18 December, 2008
Peak Oil: At Last, A Date
By George Monbiot
For the first time, the International Energy Agency has produced a date for peak oil. International Energy Agency (IEA) in its World Energy Outlook report for 2007 says World oil resources are judged to be sufficient to meet the projected growth in demand to 2030 ; though it says nothing about what happens at that point, or whether they will continue to be sufficient after 2030
06 December, 2008
Oman In Winter: Watching The Oil Run Out
By Peter Goodchild
Oman has oil reserves of about 5 billion barrels, although recoverable reserves may be more like 3 billion. In a world that uses 30 billion barrels a year, 3 billion is not much. What will happen when the oil is gone?
13 November, 2008
The Five Stages Of Collapse
By Dmitry Orlov
Five stages of collapse as delineated by the Russian social scientist Dmitry Orlov who closely observed the collapse of Soviet Union. He says, "I watched the Soviet Union collapse, and, since I am also familiar with the details of the situation in the United States, I can make comparisons between these two failed superpowers."
04 November, 2008
"Personal Survival Skills:
Life At The Twlight Of Empire"
By Michelle Fealk, Adriana Guillen, Colin Peacock,
Sarah Rios, and two anonymous contributors
This report is intended to serve as a guide along the path we have, thankfully, already trodden and worn down, along with several thousand scientists, conspiracy-theory crackpots, and average frustrated chumps as we have come up against a world in turmoil. Specifically, we face an ambiguous future in a world that grows increasingly dependent on oil even as global supplies fall
28 October, 2008
Peak Oil And The Systemic Collapse Of
Modern Civilization
By Peter Goodchild
Systemic collapse has ten principal parts, each with a somewhat causal relationship to the next. Fuel, metals, and electricity are a tightly-knit group, since no industrial civilization can have one without the others. As those three disappear, food and fresh water become scarce. Matters of infrastructure then follow: transportation and communication. Social structure fails: government, finance, and education. After these ten, there is psychic breakdown: madness and chaos
29 September, 2008
"Peak Oil Preparation: Educating
Family, Loved Ones, And Friends"
By Clifford J. Wirth
Families that have a common understanding of Peak Oil problems can provide mutual support and group problem-solving, and they are more likely enjoy life and survive the Peak Oil catastrophe. Young people who understand Peak Oil are more likely to study what makes sense for the future. Informed people who are unemployed can work collectively for their future and use their resources for contingency planning, instead of looking to panaceas and technological fixes
After The Oil Crash: Evolution Of The Hill Folk
By Peter Goodchild
The decline in the world's oil suply is only one aspect of the fact that the civilized world is in a decline that will last for eternity. Politicians have no wish to address all the unpopular issues, and the voters are told nothing by the mainstream news media. Salvation therefore can only be on the level of the individual or the small group. What exactly is one to do? The most obvious proposal might be to walk away from that civilized world, to head for the hills, build a log cabin, plant corn, raise chickens, weave blankets, whatever
23 August, 2008
Peak Oil And Future History
By Peter Goodchild
Yes, there are other factors beside oil to consider in the Great Crash. We live in a morass of bad politics, bad economics, and bad education (and bad news media that spoon-feed us with half-truths), and we elect thieves and liars to guide us. But the loss of oil, which is almost the only support of our unique industrial society, will be the factor that brings all the rest down
18 August, 2008
Sailing To Araby
By Peter Goodchild
It’s odd that the Arabs are aware that oil is running out, whereas North Americans and Europeans keep up the daily chant that "high oil prices are due to hoarding and price-fixing." We live in our dreams of the past
16 June, 2008
The Oil Era Reaches Its Desperate Endgame
By The Independent
An increase in Saudi oil pumping might well have the desired effect of bringing down the price somewhat. But what if it does not fall low enough to ease the pain of the world economy? How long before our political leaders return to Saudi and its Opec allies to plead for more? And what will be the political price extracted for this? What we are seeing in this desperate horse-trading is the endgame of the oil age
12 June, 2008
Our ‘Cheap Oil Fiesta’ Is Over
By Joyce Marcel
There are no cheap or easy solutions in our future. But the first thing to think about, Kunstler said, is rebuilding the public transportation system. We should demand that rebuilding the railroads become a serious issue in the current presidential election. That’s a good place to start
23 May, 2008
Is The world About To Be Running On Empty?
