Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Kurt Cobb The Saudis and the Russians want to appear to being “doing something” about low oil prices. But they and their fellow producers aren’t really doing enough to push prices higher. And, that may suit the Saudis and the Russians just fine.
Here in the predominantly low-income Latino community of Wilmington, CA, we have five major oil refineries within a nine-mile radius. We are not alone: across the country, minority and low-income neighborhoods host the lion’s share of polluting facilities, and families like mine are impacted first and worst.
The story I am to tell you in this book is a story about a community that became isolated on a small island in the wake of industrial civilisation’s collapse, during the third decade of the twenty-first century. Those who grew up on the Isle, as I did, sometimes liked to jest that we were the descendents of Plato’s banished poets, but the reality is that our humble story is considerably less romantic, with more grit and tears than any fairy tale could ever allow.
“Global oil inventories are falling because of OPEC and non-OPEC production cuts, but the road to market balance will be long.” –Arthur Berman, Consulting Geologist
This lively reference book offers great insights and practical advice for those striving to embrace sustainable, nature-based ways of living—and to liberate themselves from the pernicious, ailing technosphere that dictates life for most people in the industrial world.
We can boil at the inequities and destructiveness of the current system. There are times and places that are appropriate for that. But our best chance to traverse the the path to a more decentralized world while minimizing harm and maximizing success is to begin building it.
In the cacophony of bad climate stories recently, you’d be forgiven for missing the news that one casualty of Trump’s order was the social cost of carbon (SCC), a measure that’s been called “the most important number you’ve never heard of.” The SCC captures the estimated costs of climate disruption from things like sea-level rise, storms, fires, crop failures and rising death rates.
Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. About 20 million people in three African countries — Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan — as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid.
We modern folk are in a bind. We embrace what the sciences and the technology that flows from them have to offer, but we refuse to believe that we live in the world described by those very sciences. Here I’m not merely talking about climate change deniers who, of course, fit this description.
It defies our normal modes of thinking that natural entities such as trees, rivers, mountains, lakes, and glaciers should be given legal standing in courts and public life. And yet we take as a matter of course the legal rights of other inanimate entities.
Conversations that seek genuine understanding by all sides ultimately require a common frame of reference. If we aren’t talking about the same things, how can we understand one another? We usually refer to this as talking past one another. Sometimes this happens because we haven’t taken the time to understand what our conversation partner is … Read more
Why are the Saudis content to allow oil prices to remain this low and possibly drift lower? I believe it’s because their war on shale never ended; they mean to destroy the long-term financial viability of oil from shale deposits–and that job won’t be finished until investors say, “Never again!”
