Energy on the Mind: ‘Don’t Worry, Drive On’ (Video)

From The Post Carbon Institute:

In recent months we’ve seen a spate of articles, reports, and op-eds claiming that peak oil is a worry of the past thanks to so-called “new technologies” that can tap massive amounts of previously inaccessible stores of “unconventional” oil. “Don’t worry, drive on,” we’re told.

But as Post Carbon Institute Senior Fellow Richard Heinberg asks in this short video, what’s really new here? “What’s new is high oil prices and … the economy hates high oil prices.”

You can read more about the video, including its script here. As for Heinberg’s claim that the economy and high oil prices aren’t exactly best friends the UK’s Telegraph newspaper recently reported:

… a disturbing pattern has emerged where each tentative recovery in the world economy sets off an oil price jump that it turn aborts the process. A two point rise in global manufacturing indexes leads to a 30pc rise in oil prices a few months later.

“Oil has become an increasingly scarce commodity. A tight supply picture means that incremental increases in demand lead to an increase in prices, rather than ramping up production. The price of oil is in effect acting as an automatic stabilizer,” they said. If so, it is “stabilizing” the world economy in perma-slump.

Yet another big reason to speed the transition to a clean energy economy while building resilience.

Related:

• ‘We’re still on the slippery slope to peak oil’ (New Scientist)
• ‘The resilience imperative’ (The Tyee)

It’s Gettin’ Hot in Here: Conservatives & Climate Change

(Source: Post Carbon Institute)

Related:

• ‘The Science of Truthiness: Why Conservatives Deny Global Warming’ (DeSmogBlog)
• Interview: Naomi Oreskes - ‘Neoliberalism and the Denial of Global Warming’ (Point of Inquiry)
• ‘Conservative think tanks step up attacks against Obama’s clean energy strategy’ (The Guardian)

On May 12th Post Carbon Institute released a groundbreaking report Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century? by David Hughes. The report has already been downloaded more than 10,000 times.

A supplement to the report provides additional background on the impacts of natural gas on Public Health, Agriculture & Transportation.

Today, at 11:00 PDT (2:00 EDT) the website Energy Bulletin is hosting a live webchat with PCI Fellows David Hughes & Michael Bomford, and PCI Adviser Richard Gilbert. Click here to submit a question and follow the discussion. 

A Key Step on the Path to Sustainability: ‘Resilience’ 

Resilience is:

the capacity of a system to withstand disturbance while still retaining its fundamental structure, function, and internal feedbacks.

William Rees, co-inventor of the ecological footprint concept, writes about the importance of building resilience on the path to a sustainable world in a newly released chapter of the Post Carbon Reader:

Since techno-industrial society remains utterly dependent on ecosystems to continue providing life support, learning how best to cultivate systems resilience must become a key element of sustainability thinking. 

You can download his chapter and others here.

(Graphic credit: Green Flow)

1st Place Winner! YouTube 5th Annual DoGooder NonProfit Video Awards - ‘300 Years of Fossil Fuels in 300 Seconds’ by the Post Carbon Institute

THE ULTIMATE ROLLER COASTER RIDE: A Brief History of Fossil Fuels

Perhaps taking inspiration from RSA Animate and Annie Leonard’s The Story of Stuff series, both of which tackle complex topics through hand drawn animated shorts, the Post Carbon Institute has released a video of their own:

Fossil fuels have powered human growth and ingenuity for centuries. Now that we’re reaching the end of cheap and abundant oil and coal supplies, we’re in for an exciting ride. While there’s a real risk that we’ll fall off a cliff, there’s still time to control our transition to a post-carbon future.

Can we kick it? Yes, we can!

surp:

Free Download: Transportation in the Post-Carbon World      

The California-based Post Carbon Institute has been releasing free, downloadable PDF chapters of their newly published Post Carbon Reader over the past few months… The Reader features:               

essays by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. 

The latest chapter, Transportation in the Post-Carbon World, co-written by Anthony Perl and Richard Gilbert; authors of the book Transport Revolutions: Moving People and Freight Without Oil:

presents the concept of a “transport revolution” as a way to guide thinking about the mobility changes that lie ahead. Transport revolutions will differ significantly from the incremental changes in mobility that have been the norm over the past twenty five years, and indeed over most of history. Appreciating the differences between revolutionary change and incremental adjustments will be useful in pursuing transition strategies that can move more people and freight without oil before it is too late to avoid a global energy crisis.

You can buy the book or download this chapter and earlier ones here.

SG

surp:

Over the last few months the Post Carbon Institute has been posting select chapters from their soon to be released Post Carbon Reader for download. The reader is described as a collection of:

“articles by some of the world’s most provocative thinkers on the key issues shaping our new century, from renewable energy and urban agriculture to social justice and community resilience. This insightful collection takes a hard-nosed look at the interconnected threats of our global sustainability quandary and presents some of the most promising responses. The Post Carbon Reader is a valuable resource for policymakers, college classrooms, and concerned citizens.”

 Here are the chapters released to date:

FOUNDATION CONCEPTS: Beyond the Limits to Growth 
By Richard Heinberg • July 27, 2010 
The underlying premise of the book (The Post Carbon Reader) is irrefutable: At some point in time, humanity’s ever-increasing resource consumption will meet the very real limits of a planet with finite natural resources. We believe that time has come. Read more  

SMART DECLINE: The Buffalo Commons Meets Buffalo, New York 
By Frank and Deborah Popper • July 19, 2010 
In 2002, after decades of trying to restart economic development like most other Rust Belt cities, Youngstown made a radical change in approach. The city began devising a transformative plan to encourage some neighborhoods to keep emptying and their vegetation to return. The plan, still early in its implementation as we write would raze…Read more  

RESILIENCE: Personal Preparation 
By Chris Martenson • July 6, 2010 
My “standard of living” is a fraction of what it formerly was, but my quality of life has never been higher. We live in a house less than half the size of our former house, my beloved boat is gone, and we have a garden and chickens in the backyard… Read more  

CITIES: The Death of Sprawl 
By Warren Karlenzig • June 23, 2010 
In April 2009—just when people thought things couldn’t get worse in San Bernardino County, California—bulldozers demolished four perfectly good new houses and a dozen others still under construction in Victorville, 100 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles… Read more  

WATER: Adapting to a New Normal 
By Sandra Postel • June 22, 2010 
Water, like energy, is essential to virtually every human endeavor. It is needed to grow food and fiber, to make clothes and computers, and, of course, to drink. The growing number of water shortages around the world and the possibility of these shortages leading to economic disruption, food crises, social tensions, and even war suggest that the challenges posed by water in the coming decades will rival those posed by declining oil supplies… Read more

SG