Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Sonia Shah For decades, deadly outbreaks of cholera were attributed to the spread of disease through poor sanitation. But recent research demonstrates how closely cholera is tied to environmental and hydrological factors and to weather patterns — all of which may lead to more frequent cholera outbreaks as the world warms.
Protesters in the Arab world have much in common with those reacting to austerity across Europe, as well as the millions who have mobilised in support of ending poverty in the South. What we may be witnessing is an emerging public voice in favour of a fundamental reordering of global priorities.
Energy Bulletin today introduces a comments section for individual articles. We hope you’ll find it easy to use and a meaningful addition. The aim is to encourage a community engaged with solution-oriented responses to the triple challenges of peak oil, climate change and economic contraction.
As much as a quarter of Libyan oil output has been shut down, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday, as unrest prompted oil companies to warn of production cuts in Africa’s third-largest producer.
Göran Persson, Sweden’s prime minister from 1996 to 2006, coined the expression, “Those who are in debt are not free”. At that time he was talking about the nation’s debt levels but the expression can be applied more widely to also include oil.
We should shoot for health and wellness rather than wealth and “hellness,” and agree to move, together, away from a lifestyle of deadlines and dying species and toward lifelines and living wealth…The big picture is that production and consumption will no longer be the defining characteristics of the emerging era – cultural richness, efficiency, cooperation, expression, ecological design, and biological restoration will be.
In truth, the spare capacity that the world cares about — that the oil futures market cares about — is not the inventory level. But rather, actual production capacity that can be brought on immediately. You can see the problem, from a price standpoint. If the world loses Libya’s 1.5 mbpd production for 90-120 days, and starts drawing down above-ground inventories, this only makes the inventory cushion that much thinner for any new supply disruptions. The question on the mind of the oil market therefore is not Mr. Fyfe’s 1.6 billion barrels of crude, but whether countries like Kuwait, the U.A.E. and especially Saudi Arabia or even Russia can lift supply. Immediately.
-Saudi ruler offers $36bn to stave off uprising amid warning oil price could double
-Political unrest casts a shadow over Desertec energy project
-All eyes on Bahrain as Gulf tremors frighten oil markets
-Iran’s ‘silent’ protests
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
We need some balance in the Libyan oil story. Is this north African nation an unmitigated disaster for those elsewhere in the world running an economy or driving a gas-guzzling vehicle? Notwithstanding the turmoil, the answer so far is no.
The point here is not to say “we were right” but simply to underline the central observation with which we launched this project: the world we live in is being turned upside down by a series of converging crises. This process has not finished: it has only just begun, and it’s likely to get faster, deeper, harder. We can choose how to react to it, but there’s no going back.
Our stories of awakenings — whether moral, intellectual, religious, artistic, or sexual — are tricky. Honest self-reflection doesn’t come easy, and self-satisfied accounts are the norm; we love to be the heroes of our own epics. … The longstanding discomfort in telling my story is further complicated by new concerns in the past few years. More than ever I’m aware that no matter how high anyone’s consciousness in the United States is raised, there may be very little we can do to reverse the consequences of modern industrial society’s assault on the living world.
