Peak Oil’ Doesn’t Matter

Are we running out of oil? According to the New York Times, apparently not. The paper of record ran two articles in close proximity over the holiday week, both of which regale us with stories of how wrong all those silly “Malthusian pessimists” have been. First, John Tierney gloated about his 2005 bet with the […]

Peak Oil and a Changing Climate

Peak Oil is the point at which petroleum production reaches its greatest rate just before going into perpetual decline. In “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate,” a new video series from The Nation and On The Earth productions, radio host Thom Hartmann explains that the world will reach peak oil within the next year if […]

Is an economic collapse being prepared?

“From now on, depressions will be scientifically created.” — Congressman Charles A. Lindbergh Sr., 1913 What follows is an essay that is largely based on information from an article which recently appeared at Zerohedge.com. Because we subconsciously associate the continuance of our life with the variable health of the particular economic structure in which we […]

40 Years Worth of Light Sweet US Oil Supply

Although it can not be argued that peak oil will not occur, a more meaningful discussion may be to determine when it will occur. That will allow for the investment in alternative sources for energy, much like Portugal and Denmark have done;where they are on target to meet 30% of national energy needs from renewable […]

Food Deserts: An Interactive Map of the Places in America Farthest From a Supermarket

There are 2.3 million people living in America with no car and without a supermarket within a one-mile radius. People living in these “food deserts” are often obese and unhealthy because they’re stuck eating junk food from the convenience store. Slate has prepared an interactive map of the counties with the most people who live […]

Apocalypse now? Mystery bird deaths hit Louisiana

Birds dropping dead from the skies and rivers flowing with tens of thousands of dead fish sounds like a cheesy Hollywood movie about the Apocalypse. Or the ravings of a Revelation-obsessed street preacher. But residents of several US states are coping with the reality of mystery mass wildlife deaths, which have left officials scratching their […]

‘Peak Oil’ Doesn’t Matter

Are we running out of oil? According to the New York Times, apparently not. The paper of record ran two articles in close proximity over the holiday week, both of which regale us with stories of how wrong all those silly “Malthusian pessimists” have been. First, John Tierney gloated about his 2005 bet with the […]

Study Suggests We’ve Hit ‘Peak Travel’

Commuting sucks, no two ways about it. It’s a slog, and a lot of us are saying to hell with it. A study of eight industrialized countries shows passenger travel appears to have peaked in 2003. The study suggests demand for travel and automobile ownership has reached a saturation point despite predictions, by the International […]

Oil prices rise. We adapt. (So don’t panic.)

In this column, Paul Krugman says some wise stuff. As an applied micro economist, he starts with some facts: “Oil is back above $90 a barrel. Copper and cotton have hit record highs. Wheat and corn prices are way up. Over all, world commodity prices have risen by a quarter in the past six months.” […]

How world population affects economy

Bob Moon: If you really want to know what’s going on in the world, follow the money. And if you want to follow the money, you’ll need to go where the people are. A higher birth rate produces rising numbers of consumers. And a new analysis of world population trends suggests global economic power is […]

Cutting the cord: wrestling with subisidized oil prices

It was said in 2008, when oil prices reached their all-time high, that the only countries that showed an increase in oil consumption that year were those that capped prices or subsidized them to some degree. With prices rising again, though still a long way from the 2008 peak, those subisidies are once again becoming […]

The Oil – Employment Link, Part 1

I am giving another presentation, which I want to share with you as two posts. The first post is my analysis of the problem. The second post is more about the ramifications, and my view of what might be done. From what I can see, oil consumption and employment are very closely linked. It is […]

Iran Assumes OPEC Presidency

Iran assumed the presidency of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries as of January 1, 2011, for the first time in 36 years. Iranian oil minister Masoud Mir-Kazemi was elected as OPEC president at a one-day meeting of the Vienna-based Organization. Iran, which takes over from Ecuador, is OPEC’s second-largest oil producer and holds about […]

Peak Fertilizer?

The theory known as “Peak Oil” became popular a few years ago when mainstream media outlets caught on to the concept that there was a finite supply of crude oil in the earth and at some point production would reach past the pinnacle. Today, a similar theory is being applied to the fertilizer industry: “Peak […]

Humans Could Create New Mass Extinction Event

Mankind’s introduction of invasive species across the globe and destruction of natural habitats threatens to destroy the diversity of species essential to the natural world, researchers claim. The modern biodiversity crisis, a lack of variation in life forms, means Earth could meet a similar fate to the collapse of marine life 378-375 million years ago […]

Settling Accounts on Peak Oil

In 2005, New York Times columnist John Tierney and Houston investment banker Matt Simmons made a bet on the average price of oil for 2010, to be settled today, January 1, 2011. Simmons died in August, 2010, but by that time it was reasonably certain that he was on the losing end of his bet […]

Russia 2010 oil output up to record 10.1 mln bpd

Russian oil output grew by around 2.2 percent in 2010, hitting a record high 10.145 million barrels per day, as the world’s top oil exporter continued ramping up production at its greenfields. Energy Ministry data showed on Sunday the country extracted 10.145 million barrels per day last year, a record since the collapse of the […]

National Geographic: 7 Billion!

I have understood the population explosion intellectually for a long time. I came to understand it emotionally one stinking hot night in Delhi a couple of years ago… The temperature was well over 100, and the air was a haze of dust and smoke. The streets seemed alive with people. People eating, people washing, people […]

Guy McPherson : Doom or boom? Let’s do both!

Yes, I’m a doomer I admit I’m a doomer. But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. To be a doomer is to recognize the tragedy of the human experience. During the last decade, I’ve often felt like I was standing in front of the tanks in Tiananmen Square. Pointing out the lunacy of our […]

Russia in milestone oil pipeline supply to China

Russia, the world’s top crude exporter, said it had begun scheduled oil shipments to China via an East Siberian link on Saturday as the Kremlin cements ties with its energy-hungry neighbour. So far, Russia’s 50,000-km oil pipeline network has been concentrated in West Siberia and run toward Europe. With the commissioning of the Eastern Siberia […]

Passenger travel in the industrialized world has been stagnant for nearly a decade

Amid the planes, trains and automobiles of the holiday season comes a surprising finding from transportation scientists: Passenger travel, which grew rapidly in the 20th century, appears to have peaked in much of the developed world. A study of eight industrialized countries, including the United States, shows that seemingly inexorable trends — ever more people, […]

Peak Water in India: Dry wells narrate the story

India’s water resources are under stress by the growing needs of agriculture and manufacturing sectors. Better availability of water, which keeps natural and manmade contaminants at bay; spell several business opportunities for this key sector. The International Food Policy Research Institute says that by 2020, the world will have an additional two billion people, who […]

Japan Rejects Cap and Trade

The government of Japan has rejected a cap-and-trade proposal for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions hard on the heels of the UN’s Climate Change Conference in Cancun, Mexico, in early December. The Japan Times reports the Japanese Cabinet this week adopted a basic policy on global warming aimed at cutting emissions by 25 percent from […]

Oil is Not Food but Food is Oil: The Imminent Crisis of Food Production Dependence on Oil

Awareness of the oil crisis is ubiquitous, epitomized by America’s desperate struggle to secure control over the world’s oil supplies notwithstanding the specious pretexts offered as rationalizations for occupying Iraq and Afghanistan and destabilization campaigns in countries such as Iran. Sadly absent from public discourse on oil-related issues is the impact of declining oil reserves […]

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