Deep thought – Nov 2
-Think Again: God
-A City Unbottled: Mary Beard’s Pompeii
-Why we don’t do much about climate change
Staff
The Irrationality Of Not Preparing Contingency Plans For Peak Oil
Let’s compare the peak oil situation to three scenarios for which most large organizations have already prepared contingency plans: (1) a widespread flu pandemic, (2) a serious incident of workplace violence, and (3) a fire in a work related building. The calculations shown below are rough-and-ready, use a back-of-the-envelope style, and are intended only to make the point asserted in the title of this article.
Energy Bulletin Survey November 2009
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The peace movement and the cornucopian view
According to an often cited saying, “If you want peace, work for justice.” But, most economic justice work is currently premised on the view that greater economic equality requires continued economic growth. This constitutes a wholehearted embrace of a cornucopian future; it recognizes no limits to growth that are implied by climate change, world peak oil production, and the rapid depletion of other resources including metal ores, water, soil and fish.
Transition: Meeting the Challenge of Energy Descent
…Where we are now is at the beginning of a transition from an industrial growth culture to a culture of descent. This transition will be characterized by much cultural chaos, and then we will be declining or descending to a far more sustainable low-energy culture. Regarding this, David Holmgren says, “We have trouble visualizing decline as positive, but this simply reflects the dominance of our prior culture of growth…The real issue of our age is how we make a graceful and ethical descent.”
ODAC Newsletter – Oct 30
Oil prices vacillated this week, falling back from their recent high on news of unexpectedly large US inventories, later rallying as the US economy officially emerged from recession…
Climate & environment – Oct 30
-Rainforest treaty ‘fatally flawed’
-Fewer Americans View Global Warming as a Problem
-Government launches map to highlight global warming threat
-Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation
-Betting the Farm
-UN chief will pressure senators on climate bill
Autumn, apples, and the harvest – Oct 29
-How to celebrate British apples
-Putting Up Produce: Yes, You Can
-From farm to table, a link to the past
Urban ag roundup – Oct 30
-Farmers Markets Enjoy Popularity, Face Challenges
-Hoop Dreams
-Farmers’ markets for seed savers
-Food Advocates Envision Rooftop Gardens and Vertical Farms
-Will Allen and the Urban Farming Revolution
War Society, Collapse and the University: an interview with Robert Jensen
The question shouldn’t be when can you predict all of this is going to fall apart; it’s a recognition that it inevitably will fall apart, and we either prepare for it, in both physical terms, but also I think in moral terms.
The Future of European Transport: iTREN-2030
On 21 October the final workshop was held in Brussels (Belgium) of the integrated transport and energy baseline until 2030 (iTREN-2030) modeling project. At the workshop a final scenario was presented that incorporated likely transport and energy policies, and the effects on European transport of a continued global plateau in oil production up to 2030. The integrated scenario was generated by four energy and transport models that have been linked in iTREN-2030 to increase the forecasting power of the transport policies of the European Commission.
An interview with Stoneleigh – the case for deflation
At the ASPO conference in Denver, October 2009, I had the good fortune to meet Stoneleigh, former editor of The Oil Drum Canada, who left the The Oil Drum crew with colleague Ilargi to set up The Automatic Earth where they publish stories, news and analysis of the unfolding financial crisis. I spent a couple of days chatting with Stoneleigh where she recounted her rather gloomy prospects for the immediate future of the global economy. The following interview is a summary of her analysis of the unfolding situation.
