Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Going further back in time than the 1980s and ‘90s, there’s a possibility that a new conversation of mental health and city form could duplicate the transformation of urban planning a century ago.
The key to the future of shale gas is its EROI. I’ve been unable to find estimates of the EROI of shale gas in the literature. However, I’ve made a preliminary first-order estimate that the EROI of shale gas is in the range of 70 to greater than 100. This is probably significantly better than most other energy sources available today.
-The Great Splintering
-Anna Hazare’s fight for change has inspired millions of Indians
-Blood on the Iraqi-Syrian tracks
In the newly revised version of “Reinventing Collapse,” first published in 2008 before the financial crisis began later that year, Dmitry Orlov expands on his attempt to convince you that the U.S. is much less prepared for collapse than the Soviet Union ever was. Many of Orlov’s forecasts from the previous edition have proven accurate. Orlov’s America is a system barely able to sustain itself, ruined by a population bent on a hardened mythology: an iron triangle of home, car and job that is out of touch with the reality of rapidly depleting cheap energy, which made vehicle ownership and suburban home life a gateway to the goal of being middle class. [book review from Canada]
The Spanish uprising was born largely online in the wake of the Arab Spring, when hundreds of small-scale grassroots groups joined together to form Democracia Real YA — Real Democracy Now — to unify their efforts in demanding social change. Taking their slogans from Stephane Hessel’s internationally famous manifesto Indignez-Vous (translated Time for Outrage in English, Indignaos in Spanish), the group helped to move massive demonstrations on May 15 as public outrage against the Spanish government austerity measures and bank bailouts reached the boiling point.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-The explosive truth behind Fukushima’s meltdown
-Cracked Fukushima: Radioactive steam escapes danger zone
-Mushrooms Join Growing List of Radioactive Threats to Japan’s Food Chain
-5 Months After Meltdown, Fukushima Citizens Still Face Radioactive Risks
-Japan utility may face delay in Fukushima cleanup plan
-Fukushima Daiichi Radioactivity Down to 20% of July Levels
-Japan reopens first nuclear reactor since tsunami
Most people who follow renewable energy have heard of biogas by now, yet the origins and uses of biogas remain mysterious to many.
Many food justice advocates are brought into their work by an emotional reaction to the tragic hunger that exists in the world, be it in the context of the U.S.’s inner cities or global poverty. Indeed, hunger and emergency food efforts have been the recipients of the bulk of funding in the growing food movement over the last 40 years, a time period that simultaneously saw an expansion of hunger and food-related problems. Focusing on the one issue of food access has only enabled the persistence of the true underlying causes of our unjust food system. Food access, though important, cannot be the focus of efforts. It is more important to restructure the food system in a way that empowers a community to have control in their food system thereby ensuring their continued access.
The issues we are confronted with today seem to be a subset of the issues foretold in the book Limits to Growth back in 1972. At some point, the economy cannot continue to grow as rapidly as it did in the past. It appears to me that the most immediate limit we are hitting today is inadequate low-priced oil, but there are other limits lurking not far away–inadequate fresh water and excessive pollution, for example. When the economy cannot grow as fast, or actually starts declining, recession sets in…This issue is a difficult one to talk about, because there really is no good solution.
This is a first for us at Post Carbon Institute/Energy Bulletin: an online ‘creative’ fundraising campaign. We want to create a presentation deck for all the HUNDREDS of people who have asked us over the years for our slides. But rather than just dump our slides on people, we want to develop a presentation deck and story that is easy to present and personally resonant. Richard has written a fantastic script that presents our oil journey in a truly accessible way, we are now looking to turn this into something really user friendly and inspiring to present. If we’re able to raise the funds, not only will we create the slideshow but will train volunteers so that they can deliver it in their own communities.
Today, the view that the United States has declined, has seriously declined, is a banality. Everyone is saying it, except for a few U.S. politicians who fear they will be blamed for the bad news of the decline if they discuss it. The fact is that just about everyone believes today in the reality of the decline.
What is however far less discussed is what have been, what will be the consequences worldwide of this decline. The decline has economic roots of course. But the loss of a quasi-monopoly of geopolitical power, which the United States once exercised, has major political consequences everywhere.
