Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Lindsay Curren This year I’m giving thanks for petroleum. Yes, it causes pollution. It’s a big inequity factor between cultures. And leads to wars. But oil has helped Americans live like kings and it’s helped save lives. Now it’s running low. As we plan for a world beyond oil, we should be thankful for what it’s done for us, and think about how to conserve it for our most important needs going forward.
The Very Important Paper recently ran an article that might have been tailor made for one of my old classes – it was a perfect illustration of how not to write a persuasive or expository essay. Written by Clifford Krauss and appearing in the New York Times November 17 Energy Supplement, it provides a superb model for the young (or old) writer on what not to do, and in a sense I’m grateful for this illustration. I apologize to my readership then, for digressing into my past profession, and offering a brief lesson on how not to write about peak oil for the interested.
In light of even more facts about the reality of declining oil production and availability, more nonsense denying the reality of our predicament has surfaced, in the New York Times, of all places. It may, however, turn out to be a great blessing for peak oil advocates.
In the peak oil community, predictions that society is about to collapse are coming faster and louder than usual. Should we heed these warnings? Or be skeptical?
Last week we asked for your help with the YouTube/See3 DoGooder Nonprofit Video Awards. Thousands of organizations participated and four were awarded the top prize. THANKS TO YOU and your support, Post Carbon Institute secured the Best Video in the Small Nonprofit category. For this we are grateful and proud.
The latest issue of the journal Nature contains an article by Peter Victor with this quote: “The idea that governments of developed countries should no longer pursue economic growth as a primary policy objective is widely regarded as heresy.”
If I were a billionaire, I wouldn’t believe what I’m about to write. Firstly, because my training, and especially my experience of getting richer in a growth based economy would have taught me that these ‘perfect storms’ when resource/financial bottlenecks supposedly loomed, historically worked out to be opportunities that spiked my digital wealth and incremental social power. Secondly, if I were a billionaire I wouldn’t believe what I’m about to write because all my peers, advisors and friends would tell me that it’s caca. And lastly I wouldn’t believe what I’m about to write as the implications would be too threatening, at least on the surface, to comprehend let alone integrate into my world view. All the same, if I were a billionaire, based on my understanding of our particular juncture of history, likely on the verge of transitioning away from marker claims back to real capital, here is what I would do….
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Peak coal in China?
-China
-Nigeria
-Another warning in the UK
-Briefs
-Quote of the week: “With price increases largely reflecting scarcity in export supply, global competition for securing foodstuffs is set to intensify.” –UN Food and Agriculture Organization
The centerpiece of any homegrown Thanksgiving meal, assuming you are not a vegetarian, is inevitably the homegrown turkey. And there are a lot of good reasons to get a local turkey or raise your own – there’s the flavor which is richer and deeper, an essence of turkey thing, there’s the fact that you know what went into it. And there’s the fact that by raising older breeds of turkeys, you actually preserve their future by eating them – honestly, there is no retirement home for elderly turkeys, and no one keeps them as pets. The future of the Blue Slate and the Standard Bronze depends heavily on their future as meat animals – and the extinction of a breed of livestock is a tragedy.
The waterwheel was seen as the most important power source in the world, from the Middle Ages to the end of the nineteenth century. When smaller streams became saturated, medieval engineers turned their attention to larger rivers, eventually leading to the development of the hydropower dams that still exists today. Lesser known are the intermediate steps toward that technology: boat mills, bridge mills and hanging mills.
We own cars so we can go to work. Why do we have jobs? So we can pay for the cars! It sounds simple enough to figure out, but billions of people are participating in this destruction of themselves and the planet.
– Phosphate: Morocco’s White Gold
– The World Food Crisis: Causes and Solutions (Peter Rosset talk)
– Food prices may rise by up to 20%, warns UN
– Climate Change and Disease Will Spark New Food Crisis, Says UN
