Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
-Debate about peak oil is misleading
-Saudi provides realistic outlook on energy future
-OAPEC to spend $133 bn on boosting refinery output
-Abu Dhabi to invest $10 bn on green projects
-UNDP Arab Human Development Report 2009
-The Transition Towns Movement; its huge significance and a friendly criticism
-Responding to Ted Trainer’s Friendly Criticism of Transition
One national moment-of-nausea this Labor Day weekend struck Sunday morning, when CNN’s John King led off his 10 a.m. State of the Union show with a valentine to ABC’s Diane Sawyer, on her becoming anchor of that network’s evening news. (This was the most important news of the week???) The old legacy networks have taken on the role of dishing out reassurance to an anxious and insecure public as job number one, and the subtext of the Sawyer lede was that a Mommy figure would soon be in place to soothe the multitudes even as the nation free-falls into bankruptcy and disorder.
…I don’t know if Baker’s statement reflects an “eternal truth”, but oil is undoubtedly a very important component of the global economy and energy (along with food) is a key non-discretionary essential without which we couldn’t sustain our current standard of living. Unlike Europe, the US is still addicted to cheap oil, so the impact of price spikes tends to be felt much more acutely here than it does in the EU or UK…
-Van Jones’s Ousting: A Wake-Up Call for Green Economy Advocates
-White House Official Resigns After G.O.P. Criticism
-Thank you, Glenn Beck!
-How Bad Will It Get?
-Building the Ownership Society
-China and the buzz of a pending bank default
-States of shock
-Recession moves migration patterns
Robert L. Hirsch is the lead author of a seminal report–Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation & Risk Management—written for the US Dept. of Energy’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (DOE, NETL) and released in early 2005. He has remained very active with respect to his concerns about peak oil. ASPO-USA’s Steve Andrews tracked him down last week and posed some questions about the report, then and now. Bob will be a presenter at the ASPO-USA conference in Denver next month (October 11-13).
India’s Ministry of Environment and Forests has released a quick set of five studies to support the Indian government’s claim that it can quickly grow its economy without destabilising emissions negotiations. The intention is clearly to take a ‘scientific’ stand at the Copenhagen meeting in December to project the central government objective of steady GDP growth. Although India’s climate arguments versus the west are allied with China’s, the People’s Republic has publicly been more diplomatic.
-Climate Change, Drought and India’s Looming Food and Water Crisis
-Half India’s land degraded: agro-chemicals partly to blame
-Delhi trade talks face familiar foe as India’s farmers prepare to protest
A common refrain today is how ‘the government’ needs to do something; the openly voiced belief that those in authority hold all the power, while the ‘common folk’ are merely cogs who have no strength to change anything…It is the power of people – not ‘the’ people, merely people in general, as a whole, who are willing to stand up in defiance of this short-sighted and greedy behavior. It is their courage in the face of an oppressive, world-straddling civilization, one built upon exploiting the poorest to benefit the richest, that now stands as the battlefield in the age-old struggle between the kingmakers and the common folk.
-UK lags behind as global economy emerges from recession
-UN: Rich countries will suffer unless they help poor on climate change
-‘Job not done’, Darling tells G20
-Doha Round: it’s important to have some clarity on a road map
Former oil and gas analyst Jan Lundberg says declining energy and climate ends globalization. It’s time to launch the lifeboats of localization and sustainable energy. Why big government can’t fix it — and why do we need big government at all? Lundberg sees an inevitable rebuild from his website culturechange.org.
