Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
While the nation’s eyes are turned towards the oil tipped waves and tar balls washing up on the shores of the Gulf Coast, an altogether different energy disaster looms in California—one that might be even more damaging for the environment and our economy in the long run.
Energy used by the US food system accounted for 80% of the increase in American energy use between 1997 and 2002, according to a recent report from the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
This issue brief calls for changes in medical school culture, primarily curriculum, research and clinical practice, as a conscious response to the simultaneously ongoing fiscal/economic crisis and what E.O. Wilson has termed the Bottleneck of ecological dilemmas, shown most prominently but not exclusively as the worldwide peak in crude oil production. Together these forces will reconfigure modern society, particularly health care.
As we wait for the results of yet another effort to plug the leaking Gulf oil well, it is a good time to review the forces that are impacting on the energy markets and ultimately the cost and availability of our oil.
The cheap, easy petroleum is gone; from now on, we will pay steadily more and more for what we put in our gas tanks—more not just in dollars, but in lives and health, in a failed foreign policy that spawns foreign wars and military occupations, and in the lost integrity of the biological systems that sustain life on this planet.
Bear with me. I’ll get to the oil. But first you have to understand where I’ve been and where you undoubtedly won’t go, but Shell’s drilling rigs surely will — unless someone stops them.
-Reflections on an Oil Spill: A New Orleans Native Speaks Out
-Fishgrease: DKos Booming School
-Human Health Tragedy in the Making: Gulf Response Failing to Protect People
-Screw the Environment: BP and the Audacity of Corporate Greed
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-Deepwater horizon
-Repercussions
-Sanctions on Iran
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs
Oil spill update for May 24, including:
-What caused the disaster
-EPA weighs sanctions against BP
-Dispersants
-MMS deficiencies in Alaska
-Increasing insurance costs
Events like oil spills, the “flash crash,” volcanos, and floods will have an increasing impact on the economy and the availability of capital. Unfortunately, most money managers and other strategists do not include these factors in their plans and decision processes. They should.
The threat to the Louisiana marshlands didn’t happen last month with the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig.
The blowout and oil spill on the Deepwater Horizon in the Gulf of Mexico was caused by a flawed well plan that did not include enough cement between the 7-inch production casing and the 9 7/8-inch protection casing. The presumed blowout preventer (BOP) failure is an important but secondary issue. Although the resulting oil spill has potentially grave environmental implications, recent efforts to limit the flow with an insertion tube have apparently been effective. Continuous efforts to slow or stop the flow include drilling two nearby relief wells that may intersect the MC 252 wellbore within 60-90 days.
