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.*

Amazingly to me we seem to learnt very little or nothing from the oil crises of 1973. Especially because in the 1980’s the oil prices went down like a rock and everything seemed fine.

Europe always had higher taxes on petrol, so we naturally built and drove smaller cars. The US went “el gigante” as usual and feel in love with SUVs, Hummers and other thirsty vehicles.

So from 1973 to 2008 we wasted precious THIRTYFIVE years to seriously reduce our global consumption and develop alternatives. It is simply amazing how much time we wasted fiddling around with small stuff instead of pushing ahead.

The idea of peak oil (maximum production followed by gradual decline) is hardly new itself - a certain Mister King Hubbert published this very idea in 1956. And that oil isn’t a renewable resource has been bloody obvious since we built cars.

Once again: it is shocking that all these high-tech countries like USA, Germany, France, Britain, Japan, etc. have so little to show so little progress in terms of energy independence.

Germany is currently world leader in solar and wind energy, but we hardly use these technologies. Instead all industrial nations talk about using extensively atomic power. But it is once again a short term solution, since the world’s reserve of plutonium ain’t that big either.

It all comes down to money, not intelligence or logic in the end. We could have done more, but we didn’t. We still are doing not enough. We will only speed up our development when the price of petrol rises even higher and our laziness will become unaffordable.

But I am seriously afraid that we won’t even react than. Instead we simply “agree” with lesser comfort and don’t mind millions of people starving, because oil is also important for food production.

Cultures and civilizations are not very good in reacting to slow changes and threats. They simply adapt without overcoming the threat.

So peak oil might also imply peak civilization - unless some egghead saves our global asses from decline with a brilliant invention. But our culture won’t be the first nor the last to maybe disappear, slowly rott or “sleep away” …

Producing meat uses many primary food sources like wheat, maize or grain - and also oil for additional transport. Plus meat always needs to be cold - and therefore needs even more energy for refrigeration.

All livestock farts and produces loads of greenhouses gasses - and that’s actually as much bad gas as produced by cars.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“Tell me Darling, that little war made you even richer? You just wait - a 100$ per barrel is nothing I tell ya … by the way I got some nice guns for ya too …”

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!