Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The illusion that we can control the world financial system is just one more illusion we share in an increasingly unstable world. Once that illusion is shattered, we will have to rethink carefully our assumptions about our lives, financial and otherwise.
A weekly review: Oil and the Global Economy, The Middle East and North Africa, China, Russia/Ukraine, Greece, The Briefs.
A Mid-Week Update. It has been one of the more event-filled weeks in recent memory, but so far oil prices have changed little with New York futures continuing to trade between $51 and $53 a barrel and London between $57 and $59.
What’s happening in the Chinese stock market may be the front edge of the often delayed demise of the global credit bubble. Our daily lives have become so dependent on finance that it appears governments will do anything to keep the bubble going. Can they really succeed indefinitely?
China’s environmental problems are massive and growing, but the Chinese leadership has made significant steps toward a more sustainable development. This emphasis has emerged out of a broad socialist perspective, influenced by both Marxian analysis and China’s own distinct history, culture, and vernacular.
Invoking Yellow Peril tropes over China’s carbon footprint fails to recognise the fact its energy use is tied to our consumption, the country’s coal demand is dropping and Chinese people care more about climate than we do
Energy consumption statistics hint that China may have already begun its decent into slower growth and that that growth will be much slower than almost anyone has forecast.
This week we saw three important signs of the increasingly moribund state of the fossil fuel industry.
The possibility of a new Cold War between Russia and the United States and its NATO allies brings with it the spectre of nuclear war.
Russia and China have signed two large natural gas deals in the last six months as Russia turns its attention eastward in reaction to sanctions and souring relations with Europe, currently Russia’s largest energy export market. But the move has implications beyond Europe.
Host Alex Wise caught up with Mother Jones journalists Jaeah Lee and James West to talk about how U.S. oil and gas interests are exporting fracking around the globe and how the technology may pose risks in China that even exceed those associated with coal.
Mother Jones journalists Jaeah Lee and James West spent a year investigating the ins and outs of the growing fracking industry in China. Host Alex Wise caught up with them to talk about how U.S. oil and gas interests are exporting fracking around the globe and how the technology may pose risks in China that even exceed those associated with coal.
