Consumption & Demand

Five bummer problems that make societies collapse

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“If anyone tells you that there’s a single-factor explanation for societal collapse,” says collapse guru Jared Diamond, “you know right away that they’re an idiot. This is a complex subject.” So, forget about peak debt, peak oil, peak climate, peak Harry Potter or even peak everything as the single most important problem that could bring today’s whole pulsing, beaming and txt-mssgng mess down into a lifeless pile of shorted-out microchips, rusted carburetors and busted sporks from Taco Bell. Diamond gives the Five Fatals that could do us in, using the example of the unlucky Greenland Norse.

Oil limits, recession, and bumping against the growth ceiling

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The issues we are confronted with today seem to be a subset of the issues foretold in the book Limits to Growth back in 1972. At some point, the economy cannot continue to grow as rapidly as it did in the past. It appears to me that the most immediate limit we are hitting today is inadequate low-priced oil, but there are other limits lurking not far away–inadequate fresh water and excessive pollution, for example. When the economy cannot grow as fast, or actually starts declining, recession sets in…This issue is a difficult one to talk about, because there really is no good solution.

The twilight of meaning

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For those of us who have been thinking and talking about peak oil for more than a few years, one of the most common sources of frustration tends to be the vacant looks generated in so many faces by what are, after all, straightforward and reasonable concepts. Maybe it’s time we talk about the cultural forces that foster, at all levels of American society, the almost trancelike conviction that everything will somehow come out fine.

The most dangerous machine ever built

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I could never understand why activists picked on the personal automobile so much. Sure, people die in accidents. The car also uses a lot of oil and spews a lot of pollution. But so do planes, ships and lots of other machines. And won’t gasoline cars soon be replaced by cleaner hybrids or even 100% clean electric vehicles? Now, after reading “Stop Signs,” I can see the problem — as the main gateway drug to excessive consumption of everything from suburban homes and appliances to self-storage, more than anything else, the auto literally drives climate change and peak oil.

Renewable energy zealots must understand ‘Net Energy’

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Was I surprised that last issue’s column, Can Renewables Outshine Fossil Fuels?, elicited a strong reaction, with written responses of support and derision? Not at all. It’s an issue that continues to divide the environmental community, and one which keeps us from moving forward as quickly as possible to conserve resources and relocalize as an era of cheap, concentrated, easy-to-get energy comes to an end.

Review of Index of U.S. Energy Security Risk (U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 2011)

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The U.S. Chamber of Commerce recently released its Index of U.S. Energy Security Risk: Assessing America’s Vulnerabilities in a Global Energy Market, 2011 Edition (80 pgs). This is an update of last year’s inaugural edition and is published by the Chamber’s Institute for 21st Century Energy, headed by Karen Harbert.

UK riots’ resource and cultural roots: an in-the-trenches report

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Youngsters are running riot around the country. Some of us, who work in education and on the ‘street’, predicted and warned of this possible eventuality. It has happened. Our kids have been trained to consume; have been thwarted by lack of progression and aspiration. …. The middle classes didn’t bother about the ‘ghettos’ of housing estates where such behaviours have been going for years, and, us, working in these areas, just knew that eventually something would kick off. Well, it has.

Transition Fujino — Prospects for a better future

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In these difficult months following the 11 March quake and tsunami, it has been a time for reflection and an opportunity to ponder what the future holds in store for Japan. Some hints of what a better future may look like can be found just a short train ride from Tokyo, in a place called Fujino.