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.

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.

The Business Council of Australia represents the corporate lobby groups that have overtaken the process of democracy in Australia and which have raised the cost of land, water, food and housing. If they go off-shore Australians will be better off.

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 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.

Nuclear power is expensive and diverts copious funds and time away from important investments in energy conservation and renewable energy.