By Stephen Foley
In France, fishermen are blockading oil refineries. In Britain, lorry drivers are planning a day of action. In the US, the car maker Ford is to cut production of gas-guzzling sports utility vehicles and airlines are jacking up ticket prices. Global concerns about fuel prices are reaching fever pitch and the world's leading energy monitor has issued a disturbing downward revision of the oil industry's ability to keep pace with soaring demand
09 May, 2008
Portrait Of An Oil-Addicted Former SuperpowerBy Michael T. Klare
How Rising Oil Prices Are Obliterating America's Superpower Status16 April, 2008
The End Of The World As You Know It
By Michael T. KlareOil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live — trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies
15 April, 2008
Yankee Ticket Prices And Fossil Fuels
By James HansenFossil fuel reserves are overstated. Government “energy information” departments parrot industry. Partly because of this disinformation, the major efforts needed to develop energies “beyond fossil fuels” have not been made. The reality of limited supply forces prices higher. Eventually, sales volume will begin to decline, but fossil fuel moguls will make more money than ever. They will continue to assert that there is plenty more to be found, aiming to keep the suckers (that’s us) on the hook
07 March , 2008
Peak Oil? Peak Soil!
By Roger DoironReasonable people can disagree on the causes and the implications of rising oil prices, but there seems to be a gathering consensus that the era of easy and cheap oil is over. If you don’t want to take my word on that, then take it from an oil executive
06 March , 2008
Peak Oil - True Or False
By Stephen LendmanThe arguments are so one-sided, it's practically a given that "peak oil" is real and threatening. Or is it? This article examines both sides. It lets readers decide and deals only with supply issues, not crucial environmental ones and the need to develop alternative energy sources
29 January , 2008
Saying Goodbye To The Oil Age
By Peter GoodchildWhat matters is not to wait unthinkingly for the onslaught of hunger and cold, but to form communities that can build houses and plant crops. Like the phoenix, we must rise from the ashes — the ashes of the Age of Excess. We must learn to step outside our plastic-and-metal cocoons and see what is happening with our neighbors, and with all the rest of dirty, sweaty humanity
24 January , 2008
Peak Oil As Obsessional Neurosis
By Peter GoodchildWhen writing about peak oil and related matters in the category of doom and gloom, one encounters Nietzsche’s paradox: There are only two kinds of readers, those who already know, and those who will never know, so why bother? Isn’t it the case that to be caught in such a circle is solid evidence of an obsessional neurosis?
21 January , 2008
Systemic Collapse
By Peter GoodchildThe reason why we live in the Age of Peak Everything is that everything is connected: oil, electricity, metals, food, water, money. Everything depends on everything. And there is no redundancy. It is more cost-effective to have everything balanced on the head of a pin than to have ten pins for ten things. Redundancy is not cost-effective. That is why redundant people are laid off. Redundancy is sometimes permissible for warfare or other emergencies, but we live at the center of the civilized world, where emergencies can never happen
11 January , 2008
How Peak Oil Changed My Life
By Aaron WissnerPeak oil drives me to share what I know, and to go further, to illuminate the fundamental failure of our global culture to plan and prepare for its own future. The bleak reality is this: peak oil is not really about the decline of our most precious energy resource. Peak oil is one symptom of our civilization’s inability to find and follow a cultural vision of sustainability
10 January , 2008
Tar Sands vs. Clean Water:
Eating The Earth For Cars
By Mark RobinowitzThe tar sands production center in northern Alberta in Canada is one of the clearest signs that the easy-to-get oil is on the wane. Tar sands are a low grade hydrocarbon deposit that requires enormous energy input to process and convert it into something resembling petroleum
09 January , 2008
Don’t Worry The Price Per Barrel Is $100!
By Dr Marwan Asmar Don’t worry the price of oil—currently hovering at around $100 per barrel—‘is not very high’—but is likely to go higher if we take into account the oil demand, production costs and inflationary pressures. These are not the expressed views of the man-in-the-street, but that of the current rotating president of OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) Chakib Khelil
05 January , 2008
Toward A Post-Oil Community
By Peter GoodchildBenumbed and benighted, these recent graduates are certainly not ready for the bizarre future that now awaits them, a world unlike anything their parents encountered. Any twenty-year-old who has never gone to bed hungry is precisely the sort of person who will be unlikely to find a meal in the year 2030. It is the young people who have previously had to fight for survival who will have the stamina — both physically and psychologically — to fight for survival in the future. The soft will not live long. It’s the wolves that will eat well, not the lap dogs
