Our Peak Oil Premium
Humankind will have to invest staggering resources to find and produce new oil if global output is to grow steadily. We’re likely much closer to the tipping point than optimists think
We’re Losing Our Past to Technology
A few weeks ago, as I was rummaging in a drawer in my father’s house, I came across a dozen reels of developed 8-millimetre film. I’d known the reels were in the house somewhere. But, for many years, I’d resolutely put the fact out of my mind.
Climate Summit Was a Pathetic Exercise in Deceit
There’s really only one label for the pathetic exercise we’ve just witnessed in South Africa: deceit. The whole climate-change negotiation process and the larger political discourse surrounding this horrible problem is a drawn-out and elaborate exercise in lying—to each other, to ourselves, and especially to our children. And the lies are starting to corrupt our civilization from inside out.
Our Fukushima Moment
A quarter of a century after we first heard it, the word “Chernobyl” stands in our minds for technological calamity borne of incompetence. Environmentalists used the label to deliver a near-fatal blow to the nuclear power industry. What will Fukushima mean to us in 2036, and how will we have used the label to change our world?
And Now the Weather: Nasty and Brutish
People who think this winter’s brutish weather proves climate change isn’t real might want to think again.
Responding to the Skeptics
with Andrew Weaver | Skeptics often say Earth’s climate is showing a trend toward stable or even declining temperatures. But they have to cherry-pick data from the climate record to support this argument.
The Enticements of Green Carrots
We Canadians like to think we are green, but when it comes to protecting the environment, we are among the world’s worst actors. Whether the metric is carbon output per capita, toxic waste emissions or protection of endangered species, Canada regularly ranks near the bottom of the list of similarly wealthy countries. If our economy’s incentives start pulling in the same direction as our ethical impulses, Canadians can do better. At present, they are pulling in opposite directions.
Clean Coal? Go Underground, Alberta
with Julio Friedmann | Alberta appears to be in a box – an energy box – that constrains policy options in every direction. The province’s wealth is critically tied to exploitation of its vast hydrocarbon resources.
Fear is Good
Fear is bad, according to conventional wisdom. Our economy is in trouble, we hear, because banks are too afraid to lend and consumers and companies too afraid to spend. Less lending and spending further depresses the economy, which begets more fear. And to top it all off, some analysts irresponsibly exploit these fears for their own ends, by arguing that the crisis may get far worse before it gets better, and in the process sensationalize and exaggerate the problem. But, in this case, conventional wisdom is wrong. The truth is that fear is good. The economic crisis we’re facing is not at root the result of too much fear but of too little.
The Stag Hunt: Deflation as a Collective Action Problem
In the worst case, deflation becomes its own cause. People become afraid their incomes might fall in the future. Or they see their savings being ravaged by the stock market collapse. So they stop spending and instead hoard their money. As demand for goods and services drops, companies' profits plummet, leading to layoffs, reduced working hours, and yet more declines in stock prices. The fear of lost income becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and people cut their spending further. Once the downward spiral starts, it's maddeningly hard to stop. People expect prices will keep falling, so they decide to put off their spending, because they think things will be cheaper in the future.
