Andrew McKay

Seven myths used to debunk peak oil, debunked

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Peak oil is a fact, not a theory. From US conventional oil production peaking in 1970 to global conventional oil production peaking in 2006 the figures are indisputable. Even institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and publications like The Economist that are not known for alarmism have admitted that oil production from conventional sources has peaked.

So why are there still commentators who refuse to believe peak oil?

Global civil society and the rise of the civil economy

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The last thirty years has seen the re-emergence of a civil economic challenge, side by side with the advance of globalisation, as a distinct strand in the development of global civil society. Don’t underestimate its longterm significance in the glacial shifts now taking place in the world economy.

ODAC Newsletter – May 4

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The shale gas ‘revolution’ suffered another blow this week as the US Securities and Exchange Commission announced an investigation into dealings between industry leader Chesapeake Energy and its chief executive Aubrey McClendon. It emerged recently that McClendon had been taking a private stake in each well the company drills and, unbeknownst to shareholders, borrowed over $1 billion against them…

The peak oil crisis: Implications

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Getting back to reality, all we really know for now is that a number of groups around the world are, and have been for some time, reporting anomalous heat emanating from hydrogen loaded into certain metals and then heated or subjected to electro-magnetic pulses. The number, geographic breadth of these experiments, and the experience and academic stature of the researchers reporting these results make it unlikely that these results are part of a gigantic hoax or flawed temperature readings as many skeptics claim.

Too hot not to notice?

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New data released last month by researchers at Yale and George Mason universities show that a lot of Americans are growing far more concerned about climate change, precisely because they’re drawing the links between freaky weather, a climate kicked off-kilter by a fossil-fuel guzzling civilization, and their own lives. After a year with a record number of multi-billion dollar weather disasters, seven in ten Americans now believe that “global warming is affecting the weather.”

Toward a new Bretton Woods and a sustainable civilization

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The linking of development policy, pursuit of wellbeing, and alternative indicators in a new economic paradigm is a strong step toward establishing a sane and sustainable civilization that focuses on meeting human needs with ecological efficiency. To get there, centuries of infinite-planet economic thinking have to be swept aside. Traditional development theory begins with the idea that some nations are underdeveloped — nations that don’t have a western, industrial, consumerist economy. It also supposes that all the nations of the world want that kind of economy and that they can have it. But all three presumptions are false.

China’s looming conflict between energy and water

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In its quest to find new sources of energy, China is increasingly looking to its western provinces. But the nation’s push to develop fossil fuel and alternative sources has so far ignored a basic fact — western China simply lacks the water resources needed to support major new energy development.