Stoneleigh available for more talks

[Andrew Lawrence]

Greetings everyone:

I believe Jen Hartley has already posted notice of a talk we'll be hosting in Northampton on May 21. The speaker is Nicole Foss, a former Oil Drum contributing editor who now blogs under the name Stoneleigh at The Automatic Earth. (Check it out if you are unfamiliar with that site.)

I organized that event and I'm writing to let everyone in this region know that when last I checked with Nicole she had space in her calendar for more talks. She is currently slated to be in Tamworth NH on Tuesday the 18th of May, then in Northampton MA on Friday, which leaves (at a minimum) Wed and Thurs up for grabs. If you are looking for an easily-produced event around which to do some public education and outreach, this could be a terrific opportunity. She has made it clear that it doesn't have to be huge, and I have found her very easy to work with.

I invite you to contact me directly if you have any questions. Nicole can be reached at stoneleightravels AT gmail.com.

In case you missed Jen's post, I'm pasting in the press released we used...

Press Release

Peak Oil and the collapse of global Ponzi finance are a “perfect storm” of converging phenomena that threaten to trigger wealth destruction, social discontent, and global conflict. The
consequences for unprepared individuals and families could be dire.

So believes Nicole M. Foss, an energy industry consultant and financial analyst from Ontario, Canada, who will be presenting “Financial Crisis, Peak Oil & You” at
the Unitarian Society of Northampton and Florence on the evening of May
21st at 7
pm.

In addition to her work in the energy industry, Foss blogs under the name “Stoneleigh” at the website The Automatic Earth (www.theautomaticearth.blogspot.com). She plans to discuss the many converging factors that are contributing
to the predicament we face today, and how individuals can build a “lifeboat” to
cope with the difficult years ahead.

At her presentation, Foss will describe how our current financial system is an unsustainable credit bubble grounded in “Ponzi dynamics,” or the logic of the pyramid scheme. She warns that
most people are woefully unprepared to face the consequences of the devastating
deflation that is now unfolding.

What makes this crisis different from past financial calamities? Foss will argue that this one has developed in the context of the fossil fuel age, which will prove to be a
relatively brief period of human history. We have already seen oil reach a
global production peak, and other fossil fuels are not far behind, she says.
While there is still plenty of fossil fuel in the ground, production will fall,
meaning that there will be less and less energy available to power the economy
at prices we can afford to pay.

Societies have gone through boom and bust cycles before — for example, Tulip Mania, the South Sea Bubble and the “Real” Great Depression of the 1870s — but most people in the
Western world today will face this crisis without the knowledge or means to
provide the basics of their own survival. Our industrial system has nearly
destroyed the individual capacity for self-reliance. Foss will argue that individuals and communities that take steps now to
prepare stand a much better chance to thrive in a changing world.

Her presentation is produced in cooperation with -- and in support of -- the Transition Towns initiatives of Western Mass, a movement dedicated to building local resiliance
in the face of Peak Oil and Climate Change.

Nicole M. Foss Biography

Nicole M. Foss is co-editor of The Automatic Earth (http://theautomaticearth.blogspot.com), where she writes under the name Stoneleigh. She and her writing partner have been chronicling and interpreting the on-going credit crunch as the most pressing
aspect of our current multi-faceted predicament. The site integrates finance,
energy, environment, psychology, population and real
politik in order to explain why we find ourselves in a state
of crisis and what we can do about it. Prior to the establishment of TAE, she
was editor of The Oil Drum Canada, where she wrote on peak oil and
finance.

Foss runs the Agri-Energy Producers' Association of Ontario, where she has focused on farm-based biogas projects and grid connections for renewable energy. While living in the UK she
was a Research Fellow at the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies, where she
specialized in nuclear safety in Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union, and
conducted research into electricity policy at the EU level.

Her academic qualifications include a BSc in biology from Carleton University in Canada (where she focused primarily on neuroscience and psychology), a post-graduate
diploma in air and water pollution control, an LLM in international law in
development from the University of Warwick in the UK. She was granted the
University Medal for the top science graduate in 1988 and the law school prize
for the top law school graduate in 1997