Bulbs and bags – March 28

SF is first city to ban plastic shopping bags
Mercury in energy-saving bulbs worries scientists

Bill to ban regular light bulbs introduced in House

GAO report on peak oil to be released

Reps. Roscoe Bartlett and Tom Udall will hold a new conference Thursday to discuss the release of an embargoed GAO report on peak oil. The report will reveal the U.S. is particularly vulnerable and the U.S. federal government is unprepared to respond to severe consequences from an increasing risk of significant disruptions to world oil supplies from peak oil and other factors.

Climate policy – Mar 27

NZ Greens target key sectors in new policy

Super funds have fiduciary role

Putting carbon emissions in neutral

The geriatric climate change imperative

Peak oil – March 27

Japan: Green and growing (Boston Globe mentions peak oil)

The view from the peak
George W. Bush, meet M. King Hubbert
TOD: Further forensics on Saudi oil supply
T. Boone Pickens to discuss peak oil

Biofuels – March 27

Economist: Biofuel may raise food prices
Farmers: future is not now for biomass ethanol

Energy companies rethink palm oil

Five years to save the orang utan
Monbiot: To save the planet, we need a five-year freeze on biofuels

Oil producers – March 27

As if gold weren’t bad enough, now they have found oil
Transparency urged in U.S. payments to oil producers
What’s happened to Iraq’s oil?
Sunni politicians critical of Iraqi oil law
Exxon sees technology, local needs as Mideast key

Iran: We will know soon…

An attack could have cataclysmic implications for the region, for the world economy, and not least for the oil import-dependent and nearly bankrupt US.

…Related late-breaking stories:

Russian intelligence sees U.S. military buildup on Iran border
U.S. launches show of force in Persian Gulf
U.S. Navy: Iran did not fire at U.S. warship
Oil spikes more than $5

Faustus and the monkey trap

What makes the crisis of industrial society so challenging to cope with is the way it unfolds out of the very strategies that worked so well in other contexts. Current attempts to replace oil with ethanol — in effect, pouring our food supply into our gas tanks — point to an urgent need to reconsider some of our most basic assumptions about what exactly the problem is.

Urban & housing – Mar 26

Shrinking to Fit the Interstices

How green grows my roof

Low-carbon houses given tax breaks

Oil Industry – Mar 26

Venezuela to sell $5 Billion in oil co. bonds

Recent kidnappings of foreigners in Niger delta

China starts drilling Asia’s deepest well

Total Confusion in Iran

CERA lists 15 countries it believes will expand production