Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Hurricane Alex, the first hurricane of the season, hampered the Macondo oil well disaster clean-up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico on Wednesday and resulted in the precautionary closure of 25% of crude oil production in the area. Reports indicate however that it didn’t cause any delay to the drilling of relief wells on which so much hope rests…
A new narrative reverberating in right-wing political circles blames the Deepwater Horizon disaster on a favorite scapegoat: the federal government.
If French intellectual Jean Baudrillard were still alive to deconstruct the unfurling Gulf oil disaster, I’m sure he’d marvel at the hyperreality of it all. Me, lacking the vocabulary, I’m going to call it reality TV.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Deepwater Horizon
We support the conclusion that only by “living well,” in harmony with each other and with Mother Earth, rather than “living better,” based on an economic system of unlimited growth, dominance and exploitation, will the people of this planet not only survive but thrive.
-Exclusive: Was disregard for industry standards on BP rig worse than we thought?
-Deep Water Oil The Final Frontier
-Senate Panel Ends Liability Limits for Offshore Spills
-RBS tells clients to prepare for ‘monster’ money-printing by the Federal Reserve
-Peak Metals – What happens when we run out?
-A quiet crisis whispers of impending poverty
But here’s what I really want to say, as a psychologist, to all of you: Sociopaths lack something 95% of us have: They lack a conscience. They lack the capacity to feel empathy, to feel guilt, to feel bad about doing bad. When you lack Vitamin E(mpathy), you hate people who have it. You walk around with an expensive suit and you have a black card to pay for an expensive dinner, and you buy and sell people and marry the hottest mates around, but it’s all for nothing. You can’t attach to other people, even though you know it is something you should want to do.
From the Enron debacle to the BP catastrophe, the principal architects of our society have abused the trust they enjoy because of their specialized knowledge. It’s time, on the world stage, for the emergence of ‘omni-competent citizens’
The UK Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) published their quarterly Energy Trends document last week. It covers up to the first quarter 2010…It’s a familiar story: every year the UK’s primary energy production declines significantly. Today, primary energy production is almost half what it was at the peak just a decade ago. Has any other country, let alone major economy experienced such a speed and magnitude shift in its energy system outside wartime?
This weekend in the Washington Post, there’s an article about a couple who first met while serving in various capacities during WWII, who just celebrated their marriage in DC this weekend after a “62 year engagement.” This would be a romantic story in any context – but it isn’t a story of parted lovers who finally found each other again after decades apart. Instead, it is of two men who have lived a life almost wholly together, sharing work, family and community, but who lacked legal and social recognition.
At last report BP was making progress on the relief wells that are being drilled to plug the runaway well in the Gulf. The London Times reports that BP hopes to penetrate the casing of the leaking well and start pumping in well-sealing mud in about two weeks. Let’s hope something works.
