Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
FTW Science Editor Dale Allen Pfeiffer sets out a detailed picture of the climate change issue and its paramount importance. Part two will consider the dreadful convergence of global climate change and the peak of global oil production.
The Statement is designed to be published in national and local newspapers, news magazines, the United Nations, NGO newsletters, and any other organ of public discussion.
A study of the impact on China’s economy of an oil price shock ($95 per barrel) published in a Rand Corporation report. See link for full text.
An interesting email discussion between Richard Duncan and Richard Heinberg concerning Duncan’s Olduvai Theory of industrial collapse.
Predictions of imminent oil shortages have been made throughout the 20th century. Although all previous predictions have been false, in recent years a new generation of predictions based on the Hubbert model have become ascendant and attracted media attention.
In 1973 and 1979 a pair of sudden price increases rudely awakened the industrial world to its dependence on cheap crude oil. Prices first tripled in response to an Arab embargo and then nearly doubled again when Iran dethroned its Shah, sending the major economies sputtering into recession. Many analysts warned that these crises proved that the world would soon run out of oil. Yet they were wrong.
Even the most productive sustainable systems imaginable would never sustain large-scale cities, a global economy, and Western material affluence even if all the conventional energy conservation strategies were to be adopted. This is a bitter pill to swallow for Westerners raised on the notion of material progress.
Duplicate entry/ See Coal – July 2.
