Fossil Fuels

Interview with Sadad al Husseini: Part 2—“A lot of Money = a Little Oil”

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This interview with Dr. Sadad al Husseini was filmed and produced in London on September 21 by ASPO-USA’s Dave Bowden, with Steve Andrews along on his own time and dime to ask some questions. Sadad is a geologist by training and a reservoir engineer—production engineer—by actual work experience. He started with Saudi Aramco back in 1970 and retired in 2004. Most of his time was spent with exploration and production activities but also in project management. Since he left, Sadad has worked as a consultant.

Whither Resilience and Transition? Why ‘Peak Oil’ Has Yet to Outlive its Usefulness

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It’s been a fascinating few days. Early in the week, Nate Hagens and Sharon Astyk were suggesting that perhaps the term ‘peak oil’ has outlived its usefulness, given that we have almost certainly peaked, and that the peak oil movement needs to shift its focus. It echoed something I wrote a while ago, likening ASPO and the wider peak oil movement to a Loch Ness Monster Society, dedicated to establishing the existence of this fabled creature. They organise conferences, scientific searches of the loch, write papers and journals, and then one day, an entire, intact Loch Ness Monster washes up on the shore. Then what? They have no reason to exist any longer, their whole raison d’etre vanishes overnight.

The Speech Obama Needs to Give (…in which he renounces Industrial Civilization)

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What if Obama told us the truth about our civilization? …In one illuminating sense, our civilization’s future is a probability distribution. Unfortunately, a host of not-so-nice futures are more probable than others at this point. …So trouble’s a-comin’ in what will likely be a many-act play headed downward over the next few decades — it just remains to be seen what costume it’ll be wearing in each scene. At some point the general public may be told the truth about our predicament — but maybe not. I suspect the revealing of the truth would be a sort of last-resort for those in power to try to keep things together. This speech is my take on “telling the truth.”

Food & agriculture – Oct 12

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-Scrumping for apples
-Grass-fed beef: One steer’s organic journey from ranch to dinner
-In Search of Wildlife-friendly Biofuels: Are Native Prairie Plants the Answer?
-6 Facts About Native Bees
-Cuba Pins Hopes On New Farms Run for Profit
-The Other Inconvenient Truth: The Crisis in Global Land Use

Resources and anthropocentrism

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Evolution demands short-term thinking focused on individual survival. Most attempts to overcome our evolutionarily hardwired absorption with self are selected against. The Overman is dead, killed by a high-fat diet and unwillingness to exercise. Reflexively, we follow him into the grave.

Dilemma and denial

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A couple of weeks ago Jerry Mander and I were discussing the best word to use in the heading for the back cover copy of a new short book being co-published by International Forum on Globalization and Post Carbon Institute, Searching for a Miracle: “Net Energy” and the Fate of Industrial Societies (I wrote the main text, Jerry wrote the Foreword). Jerry liked the word “conundrum,” while I argued for “dilemma.” We were in basic agreement, though, about a word we didn’t want: “problem.”