
	IS SAUDI ARABIAN OIL PRODUCTION ALREADY IN DECLINE? In early March 2007, Suart Saniford posted a seminal paper on TheOilDrum demonstrating that Saudi Arabia's oil production declined by 8 percent in 2006. His conclusions are striking: Saudi Arabian oil production is now in decline. The decline rate during the first year is very high (8%), akin to decline rates in other places developed with modern horizontal drilling techniques such as the North Sea. Declines are rather unlikely to be arrested, and may well accelerate. Matt Simmons appears to be right in Twilight in the Desert, but the warning did not come until after declines had actually begun. We asked Reese McKay, who has devoted his career to the oil industry, to provide analysis and commentary. His response is thoughtful and not at all comforting... [More...] ____________________ A RENAISSANCE OF LOCAL by Michael Brownlee, for a Global Warming Rally presentation on April 14, 2007, part of the National Day of Climate Action If we have been paying attention to the mounting evidence—and to what our hearts are telling us—it is by now clear enough that the impacts from global warming are going to be far more severe and arrive far more quickly than almost anyone has thought. We now know that not only must we cut our carbon emissions dramatically, right now (2050 is far too late), but we must also prepare for the devastating impacts of the damage we have already unleashed. We're in for a rather bumpy future... [More...] ____________________ NUCLEAR POWER: BETTER PATH IS TO "RELOCALIZE" Letter to Editor, Boulder Daily Camera (Jan. 27, 2007) by Dave Carlson As the energy crisis deepens, costs of non-local goods and services are going to increase sharply and energy resources (especially fossil fuels) will become increasingly scarce and expensive. The only viable solution is that we learn to produce our essential needs as local communities. We must dramatically reduce our consumption of fossil fuels and our waste outputs, then we must join together to prepare our community to become as self-sufficient as possible in energy, food and economy... [More...] ____________________ IT'S THE END OF THE WORLD AS WE KNOW IT... from elephant magazine "This may sound dark, but there doesn’t seem to be any way out of the situation we’ve got ourselves into. You read the books, and at the end they talk about what has to happen to change things—and it’s so dramatic, so extreme, the authors always say, “It’s not going to happen.” We’re so invested in the way things are. It’s not about driving a more efficient car, or recycling more. We all would hope it would just be those small things. It’s about the level of consumption that’s going on. We’re all addicted to it. It’s led us to a point where there’s going to be nothing left. So what needs to happen now is to build self-reliant communities that will survive..." [More...] ____________________ MAKING OTHER ARRANGEMENTS: A Wake-Up Call by James Howard Kunstler As the American public continues sleepwalking into a future of energy scarcity, climate change, and geopolitical turmoil, we have also continued dreaming. Our collective dream is one of those super-vivid ones people have just before awakening. It is a particularly American dream on a particularly American theme: how to keep all the cars running by some other means than gasoline. We'll run them on ethanol! We'll run them on biodiesel, on synthesized coal liquids, on hydrogen, on methane gas, on electricity, on used French-fry oil . . . ! The dream goes around in fevered circles as each gasoline replacement is examined and found to be inadequate. But the wish to keep the cars going is so powerful that round and round the dream goes. Ethanol! Biodiesel! Coal liquids . . . [More...] ____________________ FIFTY MILLION FARMERS! by Richard Heinberg There was a time not so long ago when famine was an expected, if not accepted, part of life. Until the 19th century—whether in China, France, India or Britain—food came almost entirely from local sources and harvests were variable. In good years, there was plenty—enough for seasonal feasts and for storage in anticipation of winter and hard times to come; in bad years, starvation cut down the poorest and the weakest—the very young, the old, and the sickly. Sometimes bad years followed one upon another, reducing the size of the population by several percent. This was the normal condition of life in pre-industrial societies, and it persisted for thousands of years. [More...] ____________________ INTERVIEW WITH JULIAN DARLEY, FOUNDER OF POST CARBON INSTITUTE by Michael Brownlee Q: In a very short period of time Post Carbon Institute has spawned a rapidly-growing movement promoting global relocalization. How has this movement changed since it began and where it is heading? JD: Just like Post Carbon Institute, the Relocalization Network grew out of the need of the day and of the decade. It started out as a group of the walking worried trying to come together to start doing things that would address the situation beyond just hand-wringing and spending very interested and engaged hours looking at the developing petroleum and natural gas supply situation. People said, “This is serious. We’d better do something. We’d better start collaborating.” That was when the first outpost or local group was born. The Relocalization Network has since been undergoing extraordinary growth, to more than 110 groups in 11 or 12 countries in not much more than a year. [More...] ___________________ RELOCALIZATION AND THE REGENERATION OF COMMUNITY by Michael Brownlee We use the word “sustainability” very loosely, to the point that the word almost seems to have lost its meaning. It has been co-opted by just about everyone, from big oil companies to Wal-Mart. We use the word indiscriminately, with concepts like “sustainable growth” and “sustainable profitability.” Many of us speak of sustainability as a kind of holy grail, what we’re all trying to achieve. This is very misleading, for it obscures what it is that needs to be sustained. Isn’t it rather ironic that we try to live a sustainable lifestyle, when we know that individual life is unsustainable? The only form of life that is sustainable is community. It is only as community that the human species survives and evolves.[More...] ___________________ Fair Use Notice: The material on this site is provided for educational and informational purposes. It may contain copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. 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