Sounds like the U.S. has been playing silly buggers with oil production forecasts.
From a senior figure at the International Energy Agency, who has now left but is unwilling to give his name:
We have [already] entered the ‘peak oil’ zone. I think that the situation is really bad.
It’s worth listening to the audio in the above linked article too.
George Monbiot speculates on reasons for the spread of climate change denial.
There is no point in denying it: we’re losing. Climate change denial is spreading like a contagious disease.
There are some obvious answers … But there might also be a less intuitive reason, which shines a light into a fascinating corner of human psychology ..
This is a clip from Fragile Paradise, the first in a series of documentaries by the BBC called South Pacific.
Sirocco the Kakapo, a native parrot of New Zealand, gets frisky. An extract from Stephen Fry’s and Mark Carwardine’s new BBC documentary, Last Chance to See:
Infographic comparing relative spending of various multi-billion-dollar budgets. Keep it in mind next time you consider voting for any of the major political entities that have helped create such a world.
(via Daring Fireball)
Someone’s cottoned onto the fact that they’re being conned:
[The town of] Bundanoon’s battle against the bottle has been brewing for years, ever since a Sydney-based beverage company announced plans to build a water extraction plant in the town. Residents were furious over the prospect of an outsider taking their water, trucking it up to Sydney for processing and then selling it back to them. The town is still fighting the company’s proposal in court.
Then in March, Huw Kingston, who owns the town’s combination cafe and bike shop, had a thought: If the town was so against hosting a water bottling company, why not ban the end product?
On Wednesday, 356 people turned up for a vote — the biggest turnout ever at a town meeting.
Only two people voted no. One said he was worried banning bottled water would encourage people to drink sugary drinks. The other was Geoff Parker, director of the Australasian Bottled Water Institute — which represents the bottled water industry.
Here they are, having weaselled themselves into a position to dig up hugely valuable resources from under our feet for a steal, only to flog them off to be burnt and dangerously pollute our only atmosphere. When we realise how dangerous it is, they use these stolen proceeds to block any attempt to mend the damage by launching a propaganda campaign and buying off politicians:
Obama’s key climate bill hit by $45m PR campaign.
And people call this democracy? These people are the highest of criminals. Forget the war on terror, what we should have is a war on fossil fuel pushers.
Incredible clip from the sixth and last episode of the BBC’s Nature’s Great Events.
2500 scientists attending a recent conference in Copenhagen have warned we face irreversible climate change.
Lewis Smith, writing for The Australarian:
The demands and alerts contained in the statement were described as a defining moment in scientists’ relations with political leaders, representing a shift away from their traditional role of merely offering advice to telling politicians to act.