Articles by: Kurt Cobb

Faster and faster: The pace of climate change keeps surprising us

Faster and faster: The pace of climate change keeps surprising us

This seems like the 10th time that I’ve read a story that says Greenland’s glaciers are melting faster than previously thought and thus the consequences of climate change are moving much more quickly than we have estimated in the past. Even the pace of such stories has picked up. I found some in 2015, 2016, 2019, 2021 and 2022. And, back in 2013 scientists reported that just a[Read More…]

by 23/05/2023 Comments are Disabled Climate Change
Little things mean a lot: The world’s microbiome under threat

Little things mean a lot: The world’s microbiome under threat

Among the most visible species threatened with extinction are leopards, tigers, elephants, orangutans, gorillas and rhinoceroses. What may be of even greater consequence, however, are the millions of species we cannot see, the microbiome of the Earth which is essential to the life of plants and animals worldwide. As the Sixth Great Extinction proceeds, our attention ought to turn as much to these[Read More…]

by 08/05/2023 Comments are Disabled World
World War III is here, but it’s not what we expected

World War III is here, but it’s not what we expected

Movies and books have often portrayed World War III as either the final chapter of the human epoch or as a new but primitive restart for those who survive the nuclear conflagration. We cannot know if such prophesies will ultimately come true. For now World War III appears to have started with Russia’s attack on Ukraine, but without nuclear missiles[Read More…]

by 22/03/2022 Comments are Disabled World
Coronavirus structure. Credit: https://www.scientificanimations.com / CC BY-SA

COVID variants reach escape velocity

The dense worldwide transportation network constructed by humans is now powering so-called variants (mutations) of COVID-19 across the world from their countries of origin. The British variant (called B.1.1.7), the Brazilian variant (called P.1) and the South African variant (called B.1.351) are all racing across the globe. This shouldn’t be surprising since all three are thought to be more contagious[Read More…]

by 30/03/2021 Comments are Disabled World
Has U.S. shale oil entered a death spiral?

Has U.S. shale oil entered a death spiral?

As long as investors continued to plow money into U.S. shale oil companies, the industry seemed unstoppable. But with the flow of those funds all but stopped, has the U.S. shale oil industry entered a death spiral? The bad news coming out of the shale oil fields of America could all be put down to slumping oil prices. That is[Read More…]

by 29/01/2019 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Pic credit: www.enincon.com

10 years after the oil price spike: Is peak oil a process rather than a moment?

Ten years ago this week—July 11, 2008 to be exact—the price of a barrel of oil on the New York Mercantile Exchange hit an intraday high of $147.27, its highest price ever. By the following autumn the world economy was in shambles and the price of oil was tumbling. The oil price eventually bottomed out around $34 per barrel in mid-February the following[Read More…]

by 10/07/2018 2 comments Resource Crisis
Devolution Everywhere: Spain, Italy, Britain And The Problems Of Complexity

Devolution Everywhere: Spain, Italy, Britain And The Problems Of Complexity

The narrative about Catalan independence is that two major cities, Madrid and Barcelona, are competing for power, and one has decided that the best path forward is to declare independence from Spain and free itself of Madrid’s dominance. There is certainly something to this narrative. As CNN reports: Catalonia accounts for nearly a fifth of Spain’s economy, and leads all regions[Read More…]

by 30/10/2017 1 comment Resource Crisis
Neoliberals Know The Price Of Everything And The Value Of Nothing

Neoliberals Know The Price Of Everything And The Value Of Nothing

My father likes to say that some people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. The same could be said of the neoliberals of the world, who–in case you missed my previous piece–are now transcendent in most policy circles across the world. To review, the neoliberal agenda is one of deregulation, unfettered trade, fiscal austerity (with the[Read More…]

by 16/01/2017 2 comments Globalisation
Trump: America’s Pilot-In-Chief In The Post-Ecological Age

Trump: America’s Pilot-In-Chief In The Post-Ecological Age

Many Americans are frightened by the idea of Donald Trump as the country’s new pilot-in-chief, fearing he’ll crash the airliner of state (including climate and environmental policies) into a mountain or the ground. Clinton, they argued, for all her flaws, knows how to fly this thing called a country using the federal government and at least won’t end up crashing[Read More…]

by 15/11/2016 1 comment Environmental Protection
Brexit And The Energy Equation

Brexit And The Energy Equation

The fretting in the financial markets after Great Britain’s voters narrowly decided to leave the European Union (EU), a move dubbed Brexit, was less about immediate effects–there aren’t any since it would take Britain up to two years to withdraw–and more about a foreboding that other countries will want out, too. In addition, some think it likely that Scottish independence[Read More…]

by 27/06/2016 Comments are Disabled Resource Crisis
Translate »