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Colin J. Campbell: “Time for solutions is running out” (Audio)
Paul Nellen, Lifeinfo (Germany)
Colin J. Campbell in Berlin, 19.5.2009
About “Transition Towns”, “ordinary people vs. politicians”, and more… It has been Colin’s farewell appearance in public because…
Well, listen here to the interview w/ Paul Nellen at the ASPO Germany Conference, Berlin, May 19, 2009
17 Min. (Quicktime) [GO to original to hear the talk.]
In the interview, Colin mentions a statement by EU commissioner for energy, Andris Piebalgs. Here is the blog entry in which Piebalgs warns against an upcoming new oil and gas crunch
(19 May 2009)
Dr. Campbell explains that this may be his last talk. The interview in English. -BA
Former CIBC chief economist Jeff Rubin: Peak-nik
Jeff Sanford, Canadian Business
Former CIBC chief economist Jeff Rubin has a habit of proving his critics wrong. Now, with his controversial new book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller, can he do it again?
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… The Chimerica trade route that expanded rapidly in the late ’80s and ’90s flooded North America with cheaply produced Asian goods. That helped preserve middle-class lifestyles through an era of stagnant wages, and in many ways became the backbone of North America’s economy. But the whole enterprise really works well only when crude is priced at US$25 a barrel. Now that oil is about to move into a new and permanently higher price range, as a result of shortages and a shift to less-efficient production, the lines of trade are about to break down. That is going to throw the Canadian economy first into crisis and then, after a period of adjustment, into a new post-carbon future.
Or so says Jeff Rubin, the brash and controversial (some would say over-opinionated) former chief economist for CIBC World Markets, as he sits in the Dufferin Mall food court, digging through a box of fries. As he chats about his new book, Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller (Random House, $29.95), Rubin predicts the consumer paradise Canadians have known over the past several years is about to break down — and in a rather messy fashion.
Another round of triple-digit oil prices, Rubin warns, will see a relocalization of manufacturing to Hamilton from Guangdong. Western access to cheap Asian labour will decline as energy prices rise — and that’s going to increase the price of basic goods, like food, by as much as 40%. Also in Rubin’s crystal ball: $7-a-gallon gasoline in the United States, along with a crash in the greenback that will make driving so expensive that many poorer Americans will realize they can no longer afford it. One-fifth of all cars on the road will be gone in a decade.
(15 June 2009)
Mexico oil exports plummet
Upstream
Mexican oil exports plunged 18.2% in April to levels unseen since 1990 outside hurricane seasons, in more grim news for a key economic motor relied on for a major chunk of government revenues.
Crude export volumes tumbled to 1.177 million barrels per day as yields at Mexico’s aging Cantarell field continued to plummet, state oil monopoly Pemex said today.
Oil production declined 4.2% year-on-year to 2.642 million bpd in April, the fourth month in a row that it has been below a targeted level of 2.7 million bpd, according to a Reuters report.
Oil revenues are a key plank of Mexico’s economy and the slide in exports was the latest gloomy data for a country already knocked into recession by a drop in US demand for its factory exports.
… Mexico is a top three oil supplier to the United States but production has declined steadily since 2004 as the country struggles to replace capacity lost at Cantarell.
(21 May 2009)
