Why Uganda

I was quite tickled that Mr Tony Buckingham, the shrewd ex-mercenary and chief of Heritage Oil, is set to make This story reminded me of what they said about the many Gold Rushes in America; that the people who made the most money from it were not the miners who went to mine, but the […]

Iran gains $5 billion by shifting from US dollar

The head of Iran’s Central Bank says the country has gained 5 billion dollars by excluding the US dollar from its currency basket and replacing it with the euro. “Iran has considerably reduced the total of US dollars in its currency basket,” said Mahmoud Bahmani in Tehran at the 3rd Seminar on Banking Services and […]

Paul Ehrlich on Late Night Live

Paul Ehrlich’s book, The Population Bomb (1968), caused great controversy with its predictions of mass starvation in the 70s and 80s due to over-population. Forty years later, with the world’s population almost doubled in that time, Ehrlich’s main message is increasingly relevant – that the earth has a finite carrying capacity and it cannot sustain […]

Biochar Company Charged With Fraudulent "Ponzi" Scheme Scheme

Environmental campaigners warn that a lawsuit over fraud against a company claiming to be the world In the same week that the Obama administration announced a new task force for investigating financial fraud,, Mantria Industries were taken to court by the Securities and Exchange Commission which accuses the company of running a

Climate change quickens, seas feared up 2 meters

OSLO (Reuters) – Global warming is happening faster than expected and at worst could raise sea levels by up to 2 meters (6-1/2 ft) by 2100, a group of scientists said on Tuesday in a warning to next month’s U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen. In what they called a “Copenhagen Diagnosis,” updating findings in a […]

Climate change fears spark

Even some green groups now see power source as From China to Brazil, 53 plants are now under construction worldwide, with Poland, the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia seeking to build their first reactors, according to global watchdog groups and industry associations. The number of plants being built is double the total of just five […]

Peak globalization

Wishful thinking or apocalyptic doom forecasting? Fred Curtis, an economist at Drew University, has put together a mashup of peak oil, global warming, and patterns in global trade liberalization and arrived at the principle of “Peak Globalization.” A double whammy of higher energy costs and extreme climate events will disrupt global transportation patterns, reversing the […]

We the Six Billion: The Ammonia Economy (part 2)

Last week I wrote about a talk by Matt Simmons at which he proposed a solution to a predicted world shortage of water and petroleum: offshore wind generators to produce fresh water and ammonia from wind, air and sea water. I promised this week to explain why we could not afford to use this ammonia […]

Kuwait Could Switch To Argus Pricing For Oil From WTI – Sources

DUBAI (Zawya Dow Jones)–Kuwait could switch the pricing of its crude sold to U.S. customers to the Argus Sour Crude Index, or ASCI, from Platt’s West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, following in the footsteps of Saudi Arabia, Kuwaiti oil officials said. “Kuwait could look at it definitely because we don’t think the pricing peg today […]

Oil tanker attacked by pirates off W. Africa

COTONOU Initial reports suggested the captain of the Monrovia-flagged Cancale Star had been killed and his first officer seriously wounded when pirates boarded the vessel 18 nautical miles off the Benin coast. However, Ahoyo said the captain, a Lithuanian, was unharmed. He said the 230-metre (750-feet) long tanker was attacked overnight Monday. AFP

A Vision Faces an Environmental Test

MICHES, Dominican Republic But to a team of conservation biologists and other researchers from Columbia University who began working here in 2007, Miches has great potential. They see tourists camping in platform tents, like those in St. John, in the Virgin Islands. They see hikers in its lush green hills, people riding horseback on pristine […]

Denver duo bilked seniors in green scheme: SEC

The Securities and Exchange Commission today charged two companies The complaint alleges that Speed of Wealth bosses Wayde and Donna McKelvey touted Mantria’s supposedly eco-friendly products, including one they called

Bottleneck by William Catton – A Review

First I should confess to a strong bias toward the content of this book. As readers of my blog, Question Everything, will realize, I have been moving inexorably toward the same conclusion as the author, so you will perhaps forgive me if you think I may be suffering from a lack of sufficient critical thinking. […]

Home Green Home: Reality Check

It My saga began with a call to GreenLogic, a residential renewable energy consulting firm and contractor in Long Island where I live. I

Peak Oil and Agriculture

During the month of October, CBC Radio The third episode, which examined the implications of peak oil for the Canadian agri-food sector, was chosen as a CBC

