It’s time to start planning
Where to start? The answer to this one is easy. Governments at all levels must start planning, planning, planning for what clearly is to come — be it in five months or five years.
Year: 2006
Envisioning a hamlet economy: topology of sustainability and fulfilled ontogeny
If the average American could live the “good life” of living in a stereotypical Tuscan villa, and if they are shown how they, too, CAN have this lifestyle, then people will literally flock to this structure. Ultimately, this is a POSITIVE vision of the future—not a reversion to feudal serfdom, but a progression to a more egalitarian and human-compatible life…
Secty of State: “We have to do something about the energy problem”
Nothing has really taken me aback more as secretary of State than the way that the politics of energy is — I will use the word warping — diplomacy around the world.
Planning, policy, strategy and energy (part II)
Until the present time, no U.S. national energy policy has had any true sense of strategic urgency, let alone any staying power.
Solutions & sustainability – Apr 12
Is it OK … to have a barbecue? /
The vision thing /
Silicon Valley venture capitalist sees opportunity in green tech
Peak oil – Apr 12
Australian sustainability conference /
Speculators pile into oil /
Geological peak vs. logistical peak /
Stormy weather (investment bank report)
Environment – Apr 12
Global warming threatens extinctions /
Lyin’ tamer (“Ask Umbra” on global warming) /
Climate change and the media, reality and the future /
Coal plants’ renaissance pits energy vs. pollution /
Schwarzenegger speech today could put California in forefront of climate change efforts
Other energy – Apr 12
Rifkin: World on the ‘cusp of a new energy regime’ /
A gentle disagreement on Turkmen gas /
Catfight! (Big Oil vs Big Auto) /
Nuclear power and climate change: is our choice glow or cook? /
New oil is costly for Alaska
Other energy – Apr 11
With boost from sugar cane, Brazil satisfies its fuel needs /
Now in the rearview mirror: low gasoline prices /
Offshore drilling plan widens rifts over energy policy
Field of nightmares: A conversation with climate journalist Elizabeth Kolbert
No writing about global warming has had more impact over the past year than a series of closely observed pieces in “The New Yorker” by Elizabeth Kolbert, which have now been collected and expanded into a book. The book ends with these chilling words: “It may seem impossible to imagine that a technologically advanced society could choose, in essence, to destroy itself, but that is what we are now in the process of doing.”
Energy secretary quietly dismantles Energy Advisory Board
Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman has quietly disbanded the Secretary of Energy Advisory Board (SEAB), the department’s “principal independent advisory board on scientific and technical matters,” reports Nature magazine.
Oil Major CEO talks about “the real problem of peak oil”
Christophe de Margerie of Total says the problem is not with reserves per se, but with the rates of production, and that we will never be able to reach the production levels predicted by the IEA (International Energy Agency) – or by the US Department of Energy, for that matter – simply because it is taking increasing efforts to get the oil out of the ground and that effort cannot be accomplished with today’s industrial resources.
