Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Here, in the middle of urban Los Angeles, knitting is a pretty elitist hobby. It might be a “reskilling type of thing” good for necessary clothing-making somewhere out on a farm where there are plenty of goats and sheep. Or if I took to raising angora rabbits. Because when the serious hiccups in the economy come, when the darker transportation issues of peak oil set in, the boutique yarn stores I patronize today likely won’t be around anymore.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
The 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would carry heavy crude oil from Alberta to America’s Gulf Coast refineries. In this Climate One debate, a panel of experts argues for and against the controversial pipeline.
After inaugurating the Do the Math blog with two posts on the limits to physical and economic growth, I thought it was high time that I read the classic book The Limits to Growth describing the 1972 world computer model by MIT researchers Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens. I am deeply impressed by the work, and I am compelled to share the most salient features in this post. To borrow a word from a comment on the Do the Math site, I’m gobsmacked by how prescient some of the statements and reflections in the book are.
As is clear from the title, the book argues that modern neoclassical economics is a mask for power and greed, a construct designed to justify the status quo. Its claim to serve the common good is specious, and its claim to scientific status is fraudulent.
-As Texas Withers, Gas Industry Guzzles
-Saudi Arabia’s water needs eating into oil wealth
-Sandra Postel: Water World, Uncut
-Fukushima nuclear disaster: PM at the time feared Japan would collapse
-Fukushima disaster: it’s not over yet
-Switch from nuclear power would cost Japan $280 bln-Greenpeace
-UK joins laser nuclear fusion project
-Thorium advocates launch pressure group
-Blast at French Nuclear Site Is Said to Kill 1 Person
Europe’s political landscape is marked by conservative governments and waves of anti-EU right-wing populism. A fully fledged European politics needs to emerge, driving alternative policies capable of countering the current crisis.
If you are an energy policymaker (or layperson interested in energy) and you are NOT perplexed by the last decade, read no further. You have little to gain from what I write below. However, if you are a perplexed energy policymaker (or perplexed layperson interested in energy), please continue and learn why poor quality data, lack of transparency, broad uncertainty and flawed thinking about risk have made it difficult for many experts and the public alike to think sensibly about our energy future.
Infrastructure spending creates temporary jobs and a great big debt, rather than permanent growth, dividends, and increased and self-sustaining economic growth. The reason is that the multiplier effect works when there is an overabundance of real-economic potential—natural resources waiting to be turned into useful stuff, especially the sort of stuff that might make future production even more efficient. In this case a clogged circulatory system may in fact be the only thing preventing economic growth. Without this abundance laying in wait, the notion that a stimulus will cause the money invested in the system to multiply, rather than just be added in, has in fact been a form of voodoo economics.
With the 10 year anniversary of 9/11, following on so closely from the English riots, we are witnessing the end of the “War on Terror” and its replacement by the “War on the Underclass” as the governing paradigm of state-authoritarian technocracy. Under this new scheme, the hoodie replaces the jihadi as the hostile internal Other.”
I n early 2012, Post Carbon Institute is releasing its next book. It’s an easy-to-read guide to getting your money out of the Wall Street casino and investing it locally, where it’ll perform better for both you and your community.
From now until Monday, September 12th, we’re turning to our online community to suggest titles for this exciting new book — which, by the way, will be the first of our new Resilience Guides series (more on that later).
