Education

Commentary: Response to “Energy Crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world”

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It is hard to know where to begin regarding Ambrose Evans-Pritchard’s article entitled “Energy crisis is postponed as new gas rescues the world.” But since the speculative world he invokes has more to with Alice In Wonderland than the hard reality of engineering and science, let us begin – at the end.

U.S. Peak Oil Conference Conflicted Amidst The Oil Recession

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Upon the first global recession influenced by the peaking of oil extraction and record high prices, the question for “peak oilers” arises: does peak oil and energy decline mean great profits for modernizing industry, or is peak oil the beginning of huge changes in lifestyle toward sustainability after societal collapse? Those were the two main concerns at play at the fifth annual meeting of the U.S. chapter of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil and Gas (ASPO-USA), in Denver, Oct. 11-13.

Shale Gas Estimates Perhaps Optimistic – An Interesting and Worrying Talk at ASPO

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Unfortunately I have had to miss the ASPO Meeting in Denver this week, and so cannot provide the daily reports that I have written in the past. But I notice that at least one of the talks has already caught a significant amount of press, and that is the one by Arthur Berman on the gas production from shale deposits such as the Barnett, Haynesville and Marcellus.

Address to the ASPO International Conference 2009 (Denver, Colorado)

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I’m happy to have the opportunity to spend the next few minutes sharing some personal thoughts on the subjects that bring us together for this excellent event—thoughts based on my experience, during the past few years, of trying to get the message of Peak Oil out to an ever-wider audience.

Resources and anthropocentrism

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Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.

Whither Resilience and Transition? Why ‘Peak Oil’ Has Yet to Outlive its Usefulness

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It’s been a fascinating few days. Early in the week, Nate Hagens and Sharon Astyk were suggesting that perhaps the term ‘peak oil’ has outlived its usefulness, given that we have almost certainly peaked, and that the peak oil movement needs to shift its focus. It echoed something I wrote a while ago, likening ASPO and the wider peak oil movement to a Loch Ness Monster Society, dedicated to establishing the existence of this fabled creature. They organise conferences, scientific searches of the loch, write papers and journals, and then one day, an entire, intact Loch Ness Monster washes up on the shore. Then what? They have no reason to exist any longer, their whole raison d’etre vanishes overnight.

Dilemma and denial

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A couple of weeks ago Jerry Mander and I were discussing the best word to use in the heading for the back cover copy of a new short book being co-published by International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, Searching for a Miracle: “Net Energy” and the Fate of Industrial Societies (I wrote the main text, Jerry wrote the Foreword). Jerry liked the word “conundrum,” while I argued for “dilemma.” We were in basic agreement, though, about a word we didn’t want: “problem.”

Sustainable, local, and urban ag just keeps on growing – Oct 8

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-The First Review of ‘Local Food’
-Eat Locally Grown Food All Year
-Rethinking the Front Yard: Cities Make Room For Urban Farms
-Growing a Revolution
-Smaller cities seen leading the way in urban agriculture
-Planting The Seeds For Sustainability