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The balanced personality would want three things: 1) That we have a reasonably large stockpile of critical goods in case of a temporary disruption of flows, 2) that what we rely on for our survival be by and large renewable, and 3) that our demand for renewable resources would come into balance with the supply we can reasonably expect--considerably less than fossil fuels have provided us.

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This essay [by the co-originator of the permaculture concept] provides a framework for understanding the ideological roots of the current global crisis that I believe is more useful than the now tired Left Right political spectrum. I use this framework to provide a commentary on current political machinations around Climate Change and Peak Oil. Building from the same energetic literacy that informs Permaculture and Future Scenarios, it challenges much of the strategic logic behind current mainstream climate change activism.
(Excerpts)

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For a few days last week, global news agencies pursued the peculiar story of the world's worst traffic jam, which was reported to have lasted for around nine days and stretched across about 100 kilometres of a major highway leading to Beijing. China's latest instance of leading the world, now in the scale and size of traffic jams, is a direct consequence of the modern uses and abuses of energy.

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I'm usually known as one of the doomers'n'gloomers on the blogs, with diaries and comments on the economy heavily leaning towards negative views. And to a large extent, I still stand by these positions and fully expect (i) the economy to dive again and (ii) an even worse financial crisis coming our way.

I'm also part of the peak oil / peak resources crowd, and do not consider our current civilisation, especially as hundreds of millions in emerging markets rush to embrace it, to be sustainable. ... But, surprisingly, I also have a number of arguments to be optimistic for the medium term, i.e. that let me hope that I will not spend my late years in poverty and/or in the middle of societal collapse.

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A study based on the Hubbert model of peak oil suggests a coming global oil shock may begin as early as 2014 – which ties in with the timeline suggested in a variety of other reports and statements. Despite getting a showing online, and in the occasional business report, [peak oil is] yet to break into the mainstream media. I recently considered three major energy reports published so far in 2010 which take a number of different views on the issue.

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A few days ago I gave a keynote address to the International Society for Ecological Economics which was held in Bremen, Germany. First time teleconferencing for a keynote, which was a nice, minimal carbon way to get the message out. Afterwards, people in the audience asked for some more detail on high-tech self-providing [HTSP]. Here’s my answer to them...

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Cairn Energy announced this week that it had found evidence "indicative of an active hydrocarbon system" off Greenland. The news comes in the middle of a bidding round for oil and gas exploration licences there. The US Geological Survey estimated in 2008 that the region contains approximately 90 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil, but producing the stuff would combine the extreme challenges of deepwater drilling, extreme cold, and ice. Any accident would be massively harder to deal with than Deepwater Horizon because of the country's remoteness...

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Phil-the-Housemate asked me recently for advice on getting his dissertation done. He's ABD, and having a tough time getting down to it. Asking me seems odd to me - I eventually baled about 1/2 way through my doctoral dissertation, due to a combination of childbearing, agriculture, slackdom and change of focus. But I did write three books in 2 1/2 years, so I do know a little something about finally giving up the slacker habits, I suppose.

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Walking is how we belong to the world. It’s how we belong to each other. It’s how we see best what’s coming—for us, not for people half-way across the country or the world—and how we know what to do about it. It’s how we begin tuning ourselves to the frequency of a post-oil world.

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For there is no illusion that as a nation we are not in fact borrowing on the future, on wealth not yet created, on profits for work not yet begun, to finance national and personal debts (these debts, clearly, are the simple product of costs exceeding revenue, what a contractor might refer to as a “goose-egg."). The principle difference, though, is that so enshrined in our institutions is the promise of future growth, that spending its downpayment in not only entirely lawful, it has come to be seen as a political and economic imperative

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-BP loses Arctic drilling race due to Gulf oil disaster
-Greenland happy to be the new oil frontier
-Danes block Greenpeace vessel in Arctic

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I start my day late after a much needed lie in and finally come downstairs and start my blog catch up; I have had no opportunity these past few days to get near either internet, or time to myself to write, and now I have both. The sign above the desk reads “Be yourself. There is something you can do better than any other. Listen to the inward voice and follow that” A transition saying indeed; one the Big Society should perhaps adopt.

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I've had a bee in my bonnet for a while now about the need for a paradigm shift. This began when I came up with the title for a paper: 'Let's Twist Again: Time for a Real Copernican Revolution'. Don't worry, this is the sort of party game academics get up to - yes really! My own favourite is 'Haydn Sikh: The Adaptation of the Classical Form in Britain's Minority Religious Communities', or something like that.

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One thing that fascinates me about political theorist Murray Bookchin’s writing is how prescient it is. His essay, “Ecology and Revolutionary Thought,” was written in 1965, six years before Earth Day, and almost a half-century before now. Yet its content is as relevant as ever, if not more so, given society's increasing interest in all things “green.” Bookchin even references future ramifications of climate change, long before many had even considered it.

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As global change related to resource depletion and climate change becomes increasingly severe, the ineffectiveness of world governments as well as mainstream environmental organizations and movements is obvious...Instead of relying on these approaches, it seems the safest and most secure adaptive route is the introduction of decentralized, local alternative energy and environmental solutions.

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