Peak Everything

I have just finished reading another of Richard Heinberg's books Peak Everything.

In it he talks about how we might manage the transition through the age of oil depletion,not least in the area of food production.Think about the food you buy in a supermarket.Then think of the all the fossil fuel burning that has gone on to get it there.First seed has to be sown with tractors,then harvested and taken to silos.

Then it has to be processed in someway to create the final product.All this needs oil.

Then it is taken to a central distribution centre before being finally sent out to your supermarket.

Don't forget you probably drove you car to the supermarket and will drive back to get the food home.Finally you stick this food in the oven,yes more fossil fuel.

Heinburg talks about going back to locally produced food.We will re-ruralise the landscape.Hey turn your back lawn over to growing vegetables.

Perhaps the most moving chapter is the one written by someone living a hundred years from how and writing back to us.He tells how the world has changed to a world of chaos caused by the end of oil.Let us hope it doesn't turn out like that.But we need to act now.You can get the book here

Easy Eco Auditing by Donnachadh McCarthy

Reading this great book on how to audit your habits both at work and home and how they impact on the environments.Do you have a compost,a water butt?

Do you buy heavily packaged TV dinners or do you buy organic food from your local farmer's market?All these help in a big way if we all do it together.

In the bathroom take a shower rather than a bath it saves so much water.What about getting a worm farm? They can munch through so much waste.

You can get the book here

The Story of Stuff

A good introduction to how creating more stuff which is supposed to make us happy is actually ruining the planet.

Your Thoughts.?

Power Down By Richard Heinberg

Powerdown: Options and Actions for a Post-Carbon World

A book I have just finished and looks at ways of navigating the coming peak oil crisis.
The solutions is in building local communities again and turning local land over to food production.
So much fuel is used to grow crops and then move it to the supermarkets that there will be real food shortages unless food is grown and sold locally.
You need to read this book.

How Cuba dealt with the end of oil.

Cuba derived nearly all it's oil from the Soviet Union,so when that country collapsed it had to find a way of maintaining it's economy and food supply without oil.

Power of Community

click on the link to see how Cuba found solutions to this problem by having more people work on the land, and come off a meat based diet, leading to weight loss and better health.

This is a model of how we in the west must change if we are to manage the coming criis well.

Lasts about 54 mins and is well worth watching.

Peak Oil

Watch this interview with Richard Heinberg author of Power Down a book I am currently reading about how the world is going to have to adjust to a post carbon world,or otherwise face extinction as people fight for what few resources are left.

You can get his book from Amazon here:



The book makes for somber reading as the search for alternatives to oil and gas continues to yield up nothing that would equate to the energy that these two give us.

The alternative is a slow down in economic and population growth both unpopular to many.This problem will not go away and the more we are in denial about it the worse the problem will become.

Where is the power to come from?

We have seen the wild fluctuation in the price of oil over the past two years from a high of $150 per barrel to a low of $40.Now it is on the way back up again around $80 as I write this.

This has translated into a an average increase in domestic heating and lighting of 30% to £1300pa.With the decommissioning of nuclear power stations by 2025 clearly new sources of power must be found.

Not only that but domestic heating emissions account for 40% of the UK's greenhouse gas emissions.

So more energy efficient homes and new sources of power are needed if a reduction in greenhouse gases is to be achieved.

This is easy to achieve in new construction as new homes must be properly insulated according to building regulations but only some 4% of the UK housing stock is replaced each year,so most efficiency must be found in the existing stock.

This will come in the form over cavity and roof insulation.Grants are now available for this in households where benefits are received and where one of the occupiers is over 70 years of age.

Go to the Government Grants website here to see if you are entitled to a grant for cavity and loft insulation.