http://www.wired.com/category/security/dangerroom/
Can we expect the economy to keep growing? If we read the financial pages, economic growth seems to be viewed as the “normal” situation to which economies inevitably return. But is it really? If we look back over the past 50 years, or even over the past 100 years, economic growth has predominated. Over the longer term, we know that people have become more prosperous, and that world population has grown. The natural assumption is that economic growth will continue in the future as it has in the past. Security (U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice delivers the infamous "talking points")
Peak oil is real and will stunt any economic recovery During the last century, society squandered 500 million years of captured sunlight on drag races, traffic jams, private jets and overheated office buildings - warns campaign group Oil company cheerleaders proclaiming huge supplies of oil are dead wrong. Peak oil is as real as rain, and it is here now. Not 2050. Not 2020. Now. The DEW Line After much deliberation we have made the difficult decision to permanently close the FlightGlobal blogs. We are very proud of what we achieved with the blogs, from the excellent contributions of our talented FlightGlobal team to the great commentary and engagement of our loyal FlightGlobal audience. Things move on however and as more of our great content is delivered through flightglobal.com channels and our online subscription service FlightGlobal Dashboard, we haven’t been able to concentrate on these blogs as much as we would like.
IEA's "Golden Age of Gas Scenario" Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change By Joe Romm on June 7, 2011 at 12:50 pm "IEA’s “Golden Age of Gas Scenario” Leads to More Than 6°F Warming and Out-of-Control Climate Change" The International Energy Agency has just issued a special report titled, “Are We Entering a Golden Age of Gas?” Morning Defense With Jonathan Topaz NATO DEFENDS ACCURACY OF IMAGES DEPICTING RUSSIAN FORCES ALONG UKRAINE’S BORDER: To prove the satellite photos released yesterday were taken in late March and early April of this year, NATO provided additional photos this morning that show the same areas prior to any military buildup. “The photographs, some dating from 2013, and others from early 2014, show that these areas were unoccupied prior to March 2014,” NATO said in a statement. Yesterday, NATO released a package of satellite imagery that depicted the location and type of Russian units NATO has observed along the border with Ukraine. Russian officials responded by saying the photos were old and showed an exercise conducted in 2013. — In an op-ed, retired Adm.
Japan heading for energy death spiral? Japan's only energy source: oil? (credit: Mohan R/Wikimedia Commons) Post-Fukushima Japan may be approaching an energy death spiral, says Nobuo Tanaka, past executive director of the International Energy Agency. He argues that if Japan does not find a way to “turn on” its now shuttered nuclear energy reactors, not only will Japan’s already sluggish economic condition be crushed with much larger oil and gas imports from Russia, Southeast Asia and the Middle East — but because of the costs and risk uncertainty — Japan’s powerful manufacturing base may begin pulling out of the world’s third largest economy. Tanaka explained that at current levels, Japan consumes about 5 million barrels of oil a day. Without domestically produced nuclear energy, Japan falls about 10% or half a million barrels of oil short of what it must have.
The narrowing window for a transition to a sustainable industrial society The viability of modern civilization depends on two important dimensions: 1) the continuous availability and deployment of essential resources and 2) the long-term productivity and habitability of our environment. Acquiring and deploying the necessary resources tends to be a short-term goal. We may have stockpiles of ready food, fuel and other nondurable goods, but they are not typically meant to last for years. Our long-term goal ought to be maintaining the productivity and habitability of our environment. It is, after all, the only environment we have. But, of course, in the interest of maintaining an ever increasing availability of resources (economic growth), we have injured the long-term productivity of our farm fields, fisheries and forests and put ourselves at the mercy of unforeseen declines in the rate of extraction of energy and other key finite resources from the Earth.
Energy Scenarios Millennium Project 2020 Global Energy Scenarios Introduction Elements of the Next Global Economic System Some Elements of the Next Global Economic System How Might These New Elements Affect the Human Condition over the Next 20 Years? Leading futurists, future-oriented economists, and future-oriented financial experts were invited to participate in this study, thinking 20 years ahead for imagining alternative futures for the world economy. The study was conducted in 2009, intending to collect fresh thinking, new ideas along with results of futures research about what’s next after the global financial crisis and what elements may become part of the next economic system.
The Globalization of War: The "Military Roadmap" to World War III Note to Readers: Remember to bookmark this page for future reference. Please Forward the GR I-Book far and wide. Post it on Facebook. » 25 Signs That A Horrific Global Water Crisis Is Coming Alex Jones Economic Collapse Blog Saturday, September 17, 2011 Every single day, we are getting closer to a horrific global water crisis. This world was blessed with an awesome amount of fresh water, but because of our foolishness it is rapidly disappearing. Rivers, lakes and major underground aquifers all over the globe are drying up, and many of the fresh water sources that we still have available are so incredibly polluted that we simply cannot use them anymore. Without fresh water, we simply cannot function.
Global Guerrillas Tesla's autopilot went live a couple of weeks ago (it's one of the first car brands to do this). Unlike the autopilots and cruise controls of the past, it's an autonomous system. This means it isn't limited to the capabilities you get when you pop it out of the box. It gets better as you train it and provide it with experience. Tesla's AP