“The “Impossible” But Inevitable Solution: Decentralization

What lies beyond the current failing, unsustainable versions of Capitalism and Socialism? Decentralization. Correspondent John D. recently sent in a link to an interview with energy expert and author Jeremy Leggett. The title, “Make no mistake, this is an energy civil war” is a bit sensationalist, but the gist of his point is that centralized control of […]

Apocalypse, Man: World’s End According to Michael C. Ruppert

In Episode two, Michael C. Ruppert talks fracking, police militarization, and Occupy. Then he has a jam session with his bandmate, Doug Lewis, and his singing dog, Squishy. “Apocalypse, Man” is an intimate portrait of a man convinced of the imminent collapse of the world, but with answers to how the human spirit can survive […]

John Michael Greer: A Bargain with the Archdruid

My anomalous position as a writer and speaker on the future of industrial society who holds down a day job as an archdruid has its share of drawbacks, no question, but it also has significant advantages.  One of the most important of those is that I don’t have to worry about maintaining a reputation as […]

The Ridiculousness Of Economics?

People have a strange habit of ridiculing economics for its assumptions and [benchmark] models of optimality. While modern mathematical economics (i.e., professional mathturbation) admittedly rely on sometimes outrageous assumptions that make most of the resulting predictions irrelevant, there is nothing ridiculous or unscientific about economic reasoning. In order to study the social world we need to […]

Peak oil won’t save us

George W Bush, March 5, 2008: “We gotta get off oil, America has got to change its habits…It should be obvious to all, demand has outstripped supply, which makes prices go up.” Hubbert peak oil theory: Peak oil is the point in time when the maximum rate of petroleum extraction is reached, after which the rate […]

Peak Oil Denial: Nonsense Keeps Rolling Along # 6

At the risk of starting a cat fight where truth may too quickly become a casualty, why don’t we more forcefully challenge those who deny peak oil (and global warming) and who do so for reasons that generally ignore reality in favor of narrowly-defined interests? Those motivations will ultimately do nothing but promote more eventual […]

Peak Oil Is Here Despite Industry Claims

The oil industry wants us to believe that North America is sitting on an endless supply of natural gas and oil – and they want access to all of it.  But the truth is that there is barely enough fossil fuel in the ground to sustain the US. Ring of Fire’s Mike Papantonio speaks with […]

John Michael Greer: Return of the Space Bats

“Some seventeen notable empires rose in the Middle Period of Earth. These were the Afternoon Cultures. All but one are unimportant to this narrative, and there is little need to speak of them save to say that none of them lasted for less than a millennium, none for more than ten; that each extracted such […]

The World is sleepwalking to a Global Energy Crisis

All signs of desperation, Albert. The party’s about to end and the most greedy people are getting as bladdered as they can, and stashing away their own private supplies before the booze runs out. Sad, and also childish. 2014 – This documentary and the other documentaries on this channel are very informative, interesting, and even […]

After the Collapse: Six Likely Events That Will Follow an Economic Crash

It’s not too difficult to understand that we are well on our way to a paradigm shift in America; in fact we’re in the midst of it right now. The writing is on the wall and can no longer be ignored. The US government has run up trillions of dollars in debt, and given the […]

Nine Meals Away From Anarchy

To every anarchist… If you feel the definition of anarchy is misrepresented, see the definition of it below, and deal with it. Anarchy has more than one meaning. Merriam Webster Dictionary an·ar·chy noun \ˈa-nər-kē, -ˌnär-\ 1) absence of government 2) a state of lawlessness or political disorder due to the absence of governmental authority. 3) […]

Orlov: The Peace-Violence Axis

Albert’s plot of thinkers has elicited some strong reactions. The vertical “Ecotopia”/“Collapse” axis seems somewhat less controversial: it seems that some people are more optimistic, some less optimistic, but that this is a personal preference that others can easily accept. But the horizontal axis, especially in his initial version, where it went from “peaceful transformation” […]

Peak Oil Denial: Nonsense Keeps Rolling Along # 5

At the risk of starting a cat fight where truth may too quickly become a casualty, why don’t we more forcefully challenge those who deny peak oil (and global warming) and who do so for reasons that generally ignore reality in favor of narrowly-defined interests? Those motivations will ultimately do nothing but promote more eventual […]

Royal Society: Theme issue on peak oil

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society has the prestige of being the world’s first scientific journal and also published the work of Charles Darwin, Michael Faraday, William Herschel and many more celebrated names in science. Recently, this journal published a theme issue, edited by Richard G. Miller and Steve R. Sorell, on peak oil. This […]

