The magazine on peak oil and the Transition movement
This article is taken from a response by James Hansen to an op-ed piece published by Joe Nocera in the New York Times on February 18, 2013, "How Not to Fix Climate Change." There, Nocera writes "I believe the Obama administration should approve the Keystone pipeline, which would transport oil mined and processed from the tar sands of Alberta, Canada, to refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. Like it or not, fossil fuels are going to remain the world’s dominant energy source for the … [Read more...]
Something's been troubling me ever since I listened to President Obama's first post-reëlection press conference. Perhaps as a result of Hurricane Sandy, the now two-term president was finally asked a question about global warming, a topic conveniently avoided by both sides throughout the seemingly interminable campaign. The question came from New York Times White House correspondent Mark Lander: "What specifically do you plan to do in a second term to tackle the issue of climate … [Read more...]
It was a pretty disappointing presidential campaign by the two major parties given that neither talked about my key issues — peak oil and global warming — with any passion or consistency. Both major parties seem content to avoid what are essentially the two toughest challenges today and going into the future. The issue behind all issues Yes, there's been plenty of red meat from both sides on social issues such as abortion, contraception, gay marriage. And it's important for women to stand … [Read more...]
If you take a long hard look at a landfill you’ll see both tremendous need (where do we continue to put all this waste?) and undertapped opportunity (how can we redesign, reuse, and repurpose to avoid the landfill altogether?) We’ve been exploiting natural resources at an unsustainable level for nearly a century to create material goods for our well-being and pleasure. Over that time we’ve become a consumer society, increasing our demand for goods and pushing the limits of our … [Read more...]
A Washington Post story yesterday about the (so far) two-day electricity blackout that affected 600 million citizens was a study in trying to find an answer to the acute predicament facing Mother India. Numerous officials are cited in the article, mainly scratching their heads, baffled over the cause of grid collapse. Yet one paragraph stood out for its more definitive take on the problem. Indian industry leaders blamed the incident on a large and growing gap between electricity demand and … [Read more...]
We think everybody needs to know about peak oil these days, when oil companies are trying to snooker the public into believing that today's cheap unconventional oil and natural gas will solve our energy problems for decades to come. Everybody should know why this is wrong. But not everybody is ready for either wonky analyses of oil depletion curves on the one hand or bleak warnings of the imminent collapse of industrial civilization on the other. For that wider audience beyond the peak oil … [Read more...]
Retired Brig. Gen. Steven Anderson calls himself “an accidental environmentalist.” His epiphany about climate change started with a tactical problem. In 2006 and 2007, when he served as the military’s chief logistician in Iraq, he coordinated the transport of millions of gallons of fuel across the country to power everything from vehicles to the large compressors used to cool individual tents—or, as Anderson puts it, for “air conditioning the desert.” He was taking one casualty … [Read more...]
Peak oil is a fact, not a theory. From US conventional oil production peaking in 1970 to global conventional oil production peaking in 2006 the figures are indisputable. Even institutions such as the International Energy Agency (IEA) and publications like The Economist that are not known for alarmism have admitted that oil production from conventional sources has peaked. So why are there still commentators who refuse to believe peak oil? Similar to the phony global warming "debate," … [Read more...]
Whether or not peak oil is true cannot possibly be in doubt. Within anything other than a geological frame of time, oil is a finite substance. When it is burned, it is gone. Without stretching our brains very far, it is easy to conclude that anything that is finite and consumed will someday be gone. Peak Oil, then, is really an observation, not a theory. If only! What most four-year olds would agree is not much more than minimal common sense continues to confound some, who just cannot … [Read more...]
The following dialog is a continuation of one started by Drs. Sherry Ackerman and Guy McPherson a few weeks ago on Transition Voice. In that discussion, Ackerman and McPherson laid out some philosophical considerations about the need for a transition to more locally-based economies of human scale along with a deeper reverence for and consideration of the natural world that we share with plants, animals and other natural forms. In the following discussion, they talk very practically — … [Read more...]
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