Category Archives: 1) Decline

Decline will be death by a thousand cuts as too many problems occur and overwhelm societies ability to fix them (i.e. Tainter’s “complexity”). Already our infrastructure (oil and gas pipelines, electric grid, roads, bridges, etc) has a Report Card of D from the American Society of Civil Engineers. All 18 components of essential infrastructure, from the electric grid to the financial system are vulnerable to cyber-attack, The end of growth means bankruptcy for cities, pensions, families, and businesses, and no credit for energy companies to borrow for new projects to obtain oil, coal, and natural gas, the real drivers of the economy (just try putting dollar bills in your gas tank)

Phosphates add heavy metals such as cadmium to soils

Larsen, A., et al. March 1, 2001. Re-engineering the toilet for sustainable wastewater management. Environmental Science and Technology Vol 35(9):192-197  http://www.internal.eawag.ch/~maurer/abstracts/09larsen.html Current fertilizer production and use consume limited resources and harm the environment. At current extraction rates, reserves of phosphate … Continue reading

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Pandemics

As declining energy leads to lower farm yields, malnutrition and starvation will make people far more vulnerable to diseases.  A lack of anti-biotics, and little transportation to get to medical facilities at some point down the oil depletion curve is … Continue reading

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Emergency drill: Cyberattack on electric grid

Preface.  Although I am mainly concerned about peak oil, we’ve become so incredibly dependent on the electric grid, including electricity to pump oil at gas stations, that if the grid came down from an EMP or cyberattack, millions of people … Continue reading

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Decline and Fall of Civilizations links to articles about this

  The Histomap. Four thousand years of world history. Relative power of contemporary states, nations, and empires from slate.com

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Cyber attack methods. Who are the cyber attackers?

This just in: Cyber criminals are planting chips in electric irons and kettles to launch spam attacks.  A Russian TV channel had footage of an iron being opened up to reveal a “spy chip” with a small microphone that could … Continue reading

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Cyber Attacks an unprecedented threat to U.S. National Security

Preface. This post contains extracts from 3 congressional hearings in the House of representatives session on cyber attacks. Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the … Continue reading

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Eric Sibul on the history of replacing railroads with roads: a disaster

A review of: Sibul, Eric. 26 Apr 2013. Transportation Readings for American Conservatives – How did we get in such a Mess? The American Conservative. My main problem with this article is that it heaps all the blame on liberals, … Continue reading

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Lack of water threatens energy production

July 2013. U.S. Energy Sector Vulnerabilities to Climate Change and Extreme Weather. 18 July 2013. Katherine Tweed. Collision Between Water and Energy Is Underway, and Worsening. spectrum.ieee.org 24 July 2013. Bloomberg News. China Coal-Fired Economy Dying of Thirst as Mines … Continue reading

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China is working on cyber attacks of our infrastructure and stealing secrets

Stone, R. March 1, 2013.  A Call to Cyber Arms. Science, Vol. 339 no. 6123 pp. 1026-1027 China’s extensive cyber research activities and allegations over cyber espionage have put the United States on high alert. The U.S. government is ramping … Continue reading

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Ground water declining at an alarming rate in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Turkey

[ Lack of water in this region is destabilizing and thus could affect oil production as desperate populations migrate, civil wars, and social unrest unfold.  Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, … Continue reading

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