Peak Oil: Clear As Mud # 2

As I mentioned in the first post of this short series, we are once again being subjected to differing interpretations of the same set of facts. It does make planning and strategizing a bit more challenging….   YES? NO? UP? DOWN? LEFT? RIGHT?   Global oil demand will expand by 14 million barrels to average […]

Peak oil is real and it’s here, suggests new research

The fear that we have reached peak oil seems to have abated in recent years as the US and other countries began extraction of shale oil. But that doesn’t mean we should think that this problem has gone away. According to UPI.com, new research published by the Royal Society’s Philosophical Transactions A suggests that the […]

Robert Rapier: Grading My 2013 Energy Predictions

Normally I would have had this out two weeks ago, but the 60 Minutes story has thrown me behind schedule. I continue to get lots of comments and questions about Vinod Khosla and now his righteous indignation over how the 60 Minutes story was portrayed (especially since that was the only part of my interview […]

Collapsing Consciously

A collection of probing essays and weekly meditations, this book addresses how to prepare emotionally and spiritually for the impending collapse of industrial civilization. Author Carolyn Baker offers wisdom, inspiration, and a sense of spiritual purpose for anyone who is concerned about the daunting future humankind has created. The author’s introduction to Collapsing Consciously articulates […]

Holmgren’s ‘Crash on Demand’: be careful what you wish for

It is a rare occurence that I disagree with David Holmgren.  One of my heroes, and the co-founder of permaculture, I generally find his intellect formidable, his insights on permaculture revelatory, and his take on the wider patterns and scenarios unfolding around us to be deeply insightful.  But while there is much insight in his […]

Living in a world we can’t understand

What is not intelligible to me is not necessarily unintelligent.                          –Friedrich Nietzsche As we know, there are known knowns. There are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns. That is to say, we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns, the […]

Hope In The Face Of Disaster – Creating A Sustainable, Viable, Future Path For Civilisation

The Illusion of Progress There was a small village located in the centre of a large rainforest. Over time, the people decided that they would like to voyage out of the forest and to make their way to the sea, which they knew was close by. To do this they consulted the wise people in […]

So much for “peak oil”

The Romans named the first month of the year after the double-headed god Janus, the symbol of thresholds and transitions. He reminds us how life often involves choices between opposites. Janus stands at January’s doorway looking at both 2013 and the New Year. One Janus-like debate in the energy sector revolves around the world’s oil […]

The Schizophrenic Society

My first book, “Energy & Finance” is being published at the end of February and I am now researching a second one. This is the draft introduction to the book I am thinking of writing about society’s inability to act on the systemic threats that it faces. Proposed improvements and comments would be much appreciated. […]

Ex-Director Of DOE Lab Found Dead

A former National Energy Technology Laboratory director who’d been indicted by a grand jury has been found dead in Pennsylvania. The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office says Pittsburgh resident Anthony Cugini (koo-GHEE’-nee) was found Wednesday at the Wingfield Pines Conservation Area, just outside his hometown. A determination of the cause of death is pending. Police […]

Heinberg: Shale gas, peak oil and our future

Selma Franssen: Considering the shale gas and oil reserves in Europe, is there any sense in fracking here, all other objections aside? Richard Heinberg: Until test wells are drilled, it’s very difficult to know what the actual shale gas and oil production potential is for Europe. All sorts of numbers have been cited, but they […]

John Michael Greer: 2030 is the New 2012

  Last week’s discussion of failed predictions in the peak oil movement inevitably touched on the latest round of claims that the world as we know it is going to come to a full stop sometime very soon. That was inevitable partly because these claims account for a fairly large fraction of the predictions made […]

Peak Oil as an Epochalist Illusion

“Peak oil theory, as you probably know, starts with the obvious observation that oil is a finite resource. The process which produces oil takes place over geological time scales and so once we have used up what?s in the ground now, it is effectively gone. The peak comes when the rate of extraction can no […]

The War on Christmas Trees

This week: 1. Aldeia resiste the world cock 2. The War on Christmas Trees 3. NYE Noise Demos 4. Rote Flora Defense 5. 20 years of Zapatistas 6. RATM – People of the Sun 7. Anarchists come out of the closet

The Mis-Taking of America

America was not infinite; it only seemed that way to early European explorers, conquerors, and settlers for whom the size of the known world had suddenly doubled and the quantity of effectively unclaimed resources increased by far more than that.  This sudden immeasurable and unearned abundance, it is clear, authorized a new set of cultural […]

Peak Oil Denial: Nonsense Keeps Rolling Along # 3

Happy New Year to all! At the risk of starting a cat fight where truth may too quickly become a casualty, why don’t we more forcefully challenge those who deny peak oil (and global warming) and who do so for reasons that generally ignore reality in favor of narrowly-defined interests? Those motivations will ultimately do […]

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