"Post
Carbon Reader", Heinberg/Lerch
"Post
Carbon Reader" är utgiven år 2010, omfattar 500
sidor och är på engelska. Den finns på AdLibris,
där den kostar bara 173 kr.
Boken
har Richard Heinberg och Daniel Lerch som redaktörer och består
av 34 olika uppsatser, med ungefär lika många författare.
Envar får alltså fokusera på just det som han eller
hon har som specialitet. Bladn de mer kända namnen återfinns
William E. Rees, Richard Douthwaite, Chris Martenson och Rob Hopkins.
Resultatet
blir en mycket koncis, faktaspäckad och klargörande bok,
värd att sätta högt på inköpslistan! Den
kunde förtjäna en översättning till svenska.
Boken
betar systematiskt av området för område, med denna
kapitelindelning:
1.
Grundläggande begrepp
2.
Klimat
3.
Vatten
4.
Biologisk mångfald
5.
Mat
6.
Befolkning
7.
Kultur och beteende
8.
Energi
9.
Ekonomi
10.
Städer och förorter
11.
Transporter
12.
Avfall
13.
Hälsa
14.
Utbildning
15.
Byggande av resilience
16.
Uppfordran till aktion
Begreppet
"resilience" är centralt, men svårt att med ett
ord översätta till svenska. Det blir ungefär elasticitet,
spänstighet, icke-sårbarhet:
Chris
Martenson:
"We
are more resilient when we have multiple sources and systems to supply
a needed item, rather than being dependent on a single source. We
are more resilient when we have a strong local community with deep
connections. We are mroe resilient when we are in control of how our
needs are met and when we can do things for ourselves.
We
are more resilient if we can source water from three locations...
We
are more resilient when our home can be heated by multiple sources
and systems,.."
Uppsats
nummer 19, av Tom Whipple - "Peak Oil and the Great
Recession" - känns särskilt aktuell:
"This
chapter explores the relationship - as it is understood thus far -
between the peaking of oil production, which started around 2005,
and the current global recession, which officially started in late
2007."
"...
world production - which has been growing steadily for nearly 150
years - has flattened out in the vicinity of ... 86 million bpd, suggesting
to many that all-time-peak-oil production has already occured."
"Corporate
loobying and public realations became industries unto themslves, and
corporate political contributions skyrrocketed. Today the power of
very weel-financed 'special interests' to influence the political
response to major issues... is a well-established part of the American
political scene."
"By
2007-2008 it was obvious that a major economic crisis was under way,
with falling real estate values, increasing underemployment, sagging
economies, and unstable, overleveraged financial markets.... the role
of oil in deepening and spreading the global recession has only recently
begun to be appreciated."
"Oil,
which was trading for as low as $ 20 a barrel in 2002, reached $ 70
a barrel in 2006, increased to $ 80 a barrel in late 2007, and topped
$ 100 at the beginning of 2008."
"The
$ 60-per-barrel increase in oil prices between 2002 and late 2007
meant that $ 1.2 billion additional each day - or $ 36 each month
- was being spent in the United States solely to pay for the increased
cost of oil.
The
year 2008 will be remembered as a major turning point in industrial
history, for it was the first year when the world got a taste of the
unpredictable price spikes that come from inadequate oil supplies."
"Two
major lessons from the first half of 2008 were that oil prices can
indeed increase rapidly to unanticipated levels and that very high
prices will cause serious economic damage in short order."
"Most
new oil production is now coming from deep-water wells or deposits
of heavy oil in Canada and Venezuela, which require very large investments
to exploit."
"...new
oil resources are becoming so expensive to find - and new oil production
is becoming so expensive to develop - that it will take relatively
high prices to keep exploration and new production projects viable."
"It
is unlikely that there will ever be an economic recovery in the conventional
sense; the economic downturn is likely to continue in one form or
another for many years."
Sammanfattningsvis:
bakom recessionen som kom kring år 2008 låg kraftigt höjda
oljepriser. Det blir därför osannolikt att en återhämtning
kommer att ske till något vi varit vana vid.
Jan
Milld
oktober
2011