Mr Newman is a brilliant and explosive mixture: comedian, historian, anarchist and activist. His show about oil is intelligent and insightful. You might learn more about this dark substance and it’s political influence than watching a whole year of CNN and the Discovery Channel together.
And it’s bloody funny too!
Don’t forget to visit Mr Newman’s great website and buy some of his stuff?!
*Update: This is a repost, because the old video was deleted.*
One of the first consequences of the ever rising petrol prices will be new speed limits. High speed means more fuel and more money. But the new slowness won’t be limited to transportation.
We will have to look for new lifestyles and "speeds" to live our lifes, because personal mobility will be reduced and more costly. Also industrial production and today’s speed economy will be more resource and time conscious.
We will be looking for more sustainable production methods and longer product cycles - so we need longer lasting goods - therefore speedy consumerism will slow down as well.
BBC News: WWF urges Brazil biofuel projects
Brazil has been on the forefront of the biofuel revolution. But once again it shows that industrial production of anything we humans need always causes some problems.
Overall the Brazilian’s experience with sugar cane has been VERY good. But they have to watch out to keep nature’s balance, water supply and bio diversity to make this a long term success.
But in that respect I have more confidence in Brazil that I have for example in the US obsession with Corn and making Ethanol from it. What a stupid idea - since corn produces a LOT LESS fuel than sugar cane.
Wow, isn’t it a shame that all these huge organization, these gazillions of governments and agencies didn’t do anything to PREVENT the current crisis?
I remember several articles last year warning that the bio fuel boom will drive food prices up and that our wheat and rice reserves are emptying fast.
Most governments are not spending too much brainpower to prevent such predictable human disasters. What a shame!
Here is a HIGHLY recommended article about the current food production and distribution system and how it needs to be adopted for a better future.
All our computers waste huge amounts of energy by waiting for us humans to do something. Most so called CPU cycles are wasted for waiting for you to press a mouse button or open a new webpage.
LocalCooling is a gadget for WindowsXP users to reduce their energy usage - or at least configure their computers to shut down unused parts or completely. Hey, you can even calculate how many trees you have saved - and there is even a top ten list for your and your buddies to participate in a global energy saving contest.
Let’s all say it: awesome!
Or is it? Overall there is nothing new in here: all energy settings can be found in the aptly named Energy control panel. So it’s only a good remix of already existing.
So if you really want to save some energy, than open your Energy control panel and tell your machine to shutdown the monitor and hard drive after a few minutes idle time … and don’t download that LocalCooling application and don’t waste any more energy thinking about it.
What we REALLY need are computer components that act more energy conscious and use a lot less electricity. Intels newest mobile Core2 processors only know two speed settings: half and full speed. There should be more settings.
Before the industrial revolution there was plenty of work for everyone - not always pleasant and nice - but there was a huge demand for muscles and brains.
Mechanization took most low level, handcraft, agricultural and production jobs away, so humans had to train to be smarter than machines to keep working. Most of today’s productive work (= producing goods) is done by machines, while we have kept and expanded the so called service industries and administration (and boy, do we love our bureaucracies).
I wonder: when we run out of oil and don’t come up with an adequate supply of alternative fuel if human work might be back in demand? There are six billion of us and not everybody fancies burger flipping and filling out forms & papers.
My dear Americans: are you sure that your country’s infrastructure is oke? Seems like you should spend more money on improving your electricity grid. It has been known for some time that most parts of the grid are in a bad shape.
Change? Make power companies invest more in the grids they own instead of giving all the money to it’s stockholders. Electricity is way to essential to leave it in the greedy hands of corporations.
Even here in Germany some electricity grids are in bad shape, because they have been privatized and neglected by big ass companies.
Water, Sewers, Electricity, Streets, Rail, Telephones and Internet access - all these components of modern life have been sold in many countries to private companies. And all the promises of cheaper pricesses, better service and constant innovation haven’t been fulfilled. But these companies ALL made huge profits.
Public necessities should stay in public hands.
Adam Curtis / documentary / ca 44 minutes
From Wikipedia:
An insight into the history of nuclear power. In the 1950s scientists and politicians thought they could create a different world with a limitless source of nuclear energy. But things began to go wrong. Scientists in America and the Soviet Union were duped into building dozens of potentially dangerous plants. Then came the disasters of Three Mile Island and Chernobyl which changed views on the safety of this new technology.
More? Pandora’s Box Series
Each year we waste billions of plastic bags for shopping and waste disposal. They are made out of oil - a valuable resource - so it’s a huge waste of a precious material. But worst of all: it takes nature almost forever to dissolve plastic bags. Plus many animals get trapped in thrown away bags.
Like the light bulb the plastic bag has to go and replaced by something renewable and more practical. It’s a shame that it takes us so long to get rid of it … can we please start a war on plastic bags? Some people have started campaigns to get rid of it - and some government simply make the consumer pay for it. (Thanks for the link Xtine)
Documentary / 1 hour 22 minutes / by Basil Gelpke and Ray McCormack
Oil is - like so many natural resources - only available in a limited supply. And with all limited resources we will reach an ‘ extraction / production peak’ - which means less of it will be available after that point.
Many scientists and oil people think that we have either reached or soon will reach peak oil. This is of course very bitter, because our global industrial society is just really starting to take off in many big countries like India, Brazil and China.
