Discomfit Magazine: Juxtapositions | PCI Messenger | Nov. 2019 @ Post Carbon Institute

This month we're celebrating connection rather than consumerism, comparing unrealistic oil estimates to stark reality, and welcoming a new board member.

JUXTAPOSITIONS

by Rob Dietz

The holidays can offer up some experiences that can be both amusing and bemusing. As your heart warms while connecting with family members you haven’t seen in a while, your Uncle Voldemort keeps starting most of his conversations with “I’m not a racist, but...” In my own experience of the winter holiday season, the same juxtaposition arises year after year: on the one hand, I get crankier than those two Muppet judges put together about the notion of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and the spasms of marketing and consumerism that erupt every Thanksgiving. (Be glad you weren’t on hand when I discovered that Google added “Black Friday” to my calendar as a national holiday.) On the other hand, I like giving and receiving gifts and contemplating all there is to be thankful for in this fleeting life.

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DAVID HUGHES' SHALE REALITY CHECK 2019

by Asher Miller

1.9 million. 13 trillion. 10 billion. These are the numbers that jumped off the page when I read PCI Fellow David Hughes’s latest “shale reality check” report on the U.S. government’s forecasts of domestic oil and gas production. To elaborate, these forecasts mean that by 2050:

1.9 million new oil and gas wells will need to be drilled;
$13 trillion will need to be spent to drill all those wells; and
10 billion barrels of tight oil production will be “missing” from shale plays to meet the reference case forecast for cumulative production.

These are just some of the crazy numbers behind the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) latest forecasts for U.S. oil and gas production through 2050.

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WELCOME VICKI ROBIN!

Post Carbon Institute is pleased to welcome Vicki Robin—a prolific social innovator, writer, and speaker—to our Board of Directors.

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RESILIENCE PICKS

Climate Change from the Inside Out: Shock. Grief. Respond. Relief. Repeat

by Vicki Robin, Vicki Robin Blog

Systemic problems are multiplying with breakneck speed now, and “climate change” has moved, faster than anticipated, from a heady discussion to a gut-wrenching existential issue, reverberating in our hearts.

The Need for a Greater Vision: Recognizing Reality

by Norton Smith, Resilience

We live in a culture that is embedded in unquestioned beliefs passing as truth. These beliefs are the source of our current crisis. We attempt to solve the problems of degradation of our environment and climate disruption, but we do not look at these core beliefs.

ONE FROM THE VAULT

HELPING FORESTS MIGRATE

by Richard Heinberg

The idea of assisted migration has been around for a while now. Carl Zimmer wrote a key article on the subject (addressing not just trees but other species as well) in the New York Times in 2007; as he noted, the subject is not without controversy. Old-line conservationists have argued against assisted migration, using arguments that I mostly agree with.