Low Oil Prices Lead to Economic Peak Oil

We have all heard the story about oil supply supposedly rising and falling for geological reasons. But what if the story is a little different from this–oil production rises and falls for economic reasons? If this is the issue, it doesn’t really matter how much oil is in the ground. What matters is if economic conditions […]

Peak Oil’s Impact: Baseball

Oil plays an essential role in almost everything that touches our everyday lives. From the food we eat to the means by which we transport ourselves, our goods, and our services, to what we grow, build, have, own, need, and do, oil is almost always an important element. But the painful truth now and soon […]

The future of electricity

At some point, we were going to see an ideological stand-off over electricity, but to put the current Labour/Green vs National stoush into perspective requires a dispassionate examination of everything involved: money, energy, and growth. As good a place to start as any, would be a lecture given at Otago University a couple of years […]

The Con in Economic

“In so far as a theory can be said to have assumptions at all, in so far as their realism can be judged independently of the validity of predictions, the relation between the significance of a theory and the realism of its assumptions is almost the opposite of that suggested by the view under criticism. […]

Oil’s Tumble Could Be Great for Europe

Lower inflation resulting from falling oil prices could allow European policymakers to adopt more expansionary monetary policies, Credit Suisse said in a new report. “The contribution to European inflation from energy is now likely to be lower. For the euro area, that could mean HICP [Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices] falls as low as 1 […]

Growth Worries? Thankfully, Oil Is Tumbling

As worries over the outlook for the global economy resurface, analysts tell CNBC that Asia can take comfort from one fact – the sharp fall in oil prices. According to Credit Suisse (Swiss Exchange: CSGN-CH), a sustained 10 percent drop in oil prices would add 10-20 basis points to gross domestic product (GDP) growth in […]

UN says world needs to produce 70 percent more food by 2050

As we all know, food is one of the most important resources in the world. As Forbes points out, past civilizations such as the Mayan’s have failed because they ran out of food. The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates the world needs to produce 70 percent more food by 2050. Although that sounds like […]

Peak Everything Prophet Downgrades Peak Oil?

Jeremy Grantham is a fascinating dude. He is a highly successful capitalist who blames capitalism for killing the planet. If you’re familiar with this “connoisseur of [market] bubbles,” as the New York Times referred to him in a profile, it’s probably due to his increasingly Malthusian outlook. In 2011, he warned that “accelerated demand” from developing countries was depleting the […]

Nevermind Peak Oil – What About the Price?

There have been many calls on peak oil – the tipping point at which global production reaches a peak – and, due to dwindling reserves, production declines, even if demand continues to rise. In reality, the industry and the technology have proved more resourceful than predictions have allowed and production has continued to rise. Indeed, […]

Global Food Prices Continue to Rise

Continuing a decade-long increase, global food prices rose 2.7 percent in 2012, reaching levels not seen since the 1960s and 1970s but still well below the price spike of 1974. Between 2000 and 2012, the World Bank global food price index increased 104.5 percent, at an average annual rate of 6.5 percent. Global food prices […]

The Culture Behind Peak Oil

So, what are the root cultural problems in society that are causing this issue, and will ensure that nothing it done to fix it until it is too late?

Water scarcity likely to worsen as world population grows

In a study prepared for World Water Day on March 22, the Worldwatch Institute released a study that indicates the world’s water supply will continue to become scarcer in the years to come. At the global level, 70 percent of water withdrawals are for the agricultural sector, 11 percent are to meet municipal needs and […]

IMF Cuts Global Growth Outlook

The International Monetary Fund trimmed its global growth forecast and urged European policy makers to use “aggressive” monetary policy as a second year of contraction leaves the euro area’s recovery lagging behind the rest of the world. The global economy will expand 3.3 percent this year, less than the 3.5 percent forecast in January, after […]

Raising kids for a future of peak oil and climate change

Your baby absorbed so many early-learning podcasts in utero that when she’s born she doesn’t know if she’s supposed to be Baby Einstein, Baby Mozart or Baby Bill Gates. Your husband or wife had to call in some big favors to reserve little Emma or Alessandra a place in a top preschool. After that, you’ve got […]

Orlov: Understanding Organizational Stupidity

Is it morning in America again, or is the bubble that is the American economy about to pop (again), this time perhaps tipping it into full-blown collapse in five stages with symphonic accompaniment and fireworks? A country blowing itself up is quite a sight to behold, and it makes us wonder about lots of things. […]

