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Peak Oil is HistorySeptember 2

...now does seem to be an auspicious moment to hold forth with a new piece of Peak Oil theory, because this is the year when, for the first time, just about everyone is ready to admit that Peak Oil is real, in essence, though some are not quite ready to call it by that name.

...Now that the matter has been largely settled, I feel that the time is ripe for me to weigh in on the subject and declare, unequivocally, that Peak Oil is indeed bunk. Not the part about global oil production reaching a peak sometime right around now then declining inexorably: that part seems true enough. Nor the part about oil production in any given province becoming constrained by geology and technology once the peak is reached: that part, under properly designed experimental conditions, seems predictive as well. In fact, the depletion model has been confirmed beautifully by the example of the continental United States minus Alaska since 1970. But the idea that this same depletion model can be applied to the planet as a whole, is, I feel, something that must be rejected as utterly and completely bogus.

...Peak Oil theory has been quite good at predicting the depletion profile of certain stable and prosperous countries and provinces. But these predictions become meaningless when extrapolated to the world as a whole, for one very obvious reason: the world cannot import oil. Let me say it again, this time in title-case, bolded and centered, to emphasize the significance of this st

Poverty of Imagination in an Age of Deminishing ResourcesSeptember 2

Slide show from the talk I just gave at Community Action Partnerships Annual Convention.

Le despotisme de l'imageAugust 26

Traduit par Tancrède Bastié

Le but ostensible de ce site, et de la petite mais enthousiaste communauté qui l'entoure, est de changer la culture. Nous reconnaissons tous que la culture dominante contemporaine de sur-consommation et de croissance incontrôlée est toxique à tous les niveaux — physique, émotionnel et culturel — et qu'elle accélère sur une trajectoire de collision avec l'épuisement des ressources, le dérèglement du climat et la dévastation environnementale. Nous voulons tous en sauter au bon moment, ou, manquant peut-être du courage nécessaire, nous trouver assez chanceux pour être éjectés. 

Ce que cela signifie en réalité est tout sauf clair... [www.orbite.info]

Miserable PursuitsAugust 4

[Auf Deutsch. Vielen Dank, Mrs. Mop] 

[Magyar fordítása, hála András Mohari] 

As I write this, I am on the train to Washington, to attend a conference sponsored by the Community Action Partnership on "The New Reality: Preparing Poor America for Harder Times Ahead." The agenda will include in-depth discussions of employment, food, housing, health care, security, education, transportation, and even the somewhat touchy-feely subjects of community cohesion, communication, and, last but not least, right before the cocktail hour, culture. The recommendations will be rolled into a report and the conclusions will be presented at CAP's annual conference later this month.

Poor America would conceiv

Google Forms GoogleEnergy™July 21

Ariel Schwartz at FastCompany has the story.

Funny thing is, here is a slide I showed during a talk I gave at a conference in Manhattan in April of 2006. The title of the conference was "Local Solutions to the Energy Dilemma." Look at the second item on the right. Uncanny, is it not? (I believe it is sometimes acceptable to tootle your own horn, provided you do it softly, without startling any of the neighbors.)

I said: A private sector solution is not impossible; just very, very unlikely. Certain Soviet state enterprises were basically states within states. They controlled what amounted to an entire economic system, and could go on even without the larger economy. They kept to this arrangement even after they were privatized. They drove Western management consultants mad, with their endless kindergartens, retireme