World oil demand growth to outpace supply in 2010: poll

LONDON/NEW YORK (Reuters) At the same time, the rise in production from outside the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and output of natural gas liquids (NGLs) from OPEC members is seen growing by just 800,000 bpd in total. “The key question for prices is supply,” Barclays C apital analyst Costanzo Jacazio said. “2010 is […]

Mankind using Earth's resources at alarming rate

WASHINGTON “We are demanding nature’s services — using resources and creating CO2 emissions — at a rate 44 percent faster than what nature can regenerate and reabsorb,” the document said. “That means it takes the Earth just under 18 months to produce the ecological services humanity needs in one year,” it said. And if humankind […]

Fitch lowers Mexico's credit rating on oil decline

Fitch Ratings downgraded Mexico’s credit rating Monday, saying dependence on a flagging oil sector has weakened the country’s ability to weather financial problems. Mexico’s rating remained at investment grade, but the downgrade will bring a rise in the government’s borrowing costs. Fitch said decreased oil production has already accentuated economic problems in Mexico and output […]

Icebergs Surprise New Zealand

At least a hundred icebergs have trekked from Antarctica toward New Zealand, arriving at islands off New Zealand in recent weeks after being set adrift perhaps 9 years ago. “The larger icebergs seen from Macquarie Island are tabular in shape, which indicates they have calved relatively recently, probably from one of the massive icebergs which […]

Greenhouse gases reach record levels-UN agency

GENEVA Reuters – Concentrations of greenhouse gases, the major cause of global warming, are at their highest levels ever recorded and are still climbing, the U.N. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday. The head of the agency, Michel Jarraud, said the trend could be pushing the world towards the most pessimistic assessments of the […]

Waste not, want not: Companies find uses for leftover animal parts

A growing number of companies are turning their attention to creating renewable products …Among the projects underway:

More gas to be shifted from China industry to homes -paper

BEIJING (Reuters) – Natural gas supplies for China’s industrial users will have to be further cut in coming months to divert supply for residential demand, the in-house newspaper of top gas supplier CNPC reported on Tuesday. Gas for household needs and for heating can be guaranteed in the winter and spring by further reducing supplies […]

US will announce target for cutting carbon emissions

The US will announce a target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions before next month’s UN climate summit, according to a White House official. The target is expected to be in line with figures contained in legislation before the Senate – a reduction of about 17-20% from 2005 levels by 2020. The absence of a US […]

Oil scene: Uncertainty haunts the energy world

UNCERTAINTY has taken over the energy world. And it is detrimental to every one, be it consumer or producer. The consequences could be horrific. A number of factors are in play. The volatility of oil market pricing is a major issue. After all most producers have a single product economy. With extreme swings in play, […]

Blowing the Whistle on Cheap Oil

Is the Peak Oil clock ticking closer to midnight than generally believed? The credibility and integrity of the International Energy Agency (IEA) took a hit this month after two whistle-blowers from the IEA claimed the agency has been deliberately underplaying a looming oil shortage under pressure from the US government. The striking allegations appeared in […]

Is There Such a Thing as Agro-Imperialism?

Dr. Robert Zeigler, an eminent American botanist, flew to Saudi Arabia in March for a series of high-level discussions about the future of the kingdom There are basically two ways to increase the supply of food: find new fields to plant or invent ways to multiply what existing ones yield. Zeigler runs the International Rice […]

Predicting the fate of underground carbon

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A team of researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a new modeling methodology for determining the capacity and assessing the risks of leakage of potential underground carbon-dioxide reservoirs. One strategy for mitigating greenhouse gases is to inject compressed carbon dioxide into natural aquifers made of permeable rock soaked with […]

African conflicts spurred by warming

Africa is poised to experience a surge in civil wars, causing nearly 400,000 additional battle deaths by 2030 Burke and Lobell analysed data on the incidence of African civil wars alongside local temperature and rainfall measurements from 1981 to 2002. They found a strong relationship between spikes in temperature and the likelihood of civil war. […]

Intensive land-management leaves Europe without carbon sinks

Of all global carbon dioxide emissions, less than half accumulate in the atmosphere where it contributes to global warming. The remainder is hidden away in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and peat-lands. Stimulating this “free service” of aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems is considered one of the main, immediately available ways of reducing […]

Is global warming unstoppable?

SALT LAKE CITY Garrett’s study was panned by some economists and rejected by several journals before acceptance by Climatic Change, a journal edited by renowned Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider. The study will be published online this week. The study

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