Heinberg: Gross National Happiness

After World War II, the industrial nations of the world set out to rebuild their economies and needed a yardstick by which to measure their progress. The index soon settled upon was the Gross National Product, or GNP—defined as the market value of all goods and services produced in one year by the labor and property […]

Who’s storing food now?

After the deadly super-flu epidemic in the film Contagion has emptied city streets and looters have cleared store shelves, Matt Damon’s character finds himself shivering in a food line when a soldier announces through a bullhorn that he’s sorry, but the supply of MREs has just run out. In response, the assembled hungry crowd breaks […]

Heinberg : Welcome to the Post-Growth Economy

During recent weeks, evidence has piled up that U.S. and European economies, far from recovering, are swirling back into recession. Failure of American politicians to address the federal debt crisis, the U.S. credit rating downgrade, and increasing fragility of European economies have investors running for the hills. Concern is being voiced that we may be […]

Peak Fish: Fishing for solutions

The hot word on eco-conscious foodies’ lips is the f word: fish. We Americans like our seafood, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture wants to see us eating twice as much. But that will put more pressure on wild fish populations, in an era of ever-rising global population. How will commercial fisherman keep up with […]

Learning from China: Why the existing economic model will fail

A water crisis is unfolding in Saudi Arabia that could have profound implications for both the Saudi people and for the rest of the world. Last week, Reuters published a feature describing how Saudi Arabia’s water crisis is eating into its oil revenues. According to the article, “water use in the desert kingdom is already […]

Matt Simmons (Bloomberg): Peak Oil Now, Oil Perhaps to $300

Matthew Simmons, chairman of Simmons & Co. International in Houston, talked yesterday with Bloomberg’s Rhonda Schaffler about the need to address energy use, his view that global supply has peaked and the likelihood oil prices could reach as much as $300 a barrel.

IEA says fundamental tightness explains sustained high oil prices

Oil prices have remained stubbornly high this year, with Dated Brent currently averaging more than $110/barrel, seemingly at odds with the worsening economic outlook in many key oil-consuming countries. But despite all the attention being given to the parlous state of many western economies, fundamental market tightness lies behind the apparently paradoxical sustained high crude […]

The Global Inflation Bomb

The Global Economy is still deep in uncertainty over not just whether or when a recovery will take place but more importantly there is much debate over if the financial turbulence of 2008 were just the tremors before a the real economic earthquake. The very fabric of the global economy is completely different today than […]

European Debt Crisis and Sustainability

What would humans have to do to really live sustainability with the world’s ecosystems? I got a shock when I read about the pattern of species extinctions which is taking place that form a part of what is called the “Sixth Mass Extinction.” It turns out that man’s adverse influence on ecosystems didn’t start a […]

Five minutes with Dave Hamilton

Dave Hamilton has a degree in Nutrition, is a professional foraging,food and gardening writer. He lives in Devon, where he grows and forages for most of his own food and teaches horticulture.

OPEC cuts oil demand forecast

OPEC cut its forecast for global oil demand growth next year because of a worsening economic outlook and said a disappointing economic performance in top consumer the United States could further weigh on fuel use. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, in a monthly report on Monday, also said concerns were easing about a […]

Power demand from US homes is falling

American homes are more cluttered than ever with devices, and they all need power: Cellphones and iPads that have to be charged, DVRs that run all hours, TVs that light up in high definition. But something shocking is happening to demand for electricity in the Age of the Gadget: It’s leveling off. Over the next […]

Food Production Must Increase 70 Percent to Meet Earth’s Growing Population

With the world’s population expected to reach 7 billion by the end of October according to the United Nations, farmers and researchers are scrambling to figure out how to prevent a global food crisis. Despite a recent decline in fertility throughout the world, the Earth’s population is predicted to reach 10.1 billion by 2100, according […]

An Off-Grid Family Home in Rural New Hampshire

From the beginning, they had a plan. “Almost from when we met, the plan was always, we’ll move back to Peterborough when we want to start a family, and we’ll build a house with my dad,” says Anna Von Mertens. Anna, a textile artist, and her husband, Chris Anderson, had both moved to San Francisco […]

Peak Oil: Urban Preparedness

I analyzed someone’s Peak Oil readiness in an urban area. He is better prepared than most. Blog: http://MrEnergyCzar.blogspot.com/

Is it time we all gave up meat?

