Energy literacy

-Coping With Climate Change: Which Societies Will Do Best?
-GM's Money Trees
-The Carnivore’s Dilemma
-USDA Research: Does No-Till Really Capture More Carbon?
-Why growing virgin vegetable oil to burn is crazy
-Pachauri Still Sees a Chance for Success in Copenhagen Talks
-The Inferno

At the Denver ASPO conference, I had the good fortune to meet Dr. Albert Bartlett. Afterward, Dr. Bartlett e-mailed me some material he had written over the years. The "Laws of Sustainability" were included in this material. They are part of Al Bartlett's contribution to the anthology The Future of Sustainability by Marco Keiner, published in 2006.

It is now 4 months since I wrote The Decline of the American Empire. The time is ripe for a follow-up. I will tell a sad story first, talk a little about our precarious banking system, and then relate the lessons learned back to my Decline theme. At the end I will talk about what all this means for the loosely structured peak oil "movement".

As a high-school teacher, I wanted to give my thoroughly-industrial, suburban-NJ students a more detailed peek at their upcoming post-industrial future. I felt the need to challenge their prevailing mindsets regarding our resource-depletion predicament: the “shorter showers & change the light-bulbs” crowd, the “engineers will surely come to our rescue” folks, and the “problem? -- what problem?” people. This essay and the before/after comparison chart that follows are part of my ongoing (unsanctioned) attempts at doing so.

-U.N. Signals Delay in Climate Change Treaty
-Republicans walk out of Senate hearing on climate-change bill
-African nations make a stand at UN climate talks
-Senators opposed to the Clean Energy Jobs Act are ignoring the bill’s benefits to Americans
-We only have months, not years, to save civilisation from climate change

There seems to be a consensus that the depletion of fossil fuels will follow a fairly impressive slope. What may need to be looked at more closely, however, is not the "when" but the "what." Looking at the temporary shortages of the 1970s may give us the impression that the most serious consequence will be lineups at the pump. Fossil-fuel decline, however, will also mean the end of electricity, a far more serious matter.

We live in some pretty incredible times...At times the implications seem overwhelming. But this Halloween Campfire post is a quick reminder that despite our massive challenges, (and that we are human, imperfect, and mortal) - we can find joy, fun, meaning and satisfaction in many everyday, low throughput ways - we just have to decide to do so. That's both the trick and the treat.

On October 20-21, the 30th Oil & Money Conference, convened in London by Energy Intelligence and the International Herald Tribune, attracted roughly 500 attendees, many from the industry press (most of them working for the conveners). Held under tight security at the opulent Intercontinental Hotel, a half-dozen oil ministers past and present plus two dozen CEOs and VPs of oil producing, service companies and other industry players shared their views.

-Rainforest treaty 'fatally flawed'
-Fewer Americans View Global Warming as a Problem
-Government launches map to highlight global warming threat
-Arctic Sediments Show That 20th Century Warming Is Unlike Natural Variation
-Betting the Farm
-UN chief will pressure senators on climate bill

Critique of October, 2009 issue of Scientific American essay: Squeezing More Oil from the Ground

-Oilwatch Monthly October 2009
-A post-oil world gets less sci-fi by the day
-The Truth About Energy
-Global oil supply: Separating fact from fiction

"Peak oil can be a very tricky topic, the way I talk about it and deal with it at the end of the day is: We need to revolutionize the way we consume and produce energy... We need to really be the leaders in saying: the future for our children and our grandchildren as far as energy consumption and as far as production, it looks like this" with those words Colorado Governor Bill Ritter started his closing speech at the ASPO conference in Denver that took place from 10 to 12 October 2009.

Our industry is at a crossroads. In the past few years, oil supply has struggled to keep pace with demand. But the financial crisis has reduced demand by 2 million barrels per day, creating excess inventories and lower prices. But once economic growth recovers, it is likely we will return to the market conditions of one year ago. The price of $140 per barrel oil was not an aberration; it was a warning.

Much passionate concern is flying around regarding the United Nations meeting on climate this December in Copenhagen. We hear it from honest activists and from politicians who sound trustworthy on this most crucial matter. An example is Gordon Brown, Prime Minister of Great Britain, who deserves a prize for eloquence in warning us of climate change.

-China's 'carbon intensity' commitment means nothing
-Let's Try Cap-and-Trade on Babies
-Illusions on the edge of a precipice
-How to stop doubting and love the climate models
-Baffin Island reveals dramatic scale of Arctic climate change
-The Economic Case for Slashing Carbon Emissions
-The Cold we Caused