Making things that last again
Rather than everyone becoming individual survivalists, we would be better served by restoring some of this basic infrastructure to once more create things that last.
Brian Kaller
Just a hint from the mainstream that limits precipitate rising oil prices
An analysis in Bloomberg points to a key and obvious cause of today’s high prices for oil and other commodities: There isn’t enough of them to go around.
Decentralization, abortion and the choice of where to live
A leaked draft of an impending U.S. Supreme Court decision that would return abortion law to the states is just one example of a much broader trend of decentralization taking place across the world. The upshot: Where you live will matter more, a lot more.
Meanwhile elsewhere on planet Earth…drought and heat get a lot worse
All eyes are on Russia and Ukraine. But the calamitous changes we humans have wrought in the Earth’s climate and other major systems are making our societies more fragile by the day whether we are paying attention or not.
Drive easy
If someone discovered the equivalent of a few more Saudi Arabias tomorrow, except the oil wouldn’t cost us anything, you’d think it would break the Internet. It would make screaming headlines in tomorrow’s paper. The same should be true if someone discovered a free way to cut our oil use, which amounts to the same thing.
Resource limits and our strange game of musical chairs
With a wide range of commodities in limited supply, various regions of the world are now behaving as if they are engaged in simultaneous games of musical chairs when it comes to commodity shortages.
The games differ by commodity and by region, but they all share one characteristic: As in a game of musical chairs, someone will have to go without.
Easier said than done: National self-sufficiency in a changed world
National self-sufficiency has suddenly become important in the wake of the geopolitical earthquake created by the Russian/Ukrainian conflict. But it will be far harder to achieve than many people think.
Hoarding is suddenly in, “lean” operations are out as shortages ripple across the globe
The list of countries banning or reducing exports of foodstuffs is now increasing so quickly that it is starting to look like a pile-up on the freeway:
World War III is here, but it’s not what we expected
The battlefield for this war is worldwide; it’s just that it is primarily an economic battlefield. When Russia attacked Ukraine, the other great powers did not send soldiers and tanks. Instead, they orchestrated one of the most comprehensive economic warfare schemes ever devised
‘Rogue states’ and the necessity of oil
Sudden drops in world oil supplies have a way of focusing the mind. I discuss the abrupt U-turn in American policy toward Venezuela and Iran in this week’s post.
Ukraine conflict may portend end to current world trading system
The worldwide trading system may very well not survive the sanctions placed on Russia in the wake of its invasion of Ukraine.
The Mars obsession: Are two planets better than one to ensure human survival?
Those who offer Mars as part of a “two-planet solution” for the long-term survival of the human race are only distracting us from facing our very real problems on Earth.
