South-state water boss tells how area is coping with drought

…California’s drought is likely to persist at least through this summer, with rationing of water use to spread to urban areas throughout the state, Patterson said. Key reservoirs including Lake Mead and San Luis Reservoir are only about half full, he noted. In Mendota, in Fresno County, officials recently gave away 500 boxes of food […]

Massive Antarctic ice shelf set to break loose

PARIS (AFP) The evidence comes from radar pictures taken on Thursday by its Envisat Earth-monitoring satellite, the Paris-based agency said in a press release. Over the past year, the ice shelf has lost about 1,800 square kilometres (700 square miles), or about 14 percent of its size, in further breakup events, ESA said. New pictures […]

Peak oil discussion of its obtuse impact on our economy

To follow up on my article about the Pickens Plan, I went in search of more information about peak oil and found that the legislature in Colorado received a briefing by David Bowden on the obtuse impact peak oil will have on our economy. His briefing coincides with the points discussed in the Pickens Plan, […]

Natural mechanism for medieval warming discovered

Europe basked in unusually warm weather in medieval times, but why has been open to debate. Now the natural climate mechanism that caused the mild spell seems to have been pinpointed. The finding is significant today because, according to Valerie Trouet at the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow, and Landscape Research in Birmensdorf, the […]

The American cars Obama wants

To get that bailout cash, the government wants some changes in GM and Chrysler’s line-up, but that change won’t be quick, easy or cheap. NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) — The Obama administration has made it clear: In order to get the billions of dollars of federal money that Chrysler and General Motors need to survive, they’ll […]

A New World Model Including Energy and Climate Change Data

An updated systems model of global climate, resources, and energy extending the original World3 ( Introduction Perhaps the best known global model of all is World3, popularized in the book The Limits to Growth, A report to the Club of Rome, by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, J

Mexico sees oil output slide continuing in 2010

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) – Mexico’s finance ministry expects the country’s crude oil exports to decline by 18 percent in 2010, implying that crude oil production will fall below 2.5 million bpd next year, according to a report delivered to Congress on Wednesday night. The finance ministry estimated oil exports would drop to 1.125 million bpd […]

Richard Heinberg: Timing

The general picture is clear enough. A combination of peak oil, climate change, and the bursting of the mother of all economic bubbles will result in a collapse of the global economy, perhaps of civilization itself. If we are still to avert the worst of a crisis that could eventuate in untold death, destruction, and […]

OPEC Finally Accepts Low Prices, May Not Cut Production

OPEC officials Thursday finally accepted worsening economic conditions would keep oil prices low for now, toning down a previous call for higher prices and suggesting the organization may not cut production further as long as prices stayed steady. The statements, which show a conciliatory tone toward oil-consuming nations, came as forecasts for the global economy […]

India is stealing water of life, says Pakistan

Thousands of Punjab farmers suffer as river Chenab runs dry Crucial, coveted and increasingly scarce, water has become the latest issue to stoke tensions between India and Pakistan, with farmers in Pakistan’s breadbasket accusing Delhi of reducing one of the subcontinent’s most important rivers to little more than a trickle. A group of more than […]

BP, Eni Struggle to Replace Reserves, Bernstein Says

(Bloomberg) — BP Plc and Eni SpA are among global oil companies having difficulty replacing reserves through exploration, preferring instead to buy competitors, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. said. In the past six years, none of the major explorers has managed to replace output by extending fields or discovering new deposits, Bernstein analysts Neil McMahon […]

America's oil bust

Falling oil prices and frozen credit are slowing production and piling up equipment. Now some worry we’re setting ourselves up for another price spike. BRADFORD, Pa. (CNNMoney.com) — Six months ago this oil town in Western Pennsylvania was booming. You couldn’t find a worker to paint a house, let alone man a drill rig. The […]

Nicholas F. Benton:

This month marks the fourth anniversary of now-globally famous commentator Tom Whipple’s “Peak Oil Crisis” column that originated with and has been published weekly exclusively in the Falls Church News-Press, the Washington D.C. area’s most progressive newspaper.

As the owner and editor of the News-Press, this writer invited Whipple to expound his views on the “peak oil” crisis following a lengthy discussion with him on the subject over lunch. On April 28, 2005, he wrote what was supposed to be the first of a two-part series on the matter, entitled, “Why the World Will Never Be the Same.”

