Monthly Archives: May 2020

Life before Cars: When Pedestrians Ruled the Streets

Posted on May 31, 2020 by

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 | Tagged | 1 Comment

11 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought

Posted on May 28, 2020 by

Preface. Recently it was discovered that Assyria collapsed in the 7th century BC.  Jeff Masters list ten more civilizations that failed from drought. We may be next, as Lynn Ingram, a professor at U.C. Berkeley discusses  in her  book: The … Continue reading →

Posted in Drought, Drought, Historically | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

World’s Oceans are losing Oxygen rapidly

Posted on May 25, 2020 by

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, Climate Change, Extinction, Mass Extinction | Tagged , , | 7 Comments

Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change

Posted on May 22, 2020 by

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 Climate Change | Tagged | 1 Comment

Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change

Posted on May 19, 2020 by

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.  Or before descent either.  Anyone who survives peak fossil … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate Change, Nuclear Waste | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil

Posted on May 16, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Flow Rate, How Much Left, Peak Oil | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil

USGS says Powder River Basin has 35 years of coal left, not 250

Posted on May 13, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Coal, Peak Coal | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on USGS says Powder River Basin has 35 years of coal left, not 250

Will covid-19 delay peak oil?

Posted on May 9, 2020 by

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?

Posted on May 4, 2020 by

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 →

Posted in Human Nature | Tagged , | Comments Off on Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction?

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

Posted on May 1, 2020 by

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