In the world, at the limits to growth
An analysis of the fragility of the global economy and why the era of economic growth is over.
Year: 2011
Can humans really adapt to climate change?
When contemplating whether humans can successfully adapt to climate change, it is worth noting that at least twice in the last 1.2 million years our species was almost wiped out. Genetic research confirms that 1.2 million years ago the human population on Earth was around 18,500, perilously close to extinction. The reason for this low number is not directly known. Then about 150,000 years ago, it plummeted again down to just 2,000, probably due to climate change.
ODAC Newsletter – June 10
Traditional price hawks Iran and Venezuela ganged up with Libya, Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Venezuela and Iraq to defeat the increase, proposed by Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Kuwait and Qatar, with voting largely determined by the distribution of spare capacity.
Gender Issues
As you can guess, the French press has been abuzz with the … ahem… legal troubles of our former president-to-be. The … re-ahem… difficulties of Dominique Strauss-Kahn may turn out to have the same historical impact as the rape of Lucretia – that did not change the fact that some pan-Mediterranean Empire would eventually emerge, but it did make sure its language would not be Etruscan or Punic. DSK’s tribulations have, however, a more immediate interest, as they highlight what may be of particular importance as we slide down Hubbert’s curve: the troubled relationship between gender and power.
Peak? What peak? Greenhouse emissions keep increasing
Back in the early 2000s, when I was starting to study peak oil, I used to think that oil depletion was our main problem. Climate change seemed to me a threat for the remote future and, probably, automatically solved by the depletion of fossil fuels. Over the years, however, I saw more and more data accumulating that show that it is not so. I am now convinced that climate change is a much more serious threat to humankind than peak oil.
Turning toward the sun for energy
One key component of the Plan B climate stabilization strategy is solar energy. Solar is even more ubiquitous than wind energy and can be harnessed with both solar photovoltaics (PV) and solar thermal collectors.
Report: Public banking can democratize the economy
In the wake of the financial crisis that the U.S. is still clawing its way out of, a handful of ideas have begun to surface that might actually shore up our still-floundering economy and, potentially, avert future devastation. (No, not the eminently gutless Dodd-Frank bill.) Rather, public banks– also known as state banks or partnership banks–provide a path for the people to harness some economic power of their own in order to build a broad-based, ground-level prosperity which is rooted in their community.
Saudis still planning more nukes. Do they know something we don’t?
Despite the plans of major electricity users around the world to pull away from nuclear power after Fukushima, Saudi Arabia has announced that it’s planning to start building power reactors at a breakneck pace. This could be yet another sign that Matt Simmons was right about the Saudi oil peak, signalling the beginning of the end of the Oil Age. But we have to wonder if the Oil Sheiks can control their new atomic toy.
A people-centered approach to improve access to food
Much has been made of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization’s FAO) 2009 recommendation that the world will need to produce 70 percent more food to feed the projected global population of 9.1 billion people in 2050. Policymakers and agricultural investors have focused on increasing supply for the global food market. And while 925 million people worldwide today remain chronically hungry—amidst unprecedented population growth, resource depletion, and climate change—meeting the needs of the future is an enormous challenge for the world food system.
Why doesn’t the UN consider energy depletion?
In thousands of ways, UN policy helps shape how we respond to emerging crises, from basic poverty to world political events, from food to climate change and population. What is emerging, however, is that UN analyses are increasingly diverging from reality – as they attempt to describe our future, they have failed to adequately (or at all) take into account that most basic of all considerations, material limits on energy resources.
China’s Energy Future
I was recently asked to participate in an energy roundtable at Focus on China’s Energy Future and the Shale Gas Question. It is no secret that I feel that China’s moves stand to continue sending shock waves through the energy markets over the upcoming years. In fact, energy news from China warranted inclusion in My Top 10 Energy Stories of both 2009 and 2010. In 2009, I stated my belief that “China will be the single-biggest driver of oil prices over at least the next 5-10 years.” In 2010, the news was reported by the International Energy Administration (IEA) that China had become the world’s top energy consumer. BP confirmed this in their just-released Statistical Review of World Energy 2011.
Ask me about my agony and despair!
Often is the question posed to me, maybe over on my Facebook page or via email after someone has made it through the messier parts of my book, but also in sundry sweaty nightclubs or boutique SF coffeeholes and therefore almost always fully clothed but almost never in a state of calm emotional stability: Mark, how the hell do you do it?
How do you avoid becoming horribly soiled and tainted, downtrodden and depressed every single day by the relentless onslaught, the endless horrors and bleakness hurled forth by the blood-soaked and desperately panicky mainstream media, inside of which you apparently still writhe and (mostly, sporadically, drunkenly) thrive?
