Year: 2012

Tight oil could not render OPEC irrelevant

by

Steve Levine has a blog post discussing the idea that the “unfolding new age of fossil fuel abundance” will have profound effects on various things, including OPEC…The key factor behind this kind of thinking is the rapid rise of production of oil from tight rocks like the Bakken in North Dakota and the Eagle Ford in Texas. I haven’t taken a strong position on what the limits of production are from these sources – it just isn’t clear to me yet from the data that I have available. But we could certainly place some limits on how much geopolitical impact this could have on OPEC.

Unlearn, Rewild

by

One of the least useful words in the English language is the word “wilderness.” I grew up wandering the woods, and, to me, where the road and the trail end and the animal (and human) paths begin is a point of fundamental transition: beyond this point lies something else an older, perfectly ordinary, normal way of being, in which we are just another animal among many others.

Linking twin extinctions of species and languages

by

I think we inevitably underestimate the bond between biological complexity and cultural complexity…It may seem far-fetched to compare social and agricultural change in Iowa with linguistic and biological correlation in some of Earth’s biodiversity hotspots. But the underlying premise is the same. Biological diversity and cultural diversity go hand in hand.

The Affordable Care Act’s Fatal Omission?

by

The proverbial elephant in the room (and perhaps the ACA’s fatal flaw) from my in-the-trenches standpoint is the sustainability question, How on earth is this health care system going to survive? The question has two components: First, the billions of dollars required to implement and sustain the ACA. Second, and most important, I’m talking about the viability of a system that is inextricably dependent on a ready supply of resources that are being consumed faster than they can be replaced.

The Wild Empire Strikes Back

by

I can’t figure out why society is so enamored of movies about invaders from outer space when we have a real life invasion going on from earth’s inner space. Squadrons of deer, raccoons, opossums, skunks, chipmunks, rabbits, squirrels, moles, wild turkeys, crows, robins, wolves, black bears, feral hogs, to mention a few, have unleashed an attack upon homes, gardens and farms unprecedented since the 1800s…In the 1940s when I was growing up, there was not a deer in our county. Now they roam at will across the farm fields, towns and highways, laying waste to everything that grows and causing far more deaths on the roads than bombs do in Afghanistan.

Hard rain on the parade

by

At what point do we stop worshipping the rulers and behaving like grateful servants, and start to recognise our own beauty and significance? At what point do we stop distrusting and being hostile to our neighbours and our countrymen, and stand by each other, side by side? At what point do we stop believing in the magic spell of money and privilege and realise that the plants we depend on need both light and water? At what point do we realise that everything in our “civilised ” world – our energy, our food, our life – comes directly from the planet? And when we do, when we connect the dots, what are we going to do about it?