Review of Saral Sarkar’s The Crisis of Capitalism, from Frontier Weekly Saral Sarkar has been writing for many years on his favourite subject, eco-system. He is an eco-socialist par excellence. This encyclopaedic *work of his has encompassed a wide range of subjects, and pressed into service an astonishingly large number of facts and theories, and…
Read More about Book review: The Crisis of CapitalismClimate change a threat to security, food and humankind – IPCC report The report from the UN’s intergovernmental panel on climate change concluded that climate change was already having effects in real time – melting sea ice and thawing permafrost in the Arctic, killing off coral reefs in the oceans, and leading to heat waves,…
Read More about News updateNasa-funded study: industrial civilisation headed for ‘irreversible collapse’? A new study sponsored by Nasa’s Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution. Noting that warnings of ‘collapse’ are often seen to be fringe or controversial, the study…
Read More about News updateCerana Foundation recently hosted “Civilizational Collapses – Causes & Consequences”, a talk by Vidyadhar Gadgil on Saturday, 15 March, 2014. This is part of a dialogue they have been having on questions related to Peak Oil, (un)sustainable development and the future of human society. Gadgil is a graduate of TISS, Mumbai, and has worked as a journalist and university teacher….
Read More about Talk: Civilizational Collapses – Causes & ConsequencesPeak Oil and Implications for India While it is dicey to predict oil reserves and production rates, one can accurately compute and collate past figures. Experts have been predicting peaking since 1995 but because of energy-efficient machines, substitution and use of natural gas and electricity for heating and so on, the dates have been shifting….
Read More about Special: Peak Oil and India‘If Peak Oil Is Dead, Why Haven’t Prices Dropped?’ Steve Andrews of the Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, USA interviews Dr. Richard G. Miller who recently co-authored and co-edited The Future of Oil Supply (see item below), a thematic issue of Philosophical Transactions of The Royal Society entirely devoted to future world oil supply. Dr. Miller, trained…
Read More about News updateDevelopment and sustainability – the debate Sagar Dhara (founder member of Peak Oil India group), raises important issues for a discussion on development and sustainability. This piece is based on Aseem Shrivastava and Ashish Kotharis’ book, Churning the Earth, published last year, which discusses the growing economic inequity and environmental degradation in India in the last…
Read More about Sustainability and Collapse – Two DebatesUS Army colonel: world is sleepwalking into a global energy crisis A conference sponsored by a US military official convened experts in Washington DC and London warning that continued dependence on fossil fuels puts the world at risk of an unprecedented energy crunch that could inflame financial crisis and exacerbate dangerous climate change. From Guardian Earth…
Read More about News updateNote: Paper to be presented by Sagar Dhara, one of the founder-members of Peak Oil India Group, at the XXXVII Indian Social Science Congress, Aligarh Muslim University, 27-31 December, 2013 What is our share of energy in nature? How should we distribute it? Search for a roadmap to a sustainable, equitable and peaceful human society Sagar Dhara1 To…
Read More about Roadmap for Sustainability, Equity and PeaceNote: Sagar Dhara, one of the founder-members of the Peak Oil India group, will coordinate the session on energy at this upcoming conference at Aligarh Muslim University. Brainstorming session What is our share of energy in nature? How should we distribute it? Search for a roadmap to a sustainable, equitable and peaceful human society 27-28 Dec 2013,…
Read More about What is our share of energy in nature? How should we distribute it?India’s Dangerous Food Bubble Lester Brown, an expert on population and resources and a former consultant to the Government of India on its five year plans, writes on India’s looming food crisis. According to him, while the adoption of higher-yielding crop varieties and the spread of irrigation have led to a remarkable tripling of grain…
Read More about News updateBook Review in The Hindu, 29 October 2013 Creating Space: Ecological Limits and Economic Development by Ramprasad Sengupta; Oxford University Press. Rs. 1250 Many sins are committed in the name of development. We are becoming aware that much of what were hailed as achievements over the past few centuries were actually “sordid boons.” Curiously, the…
Read More about Review: The real price of developmentSix Key Trends Shaping the Energy Future The Paris-based International Energy Agency was established after the oil crisis of the early 1970s in a move by oil-consuming nations to keep better track of trends and improve energy security. Its annual World Energy Outlook, with hundreds of pages of analysis and charts, is considered the industry…
Read More about News update(Deeply inspired by Charles Eisenstein’s books The Ascent of Humanity and Sacred Economics) By Mansoor Khan Today’s reality is governed by the laws of economics and accounting has therefore become a key discipline in developing and maintaining our modern industrial world. Balance sheets, ledgers, costs and sales all lead to the final profit and loss statement that is supposed…
Read More about Fire & AccountingBy T. Vijayendra A pamphlet on World Kitchen Garden Day (August 25)! The idea of kitchen garden is becoming popular because of: • awareness on growing healthy food • rise in vegetable prices But why have prices risen?
Read More about Cheap Oil, Peak Oil and Kitchen GardensBy Mihir Mathur, Watershed Organisation Trust, Pune Summary: Depleting fossil fuels, Peak oil and other social and market forces pose a serious threat to energy security. This energy crisis would be felt by all the sectors of an economy as well as the society. Intellectually, we may be aware of issues like ‘peak oil’ or the…
Read More about Energy Myths: Challenging ParadigmsBy T. Vjayendra and Shashank Srinivasan ABSTRACT Wildlife across the world is endangered due to habitat loss caused as a by-product of modern human society in the past 200 years. Most attempts at conservation have been unsuccessful in the face of the consumerist juggernaut because they are being carried out without questioning industrial society or…
Read More about Peak oil and wildlifeBy T. Vijayendra Peak oil means when the production of petroleum products has reached a peak and hence forth it will only fall. This has already happened. It heralds the collapse of industrial societies. Cities are energy consumers, not producers. With the fossil fuel era coming to a close, and no viable alternative energy source…
Read More about Peak Oil, dying cities and cities of tomorrowSenior Indian journalist Vidyadhar Date’s book Traffic In the Era of Climate Change was released in 2012.Given Date’s incisive work as a journalist, the book will be a major milestone in the debate on formulation of urban policy and the regulating the use and abuse of personal vehicles. Introducing the book on his Facebook post, Date writes, “I am…
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