Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
David Bergman Even before Sandy, the word ‘resilience’ was on its way to becoming a meme. Then, when a “natural disaster” struck the political and financial powers of New York City – along with countless others – the idea started to take on some urgency.
The technical-corporate-financial elite which controls our energy supplies has no clue about how to manage those supplies in the unfolding age of energy scarcity. That portends considerable political upheaval as the public becomes more engaged in shaping our energy future.
The hard work of reinventing democracy in a post-imperial America, the subject of several of last month’s posts, is only one facet of this broader challenge. I’ve mentioned before that the pursuit of empire is a drug, and like most other drugs, it makes you feel great at the time and then wallops you the next morning.
Here’s the short version of why forecasts of low long-term oil and natural gas prices are almost certainly wrong: It costs more than that to get the stuff out of the ground.
Share or Die is a collection of short writings by those on the front lines of Generation Y.
In honor of the holiday season just past, we can call it a solstice list—those of my readers who celebrate Christmas instead can call it a Christmas list if they wish. Still, I’d like to ask that the list not be sent to Santa Claus. No, this list is for Krampus.
Here is a short overview and strategic assessment of the green economy movement, including its organizational makeup. It concludes with recommendations for transitioning from a double bottom line movement to a triple bottom line one: being more inclusive of historically marginalized communities.
Looking at technical, economic, energetic, and environmental issues, this is a wide-ranging response for financial advisors by a long-time planner and ASPO board member.
Was it just my imagination, or was the New Year’s celebration just past even more halfhearted than those of the last few years? My wife and I welcomed 2013 with a toast, and breakfasted the next morning on the traditional good-luck foods—rice and beans, corn bread, greens and bacon—that I learned to enjoy back when I was studying old-fashioned Southern folk magic. Outside our little house, though, the midnight air seemed remarkably quiet; the whoops, horns, and firecrackers of New Years past were notable mostly by their absence, and the next day’s hush seemed less a matter of hangovers than a not unreasonable dread of what 2013 might have in store for us all.
Last Friday was, as I’m sure most of my readers noticed, an ordinary day. Here in the north central Appalachians, it was chilly but not unseasonably so, with high gray clouds overhead and a lively wind setting the dead leaves aswirl; wrens and sparrows hopped here and there in my garden, poking among the recently turned soil of the beds. No cataclysmic earth changes, alien landings, returning messiahs, or vast leaps of consciousness disturbed their foraging. They neither knew nor cared that one of the great apocalyptic delusions of modern times was reaching its inevitable end around them.
A recent spate of official reports from energy agencies are predicting a rosy future of economic growth underpinned by cheap oil abundance. However, as Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed shows, scientific evidence largely ignored by mainstream media confirms that while we have enough oil and gas to burn our way to climate catastrophe, the age of cheap oil abundance is a myth.
The recovery of reason, the theme of last week’s post here on The Archdruid Report, has implications that go well past the obvious. One of the examples that comes first to mind is also directly relevant to the theme of this series of posts, and it unfolds from an experience that many people have mentioned to me in recent years: the inability of Americans with different beliefs to sit down and have a constructive conversation about their disagreements.
