Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff This week saw the release of the annual BP statistical energy review. In the words of the press release 2011 was a year of “disruptions to supplies and ever-increasing demand”. The big stories for oil were supply disruption in Libya, a record average oil price of $100/barrel, an average annual Brent price rise of 40%, a decline in OECD consumption of 600,000 bpd, and an increase in US production of 275,000 bpd — the largest increase outside OPEC…
We do not need to be suffering from the death spiral, which is largely of the Chancellor’s making. We could be using the opportunity of the bursting of the credit bubble to acknowledge the role of the government in monetary policy and to use that to shift the economic energy in our country away from finance and speculation and towards investment in a transition to a real green economy. The opportunity is there; it is only the ideological blinkers worn by our politicians that prevents it from being grasped.
Will the world’s leaders dare to think beyond the growth paradigm that lies at the root of our environmental crises? Will they be bold enough to constrain the overconsumption of natural resources or even acknowledge the problem of stagnating oil supplies? Sadly, history provides little grounds for confidence. What is more likely is that the conference will simply warm the climate further through an exchange of hot air disguised as genuine commitment.
Here I describe some interesting new research on modifying Hubbert’s model of peak oil to take into account the incentives for additional production that higher oil prices would be expected to bring.
The IMF research should help raise awareness of an issue that remains underappreciated by many economists, which is that we will eventually reach a point, and may have already, at which quite significant increases in price and improvements in technology can produce only modest increases in production, or may be insufficient to prevent outright declines in annual crude oil production levels.
I spent a very enjoyable day at Bristol Green Week yesterday. Green Week is a celebration of green ideas and thinking in Bristol, which has featured a wildly eclectic mix of talks, workshops, music, comedy, films, walks and much more. Had I been able to stay around for the whole week I would have been able to see the electric bike races up Park Street, seen Vivienne Westwood talking about climate change, gone on ‘Bristol’s Biggest Bike Ride’, done a course on keeping chickens, gone to a gourmet cider-tasting and gone to a permaculture day. Oh well, there’s always next year.
Over the last few months, the effects of peak oil — and the broader predicament of industrial civilization — have become steadily more visible; over the same time period, claims that peak oil and the predicament of industrial civilization don’t matter, and everything is just fine, have become steadily more shrill. Counterintuitive though this relation of stimulus to response may seem to be, it’s anything but accidental, and may foretell a significant cultural shift in the offing. Despite a lack of psychic antennae, the Archdruid explains.
Einstein used to quip that you can’t solve a problem from the mindset that created the problem. “It shall require,” he said, “a substantially new way of thinking .” We’ll be lucky if our kids don’t put two and two together while we’re around. There are signs that they’ve already figured out that we’re screwing things up badly.
No developments evince joy in people. No one celebrates when green fields are torn up, trees are felled, creatures are driven out of their homes, and the little boxes chew up the green hills and shut out the view. No one likes it when Lego land encroaches on the familiar neighbourhoods, brings traffic and supermarkets and alienation in its wake. Although people do go and live in these places, nevertheless.
-The future of oil prices – Chris Nelder
-World Economic Financial and Political consequences of the Post Peak Oil Era: Chris Sanders [video]
-‘Oil shock’ hitting consumer demand former Tesco CEO warns
-World oil reserves up 8 percent, supply fears persist
-The future of ‘famine foods,’ unconventional edibles in the garden
-New report highlights absurdity of G20 stance on biofuels and food prices
-Super farms are needed in UK, says leader of National Farmers Union
-Retailers display appetite for tackling food waste
-How to Start an Urban Farm in a Post-Industrial City
-Graying farmers force Japan to rethink food system
-To Truly Fix Food System, the Farm Bill Should Restore Fair Markets
I am certainly aware of the irony of porting a model for the simulation of economic decline to the flagship of techno-narcissistic consumerism, klickibunti self-distraction, and perpetual remote controlling of human resources. But, you know, the spirit speaks in many tongues.
There is certainly something to gain by playing with the model rather than merely studying formulas or staring at static graphs. Just like the Pythagoreans presumably played with pebbles to gain a feeling for the relation between triangles and squares, you may develop a feeling for the precariousness of stability and, perhaps, understand how inevitable and fierce a destiny is able to fulfill itself.
The disabled and the elderly have been thrown onto the scrap heap by the current contraction, and the lack of empathy from the rest of Britain has been staggering – hate crime is up 75%, and for the first time since I’ve been in the UK I feel uncomfortable stepping out of my house with my cane. Invariably in debates online, when disabled people have tried to advocate for a return of dignity and independence, someone will quote “survival of the fittest” as a reason to discard disabled people, children, and pensioners who are unable to care for themselves. But is discarding the “useless eater” (as Germany put it in propaganda posters during the 30’s) a true sign of survival, or is it a further symptom of socio-collapse?
