Fossil Fuels

The Real Dirt on Organic Food

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The findings in last weeks’ FSA report that there is little to choose between organic and “conventional” food in terms of the major nutrients is hardly a surprise. For many including myself, less rigidly defined labels such as “local” and “chemical-free” have been more important especially if we can see for ourselves how the food is grown.

Review: Blackout by Richard Heinberg

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Richard Heinberg’s new book Blackout tries to demolish current assumptions about the world’s remaining coal endowment: namely, that it is immense beyond belief, barely tapped and will last for centuries to come. Heinberg argues that these assumptions are off-base, misleading and not at all supported by recent studies that suggest global coal production could peak in less than two decades.

Commentary: Global Energy Drivers in a “Black Swan World”

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Last year the global credit crunch and its knock-on effects precipitated the sharpest oil and gas price declines in over two decades. Despite the recent $100+/ Bbl price implosion and subsequent partial recovery, we have now entered an historic inflection point—call it “practical peak oil”—in the global balance of conventional energy supplies…

Review and application of SSI study, “Known Unknowns: Unconventional Strategic Shocks in Defense Strategy Development”

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The Strategic Studies Institute (SSI) at the US Army War College has issued many stimulating research papers in recent years, several of which deal with energy security issues. Nathan Freier’s recent SSI paper (which we will examine here) does not focus on energy issues. Rather, the central purpose of his study is to present a paradigm for the examination of potential strategic shocks.

Is Canada becoming a petrostate?

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Canada’s increasing reliance on energy exports, especially oil from the Alberta tar sands, risks unsettling its politics and economy and turning the country into a petrostate–an authoritarian society in which dissent is stifled and enterprises beyond the energy sector are de-emphasized or even discouraged.