As George Carlin once said, “they call it the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe in it”.

At the risk of this blog becoming ‘review corner’, that seems the perfect introduction to the book I just finished reading - Dmitry Orlov’s brilliantly enjoyable Reinventing Collapse. This is a true work of dark optimism, with a fair dash of dark humour to boot.

In it, Orlov draws on his experiences of the collapse of the Soviet Union to explore the future American residents like him are likely to face as the effects of the USA’s disastrous economic, energy and foreign policies take hold. Read more »

Having now had the privilege to see this film twice as it has developed I can’t wait to witness the impact its full release will have on shifting the consciousness of the world around the issue of climate change. The breadth of vision, brilliance of presentation and intimacy of communication combine to make this by far the most powerful call to awareness and action on this issue I have yet encountered.

My heartfelt congratulations to everyone involved.

I find myself wondering if our current political system (like so much else in our modern culture) might be partially a product of the bonanza of abundant cheap energy we have been enjoying for the last century or two. Have we been so comfortable that the pressure has been off for our decision makers?

Now I am certainly no student of politics, and my musings should be taken with that proviso, but it has always seemed a little strange that there is such a widespread perception of our politicians as incompetent and immoral, and yet they continue to be entrusted with the ultimate decision-making role for our society. There is widespread disinterest among the young people I know, and perhaps part of the reason is that people have ‘learnt’ that it really doesn’t matter how ineffective politicians may be - there still always seems to be water in the tap and food on the table, so surely they must be doing something right? Read more »

Lately I seem to be encountering many climate change activists who have a blind spot when it comes to peak oil. Friends of the Earth appear to be particularly prone to this.

They claim that climate change is overwhelmingly urgent (no arguments from me there) and so that the depletion of fossil fuels is largely irrelevant. In fact they argue that it can only be good news, limiting the availability of these dangerous substances which have the potential to destabilise our climate.

But this ignores the reason why humanity is so loathe to wean itself off these fuels in the first place. They are exceptionally potent energy sources which greatly increase our ability to change our human instructure and shape the world around us. Energy is perhaps best defined as the ability to do work, and there is much work to be done in the transition to a low-carbon way of life. Read more »

The old standby argument of the so-called ‘peak oil sceptics’ was that if we really were facing geological limits to oil extraction rates then prices would be rising rapidly. Since prices were relatively stable there was clearly no impending problem. And anyway, if prices started rising (to, say, $70 a barrel) that would stimulate much increased exploration and production and bring prices back down again. So go back to sleep and don’t let the peak oil lunatics disturb your slumbers.

Now of course, prices are indeed rocketing ($138 a barrel today, a more-than-100% increase in the past year), so have they changed their tune? Read more »

In the climate policy community there is an increasing debate between advocates of ‘upstream’ and ‘downstream’ carbon caps (dams?). The terms draw an analogy between the flow of water in a stream and the flow of energy through an economy. ‘Upstream’ advocates want to regulate the few dozen fuel and energy companies that bring carbon into the economy, arguing that this is cheaper and simpler than addressing the behaviour of tens of millions of ‘downstream’ consumers.

At first glance this seems a convincing argument, but there is one important regard in which an upstream scheme fails - it does not engage the general populace in the changes required. Read more »