Mom, we crashed the planet

By Vicki Robin, Vicki Robin blog

The first step: admit we are powerless over this addiction to the expansive energies of money and oil. And admit that life on earth has become unmanageable.

I’m Sian, and I’m a fossil fuel addict: on paradox, disavowal and (im)possibility in changing climate change

By Sian Sullivan, Sian Sullivan blog

In the famous 12-steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and associated programmes, the first step is to recognise that you are indeed addicted. That you are bound to a substance over which you do not have control, such that this substance has become your ‘higher power’, its material qualities and structures of access determining one’s activities and choices in the world.

Lyla June Johnston: Let’s End Our National Addiction to Oil

By Tracy Barnett, Lyla June Johnston, Esperanza Project

But there is another way to live, which involves re-localizing goods and services. Please bear in mind we will have to do this either way. We can quit oil on our own now in a graceful way that our children will be proud of, or we can keep going and be forced to quit when we are not ready. Now is the time to start working together to be free from this addiction.

Petroleum Junkies of the World, Unite!

By Craig Collins, Resilience.org

I’m a fossil fuel junkie. I drive a car and use electricity. My computer, TV, telephone, refrigerator, stove, lights, water, and sewage all run on carbon-based energy.[1] All of the materials used to build my house and furniture were made with hydrocarbons. The wood, sheetrock, cement, metals, glass, wiring, pvc pipes, and other plastics were all manufactured with carboniferous energy. My high-energy lifestyle mainlines fossil fuels.

Why We Need a Fossil Free London

By Finnian Murtagh, Red Pepper

Identifying where our campaigning aims overlap through a fossil fuel lens will enable us to expel the industry on a grand scale, and in turn enable us to transform our city on an equally grand scale- fairly, cleanly, and democratically.

Thoughts of a Modern-Day (Energy) Slaveholder

By Brian Miller, South Roane Agrarian

For all intents and purposes, we are the beneficiaries of a slave economy. We may have exchanged human chattel for the energy slaves contained in a barrel of oil and the machines that consume it, but the economics work out the same and we can’t walk away without giving up status and wealth.

COP21 Fossil Fuel Addiction: A Guide for Intervention from the Climate Justice Movement

By Brad Hornick, Socialistproject.ca

Fossil Fuel Addiction is killing the planet.

Carbon Delirium: The Last Stage of Fossil-Fuel Addiction and Its Hazardous Impact on American Foreign Policy

By Michael Klare, TomDispatch

Of all the preposterous, irresponsible headlines that have appeared on the front page of the New York Times in recent years, few have exceeded the inanity of this one from early March: “U.S. Hopes Boom in Natural Gas Can Curb Putin.”

Man, Conqueror of Nature, Dead at 408

By John Michael Greer, The Archdruid Report

Man, the conqueror of Nature, died Monday night of a petroleum overdose, the medical examiner’s office confirmed this morning. The abstract representation of the human race was 408 years old.

Workfare, energy and equity

By Neil Comley, Open Democracy

Aaron Peters and Tony Curzon Price, in their important exchange about workfare, both seem to accept a basically techno-utopian view of the future of hyper-automation. But this view ignores two crucial factors which make the fundamental picture much less rosy: the environmental constraint and global-scale immiseration on a global scale. Ivan Illich's ‘Energy & Equity’ (1973) is still the right place to start to understand the nexus involved.