Dissecting those ‘overpopulation’ numbers: Part Two: the perils of per capita
Continuing our examination of the misuse (deliberate or not) of numbers and statistics by advocates of the “too many people” explanation of environmental destruction.
Media & Communications
A dialogue with Lorna Salzman – part III
In her Commentary and her Critique of the Transition Initiative/Network, Lorna Salzman questions the role of government and Transition. Ms. Salzman asserts that the Transition approach omits government. As I will attempt to explain below, our approach is far from that.
Exponential growth meets finite resources
Anyone devoted to the study of resource economics, especially peak oil, must finally abandon the comfortable foundations of geologic science and face up to the much messier and much less predictable economic side effects implied by the end of cheap energy.
Deconstructing Dinner: Exploring Ethnobiology I: Preserving traditional foodways among indigenous youth
As people throughout the Western world are increasingly seeking to reconnect with their food, there’s a lot to be learned from the many peoples who have long maintained these dynamic relationships between their sustenance and the earth. Ethnobiologists research these very relationships through a scientific lens and it’s a field of study bringing together many disciplines like anthropology,ecology and conservation to name just a few.
Interview with Chris Martenson
Chris Martenson is the creator of the “Crash Course,” an online tutorial that explores the connections between the economy, energy and the environment. After working as a research scientist, he earned an MBA and spent about a decade in the corporate world, ending as vice president in a company doing high level consulting to the life sciences industry. Then “I stumbled across the information that is now enshrined in the Crash Course and that changed my life forever.”
Notes from a “Co-creating earth based communities” workshop
The insights of process work are enormously helpful in understanding group dynamics, especially how to work with rank and power, and be creative with conflict – key skills for successful projects in all parts of Transition.
Peak oil and apocalypse then
Interview with Oxford researcher, Jörg Friedrichs, whose article “Global energy crunch: how different parts of the world would react to a peak oil scenario” is due to appear in the scientific journal, “Energy Policy.” Summary: Responses would range from predatory militarism to authoritarian retrenchment and the mobilization of local resilience.
Peak oil and supplies – June 8
-Senator confirms reports that wellbore is pierced; oil seeping from seabed in multiple places
-New oil plume evidence uncovered
-What the Spill Will Kill
-Gulf Gusher and the Price of Oil and Gasoline
-Imagining Life Without Oil, and Being Ready
-Post peak oil stress map
Free! Oil exec quote generator
We believe fears about Peak Oil to be…
a) unsupported by evidence.
b) utter rubbish emanating from cretinous doomsday cultists.
c) compellingly credible.
d) strangely arousing.
Can BP survive the Gulf spill? Can its CEO?
As we all know, Einstein went to his grave refusing to accept quantum mechanics until it was linked with a unified theory of physics. In that vein, it’s not surprising to see the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, too, setting the minds of restless geniuses to work.
Limit our oil consumption: drive less
The gusher far beneath the gulf is spouting a message that the era of easy oil is over, or they wouldn’t be drilling that deep. But there’s a response we can have other than just complaining about blackened pelicans, ruined shrimp, and tar ball beaches.
What Price Pelican?
Our energy subsidy from the stored sunlight in fossil fuels is gigantic. The chemical and kinetic energy embodied in the thick gooey condensed organic matter from past eons is, for all human intents and purposes, indistinguishable from magic. Once in a while, like now, we see the downsides to our dependency on this elixir, in this case the ecological degradation of increasing areas of the Gulf of Mexico ecosystems, and collateral damage to other species.
