Staff

Invasion of the space bats

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One of the challenges the peak oil movement faces just now is a lack of visions of the post-peak future that portray our species dealing with the end of industrial civilization, rather than evading it on the one hand or crumpling into fashionable despair on the other. It’s important to recognize the existence of that lack, but even more important just now to begin to fill it — even if that involves confrontations with alien space bats. Clutching an old copy of Analog Science Fiction Magazine in one hand and a can of bat repellent in the other, the Archdruid plunges ahead…

No two garden years alike

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I see that in the comments to my post August Glut, Russ observed a “phenomenon” (how I love that word when I want to sound important) that we noticed too. Our first string beans just never did grow quite like usual and although the foliage looked as healthy as normal, much fewer beans set on. Had to be the weather, as Russ says, very wet and coolish early on, but since the vines were quite robust and there seemed to be only a few leaf hoppers and other infernal creatures of the bean jungle, we were mystified and Carol almost frantic.

Hell and high water stoke Texas blaze: “No one on the face of this Earth has ever fought fires in these extreme conditions

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Here is irony befitting a Shakespearean tragedy. Gov. Rick Perry finally got what he called on all Texans to pray for — some rain — but it was almost entirely dumped elsewhere and the winds of Tropical Storm Lee merely served to stoke the most brutal wildfires anyone had ever seen. This unprecedented climate impact is, indeed, Hell and High Water. Time’s headline is, “Texas Burns as the Rest of the Country Drowns” But, of course, they have no mention of climate change whatsoever.

Storm and tempest – Sep 6

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-US counts the cost of nine months of unprecedented weather extremes
-Insurance Companies Admit to Being Unprepared for Climate Change
-Climate cycles drive civil war
-The mighty Missouri River: the flooding and the damage done
-Texas wildfires destroy at least 500 homes

KunstlerCast: The end of growth

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A two part conversation between Richard Heinberg and James Howard Kunstler. The conversation covers peak oil, financial dysfunction, political convulsions, generational conflict, techno-grandiosity, the fate of industrial agriculture and the suburban living arrangement. Heinberg also reacts to being labeled a “Doomer.”.

Cassandra and the limits to growth

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Sometimes I wonder how it was that Cassandra, the Trojan prophetess, had so much trouble in convincing her fellow Trojan citizen that it was not such a good idea to demolish the city walls to let in that big, wooden horse. Maybe she spoke in riddles and using obscure language, as fitting for a prophetess. But in our case, facing global warming and resource depletion, I believe that it is fundamental today to arrange our knowledge in ways that can be understood by citizens and decision makers.
(discussion of the Limits to Growth model)