Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The U.S. Department of State seems likely to approve a huge pipeline, known as Keystone XL to carry tar sands oil (about 830,000 barrels per day) to Texas refineries unless sufficient objections are raised. The scientific community needs to get involved in this fray now. If this project gains approval, it will become exceedingly difficult to control the tar sands monster.
If you didn’t know better, you might think the planet was simply piling on to make a point. The extreme weather events of the last year have proven little short of biblical.
Current climate and energy policy debates in the United States rarely involve historians. If you search the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s 2007 synthesis report, you will not find the words history or historical. Even so, history pervades climate and energy policy discussions. History guides policy choices, inspires proposals for action, and structures institutional development.
With little fanfare, a press release appeared last week on the website of the UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES)…There are many implications buried in this seemingly innocuous announcement. First, American readers should note that the British government recognizes that energy policy and climate change are inextricably linked so that you cannot formulate policies for one without the other…
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-China
The Obama administration is making its biggest decisions yet on our energy future and those decisions are intimately tied to this continent’s geography. Remember those old maps from your high-school textbooks that showed each state and province’s prime economic activities? A sheaf of wheat for farm country? A little steel mill for manufacturing? These days in North America what you want to look for are the pickaxes that mean mining, and the derricks that stand for oil.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-China
-Venezuela in the news
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
There are so many challenges facing us as a result of Peak Oil and related issues that it is easy to miss something important. ASPO-USA asked more than 50 leaders on Peak Oil to share what they felt was the most critical issue we’ve all been missing>, the thing every one of us should be talking about – but aren’t. The answers were eye-opening, and have started a discussion that continues. This is the second in a three part series.
The idea of economic growth as an unquestioned force for good is ingrained in the American psyche. But a longtime environmental leader argues it’s time for the U.S. to reinvent its economy into one that focuses on sustaining communities, family life, and the natural world.
Since the failure of cap-and-trade in Congress last year, many environmentalists have despaired of success in politics until a really destructive natural disaster wakes up Americans to the reality of climate change. This year’s tornadoes, floods and droughts in the US sure seem to fit the bill for climate disaster. But if you’re expecting any kind of national turnaround on the climate discussion, you’re underestimating the power of the big polluters who spread denial.
In 1978, an analyst for the Rand Corporation produced a report for the CIA predicting how long oil supplies would last–and got it exactly right.
There was a step forward this week for recognition of peak oil in the UK political agenda. Energy Secretary Chris Huhne has agreed that the Department for Energy and Climate Change and ITPOES (UK Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security) should work more closely together on peak-oil threat assessment and contingency planning.
