Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb We who have been suggesting that a peak in world oil production was nigh almost from the beginning of this century looked like we might be right when oil prices reached their all-time high in 2008. But since then, we have taken it on the chin for more than a decade…
How quickly, in peacetime democracies, are people prepared radically to change their behaviour? The Covid-19 pandemic provides some clues. One of the most common measures introduced to control its spread has been the ‘stay at home’ order. Normally known as ‘lockdown’ … To an extraordinary degree, people have complied, and this is not the first time populations have accepted and adapted to suddenly introduced behaviour changes.
Despite all the demands from climate activists, scientists, and even policy makers, hardly a single country is taking the shift to renewable energy seriously. Even countries and regions that claim to be working toward an energy transition are failing to do what would be required in order for the transition to succeed. What’s behind this surprising and disturbing state of affairs?
There is no way to know how long the wrenching changes we are experiencing will go on or how our arrangements for commerce, governance and social life will change. What is missing and has been missing is a map our fragilities. The pandemic revealed those fragilities for all to see; but they were not invisible. A belief in the invincibility of our global systems obscured them.
A few weeks ago, I posted a video about the silver linings to this crisis and quarantine. Now that countries are either opening up or announcing plans to do so, I wanted to make another video looking back on what we’ve learned from this.
Far from being a boon to the world, ultra-low oil prices signal that the global economy is flat on its back—even worse, flat on its back with two broken legs.
The documentary “Planet of the Humans” produced by Michael Moore is not the last word on our human predicament. Still, it starts a conversation we need to have, and it’s a film that deserves to be seen.
For some reason people and governments have chosen not to insure themselves (individually or collectively) against two catastrophes that have been much in the news lately: pandemics and large investment losses.
If you were an oil futures trader wanting to unload a May 1 contract on Monday, April 20, a barrel of oil was worth $-37. That’s right, traders were, in effect, willing to pay someone—anyone—to take ownership of a commodity that powers modern industrial society, and has suddenly become too abundant.
We are (quite understandably) so focused on the current pandemic that we fail to comprehend that the coronavirus was introduced into a specific social, political and economic context. When we clamor for a vaccine and nothing else, we change nothing that might mitigate the effects and spread of the next novel virus.
I believe that the Saudis and the Russians are trying again to destroy the shale oil industry in the United States with their dance of uncertainty. As of this writing, the world has been told that the Saudis’ on-again, off-again fight with the Russians is off-again resulting in a new deal to cut production.
Whether the world returns to some semblance of normal by summer or whether the horror of COVID-19 continues into the fall and winter, the problem is that confidence has already been shattered.
