Making Other Arrangements

admin /8 November, 2007

A wake-up call to a citizenry in the shadow of oil scarcity

by James Howard Kunstler
photographs by David Maisel

AS THE AMERICAN PUBLIC CONTINUES sleepwalking into a future of energy scarcity, climate change, and geopolitical turmoil, we have also continued dreaming. Our collective dream is one of those super-vivid ones people have just before awakening. It is a particularly American dream on a particularly American theme: how to keep all the cars running by some other means than gasoline. We’ll run them on ethanol! We’ll run them on biodiesel, on synthesized coal liquids, on hydrogen, on methane gas, on electricity, on used French-fry oil . . . !

The dream goes around in fevered circles as each gasoline replacement is examined and found to be inadequate. But the wish to keep the cars going is so powerful that round and round the dream goes. Ethanol! Biodiesel! Coal liquids . . .

Cloncurry goes solar

admin /4 November, 2007

A NORTH-WEST Queensland town is set to become the first in the state to completely rely on solar power within two years. Premier Anna Bligh today said Cloncurry had been chosen as the site for a "ground-breaking" $7 million solar thermal power station. "We’re going to build a 10-megawatt solar thermal power station," Ms Bligh Continue Reading →

Aussie Iron Ore sells at half price

admin /4 November, 2007

China Iron and Steel Association research director-general Chen Xianwen said if Australia’s iron ore suppliers wanted to change the way they set prices "they should sit down and talk to all the parties involved and set out firm reasons that convince everyone," wrote Rowan Callick in The Australian (1/11/2007, p. 19). Benchmark system should remain: Continue Reading →

Those festering blues

admin /30 October, 2007

Generator listeners interested in the interview Giovanni did with Peter Noble from the Blues Fest may be interested to know it is available online. The last couple of minutes of it were the ones that got the most attention. The full interview is also available.

Solar panels become chic

admin /27 October, 2007

Akeena Solar, Inc. (OTCBB:AKNS), a leading designer and installer of solar power systems, today unveiled unique new solar panels that look like handsome designer-produced skylights and have built in features that cut installation time from half a day to half an hour.

"Andalay is truly revolutionary. The panels look better, are more reliable, offer superior performance and bring solar to its rightful place at the forefront of alternative energy technologies," said Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Akeena Solar, Inc.

World’s survival at risk: UN report

admin /27 October, 2007

Lewis Smith | October 26, 2007 | The Times

THE speed at which mankind has used the Earth’s resources over the past 20 years has put "humanity’s very survival" at risk, a study involving 1400 scientists has concluded.

Saying the scale of the challenge is huge, the scientists have told the United Nations that environmental problems must be treated as a top priority if they are to be solved.

The environmental audit for the UN found that each person in the world now requires a third more land to supply his or her needs than the Earth can supply.

Thirty per cent of amphibians, 23 per cent of mammals and 12 per cent of birds are under threat of extinction, while one in 10 of the world’s major rivers runs dry every year before it reaches the sea.

The bleak verdict on the environment was issued as an "urgent call for action" by the UN Environment Program, which said that the "point of no return" was fast approaching.