The Great Food Crisis Of 2011

As the new year begins, the price of wheat is setting an all-time high in the United Kingdom. Food riots are spreading across Algeria. Russia is importing grain to sustain its cattle herds until spring grazing begins. India is wrestling with an 18-percent annual food inflation rate, sparking protests. China is looking abroad for potentially […]

Beware of the ‘Food Bubble’

Experts worry that the world is facing a looming food crisis, one that we are currently not well prepared to deal with. In his new book, World on the Edge: How to Prevent Environmental and Economic Collapse, Earth Policy Institute’s Lester Brown looks at the state of the world’s resources, warning that the outlook does […]

Petroleum-based products are part of life

As the news begins its quarterly coverage of increasing gas prices, the argument often arises whether the United States and the industrialized world is addicted to oil. News stories often focus on the cost of gasoline at the gas station. However, they rarely are able to grasp the scope of how deeply integrated petroleum-based products […]

Algeria: Riots Over Rising Food Prices

The police faced off against rioting youths, Muslim prayer leaders called for calm and the authorities canceled soccer games on Friday as Algeria tried to quell unrest over rising food prices. New clashes between youths and the police were reported in Annaba, Oran, Bouira and Bejaia. Youths have been rioting for days following sudden price […]

The realities of global price rises

Food and its production have been a perennial concern for mankind since the dawn of time. Our main sources of food are derived primarily from the land but of all the world’s land mass, a mere 18 per cent is used for agricultural purposes. As this fraction cannot be substantially increased, it is crucial that […]

Energy use limits global economic growth

A new study has found that energy use has a direct impact on economic activity. Buzz up! Researchers have concluded that an “enormous” increase in energy supply will be required to meet the demands of projected world population growth and lift the developing world out of poverty without jeopardizing standards of living in most developed […]

Record-high food prices could go higher, UN warns

The United Nations’ food agency is warning that the price of food is at an all-time high, and appears set to climb even higher. According to the latest food price index released by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, the monthly tally for its standard food basket of 55 items including cereals, oilseeds, dairy, meat […]

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.” […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

Peak Oil, International Trade And Population

Oil is a finite resource! Eventually the oil remaining on the planet will be exhausted and no longer able to be used by humanity. Peak oil can be defined in two ways— The first way is when total amount of oil withdrawn from the earth for use by humanity starts to decline; example— in year […]

Supermarkets – What Price Cheap Food? (2010)

Gone are the days of grazing cattle now we have mega dairies that are rarely witnessed by the public where cows rarely go outside. Journalist David Kirby of New York (author of Animal Factory) describes them as factories rather than farms. Is animal welfare being sacrificed for volume? Panorama manages to gain entrance into a […]

Christopher Swann: Oil bulls may have to pull in their horns

Recent years have been humbling for oil bulls. In 2008 Goldman Sachs was arguing that crude would have risen to between $150 and $200 a barrel by now. Since then the notion of peak oil on which many such forecasts were based has taken a battering. Rather than bumping up against the limits of available […]

Global Food Prices in 2011 Face Perilous Rise

Food prices globally are rising to dangerous levels. There is talk of a coming crisis, like the ones that produced riots around the world in 2008 and 1974. Many of the ingredients of a disaster are present, but governments can stop the problem before it causes too much damage. A warning sign is the price […]

Ex-Shell president sees $5 gas in 2012

The former president of Shell Oil, John Hofmeister, says Americans could be paying $5 for a gallon of gasoline by 2012. In an interview with Platt’s Energy Week television, Hofmeister predicted gasoline prices will spike as the global demand for oil increases. “I’m predicting actually the worst outcome over the next two years which takes […]

The World’s Real Oil Problem

Paul Krugman writes about the rising global price of commodities: 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. ….Today, as in 2007-2008, the primary driving force behind […]

