Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
At an International Energy Forum meeting in Cancun, Mexico, the world’s energy ministers and oil producers are trying to agree on ways to prevent oil price spikes in the immediate future – although at least one economist is predicting “triple-digit” oil later this year.
I invested a lot of time into finding our post-carbon landing pad. I tend to side with realtors on this one: location, location, location.
– Falkland Islands drilling disappoints for Desire
– Books about oil: FT says we’ll be slower, more local
– How the majors see ‘business as usual’ on oil and climate
– Postponing peak oil with Fatih Birol, chief economist of the IEA
– Highlights from the first year of the FT Energy Source blog
The world’s energy ministers are currently discussing a forecast of global oil supplies “peaking between 2020-2025.” The International Energy Forum is the world’s largest gathering of Energy Ministers, who collectively represent “more than 90 per cent of global oil and gas supply and demand.” It is meeting March 29 –31 at the Mexican resort of Cancun. It will be considering peak oil with a document titled Unpacking Uncertainty: Investment Issues in the Petroleum Sector, written by “strategic advisors” PFC Energy, chosen to give an impartial overview of the various oil supply claims.
Bound by the tangled cord of its own sins, Industrial Civilization sits immobilized — with the gun of reality pressed to its temple. Monumental changes are imminent – probably (hopefully) a swirling mix of both bad and good. In order to maintain our present sanity and maximize chances for the best possible futures, we need to both envision and embody the positive change we wish to see in the coming post-carbon era. As such, I suggest this: a return to life at a proper ‘human’ scale, the reclamation of functional human communities, and the widespread internalization and application of a true morality.
-Martin Crawford and me speaking at the Launch of ‘Climate Friendly Food’
-Churches partner with ‘transition town’ environmental movement
-Lexicon of Change: The Rise of Transition Culture
As a historian, Carolyn Baker has a keen eye for current events that are indicators of the collapse we’re seeing all around us. But she’s also a psychologist concerned about how we personally navigate the turbulence and find meaning within it. The author of Sacred Demise: Walking the Spiritual Path of Industrial Civilization’s Collapse, she describes the old story that isn’t working anymore (humans are separate from nature), and the new story we must live by for real sustainability.
A weekly review including:
– Production and prices
– UK Summit on Peak Oil
– Iraq’s Elections
– Quote of the Week
– Briefs
My dear ones, your generation will face a series of environmental challenges that will dwarf anything any previous generation has confronted. I’m hoping to add some insights of my own based on things I learned as a policymaker in the 1950s and ’60s, when I observed and participated in some monumental achievements and profound misjudgments. As a freshman congressman in 1955, I regrettably voted with my unanimous colleagues for the Interstate Highway Program. All of us acted on the shortsighted assumption that cheap oil was super-abundant and would always be available.
According to an article in Le Monde on March 25, the US Department of Energy “admits that ‘a chance exists that we may experience a decline’ of world liquid fuels production between 2011 and 2015 ‘if the investment is not there.'” This bombshell emerged in “an exclusive interview with Glen Sweetnam, main official expert on the oil market in the Obama administration.”
As production of the economy’s critical natural resource approaches its zenith, the utility of financial deals moves toward its nadir.
When we started this endeavor, about two years ago, I could barely distinguish between a hammer and a zucchini. And that tells you all you need to know about my construction skills as well as my gardening skills. As I’ve pointed out many times before, if I can do this, I can hardly imagine somebody who can’t. But you’d better get cracking. The time to plant a garden is not when you’re hungry.
