Judicious Use of Natural Resources is Essential
The world is constantly developing in various ways, but this development is also inviting numerous challenges and crises. While these problems persist, few are taking on the important role of…
Resource Crisis
Are Green Resource Wars Looming?
by Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox The Burden of Massive EV Batteries Will Be Borne by People and Ecosystems Much of the excitement over the Inflation Reduction Act, which…
Vicious Cycle of Climate Crisis: Depletion of Natural Resources, Violent Conflict Set to Worsen Resource Degradation, Conflict
1.26 billion people at highest risk of conflict and displacement caused by environmental damage. A vicious cycle linking the depletion of natural resources with violent conflict may have gone past…
The Project of Capital and the Project of the Proletariat in a time of World Crisis
ABSTRACT This is a response to the two sets of articles written by Sajai Jose on the Fourth Industrial Revolution and on the world’s and India’s hunger crisis. It is…
The Fate of Cassandra: Dire Predictions Go Unheeded
In ancient Greek mythology, Cassandra was a priestess who was able to predict the future but unable to convince others to act upon her prophecies. The fate of Cassandra seems…
Where We Mine: Resource Politics in Latin America
As the drive to expand renewable energy capacity speeds up, there is a rush for lithium and other materials around the world. What will the expansion of rare earth mining…
The Growth Of Fascism Or The Fascism Of Growth?
Bear with me, scrupulous historians, as I try to run through some questions and parallels between centuries that I hope will enrich the essential debate on how to confront the…
2017: The Year When The World Economy Starts Coming Apart
Some people would argue that 2016 was the year that the world economy started to come apart, with the passage of Brexit and the election of Donald Trump. Whether or…
What Has Gone Wrong With Oil Prices, Debt, And GDP Growth?
Our economy is a mystery to almost everyone, including economists. Let me explain the way I see the situation: (1) The big thing that pulls the economy forward is the…
‘Gandhi Was Perfectly Sensible To Call Industrial Civilisation “A Nine Days Wonder”’
Ecological economist, Gandhian thinker and author Mark Lindley has some stark warnings for the future of hi-tech societies, and a few ‘prescriptions’ for India and for economists, who he says…
Exploring The Gap Between Business-As-Usual And Utter Doom
Predicting the future is a fool’s errand, but everybody does it. As long as we’ve had language—for tens of thousands of years, at last estimate—we’ve been able to formulate the…
What Really Causes Falling Productivity Growth:An Energy-Based Explanation
What really causes falling productivity growth? The answer seems to be very much energy-related. Human labor by itself does not cause productivity growth. It is human labor, leveraged by various…
“You Can’t Handle The Truth!”
Movie buffs will recognize this title as the most memorable line from “A Few Good Men” (1992), spoken by the character Colonel Jessep, played by Jack Nicholson (“You can’t handle…
Depletion: If A Jellyfish Stings You, You Know Why
Just a few days ago, a friend of mine showed me three bright red stripes she had on her arm. It was the result of an unfortunate encounter with a…
Overly Simple Energy-Economy Models Give Misleading Answers
Does it make a difference if our models of energy and the economy are overly simple? I would argue that it depends on what we plan to use the models…
Some reflections on the Twilight of the Oil Age (part III)
Our predicament, as we have just begun to slide down the fossil fuels thermodynamic cliff, similarly requires such a nexus if we are to succeed at a new “energy pool…
Some Reflections On The Twilight Of The Oil Age (Part II)
I call the process we are in an “Oil Pearl Harbour", taking place in a kind of eerie slow motion. This is no longer retrievable. Within roughly ten years the…
Hooked! The Unyielding Grip Of Fossil Fuels On Global Life
Here’s the good news: wind power, solar power, and other renewable forms of energy are expanding far more quickly than anyone expected, ensuring that these systems will provide an ever-increasing…
Some Reflections On The Twilight Of The Oil Age – part I
This three-part post was inspired by Ugo Bardi’s recent post concerning “Will Renewables Ever ReplaceFossils?” and recent discussions within Ugo’s discussion group on how is it that “Economists still don't…
What We Need To Do To Survive And Have A Good Life
We must assess the consequences of our lifestyle on the planet’s declining liveability, as we already have a rising chemical imbalance in the biosphere which impairs life’s ability to control…
Energy Limits: Why We See Rising Wealth Disparity And Low Prices
Prices of oil, coal, and natural gas tend to rise and fall together–just as we would expect, if they are all responding to the same changes in debt levels, and…
Oil, Interest Rates And Debt
The recent lower oil price predictably stimulates more consumption, but as more consumers will continue to struggle with their balance sheets, they are now more sensitive to considerable increases in…
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…
China: Is Peak Coal Part Of Its Problem?
The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a difference? If we look at China’s…
Demand Destruction And Peak Oil
We are fully under the influence of petroleum demand destruction. The global oil market can't function without real oil production price discovery, which doesn't exist in the currently deflationary global…
$50 Oil Doesn’t Work
$50 per barrel oil is clearly less impossible to live with than $30 per barrel oil, because most businesses cannot make a profit with $30 per barrel oil. But is…
The Real Oil Limits Story; What Other Researchers Missed
For a long time, a common assumption has been that the world will eventually “run out” of oil and other non-renewable resources. Instead, we seem to be running into surpluses…
The Physics Of Energy And The Economy
I approach the subject of the physics of energy and the economy with some trepidation. An economy seems to be a dissipative system, but what does this really mean? There…
Why “Supply And Demand” Doesn’t Work For Oil
The traditional understanding of supply and demand works in some limited cases–will a manufacturer make red dresses or blue dresses? The manufacturer’s choice doesn’t make much difference to the economic…
How Our Energy Problem Leads To A Debt Collapse Problem
Usually, we don’t stop to think about how the whole economy works together. A major reason is that we have been lacking data to see long-term relationships. In this post,…
Oil And The Economy: Where Are We Headed In 2015-16?
The price of oil is down. How should we expect the economy to perform in 2015 and 2016? Newspapers in the United States seem to emphasize the positive aspects of…
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