Resilience Roundup – Nov 14

November 14, 2014

NOTE: Images in this archived article have been removed.

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A roundup of the news, views and ideas from the main stream press and the blogosphere.  Click on the headline link to see the full article.


U.S. Shale Boom Masks Threats to World Oil Supply, IEA Says

Jillian Ward, Bloomberg
The U.S. shale boom masks threats to global oil supply including Middle East turmoil, conflict in Ukraine and the difficulty of unconventional oil production beyond North America, the International Energy Agency said.

“The global energy system is in danger of falling short of the hopes and expectations placed upon it,” the IEA said today in its annual World Energy Outlook. “The short-term picture of a well-supplied oil market should not disguise the challenges that lie ahead as reliance grows on a relatively small number of producers.”


Is everything we know about ISIS’s oil money wrong?

Zack Beauchamp, Vox
You have probably heard that ISIS makes a lot of money from oil. The group’s ironclad control over northern and eastern Syria includes most of Syria’s oil extraction operations. Syria’s oil deposits are small by Middle Eastern standards, but estimates of ISIS’s oil money can range from roughly $1 million to $3 million a day. That’s a lot of cash for a terrorist group to be raking in.

But according to a new estimate by German intelligence agencies, a lot of this speculation is "hugely overblown." ISIS makes way less money from oil than we think, and its oil revenues are one of its most vulnerable revenue streams. ISIS’s oil riches aren’t so rich, and what they do have is fairly insecure…


‘Oil and Water’ exhibit portrays ND’s resources

Dave Kolpack, Merced Sunstar
An art exhibit by college students and professors about North Dakota’s most precious — and controversial — resources will soon be on display in the heart of oil country.

"Oil and Water" is an exchange project among seven area colleges that uses printmaking to tackle issues ranging from oil development and fracking in the Bakken formation to flooding and a massive diversion proposal in the Red River Valley…


Renewable energy investment in Australia dropped 70% in past year

AP via The Guardian
Investment in renewable energy has dropped by 70% as Australia loses green business overseas, a report by the Climate Council has found.

“Investment that could be coming to Australia is instead going overseas to countries that are moving to a renewables energy future,” the report’s co-author, Tim Flannery, said…


America’s solar boom, in charts

Tim McDonnell, Grist
Last week, an energy analyst at Deutsche Bank came to a startling conclusion: By 2016, solar power will be as cheap or cheaper than electricity from the conventional grid in every state except three. That’s without any changes to existing policy. In other words, we’re only a few years away from the point where, in most of the United States, there will be no economic reason not to go solar. If you care about slowing climate change or just moving toward cleaner energy, that is a huge deal…


Hard-Nosed Advice From Veteran Lobbyist: ‘Win Ugly or Lose Pretty’

Eric Lipton, New York Times
If the oil and gas industry wants to prevent its opponents from slowing its efforts to drill in more places, it must be prepared to employ tactics like digging up embarrassing tidbits about environmentalists and liberal celebrities, a veteran Washington political consultant told a room full of industry executives in a speech that was secretly recorded.

The blunt advice from the consultant, Richard Berman, the founder and chief executive of the Washington-based Berman & Company consulting firm, came as Mr. Berman solicited up to $3 million from oil and gas industry executives to finance an advertising and public relations campaign called Big Green Radicals…


Romania does not have shale gas, PM Ponta says

Luiza Ilie, Reuters
Romania has fought hard to discover shale gas that apparently does not exist, Prime Minister Victor Ponta said late on Sunday.

Like its emerging European Union peer Poland, Romania has opened the door to companies seeking to uncover shale gas, hoping to replicate a boom in cheap energy seen in the United States…


Ministers’ shale gas ‘hype’ attacked

Roger Harrabin, BBC
Ministers have "completely oversold" the potential of shale gas, energy experts say.

Researchers from the UK Energy Research Centre (UKERC) told the BBC promises of lower prices and greater energy security from UK shale gas were “hype” and "lacking in evidence"…

“It is very frustrating to keep hearing that shale gas is going to solve our energy problems – there’s no evidence for that whatsoever… it’s hype”, Prof Jim Watson, UKERC research director, told BBC News.

“It’s extraordinary that ministers keep making these statements. They clearly want to create a narrative. But we are researchers – we deal in facts, not narratives. And at the moment there is no evidence on how shale gas will develop in the UK…


Can we use gas as a ‘bridging fuel’ to a low carbon world?

Richard Humphrey, Carbon Brief
Gas can be a bridge fuel, displacing coal and helping to reduce carbon emissions, a new report concludes. But only for the next twenty years, and only if the world sorts out carbon capture and storage (CCS) and sees a dramatic cut in coal use.

Limiting climate change means the world is eventually going to need to get energy from power sources that are essentially zero carbon. That means renewables, nuclear power, and perhaps CCS power plants. If CCS can be used in conjunction with burning wood, effectively drawing carbon out of the atmosphere, so much the better…


The US and China just reached a major climate deal on cutting emissions

Brad Plumer, Vox
This is a big deal. US President Barack Obama and Chinese President Xi Jinping just announced a major agreement to curtail greenhouse-gas emissions and tackle global warming over the next few decades:…

Here’s a breakdown of the deal, which was hashed out over nine months of negotiations…


My Urban Farming Epic Fail

Isaac Eger, Narratively
It started as four college roommates with a hunger for farm-fresh food and a penchant for pet puns. It ended with dead ducks, grumpy goats, and one horrifically bloody mercy killing gone wrong…


Cowspiracy

Kip Andersen, Keegan Kuhn, Cowspiracy

Cowspiracy: The Sustainability Secret is a groundbreaking feature-length environmental documentary following intrepid filmmaker Kip Andersen as he uncovers the most destructive industry facing the planet today – and investigates why the world’s leading environmental organizations are too afraid to talk about it.

Animal agriculture is the leading cause of deforestation, water consumption and pollution, is responsible for more greenhouse gases than the transportation industry, and is a primary driver of rainforest destruction, species extinction, habitat loss, topsoil erosion, ocean “dead zones,” and virtually every other environmental ill. Yet it goes on, almost entirely unchallenged….


Unbelievable Photos Show Factory Farms Destroying The American Countryside

Harrison Jacobs, Business Insider via Films fo Action
…For the last several years, British artist Mishka Henner has collected images of the feedlots via satellite, to document a largely hidden phenomenon. Initially, he was searching satellite imagery to look for oil fields. When he came across the feedlots, Henner was shocked he didn’t know about about such a central part of our food production.

"The feedlots are a brilliant representation of how abstract our food industry has come," Henner told Business Insider. "It’s an efficient system for extracting the maximum yield from animals. That’s the world we live in now. We want to extract the maximum yield from everything, no matter what business you are in."… Image Removed
Credit: Mishka Henner.


Cycling without age

Mikael Colville-Andersen, Ole Kassow, Copenhagenize
Watch this TED x talk. It is inspiring. It is moving. It is important. Watch it and share it.

Not just because it’s about bikes but because it is about caring for our elderly, rebuilding a volunteer-minded society and it is about how individuals with passion and vision can change things. Change things quickly, effectively and massively.

I know this individual. I work three metres from him every day. Ole Kassow is his name…

News clippings image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission.

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