The magazine on peak oil and the Transition movement
Shell Oil will discontinue drilling for oil off the coast of Alaska during the summer of 2013. According to Marilyn Heiman, Director of the U.S. Arctic Program of Pew Trusts, “[Shell] had some safety and management challenges that I don’t think they had fully thought through.” Shell, along with every other oil company out there, has a lot to learn about drilling in the Arctic Ocean. I'm no expert, but in my opinion, the first thing they need to learn is respect. It’s not that … [Read more...]
We don't own a TV, so I don't see many ads. But since I love the NBC show Parenthood, I had to subscribe to HULU Plus to catch the show every week. There, I'm subjected to the every-eight-minutes commercial assault on our minds, dignity, and behavior so central to the TV "experience." This, HULU Plus calls "limited commercial interruption." I call it Hell. Ever since my HULU subscription began a few weeks ago I've been seeing a raft of hideous ads for a slew of unconscionable products … [Read more...]
I was riding my bicycle into town on trash collection day last week and noticed that one of my neighbors had filled their can with weeds and other green waste. They had obviously cleaned up their yard and had accumulated a lot of green material in the process. But, I stalled out in trying to figure out why they had put it in their trash can? Weeds, grass clippings, twigs and other cuttings are, most assuredly, not trash. My sighting the greens in the trash can happened to coincide with … [Read more...]
In a letter to Ernest de Chabrol dated 9 June 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in? Nearly two hundred years later, de Tocqueville has been vindicated not only as a superb social critic but also as a forecaster. High anxiety Knowing nothing about de Tocqueville, the ten-year-old son of a … [Read more...]
Ponder what it means that half of all the oil ever burned has been burned over the past 22 years and ask yourself where the supplies will come from to fund the next 22 years. Thanks to Adam Smith and those who followed him, especially the current neoclassical economic theologians, we've seen such an increase in the world’s wealth and population that it's hard to imagine life before the industrial revolution. Then the world moved slowly, mostly by human and animal muscle power. But with the … [Read more...]
John Ottway has the job at the end of the world. He's a sharpshooter who protects oil rig workers from animal predators lurking in the wilderness surrounding a remote Alaskan oil facility in the new film, The Grey. When Ottway (Liam Neeson) and some of his co-workers workers board a light plane for Nome, he finds out quickly that his knowledge of wolf behavior will come in handy. The plane crashes and he and the handful of survivors face an ultimate battle of survival with no fuel, food or GPS … [Read more...]
Peak oil isn't all about Saudi Arabia depletion curves and what's for lunch at the annual ASPO conference. In fact, may folks still don't know much about peak oil. I didn't know about it until recently. My casual online search for ideas about how to simplify my home led me, via Peak Moment, to so much more than I could ever have imagined. I found an episode about a couple who were simplifying, which was my introduction to Peak Moment, and also to the issue of peak oil. More than 200 … [Read more...]
We see finite substances and the living planet as materials to be exploited for our comfort. We treat resources as our entitlement. Examples of intense anthropocentrism are so numerous in the English language it seems unfair to pick on this one word from among many. And, as with most other cases, we don't even think about these examples, much less question them (cf. sustainability, civilization, economic growth). My only justifications for singling out resources are the preponderance … [Read more...]
For many of us, the first snow is on the ground, night skies are star-studded and a holiday spirit is in the air. Holidays, as much fun as they are, tend to bring out some of our most entrenched bad habits. The holidays shouldn't be a burden on the environment, but they are. Most Americans, for example, produce about 25 percent more trash during the holidays (from Thanksgiving to New Year’s) resulting in around 25 million extra tons of waste. There has to be a better way to … [Read more...]
I can't think of any moms I know (and even those I don't) who would sprinkle a dose of poison on her kid's food. I can't think of any who would blow mercury particulates in her kid's face. Nor any who would wish for her child a lower standard of living in the future than she now enjoys. Who does? Moms are the super champions of kids, wanting only the best for her offspring. Your kid's future looks bleak Yet because of a future of decreased energy supplies and increased energy prices, any … [Read more...]
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