Peak oil notes – October 13
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-The oil market report
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-The oil market report
I’ve received a number of queries from young moms and others who want to know what they can do to support the #OccupyWallStreet movement even though for logistical reasons — particularly having little kids —they can’t get to New York, D.C. or even a local event. The rising tide of sympathy for good old fashioned, red, white and blue American protest is a refreshing addition to our national conversation. It’s great to know how many people back the protests, how many more are finding ways to actually physically be in one location or another to lend their voice to the chorus, and how many will do what they can from the sidelines.
I believe the key to resilience in the coming decades will be our ability, in the moment, to imagine ways around the crises we cannot prevent, predict or plan for.
I haven’t journeyed down to OccupyLA myself. In part that’s because it is quite a distance from me, and I have kids’ schedules to uphold. But deep down, those are simply excuses; really, my heart’s not in it. I see the Occupy movement as an outbursting of emotion, expressing that the existing System is horribly broken, a sentiment with which I wholeheartedly agree. But the protests, now shifting to from Wall Street to upscale neighborhoods, are a gigantic “blame game” which cannot possibly fix anything real.
We’ve just seen how the economy could be put on the right track. But sorting out the economy is not enough to save the world; that would be just the first step.
There have been, belatedly, attempts to connect the “We Are the 99%” Occupy Wall Street protests with the protests in the Mideast against anti-democratic regimes and in Europe against unemployment, austerity and government inaction. What is unique about the newest US protests (at least since the ill-fated anti-globalization protests of a decade ago), and perhaps the reason why it took so long for them to get media and public traction, is that they are anti-corporate more than anti-government.
– Meet 4 Middle-Class Americans Who’ve Been Politicized by #OccupyWallStree
– Chris Hedges: “Ketchup” describes Occupy experience and group process
– Training video for running an Occupy General Assembly
Daniel Yergin has succeeded as a historian of energy, but failed as envisioner of a tolerable future.
As the “Occupy” movement expands from the “Occupy Wall Street” protest in New York City throughout the United States, we look at its historical significance. “This is an incredibly significant moment in U.S. history,” says Dorian Warren of Columbia University. “It might be a turning point, because this is the first time we’ve seen an emergence of a populist movement on the left since the 1930s.” We also speak to Firedoglake blogger Kevin Gosztola, who has been reporting from the occupations in Chicago, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.
Nicole Foss is senior editor of The Automatic Earth web site, and an international speaker integrating topics of peak oil, economics and personal preparation. In 2001, Foss moved her family from England to rural Ontario, in order to prepare her family for peak oil and economic uncertainty. Local Future nonprofit has published to YouTube the entire 40-minute presentation by Foss on her considerations for personal preparation, in advance of her keynote presentation at the International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change: Vision, Action, Leadership.
– “I have no trouble understanding what OWS are complaining about” – Alan Grayson (former D-FL) smacks down P. J. O’Rourke
– Business Week: Wall Street, Heal Thyself
– Slavoj Žižek Speaks to Occupy Wall Street
– Robert Reich: The Wall Street Occupiers and the Democratic Party
– How #OccupyWallStreet Is Evolving and Gaining Power
– The grievance is having no voice, being invisible
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The EU’s financial crisis
-The Middle East
-The sands of Alberta
-Quote of the week
-Briefs