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Matt Simmons – We’ve Killed the Gulf
Interview with Jeff Rubin
Bill Gates on Energy

“They promised to clean up the Gulf, is that right?  Do you know how much it will cost if they can technically do it? Well over a trillion dollars.”

He argues the only way to stop this thing is with a small nuclear device.

Abstract:

Recent studies have linked climatic and social instabilities in ancient China; the underlying causal mechanisms have, however, often not been quantitatively assessed. Here, using historical records and palaeoclimatic reconstructions during AD 10–1900, we demonstrate that war frequency, price of rice, locust plague, drought frequency, flood frequency and temperature in China show two predominant periodic bands around 160 and 320 years where they interact significantly with each other. Temperature cooling shows direct positive association with the frequency of external aggression war to the Chinese dynasties mostly from the northern pastoral nomadic societies, and indirect positive association with the frequency of internal war within the Chinese dynasties through drought and locust plagues. The collapses of the agricultural dynasties of the Han, Tang, Song and Ming are more closely associated with low temperature. Our study suggests that food production during the last two millennia has been more unstable during cooler periods, resulting in more social conflicts owing to rebellions within the dynasties or/and southward aggressions from northern pastoral nomadic societies in ancient China.

Full text available

Grantham Summer Essays

Also, watch Immelt backpedal on comments he made about China and the Administration.

Jack Welch is rolling over in his Lazy-Boy.

• Businesses which prepare for and take advantage of the new energy reality will prosper – failure to do so could be catastrophic
• Market dynamics and environmental factors mean business can no longer rely on low cost traditional energy sources
• China and growing Asian economies will play an increasingly important role in global energy security
• We are heading towards a global oil supply crunch and price spike
• Energy infrastructure will become increasingly vulnerable as a result of climate change and operations in harsher environments
• Lack of global regulation on climate change is creating an environment of uncertainty for business, which is damaging investment plans
• To manage increasing energy costs and carbon exposure businesses must reduce fossil fuel consumption
• Business must address energy-related risks to supply chains and the increasing vulnerability of ‘just-in-time’ models
• Investment in renewable energy and ‘intelligent’ infrastructure is booming. This revolution presents huge opportunities for new business partnerships

Read the full Lloyd’s research report

Related commentary by Antony Froggatt:

Also Read: Employment May be Worsening

“…depletion does not have to be apocalyptic. It will only be apocalyptic if we continue to consume oil as we have in the past when it was cheap and abundant. Because I’m an economist and I believe in the power of prices, I believe that we’re going to change. I believe that a global economy, where we move resources all around the world to be assembled by the cheapest labor force and then be shipped to the other end of the world-that’s not a rational way of doing business in a world of $150-a-barrel oil. What we’re going to see is a whole reengineering of our economy, and while we’re going to make a lot of sacrifices in terms of our past energy consumption, we’re going to find that our new smaller world has a lot of silver linings. And in a lot of ways it is going to be more livable and sustainable than the old oily world we’re leaving behind. Peak oil will be an agent of change, and much of that change will be positive, not negative.”

Read the full interview with Jeff Rubin.

1. Climate Change

2. Peak Oil

3. Collapse of the World’s Oceans

4. Deforestation

5. The Global Food Crisis

6. Over Population

Read more from Matthew Stein, author of When Technology Fails LINK