Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Oath Keepers and the Age of Treason
-‘Christian Warriors’: Who Are The Hutaree Militia And Where Did They Come From?
-The Return of Christian Terrorism
-Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America
I live in a 19th century neighborhood in a small New England city. My mother-in-law, who grew up in this same neighborhood, often talks about what it was like during her childhood in the 1940s. What I find most striking about her description is how many businesses our little section of town once had. There was a grocery store, hardware store, two drugstores, a tailor, and more.
I’m sure many of you are aware that there’s been an enormous amount of hype accompanying the coming Shale Gas Revolution.
Wherever we go, and whatever we do, we find ourselves surrounded by a variety of human and animal noises: “Woof!” — “Meow!” — “Moo!” — “Baah!” — “Tweet! — “How about them Red Sox!” And, naturally, we find ourselves wondering, What are they all saying? What does it all mean? Does it mean anything at all, or is it just a lot of meaningless background noise?
Recent weeks have seen an explosion of information on peak oil – everywhere it seems except in the mainstream media. It may be in the business sections, but not the news pages.
On April 22-23, finance ministers from the G-20 countries will be meeting to tweak the international system of finance. They are planning to discuss how to regulate the financial industry and prevent future financial collapses. Perhaps they will make some progress, but they won’t get it right until they gain a better understanding of how money works.
The dandelion is a much maligned meadow plant, a native of Europe. Americans fiercely and defiantly dig out and poison this miracle plant, for no obvious reason other than they think they should. I started thinking for myself, and I have found out quite a bit about this miracle plant.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Isolating Iran
-Defense turns pessimistic
-Energy stat of the week
-Briefs
The notion of ‘peak demand’ is often invoked to suggest that the US or global economy is somehow less in need of affordable oil today or that Americans are simply finding car ownership passé. But is this really the case? Are we weaning ourselves from dependence on oil? The statistics paint a more nuanced story.
It’s fair to say that lot of people, from shale gas operators to Pennsylvania state revenue collectors, see $$$ every time they think about the Marcellus shale. Only recalcitrant environmentalists worried about polluted drinking water do not salivate at the prospect that many years of U.S. gas supply will come from the Marcellus. Today I will not deal with the environmental issues. Instead, I want to examine the view that resources in the Marcellus are a big part of the shale gas cure-all for America’s energy problems.
Steve Sorrel, Senior Fellow, Sussex Energy Group, University of Sussex in the UK has recently published a 25 page paper called Energy, Growth and Sustainability which can be downloaded at this link. This post provides some excerpts from the paper, which summarize its findings. Readers are encouraged to read the entire paper.
The Wall Street Journal reports that your Congress is considering measures that would “improve transparency and reduce risk in the derivatives market.” It is not surprising that there are obstacles to such reform. The Republicans oppose anything that might make the Democrats look good. The Big Banks oppose anything that might intrude upon their Privatize The Gains, Socialize The Losses (PGSL) business model and thus restrict their ability to take crazy risks to make obscene amounts of money.
