ACT Peak Oil

As regular readers here will be aware, when left to determine their own futures, local town economies, neighbourhood economies in urban areas, can be 'fulfilment centres' in the good meaning of the word, meeting their needs in the round, while doing so with virtually no public funding, and paying their taxes.

 How useful is the term "degrowth"?

“Goldman Sachs doesn’t care if you raise chickens” according to political scientist Jodi Dean, quoted by Nick Srnicek and Alex Williams in their recent book, Inventing the Future.

What kind of grid architecture and markets will we need in order to actually operate the distributed, decentralized grid of the future?

It was a tumultuous week in the world of hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for shale oil and gas, with a few of the biggest companies in the U.S. announcing temporary shutdowns at their drilling operations in various areas until oil prices rise again from the ashes.

As remarkable a document as his Encyclical Letter is, even more significant is the reception of the Pope’s ecological manifesto by liberals and progressives around the world.

I find that as the years go by, the rhetoric of conservatism and liberalism mean less and less to the life we live. Rhetoric aside, no candidate or party speaks for the rural farms or communities.

How does the food we eat affect us as people?

There isn’t much news in most community newspapers these days. 

A weekly roundup of peak oil news, including: -Quote of the week -Oil and the global economy -The Middle East and North Africa -China -The Briefs

The public, media and politicians have not yet caught up with the fundamental changes going on in the UK energy sector, says Lawrence Slade, chief executive of industry group Energy UK.

No one can know the future. But it turns out we can invent a place called "The Future" and invite people to inhabit it.

A roundup of news, views and ideas including : California gas well blowout caused nation's largest methane release, study finds | The Planet Just Shattered Another Heat Record | New Data Reveal Stunning Acceleration of Sea Level Rise | Cover Crops, a Farming Revolution With Deep Roots in the Past..

In December I found myself sliding into a state of extreme unwillingness to take on new projects, to continue work on those in hand, to write, or do much of anything else, really, at work or at home.

The predominant attitude of agriculture officials towards tribal communities is to try to convince them to give up their ‘backward’ agriculture and adopt more ‘modern’ and ‘high productivity’ agricultural practices.

As destructive bushfires become more common there is increasing political discussion how we manage them sustainably. Inevitably these debates raise questions of the past ecological effects of Aboriginal fire usage.

This month, Berkeley joined a growing number of cities across the country that are making it easier for co-ops to create jobs like Goldsmith’s.

It no longer makes economic sense for a new house owner (who does not need air conditioning) to purchase their electricity from the ever more costly (and expensive to maintain) fixed grid.

A growing body of scientific evidence shows that the felling of tropical forests creates optimal conditions for the spread of mosquito-borne scourges, including malaria and dengue. Primates and other animals are also spreading disease from cleared forests to people.

Although the effective altruists are asking serious questions about what it means to be a moral agent, they seem to be missing something essential about the world in which we live...