Year: 2012

Global oil risks in the early 21st century

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Abstract: The Deepwater Horizon incident demonstrated that most of the oil left is deep offshore or in other locations difficult to reach…In this regard, the physical limitations on producing ever-increasing quantities of oil are highlighted, as well as the possibility of the peak of production occurring this decade. The economics of oil supply and demand are also briefly discussed, showing why the available supply is basically fixed in the short to medium term. Also, an alarm bell for economic recessions is raised when energy takes a disproportionate amount of total consumer expenditures. In this context, risk mitigation practices in government and business are called for.

Climate – Mar 27

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-Link builds between weather extremes and warming
-Met Office: World warmed even more in last ten years than previously thought when Arctic data added
-EPA Said to Be Close to Limiting U.S. Greenhouse-Gas Emissions
-James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change- Ted talk
-Post Carbon Pathways? Necessary. Possible. Urgent – Report

We screwed up: A letter of apology to my granddaughter

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I wrote the following letter to my granddaughter, Madeline, who is almost four years old. Although she cannot read it today, I hope she will read it in a future that proves so much better than the one that is probable, and so terribly unfair. I’m sharing this letter with other parents and grandparents in the hope that it may move them to embrace their roles as citizens and commit to the hard work of making the planet viable, the economy equitable, and our culture democratic for the many Madelines to come.

Lack of systems thinking

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While it’s understandable to focus on a single problem, what succeeds in providing domestic energy may, for example, worsen global warming. Thus, we find triumphant articles that celebrate energy independence, as if extracting more domestic fossil fuel were an overall solution rather than, as it is, a continuation of a problem of a different kind.

On being in time for Transition

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At a time when entire peoples — and species — have lost their homes to flooding, deforestation, war, agribusiness and other forms of hatred and greed, when health has been lost to the increasing toxicity and the decreasing nutritional quality of food, it may be that we no longer have time to indulge in the moral miasma of an urgent need to create a more positive future. Our only time is now, a now that holds the whole complexities of hope and suffering, joy and negativity.

Digging in the couch cushions for loose change: Or, why don’t we just create more resources?

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Let’s scrap the misleading language of “creating more resources.” When was the last time you made a fish or some oil? Instead, let’s try and get a real sense of what high oil prices are driving us to do – digging around in our couch cushions for loose change.

Water – Mar 26

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-U.S. intelligence sees global water conflict risks rising
-Reflections on a Thirsty Planet for World Water Day
-Las Vegas plans to pump water across 300 miles of desert approved
-China plans to curb capital’s water usage
-The Colorado River delta blues

Bad knowledge and the promise of the university (response to Immanuel Wallerstein)

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In a recent blog-post sociologist Immanuel Wallerstein writes, “the universities were supposed to play the role of one major locus … of analysis of the realities of our world-system. It is such analyses that may make possible the successful navigation of the chaotic transition towards a new, and hopefully better, world order.”…Wallerstein has developed a world systems model of modernization and empire aimed at creating this better world. It is understandable that he mourns the docile, flaccid, opportunistic, and sometimes destructive contributions of the university as increasing social inequality, militarism, various forms of corruption, debt, unemployment, biophysical forces and natural resource scarcities are decimating human societies…Nonetheless, the historical precedent for such leadership from universities is to my knowledge non-existent.

The end of the world is at hand…

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It is always impossible to distinguish between weather and climate, and I’m not making any claims here, other than humorous ones about my laundry. It is hard for a gardener like me not to be gleeful in some measure – I have daffodils, warm dirt, tiny spinach leaves, baby rabbits, clean laundry – what’s not to love?…But just like there’s some vague part of me that worries when the laundry pile gets empty – it is nice, but not NORMAL at my house, it is hard to love with a whole heart this world, whether this warming is momentary or meaningful. The long term predictions for my place echo in my head – like Georgia, only drier, by the end of the century. If we aren’t having a Georgia spring, we are certainly having a Virginia one, and isn’t without consequence.

Deceptionomics

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I recently argued that today’s global marketplace is characterized by cheater economics — a corporate welfare system that has no part in a sustainable, steady state economy. There’s another type of economics that’s also in wide use today. It’s not quite as “in-your-face” as cheater economics, but it’s just as harmful because of the way it distorts reality. Deceptionomics uses “fool-you” accounting to omit genuine costs and misrepresent the true benefits and costs of economic transactions.