National energy conversation getting louder

Congressman Roscoe Bartlett and consultant Robert Hirsch spoke at a Pentagon-sponsored presentation, “Energy: a Conversation about Our National Addiction” April 24. Bartlett’s message is logical and moral: Don’t try to fulfill rising demand to cope with peak oil via supply solutions because this would mean “more greenhouse gases” and increasing our future vulnerability to a greater supply crunch. Hirsch’s “most optimistic case is an assumed crash program” when people can agree the crisis is finally here.

Planning, policy, strategy, and energy (part III)

It is important to discuss energy in terms of developing a true “energy policy and strategy” for a future characterized by declining supplies of crude oil, dramatically higher costs for the stuff, and immensely more political friction both home and abroad. Despite whatever sense of motion you may see within the U.S. leadership cadre, my opinion is that U.S. energy policy and strategy is unfocused and inferior to that of certain other nations.

Envisioning a hamlet economy: topology of sustainability and fulfilled ontogeny

If the average American could live the “good life” of living in a stereotypical Tuscan villa, and if they are shown how they, too, CAN have this lifestyle, then people will literally flock to this structure. Ultimately, this is a POSITIVE vision of the future—not a reversion to feudal serfdom, but a progression to a more egalitarian and human-compatible life…