Feeling Guilty about Global Warming and Peak Oil

Guys, today I wanted to write about kittens and string. No wait, I wanted to write about global warming and peak oil. Sorry, this is what Twitter has done to my mind. Global Warming Have you seen the news lately? Record temperatures are being reached every year around the globe! In India, Europe, the US. […]

The Dithering Age: Holocene, Anthropocene, and Chthlucene

A sword age, axe age, shields are cloven, a wind age, wolf age, ere the world sinks — Volupsa There is no question that anthropogenic activity has profoundly damaged the vast interrelated web of ecological systems that maintain the’ conditions for life on this planet. Similarly there is an increasingly agreement among climate scientists that […]

The end of the “population problem”? Another Seneca cliff in our future

Image from “National Geographic” If the demographic projections by the United Nations will turn out to be true, the world population should reach over 11 billion people by 2100. Some think that it will be a disaster, others see it as a good thing as it would bring more economic growth. But is it really possible to […]

Kunstler: The Desperate and the Disparate

As I was leaving Detroit very early Sunday morning to catch a plane, I saw the breaking story about a “shooting incident” in an Orlando nightclub, but the first reports did not detail any fatalities. Only after we landed was the shocking news of 50 dead and as many wounded revealed on the concourse TV […]

Savoring the Peak Moments of Our Lives

I was recently interviewed by Carolyn Baker for her “New Lifeboat Hour” podcast, to which she gave the delicious title above (thank you Carolyn!!) Carolyn is the author of numerous books, including Navigating the Coming Collapse, and Dark Gold: The Human Shadow and the Global Crisis. Carolyn’s Daily News Digest is one of my primary sources for […]

How Did Things Get To Be This Way?

Ojibway elder Basil Johnston said that a good life is impossible for people disconnected from their history. We must know who we are. The venerable historian William Cronon was the son of a history professor. One day, his father gave him the magic key for understanding the world. He told his son to carry one […]

Can the world go all-electric?

Recently, word leaked out that Norway may ban the sale of diesel- and gasoline-powered vehicles by 2025. The move toward electric vehicles is part of a dream shared by those concerned about climate change and about fossil fuel depletion (especially oil depletion), namely, turn the world into one big all-electric paradise. Run everything we can […]

Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert

  The man and the movement – is it dead? This week we’re going to look at a life that shaped energy expectations, a whole social movement, and American military policy in the Middle East. Finally, there is a biography of M. King Hubbert, the man who warned oil companies and the world about Peak […]

Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert

Peak Oil? Life of M. King Hubbert Series:  Radio Ecoshock Show Subtitle:  the man and the movement – is it dead? Program Type:  Weekly Program Featured Speakers/Commentators:  Mason Inman, Lisa Alexander Contributor:  Alex Smith  [Contact Contributor] Broadcast Restrictions:  For non-profit use only. License:  Attribution (by)  Broadcast Advisory:  No Advisories – program content screened and verified. Summary:  […]

Peak Oil and Climate Collapse: Can Society Make the Transition in Time?

As the independent investigative journalist Dahr Jamail has detailed in his regular climate dispatch for Truthout, there are signs that excessive amounts of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide are wreaking havoc on the globe’s atmospheric and ocean systems. From the Wildfires raging near Fort McMurray in Alberta, to the increasing acidification of the oceans which cover 70% […]

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This?

There are—almost always—at least two sides to any story of significance and potential impact upon others. The greater the impact and potential for a range of outcomes, the more certain one can be that there are more than a handful of factors, considerations, and perspectives to be accounted for if the issue at hand is […]

On economic growth and the decline in US births

From the Wall Street Journal: U.S. births declined and the death rate rose last year in a sign of continuing pressure on the country’s population growth, newly released federal figures show. Preliminary numbers out Thursday from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show there were 3.98 million births in the U.S. in 2015. That is […]

When Someone Discovers Peak Oil

From Doomsdays (2015)

Countdown to Extinction

How I quite worrying and learned to love the apocalypse   According to the online website The Death Clock, a man born on my birthdate can be expected to die 20 years from now in 2036. This assumes, however, that the entire human race does not become extinct before the estimated date of my demise. In a […]

Lived Crisis vs. Systemic Crisis

A New Narrative? I’ve been thinking a lot about cultural narratives and, especially, the call for a new narrative that might guide modern society through a transition to a sustainable culture. This narrative, we are told, needs to be compelling and, it is often emphasized, not too depressing or negative. Be positive, keep it simple, […]

Who are the “We”?

