Latin America

The National Intelligence Council has released a report on the expected effects of climate change to the Caribbean region. This 21 page report is entitled Mexico, The Caribbean and Central America: The Impact of Climate Change to 2030: Geopolitical Implications (NIC Conference Report, Jan. 2010). The report is authored by a team of private researchers under the Global Climate Change Research Program contract with the CIA’s Office of the Chief Scientist.

David Shields is a journalist and independent oil industry analyst based in Mexico City. Steve Andrews caught up with him yesterday and posed a few questions.

A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China's foreign trade

-Public safety means more than just cops
-Dominican Authorities Approve Container Cities For Haiti Housing Relief
-Detroit homes sell for $1 amid mortgage and car industry crisis
-Digital designer shows what future towns could look like

Probably many of the scenarios presented in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) most recent reports on the natural and social impacts of global warming will take place not in the year 2100 or even 2050...Therefore, it is critically urgent to adopt policies which truly address the environmental problems we face. Environmental education is a vital part of this call to action. As an intellectual mechanism, environmental education serves both as a means of persuasion and a way to bring about behavioral change.

A midweekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Venezuela

-Lakoff on Real Reason vs False Reason
-Letters from Amok: The State of the World in Pen and Ink
-The ICPR Primer

-American Blitzkrieg: loving the German war machine to death
-This isn't Falklands II
-Yemen's water crisis eclipses al Qaeda threat

New information prompts another look at the global supply of lithium, used in renewable batteries, and a major choice for use in the batteries of electric vehicles, such as the Chevy Volt.

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-China's Growth
-India
-Quote of the Week
-Briefs

Mr. Gabrielli, the CEO of Petrobras, gave a presentation in December 2009 in which he shows world oil capacity, including biofuels, peaking in 2010 due to oil capacity additions from new projects being unable to offset world oil decline rates.

- A taste of permaculture in Belize (video)
- Local food — by and for the people (video)
- Rob Hopkins on homepage of New Scientist
- Transition San Francisco recognized as 55th US transition initiative

-Shell stakes green future on sugar biofuel in $2bn Brazil venture
-Obama Set to Outline Biofuels Strategy
-Biofuel requirements for cars may help destroy the rainforest, watchdog says
-Biofuels: the Biggest Supply Response to the 2000s Oil Shock

A midweek roundup of peak oil news, including:
-Prices and production
-Venezuela

-Uganda oil contracts give little cause for optimism
-Iraq’s production bonanza may fuel a slide in oil
-Shell faces legal fight over Arctic wells
-Venezuela oil 'may double Saudi Arabia'