Staff

How to discourage energy conservation

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I got serious about cutting gas heating costs after losing my job as a research scientist last year, but now I’m paying more for each unit of natural gas delivered to my house. This was odd, so I had to look a little deeper. After some investigation I found that we are paying a lot more for each hundred cubic feet (CCF) of natural gas than our neighbors because we use so much less than they do. I’m being penalized for conserving gas, so my local gas utility is working against me.

Other commodities and recessions

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If for some reason there were suddenly to be considerably less iron and steel available than the economy had been expecting, producers could not, in the short term, adapt very readily except by producing less stuff. …And so if we were faced with a sudden reduction in the available steel, as a simple accounting matter of the physical commodity, the economy must produce fewer finished goods (since the great bulk of goods have some steel in).

Coal industry punk’d by hilarious spoof website

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“Why free inhalers? Because COAL CARES,” announces a website that claims to be “a goodwill campaign from your neighbors at Peabody Coal.” But Coal Cares is actually a spoof done in the culture-jamming style of Adbusters or The Yes Men by a new coalition called Coal Kills Kids. It’s good fun with a purpose — to debunk industry claims that coal is safe.

The tenfold path to guts, solidarity and the defeat of the corporate elite

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Many Americans know that the United States is not a democracy but a “corporatocracy,” in which we are ruled by a partnership of giant corporations, the extremely wealthy elite and corporate-collaborator government officials. However, the truth of such tyranny is not enough to set most of us free to take action. Too many of us have become pacified by corporatocracy-created institutions and culture.

Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century? – Foreword to new report

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A detailed new energy report argues that the natural gas industry has propagated dangerously false claims about natural gas production supply, cost and environmental impact. The report, "Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century" is authored by leading geoscientist and Post Carbon Institute Fellow J. David Hughes.

Finding my limit

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Often we make subconscious decisions that negate the need to vocalise our thoughts. “That’s too far” or “We don’t need to do that” take precedence over “That would be nice to do” more often than not. That doesn’t make us perfect by any means, and to be honest the pursuit of perfection is bound to end in failure – humans have randomness built in, and our foibles are often what distinguish character from bland compliance. I don’t want to be perfect; I just want to be honest. With that in mind, here’s a question we all need to answer: Where is the nearest place to you that you like to be?

How the Michael Lewis school of revisionism informs the gas debate

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The shale gas industry might brush up on its John Lennon (“Life is what happens while you’re busy making other plans.”). Alerted numerous times of fast-coming federal regulation unless it goes transparent and begins to police itself, the industry’s hard-liners have dug in under the assumption that — as has befallen so many other seemingly inevitable business reforms — this one too will die of its own accord.

Hair Shirts, Hypocrisy, and Wilkins Micawber

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These days, the idea that using less energy and resources might be a viable and indeed a necessary part of navigating the crisis of industrial society too often runs afoul of the hangover of America’s Puritan heritage; too often, that concept has been wielded in the service of fashionable hypocrisy, or turned into an ostentatious display of hair-shirt asceticism. Still, approached in the right way, using less — or, more exactly, using L.E.S.S. — is a crucial step in the direction of sustainability. With the help of W.C. Fields, the Archdruid explains.