Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Put differently, oil’s power is assumed to derive from the natural properties of the commodity itself, separate from the social system that gives these properties meaning and significance.
So… now that I’ve earned a little carbon credibility by passing up the opportunity to fly to North America for a book tour, it’s time for a confession – we have a tractor and a mini digger on our holding.
The messages of Hurricane Helene lie inscribed in the muddy debris of Asheville, North Carolina, and other wrecked towns of Appalachia.
The big picture, as illustrated below, is that global fossil fuel carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, after a Covid blip, and the production of coal, oil and gas all reached record highs in 2023.
A planetary compact, focusing on the ratio between sustainable yield and human need, would encourage new partnerships between businesses, governments, and the public, granting to citizens the rights and responsibilities to organize the self-sufficiency and sustainability of their own regional habitats.
The outlook warns that decisionmakers “too often entrench the flaws in today’s energy system, rather than pushing it towards a cleaner and safer path”. It adds: “[L]ocking in fossil fuel use has consequences…the costs of climate inaction…grow higher by the day.”
A rocket mass heater combines a rocket stove with a large quantity of thermal mass. A rocket stove is a J-shaped combustion chamber in which small diameter wood is burned at very high temperatures and achieves near complete combustion.
LNG will make money for the big five fracking companies (Ovintiv, ARC, Tourmaline, Canadian Natural Resources and Petronas) and the largely foreign owners of the LNG terminals, but will create more economic and environmental problems for British Columbians than it promises to solve.
So one needs to look outside of official policy to have any chance of finding a realistic plan to meet the obligations under the Paris Agreement. I recently came across one such plan – Le Plan de transformation de l’économie Française (The French Economy Transformation Plan) authored by The Shift Project, an influential energy and climate think tank in France led by the engineer and system-thinker Jean-Marc Jancovici.
It’s eight years after the Dakota Access Pipeline resistance at the river. The Standing Rock tribe is still seeking to close down the pipeline, the Environmental Impact Statement is in draft form and oil still runs North Dakota. We might need more Water Protectors. You can’t drink oil.
The warming climate, at least to the billionaire mine owners and their Western accomplices, will remain an afterthought, as well as a justification to exploit more of Africa’s critical minerals. Consider it a new type of colonialism, this time with a green capitalist veneer.
If we can’t get to YIMBY and make fair decisions about near-term sacrifices, the end game is clear. When the planet goes into a carbon-induced death spiral, we’ll all, rich and poor alike, be forced to make the ultimate sacrifice.
