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As farms go, so go the cities

By December 30, 2011
What Matters? by Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is like Howard Stern -- you either love him or you have no use for him. There doesn't seem to be much middle ground. Those who love Berry, from homesteaders and Greenhorns (that's new farmers to you and me) to community gardeners, find inspiration in the plainspoken moral indignation of this latter-day Jeffersonian who won't be budged from his conviction that the real America is farms and rural towns, not big cities and suburbs. By contrast, eco-minded folks from New York to … [Read more...]

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Occupying science: technology for the 99 percent

By December 19, 2011
Techno-Fix

Even to save the planet from climate change or to save the economy from the end of cheap oil, you can't stop the march of technological progress, we're often told. Whether it's the personal car, industrial farming or nuclear power, once the genie's out of the bottle, you just can't squeeze him back in. And anyway, we're also told, even the most dangerous technologies are morally neutral. They can always be used for either good or evil. It just depends on who's using them and for what. Thus, … [Read more...]

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Funniest spoof ad since “Idiocracy”

By December 13, 2011
screenshot from "Ron Bless America" spoof campaign ad

We love Ron Paul. At least the half of him that wants to get US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan, repeal the USA-PATRIOT Act and cut subsidies to Wall Street and Big Oil. We even like the nutty professor who fingers the Fed and gushes about gold. But we're not so crazy about the crazy Ron Paul who wants to rev-up a Texas Chain Saw Massacre on social security, environmental protection and support for clean energy. That's not the only reason we loved Conan O'Brien's spoof of Paul's edgy new … [Read more...]

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Top 10 peak oil books of 2011

By December 12, 2011
open book on stack of books

Welcome to our second annual list of the top ten peak oil books. Most of them are explicitly about peak oil, while others deal with energy depletion as a significant factor in the economy or the environment. A couple titles focus on responses to the myriad conundrums that Richard Heinberg has dubbed "peak everything" and that are now converging to create a perfect storm for global industrial civilization. Along with Heinberg, we list books by peak oil stalwarts John Michael Greer and Dmitry … [Read more...]

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A course to keep you from crashing

By December 8, 2011
collapsing villa in Finland

If you still think professional economists have any authority left to talk about finance, debt and banking, remember that most of them failed to predict the Great Recession of 2008. Then consider how many of those same financial experts have been saying on and off since the crash that the economy has entered a recovery, even if only a "jobless" one. Recovery? Really? Sure, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is back up to early 2008 levels. Corporate profits are up too. A few really rich … [Read more...]

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How Saudi oil could start World War III

By December 5, 2011
The White House at night

"I want to go to war with China," said presidential hopeful Rick Santorum in a recent GOP debate, showing the cavernous lack of any good sense that has become his trademark. Nonetheless, Santorum was probably speaking for many Americans who fear that China may soon overtake the US as the world's single great power. By contrast, many of those same Americans probably think of Saudi Arabia, whose obliging princes seem always at the ready to pump extra crude onto the world market to temper oil … [Read more...]

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Transition groups getting things done

By November 22, 2011

I'm glad that John Michael Greer's frank feedback on the Transition movement has generated a healthy discussion among Transition Voice readers. While no one is a bigger supporter of Transition than we are, we welcome an open discussion about how to best help our households and our communities to prepare for an economy that will continue to contract as peaks in energy and other resources make themselves felt. And we're also glad to see that Transition groups around the world have made real … [Read more...]

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Peak oil gets pepper sprayed

By November 22, 2011
Peak oil curve with Hubbert and pepper spray cop

How many Saudi Arabias did you say that was? It's hard to keep up these days with claims by oil and gas drillers about how many Saudi Arabia-sized reserves of tar sands oil/shale oil/deepwater oil/hydrofracked gas that North America is now allegedly able to access due to the smarts of petroleum geologists and the tenacity of oilmen. "Because of better technology, notably breakthroughs in drilling, the US all of a sudden realizes it is sitting on a century’s worth of gas supply," writes … [Read more...]

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Even the electric chair probably created jobs

By November 21, 2011
Keystone ad

While attending a conference for solar energy companies from the Mid-Atlantic states held last week in Washington, DC, I picked up a copy of The Hill, a newspaper for Washington insiders that comes out daily when Congress is in session. And I marveled at the full page ads taken out by big government contractors and industry lobby groups and directed at members of Congress and their staffs. Just another way that corporations act like people -- people with huge budgets for issues ads, that … [Read more...]

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Transition plans and meetings a waste of time, says Greer

By November 21, 2011
hippies meeting

After he spoke on the panel about local solutions at the ASPO-USA Truth in Energy Conference held in Washington, DC earlier this month, I asked John Michael Greer to give us some of his thoughts about the Transition Movement. He obliged us and so we offer his comments in full below. Greer is the author of numerous books on peak oil and other subjects including The Wealth of Nature: Economics as if Survival Mattered. Q. What do you think of the Transition movement’s decision to focus on … [Read more...]

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