Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Tom Murphy For me, the most delightful turn of events in the ultimate nerd-song”Particle Man” by They Might Be Giants, is that after introducing (in order of complexity) particle-man, triangle-man, universe-man, and person-man—and learning that triangle-man naturally beats particle-man in a match up—we pit person-man against triangle-man to discover that triangle wins—again. In this post, we’ll pit solar against wind and see who wins.
If there is one unshakable belief in America today it’s that the U.S. economy can and must continue to grow. That’s why the messages delivered in November in Washington D.C. at a gathering of oil geologists, scientists, economists and others challenging that core belief went largely unheeded in the nation’s capital. The approximately 300 people who attended the 7th Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil–USA (ASPO-USA) in the shadow of the U.S. Capitol were told that economic growth is no longer possible as oil production flattens and declines, that U.S. energy independence is impossible and that domestic shale gas will fall far short of fueling American prosperity even while polluting the nation’s vital aquifers.
On 5 December 2011, GRAIN received the 2011 Right Livelihood Award, often referred to as the “Alternative Nobel Prize”, at the Swedish Parliament in Stockholm. GRAIN was awarded “for its worldwide work to protect the livelihoods and rights of farming communities and to expose the massive purchases of farmland in developing countries by foreign financial interests”. GRAIN seized on the opportunity to demand an immediate end to land grabbing and a restitution of lands to local communities. The following speech was delivered to the Swedish Parliament by GRAIN coordinator Henk Hobbelink during the Awards Ceremony.
– Five Truths About Our Energy Future (from the IEA’s Fatih Birol)
– Is Oil Fueling the Rise in Political Partisanship? (analysis)
– Peak oil debate losing relevance due to new upstream technology: Repsol CEO
– David Strahan: Has the world reached economic peak oil?
– Why Occupy Protesters Marched from Wall Street to DC
– Annie Appel’s Photography of Occupy Los Angeles
– Occupy the Kremlin: Russia’s Election Lets Loose Public Rage
The Solitary Genius is a godsend to us ramparts people who operate small farms on the cheap and who don’t know much about mechanics. If you can get your old tractor to him, he can invariably fix whatever ails it. His repair shop may look primitive and junky roundabout, but don’t let appearances fool you. The ones who service farmers in the neighborhood regularly are knowledgeable and fully equipped. They are also delightfully independent philosophers. Most of them don’t charge enough and so I pay more than they ask. Be nice to them; they can be the key to your survival on a ramparts farm.
The United Nation’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) released an interesting document during the UN Conference on Climate Change in Durban last week. Energy Smart Food for People and Climate (ESF, 78 pgs) focuses on the mitigation of food-related carbon emissions. The document argues that mitigation can be achieved through efficiencies behind the farm gate and beyond it. There are several references to risks surrounding the future availability and affordability of oil, but the primary driver of this document and its call for fundamental changes in food production is climate change, not concerns over future oil supply. This is unfortunate, as a dual focus would have brought a greater urgency to the report’s recommendations and perhaps to the Durban conference itself.
The problem for the NGOs, and for all of us, is that they are trying to modify a system at a time when that system is buckling; nobody really knows what to do next. Governments are paralysed and people feel powerless. No wonder then the attraction of initiatives that are community led and inclusive such as these food projects. They promote notions of resilience and sufficiency and at the same time offer opportunities for meaningful political engagement.
“I want to go to war with China,” said presidential hopeful Rick Santorum in a recent GOP debate, showing the cavernous lack of any good sense that has become his trademark. Nonetheless, Santorum was probably speaking for many Americans who fear that China may soon overtake the US as the world’s single great power. By contrast, many of those same Americans probably think of Saudi Arabia, whose obliging princes seem always at the ready to pump extra crude onto the world market to temper oil price spikes, as the American motorist’s best friend. But what if the tables were turned, and the kingdom became the scourge of the American infidel while the People’s Republic was set to be our biggest ally? That’s the geopolitical premise of R. Michael Conley’s new peak-oil thriller Lethal Trajectories.
When it comes to China policy, is the Obama administration leaping from the frying pan directly into the fire? In an attempt to turn the page on two disastrous wars in the Greater Middle East, it may have just launched a new Cold War in Asia — once again, viewing oil as the key to global supremacy.
The delight about the rapprochement between Merkel and Sarkozy was short-lived, being undermined almost immediately by a threat from the credit-rating agency Standard and Poors. How are we to interpret these events?
But it is one thing voicing a spiritual idea and another undergoing it in the real world. One thing to breezily state: well hey, we’ll just go into our cocoon and dissolve!, and another actually allowing those old caterpillar forms to break down, uncomfortably, inside ourselves and our social groups, to forge alliances without allowing our own allegiance to the ancien regime to destroy us from within.
