Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Staff Leading Wall Street water analyst Neil Berlant: Price of water in US to rise up to 300% in next 2-3 years
Millions eating food grown with polluted water, says UN report
Water everywhere, and not a drop to grow
West Bank struggles for water
Can the Dead Sea be brought to life?
Drive 55 campaign gaining speed
Tall ship Belem delivers wine by sail and saves carbon
The handmade commuter bike
House of Lords suggests lifting VAT from cost of repairing electrical goods
Plan for anaerobic digesters in every town to recycle leftovers
Revealed: the massive scale of UK’s water consumption
Bicycle inspiration. The following photos were taken at train stations around the world. Also: “If You Have Biker’s Block.”
As we see news of the possible (and increasingly likely) bailout of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae by the US Treasury, I am reminded of something that I have been writing about nuclear energy, ie that it should be financed by the State, and I’d like to extend on why I think there are fascinating similarities between the two topics, however distinct they may seem.
People think we can insulate ourselves from supply disruptions, from our dependence on potentially unreliable foreign sources of oil, by improving our efficiency and eliminating “unnecessary” oil consumption. In my opinion, this is backward. I will argue that, because the demand that is destroyed first in a free market is the demand that is easiest to eliminate, the resulting consumptive system is more inelastic, more brittle, and more susceptible to systemic shock from supply disruption.
Several years ago, at what seemed to be one of the darkest moments of the Russian collapse, I was walking in one of the avenues of Moscow. I noticed a series of large signs hanging from lampposts, showing traditional Russian buildings and landscapes. One of my Russian colleagues translated the text of the signs for me as saying, “Nobody will help Russia, so Russia will have to help herself”. Government propaganda? Sure, but that is what the Russians did. Never underestimate a country that has survived peak oil.
If the peak theory proves true, the intersection between rising worldwide demand and a decline in world production would likely drive prices much higher, giving drillers even more incentive to go after every last drop of oil they can find in old fields as well as new ones. (Texas oil man Jim Baldauf, co-founder of ASPO-USA, is interviewed.)
Waste-to-energy plants a waste of energy, recycling advocates say
Renewable power’s growth in Colorado presages national debate
Michael Vickerman on feed-in tariffs (audio)
The end of cheap clothes is near
Dressing Locally
Waste management
Long term oil is headed back up, for all the familiar reasons. Really, it’s not like anyone is finding new large oil deposits out in exploration land. Indeed, a whole lot of looking is leading to not very much finding in the exploration patch.
We read in the Bible of war-horses; of horses drawing chariots. But we never find an allusion to horses employed in the tillage of the land; for which by their gentleness, by the nature of the food which they require, by their great docility, oxen seem to have been formed by nature.
