Year: 2011

Review: Life Without Oil by Steve Hallett With John Wright

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“Imagining a world without oil” describes in stark detail what might happen if one day the world decided to decommission all its oil tankers, rigs, pipelines and strategic reserves. The authors, environmental scientist Steve Hallett and journalist John Wright, expect that we’d initially see sky-high prices and long lines at pumps. After a few weeks, fuel wouldn’t be had at any price and even first-world citizens would struggle to stay fed and out of the elements. This is no Hollywood doomsday scenario—it’s a levelheaded extrapolation from current trends in the fast deteriorating world energy situation. [An essay prefiguring the book originally appeared in The Washington Post.]

At the American Journal of Public Health, experts examine the risks posed by peak petroleum

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The September issue of the American Journal of Public Health is now available online featuring 8 studies and articles by an interdisciplinary set of experts, each examining the health risks posed by peak petroleum and what can be done to mitigate and protect against the onset of a major spike in energy prices.

MPG for Electric Cars?

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A typical efficient car in the U.S. market gets about 40 MPG (miles per gallon) running on gasoline. A hybrid car like the Prius typically gets 50–55 MPG. In a previous post, we looked at the physics that determines these numbers. As we see more and more plug-in hybrid or pure electric cars on the market, how do we characterize their mileage performance in comparison to gasoline cars? Do they get 100 MPG? Can they get to 200? What does it even mean to speak of MPG, when the “G” stands for gallons and a purely electric car does not ingest gallons? This post addresses these questions.

Why do so many people believe in the fantasy of infinite growth on a finite planet?

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Each day it becomes more apparent that we are on a misguided mission. Pursuit of perpetual economic growth is not a winning proposition for a lasting prosperity. Building a bigger economy can make sense in some circumstances, but always aiming to build a bigger economy means taking an ever-bigger chunk out of the earth’s ecosystems and the life-support services they provide. Why, then, do so many people believe in the fantasy of infinite growth on a finite planet? Is it because we can’t come up with a better idea? Is it because the rich and powerful have trapped the rest of us in their web of conspiracy? Is it because people are hopelessly greedy and materialistic?

Inter-generational conflict and moral panic

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One of the reasons for moral panics, it’s argued, is that the underlying phenomenon is too difficult to discuss directly. In the early 1960s, the notion of an affluent working class, which might not behave the same way as the existing middle classes, represented such an underlying social fear. In the end that cohort was the bedrock of Thatcher’s electoral success. Now that 30 years of neoliberalism has once more stripped that brief moment of affluence from the working class – at least in relative terms – the spectre of the young urban poor, and the hidden fear of the return of the English mob, is certainly enough to cause a moral panic. The other question that has emerged in our post-crisis scenarios is, where does the anger go? At least we have one answer to that now.

Theater-states and the long count

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“We tend to characterize every civilization in terms of “preclassic, classic, and postclassic,” but we might do better to think of it as “stable and expanding,” “unstable,” and “shrinking and reconsolidating.” Preclassic Maya agriculture was exceedingly diverse, with agroforestry, household garden plots, rotational field crops, chinampas and aquaponic systems, and perhaps also novel farming techniques we have yet to learn about. So was the postclassic.”

Commentary: When technical feasibility doesn’t matter

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One of the hardest concepts for many Americans to absorb is this – that technical feasibility rests on a complex bed of other feasibilities and never stands alone. Thus, simply observing that it is technically possible to, say, create zero impact cities or to run our cars on corn waste does not usefully tell us whether we are going to do so or not. This historical reality stands in stark contrast to the perceptions that many of us have, which is that technology operates as a kind of vending machine into which one puts quarters and gets inevitable results.

Of hurricanes, hubris and hot water

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This post is both my own experiences of living through Hurricane Irene on Sunday, 8/29/11, and a few thoughts about what is truly dangerous and what kills people in this type of storm. Most of the “news” clips are deaths from Hurricane Irene. These dramatic photos are all Hurricane Irene today, in Western MA (and one from Southern VT). I hope they give you sober reflection. Let’s be careful out there, those of us on the Eastern Seaboard of the USA. Even as the sun shines, most of the dangers of a hurricane happen AFTER the winds and rains die down.

Review: Hand Made in Tasmania

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What draws most antique lovers is not antiquity itself, I suspect, but craftsmanship, the hours of care and lifetime of skill imbued in the final product. A chair, a knife, or even a toy made before the energy needle often meant an investment of many hours of work by someone who had trained for years to master their craft. Such handiwork might last centuries – we have a desk two hundred years old, for example – and if the work breaks it can be repaired or the pieces replaced.

Let it go where it needs to go

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In early writings about the Transition movement, one of the guidelines was to “Let it go where it needs to go.” Don’t attempt to control the growth of your budding initiative or local group. Allow it to develop — “organically” if you will — however it needs to. Given the unique dynamic between individuals on our initiating core teams, given the particular issues in our local communities, given the preexisting status of transition-oriented activity around us, what needs to happen next in one locale has been quite different from what needs to happen next in another.