Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Fatter and ever hungrier for the latest physical comforts and social-status symbols, the average U.S. citizen is leading the world in building a global consumer society that is wreaking havoc on the world’s natural resources.
This paper details a plan with a set of three interactive and mutually reinforcing strategies designed to reduce the world’s use of carbon fuels by at least 70%, and at the same time, create millions of jobs around the world, especially in developing countries.
State energy officials cleared the way for one of the largest new power plants to be built in California since electricity deregulation with approval Wednesday of a power plant near Tracy that will produce enough energy for 1,000 homes.
A study of the impact on China’s economy of an oil price shock ($95 per barrel) published in a Rand Corporation report. See link for full text.
The weightless economy still has dirty old oil pumping through its veins, as the recent fuel blockades demonstrated, says David Fleming. In the next ten years, the growing demand for oil will permanently overtake a shrinking supply — playing havoc with price. Why are western governments doing nothing to prepare?
In 1973 and 1979 a pair of sudden price increases rudely awakened the industrial world to its dependence on cheap crude oil. Prices first tripled in response to an Arab embargo and then nearly doubled again when Iran dethroned its Shah, sending the major economies sputtering into recession. Many analysts warned that these crises proved that the world would soon run out of oil. Yet they were wrong.
