Media & Communications

A new Pickens plan: Good for the U.S. or just for T. Boone?

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Three years ago, with a flurry of national publicity, billionaire Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens outlined his vision of how to help wean the U.S. off imported oil. The crux of the plan was to build a massive, $1 trillion network of wind farms stretching from Texas to North Dakota, which would replace domestic natural gas used to generate electricity. The excess natural gas would then be used to power millions of American trucks and cars, thus freeing the U.S. from the shackles of OPEC oil.

How chicken farming, murder and eugenics sparked the anti-environmental revolution

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Since the financial crisis of 2008, the continued mirage of “recovery” remains forever on the horizon. The accelerating evaporation of anything resembling a social safety net for the workers of the world makes business-as-usual a less-than-sexy proposition for the majority of us. The increasingly schizophrenic behavior of our planet’s natural processes doesn’t enhance our calm either. As the calls for a change of strategy and priority for the world’s economy get louder, it makes perfect sense that the most viable and desirable option, a steady state economy, is pilloried with great vitriol.

Review of IMF analysis, “Oil Scarcity, Growth, and Global Imbalances”

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The International Monetary Fund recently released its latest World Economic Outlook (WEO), April 2011. Chapter 3 of this document is titled, “Oil Scarcity, Growth, and Global Imbalances” (36 pgs). As far as this author is aware, the IMF has not done any previous work on peak oil, and the new Outlook seems to be the first acknowledgment by the IMF that the peaking of global oil production is a situation which could be both imminent and serious.

Pour Evian on your radishes

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It is also slowly dawning on the Japanese that radioactivity is not something that can be scrubbed away with soapy water. It has a Midas touch. Everything it contacts becomes fiendishly toxic. So every drop of water, concrete, foam, rubber glove, fire hose, or anything else that comes into Fukushima’s arc becomes a lethal assassin.

The economy: Possible scenarios for the future 2

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Given that we’re entering a prolonged period of economic contraction, what comes next? In the big picture, what are some of the possible routes forward? In the last post I critiqued some of the economic thinkers mentioned by the UK’s Rob Hopkins. In this post, I highlight several — including a U.S. source — which Hopkins hasn’t mentioned on his blog.

Radioactivity in the ocean: Diluted, but far from harmless

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With contaminated water from Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear complex continuing to pour into the Pacific, scientists are concerned about how that radioactivity might affect marine life. Although the ocean’s capacity to dilute radiation is huge, signs are that nuclear isotopes are already moving up the local food chain.

Breaking the habit

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Rob Hopkins describes our fossil-fuelled industrialised lifestyle as an addiction. We’re addicted to oil. And that presents humanity with a major dilemma: we find ourselves stuck inside a destructive self-replicating system with very few ideas of how to get out of it. We can either get together and find ways to liberate ourselves, or face the consequences of a planetary meltdown. Tough call either way.