Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The September 2011 issue of the American Journal of Public Health offers several papers on peak oil. Ten years ago this special issue would have been revolutionary; five years ago it would have been an urgent warning. Its appearance in 2011, however, leaves this participant/observer disappointed.
We’ve just seen how the economy could be put on the right track. But sorting out the economy is not enough to save the world; that would be just the first step.
Daniel Yergin has succeeded as a historian of energy, but failed as envisioner of a tolerable future.
When gas fracking and other “unconventional” energy resources are discussed in the media the focus is usually on the technology used to produced the energy, or the impact this might have on the environment. In fact, the significant feature of the exploitation of unconventional energy resources is that our present energy situation is so precarious that companies and governments consider these valid energy sources; public interest demands that this aspect of the problem be examined.
Nicole Foss is senior editor of The Automatic Earth web site, and an international speaker integrating topics of peak oil, economics and personal preparation. In 2001, Foss moved her family from England to rural Ontario, in order to prepare her family for peak oil and economic uncertainty. Local Future nonprofit has published to YouTube the entire 40-minute presentation by Foss on her considerations for personal preparation, in advance of her keynote presentation at the International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change: Vision, Action, Leadership.
Increasingly, those of us who were ready to move with President Obama four years ago are deciding to leave normal channels and find new forms of action. Here’s an example: by year’s end the president has said he will make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline, which would carry crude oil from the tar sands of northern Alberta to the Gulf of Mexico.
The nation’s top climate scientists sent the administration a letter indicating that such a development would be disastrous for the climate. … But every indication from this administration suggests that it is prepared to grant the necessary permission for a project that has the enthusiastic backing of the Chamber of Commerce, and in which the Koch Brothers have a “direct and substantial interest.”
The world is doomed to repeat four-year cycles of booms followed by crashes if we don’t get off oil, Jeremy Rifkin warned a Climate One audience in San Francisco on October 3. The solution, what he calls the Third Industrial Revolution, is the “Energy Internet,” a nervous system linking millions of small renewable energy producers.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The EU’s financial crisis
-The Middle East
-The sands of Alberta
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
As we previously forecast, the decline in world oil production is likely to occur in the next 1-4 years, a year having passed since we forecast 2-5 years. Some believe that weak worldwide economic conditions will significantly extend the onset of decline. We believe that the delay will be essentially negligible.
It is with some trepidation that I prepare for a trip that includes an appearance before college students who generally find the idea of peak oil so disturbing that they do not want to even hear about it. And, I can’t blame them. They must think that I have come to destroy their dreams, dreams premised on a future of ever expanding material prosperity and career advancement.
– WaPo: Was Wall Street to blame for high oil prices?
– Yergin: The perils, prizes and pitfalls of the post-Gaddafi era of oil
– U.S. and Saudi Relations on Oil
– McKibben: The Cronyism Behind a Pipeline for Crude
In this post I’d like to begin to review Herman Daly’s notion of how to build a steady-state economy (which were ahead of their time—the first edition was written in 1977). His ideas are both deep and simple at the same time, and should be a foundation for any future economic system.
