American troops and missile batteries arrive on Syrian border

After weeks in which events in Syria took a back seat to the US presidential election campaign, Washington confirmed that the first US troops and equipment had arrived at Incirlik, an air-base in south-eastern Turkey. Other western troops were photographed by Turkish media landing at Gaziantep airport, near the Syrian border and a short drive […]

Hands Off, Oil Industry Warns Government

Jack Gerard, the often-combative chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute, said Tuesday that the United States was “at the crossroads of a great turning point” in the nation’s energy history. United States Energy Association Jack Gerard, chief executive of the American Petroleum Institute. As long as Congress and the Obama administration don’t mess it […]

Japan Explores War Scenarios with China

As Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party national defense task force announced on Jan. 8 that it would increase the nation’s defense budget by more than 100 billion yen ($1.15 billion), three of five scenarios explored by the defense ministry recently involve the Self-Defense Forces squaring off against the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). While contingencies involving North Korea’s ballistic […]

EIA: 2013 US Oil Use Seen Up 0.3%

U.S. oil demand is expected to inch up by a modest 0.3% in 2013 and 2014, after falling 1.6% to a 15-year low in 2012, government forecasters said Tuesday. Demand is expected to grow to 18.71 million barrels a day in 2013, from 18.65 million barrels a day in 2012. Projected demand in 2014 of […]

Will fracking lead to cheap oil for all? Not necessarily

FT Alphaville‘s Kate Mackenzie has an excerpt of a very interesting research note from energy consultant Phil Verleger. The bulk of the note is a look back at the apparent vindication of MIT economist Morris Adelman, who rejected the ideas of “peak oil” at the time when they were most fashionable. Adelman, Verleger writes, accurately […]

Enough: the central concept in economics

Foreword to Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources, a book by Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill (published by Berrett-Koehler in the U.S. and Earthscan in the U.K.) I have long wanted to write a book on the subject of “enough” but never did. Now I don’t have to […]

The Local Food Shift: Peak Food

Recording and/or Handouts: Listen to a recording of the event Description: Across the nation, a robust and inspiring local food movement is gaining momentum but faces critical challenges of overwhelming demand, limited production capacity, lack of infrastructure, and limited access to capital. Meanwhile, as the unsustainability of the industrialized corporate food system becomes increasingly evident, […]

Oil Sands Industry in Canada Tied to Higher Carcinogen Level

The development of Alberta’s oil sands has increased levels of cancer-causing compounds in surrounding lakes well beyond natural levels, Canadian researchers reported in a study released on Monday. And they said the contamination covered a wider area than had previously been believed. For the study, financed by the Canadian government, the researchers set out to […]

Grounding shows Arctic drilling danger

Inspectors will descend upon a remote Kodiak Island bay to investigate whether a Royal Dutch Shell LLC drilling vessel will need repairs after spending nearly a week aground. The Kulluk, a circular barge with a diameter the length of three basketball courts, was pulled off the rocky bottom of waters near Alaska’s Sitkalidak Island on […]

Orlov: The Image of the Enemy

During my brief winter sojourn in Russia a tiny cold war has erupted between Russia and the USA. First, Mitt Romney calls Russia “our number one enemy” during the presidential election campaign. Then, after the election, the US passes the “Magnitsky Act” which promises to arrest funds and deny visas to certain Russian officials based […]

Euros discarded as impoverished Greeks resort to bartering

It’s been a busy day at the market in downtown Volos. Angeliki Ioanitou has sold a decent quantity of olive oil and soap, while her friend Maria has done good business with her fresh pies. But not a single euro has changed hands – none of the customers on this drizzly Saturday morning has bothered […]

Radical Abundance: David Korten Presentation

David Korten presentation to 39th Trinity Institute National Theological Conference on Radical Abundance: A Theology of Sustainability

Biofuels cause pollution, not as green as thought

Green schemes to fight climate change by producing more bio-fuels could actually worsen a little-known type of air pollution and cause almost 1,400 premature deaths a year in Europe by 2020, a study showed on Sunday. The report said trees grown to produce wood fuel – seen as a cleaner alternative to oil and coal […]

Iran oil exports plunge 40% in 9 months

Oil minister reverses previous denials of any decline Iran’s oil exports have been slashed 40 per cent in the past nine months because of tough Western sanctions, Oil Minister Rostam Qasemi was quoted as saying on Monday, in a reversal of his previous denials of any decline at all. “There has been a 40 per […]

A Revolution in Radiation Protection?

