The Oil Drum

A good many videos this week. First, wanna learn about exponential growth? Here's a short video entitled "Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?" (mentions Bob Shaw even!--basically an 8 min version of Al Bartlett's hour talk over at GPM on exponential growth) Perhaps a smidge rudimentary for this crowd, but pay special attention to the three points around 5:45 into the video.

Under the fold, a few short videos apropos of the problems we face: Bill Moyers on PBS provocatively talking big oil last night, Kunstler talking the long emergency on CBC, Jeff Rubin on CNBC talking $7 gas, VMT, light rail, and other things, and then finally Olbermann and Krugman talking both US presidential candidates' "energy policy." Include other links in the comments.

Here's your president talking about contemporary energy matters (original video link).

and we can't embed CNN's video player, so you'll have to go over there and watch Kunstler's well-done piece on Glenn Beck if you haven't seen it already:

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/bestoftv/2008/05/14/beck.life.oil.cnn?iref=videosearch

And, yes, under the fold, if you can believe it, yes, that's your president doing his best Dr. Evil (from Austin Powers) impression. No, I am not kidding.

First off, here is JHK on Colbert (Flash required, methinks). It's smart, it's funny, and it's worth your time (6 min).

For those of you in Canada, the video can also be seen on youtube here.

And, Jim has sent us a reply to the critics of World Made By Hand (link to Amazon)...it is posted here in its entirety.

I don't intend to mount a "defense" against all your complaints, but would like to make a few brief points:

The facts support the position that the Y2K computer situation was a serious problem. Billions of dollars and untold man-hours were spent correcting it. It was, however, a very limited problem, and it is fatuous to assert that just because it was successfully corrected means that we shouldn't have taken it seriously.

Complaints have come from many quarters that in my novel the feminist revolution appears to have been discontinued, or that my female characters are not sufficiently valorized. To me, these complaints show an impressive incapacity to imagine that social arrangements might be different under very different practical circumstances. In "World Made By Hand," the corporate milieu no longer exists. Issues of "glass ceilings" and "equal pay" tend to be irrelevant. All the people in the novel are essentially working within their competence. But the divisions of labor are not what they used to be in the age of WalMart and Time Warner. The major female characters are treated sympathetically as real people with pretty complicated lives.

The supernatural elements in the novel were introduced for a purpose: to suggest that the consensus about reality defined by Enlightenment ideas is yielding to a different consensus about reality -- one less grounded in empiricism and logical positivism. I went this way because it seemed probable that socio-economic changes so profound would have to produce changes in fundamental views of reality.

Robert Rapier's recent review of World Made By Hand can be found here.

When I read James Howard Kunstler's (JHK) book The Long Emergency, it had a profound impact on me. I had been aware for many years that "running out of oil" was a serious matter. After all, I took on the challenge of peak oil in my graduate thesis in 1995. But my focus was more on finding a source that could replace oil as it ran out. Reading The Long Emergency was the first time it really hit me that I was missing a lot of key pieces of the picture.

moved under the fold to decrease load times...click "there's more."

Here's some peak oil media for the folks who haven't seen them. The first is an oldie, but a goodie by Albert Bartlett. Also under the fold are links to recent media appearances by Matt Simmons and Jim Kunstler.

It has always seemed to me that one of the keys to the puzzle of why people don't understand the problems that peak oil and other sustainability issues present is a lack of understanding of measurement, pure innumeracy and/or a lack of understanding spatial/change functions--namely the meaning and implications of constant growth.

Here's the best lecture that I can find as a primer (linked over at GPM here) by Dr. Albert Bartlett. Dr. Bartlett professes physics at the University of Colorado. He knows what he's talking about--that much I can vouch for.

If you need me to sell it to you so you'll watch it, that's under the fold, as well as links to the Simmons and Kunstler pieces. (Feel free to link to other peak oil media pieces in the comments.)

Here's three four pieces of media that you can send to folks to explain the basic arguments regarding peak oil. First is Matt Simmons on CNBC a month ago talking about the GAO report (7 mins), then under the fold a link to Jim Kunstler's latest talk (which is great), a piece by ABC Radio of Australia on the GAO report and peak oil, and Boone Pickens on the issue as well.

"The GAO report found no focussed coordinated government plans to prepare for peak oil or other supply disruptions."
"We are on the verge of replacing the term 'global warming' with the term 'peak oil.'"
"The best new oil basin we will ever find is the one called 'conservation.'"

Global Public Media has links up to Friend of TOD Jason Bradford's interviews with TOD's Nate Hagens discussing many of the common misconceptions about energy supplies (Part 1) and the cognitive, social and psychological factors that make it difficult for societies to agree, even when all the facts are open and transparent (Part 2). Two darned good interviews, in my humble opinion (Nate's height definitely comes through in the interview)--both related to Nate's three part series featured here over the last couple of weeks (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3).

Also, under the fold are links to a few of the perennial pieces of media that you can send to folks to explain the basic arguments regarding peak oil. First is Matt Simmons on CNBC talking about the GAO report (7 mins), then under the fold a link to Jim Kunstler's latest talk on the American car culture, Albert Bartlett's wonderful lecture on exponential growth and how it affects our lives, and then the venerable Boone Pickens on the issue as well.

Please feel free to provide more media links in the comments. As always, I cannot recommend enough going over to Global Public Media and surfing their archives.

Here's three four pieces of media that you can send to folks to explain the basic arguments regarding peak oil. First is Matt Simmons on CNBC yesterday talking about the GAO report (7 mins), then under the fold a link to Jim Kunstler's latest talk, a piece by ABC Radio of Australia on the GAO report and peak oil, and Boone Pickens on the issue as well.

"The GAO report found no focussed coordinated government plans to prepare for peak oil or other supply disruptions."
"We are on the verge of replacing the term 'global warming' with the term 'peak oil.'"
"The best new oil basin we will ever find is the one called 'conservation.'"

An open thread to discuss JHK's latest, "The Big Chill." While you're at it, refresh yourself by reading Robert Rapier's many posts on ethanol, which he nailed long ago. ([1], [2], [3], and [4] are just some examples, find the rest by clicking on Robert's name and going through the story list...), as well as EP's "Sustainability, Energy Independence and Agricultural Policy".