Articles

This book is not an introduction to the subject of Peak Oil; several existing volumes serve that function (including my own The Party's Over: Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies). Instead it addresses the social and historical context in which the event is occurring, and explores how we can reorganize our thinking and action in several critical areas in order to better navigate this perilous time.

Megan Quinn's popular article The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil is now available in Spanish, thanks to Global Public Media volunteer translator Melisa Chavez Moreno. Click here to read it. Help ensure the widest possible audience for Global Public Media's important content - volunteer to transcribe or translate today.

How near is the global peak? Today the majority of oil-producing nations are seeing reduced output: in 2006, BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy reported declines in 27 of the 51 producing nations listed. In some instances, these declines will be temporary and are occurring because of lack of investment in production technology or domestic political problems. But in most instances the decline results from factors of geology: while older oil fields continue to yield crude, beyond a certain point it becomes impossible to maintain maximum flow rates by any available means. And so as years go by there are fewer nations in the category of oil exporters and more nations in the category of oil importers.

The entire catalog of "The Lifeboat Show" from Astoria, Oregon's Titanic Lifeboat Academy is now available on Global Public Media! Included are talks with Richard Heinberg, Dr. William Rees, Matt Savinar and many others. Click here to listen to any of the 30 minute programs, hosted by Christopher Paddon and Caren Black, on the topics of climate change and oil depletion.

The discourse has been heating up around biofuel for well over a year now. The classic food versus fuel debate has been engaged recently by the United Nations, while scientists, climate change experts, and farmers begin to question the scale and logistics of biofuel replacement of the current liquid fuel demand. In this article, Energy Farm Development Specialist Christoffer Hansen and Post Carbon Fellow Dr. Jason Bradford make the case for the electric tractor.

Thanks to our volunteers, three new transcripts are now online: Chris Skrebowski on spare global petroleum capacity, Julian Darley on Relocalization and Energy Use, and CBC Radio on arctic research. Help ensure Global Public Media's content has the widest possible reach- volunteer today.

On the 14th of June, 2007, the front page of the Independent newspaper in the UK was emblazoned with the words, "A World Without Oil - Scientists challenge major review of global reserves and warn that supplies will start to run out in four years' time". This is a world first, for any major newspaper to cover peak oil on their front page. Your comments welcome.

My book The Oil Depletion Protocol: A Plan to Avert Oil Wars, Terrorism and Economic Collapse was released eight months ago; given the importance of its subject, I thought an update might be useful. Relevant developments during these few months have been both encouraging and discouraging.

An update to Heinberg's 20 May 2007 Museletter update (!) on the ever-changing situation with Iran. Stay tuned for more as it happens.

MuseLetter for March this year, titled, “Iran: We Will Know Soon,” was a summary of the information available at the time regarding the likelihood of a US or Israeli air attack on Iran’s nuclear research facilities—an attack that many informed commentators and analysts have considered very likely. The most recent news on this score is very good.

Thanks to our volunteers, Dr. Albert Bartlett's "Arithmetic, Population and Energy" has been translated into Spanish, and transcripts are now available for Richard Douthwaite's appearance on the Reality Report and Julian Darley's two part interview on "The Party's Over" (part 1, part 2). Help ensure Global Public Media's content has the widest possible reach- volunteer today.