Consumption & Demand

2009 Japan prize honors lead author of ‘”The Limits to Growth”

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Dr. Dennis Meadows, lead scientist and co-author of The Limits to Growth (1972) and its subsequent updates, is the winner of this year’s Japan Prize from the Science and Technology Foundation of Japan for “Transformation towards a sustainable society in harmony with nature.” This prestigious award is given once a year to people from all parts of the world whose original and outstanding achievements in science and technology are recognized as having advanced the frontiers of knowledge and served the cause of peace and prosperity for humankind.

Cheap oil: a poisoned gift

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Oil price in July 2008 reached a staggering $147 a barrel, having doubled in price over the previous 12 months. Who would have thought, that within half a year, a dramatic oil-price freefall would bring oil to a 5-year low of $35 a barrel – a price drop of 76%.

However, even though many have sighed in relief, experts are heralding new dramatic spikes in oil prices.

Hope and fear

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Mr. Obama’s first task taking stage in the lonely Oval Office should be to get right with his own credo of “change,” meaning he’ll have to persuade the broad American public that the “change” required to salvage this society runs much deeper, colder, and thicker than they’d imagine in their initial transports over hallelujah-Bush-is-Gone. Many of the familiar touchstones of the recent American experience have got to go.

Fuel Emergency Part 1

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Preparing for a liquid fuels emergency does not appear to be on the radar screens of most government officials and emergency planners. This is a very worrying situation in light of emerging energy supply realities (accelerating oil-field depletion rates, plummeting exploration and development, rusting infrastructure, and greying workforce). All of these factors put together mean there is an increasing potential for fuel supply emergencies in the years ahead.

Largely about access

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Abstract: It is sometimes held that U.S. motivations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf, while indeed “largely about oil” (in the well-publicized words of Alan Greenspan), are not (or at least not much) “about access” to the region’s oil per se. This essay critically examines that claim, arguing that the current U.S. resort to force cannot really be understood without regard to the current precariousness of U.S. energy supplies.