Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
– U.S. to Delay Decision on Pipeline Until After Election
– Is the Pipeline Victory a Turning Point for the Climate Movement
– Bill McKibben on pipeline delay: We won, you won
– Depressing climate-related trends – but who gets it? (bad trend in arctic sea ice)
Media types are fond of saying that if an event doesn’t get covered, it didn’t happen. But this conference definitely happened. And what is created was a general assembly of a community, one that shows tremendous promise as a model for cross-sector collaboration. This kind of collaboration is desperately needed if we are to have anything resembling a soft landing as we head down the fossil carbon mountain.
The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
Located in the middle of the state of Maine, the Liberty Tool store carries everything from teddy bears, containers of random “stuff”— screws and whatever else can fit into the mason-sized jars — to old tennis rackets, books, and records. But it is the first floor, dedicated to tools that span the length of the industrial revolution, that is the main attraction. “We’ve got tools that date from the earliest days of the revolution to just yesterday,” owner H.G. “Skip” Brack told us.
Brack’s main focus is to help support a sustainable local economy. By salvaging up to 1 ½ tons of tools each week from around New England and reselling at affordable prices, he’s able to do just that. “I price things intuitively, but I do it so people can afford it. People around here aren’t rich, and I’m conscious of that.”
(Wonderful short video – it’ll make your day!)
I recently attended the ASPO-USA annual conference in Washington, DC. Overall, I found the presentations and discussion to be very engaging. The vibe this year had much less of a doomsday feel than last year and the topic of how best to tell an engaging Peak Oil story came up often. In the notes below I attempt to recap the sessions I attended with the caveat that these notes reflect primarily what I paid attention to. No attempt is made to be complete or unbiased in my coverage of the conference. I apologize in advance for any omissions or misrepresentations. In the next few weeks ASPO should make videos of the presentations available on aspo.tv.
In a widely-circulated article in September 2011, Chris Skrebowski, who runs a peak oil consulting firm and was editor of the Petroleum Review for eleven years until 2008, argued that there are two forms of oil peak. One is, or will be, caused directly by depletion – the oil is no longer in the ground in sufficient quantities for producers to be able to maintain production. The other is the economic oil peak, which he says is the “price at which oil becomes unaffordable to consume and therefore to produce.” He says that oil becomes unaffordable when the “cost of the supply exceeds the price economies can pay without destroying growth at a given point in time.” In other words, the unaffordable limit is passed when extra cost of the oil after a price increase captures all, or more, of the increase in income that the growth process seemed likely to deliver.
A weekly roundup of peak oil events, including:
-Oil and the global economy
-The EU debt crisis
-Iran’s nuclear program
-China
-Quote of the week
-Briefs
In a year when chaos is beginning to feel like the norm, Greek Prime Minister George Papandreou’s out of the blue announcement calling a referendum on the latest Euro bailout plan caught even the most jaded observers by surprise. Although it looks as if the idea has now been abandoned, the likelihood of a still more serious financial crisis has surely moved a step closer…
A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Developments this week
-Nuclear troubles
-US to require details of fracking on federal land
-When Transition meets fracking, and wins. The story of Transitions Cowbridge and Llantwit.
-Exclusive: Fracking company – we caused 50 tremors in Blackpool – but we’re not going to stop
-Fracking protesters storm shale gas exploration site
Wall Street is the best immediate target for a protest against financial inequity and corporate money in politics. Now, as Occupy movements pop up across the globe, Occupiers may be interested to know that big oil companies are as guilty as big banks in buying politicians and squeezing the 99%. And since today’s fiat currency is really based on oil, any reform of finance needs to take on energy too.
