Author Archives: admin
Why bother ?
Sharon Astyk, author of the useful energy crisis weblog ‘Casaubon’s Book’, asks the following question: What if your sense of impending doom places you at a distance from the rest of the world, and makes it feel empty? The difficulty … Continue reading
Posted in Action, Community
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The significance of the Deepwater Horizon
BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on the 20th of April, killing 11 men and losing containment of the well it was drilling. It is what is called a “pressure fed” release. The upper limit of the Exxon Valdez disaster … Continue reading
Review: Tipping Point—Near Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production
Civilisation depends on the availability of increasing flows of concentrated energy. We are on the threshold of contracting flows of concentrated energy and its partial substitution by diffuse energy. It is intuitively obvious that the net withdrawal of concentrated energy … Continue reading
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The real lesson of Eyjafjallajokull
John Michael Greer, writing today in his ever insightful blog “The Archdruid Report”, reminds us of the real lesson of the Eyjafjallajokull volcano eruption: nature cannot be ignored with impunity. He isn’t talking about volcanoes—he is talking about the turning … Continue reading
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The future of public debt: prospects and implications
Public debt levels rose dramatically after the 2008 peak oil shock as governments recapitalized banks and defibrillated their sclerotic economies with large cash injections. Many OECD countries now register public debt at around 100% of GDP. Although unpleasant, this is … Continue reading
Posted in politics
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The UK election
This country has £1 trillion national debt, a £250 billion hole in its pension system, a ballooning retired population and a collapsing working population. We depend macro-economically on oil production for balance of payments, foreign exchange, interest rates and inflation—and … Continue reading
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The end of airlines
Here is the airline’s business model and problem in a nutshell: use cheap fuel to propel people between healthy economies. Economies have flatlined, and fuel is becoming too expensive to burn. The global aviation business model is dead.
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Posted in Economics
Tagged aviation, british airways, collapse, oil price, Peak Oil, strike
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Hydrocarbon “lock-in” in universities
How do we account for our growing inability to reconcile the “business as usual story” with every day facts? A look at the dynamics of academia provides an insight.
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Survival of the state
Last week, the UK Government held a work shop, entitled “Policy Response to potential future oil supply constraints”. Transition Network’s Rob Hopkins summarises it as “potentially the day when the UK government finally started to ‘get’ peak oil“.[1] As recently … Continue reading
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The story of cap + trade
I have to admit, I waver on Climate Change. But the methodology employed to subvert climate change intervention, and in particular the distractions created by them to real action, are equally applicable to energy security interventions and efforts to expose … Continue reading
Posted in Economics, Videos
Tagged Carbon Cycle, climate, Climate Change, Emissions trading, finance, Greenhouse gas, trade
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