As Triangle gasoline prices again top $2.50/gallon, NC Powerdown and the Duke Greening Initiative will sponsor the Triangle Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions on Saturday, March 25th, from 1 to 6 PM at Duke University's Love Auditorium.
Peak Oil is the time period in which the maximum production of oil (in millions of barrels per day) ever extracted from the earth occurs. Peak Oil may last for weeks, months, or even a few years. We are unlikely to know we have experienced Peak Oil until we are passed the peak. After the earth passes peak production, the gap between demand and supply will inexorably drive the price of petroleum-based products higher and higher. With 95% of America's transportation energy coming from oil products and much of our food being grown with petroleum-based fertilizers, the peaking of world oil supply has dramatic implications for the nation and the sprawling, mostly auto-dependent Triangle region.
I've been thinking a lot about the evolution of our community to a more urban mode of development. I think this is generally a good thing because it allows us to continue to grow without sprawling ever-outward, and also supports more pedestrian-oriented land uses which will build the critical mass needed to support fixed-guideway (rail or dedicated busway) transit. This continued growth (at a moderate pace, of course) is essential to maintain at least a modicum of affordable housing options. We can't just close the gate behind us now that we've got ours.
But of course this doesn't mean that anything big is automatically good. Similar to Carolina North if it's done right urbanization can revolutionize our community. But if done poorly it could ruin many of the things we love about living here. So I have a growing concern that our current planning and development review process is built to manage the suburban-style growth that we have seen for the last couple of decades.
Chapel Hill has established a Council committee to work on hiring our new town manager. What would you put in the job description?
The Town Council's selection subcommittee held its first meeting Thursday, charged with finding a replacement for Town Manager Cal Horton, whose retirement will be effective Sept. 1, ending a 16-year tenure in the post.
The manager holds the most powerful nonelected position in town government and implements council decisions.
"What we want to do today is begin the process as much as we can," Mayor Kevin Foy said to kick-start the meeting.
The selection subcommittee, which consists of council members Bill Thorpe, Ed Harrison and Bill Strom, as well as Foy, met with the town's director of human resources to discuss initial steps in the job search process, such as advertising the position and receiving applications.
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I know this is OrangePolitics.org, but your neighbor to the south wants to pollute your quality of life with more traffic, more pollution and big box goliaths sucking retail out of Carrboro and Chapel Hill. Chatham County progressives need your help to oust the men who are selling off the county to any developer who dangles promises of tax revenue in front of their frothy mouths.
We barely survived the last four years under Bunkey Morgan, the car wash king and bag man for Briar Chapel. Now is our chance to show him and his ilk the curb.
The Chatham Coalition, a PAC that succeeded two years ago in electing candidates into office, is looking north for help in making a clean sweap of politicians who engage in back-room deals with wealthy landowners, believe Cary is the economic model of our future, and turn a blind eye to our streams and rivers turning brown with silt.
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