Archive for June, 2008

Pickens Testimony Senate June 17, 2008

Thursday, June 19th, 2008

I didn’t want to lose this, here’s the transcript of his recent testimony

Same old stuff, but it’s getting more intense by the week.

And Senators, ladies and gentlemen, simply stated, our main energy problem begins and ends with imported oil. Seventy percent of the oil we use is imported. With current oil prices, we are getting close to exporting $700 billion a year overseas because of our addiction to imported oil. That’s nearly four times the cost of the Iraqi war. We purchase it from a few friends and a lot of enemies. We are paying for the war against ourselves and we have got to stop it, some way, somehow.

And the price of oil will go up further. Over the next 10 years, you’re looking at exporting $10 trillion out of this country. It will be the greatest transfer of wealth from one country to other parts of the world in the history of mankind. It is a clear and growing threat to our national security, and our national economy. It has to be stopped. We are on the verge of losing our Super Power status. It’s time to quit the blame game, and look for solutions and leadership to solve the problem.

Richard Heinberg: How to Move Forward Now

Friday, June 6th, 2008

Richard Heinberg recently wrote a short piece for The Ecologist (and believe me, all you head-in-the-sand denialists are about to wake up to a harsh dose of reality, so you might want to start paying attention to the people who are right, and who have been right all along) discussing the speed of systems collapse as of now.

Keep in mind, we’re sailing here on a very big ship, with a lot of inertia, so changes happen in a sort of surreal slow-motion time frame that requires something of a coherent overview to understand, although everyone of course immediately understands things like $100 fill-ups on their excessively large SUVs and trucks.

Heinberg’s point below, however, is worth some serious thought. I guarantee you I’m going to look at his suggestion very seriously, and I recommend you all do too.

As the Great Unraveling proceeds, there may in fact be only one occupation worthy of our attention: that of identifying the qualities that make our species worth saving, and then celebrating and exemplifying those qualities. If we concentrate on doing that, perhaps we win no matter what. Outwardly, it will probably look a lot like what many of us are already doing: working to save a species, an ecosystem, a human community; to make a village sustainable, or to halt a new coal power plant.

Taking in traumatic information and transmuting it into life-affirming action may turn out to be the most advanced and meaningful spiritual practice of our time.
How Do You Like the Collapse So Far?, 05 Jun 2008