-on permaculture installation for $300, or take the entire workshop for the special discounted price of $425.

Note: The garden in the photo above taken July 10 is the result of the permaculture design and install workshop offered by the Institute six weeks ago.

The End of Suburbia: Oil Depletion and the Collapse of The American Dream

Now on sale for only $21.95!

Order from us, and help support our work.

The End of Suburbia explores the American Way of Life and its prospects as the planet approaches a critical era and as global demand for fossil fuels begins to outstrip supply. World Oil Peak and the inevitable decline of fossil fuels are upon us now some scientists and policy makers argue in this documentary. The consequences of inaction in the face of this global crisis are enormous. What does Oil Peak mean for North America? As energy prices skyrocket in the coming years, how will the populations of suburbia react to the collapse of their dream? Are today's suburbs destined to become the slums of tomorrow? And what can be done NOW, individually and collectively, to avoid The End of Suburbia?

This DVD is an excellent introduction to the issue of oil and natural gas depletion coming soon to a neighborhood near you. If you haven't picked up a copy of this rivoting documentary, do so today! You won't want to miss it!

Regular price is $24. For a limited time, now on sale for $21.95. Ordering your copy of this DVD from the Solar Living Institute helps support the work that we do.

When oil prices have doubled to $80 and a second great depression threatens global political stability, the president of the United States will impanel a Sept. 11-style commission to explain the intelligence and policy failures that led to the crisis. The verdict will be familiar: The stunning blow to the world economy brought about by the sudden, unexpected depletion of fossil fuel should've been anticipated and prevented.

When that day comes -- in five years or perhaps 20, who knows -- many of the key exhibits will have been penned by Matthew Simmons, a Houston energy analyst and banker at Simmons & Co. International. Simmons is now shouting from the rooftops -- writing think-tank white papers, giving speeches and finishing a book set for publication next year -- that the world is fast running out of affordable oil and gas, and that no amount of Middle Eastern pumping can bail us out. While much of the so-called "peak oil" story is well known, what's news is Simmons' startling claim, based on personal analysis, that Saudi Arabia's pumping capacity is in decline.

Aramco, the company in charge of Saudi oil operations, disputes Simmons' assertion and has debated him in public policy forums. But Simmons isn't easily dismissed, as he's no anti-establishment crank. In addition to his role as chief executive of a major energy-focused investment bank, which counts Halliburton and the World Bank among its clients, he's a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and was an advisor to President Bush's election campaign and Vice President Dick Cheney's infamous energy task force.

It's always been assumed, by the United Nations as well as European and U.S. policy makers, that Saudi Arabia would be able to pump more of its oil to fulfill increasing world demand. The Saudis are pumping, at most, 9 million barrels a day now and have boasted that they could pump as much as 15 million barrels a day for the next 50 years. Indeed, Saudi leaders promised that they would start pumping more a few weeks ago. But since world oil production hasn't increased any since those promises were made, economists and energy users have wondered whether Saudi Arabia has elected, for political reasons, not to fulfill its vow.

Simmons says it's worse than that: Much like the biggest problem in the Enron fiasco was that analysts always trusted Enron managers' declarations about the strength of its financial assets, he says that the world has always taken Saudi Arabia at its word for its oil assets. He now believes that it cannot be trusted. He notes that the six major oil fields in Saudi Arabia, all discovered between 1940 and 1967, produce about 95% of Saudi oil. The Saudis produce 10% of the world's oil from them at the world's lowest prices, and the Saudis are the only serious provider of "spare" capacity on the planet. A single field, Ghawar, which is the world's largest, was discovered in 1948 and produces up to 60% of the kingdom's total. He believes that production at these mature fields has peaked. While that doesn't mean they'll run out tomorrow, they're becoming much harder and more expensive to exploit efficiently. It's much like a person getting older and suffering from arterial sclerosis: They slow down and become increasingly less capable. The Saudis are now using intense water-injection techniques to improve production, he says, a technique that can ultimately lead to catastrophic pressure failure.

Related Article: See Global Oil Production Now Flat Out

Make a gift to the Solar Living Institute - an independent, educational tax-exempt nonprofit organization - and help educate thousands of people each year with the skills necessary to make a sustainable future a reality. It is your generosity that makes the Institute work for all of us.

SIGN UP AS A NEW OR RENEWING MEMBER (PARTNER) TODAY AND GET TWO FREE TICKETS TO SOLFEST 2004.

Your gift will enable us to promote a K-12 renewable energy and sustainable living educational program to schools throughout the country, add more permaculture education, add more interactive displays at the Solar Living Center, expand our biodiesel education program, upgrade our workshop equipment, and further develop our organic farm project.

Please give generously. Your gift is so very important for us to continue making more people aware of the critical importance of renewable energy and sustainable living to our survival and the health of our planet. You can make a one-time or continuous gift, donate to our endowment, or become a member, a Partner, of the Solar Living Institute.

