Energy: Recognizing how much isn’t there
Politicians don’t seem willing to face a difficult reality: There is no solution, if by “solution” we mean producing enough energy to maintain our current levels of consumption indefinitely.
Robert Jensen
Policy reform to 350
Let’s imagine for a moment that we’re at 2100, and the atmospheric CO2 level is slowly subsiding back toward 350, and the worst is over. Let’s try to figure out how we got there—reverse-engineer a century of halting but ultimately decisive progress.
Food and agriculture in a steady state economy
A steady state economy would move away from control of food by transnational corporations and toward an increased number and diversity of small and medium-sized farms, and healthy rural communities.
Our silent green friends – Oct 4
– Drinking your garden with EB founder Adam Grubb
– One in Five Plant Species Face Extinction
– $5,000,000,000,000: The Cost Each Year of Vanishing Rainforest
“Peak Shrink” blogs on peak oil for Honda
“Peak Shrink” psychologist Kathy McMahon makes a contribution to Honda’s “Racing Against Time” thought leadership series. Her blog was selected to provide a unique perspective on how we should approach the discussion of oil as a finite energy source.
Peak Oil Review – Oct 4
– Oil and the global economy
– Deepwater drilling
– Iraq
– Briefs
Europe and China – Oct 4
– French towns swap rubbish trucks for horse-drawn carts
– Swiss Solar boat heads on around-the-world voyage
– Zero Emissions Race – 30 days around the world using renewables
– Does (European) Social-Democracy Have a Future?
– The Soot Road: Travelling along one of most polluted energy corridors on Earth
Review of “The Impending World Energy Mess” by Robert Hirsch, Roger Bezdek and Robert Wendling
Five years ago Robert Hirsch headed the team that produced the first US government-sponsored report discussing the consequences of declining world oil production. The team which wrote the original “Hirsch” report is now out with a book that discusses the current state of the world energy situation and what we can expect in the decades ahead.
Peak oil & supplies – Oct 3
– German peak oil analyst on offshore oil drilling – costs and risks
– Verifying the Export Land Model – a different approach
– Venezuela elections: “Chávez really bought into the idea of peak oil”
A terrible dependency of mind
As I watched snippets of President Obama’s town hall-style meetings around the country recently, I was struck by how often questioners demonstrated the mindset that solutions to their problems will come from some central authority, in this case, the federal government.
At the Café del Tercer Mundo in Berlin
“The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls…”
They also emerge among refugees and Third Worlders arguing their visions in a scruffy Berlin café,
“The world without us” by Weisman (2007)
Weisman’s book is based on a thought experiment – what would happen if all humans disappeared from the surface of Earth from one day to the next? This text deals with those parts of the book that specifically concerns energy issues and our energy infrastructure. What will remain, and for how long, if all humans suddenly vanished?
