Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Dmitry Orlov When asked about the future of, say, nanotubes, or nuclear fusion, or genetic engineering, all technologists and scientists will predict that it’s bright, and continue to say so until the day their grants are canceled, their salaried positions eliminated, and their labs shut down for political and macroeconomic reasons they are ill-equipped to try to comprehend.
Economic-growth-constraining “peak oil” and the financial crisis are two sides of the same coin. Both signal limits to growth. Recognizing this is not imminent; it slips through the grasp of conventional economics.
[Peak oil prophets] are national heroes for sounding the alarm before anyone believed them. They have often been right, and any solar-powered Mayberrys of 2100 should have statues of them in the town square. But their long-held note of dread is useful only to the extent that it inspires people to do something more practical. The world we create will be, up to a point, whatever we were preparing for, and as we enter the opening years of the crisis, it is time we all take a deep breath and talk about what we realistically expect from the future.
Climate change lays waste to Spain’s glaciers
Tracking the Fallout of the Arctic’s Vanishing Sea Ice
Arctic Methane Emissions could change Earth’s climate
I found Harland Hubbard in an article in the National Geographic in the early 1960s. He and his wife, Anna, were what was called at that time modern homesteaders…They raised all their food, or caught it from the river, or traded for it with neighbors…Their life was both rigorous and elegant.
Compostmodern ’09
4 Models for Organizing a Community for an Uncertain Future
Post Carbon Newsletter – February 2009
A mid-week review, including:
– Prices and production
– The Automakers
Astyk: Creating and Sustaining Soil Fertility
Farming policy: an end to French hypocrisy?
Swiss “Victory Gardens” during WW2
UNEP Gives Food for Thought
If the report that OPEC exports are really down by 4.3 million b/d is true, we are likely to be seeing some sort of reaction in the form of higher prices shortly. All the evidence suggests that while oil demand dropped last fall, reports from the major agencies, the IEA and EIA, do not suggest that the drop in consumption is as much as the 4.3 million b/d that OPEC is trying to cut.
What matters now more than ever, and what is getting lost in all the immediate economic turmoil, is the unprecedented scope of the problems we face in the 21st century. Great change is inevitable. Trying to hang on to the way things have been—seemingly endless exponential GDP growth— is a mistake. Focusing exclusively on fixing the economy to get back on the business-as-usual growth track obscures much bigger problems coming down the road.
Monbiot: Cutting consumption is more important than limiting population
Interview with William Halal and Dmitry Orlov
World Made by Hand and post-apocalyptic fiction: a prepper’s perspective
[Within the next three weeks, my forthcoming book, Sacred Demise: Walking The Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse will be released and will be available for purchase at this website and at the Amazon and Barnes & Noble websites. Below is the book’s foreword written by Sarah Anne Edwards, Ph.D. and co-author of Middle Class Lifeboat.
