Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
“If we do commit a sin owning slaves,” said one Alabama slaveholder in 1835, “it is certainly one which is attended with great conveniences.” You can say the same thing about using energy from fossil fuels — it may be immoral, but it sure is handy. And that’s the conundrum that Andrew Nikiforuk examines in The Energy of Slaves: Oil and the New Servitude.
In Douglas Adams’ science fiction series, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, a computer dubbed Deep Thought discovers the "answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything." Here I ponder the answer to the slightly expanded question of life, energy, the universe, and everything.
How can reporting on energy, presented as opportunity or catastrophic risk, compete against grumpy cat memes and economic woes? Is there a secret to breaking through the flood of information to make a meaningful impression on the public?
Ogg and Uck explain the pain of fossil fuels and emissions.
What’s the problem with coal and what actions can you take?
•The Great Unmentionable •Why can’t we quit fossil fuels? •The Fossil Fuel Resistance •Jeremy Grantham, environmental philanthropist: ‘We’re trying to buy time for the world to wake up’ •Clean energy progress too slow to limit global warming – report •Meet an Orion Book Award Finalist: Flight Behavior
Energy conservation is our best strategy for pre-adapting to an inevitably energy-constrained future. And it may be our only real option for averting economic, social, and ecological ruin.
Current U.S. energy policy is, in fact, a hodgepodge of disconnected policies designed for specific constituencies with no coherent goal. What never gets asked and answered definitively in the policy debate is this: What should our ultimate goal be and when should we aim to achieve it?
They say a picture is worth a thousand words. With that in mind, the 195 color, mostly full page — often double page — photographs in the Post Carbon Institute’s latest book, ENERGY: Overdevelopment and the Delusion of Endless Growth, speaks volumes beyond its gigantic sized pages about the energy and environmental predicament humanity is immersed in today.
The era of cheap oil is rapidly coming to an end, ushering in ‘economic peak oil’ – the point at which the cost of incremental supply exceeds the price economies can pay without significantly disrupting economic activity at a given point in time.
•Big Coal in big trouble as coal production costs rise •Obama, Romney avoid hard truths about energy •Japan kicks off winter energy-saving campaign •Full Text: China’s Energy Policy 2012
Somewhere in the midst of watching the Weather Channel’s reporting on the approach of Superstorm Sandy, I was struck by the lack of meteorologists saying anything about what was behind the highly unusual phenomenon that was unfolding.
