Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
A recent front-page report by the British newspaper, The Guardian, is the latest reason why Canada needs a top-level analysis of global hydrocarbon supplies. The Guardian’s November 9th story is headlined “Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower.” The story focuses on the world’s top energy monitoring and forecasting body, the International Energy Agency (IEA).
-UN links climate with hunger
-Hungry for change
-The Links Between Food Security And Climate Change
-Agriculture in the Climate Change Negotiations, Platform Issue Paper
-The one thing depleting faster than oil is the credibility of those measuring it
-Promoting climate-smart agriculture
A weekly review including:
– The day of the whistleblower
– A New focus for the World Energy Outlook
– Production and prices
– Oil and the recovery
– Quote of the Week
– Briefs
In the Happiness Hypothesis , psychology professor Jonathan Haidt compares human brain/behavior to a man riding an elephant. There exists a complex choreography between our newer rational cortex (the ‘man’), and our older, more primitive brain structures (the ‘elephant’).
Colin Campbell, one of the worlds preeminent depletion analysts, and co-author of the 1998 Scientific American article, “The End of Cheap Oil“, drafted a reply to the Guardian on these issues. Below the fold is Dr. Campbell’s letter, which gives some relevant history as to how the oil depletion debate has unfolded over time in the worlds energy agencies.
It is well over a decade now since environmental concerns became pressing enough to command attention in almost all realms of intellectual and practical affairs, and well over four decades since environmental ethics developed as a recognizable field of study in response to a growing set of global problems. Yet in contrast to this broad trend, environmental concerns have remained at the farthest margins of bioethics. As improbable as it seems, bioethics has remained tuned out and disconnected from the ecological realities of our current world.
I decided to write another rather basic level article because there are so many people I meet who have heard a bit about the oil situation, and it is hard to point to one single article to give an overview of some of the current issues. Regular readers will find many repeats of graphs. There are some new ones, as well, from the Denver ASPO-USA conference. Because there is so much to tell, the story gets a little long.
-The most recent economic downturn is a peak oil recession
-Oil: future world shortages are being drastically underplayed, say experts
-Oil reflects dollar moves, not market dynamics: Yergin
-Is the world awash in oil?
The truth is that we have at least two central problems (the economic one is tied to both in the long term), and only people who can get their mind around the combined difficulty will have anything useful to offer. Yes, we need to know how what fossil fuels are in the ground – and we also can’t burn them rapidly. Yes, we need to address climate change – and we need to stop lying and claiming that we can have it all – a happy growth economy based on renewable energy, yada yada.
As peak oil sets in while the world is growing thirstier for oil, what benchmark should be used to assess if you are weaning yourself from oil?
The IEA 2009 World Energy Outlook, the report which informs energy policy for 28 nations, was released on Tuesday in London. The report’s key focus this year was climate change…
A front page report November 9, 2009 in The Guardian tells us that “Key oil figures were distorted by US pressure, says whistleblower.”
