Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Oil prices surged again this week on news of tightening US crude stocks. Prices are remaining bullish despite concerns about the Eurozone, and Chinese manufacturing figures being at their lowest for two years, as the authorities there move to calm inflation…
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news.
John Michael Greer recently suggested that those who haven’t found poverty yet might want to seek it out for their own good. Not only can people who know how to provide their own food, clothing, energy and other household needs live comfortably if today’s abundance gives way to scarcity in the future. But embracing poverty can be a way to protect your self-sufficient homestead from those who might threaten you. Sounds promising — but we will need a huge mind-shift to voluntarily accept a way of life that our whole society equates with weakness, stupidity and personal failure.
You are deep in the woods at nightfall and it has started to rain.
You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been ‘volunteered’ for some sustainable-team-building-thingummy-whatsit that you only agreed to because you’ve just applied for a promotion. And now you are bracing yourself for a long uncomfortable night in a make-shift shelter a bit too up close and personal with your three unlikely companions…
People living in cul-de-sacs, with no walkable stores or supplies in reach, abandoned to falling property values, after the real estate bubble broke – they will be confused, unprepared, and angry. Why do politicians keep promising more roads, as the oil runs out? Why do people get so angry when we tell them the age of the car is just about over? Answers in this fine speech by Yves Engler, author of “Stop Signs,” a recent book on cars and capitalism.
Promoters of electric automobiles and other supposedly green technologies routinely present the energy and carbon savings of their projects as though the only thing that has to be taken into account is the day-by-day costs of operating the technology. The energy cost of manufacture, in particular, tends to be ignored. Factor that in, and what kind of car gives you the lowest carbon footprint? A used one. Setting aside a slice of Fourth of July watermelon, the Archdruid explains.
Much has been made of the recent decision to tap the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). Some are for it, and others are against it. But there’s something missing in this discussion – something that affects our economy, the future of alternative energy, and the autonomy of local regions.
On the 4th of July my wife Julie and I were biking through downtown Minneapolis to see fireworks at the Mississippi River when someone shouted at us: “Take your clothes off.” We weren’t sure whether to be offended or flattered, until realizing we had pedaled into the midst of a naked bicycle ride.
An article published in the New York Times Science/Environment section Sunday points out something that many U.S. bike insiders and advocates have known for a long time: The reason European cities (and in the case of the article, Zurich) succeed in transportation policy and outcomes is because they’re not afraid to challenge car dominance head on.
The last six months have been a wild ride. The Arab awakening, the Japanese tsunami, the EU’s continuing economic crises, rising temperatures, drought, floods, and another major surge in oil prices have combined to darken the outlook for the months ahead. Political stagnation continues in Washington, where nearly everybody knows we have a problem, but few have yet comprehended just what kind of a problem, much less what are sensible solutions.
Recently Jorgen Randers (best known for being one of the co-authors of The limits to Growth, 1972) asked me to do some modelling work on the World3-Energy model, an updated version of the classic World3 computer model that was used in The Limits to Growth that includes a much larger amount of information about energy. …
The main point of disagreement is that the IEA seems to believe most of the changes will happen quietly in the background, with the average citizen of the Western world barely noticing that the brand new cars just happen to be electric. World3-Energy suggests that the changes are likely to happen among very real concerns about world food production and other similarly “minor” issues.”
Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage in northeastern Missouri is one community pushing forward their own micro-scale energy research. Like most small villages, Dancing Rabbit isn’t filled with PhD qualified engineers. They’re ordinary people, some with interests in formal scientific research, some with a focus on organic farming or green building methods, so they decided to launch a renewable energy internship to encourage interested engineers and university-level engineering students into the community for a summer.
