Richard Heinberg dips into the economic realities of oil prices. How do we reconcile oil industry claims that there's plenty of oil out there with a lived reality of ever-rising prices?
Post Carbon Institute's Julian Darley and Richard Heinberg present the facts and relevance of peak oil for policymakers at all levels. What is peak oil? What's the evidence? Why don't we just drill for more? How does this relate to climate change? And what can policymakers do in the face of these daunting challenges?
The world will have to suffer a deep economic downturn before serious attempts are made to kick the oil habit, according to Robin West, chairman of Washington based oil consultancy PFC Energy.
The Reality Report hosts David Gardner, President of Citizen-Powered Media and producer of the documentary Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. We discuss what is it like to challenge a core belief of our society, and why is it more important than ever to do so.
All of a sudden coal, so long the Cinderella of fossil fuels, is not just in demand but in desperately short supply. A chance combination of crises in big producing and exporting countries has pushed the price of European imports to almost $140 per tonne – double the level of a year ago. But according to Gerard McCloskey, publisher of McCloskey's Coal Report, there is no quick fix to the coal crunch, and prices may still have a long way to go.
The real value of oil is "way, way, way above $80" according to a leading analyst. Paul Horsnell, head of commodities research for Barclays Capital, says it is hard to see the price falling below $80, even allowing for a lot of pessimism about the economy, and that the long run price is likely to be in triple digits – but not because of resource constraints. At least not immediately.
It's becoming increasingly clear that 2008 will be a catastrophic year for the US economy, and therefore probably for that of the world as a whole. The reasons boil down to two: continuing and snowballing fallout from the subprime mortgage fiasco (exacerbated by an orgy of debt-leveraging), and record-high, continuously advancing oil prices. This brief portion of the February Museletter is so topical it bears immediate posting.
In
early November, 2007, the Commerce Department’s Bureau of
Economic Analysis (BEA) announced the United States had achieved a
third quarter Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of 3.9 percent. That
number was later updated to 4.9 percent. Those numbers set off my
“reasonable test” alarm. How, I wondered, with an
accelerating rate of inflation and declining economic activity, could
the United States turn in such a stellar performance? The
BEA’s report flunked the reasonable test.
Earth needs humans to figure out our shared destiny, says Alan Seid, whose interest is both the outer and inner dimensions of sustainability. Outside there's ecology, social systems and economics (e.g., in Permaculture). Inside is the psychological dimension of personal and group values and intentions. How do we meet people where they are, engender respect, promote crucial information-sharing, and motivate change? Episode 91.
