Fossil Fuels: Are we on the Edge of the Seneca Cliff?
It is a well known tenet of people working in system dynamics that there exist plenty of cases of solutions worsening the problem.
Resource Depletion
The Collapse of Oil Prices and Energy Security in Europe
Eventually, production must go down: there will still be oil that could be, theoretically, extracted, but that we won’t be able to afford to extract. This is the essence of the concept of depletion.
Peak mileage and the diminishing returns of technology
In the US; people are driving less. Perhaps there are behavioral factors involved, but "peak mileage" suggest that they are doing that because they can’t afford to drive more.
Energy and the Economy – Twelve Basic Principles
There is a standard view of energy and the economy that can briefly be summarized as follows: Economic growth can continue forever; we will learn to use less energy supplies; energy prices will rise; and the world will adapt.
Global justice, sustainability and the sharing economy
With public interest in the sharing economy on the rise, a polarisation of views on its potential benefits and drawbacks is fast becoming apparent.
IEA Investment Report – Stumbling on the Real Story
What the IEA has inadvertently stumbled upon is the reason why oil limits are a problem…It looks like there are plenty of resources available and plenty of ways to reduce energy use through mitigation. In fact, it becomes to impossible to finance everything that needs to be done.
Scientists vindicate ‘Limits to Growth’ – urge investment in ‘circular economy’
A fundamental reorganisation of the way societies produce, manage and consume resources could support a new high-technology civilisation, but this would entail a new "circular economy" premised on wide-scale practices of recycling across production and consumption chains, a wholesale shift to renewable energy, application of agro-ecological methods to food production, and with all that, very different types of social structures.
Thailand militarisation is symptom of accelerating global system failure
Thailand’s latest authoritarian turn is a warning to us all.
The sower’s strategy: how to speed up the sustainable energy transition
In order to survive the double threat of resource depletion and climate change we need to move as quickly as possible to a sustainable society based on renewable resources.
How Fossil Fuels Subsidize Us
“The subsidies we give fossil energy companies are a rounding error relative to the subsidies fossil energy give to society.”
The Anthropocene: It’s Not All About Us
Time to celebrate! Woo-hoo! It’s official: we humans have started a new geological epoch—the Anthropocene. Who’d have thought that just one species among millions might be capable of such an amazing accomplishment?
The Gross Society
The definition of gross I have in mind is “exclusive of deductions,” as in gross profits versus net profits. The profits we’ll be considering come in the forms not just of money but, more crucially, of energy.
