How to Boil a Frog Free Goodie Release 5/24/09 - with a trailer for the movie!

Hi all,
 
Before you do anything else, go straight to www.howtoboilafrog.com and get a look at the HTBAF movie trailer – note you can make it bigger by clicking on the green GO button.  Let us know what you think! We still have to raise about $1.25 million to pay for the stock footage & music rights, the missing pieces of animation, post production to finish it properly for a theatrical release, and so on – but we DO have a movie!  Anyone who wants to help us find some or all of the money is welcome to become part of the club of money-finders. You too can help save civilization with comedy!
 
Next, check out our mini-interview of the week from Friend o’ the Frog and Vancouver Peak Oil expert Rick Balfour.  Rick is an architect and urban planner with a real vision for how to prepare for a future that will include global warming, peak oil, mass migration and other little bumps in the road.  At http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#video, Rick discusses the peak oil motion he brought before the Vancouver, BC Planning Commission - a motion that was turned down in 2006, but is now being recognized as a necessary basis for long overdue changes in Vancouver's urban design. For more information on Balfour's simulated peak oil "war games", and the book that resulted from them, visit his site at http://www.plancanada.com/.
 
Our Essential Book o’ the Week is “Limits to Growth – the 30 Year Update”, by Meadows, Meadows & Randers.  If you haven’t heard of the Limits to Growth, it’s time to do a quick Google search; turns out we were warned about all this Earth-hitting-the-limits thing back in 1972.  If you read one single book to put everything in perspective this year, this is it.  Click the link at http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#books. 
 
In the Essential Articles section, we’re once again replacing all 5 articles, to give you that HTBAF overview of what you need to know.  A brief overview of our delectable tidbits:
1)       Because the Swine Flu that just breezed through town may just be a foreshadowing of a reprise later this year, we’re featuring an article on Flu Preparation by Mat Stein (author of “When Technology Fails” and HTBAF mini-interviewee) on ways you can stock up on simple stuff that will protect your family against Swine Flu 2 and other infections that may do boffo BO in bodies around the world.
2)       Next up is an Earth Day article that deserves year-round contemplation.  The title pretty much says it all: Forget About the Planet -- We're the Ones Who Are Screwed – by Joseph Romm.  Unless you’re a planet yourself, I wouldn’t miss this one.
3)       If you want to understand why economic stimulus isn’t going to work in the long run, read this third article: Energy is Everything – Michael Lardelli.  This is absolutely essential to understanding what’s going: that by printing more dollars, without creating any more of the actual resources that sustain our bodies and society (like energy, for instance), dollars just become debased…which leads to inflation.  Economic understanding at its best.
4)       So what is Britain, for instance, doing in response to the prospect of an imminent plunge in the global energy supply.  Get the hair-raising answer in this brilliant-as-usual article by George Monbiot: Cross your fingers and carry on.
5)       Finally, hop into a creative solution to all these troubles with a joyous new concept: Cul de Sac Communes!  There is SO much we can do right in our own neighborhoods – with ideas like this, there’s no excuse not to get started!
 
Check all 5 articles out at http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#articles!
 
Our Essential Movie is home-grown: it’s FOF Rex Weyler presenting the History of the Planet in “Ecomath”, on Vancouver’s own Sustainability TV.  This contains some material from the powerful new talk Rex has been giving, which we all look forward to seeing on TED as soon as possible.  And it’s free! Just click here: http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#movies.
 
Our Essential Funny Web Short is a delightful little animation called “How will you ride the slide?”, available at http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#webshorts. And once you’re done watching, go straight to the HTBAF Facebook page and post your answer to that question!  Let’s get some discussion going!
 
Because we’ve found so many fabulous free resources recently, we’re going to replace all 5 Essential Links with this update.  In brief, they are:
1)       Land Made – a way to rent out your backyard for a veggie garden and get free food.  This kind of business is popping up all over the country, and is a great opportunity for green entrepreneurs!
2)       Mondragon Cooperatives – a different way to do capitalism.  Yes, people are actually out there living differently.  You don’t have to wait for things to fall apart for permission to live life in a way that makes you happy!
3)       Global Disease Alert Map – a quick reference for what’s coming your way – keep on eye on that Swine Flu!
4)       Biophysical Economics website – Wealth, it turns out, is not a product of spreadsheets or Marxist dialectic, but actual real stuff, and we only have so much of it.  Check out this website for the emergence of the Dismal Science from 200 years of being based entirely in fantasy (and excellent book sales) to something that actually makes sense and is useful.  
5)       Rising seas chart – check out whether you’re actually sitting on future beachfront property!  Estimates of possible sea level rise by the end of the century have skyrocketed based on new and ever-worsening news about global warming.  So pick your own sea level rise and calculate how fast you can grow gills!
 
All these links can be had for the cost of a mere click on http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#links!
 
Our Essential Visual o’ the Week comes to us from FOF Dianne Lafontaine, who has been working on a design for urban agriculture called Broccoli Promenades.  Check it out http://www.howtoboilafrog.com/#visuals and write Dianne if you’re interested!
 
Lastly but not leastly, we have not 1 but 2 goodies for you on the FrogBlog.  First of all, another contribution by Lou the Frog called “What This Is Not”, containing some surprising thoughts about our current situation and how different it is from anything we’ve seen before.  Then read down 1 entry further to our Guest Blogger Bill Rees (co-creator of the global footprint) as he writes about “uneconomic growth”.  Both await you at http://howtoboilafrog.com/frogblog.html!
 
Your HTBAF Action of the Week is to spread this email to others who are not yet Frog-aware, and discuss with them some of what you see and read here.  HTBAF aims high as the world’s first eco-comedy, but in the end civilization will be saved face-to-face, one-to-one.  Pick somebody you care about, and go save their life.
 
Till next time,
 
Jon & all his friends at www.howtoboilafrog.com
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PS – If you love the music in the HTBAF Trailer, that’s courtesy of Radio Ready, a duo that composes for movies and TV.  For more info on them contact FOF Casey Purvis!