Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Todays prices and costs provide a very bad basis for making investment decisions because they reflect temporary relative market scarcities rather than long-run underlying physical ones. The world needs to abandon money as its measure for determining energy and economic policy if it is to invest its scarcest, most limiting resources in the best possible way.
I have a confession. I don’t read books anymore. Or rather I read books very rarely, and as I began this blog this morning I wondered was this just me, or was it a symptom of our age?
Taken as a whole, we believe that our oil metrics do a good job of assessing the totality of oil-related supply and demand risks. We do not expect the Index to be the last word on the topic, and we’re always willing to entertain new data that fit our criteria. The Index was created to provide a framework and a tool for analysts and policymakers. How would peak oil affect U.S. energy security? What would lowered export capacity mean? We hope that we have provided a means to help answer these types of questions.
Mr. Eule concludes his response by asking two very important questions: “How would peak oil affect U.S. energy security? What would lower export capacity mean?” Both issues are vital to our collective future yet they remain largely ignored by our elected officials, government agencies and mainstream media. It is hoped that both the Chamber and the EIA will address these questions in a direct and thorough manner in subsequent publications.
The future of the university hangs in the balance and the instinct to defend it against a wholesale attack seems to be an obvious response. But what is it that so many rush to defend? Could it be that rather than seize our placard shields, we should instead rejoice in the downfall of the institution? Or should we perhaps seize this opportunity to search for ways to re-imagine the university and radically transform its inner workings, to look at the actual functioning of the university, to question the kind of subjects it produces and the form of market-led ‘common sense’ that it reproduces?
I thought it might be useful to try to describe how the Internet might stumble, try to adapt, and finally fall under a collapse scenario, and what that would mean for us as we make our way through the energy, ecological and economic crises ahead.
A government of Alberta cabinet briefing note dated Aug. 3, 2011 says, “Shale gas environmental concerns in the media and in the public in other jurisdictions are potentially problematic for energy development and environmental management in Alberta.” The note also reveals that one of Canada’s most powerful lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers, has approached the Alberta government about shale gas issues in order “to enhance public communication.”
-After Tripoli, what is a petro-ruler to do? And what is China to do?
-Libya Must Shape its Own Future
-After Uprising, Rebels Face a Struggle for Unity
Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth considers global, national, local, and individual responses to an end to economic growth, but he includes few policy options for state governments. In this radio broadcast, Vermont state representative Bill Botzow, chair of the House Commerce Committee, joins Heinberg and host Carl Etnier to consider what a state can do to promote its residents’ welfare when resource constraints stall economic growth.
Nearly everyone would agree that we live in uncertain, challenging times. It seems that so much is happening so fast that it’s almost impossible to make sense of it all. We’re clearly on some kind of trajectory, but a trajectory toward what?
Wesleyan University’s Miles Bukiet paints a painful picture of lawns in the over-developed world, and interviews Ethan Roland of AppleSeed Permaculture for some green permaculture solutions.
Now is the time to put grassroots pressure on the media, especially in the states and districts of the 12 Senators and Representatives on the debt panel. Let’s seize the offensive and move the discussion of tax code changes under the framework of responsibility.
The J-14 movement in Israel and the Wisconsin Cheddar Revolution raise similar issues of security, social welfare and democracy. Both are challenged by a newly potent, yet de-classed Middle Class.
