Fossil Fuels

Hope, hopelessness and faith

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For those involved in issues of sustainability, peak oil, climate change, and relocalization it might be better to feel a certain hopelessness in our situation. For hope implies dependence on forces outside ourselves. Once we abandon that hope, we can get down to the tasks at hand, the tasks that need to be done–for which we need to ask no politician or government official permission–tasks that we can get started on today. In this way hopelessness concerning the current political and economic arrangements becomes an ally.

The madness of Rome

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If you happen to be one of those techno-optimists who believe that our culture can transition to a future powered by benign alternatives by using coal or unconventional carbon-based fuels, you just might want to consider the damage caused by the extraction of these resources…

Peak oil and the psychology of work

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This is a preliminary attempt to explore the relationship between the current predicament facing humanity arising out of an exploding population facing planetary resource limitations, in other words known as overshoot, and the psychology of work inherent in the human species.

James Hansen: Good Riddance, Copenhagen. Time for Better Ideas.

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NASA climate scientist James Hansen never expected the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen to amount to much. He told the British Guardian newspaper that it would be better if Copenhagen failed. That’s because Hansen is a vocal critic of the economic policies discussed there, and he hopes Copenhagen’s failure gives the public a chance to talk about new options.

Peak oil, prices, and supplies – Dec 23

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-OPEC leaves oil production unchanged
-EIA Energy Outlook 2010 Reference Case Projects Moderate Growth in US Energy Consumption, Greater Use of Renewables, and Reduced Oil and Natural Gas Imports
-Iraq will double exports to China to satisfy thirst for oil

Copenhagen Blame Game and Wrap-up – Dec 23

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-Ed Miliband: China tried to hijack Copenhagen climate deal
-Carbon Supplicants on the Copenhagen Pilgrimage
-Review of the Year 2009: Climate change
-How do I know China wrecked the Copenhagen deal? I was in the room
-There’s No Negotiating With Nature
-BC Fossil of the Decade Awards
-Copenhagen’s failure belongs to Obama
-Clear-Cutting the Truth About Trees
-Doom and Gloom
-Mammals May Be Nearly Half Way Toward Mass Extinction

Oil, Economics, and Politics–a tangled web of consequences

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It will come as little surprise to most readers that the world is near to, or past, peak world oil production. Petroleum is so essential to the economics of transportation that many believe when oil peaks, the global economy must also shrink in terms of the total output of goods, even as the population increases. Most who study peak oil and accept the findings of the Hirsch Report do not expect a lasting economic recovery, likely for decades.