Charles Hall

The new energy reality (upcoming webinar)

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Dr. Hall will provide an assessment of global energy trends from his perspective as a systems ecologist and pioneer in the emerging field of biophysical economics. This webinar will examine key concepts regarding energy quality and energy return on investment in the context of current world energy and economic challenges. A critique of neoclassical economics and its divergence from the laws of physics and ecology regarding energy will be implicit in the discussion. Dr. Hall will also provide highlights from his recent book, Energy and the Wealth of Nations, co-authored with Kent Klitgaard.

Clean Energy Access For All – Grameen’s Solar Success

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In one of the poorest countries on the planet a renewable energy service company is installing one thousand solar home systems – a day. Not in its capital or busy urban centers, but where 80 percent of the population lives – in rural Bangladesh. The company, Grameen Shakti, literally translates as rural energy. By the end of the year it will have installed a total of one million solar systems and now has expansion plans to install five million systems by 2015. Shakti is succeeding where business as usual has failed, and in the year of Sustainable Energy for All, it’s a success story we should all know by heart.

The hardest battle

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Comparing the world to a prison or a hospital in which we are all inmates or patients is hardly original. Patrick McGoohan did the former, and TS Eliot did the latter. They are clever, moving allegories, but not terribly useful. The mysterious enemy of The Prisoner turns out to be his own ego. But our modern global imprisonment is subtler: It is our culture that has imprisoned us, a culture evolved in the belief that this is what’s best for the survival and continued expansion of the species.

The Peak Oil Crisis: Middle Eastern Chaos

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In surveying the multiple, uprisings, insurgencies, insurrections, confrontations and what have you currently going on in the Middle East, it is hard to believe that all this turmoil will not eventually find its way to our local gas pumps. In the last week the overall situation clearly has taken a turn for the worse with large numbers of Syrian insurgents infiltrating Damascus and Aleppo for the first time accompanied by the spectacular bombing of a security meeting that killed four of the regime’s top leaders.

Learning from the Drought of ’12

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The news outlets love a good disaster, and we’ve all been informed daily of the mega-drought in the Midwest. Three quarters of the US corn crop is under drought. Corn prices are up over 50% in the last month, soybeans are up almost 30%, and the USDA says they are still assessing the damage. No rain in sight yet and when combined with record low carryover stocks, we’re probably looking at another record spike in prices. What I haven’t heard in the news is any discussion over whether we have other options to avoid these increasingly regular crop disasters.

The Blueprint: Averting Global Collapse (free ebook download for 7/26 only)

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We are faced with an impending calamity that threatens to bankrupt the planetary ecosystem and with it much of the manmade world. Rirdan submits a plan that truly goes the distance: a highly detailed, planetary-wide blueprint that lays out a new course for our technological and industrial engines. It calls for sweeping adjustments in the way every person thinks and lives.

Climate – July 26

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-97% of Greenland surface ice turns to slush
-Loss of Arctic sea ice ‘70% man-made’
-Antarctic: Grand Canyon-sized rift ‘speeding ice melt’
-Investor report highlights gap between climate change and action
-Ideology clouds how we perceive the temperatures
-Midwest cities see increase in dangerously hot weather: report

The Upside of Default

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A growing number of observers are starting to edge nervously around the possibility that the global financial industry may be headed for some very rough sailing this autumn — potentially even a major crash. Inevitably, the blogosphere is starting to churn out claims that this will lead to the apocalyptic collapse for which so many people seem to be longing just now. There may be a brighter side to the approaching mess, however; setting aside a cheap magazine, the Archdruid explains.