The case for cutting meat consumption has never been more compelling. Yet we remain stubbornly addicted to big protein hits in animal form. Could that be about to change? If you share the typical British appetite, you will have worked your way through more than 1.5kg of meat this week as part of your annual […]

Heinberg : What are the effects of peak oil?

Professor Heinberg explains the effects of ?peak oil?. The theory of peak oil says that global oil production is in decline. Because our economies rely so heavily on cheap oil, global oil depletion will affect everything from transport to housing to food supply.

Saudi Options Narrow With Peak Water

With just 4 inches of rain a year, Saudi Arabia is already one of the driest places on earth. But unlike neighboring Israel, conservation is not part of the culture. Saudi water use is profligate, almost twice the world average of 500 cubic meters per capita annually. But it’s not that cliche of oil-rich extravagance […]

A Farm for the Future (part 1of 4)

BBC documentary on the precient global farming and food crisis, filmed in the UK. Featuring Martin Crawford (Agroforestry Research Trust), Fordhall Farm, Richard Heinberg and others. Topics covered are the influence of oil on the food production, peak-oil, food security, carbon emissions, sustainability and permaculture. The media material presented in this production is protected by […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: Efficiency is the Solution

If there is a way to get through the loss of fossil fuels, it lies in developing new and more efficient ways to generate renewable energy and more efficient ways of utilizing the fossil fuels we have left. Renewable sources currently provide only 16 percent of our energy in the U.S. and 11 percent of […]

Will plug-in automobiles be a success?

Will plug-in cars be a success? If by success, we mean “sell lots of vehicles” the answer is probably “no” unless the price comes down a lot–say 50% from today’s prices, so that price is in line with what common people can afford. People don’t pay more for a car than the loan officer will […]

One of the top questions for our time: how will Peak Oil affect the economy?

Peak oil might hit sometime during the next five years.  How might this affect the world economy.  We we examine important dynamics about oil prices, some misunderstood by many writing about Peak Oil — from doomsters to cornucopians.  The bottom line:  we cannot reliably forecast what will happen.  Peak oil might have little effect — or crush the economy. […]

WHERE’S OUR OIL PRICE COLLAPSE?

Make no mistake about it, without plentiful, cheap, and easy to access oil, the United States of America would descend into chaos and collapse. The fantasies painted by “green” energy dreamers only serve to divert the attention of the non critical thinking masses from the fact our sprawling suburban hyper technological society would come to a […]

How the West Has Won

Peak Moment 200: “Is the world a better place because you were born?” asks author Derrick Jensen. He contrasts sustainable indigenous cultures, who enrich their habitat, with the current “dominant culture destroying everything.” He explores how industrial civilization is inherently violent, turning people into objects and the earth into stuff. His books include A Language […]

Oil shocks in a global perspective: are they really that bad?

Using a comprehensive global dataset, we outline stylized facts characterizing relationships between crude oil prices and macroeconomic developments across the world. Approaching the data from several angles, we find that the impact of higher oil prices on oil-importing economies is generally small: a 25 percent increase in oil prices typically causes GDP to fall by […]

The Economy: Possible Scenarios for the Future 3

In Sacred Economy, Charles Eisenstein poses the seemingly outrageous idea that money should be sacred. In this he means that a good bit of the mess we’re currently in is because we have lost this sense of the sacred and the special – the connected and interdependent nature of transactions between people. Eisenstein advocates for […]

The Urbal Fix 8 (Solutions B)

Thanks Tom Bliss The Urbal Institute … food city transition global warming peak oil steady state green space sustainability green … Please visit urbal.tv for an explanation.

Let’s view the present crisis from a historical point of view.

Humanity took 200,000 years to reach one billion inhabitants in 1804. It then took 127 years to reach the second billion in 1927. The next billion increases were reached, respectively, in 1960, 1975, 1986 and 1999. Never before did world population increase that way. Why? Humanity lacked the knowledge that would be gained in Western […]

The Peak Oil Crisis: A Billion Vehicles

Last month Wards Auto published a story pointing out that the world’s motor vehicle count was now over 1 billion. As could be expected, registered vehicles in China grew by 27.5 percent to 78 million last year. Don’t worry; the U.S. is still well ahead in the who-has-the-most-cars race with 240 million registered vehicles, but […]

U.S. plays key role in global food chain

U.S. Sen. Richard Lugar touched on topics from disarmament with the former Soviet Union to the need to increase food production for a growing world population Tuesday during a luncheon at Harre Union on the Valparaiso University campus. About 200 business, community and education leaders attended the event, which was sponsored by the Greater Valparaiso […]

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