Please don't delay. Send your contribution TODAY. Thank you for your support!

The Schwarzenegger administration is developing an ambitious plan to boost solar power in California ...subsidized with $100 million a year in financial incentives paid for by electricity consumers ...that would have 50% of all new homes producing the renewable energy within a decade.

The "Million Solar Homes Initiative," unveiled in draft form before the California Energy Commission, represents an effort by the Schwarzenegger administration to live up to the governor's lofty campaign promises to improve the environment.

Under the draft proposal, which has not yet been formally endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, California would provide home builders with financial rebates if they added solar panels to new homes, and would provide some incentives to homeowners seeking to add the energy generators to older houses. The state would fund the incentives by placing an electricity surcharge on customers of privately owned utilities - roughly 80% of the state's residents. The surcharge would raise $1 billion over a decade before being phased out.

State officials estimate that such a program could add photovoltaic panels to 40% of all new homes by 2010, and 50% by 2013. To make sure the goals were met, the program would require builders to add solar panels to 5% of homes by 2010 and 50% by 2020. By 2017, state officials estimate, the program would add solar panels to nearly 1.2 million houses in the state - 884,000 new and 313,000 older houses.

MESSAGE FROM ROBERT REDFORD

Friends:

Last year, Governor Schwarzenegger got the attention of the environmental community by campaigning on a promise to help solve the state's energy problems by ensuring that 50% of all new homes are built with solar energy systems. Now that California's budget has been resolved, the Governor is expected to make a major decision this week whether or not to move forward with a comprehensive, ambitious solar agenda.

There is a great deal at stake. The leading contributor to global warming is pollution from electricity generation. To fix this problem and stabilize the climate, it is essential that we choose to make clean energy sources such as solar power flourish and offer cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels. California has been a major force in driving the growth of the solar industry in the last few years and demand for solar energy grew by 65% last year. Unfortunately, the existing solar programs that serve the residential market are forecast to run out of funds within 6 months, threatening the future growth of solar energy and the clean air and good jobs that come with it. A bold, long-term program such as the Governor is currently considering would be enough to bring the cost of solar power down to the point where subsidies will no longer be needed and help us reach the point where market forces will drive solar energy into the mainstream.

Please take a moment now to email Governor Schwarzenegger and tell him this is the moment for courageous, visionary action. Tell him that only he can make the sun rise from the West. He'll like that.

Sincerely, Robert Redford

At 17,000 feet in the northern Andes, the glacier which covers famed Pastoruri has shrunk at a rate of 62 feet every year since 1980. Today it covers a surface area of 0.7 square miles, about 25 percent less than a quarter of a century ago. Pastoruri is one of 18 glacier-capped mountains in Peru suffering the effects of climate change, according Peru's National Environment Council, CONAM.

Peru has the most tropical glaciers in Latin America and has already lost 20 percent of the 1,615 miles of glaciers running through its central and southern Andes in the past 30 years, according to CONAM.

Climate change, caused by greenhouses gases such as carbon dioxide, is considered one of the biggest longer term threats to mankind and could bring higher sea levels, devastating floods and droughts. The world has been heating up in the past 50 years and the Earth is at its hottest in 10,000 years, scientists say. "There are 18 glacial mountains in Peru and they are all experiencing melting," Iturregui said.

Peru is particularly vulnerable to climate change because some 70 percent its energy comes from hydroelectric plants, supplied mainly by meltwater from Andean glaciers. The meltwater is also used for agriculture and industry and to supply Peru's desert coast, home to more than half the country's population. But fast-melting Andean glaciers are also a hazard, causing catastrophes such as avalanches and floods. Thirty-five climbers have died in Peru's Andes in the past 5 years after ice slabs and snow broke away from mountainsides due to melting caused by climate change, experts said.

The following excerpts are from a New York Times article published yesterday:

"Last summer, on the site of 35 former hat factories where toxic mercury was once used to cure pelts, city officials in Danbury, Conn., deployed a futuristic weapon: 160 Eastern cottonwoods. Dr. Richard Meagher, a professor of genetics at the University of Georgia, genetically engineered the trees to extract mercury from the soil, store it without being harmed, convert it to a less toxic form of mercury and release it into the air.

"In laboratories around the country, researchers are using detailed knowledge of tree genes and recombinant DNA technology to alter the genetic workings of forest trees, hoping to tweak their reproductive cycles, growth rate and chemical makeup, to change their ability to store carbon, resist disease and absorb toxins.

"Dr. Meagher's toxic-avenger trees are intended to remove heavy metals from contaminated soils in places where other forms of cleanup are prohibitively expensive. Because mercury is an element, it cannot be broken down into harmless substances; the Danbury trees release the diluted mercury into the atmosphere, where it dissipates and falls back to earth after a few years."