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Don't be fooled by low oil prices. Cheaper gasoline does not mean that we now have plenty. Oil prices plummeted with the crashing economy, like everything else, but this does not change the fact that the peak rate of global oil production is now probably behind us. In fact, low oil prices make it more likely that global oil production will never again exceed the long plateau from 2005 to 2008.
Hampton Falls, N.H. -- Energy-saving systems for the attic, basement, and in between have effectively gone on sale, courtesy of the United States Congress.
But whether shoppers will take advantage -- or even notice available discounts -- remains an open question.
TO get the slightly battered convection oven for their new Brooklyn chocolate factory, Rick and Michael Mast traded 250 chocolate bars.
The chocolate is as good as legal tender for Andrew Tarlow and Mark Firth, owners of Marlow & Sons, the restaurant and specialty shop that bartered away the oven. "We can't keep it in stock," Mr. Tarlow said. "It sells better than anything else."
In the boom times of the 1980s, councils sold off allotments in their tens of thousands as it seemed no one in the Britain of conspicuous consumption could be persuaded to grow a single leek of their own. But as recession bites, the growing enthusiasm for homegrown veg has seen more than 100,000 people join waiting lists for a patch of land as demand hits an all-time high.
More good news in crisis from down the block here in Brooklyn: The realty office that I could almost spit on from my stoop has shut its doors, boarded up the classy windows, sent its half-breed parasites home, no more to feed on the entrails of rent control. Praise be to the realtors out of a job – may they find real work suited to their minds, dealing heroin to children or pulling the wings off flies for re-sale. Good times, I tell you, and the rents falling fast, the bubble-brain-time popping.
Leave it to Gordon Brown, the British prime minister. This severe Scot, son of a Presbyterian minister, the closest you can get to being a dour Dutchman like me, is also not afraid to face reality. Brown's most loyal ally in his cabinet, Ed Balls, said last week -- with the express approval of his patron -- that we face "The worst recession in over a 100 years."
— Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food and
The notion that we're running out of fossil fuel is gaining support in some unexpected quarters. But is peak energy good or bad news for the climate? Kurt Kleiner reports.
Will we continue to use fossil fuels to the detriment of our planet and the human population? Or can we clean up our act in time to avoid calamitous change? That's the dilemma the world currently faces, yet in spite of efforts to transition to alterative energy sources, projections show that annual fossil fuel demand is likely to increase 45 per cent by 2030.
The following talk was given on February 13, 2009, at Cowell Theatre in Fort Mason Center, San Francisco, to an audience of 550 people. Audio and video of the talk will be available on Long Now Foundation web site.
