Rob Hopkins

Government ‘Peak Oil Summit’ Starts the Process of Government Acknowledging Peak Oil?

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On Monday Peter Lipman and I represented Transition Network at an event which could potentially be the day people look back to as the day when UK government finally starting to ‘get’ peak oil. Fascinating and frustrating in equal measure, the event, “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”, was billed as “a half-day workshop hosted by the Energy Institute in partnership with the Department of Energy and Climate Change, under Chatham House Rules”. For those who don’t know what Chatham House rules are, it means that the contents of what was said can be discussed, but none of it can be attributed to anyone.

Deconstructing Dinner: Collapse of honey bees on Vancouver Island/Tugwell Creek Honey Farm and Meadery

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We examine the latest setback in the ongoing struggle to maintain healthy honey bee populations around the world…And with Vancouver Island receiving Spring the earliest of any location in Canada, farmers there are reporting catastrophic results from the winter with some farmers having lost up to 90% of their colonies. Yet while populations elsewhere in Canada have also been hit in recent years, it appears (at least at this point), that Vancouver Island’s significant losses are an isolated incident…And we’ll also travel to Vancouver Island to meet Bob Liptrot of Tugwell Creek Honey Farm & Meadery.

The Politics of Wood Heating

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It may seem a strange title for a commentary about a form of home heating that is often seen as quaint and dated. But if politics is the process by which we decide how to manage our lives together, then yes, there certainly is a politics of wood heating. Some people heat with wood and like it, and other people think it is a terrible way to heat houses, and there you have the makings of a contest of ideas and therefore politics.

Towards Local Democracy

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It’s been more than a year since we’ve started our initiative in Sopot, Poland. It has the same aim as the Transition initiatives, however we have decided to focus on local democracy first. Democracy helps to eliminate the struggles of political parties and it weakens vested interests. What we have also quickly realized is that even if you come up with a great plan for improving public transport or installing a biogas digester in your city, there’s this little, tiny issue: how can you make it all happen? Where will the money come from? Who will give all permits and change the city plans?

Oxford report: World oil reserves at tipping point

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A report just published by researchers at the Smith School at Oxford University concludes that the age of cheap oil has now ended as demand starts to outstrip supply as we head towards the middle of the decade. The report also suggests that the current oil reserve estimates should be downgraded from between 1150-1350 billion barrels to between 850-900 billion barrels, based on recent research.

Book Review: Whole Earth Discipline

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Stewart Brand is one of the iconic founders of the environmental movement, an original old hippy whose influence on the boomer generation should not be understated. With his latest book Whole Earth Discipline he takes that same movement to task for rejecting science and getting sidetracked by ideology at the very time when the practical application of science through engineering and technology may be the only way to save ourselves.

Economics – Mar 22

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-Author Lewis Says Wall Street Reckoning Is Coming
-Coming soon: “oil-less” economic growth
-Arcane Currency Battle Masks Deeper Economic Tensions with China
-‘I=PAT’ means nothing, proves nothing
-The Broken Society
-Natural resources: The curse of developing countries?
-Money Out Of Thin Air: Now Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke Wants To Eliminate Reserve Requirements Completely?
-America’s “Houdini Recovery” under IMF-Type Austerity