Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– Basra in southern Iraq has been transformed – thanks to oil
– Iraq has the oil stores, but does it have the know-how?
– Behind the coup in Ecuador
– Ecuador’s economy under Correa: 21st century socialism or the New-Extractivism? (Alberto Acosta interview)
– What a Scientist Didn’t Tell the New York Times About His Study on Bee Deaths
– What Monsanto’s fall from grace reveals about the GMO seed industry
– Russia backs away from plans to break up the unique Pavlovsk seed bank
The U.S. has invested billions of dollars trying to create a controlled form of nuclear fusion that could be the energy source for an endless supply of electricity. But as a federal laboratory prepares for a key test of the latest technology, even the project’s most enthusiastic supporters concede an actual pilot fusion plant is at least a decade away.
– “How to Boil a Frog” trailer (just out)
– Finding common ground at ASPO-USA’s annual conference
– Lakoff: Notes on Environmental Communication
– It’s time to talk honestly about collapse
– Stories That Light Up The Dark
– Small Change: Why the revolution will not be tweeted.
– How to start a movement (TED Talk video – NEW)
1) There is a theoretical limit to how long a networked resource system can continue to function.
2) This limit is reached with little warning.
3) Even after the limit is approached and the squeeze on networked resources starts, the nature of the problem is not apparent to the resource producers, who are likely to say “there is still plenty of our resource available – we just need more inputs and better price signals”
The term “loosely connected systems” popped out during a talk with a friend about the Transition Town phenomenon. Curious, I traced the concept back to a paper by Karl E. Weick during the heydey of systems thinking i 1976. It appears to be a perfect organizational architecture for Transition
(excerpts and links)
This week saw the 50th anniversary of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). The anniversary finds the organisation in what at first sight looks like a fairly comfortable position…
-‘Floating Chernobyls’ to hit the high seas
-Hurricane Earl … and Floating Nuclear Plants
– Scholars Test Web Alternative to Peer Review
– Facebook faces campaign to switch to renewable energy
– Why my kids are pop-culture illiterate
– ‘Google Knows More about Us than the KGB, Stasi or Gestapo’
– Google chief warns on social networking dangers
As the effects of Peak Oil make themselves felt, they will go far beyond gas prices.
The Canadian auto industry employs around a half million people directly and indirectly, almost all of which is in Ontario. This isn’t just building and selling cars – there’s a massive manufacturing empire needed to mine the ore, make the steel and machine the parts that extends well beyond Ford or Toyota. So what do we do with two of the nation’s largest steel mills? …
If cycling is going to catch on as a major means of transportation, somebody’s going to have to start building new affordable and practical bikes. That’s where steel comes in.
– Peak oil alarm revealed by secret official talks
– What if there’s much less coal than we think?
– Peak Everything – a libertarian view
– Go solar before it’s too late!
– Think OPEC exports won’t decline? You’re living in a dreamworld
Transport Revolutions presents an ambitious vision of a world, 15 years from now, that is well on its way to kicking oil and being run on renewably produced electricity. The book’s authors, internationally recognized transport policy experts Richard Gilbert and Anthony Perl, readily acknowledge the enormity of this challenge, with transport worldwide currently 95 percent dependent on oil.
