Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Joanne Poyourow On this Independence Day, I’m celebrating the ways my family’s lifestyle is becoming more independent from the mainstream. This means our lifestyle is becoming more independent from oil for long-distance transport of goods, more independent from carbon emissions, more independent from the Industrial Growth Paradigm, demanding less earth resources, and thus much more resilient.
The above data shows the debt outstanding of various sectors in the US economy. It comes from the Federal Reserve Z1 release, and the data are annual except for the 2010 point, which is for Q1 (on the graph, the annual data are shown at the mid-point of the year, and the Q1 point is shown 1/8 of the way into the year, so slopes should still be accurate).
The British government’s recent decision to cancel construction of a third runway at London’s Heathrow airport marks a major milestone in our adaptation to post-carbon mobility. This is the first time that a government has canceled plans for major aviation infrastructure expansion due to global, rather than local, concerns about environmental degradation.
Busting the myth of progress is a precursor to changing industrial civilisations’ current unsustainable path.
One of my favorite sources of rules of thumb is thermodynamics. It doesn’t tell you how to do things, or how fast you can do them, but it tells you whether something, like running your car on water, is impossible.
I am entirely addicted to watching World Cup soccer. It’s the greatest sporting event on the planet – each match is a high-stakes struggle with international intrigue and unpredictable endings. It’s hard to top the build-up and excitement of a last minute goal that means the difference between going home and moving on to the next round…Ok, so I’m a fan of the World Cup, but what does that have to do with a steady state economy?
What should be taken from this record of the complexity gurus? Certainly, they have technical knowledge which few can match. And, they keep track of developments in their respective areas much more thoroughly than nonspecialists. So, given that, why are their judgments frequently so mistaken?
– NYT: As Oil Industry Fights a Tax, It Reaps Billions From Subsidies
– Aleklett: Oil in the veins of sub-Saharan Africa
– SciAm: What happens when coal is gone?
– WaPo: Pigs in Takoma Park highlight rise in suburban livestock
– Titanic Syndrome
Widespread bans on at least gas-operated leaf blowers are likely in the future. But why wait until gasoline prices go up the predicted $5 to $10 a gallon? Since we do not really need such blowers–given that brooms and rakes do fine—why waste our precious declining petroleum supplies and further cause chaotic climate change?
Michael Lind is the Policy Director of New America’s Economic Growth Program and a frequent contributor to Salon.com. He recently published an article regarding the future of transportation—fixed/high-speed rail. He offers up an attitude regarding our approach to transportation and automobiles that can only cause us more problems as we confront Peak Oil.
The irony here is that Boston Magazine intended this to be a positive piece on the impact of my message and the large audience it’s resonated with to-date. But in relying on easy “survivalist” stereotypes to frame the story (bunkers, Mad Max references, etc), they’ve succeed in missing the forest for the trees – conveying an image in polar opposition to what we actually stand for. … The most unfortunate thing about this is that Boston Magazine missed out on a really big story.
The Mayor of Oklahoma City is recommending that bus service to the “fringes” of the city be discontinued, for fiscal reasons, thereby proving that he “gets it”, in terms of the realities of the peak oil future.
