Year: 2012

Moving towards ethical energy

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A question that seems to garner a lot of debate whenever the topics of climate change and peak oil are raised is what our future sources of energy might look like. This is a common feature of groups involved in the Transition movement, since the vast majority of us in the north depend so much on finite sources of fossil fuels to power our modern, civilised lifestyles. Ever since the advances of the industrial revolution allowed us to harness the power of coal and oil, we have built our society around the potential of fossil fuels to provide us with the concentrated energy necessary for the processes involved in heavy industry. These days, access to affordable, reliable electricity is seen by many as a basic human need.

China’s looming conflict between energy and water

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In its quest to find new sources of energy, China is increasingly looking to its western provinces. But the nation’s push to develop fossil fuel and alternative sources has so far ignored a basic fact — western China simply lacks the water resources needed to support major new energy development.

Top 11 FAQs

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I’ve been giving lectures on Peak Oil for over a decade now, and always look forward to the question period after the main show. It’s an opportunity to interact with the audience and take questions…Here are the top 11, along with brief sample replies and some resources for further reading.

 

Democracy’s Arc

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It’s hard to think of any word more freely bandied about in contemporary political discourse than “democracy,” and harder still to think of one freighted with a heavier burden of wishful thinking, utopian fantasy, and entitlement. As industrial civilization staggers toward its end, however, today’s fashionable contempt for democracy as it actually exists may become a potent force driving societies in crisis toward far worse options.

The Localization Reader: Review

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“As empires rise and fall and powerful nations grow and then contract, the farmers, the yeomen, the small landholders, the shopkeepers, and the local manufacturers keep on going. […] as often as not, they are sources of technological and cultural innovation and, from a sustainability perspective, they innovate largely in direct connection with the land and with each other.”

Lights Out for the Territory

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How can we reconnect when we are so deracinated, out of synch with the natural world, when the countryside is parcelled into properties, when the wild things are only allowed on reserves, or else live perpetually on the run? Transition breaks you out of your bubble. And whether this bubble is a fantasy about the earth as spiritual paradise, a view, a pleasure dome, it challenges us to be real about the place we utterly depend on to be alive.

Shale gas – May 1

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-Fracking ‘Health Challenges’ to Be Examined by U.S. Advisers
-Restrict shale gas fracking to 600m from water supplies, says study
-Reporting of fracking and drilling violations weak
-Lancashire schoolgirl wins chance to address MEPs with anti-fracking video
-Chesapeake plugs blown Wyoming well
-Drillers May Frack First, Disclose Later Under Draft Plan