Who killed economic growth? – Animated Video

Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. Richard Heinberg propose a startling diagnosis: humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits.

When oil and gas are depleted

In this year, 2011, we are enjoying a lifestyle beyond the most optimistic dreams of past generations. We are benefitting from the whirlwind of achievements in science and technology during the last hundred years. There has never been a century like the one just passed, and there will never be another like it. Lifestyles will be very different when oil and gas are depleted.

ODAC Newsletter – July 29

Profits were up at the supermajors again in Q2 as high oil prices offset the rising cost of new production. Shell’s Peter Voser said that high prices were having an effect on demand for oil, especially in Europe – this could be seen reflected in flat UK growth figures and weak numbers even for major German manufacturing companies.

The scourge of ‘peak oil’

Energy derived from oil reaches, quite literally, every aspect of our lives. From the clothes we wear, to the food we eat, to how we move ourselves around, without oil, our lives would look very differently. Yet oil is a finite resource. While there is no argument that it won’t last forever, there is debate about how much oil is left and how long it might last.

Cut energy demand to meet shortage

Between April last year and March this year, the world was struck by three Black Swan events that ‘everyone’ knew would happen, yet, strangely, seemed unprepared for when they did. The Gulf of Mexico oil leak, the political upheavals in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) region and the earthquake-tsunami-nuclear tragedy in Japan are already inflicting history-altering impacts, not the least, because they have significantly and immediately reduced the world’s supply of cheap energy.