Energy – Jan 7
– Yglesias on Peak Oil
– Rising prices rekindle peak oil debate (Jaccard vs Heinberg)
– A shoppers guide to energy choices
Fossil Fuels
ODAC Newsletter – Jan 7
2011 blew in with strong echoes 2008 as food and fuel prices rose strongly. The UN warned food prices are reaching “dangerous levels” as the global food index rose above the level that caused widespread rioting three years ago, and the IEA’s Fatih Birol cautioned rising oil prices could derail the economic recovery. WTI is around $88/barrel and Brent crude almost $94.
Extreme weather events help drive food prices to record highs
And so the combination of peak oil and extreme weather is likely to create growing food insecurity this decade, particularly since the nation and the world have decided to take no action to address either problem.
Economics – Jan 7
-The Legacy of David Suzuki
-China’s Grey Swan is changing colors
-Capitalism and Degrowth—An Impossibility Theorem
-The Oil – Employment Link, Part 1
The Queensland flood is coming to your neighborhood
With the global oil markets tight and prices rising, any new source of demand could easily have an outsized impact on oil prices in the next few months, right down to what you pay for gasoline at your local pump. As the global energy markets become tighter and tighter, a flood on the other side of the world is enough to trigger off a shock wave that will be felt everywhere.
Peak oil notes – Jan 6
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Paying the Iranians
Energy – Jan 5
– How I learned to stop worrying and love the Saudis
– Bolivia: Morales Repeals Decree Raising Fuel Prices
– Tax on Carbon: The Only Way to Save Our Planet? (James Hansen)
– Crafting Energy Security in the 21st Century: A German View of the Challenge
They’ll serve cocktails at the oil crash
Douglas Coupland’s vision of an oil-crisis apocalypse in his novel “Player One” is so frightening because it seems so plausible. Would you like to be holed up in a tacky cocktail lounge of an airport hotel when oil hits $250 a barrel, the planes stop flying and the power goes out? And that’s just the beginning.
Peak oil and a changing climate
The scientific community has long agreed that our dependence on fossil fuels inflicts massive damage on the environment and our health, while warming the globe in the process. But beyond the damage these fuels cause to us now, what will happen when the world’s supply of oil runs out? In a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Bill McKibben, Noam Chomsky, Nicole Foss, Richard Heinberg and other scientists, researchers and writers explain.
Peak oil review – Jan 3
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Top 10 developments of 2010
-Oil and the global economy
-Briefs
The electric car fetish
Many automobile enthusiasts believe that the electric car is the wave of the future that will help save the environment while expanding the availability of private transport to the world’s growing middle class. They are wrong on both counts.
2011 predictions: a savage place
2011 lays the ground for potential conflicts and battles that will be played out unless we get much wiser much faster. The emerging attention to our collective crisis will give some of the movement a jolt of new energy, time and investment in 2011. This will be the positive consequence of all the tough stuff we’re facing.
