Mining and minerals – Aug 10
-Rare-earth mining in China comes at a heavy cost for local villages
-Reports: China moves to further restrict rare-earth exports
-Google-Backed Asteroid Mining Venture Attracts Billionaires
Staff
The Fight of Our Time: Bill McKibben’s Thought Bubble
The fossil fuel industry is quickly destroying the planet, and making the fight to protect our future increasingly challenging as industry lobbying, and unabated growth continues…
A crisis of legitimacy
Over the last week or two, the peak oil scene has been going through another round of its ongoing flirtation with fantasies of overnight collapse. This time the trigger was a recent paper by David Korowicz of Feasta. Iit’s a well-written study, limited only by a few frankly unrealistic assumptions about how governments tend to react when faced with an immediate threat to national survival.
Education – Aug 10
-Look, Don’t Touch
-Daniel Goleman on the Importance of Ecological Intelligence
-The rise and rise of co-op schools
Six arguments for the elimination of capitalism
Jerry Mander’s new book, The Capitalism Papers, has a promising subtitle: Fatal Flaws of an Obsolete System. None of the hedging of bets there that constrains much progressive social critique in the US. In liberal punditry, the acceptable spectrum of discourse does not even permit use of the word, and in the foundation-sponsored non-profit sector, such talk would be financial suicide. Nor are US trade unions, what’s left of them, anti-capitalist. (In fact their leaders explicitly claim their aim is to get capitalism to work better.) As he correctly points out, there is an unspoken consensus: “it is as if global capitalism” – a human creation – “occupies a virtually permanent existence, like a religion, a gift of God, infallible.”
Embracing the deliciousness of fermented foods means calling truce in our war on bacteria
Letting food sit at room temperature and become colonized by airborne microorganisms runs counter to everything we’re taught about food safety. But without this guided decomposition that we call fermentation there would be no bread, cheese, tequila, or kimchee.
Land of milk and money
Fewer than 5% of all Americans drink raw milk. Yet, the question of whether Americans should be allowed to drink it at all is one of the hottest controversies between foodies and public health officials these days.
Shale gas – Aug 9
-Study links Texas earthquakes to drilling disposal wells
-Fracking poses risk to water systems, research suggests: U.S. study
-China Drills Into Shale Gas, Targeting Huge Reserves Amid Challenges
-Shale Gas And The Overhyping Of Its CO2 Reductions
-A ‘War on Shale Gas’?
The awesome power of water
Gibson Mill prides itself on being entirely off-grid, with 100% of its electricity, heating and water sourced on site. Electrical power is from water turbines and a 4kW solar photovoltaic array, water comes from a spring on the estate and heating is provided by a biomass (wood) boiler, using wood exclusively sourced on site.
Climate change and developing countries
This post continues a theme I covered in my book Power Plays. Part 1 covered the impact on oil price and supply in Petroleum Demand in Developing Countries. Here I discuss some of the climate change implications.
How cities can get drivers biking
You can glimpse the future right now in forward-looking American cities—a few blocks here, a mile there, where people riding bicycles are protected from rushing cars and trucks.
Peak oil notes – August 9
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
