Stories archived in Monday, January 17, 2011

Poverty itself, the absence of money to spare, is not the enemy, Paul Goodman told us. We should be more precise and define the problem as economic insecurity, the threat of utter destitution, the constant specter of misery and ruin.

If we can achieve this type of gathering, meeting place, at each and every transition convergence then we are well on the way to transition in our times.

-Shale gas: a provisional assessment of climate change and environmental impacts (report)
-Shale gas moratorium in UK urged by Tyndall Centre
-Warning over UK shale gas projects
-Opponents to Fracking Disclosure Take Big Money From Industry (NEW)

PurBlood stocks took a tumble today after tepid sales during the second quarter and amid criticism of vampire elitism, falling $1.45 to close the day at $24.67 per share. Anthony Baker, blood activist and head of the non-profit organization Blood Equality, released this statement: "The very name PurBlood implies there is something wrong with the blood of some of us humans. We demand equal vampire treatment for all humans, regardless of what we eat, what we've been exposed to, what drugs we take, or what we've been doing for the last thirty years."

If you expect a model - any model - to be able to predict the future you are going to be sorely disappointed. The Hubbert model is no exception, but many models can tell you enough about the future that you may prepare for it.

I'm sure we all have our own pet scenarios, and many experts have excellent and credible reasons for believing one of those is more likely than others. I would argue that as a movement, however, peak-oil activists do better to focus on the common outcomes of high, low or fluctuating oil prices, than to try to predict which path energy prices will take. The end-results matter most.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Oil and the Global Economy
-China's coal production
-The Australian floods
-BP and Rosneft
-Quote of the week
-Briefs

It's not the apocalypse. And it's certainly not the Death Star or the planet Tatooine. But The Windup Girl is a compelling vision of our industrial world as it could be in a low-energy future. Paolo Bacigalupi's techno-political thriller imagines how, in the time after peak oil and economic collapse, global trade could return via airships and GMOs.