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by Jan Lundberg
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 Whether we listen to President Obama, Paul Krugman, Robert Samuelson, the Republicans, Tea Party-ers, or liberal progressives, they all want more “jobs,” a “recovery,” and “prosperity.” As long as lust for “growth” prevails, and the approved social critics also ignore the nature of the system and its collapse, then the runaway train of unprecedented chaos and ecosystem destruction is only accelerating.
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by Jerry Erwin and Tuna Cole
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 Ragnarok, A Plausible Future by Tuna Cole is a non-chronological, near-future projection. In it, a small group of people, alarmed by the descending/contracting spiral apparent in a broad range of global trends, decide to pool resources in rural, arable property toward a self-sustainable, agrarian lifestyle conducive to survival. When key connections unravel (economic? energy shortfall? biospheric disruption?), civilization as we know it crumbles. |
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by Peter Goodchild
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 Almost everything in the economy was either made from oil or required oil to manufacture it or operate it. As the price of oil went up, so did the price of everything else. This rise was referred to as “stagflation” -- stagnant incomes combined with price inflation. The hardest hit were those who had lost their jobs, followed by those with limited disposable income, which meant those most likely to have debts: car payments, house mortgages, credit cards, student loans. But everyone found that a dollar just didn’t stretch. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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If being human and living have value, we ought to celebrate what we are and how we're doing. The only real celebration can be of the truth, based on joyous reality of an improved condition. Yet the truth today is that we are probably about to dangle from the noose that we ourselves stepped right into.
It's crazy to celebrate ecocide. Is there something else to celebrate that is also true? Sure, but it's not the whole truth: human dignity, beauty of life, love between two people -- wonderful and inspiring, but to celebrate them while closing off our senses to the bulldozing and poisoning going on around us is increasingly irrational. |
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by Dmitry Orlov
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Publisher's note: Dmitry Orlov authored Reinventing Collapse, based on his firsthand observations of the collapse of the USSR and the socioeconomic prospects for the U.S. His new article describes the key physical, social, political and economic factors which energy industry analysts must take into account when forecasting oil production in order for their forecasts to be meaningful. Peak Oil is History is exclusively on CultureChange.org until November 1. - JL
The marketing blurb on the back cover of the first edition of my first book,
Reinventing Collapse, described me as "a leading Peak Oil theorist." When
I first saw it, my jaw dropped -- and remained hanging. |
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by Peter Goodchild
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 I went for a five-hour walk in the desert yesterday morning and came across a second
crumbling old castle out in the desert; I'd discovered one a few months ago. Close
to it I found a series of stone-lined wells, about ten or twenty meters apart, with
water in them about fifty meters down. But some of the land had been excavated, or
perhaps recently re-excavated, between some of them, so I could see that the wells
all connected underground. |
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by Culture Change
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In the past week Culture Change's independent oil industry analyst Jan Lundberg weighed in on renewable energy, electrification and overpopulation for a high-level Europe audience and for the U.S.'s iconic environmental group, the Sierra Club.
For Europe, Jan's message focuses on ground rules for imagining renewable energy on a massive scale. For the Sierra Club, Jan passed along to its Executive Director and magazine his concerns regarding oil's overwhelming role today and what that means for electrification and electric cars. |
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by Wheat Fleet
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 On August 19, 2010 a fleet of twenty human powered boats will leave
Eugene, Oregon to pick up locally grown grain and beans in Harrisburg and carry them to
Corvallis. This is a nod to the history of using the river as transportation and
distribution for the products grown in the valley as well as a promotion of the rich
variety of grain and beans raised today in the Willamette Valley. |
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by Miguel Valencia
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PLATAFORMA POLÍTICA DEL KLIMAFORUM10 (Translation of report previously posted)
Comunicado No. 8
México D. F. 9 de julio de 2010
Después de varias consultas, hemos adoptado la siguiente Plataforma Política del
Klimaforum10:
1. EN REALIDAD EXISTE UN DESASTRE CLIMÁTICO, NO UN CAMBIO
CLIMÁTICO |
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by Miguel Valencia
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Preparations made for Klimaforum10, parallel to the United Nations COP-16 climate conference in Cancún, Nov. 25 - Dec. 10:
Press release # 8
México D. F., July 9, 2010
After several meetings, we, the Mexican Promotion Committee for Klimaforum 2010, have adopted the following Political Platform of Klimaforum10:
1. THERE IS A CLIMATE CATASTROPHE, NOT CLIMATE CHANGE |
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by Peter Goodchild
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One thing my wife and I learned from seven years in rural Ontario is that country
living doesn't always mean freedom from money issues, and of all our expenses the
greatest and most persistent was the car. People who live in the country nowadays
are actually more hooked on automobiles than those who live in the city, since there
are long miles of highway between one's home and other destinations such as shops or
a job. |
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by Jan Lundberg
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I don’t know how I started thinking about this subject, but I decided it’s thought-worthy and bound to stimulate interest. I look forward to people’s comments at the bottom of this webpage, or at the next bar I hop to.
When the market economy really collapses, there will be a paucity of goods for everyone, including condoms and birth control pills – whether they are made out of petroleum or not. |
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