Media & Communications

Enough is enough

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I have a running dialogue with my steady state friends and colleagues. The subject is best described with the metaphor of a horse and cart. I say, if we want to succeed in replacing the outdated goal of economic growth with a steady state economy, we have to put the horse before the cart. The horse is the public opinion and political will needed for this change. Without this horse, I say, we have little hope of pulling a cart of steady state policies into the economic policy arena.

Local governments prepare for peak oil; cost-competitive local businesses

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This special show highlights contributors to the Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century’s Sustainability Crises. John Kaufmann was lead staff for Portland, Oregon’s Peak Oil Task Force, and he has consulted with local governments around the continent on how to prepare for energy scarcity. He describes how local governments are planning for scarcity, and what they’re missing (hint: a lot). Michael Shuman is Director for Research and Economic Development at BALLE, the Business Alliance for Local, Living Economies. He describes the surprising cost competitiveness of local businesses, despite government policies designed to destroy them.

January selection for the Post-Apocalyptic Novel Reading Club: “Prelude” by Kurt Cobb

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There are simply too many people out there who will never sit through a talk or read a book of non-fiction about our energy situation, but who would read a novel that lays the issues out clearly in the language of fiction. Cobb took on this project, not to write a best-selling novel, but to write the kind of book you can give to your sister-in-law who won’t read the other books you want to give her!

Sixty Lame Minutes

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So, last night CBS hauled Aubrey McClendon, CEO of Chesapeake Energy, on board their flagship Sunday infotainment vehicle, 60 Minutes… McClendon told the credulous Leslie Stahl and the huge viewing audience that America “has two Saudi Arabia’s of gas.” Now, you know immediately that at least half the viewers misconstrued this statement to mean that we have two Saudi Arabia’s of gasoline.

A User’s Guide to the Crisis of Civilization: And How to Save it – A review of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed’s latest book

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Anyone who has spent much time discussing peak oil, the collapse of civilizations, climate change or modern security issues eventually confronts the issue of historical antecedents. The [Insert choice of vanished civilization here] collapsed because of X, and that’s the same thing that is happening now . . . . For those who have delved more deeply into such lines of argument, one thing becomes abundantly clear: historical civilizations did not collapse for a single reason. Fast-forward to present, and there is no shortage of commentary forecasting crisis or collapse of our modern civilization. But these analysts have failed to advance a comprehensive systems-theory approach to our civilization’s troubles. Enter Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed.

Brazilian peak oil site thanks authors who appeared in Energy Bulletin

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I am the editor and developer of the first Brazilian website focusing exclusively on Peak Oil – Pico do Petróleo – which was launched in the beginning of 2010. The site is a non-profit initiative and its content consists almost entirely of Portuguese translations of posts found on the Internet. My main source is the Energy Bulletin, which I have been following since 2006, when I first learned about Peak Oil.

ODAC Newsletter – 12 November 2010

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“The energy world faces unprecedented uncertainty”, so begins the International Energy Agency’s World Energy Outlook, released on Tuesday. The annual report from the energy watchdog guides the energy policies of OECD member countries including Britain.

Slouching towards Cancun

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Many people seem to believe that it is possible to have a rapid transition to a “low carbon economy,” based on a totally different pattern of production of energy carriers (using different primary energy sources) and a totally different pattern of consumption of energy carriers, while still guaranteeing the same set of end uses.