Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Peak oil before 2020 a ‘significant risk’, say experts
-Era of cheap, easy oil is over, warns study
-UKERC Report Exposes Bankruptcy of Government’s Position on Peak Oil
-Peak Oil: The End Of the Oil Age is Near, Deutsche Bank Says
This post introduces the U.S.-based Mobilization for Climate Justice, as well as similar critiques and activism associated with this Climate Justice coalition. As I indicate, the organizers in and around that coalition also address a range of energy & carbon issues (including tar sands pollution, and biofuel land grabs) — along with interrelated and more apparent global warming concerns. Their approach to these ecological issues is based on prior environmental justice critiques and activism, as well as wider opposition towards corporations, and other international market structures.
How secure is our civilization’s accumulated knowledge? It is a question that, in a fundamental sense, transcends many life-and-death concerns (threats of sickness, natural disaster, or military invasion) that prompt us collectively to spend fortunes on insurance, health care, and weaponry.
Lester Brown released a new book this week called Plan B 4.0, Mobilization to Save Civilization. The book is for sale, but it can also be downloaded free as a PDF.
I participated in a conference call with Lester Brown, in which he talked about the book, and several of us asked questions. In this post, I will give you at least a brief introduction to the book.
-UN sees rise in ‘land grab’ for food security
-The Coalfield Uprising
-Jumpin’ Jack Verdi, It’s a Gas, Gas, Gas
Last week Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi revealed the secret for economic recovery, everlasting happiness and you-name-it. The secret — keep oil prices at $75 a barrel — turned out to be so simple it is surprising we didn’t think of it ourselves.
As global energy availability begins to decline over the next several decades, energy-intensive industrial methods of food production will have to be transitioned to regenerative practices that 1) sponsor their own energy, 2) build soils and 3) produce in abundance.
-The power of nightmares
-That’s Not the News: Clinton’s “Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy”
-Greenwald Film on Afghanistan Destroys the Logic of the War, Leading the New York Times to Whine
-Book Review: ‘Mannahatta’ by Eric Sanderson
-How to Save the News
Expecting or wanting oil prices to be “low or moderate” is at best incongruous, and at worst naive in the current economic, financial and political context.
-Arctic seas turn to acid, putting vital food chain at risk
-New Analysis Brings Dire Forecast Of 6.3-Degree Temperature Increase
-Imagining Climate Solutions
-Rich countries ‘must slash living standards’ to fight climate change
-Tipping towards the unknown
-No rainforest, no monsoon: get ready for a warmer world
What follows is four questions from an interview recently filmed in London by ASPO-USA’s Dave Bowden and Steve Andrews…“So I worry about peak oil. I worry about climate change. And I need no persuasion of the power of the alternatives to do something about both problems.”
A weekly review including:
– Production and prices
– Oil and recession
– Iran
– China expands overseas
– Quote of the Week
– Briefs
