Richard Heinberg on Peak Oil and Dan Geer on Internet Privacy and Securit

On Wednesday, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto signed a historic reform bill that will allow foreign companies to access oil and gas fields in the country. The reform is meant to make Mexico’s oil industry more competitive and drive economic growth in the world’s 15th largest economy. Erin takes a look. Then, Erin is joined […]

Peak Oil: Dismissing Concerns Won’t Make Them Disappear

So instead of a more self-reflexive populace that understands everyone — including oneself — is full of contradictions, and more importantly, that it’s entirely natural to have some analytical imperfections, we’ve become a society of self-denial, where a person’s opinions can be easily discredited unless they practice an impossibly monastic lifestyle. [1] If one is […]

Dark Age America: A Bitter Legacy

Civilizations normally leave a damaged environment behind them when they fall, and ours shows every sign of following that wearily familiar pattern. The nature and severity of the ecological damage a civilization leaves behind, though, depend on two factors, one obvious, the other less so. The obvious factor derives from the nature of the technologies […]

Peak Oil is back with a Vengence

One of the most misleading tropes of recent years is that ‘peak oil is dead‘, underlined by the closing of the Oil Drum blog.  Fracking seemed to supply endless cheap gas to the US, poil production in the US increased in the US for the first time in decades, fracking was on the ascended as was […]

Peak Oil: Written on Tombstones

Not too long, another in the endless procession of skate-past-facts-we-don’t like articles made its way into publication via a piece entitled “Here’s The Statistic That Will Be Written On The Tombstones Of Peak Energy Believers” Those concerned about the peak in oil production have apparently earned themselves a promotion! Now we are peak “energy” advocates. […]

Three Nails in the Coffin of Peak Oil

This post was first published on The Oil Drum one year ago. This post is based on a talk I gave as an “undistinguished speaker” to the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG) oil finders lunch in Aberdeen a few weeks ago. This will be one of my last posts on The Oil Drum. There […]

Peak Oil: Derring-Do Part Two!

Recent publications featuring the impressive tales of the billions made by oil industry entrepreneurs does have a certain appeal to it, whether one is a cynic or fawning admirer. The levels of success and wealth enjoyed by those few—ignoring the not-always idealistic paths ushering them to the top—is indeed astonishing, and so far-removed from the […]

Matt Simmons – What Peak Oil Is & What It Is Not

Matt Simmons – What Peak Oil Is & What It Is Not

Mike Ruppert’s Story Part 72: The Beginning

I first met Mike at a symposium to observe the third anniversary of September 11.  I’d been invited to speak on the environmental disaster that had ensued from the collapse of the buildings and which I’d come to know intimately because at the time, my son had been a student at Stuyvesant High School, located four […]

Peak Oil: The Limits Of Swashbuckling

I and others have written a number of articles detailing some of the drawbacks, consequences, and less-publicized aspects of the recent oil production surge resulting from hydraulic fracturing (fracking) taking place in several regions of the country—most notably throughout the Bakken Formation in North Dakota and several regions of Texas. Others have focused their attentions […]

Peak Oil: Thinking Ahead

There’s likely to be little disagreement that for most of us, the current economic, social, and political issues and conflicts we’ve been mired in for the past six or seven years are the most challenging set of conditions we’ve ever encountered. Even those relatively untouched by the hardships (are there any such people?) are no […]

Peak Oil: Denial Magic 2

This is a second look at a recent Reuters article by John Kemp, which got me thinking that those who deny peak oil ought to be magicians. The tactics are standard by now: Toss out some carefully massaged facts bearing the imprint of near-truths but without context (just to be safe), engage in a pattern […]

Debunking Peak Oil Debunkers

I came across this OpEd this morning by Richard Turcotte, a former financial advisory and retired attorney, now turned author. Besides turning his ‘pen’ to fiction, he also blogs on energy issues, Peak Oil, in particular, so critics will likely call him, and me, ‘true believers.’ But our particular tribe trusts facts and verifiable numbers, […]

The Unbelievable Life And Death Of Michael C. Ruppert

After decades of struggle, the notorious doomsayer finally found fame and recognition. Then he shot himself.   By the second Sunday of April this year, Michael C. Ruppert was broke. The 63-year-old cop-turned-writer and firebrand gained fame by starring in Collapse, a 2009 documentary in which he predicts society’s destruction. Publicity from the film was […]

Richard Heinberg: Two Realities

Download printable PDF version here (PDF, 103 KB) Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference. –Robert Frost Two paths via rhruzek/flickr. Creative Commons 2.0 license. Our contemporary world is host to two coexisting but fundamentally different—and, in at least one crucial […]

