Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Since the end of World War II, the private gasoline-powered automobile has become the center of life in America. There are few other cultures in the world today that are not trying to emulate America as soon as their economic circumstances permit.
Congress expects cellulosic ethanol to fulfill the renewable fuels requirement. Catering to an uninformed public, our politicians have laid out a road map for failure. Cellulosic ethanol is not a silver bullet that solves America’s oil dependency.
It was fascinating to see the enthusiasm among the farmers for a more localised approach to farming. Perhaps the National Farmer’s Union should be figuring out how it can best support their wish to create and sustain local markets rather than continuing to focus on an approach whose benefits to the climate are questionable at best, and which at worst, would continue the erosion of soil, resilience and the local economies we will become increasingly dependent upon.
Sharon Astyk: Is relocalization doomed?: a response to Stuart Staniford
Mexico’s crude oil production fell 5.3% in 07
$100 oil – futurist revisits predictions
Is PO good news or bad for hydro and seismic operators?
The end of cheap oil: Are you ready, supply chain managers?
The lowdown on dirt: it’s disappearing
Cow-belching study aims to cut methane
FAO sees record world food prices staying high
Long period of rising food prices forecast
Care about the environment? Eat less meat
The fallacy of reversibility: why peak oil actually helps industrial agriculture
OPEC Secretary-General : ‘International oil companies are the real dinosaurs’
Not “peak oil” but “trough oil”!
Review: Shell Game by Steve Alten
“How to Boil a Frog” on peak oil
Warning on rising Med Sea levels
Water crisis: Turkey’s disappearing lakes
German farmers and global warming
Farming is itself an art and a whole lot more artists than you might imagine draw their early or late inspiration from it. And I don’t mean just sentimental, sugary, artsy-fartsy, pretty stuff about farming, but the guts of it, the tragedy and heartbreak a farmer must sometimes endure, as a true artist often endures, when he pits himself against the tyranny of greed and the indifference of nature to produce good food.
Debate over biofuels continues
Jamaica: Debate heats up as food prices rise
Biofuels, at what cost?
Biofuels: an alternative to U.S. Air Force petroleum fuel dependency
NY Times: Global oil quandary: costly fuel means costly calories
Is this the end of cheap food?
WorldChanging on high food prices
West Africa: food prices climbing, crisis feared
India: Situation on food front alarming
Pakistan: Food riots feared due to shortage of quality wheat
Over 1 million Afghans face food shortage
An executive summary of weekly news from a peak oil perspective, featuring:
– Production and Prices
– Peak Oil — Pro and Con
– Kashagan
– Food versus Fuel Again
– Energy Briefs
A gracious fall is better than a bitter, ballistic, hostile one. The flexibility of bamboo would be a better model for our fall than rigid, fossilized bones likely to break and shatter. Then we may come back up, though hopefully in a different, more mature way.
