Friday, March 30, 2007

CNBC Acknowledges Peak Oil is a Huge Problem

I believe and hope that this GOA report will bring some credibility to the peak oil problem so that more people will stand up and take notice and act. I've been busy personally but I'm very sure the GOA report on peak oil and excerpts of it are floating around the blogworld like crazy by now. I particularly liked this article from CNBC:

As crude oil prices surge on rising political tensions with Iran, a new government report released Thursday said that the U.S. is unprepared to face an oil supply crisis and urged U.S. policymakers to develop a strategy in order to reduce potential risks related to an oil shock.

The report from the U.S. Government Accountability Office concluded that the U.S. has no plans in place to address "peak oil," the future point in history of maximum oil production, which would be followed by irreversible declines in oil fields around the world.

"While the consequences of a peak would be felt globally, the United States, as the largest consumer of oil and one of the nations most heavily dependent on oil for transportation, may be particularly vulnerable," the GAO report said.

An expert told CNBC on Thursday that peak oil is the "the single biggest issue to threaten sustainable society" in the United States.


The rest of the story is here

Saturday, March 10, 2007

1976 Hubbert Clip

In honor of M King Hubbert....the YouTube Video. More on this site www.mkinghubbert.com

Monday, March 05, 2007

Are there too many peak oil blogs?

I haven't blogged a personally-derived post in awhile. I don't know. There are just so many peak oil blogs and websites in cyberspace now that mine is probably just a blip on the radar. Anything I might want to say has probably been said. The multitude of information out in books and on the web about peak oil is so vast that it is almost impossible for me to keep up. It wasn't this way when I first started!

I've also been having trouble keeping up with all of the little tools one can use to gain readership. I tried to add Feedburner last week and now I don't know if my Atom works or not. I don't quite understand diggit and all of the other little icons I see on other blogs. I've joined them but it has been hard for me to figure out how they work.

I noted once how some like my blog because it remains almost totally related to peak oil but sometimes there are so many sustainable-related issues that surround peak oil but aren't directly related to peak oil that I don't know whether to blog about them or not. Since peak oil isn't such a new thing to me anymore, it's hard to stay on topic. Everything is just a given for me now. I've been into reading books like "Ishmael" by Daniel Quinn and essays by Wendell Berry. I've joined some Foraging lists and a cooking group that encourages eating local, in-season foods as much as possible. I'm preparing my third garden this year. I'm excited about that and I'm sure you'll be seeing pictures again as they so inspire me. I also have plans to have a rabbit for composting needs. I'm still wishing for a water filter, a worm bin, a decent bicycle, and for more people to understand why I'm doing what I am.

I just got through watching some very gruesome things about our human history's past on the History Channel about the Dark Ages. I always knew there have been periods of time in human history that were particularly barbaric. The devil is in the details, and that's what has been touching me of late. Life after cheap abundant energy may not be so different than in times past. There seem to be no periods of human civilization that weren't barbaric unless the time period was one of resourceful prosperity. And that prosperity is/was many times attained through barbaric means! It makes me feel as if I've (we've) been living in some anomaly (is this the right word?). I am ever so thankful in this time that as a female I am educated, I have the freedoms I so cherish, and the peaceful surroundings with which to attain these things in. I am truly blessed which makes me feel guilty to a degree because I know others haven't had these opportunities. My descendants may not, either. I hope so much that as we slide down the cliff of energy decline that we don't revert back to our barbaric past. I'm afraid that history will repeat itself, though, as much as I wish it weren't so.

There are many, many positive things I can foresee coming out of a decline of civilization but I can also see some horrific things that could develop if we're not careful as a species.