Water costs as much as gas

It is difficult for me to believe that people pay good money to buy water to drink and not complain at all. Eventually, I suppose, we will have to buy air to breathe. Yesterday, I watched with awe as a man emerged from a store bearing three big plastic bags jammed with plastic bottles of […]

Heinberg: A Theory of Change for a Century of Crisis

Conflict and Change in the Era of Economic Decline: Part 2 A theory of change for a century of crisis The following is the final part of an essay which was originally an address to the International Conference on Sustainability, Transition and Culture Change, November 16, 2012, by Richard Heinberg. For Part 1 see Museletter […]

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 […]

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, […]

Radical Abundance: David Korten Presentation

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

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 […]

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 […]

Peak Oil Blues Blog: Mike Ruppert on the Third Date

 Hey Peak Shrink! I read your help-letter from the lesbian couple looking to relocate.  My partner and I moved from Sacramento to Nevada County almost two years ago.  It was very scary but it was a wonderful choice.  We are super happy here.  I would love to be put in touch with the writer.  You […]

The Local Food Revolution in Brazil’s Schools

Changes in public sector food procurement in Brazil have improved not just the quality of school meals; they have led to a reduced ecological footprint and a more engaged civil society driving the green economy. In this article, Kei Otsuki explores the processes of decentralization and localization that have taken place in Brazil since 1997 […]

Big Spender: Saudi Arabia upholds high budget

Determined to push past global economic crises and spiraling political unrest in the Middle East, Saudi Arabia’s recently announced all-time high expenditure plan is part of a strategy to bolster the Kingdom’s economic solidity. Saudi Arabia’s council of ministers on Saturday agreed a record budget for 2013 with revenues expected to hit 820 billion riyals […]

Oil prices tumble over ample supplies, flat demand

The price of oil drifted lower Thursday as euphoria over a U.S. budget deal cooled and traders focused on bulging crude supplies and lackluster demand. Benchmark crude for February delivery ended the day down 20 cents to $92.92 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices jumped as much as 2 percent Wednesday after […]

John Michael Greer: Into an Unknown Country

Was it just my imagination, or was the New Year’s celebration just past even more halfhearted than those of the last few years? My wife and I welcomed 2013 with a toast, and breakfasted the next morning on the traditional good-luck foods—rice and beans, corn bread, greens and bacon—that I learned to enjoy back when […]

What future for petroleum?

This is a translation from Italian of a post by Marco Pagani on the blog “Ecoalfabeta” based on a comment by Antonio Turiel on the recent IEA report on the future of petroleum and fossil hydrocarbons.  by Marco Pagani The IEA forecast for the future of petroleum are not only too optimistic, but also wrong […]

Record Drop in Japan’s Population

Japan’s population has logged a record drop, shrinking in 2012 for the sixth year in a row, statistics show. Estimates from Japan’s Health and Welfare Ministry show the total population declined by 210,000 in 2012 — the largest annual decline since records became available — to 128 million people, the CBC’s Craig Dale reported from […]

Private and External Cost of Electricity Generation

Private and External Cost of Electricity Generation SeekingEnergy

Kunstler 2013: Contraction, Contagion, and Contradiction

The people who like to think they are managing the world’s affairs seem fiercely determined to ignore the world’s true condition — namely, the permanent contraction of industrial economies. They just can’t grok it. Two hundred years of cheap fossil fuel programmed mankind to expect limitless goodies forever on an upward-swinging arc of techno miracles. […]

Bicycles No Longer Mere Recreation in Argentine Capital

A programme launched in Buenos Aires three years ago to encourage the use of bicycles has already brought results: the use of this environment-friendly means of transport has increased fivefold in the Argentine capital. “Buenos Aires, mejor en bici” (Buenos Aires, Better by Bike) is the name of the project that emerged in 2009 in […]

Saudi Arabia Boosts 2013 Spending in Record Budget

Saudi Arabia raised its 2013 expenditure target by almost a fifth to a record 820 billion riyals ($219 billion) as the world’s biggest oil exporter pushes ahead with expansion plans to diversify away from oil. The government expects 2013 revenue of 829 billion riyals, giving it a surplus of 9 billion riyals, the Finance Ministry […]

16 Things About 2013 That Are Really Going To Stink

The beginning of the year has traditionally been a time of optimism when we all look forward to the exciting things that are going to happen over the next 12 months.  Unfortunately, there are a whole bunch of things about 2013 that we already know are going to stink.  Taxes are going to go up, […]

Krugman: Is Growth Over?

The great bulk of the economic commentary you read in the papers is focused on the short run: the effects of the “fiscal cliff” on U.S. recovery, the stresses on the euro, Japan’s latest attempt to break out of deflation. This focus is understandable, since one global depression can ruin your whole day. But our […]

The twin sides of the fossil-fuel coin: Guy MacPherson presenting in Massachusetts

Presented without additional commentary is video from my recent speaking tour in Massachusetts. It’s my latest and most comprehensive assessment of the twin sides of the fossil-fuel coin, climate change and energy decline. In response to this presentation, I’ve heard via the occasionally accurate grapevine that I’ll never speak on that campus again.

No More Industrial Revolutions, No More Growth?

The common feature of the transformative technologies of the 20th and 21st centuries is that they were one-offs that cannot be duplicated. What if the engines of global growth that worked for 65 years (since 1945) have not just stalled but broken down? The primary “engines” have been productivity gains from industrialization, real estate development and […]

UK uses more coal than natural gas

The United Kingdom continues to use more coal-fired power than natural gas, the Department of Energy and Climate Change recently reported. Coal-fired power increased by about 50 percent in the third quarter of 2012 to reach 28.66 terawatt-hours, while gas-fired generation fell 41 percent to 22.83 TWh. High natural gas prices deterred gas burning in […]

John Michael Greer: The Beginning of the World

Last Friday was, as I’m sure most of my readers noticed, an ordinary day. Here in the north central Appalachians, it was chilly but not unseasonably so, with high gray clouds overhead and a lively wind setting the dead leaves aswirl; wrens and sparrows hopped here and there in my garden, poking among the recently […]

Is Sustainable Agriculture an Oxymoron?

Jared Diamond calls it “the worst mistake in the history of the human race.”(1) Bill Mollison says that it can “destroy whole landscapes.”(2) Are they describing nuclear energy? Suburbia? Coal mining? No. They are talking about agriculture. The problem is not simply that farming in its current industrial manifestation is destroying topsoil and biodiversity. Agriculture […]

Kuwait”s crude oil exports to China up 18.9 percent

Kuwait’s crude oil exports to China jumped 18.9 percent in November from a year earlier to 864,000 tons, equivalent to around 211,000 barrels per day (bpd), the latest government data showed. Kuwaiti share of Chinese crude oil imports reached 3.7 percent last month, compared to 3.2 percent the year before, according to the General Administration […]

Oil and gas price forecast for 2013

It’s the end of the year, which means it’s time to peer once again into my crystal ball and see what the future holds. It’s also the time when I like to look back at my previous forecasts and see how they held up. So without further ado, here are my forecasts for oil and […]

Orlov: Escape from the Merry Christmas Zone

I am not in the US at the moment, but in Russia. This means several things. First, today is not Christmas. (Christmas is on January 7th, having something to do with the Julian calendar. It is 3/4 of a day per century fast, but since it is only used for religious holidays, nobody cares.) Second, […]

Kunstler: In the Shadow of Christmas

Do you know why scenes or even just shots of freeways so seldom appear in the movies we watch? Because they are so depressing that nobody can stand to see them. The jolts of terror that you get in a horror movie at least inform you that you’re alive, but the sight of a freeway […]

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