Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Oil and gas exploration falls to lowest level in five years
-World Future Energy Summit-Christophe de Margerie: Big Oil’s Straight Talker
-Have we reached peak oil?
-Oil Shortages to Reappear in 2011, Goldman Sachs Says
A weekdly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Record Asian demand
-The Alberta oil sands
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
-Emissions from UK food industry far higher than believed
-Poachers Arrive at Egg Farms
-Striking a bargain: With supply limited, state targets water demand
-Will Anyone Stand Up For American Industry?
-The Key to Local Food Systems’ Survival: Strong Community Support
‘Eco’ packaging
-Google defies Chinese censors after cyberattacks on Gmail accounts of activists
-Public Produce: Filling the Sidewalks with Fruit Trees
-As the World Burns
-Movie Review Friday: The Road
-A New Eden, Both Cosmic and Cinematic
-Photo Gallery: Homes for a Changing Climate
In one of my favorite non-science fiction novels, “Freddy and Fredericka“, the future King and Queen of England are dropped naked from an airplane into America as sort of a rite of passage. Though heir to the throne and infinitely wealthy back home, Freddy must use only his wits, skills of persuasion and physical abilities to somehow rise to the unlikely position of the leader of the USA – if he manages this, basically from scratch, he will then have earned the throne of England not only due to hereditary decree but via his own merits.
It has been 18 months since we all worried very much about high oil prices. Starting in July 2008 gasoline prices took an historic plunge dropping from a U.S. average high of $4.11 a gallon all the way down to $1.70 in January 2009.
Oil prices began the year with a rally, reaching nearly $84 a barrel as temperatures across much of the northern hemisphere required the heating to be turned up a notch.
As others have pointed out, many of Haiti’s problems have been related to its population density, associated environmental degradation and its need for cheap energy. Now, with the worst earthquake shaking the Caribbean in 200 years, we must sadly add another chapter to the Haitian book chronicling the linkage between its human and ecological disasters.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China’s Economy
-Oil Demand Seems to be Moving Up – Are Higher Prices around the Corner?
-To Slow Growth, China Raises an Interest Rate
-Chinese Transportation Growth
-US raises concern over China oil policy
The economy is subordinate to nature and not vice versa.
Taped in late 2005 before Peak Moment began, this conversation feels eerily prescient about the effects of the 2008 financial collapse. William Stewart reflects on the shadow side of the fossil fuel bonanza, which enabled hyper-individualism and mobility that have shredded our connections to community and place, along with increased violence and dysfunction. Likening our oil-dependent culture to an addict who must first bottom out, he suggests there may be a silken lining after collapse: the possibility of more communal and connected ways of life.
