peak oil

Life Without Oil

by Bryan Walker May 17, 2011

“A gradual contraction into more sustainable patterns of resource use is not the norm for a society that is exploiting the environment. The norm is a last-ditch effort to maintain outward displays of power, and then a sudden, and dramatic, collapse.”   That’s one of the foreboding statements with which Steve Hallett and John Wright punctuate [...]

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Brownlee’s energy strategy: dig and burn

by Bryan Walker July 26, 2010

The newly released Draft NZ Energy Strategy (PDF, web) is a winding back of the clock from the substantial statement released under the previous government only three years ago. When announcing early in his term as Minister that a new strategy was required Gerry Brownlee complained of the old one: “You need only read the [...]

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Electric cars take over

by Bryan Walker June 29, 2010

I recently watched the video of a TED talk by Shai Agassi. It dates from a year ago. I’m late catching up. But there may well be other readers who haven’t caught up with him either, so I’ll report my experience. He jumps straight to the point in his opening sentence: “So how would you [...]

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Straight Up

by Bryan Walker June 27, 2010

“I joined the new media because the old media have failed us. They have utterly failed to face unpleasant facts.” So writes Joseph Romm of blogging, in his new book Straight Up, a themed selection from the thousands of posts on his widely respected blog ClimateProgress.org. It’s as direct, lively and unequivocal as its title [...]

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The King will come

by Bryan Walker June 17, 2010

Sir David King, former chief scientific adviser to the UK government, has not retired into quiet obscurity since leaving that position. He co-authored the book The Hot Topic (reviewed here) in 2008 and works as director of the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment at Oxford, which addresses the major environmental threats and opportunities [...]

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Offshore wind beats oil

by Bryan Walker May 13, 2010

As the US counts the cost of offshore oil drilling Janet Larsen of the Earth Policy Institute has sensibly respondedwith a reminder of the advantages of offshore wind energy. Offshore drilling has tempered the rapid decline in US oil production which peaked in the early 1970s. But only somewhat and with increasing difficulty and apparently [...]

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This perfect storm of calamities…

by Gareth March 19, 2010

This guest post is by David Round, lecturer in environmental law at the University of Canterbury. It first appeared in the Christchurch Press on March 18. It was once a truth universally acknowledged that good times never last. But we now seem to consider ourselves immune from the laws of nature and history. Times have [...]

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