Solutions & sustainability – Sept 23

New system could help avert collapse of fisheries
Peak climate (audio) Part 1 is Dr. Peter Ward on past extinctions & violent climate change, Part 2 is Julian Darley, founder of the Post Carbon Institute, on how to live past the energy crisis
Isle of plenty

The evolution of peak oil coverage – a grassroots view

These are the slides and text for a presentation given at the ASPO-USA conference September 21-23.

In these ten minutes, I’d like to provide a context for the discussion. I’d like to paint a broadbrush picture of where we were, and where we are going. It will be from the viewpoint of someone inside the movement looking out.
From the grassroots, rather than from the media.

America’s Achilles Heel: A Tale of Two Gulfs

Americans may have a vulnerable Achilles heel made up of two gulfs: the Gulf of Mexico and the Persian Gulf .

This paper will look at how hurricane activity in the Gulf of Mexico, and a selection of other world events in the Persian Gulf, could turn off the oil spigot and bring the USA to a critical standstill, highlighting the urgency for the development of a different civilization, free of addiction to massive doses of oil.

Interesting times and oil prices

A good deal of the recent short term weakness in oil prices has been due to forced selling of energy holdings, which can only continue for so long, until fundamentals reassert themselves, and I expect that an accelerating net export decline will outpace the decline in demand, resulting in higher oil prices.