Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
To hear urban visionary Richard Register tell it, the city of the future will look more like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon than like the crime-ridden, blighted expanse often referred to as the inner-city.
While peak oil is an important turn of the tide, we should not forget that net oil for consumption will peak long before peak oil. Possibly it already has.
The average American consumes six times the energy of the average person in the rest of the world. Yet we don’t seem to realize the cost of our massive energy consumption on the poorer people of the world, on our own health, and the health of the environment. Although interest in Peak Oil is growing, most do not yet fully understand that this means the “American Way of Life” will be over within a few decades.
A round-up of recent articles.
Interview: Former GOP Strategist Kevin Phillips (“American Theocracy”) /
CNN’s “We Were Warned”: the bright side /
Jitters about energy, debt and the housing market /
Anarchism and the peak oil argument /
Food, sustainability, and the environmentalists /
Investments based on peak oil? – yes
While it would be difficult to create an airtight legal case for impeaching George W. Bush based on his ignoring the very real threat posed by Peak Oil, nevertheless I believe that his actions—and inaction—in this regard constitute dereliction of duty on an unprecedented scale.
Sen. Lugar: Energy is the albatross of U.S. national security /
Iranian oil exchange unlikely to begin till at least midyear /
Pentagon looks to cut oil use and costs /
Australia: CSIRO warns of local oil shortfall /
Proposed Mackenzie pipeline spurs coal gasification mega-plan /
Trading the Hummer for a Honda
We need science-based solutions that can be retrofitted into our existing energy chain. We must continually seek to increase the efficiency of converting energy into heat and power. And we must somehow get our respective governments to get serious about a program of international energy research and development
Today’s Paul Reveres of “peak oil” aren’t waiting for Washington to save us from apocalypse. They’re already planting gardens and drafting city plans for the days when oil is gone. [Favorable article on the peak oil movement.]
Schlumberger CEO: energy prices to stay high on demand /
New Zealand – Running out of gas and time /
Ethanol industry braces for growing pains /
Sugar, not oil or stocks, may be best investment /
Companies spend billions in hunt for crude in Gulf of Mexico /
Schwarzenegger’s plan to reduce greenhouse gases sets off culture clash between European and U.S. oil companies
Post-peak: The change starts with us (energy literacy) /
Latest CSIRO newsletter focuses on personal actions /
In memory of Carla Emery (“The Encyclopedia of Country Living”) /
Brooks once a center of wind power industry /
Why lawns?
Speech by the British Ambassador to the United States. He concludes: “energy is central to our foreign policy because it is central to national security. Wherever we look, problems are energy driven. The imperative to collaborate may now be as strong as that which forced us to build collective security structures during the Cold War…This is not a problem that can wait ten years.”
