Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Part of the Titanic parable is of arrogance, of hubris, of the sense that we’re too big to fail. Well, where have we heard that one before?
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The Istanbul talks
-The IEA’s Oil Market Report
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs
I’m starting to think that perpetual growth notions are the Achilles heel of the human brain. They pop up like munchkins on a Whac-a-Mole machine. You smash one and up come two.
I have tried to write this article many times in the past three to four years. I have changed dramatically in that time, from a full-on, full-time city activist to a rural — well, I don’t know what to call myself now but whatever I am becoming, I feel way more grounded and as if I’m making a real difference, finally, without running away to the hills. In considering the mess of the world, I find it easiest to write about my personal journey, not because I want to talk about myself but because I find the personal easier for people to relate to and because it gives context to my points of view.
In an era of growing worldwide disdain at any mention of their ilk, did you ever wonder how bankers might feel? Would you believe that there are some amongst them who put central focus on ethical values? And that their banks have ended up delivering higher returns than some of the world’s biggest financial institutions?
-The Crisis in American Walking
-The Boom in Biking Benefits Everyone, Not Just Bicyclists
-Car-saturated Mexico City lets bicycle riders rule the roads on Sunday mornings
-The Societal Costs of Car Use
-Medellín: Colombia’s Sustainable Transport Capital
Quite a number of readers suggested I respond to James McWilliams’ piece in the New York Times “The Myth of Sustainable Meat.” McWilliams has garnered quite a bit of attention by critiquing the idea of local food, and in some cases, some of his analyses, as far as they go, are right. For example, McWilliams is quite right that if everyone in America eats as much beef as they always have, but converts to grassfed beef his figures are roughly correct.
In this case, the call for sustainable egg production I made last week (in response to a rather better New York Times article, in fact) would seem to be insanely misguided. After all, as several readers pointed out, eggs would be more expensive, and we probably couldn’t eat as many of them. Woah – so that means eggs are totally unsustainable, right?
Yesterday I gave a presentation to a group of distinguished business leaders. In my presentation, I tried to show that the global rate of production of petroleum and the associated lease condensate is at an all-time high or a "peak" that at a greatly expanded scale looks like a "plateau." I used my published, peer-reviewed extensions of King Hubbert’s approach to support my arguments.
I received a significant push back from several members of the audience.
Some people seem to have a knack for hopping aboard a trend just before it ends. Cheniere Energy Inc., owner of the largest liquefied natural gas (LNG) import facility in the United States, appears to be a case in point. In the world of finance, Cheniere would be what is called a contrary indicator, one that suggests that a trend is about to reverse.
In his book Together, Richard Sennett traces the nature and evolution of cooperation in society. He examines the reasons for the lack of cooperation in current society, and how we can reclaim it. As I read, wearing my spectacles made with energy lenses, I saw the give and take of mutualism throughout history as a function in part of societies with surplus energies (high gain) and less surplus energies (low gain).
Recent trends indicate that certain materials may be worth more as scrap than in their current form. Are we witnessing the start of a shift from abundance industrialism to a salvage economy?
Obviously the world is so broken, in so many ways, that there is endless patching, mending, fixing to do and no one person can make much progress. Yet, as I have reflected over the years I’ve noticed that there is room to be human and an acceptance of the imperfect in this way of thinking and acting. There is, as in the Japanese concept of shibumi, a virtue in simplicity, modesty, and everydayness.
