Recession and less holiday travel: the Earth and I are lovin’ it

At this historic juncture many of us are not only aware of financial insolvency, but geophysical limits to growth as well. It’s all related. We hold that the consumer economy and its ecological support system are in such dire shape that another cycle of material opulence may not happen.

Restoring food security and a dying way of life: Getting to know your local farmer

The U.S. financial system is in collapse, and energy costs are likely to come back again next spring and summer with a vengeance that we can’t imagine. This will make the price of food, already off the scale, skyrocket even further. We must all get to know our local farmers, or better yet, become them. In the moment, we have the “luxury” of low energy prices, and it is during this time that we should be making food security our top priority.

Survivalism: For peak oilers and ecotopians too?

It seems that many of the peak oil heavyweights, including Richard Heinberg and Dmitry Orlov, in particular, despite their own ingenious contributions to analyzing our current predicament, seem to blithely dismiss survivalism. They apparently do not understand the basic technical constructs of survivalism…

A resilient suburbia? Weighing the potential for self-sufficiency

Suburbia has a significant potential to provide its own food, water, and energy. It won’t be as simple as snapping our fingers. And it likely won’t be possible for suburbia to consistently produce 100% of its needs. But I think one thing is quite clear: the potential increase in suburbia’s self-sufficiency is significantly greater than the potential for urban areas.

Peak oil activists remain optimistic despite ‘scary’ Halloween conference

Peak oil activists from across the nation gathered on a college campus over the Halloween weekend to confront the scary prospects of declining worldwide oil production – and to focus on how they and their communities can cope. “People can find ways to lead happy, fulfilling lives even as this doomed system crumbles all around them,” Russian immigrant writer Dmitry Orlov told the conference.