The Garnaut Report has failed to discuss the energy assumptions underlying its conclusions. Tim Flannery argues that the core assumption that alternative energy technologies can be scaled up by the huge magnitudes required to replace fossil fuels is invalid. This failure should invalidate the Garnaut Report.

With The Final Energy Crisis, the editor, Energy and Population Sociologist Sheila Newman, gives us the opportunity to examine the theory, measurement, history and future of fossil-fuel depletion within a social paradigm where thermodynamics is the primary social constraint. This is 'applied peak-oil' - a multi-authored, but tightly integrated, collection of social and physical science writing, where the authors test the strength of the hypothesis that industrialised society faces an imminent energy crisis which will bring civilization as we know it to an end.

See also: Review of The Final Energy Crisis by Mark O'Connor author of Overloading Australia (RRP AU$20) on page 8 of the December 2008 newsletter (pdf 923K) of Sustainable Population Australia.

The energy advisors for both Barack Obama and John McCain have displayed some rudimentary grasp of peak oil, however neither shows any understanding at all of the consequences of additional millions of people on resource depletion and already dangerous ecological degradation.

See also: An immigration policy bought and paid for? of 24 Feb 08 by Tim Murray, Obama's Chicago Boys of 12  Jun 08 by Naomi Klein.

Hubbert's USD peak? Can the October 08 global market crash be linked to oil prices, oil depletion or peak oil?

Humans live in and from the biosphere. But in the first decade of the 21st Century, 85 percent of the primary energy consumed by the 6.7 billion humans comes from the lithosphere.

Jan Lundberg, former oil industry analyst, predicts that a total collapse of industrial society will follow the current meltdown of the U.S. financial markets.

Original article published as Collapse of Wall Street precedes complete disintegration of system. About those "green jobs"... on 16 Sep 08 on Culture Change.

Saccharine Republican Valkyrie an immodest advocate for barbarity to wildlife, using jet-fuel.

See also:
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Wins 2008 Rubber Dodo Award in biologicaldiversity.org of 17 Sep 08, Sarah Palin's record on environment is abysmal in seattlepi.nwsource.com of 5 Sep 08 by Rick Steiner and readers' comments,
New Orleans: The City That Won't Be Ignored in The Nation of 3 Sep 08 by Naomi Klein. How Democrat Barack Obama has incredibly surrendered critical ground to McCain in New Orleans, in which the the Rebublican Bush administration scandalously mismanaged the relief effort following Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

One impact of Georgia's nose-thumbing Russia has been for the US and Europe to take a step backwards, away from it. This leaves Georgia, not only vulnerable to a Russian take-over, but it also frees Georgia to succumb to Russia.

See also: Russia Never Wanted a War by Mihkail Gorbachev in New York Times of 19 Aug 08 for a view critical of Georgia's role in the conflict.

What do rural areas in Japan 'look like'? What are the main features of Japanese agriculture that make it different from agriculture in other countries? This article includes photographs of a rural city in Japan as well as a "food and energy crisis survival guide" survey for the city.

The OECD’s IEA is able to admit that future oil supplies will not meet likely or probable demand, but the US EIA and other diehards have not yet made that cultural revolution.

The increased interest over the last few years in the production of biofuels has run into intense criticism recently for causing a rapid rise in food prices. So is that the end of the 'biofuel boom'? What happens if we engage in a little creative reading between the lines of the leaders' statements from the recent G8 summit in Hokkaido?

Please feel free to leave comments to this blog if you have any questions or comments about my chapters in The Final Energy Crisis 2. Thank you.

In the early 1970's, a book titled "The Limits to Growth" was published, a report by the Club of Rome on the predicaments of mankind. Ultimately translated in 30 languages, it caused a furore, predicting that should civilisation continue on its present path, it would run out of every resource under the sun, causing a collapse of society and a major dieoff of human population.

The Next Oil War is likely or increasingly possible because the old, mature, or ‘post-industrial’ urban consumer societies, and the burgeoning new and emergent industrial economies of the planet are totally dependent on oil gas and coal.

As oil prices rocket above AU$140 per barrel, the Victorian Government proceeds to ram through its expensive road and tunnel building projects premised upon oil costing at most AU$24.20 per barrel against a groundswell of community opposition. Why?

Word is that Melbourne is getting its 1 million more ten years early and that the Vic Government is in a panic because it has no idea how many permanent new guests have taken up its foolhardy invitations to come and stay. Who the hell is responsible?

Why has the Courier Mail in its editorial of 23 June advocated that the Rudd Government adopt Brendan Nelson's proposal to cut fuel excise even though such a measure would deny the Government millions in needed revenue and have negligible effect at the bowser in comparison to the demand-driven rise in the price of oil?

Insight program shows limited perspective on problems surrounding labour supply in Australia.

See also : Transcript of Insight program of 17 Jun 08 Labour Pains

Australia's truck-owners warn nation to stock up on supplies before they shut two thirds of them down if the government fails to meet their demands by midnight, 27 July 2008.

Trends evoke the spectre for some and the hope for others that Peak oil may put an end to Rudd's 'nation building' and the whole infrastructure nightmare

South Australian Farmers call urgently for fair market forces so that producers can earn a fair return for their effort and ensure their future viability in face of "peak oil prices".

See also French Farmer Youth fight petroleum hikes: riot police and Orwellian Waterworks: big-agribusiness and Victorian Gov

India: Oil prices to increase by 11%; Diesel goes up by 9%; Cooking gas goes up by 17%
Australia: Almost 20% of workers would face ruin within the week if they lost their jobs
London: 10,000 to 40,000 workers in financial industries face job loss this year

Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, today rejected Prime Minister Rudd's extraordinary claim to have done all he can on fuel prices, highlighting five decisions his Government has made that have a negative impact and should be reversed.

Greens media release of 23 May 08. Our comments: Why no mention of population?

There is so much nonsense in the media today about the reasons why petrol (and diesel of course) is so expensive, it's mind boggling. Surfing the media's web blogs' tailing articles on petrol prices quickly exposes the man in the street's ignorance of the truth. Not that we can point the finger at 'people', the media (outside of publications like this one) is doing very little to educate or inform their readers or viewers.

George Soros: There is a "need to improve the quality of regulation. It is not enough to regulate the money supply; you also have to regulate credit."

London traders dumped in disastrous stock market

In Lille, France, about 40 youths calling themselves "Jeunes agriculteurs" (Young Farmers), pulled a tractor through the town on a rope to educate the public on the impact that petroleum hikes are having on food production and farmers. More robust simultaneous actions in other French towns came into conflict with police...also in Bulgaria. And all-night gas queues in Taiwan. See also Peak oil hits French fishing industry

Industrialised fishing is not only no longer sustainable due to falling fish-stocks but now falling energy supply has priced it out of the free market.

The Victorian Government, SEITA and Eastlink, are persevering in plans to bisect the Mornington Peninsula Biosphere and other crucial habitat for wildlife. If maintained, this route will ruin a proposed wildife corridor (.pdf) leading to and from the Peninsula Biosphere, of profound significance to the rest of Australia.