The following is adapted from a post to an email discussion list: Regarding last week's post to this list on ecological economics, I alluded to but didn't go into detail on a fundamental concern about a basic assumption - growth - in the anthropogenic climate change models (source for the quotation below - http://ourfiniteworld.com/2013/05/23/oil-limits-and-climate-change/).
Moving oil is a dirty business, and never has that been more clear than this past month. Since March 11, the global oil industry has had 13 spills on three continents. In North and South America alone, they’ve spilled more than a million gallons of oil and toxic chemicals – enough to fill two olympic-sized swimming pools. How bad was it? Here’s an infographic of all the...
The International Energy Agency released its annual flagship publication yesterday, the World Energy Outlook . The IEA made an historic statement in the executive summary. It said, “ No more than one-third of proven reserves of fossil fuels can be consumed prior to 2050 if the world is to achieve the 2 °C goal ”, the internationally recognized limit to average global...
It was a dreary late- September morning in the East Texas woods outside of Winnsboro, chill and drizzly. Everything was wet or damp except for the spirits of four young people sitting in a tree stand. They were perched 30 feet above the path of the Keystone XL pipeline, slated to carry very heavy and very toxic Canadian tar sands bitumen from Cushing, Okla., to refineries in Houston. The...
Thanks and Disclaimer: This F.A.Q. is taken from "Life After The Oil Crash, compiled by Matt Savinar," which is no longer online. We are aware that the solutions of L.A.T.O.C. are more "self-sufficiency"oriented, rather than with building solidarity and community, which we believe is crucial to the success of "operation planet," but for clarity of facts and addressing common objections and...
Panglossian Disorder? What on earth is that? And how does it apply to peak oil? Inspired by the eternal optimist Dr. Pangloss from Voltaire’s Candide , psychologist Kathy McMahon, who calls herself the “peak shrink,” explains on Peak Moment TV (episode 199) that she invented Panglossian Disorder. It’s a condition of people who view the post peak oil future with...
Inspired by Cord's thought-provoking post on the per gallon prices of various liquids, and by Sarah Palin's ill-informed Facebook rant on the "$4-Per-Gallon President," I decided to take a closer look at gasoline prices around the world. Mrs. Palin might be interested to learn, that the world already has quite a few $4-Per-Gallon Presidents. In fact, the world already has $6-Per-Gallon...
March 14, 2011 (1400 hrs) - Watching scenes of the devastation is emotionally taxing. Bodies continue to be found everywhere. The body count in Miyagi Prefecture alone is now over 10,000. Whole towns completely wiped off the map. Even if people escaped with their lives, those lives are now shattered. And now it looks as though the 20-year slow-motion collapse of Japan’s economy could be...
It's been a long time coming. Now it's final. Lisa Jackson and the EPA have gone to the mountaintop and announced their veto of the largest mountaintop removal mining permit in Appalachia. "This ushers in a new era of civility in the coalfields," said long-time coalfields justice leader Bo Webb. He added: "I think Judy Bonds just sent us all a little smile," referring to the recent...
The Beginning of a New Era It can no longer be labeled a crackpot theory, a distant prediction, or a doomsday scenario. It's official. Peak Oil was reached in 2006. This is the assessment of the International Energy Agency -- the intergovernmental organization that advises nearly 30 industrialized nations, including the U.S