Falls Church News-Press

Honda's new Insight hybrid taken for test drive

Sedan competes well against Toyota Prius on cost, gadgets and handling Watch out, Toyota Prius. Honda’s new gasoline-electric hybrid car has aerodynamic styling like yours but carries a lower price, offers video game-like “scoring” for fuel-thrifty driving and is arguably a more fun ride. In fact, several people Environmentally minded shoppers aren’t likely to be […]

Dramatic Arctic sea ice shrinkage predicted

Maximum area within 30 years expected to be third of last year’s low level WASHINGTON – The areas of the Arctic covered in sea ice in summers will shrink by two-thirds within 30 years, researchers report, attributing the shrinkage to natural conditions as well as manmade greenhouse gases. They expect the area covered by summer […]

Small islands urge deep CO2 cuts, fear rising seas

BONN, Germany (Reuters) – Small island states have sharpened their calls for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, saying low-lying atolls risk being washed off the map by rising ocean levels. An alliance of 43 island states, backed by more than a dozen nations in Africa and Latin America, urged developed […]

Slum cooker protects environment, helps poor

NAIROBI (Reuters) – Kenya’s huge and squalid slums don’t have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease. Now Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction […]

Non-OPEC oil supply to fall further, faster

NEW YORK/LONDON (Reuters) – A plunge in oilfield spending means non-OPEC oil output could soon fall, raising prices and potentially derailing any global economic recovery. A growing number of forecasts predicting a fall reflect a major drop in oil drilling because of lower crude prices and tighter credit, and defy an earlier market consensus that […]

IEA likely to lower its oil demand forecasts

PARIS (Reuters) – The International Energy Agency is likely to lower its global oil demand forecasts significantly as more bleak economic data emerges, its chief said on Thursday. “The possibility for downward revision will be high,” Nobuo Tanaka, the agency’s executive director, told Reuters in an interview on the sidelines of a Paris conference. “We […]

Oil jumps nearly 9 percent as G20 deal boosts markets

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Oil rose nearly 9 percent to top $52 a barrel on Thursday, in line with a broad rally in global markets on hopes actions agreed at the G20 summit in London would restore global growth. World leaders agreed a trillion-dollar deal to combat the deepest economic downturn since the Great Depression, […]

'Green' America may slash oil demand

Forget the myth of Chinese demand driving world oil consumption and pay closer attention to “green”policies in the U. S., the biggest oil consumer in the world, energy policy expert Amy Myers Jaffe said. Major oil producer Saudi Arabia certainly is, said the director of the James A.Baker III Institute for Public Policy at Rice […]

Wet America faces growing demand from Dry America

…Many climate scientists believe that one of the early effects of global warming will be a drier American Southwest, placing the future of cities like Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles in jeopardy. Lake Mead An enduring Minnesota nightmare is the vision of a great pipeline that begins in Lake Superior. Like a giant flexible […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Seize the Moment

Earlier this week the Obama administration, now the effective owner of the U.S. automobile industry, put Detroit on notice that it has 30-60 days to come up with a believable plan to “restructure” itself or it goes into bankruptcy. This action makes it a good time to step back and ponder just where America’s industrial […]

U.S. Waters May Have Up to 115 Billion Barrels of Oil

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. may have as many as 115 billion barrels of The assessment is part of a U.S. effort to reduce dependence on imported energy and respond to climate change brought on carbon emissions. The Obama administration is working to get an increasing share of electricity from coastal renewable resources, Interior Secretary Ken […]

Venezuela ups US oil sales despite Opec

Venezuela increased oil shipments to the US in January, despite President Hugo Chavez’s anti-US rhetoric and a promise to Opec to cut output, the US Department of Energy said. Crude shipments from Venezuela to the US rose to an average 1.2 million barrels per day in January, up 14% from December, according to data from […]

Energy Department Will Step Up Pace on Renewable-Power Loans

(Bloomberg) — The U.S. Energy Department will issue loan guarantees for renewable energy projects at a quicker pace in the coming months, a senior adviser at the agency said. Rogers also said the department was

Iraq blames neighbors for water shortage

BAGHDAD He said Iraq was seeking a “sufficient and fair share of water” from the rivers

John Michael Greer : Facing Decline, Facing Ourselves

Of all the fallacies that surround the contemporary crisis of industrial civilization, and have done so much to bring that crisis down on us, the most seductive is the assumption that it Now of course such a project would require a great deal of investment in railways, mass transit, urban redevelopment, and the like, but […]

OPEC says oil not to blame for climate change

PARIS (Reuters) – OPEC said oil was not to blame for climate change and consuming countries should pay to fight the threat, while the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L) said drivers could help by not buying Hummer sports utility vehicles. “Oil is not responsible,” the producer group’s Secretary General, Abdullah al-Badri, told reporters on […]

James Howard Kunstler: Investing In Infrastructure For An Age Of Scarcity

A few years ago, author James Howard Kunstler famously convinced petro-billionaire and Bush crony Richard Rainwater to build an off-the-grid rural compound because the fabric of American society would soon be threatened by oil shortages and skyrocketing energy prices. The Long Emergency, Kunstler Naturally, this informs his ideas about what kinds of infrastructure investments the […]

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