Building a world of resilient communities.    Preventing
deforested moonscapes - part II  In the United States, we long
ago made a transition to an economy that met our heating and
cooking needs by burning coal, natural gas, and oil, with a
little hydropower thrown in to boot. In the first part of this
series, I argue that after an oil peak, pressure will increase
to cut trees to serve as fuel for heating and cooking fires, as
well as to clear land for agriculture. Many other countries who
have faced this pressure have become bleak places prone to soil
erosion, mudslides, dust storms and finally, desertification.
One island: Haiti (left) and Dominican Republic (right)  To find
sustainable solutions, we need to identify ways to use renewable
resources at a rate which is slower than the resource can
regenerate; as well as to use the resources in a way which does
not produce more pollution than Nature and human health can
safely absorb.  Part of a solution will probably be renewable
sources of power, such as hy