Year: 2006

Politics: The Eighty Percent Pay Cut

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One of the unmentionable facts of today’s politics is that the relative prosperity of the industrial nations depends on the impoverishment of the rest of the world. Lacking a willingness to deal with this reality, proposals for political solutions to peak oil and other aspects of our current predicament fall short.

Climate policy – Nov 2

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US Inspector Generals probe allegations that global warming findings were suppressed /
MIT survey: climate tops Americans’ environmental concerns /
UK Stern Report sells climate short /
You can’t do it all with mirrors /
Why we must ration the future /
2050 too late for climate change action: former U.S. adviser

Food & agriculture – Nov 2

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What if the Midwest stopped trying to feed the world and started focusing on itself?
Forecast for Australian grain production cut again /
‘Virtually no progress’ in alleviating world hunger: FAO

If we build it, will they come?

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The “we” refers to North America. The “it” refers to liquified natural gas (LNG) ports. And, the “they” refers to LNG tankers from exporting countries. Unfortunately, the answer to the question is “probably not,” at least not in the numbers we would like them to come.
(Report from the recent ASPO conference)

Cooling the planet at the gas roots

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For years, the task of reducing greenhouse-gas emissions was seen as a job mainly for central governments… But with the major emitters such as the US and China outside the treaty, and with the Kyoto nations failing to meet their 2012 goals, the idea of millions of self- sacrificing individuals taking responsibility for their own energy-excessive lives seems like The Next Best Thing.

2006 Boston ASPO: Renewable Energy Sources

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Controlling carbon and CO2 emissions requires, at root, finding some other way to generate electricity, to power vehicles, and to heat spaces. Fortunately for the future of mankind, there is a plethora of well-developed technologies in existence just waiting for mankind to start using them on a vast scale. The big problem is getting past the inertia of previous ways of doing things.