Education

Salvaging Science

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The spiralling economic contraction we can expect as the impact of peak oil grows stronger poses a particularly sharp challenge to the institutions of modern science, which are already facing budget cuts and a widening loss of social influence and prestige. In a future where pumping money into research projects simply won’t be an option any more, the survival of the scientific method as a way of solving problems is arguably up for grabs — but there are options for salvaging it.

Nate Hagens: We’re not facing a shortage of energy, but a longage of expectations

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This week’s interview is one of the most important discussions we’ve had to-date on energy, its supply/demand dynamics, and the tremendous impact it has on our economic and social identity. It is clear now that we are staring at a future of declining output at a time the world is demanding an ever-increasing amount. Nate Hagens, former editor of the respected energy blog, The Oil Drum, gives a fact-packed update on where we are on the peak oil timeline. But interestingly, he explains how he sees the core issue as less about the actual amount of energy available to the world, and more about our assumptions about how much we really need…

How much energy does the Internet use?

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At the moment I’m using the Internet, as are you. In many ways, the Internet is the largest and perhaps most successful global system ever built by humanity. And yet because of the way it was built—haphazardly, over the course of a few decades—there are no maps, no records documenting its entire structure. Recently a colleague and I did a holistic study, the first of its kind to our knowledge, to understand the energy and embodied energy use of the Internet. Here I’d like to report on what we found.

The question of Sovicille

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Professor, I liked your talk, but I am perplexed. You told us many interesting things about fossil fuels, energy and climate. I can’t avoid noticing that I have heard other scientists arriving to different conclusions. I heard someone saying that people were predicting the end of fossil fuels already 20 years ago and they were wrong, of course, and therefore there is nothing to worry about today. And it is the same about climate; I heard someone saying that scientists were expecting an ice age in the 1970s, and they were wrong, of course. So, I am surprised that experts can have such different positions while, theoretically, they all have the same data.

To touch a future sky: Raising children in changing times

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We have received a tremendous gift – to be alive at the edge of these changing times. It’s not an easy gift, if we look open-eyed into possible futures. Yet within this gift lies the tremendous opportunity (and yes, responsibility) of crafting tools to place in the hands of those who come after, to enable them to shape the world in which they live through their own vision.

Salvaging learning

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There’s probably no notion more widespread in contemporary American culture than the claim that whatever the problems driving the widening spiral of crisis that afflicts us, they must be somebody’s fault. There’s probably no notion that would be more derided in contemporary American culture, if anyone were so unwise as to suggest it, than the proposal that the humanities might have something useful to offer as that spiral of crisis worsens. The acceptance of the one claim and the dismissal of the other are not as unrelated as they seem, and the thread of connection that unites them offers a glimpse at some of the crucial issues surrounding education in the age of peak oil.

‘Malaise’: The last time a president told the truth about energy

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The anniversary of Jimmy Carter’s “Malaise” speech this month begs the question, Can a president talk to the public honestly about energy and survive? I say yes. The speech itself was brilliant. And the public loved it. If many other things hadn’t gone wrong, that speech could’ve saved Carter’s presidency and put America on the path to a sane energy policy while we still had time. Carter’s case offers a strong lesson for today.

Review: The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg

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In the several years or so since peak oil began generating significant literature and debate, it has attracted a diverse array of thinkers. To name a few, there are insiders like Colin Campbell and Ken Deffeyes who sounded the first warnings; a clinical psychologist in the field of “peak oil blues,” Kathy McMahon; an archdruid practiced in nature’s less readily perceptible energies, John Michael Greer; and a couple of highly engaging social critics, Jim Kunstler and Dmitry Orlov. Richard Heinberg’s distinction is that he’s hands-down the most prolific peak oil author, now having written half a dozen books on the subject and a few others touching on it tangentially. His latest, The End of Growth, is yet another grand performance.

Peak research

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Joseph Tainter’s model of decline is based on the idea that civilizations attempt to counter the effect of declining resources by creating more complex structures. That strategy fails to bring the desired results because of the diminishing returns of complexity. The same factors may be causing a decline in the worldwide effectiveness of scientific research, plagued by bureaucracy, strangled by excess of rules and controls, and weighed down by lack of resources.

A steady-state defense of arts and culture

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The pervasive (and especially North American) notion that the arts need to be assigned a monetary value in order to be legitimized is quite simply misplaced. Arts and culture provide intangible value to society; they transcend monetary values just as they transcend history. In a future clouded with economic and environmental uncertainty, subsistence endeavors such as the arts should feature more prominently in society as we move towards a steady state.

Starting down the permaculture path: Thoughts from a PDC student

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People come to permaculture for all different reasons, but all through some shared understanding that we live in a world full of disconnects. Many of us feel disconnected from the sources of our food, water and energy, and equally as disconnected from our neighbors, our communities, and our government. We know about the problems and we think there must be solutions. But what draws people to permaculture (as opposed to other approaches) is that its solutions fit together. In a world full of disconnects, permaculture shows us how to make connections.