Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Testifying before the Senate Energy Commitee, Dow Chemicals CEO Andrew Liveris said, “The short-term outlook for natural gas consumers is grim. If prices remain at or near current levels, manufacturers will be driven out of the market and many may not return.”…
The government should also “declare a national emergency” to shock consumers into awareness of tight supplies, he said.
There was an economy that loved SUVs /
To haul all its workers far from the cities. /
The cars pushed the economy to depend on more oil. /
But I dunno why it depended on oil; perhaps it will spoil. (To the tune of “There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly”)
Report from the Second U.S. Conference on Peak Oil and Community Solutions
Have you ever wondered why various winged insects (such as moths or nocturnal butterflies) tend to behave as if they are attracted to artificial light sources? In this essay I attempt to analyze this behavioral anomaly from a nonconventional angle.
…it would appear that we may be underestimating the breadth of biologic responses to changes in climate. Treating climate-related ills will require preparation, and early-warning systems forecasting extreme weather can help to reduce casualties and curtail the spread of disease. But primary prevention would require halting the extraction, mining, transport, refining, and combustion of fossil fuels — a transformation that many experts believe would have innumerable health and environmental benefits and would help to stabilize the climate.
The militarisation of the United States’s energy policy is distorting the country’s democracy and damaging its standing in the world.
…a global ecological revolution worthy of the name can only occur as part of a larger social—and I would insist, socialist—revolution. Such a revolution, were it to generate the conditions of equality, sustainability, and human freedom worthy of a genuine Great Transition, would necessarily draw its major impetus from the struggles of working populations and communities at the bottom of the global capitalist hierarchy…
All the major components of global climate — air, water, ice, and vegetation — are actually nonlinear: At certain thresholds they can switch from one state of organization to another, with catastrophic consequences for species too finely-tuned to the old norms.
The work of turning the Willits area into a community where necessities are produced and consumed locally has been attracting national attention:
After you discover oil, you can only produce it out of the ground one time… You have depleted the pores of the rocks, emptying them of the oil and gas that were formerly contained within. There is no “inflation” when it comes to the supply of oil. There is only depletion.
Energy Bulletin is having a short vacation for the next week, and will be posting irregularly. In the meantime, check out some of the other websites with energy news.
While al Husseini’s comments about when peak oil might hit us are more optimistic than those of ASPO-Ireland and a host of others, they certainly strike a vastly more realistic chord than the typical fare from Saudi Aramco press releases and presentations.