Americans using 8% less gasoline than 2006 peak, will never go up again

The world’s biggest gas-guzzling nation has limits after all. After seven decades of mostly uninterrupted growth, U.S. gasoline demand is at the start of a long-term decline. By 2030, Americans will burn at least 20 percent less gasoline than today, experts say, even as millions of more cars clog the roads. The country’s thirst for […]

EIA’s forecast is an energy fantasy land

The recently released base case that will be used in the coming Annual Energy Outlook 2011 from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) paints a future of cheap and abundant energy for the U.S. economy over the next quarter of a century. But its underlying assumptions are no more credible than those […]

Gas prices in Iran went up overnight by 400%

The price of gasoline in Iran rose four-fold on Sunday while a heavy police presence ensured there was no repeat of rioting seen the last time the government restricted access to heavily subsidised fuel. Motorists had been expecting the rise for the last three months as part of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s policy to phase out […]

China to Raise Gasoline Prices by 4%

China will raise gasoline and diesel prices tomorrow by as much as 4 percent to reflect international crude costs that have climbed to the highest in more than two years. The price of gasoline will rise by 310 yuan ($47) a metric ton and diesel by 300 yuan a ton, the National Development and Reform […]

U.S. gasoline demand begins long decline

The world’s biggest gas-guzzling nation has limits after all. After seven decades of mostly uninterrupted growth, U.S. gasoline demand is at the start of a long-term decline. By 2030, Americans will burn at least 20 percent less gasoline than today, experts say, even as millions of more cars clog the roads. The country’s thirst for […]

The high price we pay for cheap food

Not long ago, I was very kindly invited to Buckingham Palace, as a member of Britain’s food industry. Hundreds of very smart foodies turned up, having showered, shaved and left behind their stoves, whisks and knives. It is a funny thing seeing many of your contemporaries in suits and dresses when you’re used to seeing […]

Peak Oil: What do we do now?

Our problem now is that we have built a complex economy that depends on oil and other fuels. We can see that we will have less oil in the future. The question is, “What we should do, in planning for a change in the world?” Our natural reaction is to try to build add-ons to […]

Grocery prices grow by 1.5 times inflation rate

For the first time since 2008, inflation is hitting consumers in the stomach. Grocery prices grew by more than 1 1/2 times the overall rate of inflation this year, outpaced only by costs of transportation and medical care, according to numbers released Wednesday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Economists predict that this is […]

Rising oil prices, the recession and a new world order

A discussion between economist Kazuo Mizuno and Tsuda College associate professor Toshihito Kayano, which was carried in a book, is based on a bold hypothesis and is inspiring. In the book, titled “Cho-Makuro Tenbo, Sekai Keizai no Shinjitsu” (“Ultra-macro Outlook — The Reality of the World Economy”), Mizuno and Kayano discuss the global economy from […]

Peak in oil demand will be the genuine wolf at the door

Sir Richard Branson, the British tycoon, said at the opening of the Cancun talks on climate change last week: “The next five years will see us face another crunch – the oil crunch.” He predicted that prices, now about US$90 per barrel, would hit $200. “Our supplies of … oil and natural gas are being […]

Kunstler: The Revolutionary Moment

I overheard a conversation between two employees over at the Price Chopper supermarket last week. (The Price Chopper logo is a picture of a Mercury dime with an ax cleaving into Mercury’s head; in other words, an ax murder.) The supermarket employees were both middle-aged women. First: “I’m going home to a cold house.” Second: […]

End of consumerism

It’s not the end of the world, just the end of consumerism. We are about to wave goodbye to the dream of endless economic growth – always, every year, more stuff. However, we have enough already. We really do. Dr Susan Krumdieck, an engineering professor at the University of Canterbury, addresses her audience with a […]

Peak planning

In as much as it does not greatly impinge on the present or demand immediate behavioural change, for many people “peak oil” is an elusive concept that floats about on the periphery of consciousness and intrudes only in the rhetoric of environmentalists, academics and alternative-lifestylers. The term refers to the point when the maximum rate […]

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