Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Dave Cohen I have recently written that we live according to the Law Of Civilization And Decay, which can be succinctly summarized: what goes up must come down. Just like balls thrown up into the air, civilizations ascend and then fall as though there were some kind of “historical gravity” at work. America is not (and will not be) an exception.
How they graced Planet Earth, anchoring magnetic fields. They were wedded to Auroras, Borealis and Australis. With their wildly extreme environs, the Poles were evolutionary crucibles for spectacular life-forms. They inspired the greatest of adventurers, then punished them severely for their trespasses. Yet they were good for many who never knew them. Along with the atmosphere and the rainforests, they moderated the Peoples’ climate for 2 million years. Then a dangerous game of growth was played and the polar team lost: Wall Street Bulls,$75 trillion GDP — Polar Bears, 0.
“It frustrates me that journalists and even some professionals who should know better are driven by gross reserves numbers when a large part of those reserves won‘t be produced for decades – if they’re produced at all – and have no impact on the financial well-being of a country or company. They really are irrelevant to what will be happening over the next 20 years. Experts in the oil and oil service industries understand this, but I‘m not sure governments who set policy related to energy security and sustainability do”
Major energy reports published this year are pointing to a significant rise in the price of oil due to supply constraints sometime over the next three years – the only disagreement is how soon.
So far 2010 has seen three international reports considering the future of oil production, demand and prices. These were published by high profile groups that command widespread respect – in turn, a collection of UK industrialists, the US military and a joint effort between Europe’s most recognized insurance company and a politically connected think-tank.
Largely ignored by the media, and considered separately online as they came out, it is interesting to do a compare-and-contrast between documents produced for widely different audiences on each side of the Atlantic.
We are living through “interesting times”; credit crises, recession and rising debt threaten to destabilise nation states. Whilst reckless bankers and traders might have a certain amount of responsibility, if we are to understand the larger processes that are driving these trends we need to stand back and look at the human system as a whole. Change is inevitable – it’s one of the implications of the Laws of Thermodynamics. What we need to understand is the way human ecology works within these natural physical processes, how the contradictions between human systems and these natural processes define what is “unsustainable”, and what this means for our future as we adjust to the natural limitations of our environment.
– Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
– What if there’s much less coal than we think?
– Peak Everything – a libertarian view
– Go solar before it’s too late!
– Think OPEC exports won’t decline? You’re living in a dreamworld
The model is simple and has been done before. From 1933 to 1942 the Civilian Conservation Corp (CCC) provided jobs for younger workers conserving natural resources (e.g. our national parks) in the US. The program was part of a general jobs creation program proposed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt during the Great Depression to provide a stimulus to the economy and, so to speak, kill two birds with one stone. There was a great deal of resource management work that needed to be done, things like building access roads in national parks, and there were millions of unemployed young men who, without meaningful work, would have likely run amuck. It was, in fact, a brilliant idea.
To suggest that we start reducing our dependence on air-conditioning is to invite dire forecasts of malaise, poor health, social turmoil, and economic collapse. But that need not be the case. Several lines of research indicate that reducing our dependence on chilled air could improve our quality of life.
– Plastic Bag = the movie
– Permaculture co-originator David Holmgren on Money vs fossil energy: the battle for control of the world
– Why the Irish will find it easier to endure the hard times ahead
– Pakistan: a question of water
– How to make a pile of dough with the traditional city
– Austin’s energy conservation gem: interview with Paul Robbins
Every society attempts to determine which risks will be borne by the individual and which will be borne by the community. My task is to convince you that the idea of individual risk is flawed, and that to the extent we organize our society around it we are being hoodwinked by a false libertarian ideology, one that tells us there are choices available to the individual the consequences of which will fall only to that individual.
Thirty-five years from now, America’s official century of being top dog (1945-2045) will have come to an end; its time may, in fact, be running out right now. We are likely to begin to look ever more like a giant version of England at the end of its imperial run, as we come face-to-face with, if not necessarily to terms with, our aging infrastructure, declining international clout, and sagging economy.
If, however, we were to dismantle our empire of military bases and redirect our economy toward productive, instead of destructive, industries; if we maintained our volunteer armed forces primarily to defend our own shores (and perhaps to be used at the behest of the United Nations); if we began to invest in our infrastructure, education, health care, and savings, then we might have a chance to reinvent ourselves as a productive, normal nation. Unfortunately, I don’t see that happening.
As we headed back to the shelter for tea, though, some of the Irish workers did something curious — they gathered wild plants from the meadow as they walked and chatted, arriving at the shelter with arms full. They quickly rinsed the plants, dropped them into a pitcher and poured boiling water over them, and in a few minutes had instant herbal tea.
