Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Frankly, when I first learned about peak oil, I was a bit freaked out. But after time, a little too much wine, a lot of research, and some productive action, I recovered, and went on to slowly change my attitude, expectations, and lifestyle to accommodate a radically different reality from the one I previously knew.
As economist Herman Daly once commented, he would accept the possibility of infinite growth in the economy on the day that one of his economist colleagues could demonstrate that Earth itself could grow at a commensurate rate.
-Past Peak Oil Travelling towards Transition
-Why Transition? Creating a Brighter Future
-The Future of our Food Supply
-‘Peak water’ could flush civilisation
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For something as critical as food, it is common sense that society should design for resilience. Reliability in food production in the face of change requires a system capable of rapid evolution. Resilience is therefore a core principle of sustainability.
It takes a long time to make big changes to society. I would argue that looking ahead 40 years, to 2050, is probably a wise thing to do for planning purposes.
A lot of things started shaking loose last week, and not just in Haiti. The Scott Brown senate seat victory in Massachussetts shook loose a Democratic “super-majority” that only had to be constructed because the US Senate stupidly turned the filibuster into standard operating procedure where it once was a seldom-used procedural dodge employed strictly by villains seeking to paralyze the chamber. Thanks to the new system, the senate is now in a continual state of paralysis.
A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and Production
-Venezuela
-China continues to grow
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
Here’s one take on key events that impacted the peak oil story during the decade of the 2000s. If you have a favorite factor that isn’t listed below, send it along; we may run a follow-up.
-Uganda oil contracts give little cause for optimism
-Iraq’s production bonanza may fuel a slide in oil
-Shell faces legal fight over Arctic wells
-Venezuela oil ‘may double Saudi Arabia’
First, we need a miraculous comprehensive substitute for crude oil. Then we need a miraculous removal of carbon from the atmosphere. We need the first miracle right now. We need the second within a generation.
Jeff Rubin, the former Chief Economist of CIBC World Markets and the author of Why Your World Is About To Get A Whole Lot Smaller built his reputation as one of Canada’s top economists based on a number of successful predictions including the housing bust of the early 90s and the rise of oil prices. In his recent book, Mr. Rubin predicts $225 per barrel oil by 2012 and with it the end of globalization, a movement towards local sourcing and a need for massive scaling up of energy efficiency.
I don’t expect any government agency to issue a regulation requiring a warning label on oil and natural gas discoveries. But the next best thing would be for journalists reporting such finds to put them into perspective using a days of world consumption figure, or if the find is natural gas that will only be marketed domestically, days of domestic consumption.
