Peak Oil

My father has long been interested in the topic of peak oil and I have grown up in the knowledge that our modern society comes with certain conditions that will, ultimately, mark its demise. Put simply, the peak oil crisis relates to the amount of non-renewable carbon-based fuel that is still available on Earth for manipulation, and at what point that the energy required to extract these diminishing supplies of fuel will surpass the energy that you would gain from using them once collected. The USA reached it's peak way back in the 1970's, and is now largely dependent upon oil-rich (for now, anyway) locations such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Iraq to feed its ever-growing addiction. Once the oil supplies across the whole world surpass their peak levels (which is estimated to be around, well...now) the oil markets will face a period of schizophrenic uncertainty and eventual collapse, and along with it many of the benefits that oil conferred upon our civilization - be it motor fuel, fertilizers for growing crops and sustaining our population, materials for a plethora of different products, and for many homes and industries, their electricity supplies. The implications of this issue are vast, potentially traumatic and not to be taken lightly.

Rinse & Repeat: Libya and the Mistakes of History

Well it didn't take them long, but Cameron, Sarkozy and Obama have got themselves stuck into a nice, juicy war. It's headline-grabbing stuff and mainstream papers like The Sun are having a field day, pumping the public full of patriotism in support of our air strikes on Gaddafi and his forces as he continues to brutalise his own people and stifle the rebel movement. Colonel Gaddafi has been transformed into an international pariah (again) in the space of time it takes to fire a Patriot missile into Tripoli.