Commodities Crunched: Gold Gored, Crude Oil Runs Red

The action on Wall Street Monday was in the commodity markets, where a selloff got underway early and picked up speed. Crude oil was down more than 2% and below $90 a barrel, while gold slumped almost 6% to near $1,400 an ounce. The drop came as a reading out of China showed economic growth […]

Peak oil isn’t dead: An interview with Chris Nelder

Warnings about “peak oil” have been with us since the OPEC crisis in the 1970s. At some point, the experts said, the world would hit a limit on how much oil could be extracted from the ground. Production would then drop, prices would soar, chaos would ensue. But after a worrisome series of price spikes […]

3D Printing & Peak Oil

How will the revolutionary technology of 3D printing help us rise to the future challenge of Peak Oil? In this video futurist Christopher Barnatt explains. For more information on 3D printing, see http://www.explainingthefuture.com/3d…, or visit the ExplainingTheFuture YouTube channel at http://www.youtube.com/explainingthef… For more information on the Filabot plastic reclaimer, see http://filabot.com For more information on […]

11 Economic Crashes That Are Happening Right Now

The stock market is not crashing yet, but there are lots of other market crashes happening in the financial world right now.  Just like we saw back in 2008, it is taking stocks a little bit of extra time to catch up with economic reality.  But almost everywhere else you look, there are signs that […]

The Tunnel People That Live Under The Streets Of America

Did you know that there are thousands upon thousands of homeless people that are living underground beneath the streets of major U.S. cities?  It is happening in Las Vegas, it is happening in New York City and it is even happening in Kansas City.  As the economy crumbles, poverty in the United States is absolutely […]

Americans Are Driving Less

We continue our Streetfacts series by looking at the data on driving in the U.S. Beginning in 2005, per-capita driving has declined every year. That’s not a blip, it’s now an 8-year trend. The reason? Neither the state of the economy nor changes in gas prices offer a satisfactory explanation. Social preferences and demographic shifts seem […]

Peak Oil Demand is Already a Huge Problem

We in the United States, the Euro-zone, and Japan are already past peak oil demand. Oil demand has to do with how much oil we can afford. Many of the developed nations are not able to outbid the developing nations when it comes to the world’s limited oil supply. A chart of oil consumption shows […]

John Michael Greer: The Religion of Progress

To suggest that faith in progress has become the most widely accepted civil religion of the modern industrial world, as I’ve done in these essays, is to say something at once subtler and more specific than a first glance might suggest. It’s important to keep in mind, as I pointed out in last week’s post, […]

Peak Oil Flip-Flop

There’s a new twist in the “peak oil” debate. Is it good news for the climate? Peak Oil Question Remains, Debate Continues Ever since M. King Hubbert advanced the theory of peak oil in 1956, experts and non-experts alike have been debating about timing and relevance. (See here, here, here and here.) Hubbert’s argument seems like a […]

Community Grounded In Grief In The Age Of Limits

Grief reveals the undeniable reality of our bond with the world…It is grief that moves us in the direction of contact, towards the helping hands and embrace of others…without it we would not know the heartening quality of compassion, could not experience the full breadth of love, the surprise of joy, nor celebrate the sheer […]

EIA Trims World Oil Use Growth Forecast for 2013, 2014

World oil demand will rise in 2013 and 2014, but moderate recovery in economic growth will keep the gains lower than projected a month earlier, U.S. government forecasters said Tuesday. In 2013, rising consumption in China and in other developing nations is expected to offset weakness in European economies, the Energy Information Administration said. World […]

Food: The Weak Link

The world is in transition from an era of food abundance to one of scarcity. Over the last decade, world grain reserves have fallen by one third. World food prices have more than doubled, triggering a worldwide land rush and ushering in a new geopolitics of food. Food is the new oil. Land is the […]

The Looming Threat of Water Scarcity

Some 1.2 billion people—almost a fifth of the world—live in areas of physical water scarcity, while another 1.6 billion face what can be called economic water shortage. The situation is only expected to worsen as population growth, climate change, investment and management shortfalls, and inefficient use of existing resources restrict the amount of water available […]

25 Things That You Should Do To Get Prepared For The Coming Economic Collapse

Do you think that you know how to prepare for the collapse of the economy?  If so, are you putting that knowledge into action?  In America today, people are more concerned about the possibility of an economic collapse than ever before.  It has been estimated that there are now three million preppers in the United […]

The global food crisis

With the many issues facing the world today, we often forget to pay attention to the long lingering problems, which may be the most critical of all. The growing world population and relatively stagnant growth in food production is predicted to threaten a long-term global food crisis that could have disastrous consequences. We hear a […]

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