Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Sharon Astyk In a world where energy supplies are much more constrained than most international agencies assume, it is almost certain that refrigerated shipping will be too costly and energy intensive for many people – thus, the industrialized and centralized meat industry that we’ve created is not likely to be a long term success.
The Chief Executive Officer of insurance giants Lloyds is warning that the world is facing a “period of deep uncertainty” over the decline of fossil fuels – and may soon be coping with $200-a-barrel oil.
While oil gushes out of the Gulf, and the economy staggers toward the exits, scientists continue to investigate our longer future. Deadly heat waves will test the upper limits of human endurance. Millions will move or die. “Skeptical scientist” John Cook and tech investigator Stuart Staniford talk it through.
But our cultural ignorance concerning basic energy numeracy, as well as an understanding of the economics of oil and energy allows otherwise intelligent and well-informed people to participate in outrage towards BP without reflecting for a moment on their own attitudes, habits, or behavior.
A newly released report from Lloyds Insurance and Chatham House does an amazing job of putting the case for Transition to a business audience. It states that any business seeking to be successful in the future will need to be prepared for ‘dramatic changes in the energy sector’, and that energy dependency will become a key vulnerability. This is, in effect, the Hirsch Report for British business.
Well, well, well. Who woulda thunk it? Goliath went down hard. Goliath, in his latest incarnation as California utility leviathan Pacific Gas & Electric, took to the field armed with all the weapons 45 million dollars can buy against…a pair of tiny websites and a tall red-haired dude with a busted video camera. And got his ass handed to him.
It is now 8 weeks since the Deepwater Horizon Explosion, and while BP claims to be capturing around 15,000 barrels of oil a day, there are still widely varying estimates of the amount of oil still escaping into the ocean. As public and political anger against the company increase, the knock on effects of the disaster for the company and the industry are growing.
When press releases are made about new discoveries, ask yourself: “how much energy will be used to get that energy, or what will be the energy profit?”
Embattled oil giant BP has released an annual review of global energy demand claiming we have 45 year’s worth of oil – but at the same time stressing the importance of deepwater operations such as the Gulf of Mexico. The great unanswered question of course being: Why would they be attempting to extract oil at the depth the Titanic sank if it was easily available elsewhere?
-After the credit crisis – next it will be oil
-Lloyd’s predicts BP disaster will prove oil industry’s Three Mile Island
-Talk of Second Oil Spill in Gulf Grows Louder
Finally, a single article from the mainstream points out that maybe we should re-think our oil-drenched lifestyles. Oil drilling threatens our future, as even the BBC has determined. Will that be enough to get us off the devil’s excrement?
As cracks spread through the wall of peak oil denial, the subculture that has grown up around peak oil activism may just have to deal with their concern becoming mainstream. That offers many positive options, but also some troubling possibilities on the downside — among them a social phenomenon common in periods of turmoil and the collapse of existing cultural narratives.
