Peak Oil Review – Dec 7
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-The natural gas bubble
-Climate change
-Briefs
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-The natural gas bubble
-Climate change
-Briefs
It should be easy to deal with climate change. There is a strong scientific consensus supported by very sound data; consensus across much of the religious and political spectrum and among businesses including the largest corporations in the world. The vast majority of people claim to be concerned. The targets are challenging, but they are achievable with existing technologies, and there would be plentiful profits and employment available for those who took up the challenge.
So what might it look like when a local authority really gets Transition? Earlier this week I received a very excitable email from Cristiano Bottone, one of the movers behind Transition Italia, and the Transition of his own town, Monteveglio, near Bologna.
I’m looking forward to the rhubarb growing season; it happens when you least expect it, as tiny shoots start to emerge from the soil, embellished in the most delightful crinkles, and bursting with every shade of pink, red and green you could imagine. You can almost smell it stewing in the pan as its red shoots push upwards and outwards.
-Todmorden’s Good life: Introducing Britain’s greenest town
-Public health benefits of strategies to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions: food and agriculture
-Farming with Far Fewer Fossil Fuels at Tillers International
-Americans Toss Out 40 Percent of All Food
“To whom much is given, much is expected” – Luke 12:48
Not deterred by the international financial crisis which became widespread in 2008 or by the many recessionary patterns that grip most country economies, financial engineers are massing in København to prepare for the next wave. This one is about the commercial opportunities which renewable energy technologies, country climate funds and sectoral mitigation programmes promise to contain.
What I’d like to do for this post is ask if government policies contribute to the troubles in the food system. I see ways in which we are we working against our own interests, akin to a giant tug of war game, where the work of one only serves to counter the work of another.
-The UK Power Generation Expenditure Forecast 2010-2030
-How many cyclists does it take to power a hairdryer?
-Energy bills could rise to more than £2,000, says Ofgem
-Solar industry ‘in limbo’ as grants dry up
-Revisiting a Fed Waltz With A.I.G.
-Elizabeth Warren Warns: Taxpayers Are “Involuntary Investors” in “Shaky” Banks, Risk-Taking Firms
-New Study Shows Ten States Face Fiscal Crisis
-Chinese Banks In The Tank
-A world awash in debt
-How Free-Market Delusions Destroyed the Economy
-Hussman Sees 80% Chance That Stock Market Will Plunge in 2010
-Reckless Myopia
-Growth Industries
A serious dispute has broken out among economists about fiscal deficits in the United States. Paul Krugman has been making the rounds on the talk shows, arguing that more stimulus spending is required to spur job creation…Jim Hamilton, whose work on oil price shocks has made him a familiar figure to those concerned about liquid fuels, is worried about the debt load the government is accumulating.