Dr. Wade Allison, author of Radiation and Reason, recently shared a short paper titled A revolution in radiation protection that would lead to safer and cheaper nuclear power. He described it as “reference light”, explaining that his intended audience for this work is not the journal-reading academic community but the kind of people who want […]

Biofuels making poor people hungry in Guatemala

In the tiny tortillerias of this city, people complain ceaselessly about the high price of corn. Just three years ago, one quetzal — about 15 cents — bought eight tortillas; today it buys only four. And eggs have tripled in price because chickens eat corn feed. Meanwhile, in rural areas, subsistence farmers struggle to find […]

Geography in the News: Arctic Dangers to Oil Platforms

 Shell Oil’s Grounded Platform Confirms Worries About Arctic Oil The Arctic Ocean is a formidable foe to ships, even in the summer. Nonetheless, oil exploration continues despite the dangerous conditions created by wind and ice floes, particularly in the winter. Concerns by Alaskans and Canadians have been expressed often about the exposure of oil platforms […]

Corruption At “Decontaminating” Radioactive Towns In Japan

On Friday, Katsutaka Idogawa, mayor of Futaba, a ghost town of once upon a time 7,000 people near Fukushima No. 1, told his staff that evacuees might not be able to return for 30 years. Or never, given the age of many of them. He spoke in Kazo, Saitama Prefecture, where the town’s government has […]

Crude Awakening Peak Oil & The End of Cheap Energy Part 2 by John Richter

Crude Awakening Peak Oil & The End of Cheap Energy Part 2 by John Richter [POSTED UNDER FAIR USE MEDIA REPORTING] FAIR USE NOTICE: This video may contain copyrighted material. Such material is made available for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 […]

Why Peak Oil Threatens the International Monetary System

Introduction Having spent the last several years of my life engineering investment strategies to profit from the inevitability of Peak Oil, I’ve become obsessed with understanding the ramifications of radically different energy supply dynamics on the global economy. There are many facets to this, some obvious and some not so obvious. So when ASPO-USA Executive […]

Endless War Is a Feature – Not a Bug – of U.S. Policy

We are in the middle of a perpetual series of wars. See this, this, this and this. As just one example, in 2010 the war in Afghanistan became the longest war in U.S. history.  But – no matter what you’ve heard – there are no plans to get out any time soon. As Glenn Greenwald […]

Why the natural gas industry hates the movie ‘Promised Land’ so much

Matt Damon’s new fictional movie about natural gas development in a rural township was being lambasted by the natural gas industry even before it premiered. And yet, the film shows no tanker trucks laden with toxic fracking fluid. It depicts no roughnecks descending on a small town unprepared for the influx of new workers. It […]

Eleven Films to See Before and After “Taking the Red Pill”

I’m not sure who uttered the phrase first. I have heard the phrase many times since I got hip to the truth about Peak Oil and the predicaments we face with a decline in energy availability and resources. Throughout my journey of discovery and my quest for information and insight, I have been exposed to […]

Fracking Activities Enter Urban Areas

Fracking in many ways has been the saviour of the US. It has created a boom in natural gas production, and also allowed oil production to increase massively. As a result it is a fairly popular amongst the US population, especially those in areas which are benefitting the most such as Texas and North Dakota. […]

Mass protests against government spread in Iraq

Tens of thousands of protesters rallied across Iraq on Friday, charging that Sunni Muslims had been disenfranchised under the Shiite-led government of Prime Minister Nouri Maliki and pressing for detainees to be freed. Protests have raged for weeks and continued even after the Iraqi justice ministry freed nearly a dozen female prisoners and said it […]

CROOKED CLEANUP (1): Radioactive waste dumped into rivers during decontamination work in Fukushima

Cleanup crews in Fukushima Prefecture have dumped soil and leaves contaminated with radioactive fallout into rivers. Water sprayed on contaminated buildings has been allowed to drain back into the environment. And supervisors have instructed workers to ignore rules on proper collection and disposal of the radioactive waste. Decontamination is considered a crucial process in enabling […]

Saudi says its air force has not struck al Qaeda in Yemen

Saudi Arabian fighter jets have not attacked al Qaeda targets in Yemen, Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal said on Saturday, denying a newspaper report that some strikes attributed to U.S. drones were made instead by the kingdom’s air force. Britain’s Times newspaper on Friday cited an unnamed U.S. intelligence source as saying “some of the […]

Hagel: War for Oil

In a post yesterday waxing enthusiastic about Chuck Hagel as defense secretary, Michael Moore called attention to a statement of Hagel that I don’t believe had been previously much noted. Here it is, from September 2007: “People say we’re not fighting for oil. Of course we are,” said the Republican Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel […]

Iran launches 1st natural gas storage facility in ME

Iran has officially inaugurated the first underground natural gas storage facility of the Middle East in the Qom Province, south of the capital city, Tehran. The underground reservoir was launched Saturday at Sarajeh, near the city of Qom, in a ceremony attended by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. According to the director of the facility, the […]

The Natural Gas Bubble

The natural gas industry is waging an aggressive public relations campaign to bolster investor confidence, despite evidence showing that shale gas is an unreliable resource and that the production process releases large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Although hydraulic fracturing (or fracking) is in the media’s hot seat, the prospect of a drilling bubble […]

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