Monthly Archives: July 2017

Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?

Posted on July 31, 2017 by

[ I’ve summarized the 20 top reasons why population growth was abandoned by environmental groups and received little coverage in the news media the past 40 years.  I highly recommend reading Beck and Kolankiewicz (2000) “The Environmental Movement’s Retreat from … Continue reading →

Posted in Overpopulation, Population | Tagged , , , , | 15 Comments

How reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies?

Posted on July 31, 2017 by

So far both the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and International Energy Agency (IEA) are on target in their predictions. In 2014 (the last year for which there is data), world production of crude oil and lease condensate was 77.833 … Continue reading →

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Why did the environmental movement drop the issue of overpopulation?

Posted on July 30, 2017 by

[ This is most of the 27 page report. Beck and Kolankiewicz wrote this to explain why the environmental movement abandoned the goal of keeping population within the carrying capacity of U.S. resources. Systems ecologists such as Paul Erlich, David … Continue reading →

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70 million people may need emergency food in 2017

Posted on July 28, 2017 by

Emergency food assistance needs unprecedented as Famine threatens four countries. January 25, 2017. Famine Early Warnings systems network (fews.net) The Famine Early Warning Systems Network is a leading provider of early warning and analysis on food insecurity. Created by USAID … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapsing | Tagged , | 7 Comments

No, we’re not going to make ethanol out of CO2 and stop global warming

Posted on July 26, 2017 by

Preface.  In the article below Robert Rapier debunks the research paper proposing to convert CO2 into ethanol.  The researchers were honest and said “that the process is unlikely to be economically viable.” But the press spun it into a major … Continue reading →

Posted in Biofuels, Biomass EROI, Critical Thinking, Far Out, Other Experts | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Richard Heinberg: Will the US really be a major energy exporter?

Posted on July 23, 2017 by

[ I read this the day it was published (January 16, 2017) at resilience.org here, but thought it would be interesting to post in the future to see if the EIA predictions were as optimistic as Heinberg and Hughes thought … Continue reading →

Posted in How Much Left, Natural Gas, Oil & Gas Fracked, Richard Heinberg | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Oil shortages and climate change may lead to refugee camps even in the U.S. and Europe

Posted on July 20, 2017 by

[ Will refugee camps be the cities of tomorrow in the U.S. and other developed nations? As oil shortages disrupt supply chains; food shortages grow larger every year from climate change, topsoil erosion, and shortages of natural-gas fertilizer; and rising … Continue reading →

Posted in Refugee Camps | Tagged , , | 10 Comments

Why vultures are so important — and dying off

Posted on July 13, 2017 by

University of Utah. May 5, 2016. Why vultures matter—and what we lose if they’re gone. Original paper: Evan R. Buechley et al, The avian scavenger crisis: Looming extinctions, trophic cascades, and loss of critical ecosystem functions, Biological Conservation (2016).Vultures in … Continue reading →

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Steam powered farm tractors

Posted on July 10, 2017 by

[ Steam engines weren’t very efficient, 10 to 20% at best, which is why they went away beginning around 1920 when oil-powered engines came along.  At the very best steam engines for transportation reached 10 to 20% efficiency. They were … Continue reading →

Posted in Biomass-powered Steam Engines | Tagged , , , , | 6 Comments

Wind and solar need natural gas to balance intermittent, variable, and seasonal power

Posted on July 8, 2017 by

[ The highest wind states are getting to be enormously dependent on natural gas to balance wind and solar as this EIA article about California below shows.  Yet conventional natural gas has peaked — half our natural gas– and is … Continue reading →

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