Watch this documentary to learn more about peak oil and it’s consequences.
More? Official Website
Most cars waste most of their fuel to move themselves - the passengers are just an add on. Europeans have been for decades great consumers of small cars. Nice to see that India and hopefully China follow that trend.
You don’t need a bigass SUV or Hummer to get around. A small Tata Nano - or any other small car like the Smart - will do the job nicely.
Save precious oil and drive a small car - if you need to drive anyway.
Just until the early 20th century horse & cart were literally the workhorses of transportation. The combustion engines and steam power - and later electricity replaced them slowly until the 1950s in most industrialized countries.
The question is what do we do when petrol becomes so expensive that a car or a flight is no longer affordable for the common man? How do we transport our food and other goods from the producers to our homes and shops?
Will electricity become the main source of energy or will be go back to proven methods of transportation like horse & cart?
Click image for an even bigger bang.
BBC - on this Day: Now that was a big bang and all the dust contributes to global warming today. It’s not only we humans that pollute the atmosphere, but also events like this - although volcanic eruptions are pretty rare and lame compared to some earlier earth periods.
More? Wikipedia entry and don’t miss the 1980’s section with some great images! Then you can ‘feel’ how massive that explosion was.
Fish and Beef are a luxury. It takes big amounts of primary food sources like wheat to produce the same amount of calories in meat.
So instead of eating such luxuries items every day, we should change our habit and ignore the 99¢ burgers with fries and diet coke - and get some apples or pasta instead.
Congratulations to Saudi Arabia, Russia and Hugo - you are even richer now. For the rest of the world it means higher costs for petrol, food, travel and goods.
Only in the last 25 years the oil prices exploded - thanks for wars, embargos and greater demands. Visit this website to learn more about the development of the oil prices since WWII. Very interesting!
For sentimental values we accept almost any waste of energy or resources. For the kids, for relationships and feel good moments we are willing to waste, waste and waste …
With oil prices soaring suddenly even new interpretations of old technologies get some attention. Sky Sails has been reinventing the wheel for modern transport ships. Their idea is basically a hybrid (watch the video - it’s in German, but easy to grasp): normal engine for less windy days - plus a computer controlled super sail for windy or even stormy hours. This should save 10% to 35% for a ships operation for a year.
The sail is made my with a super durable material to withstand the extreme pull. I really hope this becomes a widespread technology. In our global economy we need shipping now more than ever - if we can save some fuel as well that would be brilliant. Especially shipping from and to China is a hell of a journey.
Yesterday I spent almost the whole day to sort out my computer box. I used to work as a system administrator for some time, so there are plenty of digital ‘leftovers’: adapters, cables, chargers, batteries, converters, transformers, even more cables and hubs of all sorts.
It is precious high tech trash. Some of these cables and especially adapters once cost a huge amount of money. I found one old Mac PowerBook to SCSI cable that once cost over €100. Now it’s simply high tech trash.
But it’s mostly poisonous trash. Some countries have laws against disposing it all as usual. Most cables and plugs contain precious metals - so it should be recycled.
But most of all: these cables and plugs should be designed to be more universal.
The USB plug and cable system for example was meant to be universal - just as the name says. But already USB is no longer just one plug but four different sizes. Well done computer industry!
And why can we have ONE charger for all those small gadgets like cell phones, cameras and mp3 players?
To produce 1 kg of beef you need to feed 8 kg of wheat to the animal. Plus you need extra water, care and transportation to get the process of fattening your lifestock rolling.
Eating meat was always a luxury - except for the last 50 years in industrialized nations. If the oil prices continues to climb higher and higher it might be a luxury again.
Gimme Methane or gimme death!
There are incredible creature deep in the sea who survive by using methane. Since methane is one of the biggest green house gases we should watch these guys and learn from them. There are many deep sea critters that use methane to survive and transform it into energy - something we humans need.
It wasn’t me!
Since we humans love meat, milk and cheese we need loads of cows - but their digestive system produces loads of farty methane. Cows contribute massively to the green houses gases.
The mysterious stomach of Kangaroos.
This brings us to Kangaroos and a bacteria in their stomach that hardly produces any Methane. Scientists hope they can transplant that bacteria to cows and other life stock to reduce methane production.
We will run out of oil - sooner or later. But how will be continue then? Will me make a transition back to a new steam age, horses and fuel cells? I am sure we gonna see a huge diversity of old and new energy sources. Even sails for ships could make a comeback. Maybe we will even (finally) see atomic cars.
Although we all know that Flash & Thunder are ‘just’ natural events we are still deeply impressed by them. Thunderstorms are amazing. Don’t fuck with this form of Shock & Awe.
This is a great product: a small windup to recharge your cell without using any electricity plug. Since we hardly have enough exercise these days cranking up your gadgets could be a new fitness fad.
I would love to be a hand cranked geek!
But small electronics can also be charged by small solar panels like MySolidus.
We are still in the stoneage of green technology and I hope it’s not too late yet. But how long will it take to make people aware how to save themselves? Science is only as effective as it is accepted by us and supported by laws and the industry.
BBC News: Cement makers come clean
Cement is one of our oldest building materials - it was already known and used by the Romans. By cement releases a lot of heat and CO2 while hardening. Cement makers hope to reduce the emissions and create a greener cement.
Excellent!