Politics & economics – Feb 4
Bush’s goals on energy quickly find obstacles /
Feeding the oil addiction /
UK oil contract threatens US energy prices -senator /
OPEC has consensus to cut output in March /
Montana’s Helmore: the green governor
Year: 2006
Oil reserves and peak oil
A reduction in 5% of world oil reserves, even if it is only a bookkeeping entry, dramatically changes the planning assumptions for world energy use into the medium and long terms.
State of the Union on energy – Feb 3
Administration backs off vow to reduce Mideast oil imports /
Much talk, mostly low key, about energy independence /
Bush hits the road to take a green message to his nation of oil addicts /
US ex-energy chief Richardson cool to Bush ideas /
US energy secy outlines plan /
“He’s done more to raise the exposure of energy in one hour than all the peak blogs” /
Bush’s energy plan: ambitious enough?
Solutions & sustainability – Feb 3
Wendell Berry: We went to the mountaintop but it wasn’t there /
Trading our birthright for a wide selection of bathmats /
Reflections on energy and our future /
Ian Lowe: Stealing from the future (or how to destroy the planet in seven easy steps)
President’s State of the Union energy initiatives are “a start”
Without a national commitment with the breadth of the Apollo program to land a man on the moon and the intensity of the Manhattan Project to build the atom bomb, there’s no way we will achieve the President’s goal.
Environment – Feb 2
Seattle mayor touts 200-city consensus on greenhouse gas reductions /
Blair issues blunt warning on climate change /
Clinton: Climate change is the world’s biggest worry /
Stark warning in UK over climate change /
Global warming: how fast should you boil a frog? /
Mexico plans to halve fuel emissions
The 75% solution
In his State of the Union speech, President Bush said “America is addicted to oil” and set a goal of replacing 75 percent of the nation’s Mideast oil imports by 2025 with ethanol and other energy sources. This is not a “goal,” it is a prophesy. There is no way that the US will be importing as much oil from the Mideast in 2025 as it imports today. And there is no way that the nations of the Mideast will be exporting as much oil in 2025 as they are exporting today.
It’s capitalism or a habitable planet – you can’t have both
Our economic system is unsustainable by its very nature. The only response to climate chaos and peak oil is major social change
State of the Union on energy – Feb 2
White House: the advanced energy initiative /
In call for less foreign oil, Bush sounds familiar note /
The state of energy: hooked on petroleum /
Numbers and the State of the Union Energy segment /
Layoffs in store at National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Other energy – Feb 1
Russia’s largest oil discovery in a decade /
Exxon comes to Madagascar /
Arctic defrost opens resources and divisions /
Thailand: gasohol pumps may soon run dry /
Energy research sputters /
Ethanol and the environment /
Bush speech to outline energy alternatives
Solutions & sustainability – Feb 1
The hippies were right all along about happiness /
The end of suburbia – or the beginning of widespread permaculture? /
McKibben on eating local for the winter /
Saving small farmers /
Miguel Altieri on industrial agriculture and agroecology /
Magazine “reap/sow” for young food activists /
Bat or badger? It’s the roadkill recipe book
Bush State of the Union: getting religion on energy?
A senior White House aide I spoke to over the weekend says the president will focus on new energy technologies, which means alternatives to oil production.