Michael C. Ruppert Evolutionary Collapse

Mike Ruppert is the publisher/editor of the newsletter, From the Wilderness. Most people probably recognize Michael from the documentary “Collapse” which warned about Peak Oil, the collapse of human industrial civilization, and the world we live in today. Michael is also known as the Tracker of Truth to many. His skills as an investigative journalist […]

Abby Martin Interviews Carolyn Baker On “Extinction Dialogs: Living With Death In Mind”

Abby Martin Interviews Carolyn Baker On “Extinction Dialogs: Living With Death In Mind,” By Carolyn And Guy McPherson

Peak Oil: A Few Basics

We now have nearly an entire population in the United States and nearly an entire media establishment that believes that oil is abundant–not because of the objective facts, but because of the oil industry’s highly successful public-relations campaign, a campaign that is still underway. The reason it is still underway is that it is essential […]

Almost a century ago, experts predicted the decline of natural gas production

  The Gas Age In 1920, a correspondent for The Gas Age, summarized national gas production data like this: “The peak of the production of natural gas in this country was doubtless reached in 1917.” Pennsylvania and the Marcellus Shale may be synonymous these days, but the Keystone State is no stranger to oil and natural […]

John Michael Greer: Smile For The Aliens

Last week’s post, with its uncompromising portrayal of what descent into a dark age looks like, fielded the usual quota of voices insisting that it’s different this time. It’s a familiar chorus, and I confess to a certain wry amusement in watching so many changes get rung on what, after all, is ultimately a non […]

Peak Oil: Another Challenge

Climate change [hoax or fact?], The Supreme Court’s parade of idiotic rulings better-suited to the 16th century, and the ongoing duel between Democrats and the Moron Faction which now dominates Republican Party policy-making [a term used loosely], tend to clog the airwaves as we all try to muddle our way through the major challenges of […]

Peak Oil: Denial Magic 1

They should be magicians. Successful magic depends on the artist being able to distract the viewers from the sleight-of-hand performed. Keep them preoccupied with one topic or one item and it’s then much simpler to create the illusion of magic. Peak oil deniers are a lot like that. Toss out some carefully massaged facts bearing […]

Orwellian Newspeak and the oil industry’s fake abundance story

When what you are saying is so obviously at odds with the plain truth, it is useful to choose your words carefully to obscure this fact. This was the strategy of the Ministry of Truth, the propaganda arm of the authoritarian government depicted in George Orwell’s novel 1984. The altered language was called Newspeak, a […]

Nicole Foss: We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil

Nicole Foss: We Need Freedom of Action To Confront Peak Oil

Peak Oil in Russia

This week no energy relevant developments came out of Iraq. The Islamic State seems to be still consolidating its territories, facing scant opposition from the Baghdad government. But the spectacular advances seem to be done with, at least for now. Few western media outlets are able to properly report the situation, with gory news now […]

How To Find Shelter From The Coming Storms?

Some basic suggestions for those who are seeking shelter from the coming storms of global financial crisis and recession. Reader Andy recently wrote: “I look forward to your blog each day but am still waiting for your ideas for surviving the coming crisis.” Andy reports that he and his wife have small government and private […]

Are We Running Out of Oil?

For many years, a number of industry experts have been sounding the alarm that America, and the world, are about to run out of oil. This is nothing new. In 1914, the Bureau of Mines said that U.S. oil reserves would be exhausted by 1924. The Interior Department said global reserves would last 13 years… […]

The End of Sustainability

The time has come for us to collectively reexamine — and ultimately move past — the concept of sustainability. The continued invocation of sustainability in policy discussions ignores the emerging realities of the Anthropocene, which is creating a world characterized by extreme complexity, radical uncertainty and unprecedented change. From a policy perspective, we must face […]

Debt: Eight Reasons This Time is Different

In today’s world, we have a huge amount of debt outstanding. Academic researchers Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogart have become famous for their book This Time is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly and their earlier paper This Time is Different: A Panoramic View of Eight Centuries of Financial Crises. Their point, of course, is that […]

Energy Descent Pathways. Evaluating Potential Responses to Peak Oil

This dissertation reviews the literature on the subject of ‘peak oil’, the hypothesized peaking in world oil production. For Western societies dependent on supplies of cheap oil and gas, a rapid and unplanned for discontinuity in supply could be disastrous, affecting everything from food distribution to transportation. Some writers call for a ‘wartime mobilisation’ engagement […]

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