    Who is RESPONSIBLE for the mess? When I cruise through the blogosphere reading of tales of woe in the environment, politics and economics, I often run across the sad conclusion from the authors how “we” failed to change our carbon burning  ways or elect the right leaders or correct the imbalances in our […]

A Chat with Steve Ludlum of Economic-Undertow.com

KunstlerCast 277 — Steve Ludlum is a native mid-westerner who has spent most of his 65 years on the East Coast. Steve is a Pulitzer Prize winning photographer who has also been at various times an amateur naturalist, artist, designer and writer. He currently studies economic issues, resource and energy depletion, monetary policy and the […]

Helicopter economics and the relevance of ‘Peak Oil’

The lingering relevance of the heady days of “Peak Oil” and the prospects of “helicopter money” from central banks find a place in our round-up of the week’s best markets comment and analysis from the Financial Times. Taken from our Markets Insight and Smart Money columns, the pieces come from our line-up of industry contributors […]

100 Things You Can Do to Get Ready for Peak Oil

SPRING Rethink your seed starting regimen. How will you do it without potting soil, grow lights and warming mats. Consider creating manure heated hotbeds, using your own compost, building a greenhouse, or coldframe, direct seeding early versions of transplanted crops, etc… Your local feed store has chicks right now – even suburbanites might consider ordering […]

The Renewed Debates on Sharing, Inequality, and the Limits to Growth

As part of STWR’s ‘global call for sharing’ campaign, we are periodically highlighting the growing public debate on the need for wealth, power and resources to be shared more equitably both within countries and internationally. This debate is becoming more prominent by the day, although it is often framed in an implicit context without directly […]

America’s Story

Politics in the United States subsists on a single myth whose narrative is central to all positions, even most of the ones located at the fringe.[i]  This dominant political narrative pretends to be historically accurate, as if it explains where we have come from and where we can go from here.  But the explanation it […]

M. King Hubbert: The Limits To Oil

M. King Hubbert did more to raise awareness of the finite nature of global oil reserves than any other person, living or dead. He was a larger-than-life figure, who fought tirelessly to insert the limits of nature into the national dialog regarding the strategic use of resources. Yet surprisingly little has been publicly documented about […]

13 Global Catastrophic Events Which Could Lead To An American Apocalypse

Is the strongest and most powerful nation on the planet headed for an apocalypse which will bring it to its knees?  We live in a world that is becoming increasingly unstable, and apocalyptic themes have become very common in books, movies, television shows and video games.  It is almost as if there is an unconscious […]

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 6

I suggested at the outset of this series that I did not want it to turn into yet another exercise in mocking those who do not accept the implications of peak oil. A legitimate argument could be made that I’ve failed in that objective. I view the tone adopted in a number of comments I’ve […]

If Something Is Going To Destroy Humanity

Global catastrophes—events that wipe out at least 10% of the world population—obviously don’t happen very often. But they have happened in the past; the plague in the 14th century, for example, killed as much as 17% of the global population. More recently, the Spanish flu in 1918 killed between 50 to 100 million people—not quite […]

Time To Get Serious Pt 4

A fossil fuel-driven-and-made-possible life is all any of us have ever known. There are virtually no aspects of commerce, leisure, transportation, or consumption which do not depend in some part on inexpensive, readily-available and easily-produced fossil fuels. That is most certainly not going to change dramatically overnight, but the situation we’ll soon be facing simply […]

We’re More At Risk Of Death From Climate Change, Pandemic, Than A Car Crash

A new report has found that the average person is five times more likely to die in an “act of human extinction” than an act of human error. And while this may be good news for those with a fear of driving, for the rest of us the future looks grim. The media has hinted […]

Why you can’t argue with a “modern”

The modern world is filled with things many of us regard as antiquated and old-fashioned. Modern people often say that ancient rituals are mere superstition, that science tells us what is real and what is not, and that we are now free from ideas including untestable ideas from religion that have slowed continual improvement in […]

Peak Oil: Are We Not Better Than This? Pt 5

[T]he West’s energy security is assured to a degree that has not existed in the past. That’s good news for the American people and for the world, even if it is not news that Obama wants to hear. He doesn’t? I wonder how that author knows this? Any chance it’s instead just a variation of […]

Opec troubles herald oil’s peak day

On Sunday, April 17, the world’s largest oil producers gathered in Doha to discuss the possibility of freezing their levels of oil production to bolster prices in the global market for crude oil. Prices have been allowed to fall for almost two years due to supply consistently exceeding demand, and the major oil exporters want […]

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