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Author Archives: gailtheactuary
Human population overshoot–what went wrong?
There are seven billion people on earth now. I originally thought that the primary reason for the recent human population explosion was that fossil fuels enabled a larger food supply and better medicine, and thus a higher population. While the … Continue reading
Posted in Planning for the Future
Tagged Craig Dilworth, ecology, overshoot, population, territoriality.
137 Comments
The Most Important Resource for Our Future: Inexpensive Oil (but its not really available)
Our economy runs on oil. Most of the tractors used for growing food run on oil. Nearly all of today’s cars and trucks run on oil. It is popular to talk about changing to some other fuel, but the practicalities … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications, Introductory Post
Tagged crude oil, debt defaults, economic growth, oil, oil consumption, oil limits, oil supply, petroleum, recession
64 Comments
‘Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial Crisis’ paper available free
I was an invited speaker at the “7th Biennial International Workshop ‘Advances in Energy Studies,’” in Barcelona, Spain in October 2010. Afterward, I wrote a peer-reviewed academic paper related to my talk called, “Oil Supply Limits and the Continuing Financial … Continue reading
Posted in Published Articles
Tagged financial crisis, Gail Tverberg, limits to growth, oil limits, peak oil, recession
17 Comments
More Reasons Why We are Reaching Limits to Growth
In a recent post, I talked about why we may be reaching Limits to Growth of the type foretold in the 1972 book Limits to Growth. I would like to explain some additional reasons now. In my earlier post, I … Continue reading
Where do continued high oil prices lead us?
We know high oil prices have an adverse impact on the economy, often leading to recession. According to Economist James Hamilton, 10 out of 11 of US recessions since World War II have been associated with oil price spikes. But … Continue reading
Posted in Financial Implications, Planning for the Future
Tagged fossil fuels, high oil prices, oil, oil prices, oil supply, recession, renewables
67 Comments
The Faustian Bargain that Modern Economists Never Mention
This is a guest post by Dr. Gary Peters. He is a retired geography professor. Historically people have shifted their belief systems in various ways. The Greeks and Romans believed in numerous gods and goddesses and attributed all kinds of … Continue reading
Obstacles Facing US Wind Energy
In the United States, we have been working on scaling up wind energy but not getting very far. In 2010, wind energy supplied only 2.3% of electricity purchased. Such slow progress seems strange for a product that seems to have … Continue reading
Can we invest our way out of an energy shortfall?
The world has many ideas for solving our energy shortfall, but they all seem to involve investment: Drill for more oil and gas; Develop alternative energy sources; Build more efficient gas-powered cars or electric cars; Fix homes and offices so … Continue reading
