Monthly Archives: May 2020

Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets

Preface.  The past is future after fossil fuels, but minus the horses for a while, since before cars they required about a sixth of U.S. farmland for their feed.  My grandfather, Francis J. Pettijohn, used to fondly reminisce about how … Continue reading

Posted in Automobiles, Transportation What To Do | Tagged | 1 Comment

15 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought: will we be the 16th?

Preface.  Another repercussion of drought may be the Muslim religion as Fleitmann (2022) proposes below. This post began with 10 civilizations that collapsed due to drought (below), and I’ve added 5 more. Will the American South West be #16? Lynn … Continue reading

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World’s Oceans are losing Oxygen rapidly

Preface. Yikes, add deoxygenization to your list of worries. Oxygen levels in the world’s oceans declined by roughly 2% from 1960 and 2010. The decline was largely due to climate change, though other human activities such as nutrient runoff from … Continue reading

Posted in Climate Change, Extinction, Mass Extinction, Planetary Boundaries | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change

Preface. This is a summary of the National Research Council 2013 study of abrupt changes of climate change. Related: 2019-12-6. Research reveals past rapid Antarctic ice loss due to ocean warming.  “…the sensitive West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed during a … Continue reading

Posted in Planetary Boundaries | Tagged | 1 Comment

Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change

Preface. One of the most tragic aspects of peak oil is that it is very unlikely once energy descent begins that oil will be expended to clean up our nuclear mess. No one wants the spent fuel! New Mexico is … Continue reading

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Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil

Preface. Of the roughly 47,500 oil fields in the world, 507 of them, about 1%, are giant oil fields holding nearly two-thirds of all the oil that has ever been, or ever will be produced, with the largest 100 giants, … Continue reading

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USGS: Half of U.S. Coal runs out in 35 years, not 250

Preface. The USGS did a survey of coal in the U.S. in 1974 and announced that America had 250 years of coal left.  In 2007, the National Research Council wrote a report suggesting 100 years was more likely due to … Continue reading

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Will covid-19 delay peak oil?

Preface. Here is my take on the effect this pandemic will have on oil production. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole … Continue reading

Posted in How Much Left, Oil & Gas, Peak Oil | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction?

Preface. This article makes a good case that we did indeed wipe out other hominids. “…Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time—thousands of years. While Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must … Continue reading

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Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”

Preface. This documentary was made by Jeff Gibbs, a writer and environmentalist, with Michael Moore as the executive producer. This movie is worth watching, and an entertaining and quick way to understand why rebuildable “renewables” are neither green or a … Continue reading

Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Natural Gas, Solar, Wind | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments