Oil

Temporary Recession or the End of Growth?

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Everyone agrees: our economy is sick. The inescapable symptoms include declines in consumer spending and consumer confidence, together with a contraction of international trade and available credit. Add a collapse in real estate values and carnage in the automotive and airline industries and the picture looks grim indeed.

The Department of Redundancy, Redundancy Department

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Today I’m starting another Adapting-In-Place Class, beginning with the basics of evaluating whether you have a future where you are, what your other choices are, and then triaging your situation, but I’ve already written a good bit about those things, so I want to a basic and essential element of triage – establishing redundant systems.

The Real Dirt on Organic Food

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The findings in last weeks’ FSA report that there is little to choose between organic and “conventional” food in terms of the major nutrients is hardly a surprise. For many including myself, less rigidly defined labels such as “local” and “chemical-free” have been more important especially if we can see for ourselves how the food is grown.

Review: Blackout by Richard Heinberg

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Richard Heinberg’s new book Blackout tries to demolish current assumptions about the world’s remaining coal endowment: namely, that it is immense beyond belief, barely tapped and will last for centuries to come. Heinberg argues that these assumptions are off-base, misleading and not at all supported by recent studies that suggest global coal production could peak in less than two decades.