Geopolitics & Military

Review: Reinventing Collapse – Revised and Updated by Dmitry Orlov

by

Neither an economist nor a formally trained scholar, Dmitry Orlov is perhaps best described in his own words, as “more of an eyewitness” to the phenomenon on which he writes. He’s a Russian émigré who saw the Soviet Union fall firsthand and has been drawing on this experience in warning of the coming U.S. collapse. He came to fame five years ago with a smash-hit Internet article that won him a loyal following and a subsequent book deal. The book, Reinventing Collapse, is now in its second edition—and regardless of how well it holds up to scholarly scrutiny, it’s admirable in its wit and prodigious street smarts.

Heeding the warnings of environmental Reveres

by

Pathetically the media has been awash with New York Congressmember Anthony Weiner’s string of electronic sexual peccadillos. Punctuating the sensationalism, and between the TV commercials from the oil, gas, coal and nuclear industries, are story after story of extreme weather events. Herein lies the real scandal: Why aren’t the TV meteorologists, with each story, following the words “extreme weather” with another two, “climate change”?

Seymour Hersh on Iran’s nuclear capability, the Arab uprisings and Obama’s isolation

by

The Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh is back in the news this week with another explosive article that is ruffling some feathers at the White House. Seymour Hersh says the United States might attack Iran based on distorted estimates of Iran’s nuclear and military threat—just like it did with Saddam Hussein’s government in Iraq. Hersh reveals that despite using Iranian informants and cutting-edge surveillance technology, U.S. officials have been unable to find decisive evidence that Iran has been moving enriched uranium to an underground weapon-making center.

Also in this interview are Hersh’s views on the growing independence of US intelligence agencies, Obama’s isolation and the impact of the Arab Spring. [Excerpts]

Memorial Day, 2030

by

We will have to work as hard as possible to make sure we don’t leave a world of wars to our children. That means avoiding decades if not centuries of strife and conflict from catastrophic climate change. That also means finally ending our addiction to oil, a source — if not the source — of two of our biggest recent wars.

The case for a disorderly energy descent

by

The energy descent from peak oil production imposes decades of contraction in the global economy. An orderly contraction, particularly in the US, is not likely for a number of reasons. The decline of the oil civilization is a phenomenon and spectacle of such complexity that understanding it requires a systems perspective. This summary of the case for a disorderly contraction and its core drivers demonstrates the capacity of systems tools to show the interlocking feedback structure that shapes how this momentous change plays out over time.

ODAC Newsletter – May 20

by

There appeared to be signs of growing panic behind the latest declaration from the International Energy Agency. The statement calls on oil producing countries to increase production and reduce costs in order to avert economic crisis. To date Opec members have been insisting that the market is well supplied and that prices are being driven by speculation…

Review: A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

by

User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization shows how our major crises share the same root causes and thus can be solved only by taking into account their complex interactions. Ahmed acknowledges that in this age of specialization it’s understandable for issues like climate change and oil depletion to be studied and discussed separately—indeed, he observes that this mode of inquiry into the causes of specific phenomena has enabled many of our greatest scientific advances. But it’s also, he argues, beginning to seem like an increasingly antiquated method, preventing experts from seeing the whole picture and the public from receiving consistent information.

What is to be done? – May 9

by

– Military thinkers: for a bright American future, look to sustainability and liberalism
– Renewable Energy Can Power the World, Says Landmark IPCC Study
– Taboo Economics
– ‘The Ecological Rift’: a radical response to capitalism’s war on the planet (book review)
– Poet Wendell Berry on Mankind’s Ecological Imprint