A Sense of Déjà Vu
By John Michael Greer, Ecosophia
Once again, only a handful of people are warning that petroleum is a finite resource and that fracking was a temporary fix at best, and all right-thinking people dismiss them as cranks.
Tag: Resource Depletion
Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet: Review
By David Crossley, Resilience.org
The message in this book is simple: There are hard physical limits to the growth of available energy to power our civilization and these will probably be seriously in effect by the end of the 21st century.
Running out of Ice on the Moon. The Path of “Resource Depletion” in the Memesphere
By Ugo Bardi, The Seneca Effect
Thomas Huxley said that "it is the customary fate of new truths, to begin as heresies, and to end as superstitions." It is a sentence that describes the cycle of ideas, -- call them memes -- which tend to have a life-cycle similar to that of living creatures. They are born, grow, and disappear.
Textbook Tour: Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet
By Tom Murphy, Do the Math
In this post, I take a bit more time to introduce new elements in the book that Do the Math readers have not seen represented in some form in earlier posts. In other words: what new insights or calculations lurk within the book?
Why Don’t Lions Chase Mice: review
By Brian Davey, Feasta
This short book by Tim Watkins is sub titled “An Introduction to Energy-Based Economics”. Perhaps it is worth noting that this is not the same as being an introduction to energy economics and many of the topics in the book would seem a strange choice of topics for an energy economics textbook – the theory of money, for example, or a chapter to explain the economic history of the last few centuries and decades.
Review: Collapse Now and Avoid the Rush by John Michael Greer
By Frank Kaminski, Mud City Press
Like John Michael Greer’s numerous other books on the subject of industrial civilization’s demise, this one reveals its author to be an astonishingly gifted guide to a future that most people refuse to contemplate.
Helium is a finite resource—who knew?
By Kurt Cobb, Resource Insights
Helium makes for fun at parties with balloons that float around the room. But a growing shortage is becoming deadly serious for those who need helium for critical applications. And, the shortage suggests that other rare, but critical materials needed for our modern infrastructure might not be so easy to replace.
Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise
By Nafeez Ahmed, Insurge Intelligence
Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.
The Next Financial Crash is Imminent, and China’s Resource Crisis could be the Trigger
By Nafeez Ahmed, Insurge Intelligence
As long as mainstream economic institutions remain blind to the fundamental biophysical basis of economics, they will remain in the dark about the core structural reasons why the current configuration of global capitalism is so prone to recurrent crisis and collapse.
Blind Spot and Fuel: a Review of Two Peak Oil Documentaries from 2008
By Frank Kaminski, Mud City Press
These two documentaries on the world oil crisis came out in 2008, a time of growing concern over humankind’s energy future. In the decade since then, public interest in the issue has waned, but the relevance of these films hasn’t...
Trump Takes Italy by Storm: the Rise of Matteo Salvini and of the Italian Right
By Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's legacy
With enormous changes going on worldwide, with the ecosystem collapsing, with natural resources dwindling, with the human population still expanding, we may be rather facing a Seneca Collapse that will make short work of the European nation-states, just as the current crisis is destroying the American Empire.
New Rare Earth Resources: A Non-Solution For A Non-Problem
By Ugo Bardi, Cassandra's legacy
Any report on mineral availability that starts with "a semi-infinite deposit" should be taken with great caution - it reminds of when Julian Simon said that we have oil for "six billion years". About this report on rare earths, I'd say that calling it "clueless" is way too kind.