Oil

Reflections on two days with Stoneleigh

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When an international peak oil celebrity comes through Totnes, Rob Hopkins often posts a brilliantly insightful interview with carefully crafted questions and thoughtful interchanges. Last week, Nicole Foss (pen name “Stoneleigh”) came through Los Angeles. Rather than sitting down for an hour or so of focused interview like it sounds Hopkins does, ours was a multi-day visit unfolding amid the stark realities of our Transition operations.

Why localisation is a key part of the answer. An article from today’s Guardian online…

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Last week it emerged that the Department of Energy and Climate Change, whose official position remains that “we do not have any contingency plans specific to a peak in oil production”, was actually stating in internal documents released under the Freedom of Information Act that “it is not possible to predict with any accuracy exactly when or why oil production will peak”.

Less heat, more light on peak oil

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“Because money talks and BS walks, if the hydrogen economy was an apprentice working for Donald Trump, it would’ve been fired in the first season.” This is just one of the pearls of wisdom from Transition Voice’s new “Snarky Guide to Peak Oil.” It’s got the facts you need to debunk energy myths and the attitude you need to defuse a heated discussion with a smile.

300 ans d’energies fossiles en 300 secondes

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Dubbed French version of Dubbed French version of the PCI video ‘300 Years of FOSSIL FUELS in 300 Seconds’. L’histoire humaine des 300 dernières années dont le développement repose sur les énergies fossiles.

Global Youth Uprising: Dashed Hopes, Anger, and Realism

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Media reports often fail to connect recurring demonstrations in Greece and Spain with those in the Middle East and North Africa (Tunisia, Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Libya, Bahrain). After all, the MENA demonstrations are ostensibly about democracy, while European countries already have functioning electoral systems. Protestors in Greece and Spain are instead decrying austerity programs resulting from governmental efforts to rein in deficits and debt burdens.

Commentary: Slam on the brakes!

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We’re not talking about slamming the brakes on fossil fuels. Even as our contribution to creating Peak Oil awareness begins to see a little light (at least in some circles), I am concerned that we will be so worried about saving our own bacon or appearing to be rational that we will fail to take posterity into account. If we are to save just a little oil for our children, we need to just plain stop using oil (gas, coal).

Review: Reinventing Collapse – Revised and Updated by Dmitry Orlov

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Neither an economist nor a formally trained scholar, Dmitry Orlov is perhaps best described in his own words, as “more of an eyewitness” to the phenomenon on which he writes. He’s a Russian émigré who saw the Soviet Union fall firsthand and has been drawing on this experience in warning of the coming U.S. collapse. He came to fame five years ago with a smash-hit Internet article that won him a loyal following and a subsequent book deal. The book, Reinventing Collapse, is now in its second edition—and regardless of how well it holds up to scholarly scrutiny, it’s admirable in its wit and prodigious street smarts.

The Shrinking Pie: Post-Growth Geopolitics

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As nations compete for currency advantages, they are also eyeing the world’s diminishing resources—fossil fuels, minerals, agricultural land, and water. Resource wars have been fought since the dawn of history, but today the competition is entering a new phase. From Richard Heinberg’s new book ‘The End of Growth’.

Deus ex Machina: Will economic collapse save us from climate catastrophe?

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A new paper by NASA’s James Hansen suggests that immediate and drastic declines (ca. 6% annual) in industrial CO2 emissions are required to avoid catastrophic climatic destabilization. As no realistic political solution exists for such immediate CO2 reduction, prospects for a livable future have now become dependent on a single back-breaking option: rapid global economic collapse. And in ‘Deus ex machina’ style, we may get it just in time.