Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A collapse in demand for petroleum products happened in the late 1970s and early 1980s. JD, proprietor of the blog Peak Oil Debunked, examined this briefly in this 2007 post about what he termed ”The Big Glitch”…
A few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to do a freewheeling, videotaped chat with StockTwits founder Howard Lindzon on the present and future realities of energy…Topics included peak oil, the end of economic growth, reversing globalization, oil prices, alternatives, and lots of other topics.
One of the foundational challenges of any social movement is “changing the conversation.” That is, transforming an existing paradigm (say, some people are less than human and can be enslaved) to a new paradigm (all people have an inherent right to liberty).
There’s some fascinating new research about “CO2 domes,” invisible clouds of carbon pollution that hover above urban areas.
A little while ago, Alex Steffen of World Changing offered a critique of the permaculture-inspired Transition Towns initiative–a grass-roots, peak oil/climate change adaptation movement that has gone viral around the world in the past three years . . . Steffen would describe these people as “dark greens,” a brand of environmentalist who emphasizes local community action but can tend toward collapse-thinking or doomerism.
The Sooke Harbour House is a 28-room inn in Sooke, British Columbia which has been owned and operated by Frederique and Sinclair Philip since 1979. The inn is home to a restaurant that has led the way in Canada (if not North America) in the practice of sourcing local and wild-crafted foods…Deconstructing Dinner’s Jon Steinman visited the restaurant to learn more about the restaurant’s unique approach…(Also) in this segment we hear a talk from Slow Food founder Carlo Petrini and discuss the Slow Food Canada organization with Canada’s international representative Sinclair Philip.
In January of this year, American political consultant Dr. Frank Luntz released a 17-page talking points memo titled “The Language of Financial Reform,” in which he urges opponents of bank reform to reframe the effort as a mishmash of bailouts, loopholes and bureaucracy. In short order, Luntz-listening legislators lined up to shout “BLACK” at the kettle, before returning to their work crafting endless loopholes to bail out campaign contributors in their home states. I read the memo upon its release and promptly tossed it in my compost bin (I’m always short on browns).
The most telling sign that the United States is well down the road to ruin is the jobs situation. I’m about to tell you some seriously depressing stuff, so get ready.
A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China
-Smile now, cry later
-Perils of the Stationary State
-Erik Assadourian: our society needs some serious cultural engineering
-Who negotiates for nature?
-Outer Ring Suburbs and the Permanent Foreclosure
-Designing Cities for People: Farming in the City
-Cleveland’s Comeback
-The secret mall gardens of Cleveland
-10 Land-Use Strategies to Create Socially Just, Multiracial Cities
The United States Joint Forces Command regularly (about every two years) issues its “perspective on future trends, shocks, contexts and implications for… the national security field.”…Amid the multitude of security threats, energy has moved rapidly to the forefront, and it is the oil supply issue which is the focus of this review.
