Kurt Cobb

Saudi retreat on oil IPO highlights dearth of reliable information on world oil reserves

by

The recent retreat of Saudi Arabia from its planned IPO is not only an important financial event. It’s an important informational event in that it highlights the opacity of the world’s oil producers. It should remind us that the numbers we accept from major governmental and international organizations regarding oil reserves worldwide are largely based on unverified sources, namely, the word and only the word of most of the world’s national oil companies.

“In Praise of Idleness” revisited

by

So much of modern culture insists that constant stimulation is the essence of living. In truth, constant stimulation is merely a tactic of advertisers, app makers, websites and myriad media outlets to hook you on their messages and their products. Leisure requires withdrawal from all that and—this is the key point—learning to derive pleasure from solitude, quiet observation of the world around us and introspection.

Re-localizing food production: The Homemade Food Operations Act

by

It’s estimated that at least 50,000 people in California at least occasionally sell meals that they cook at home. Most of them have no idea that what they are doing is illegal. The Homemade Food Operations Act (AB 626), would change this, making it legal to sell certain meals made in a home kitchen in California.

Is the decline of coal a national security problem?

by

American coal country has seen hard days as utilities abandon coal for cheaper, less carbon-intensive natural gas and renewables. The Trump administration, trying to make good on a campaign promise to rejuvenate the coal industry, is attempting yet again to revive demand for coal by labeling coal-fired power plants as essential to national security.

Plato’s dream and our modern nightmare

by

We humans will always seek reductive explanations for “why” things happen in the world around us and try to use those explanations to gain advantage for ourselves and our fellow humans in the fight for survival within our biosphere. But if we see the limits of such explanations and therefore their dangers, we might move more humbly among the vast array of creatures and Earth systems with whom we live and upon whom we depend for our very survival.