Oil production should be measured in energy units, not volume.

Resource Insights: Will the International Energy Agency's oil forecast be wrong again?: "as the world considers yet another rosy oil supply forecast, this time from the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA), it is worth reviewing the agency's record.

Back in the year 2000, the IEA divined that by 2010, liquid fuel production worldwide would reach 95.8 million barrels per day (mbpd). The actual 2010 number was 87.1 mbpd. The agency further forecast an average daily oil price of $28.25 per barrel (adjusted for inflation). The actual average daily price of oil traded on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 2010 was $79.61."

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Growing Scandal Brings Nation To The Brink Of Ruin

ThinkProgress: "Scandalous: Projected warming this century (in red, via recent literature) if humanity allows current carbon pollution trends to continue compared to the temperature change over past 11,300 years (in blue, via Science, 2013)."

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Private auto just keeps on killing. Make it stop.

seattlepi.com: "DAMASCUS, Va. (AP) — Witnesses described a frantic scene and close calls after an elderly driver plowed into dozens of hikers marching in a small Virginia mountain town's parade. Investigators were looking into whether the motorist had suffered a medical emergency before the accident."

Report Finds Americans Are Driving Less, Led by Youth

NYTimes.com: "People tend to drive less during recessions, since fewer people are working (and commuting), and most are looking for ways to save money. But Phineas Baxandall, an author of the report and senior analyst for U.S. Pirg, said the changes preceded the recent recession and appeared to be part of a structural shift that is largely rooted in changing demographics, especially the rise of so-called millennials — today’s teenagers and twentysomethings. “Millennials aren’t driving cars,” he said."

U.S. and Russia struggle to control surrogates in Syria pipeline war

Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict | Nafeez Ahmed | Environment | guardian.co.uk: "But the US, Israel and other external powers are hardly honest brokers. Behind the facade of humanitarian concern, familiar interests are at stake. Three months ago, Iraq gave the greenlight for the signing of a framework agreement for construction of pipelines to transport natural gas from Iran's South Pars field - which it shares with Qatar - across Iraq, to Syria."

We need demand-side environmentalism

A lot of current environmentalism is supply-side. It goes like this: 

• Demonize fossil-fuel producers
• Interfere with fossil-fuel production and transport
• Divest from fossil-fuel producers
• Create non-fossil-fuel sources of energy

This is akin to trying to stop Niagara Falls with umbrellas. And creating more energy just adds to the volume of water coming over.

Here is a simple plan for demand-side environmentalism:

• Stop wasting energy
• Expose now-unseen subsidy of autos and sprawl
• Change how people live
• Lower the birth rate

Making public transit fare-free starts us on that path. The good news is, you don't have to wait for the federal government. You can have free transit in your town or city for about 60 basis points of tax.

Climate change 'will make hundreds of millions homeless'

Climate change is amplifying risks from drought, floods, storm and rising seas. Photograph: Simon Maina/AFP

The Observer: ""When temperatures rise to that level, we will have disrupted weather patterns and spreading deserts," he said. "Hundreds of millions of people will be forced to leave their homelands because their crops and animals will have died. The trouble will come when they try to migrate into new lands, however. That will bring them into armed conflict with people already living there. Nor will it be an occasional occurrence. It could become a permanent feature of life on Earth.""

Fossil fuel policy: Use it faster to get price up, to produce more, to use it faster.

Peak Prosperity: "Imagine if the Americans of 100 years ago had figured out a way to export all of the U.S.'s natural gas bounty, and we were now struggling with the aftermath of those actions.  I, for one, would look quite unfavorably on those who so utterly failed to appreciate the limited nature of that abundance that they literally wasted it.

...[future generations] will thank us for giving them efficient buildings and rational transportation systems at a time when energy finally becomes truly scarce – and proportionally expensive.

The time has come to give greater weighting to energy matters than to economic and political desires. To continue to be energetically wasteful at this time in history, when so much data is telling us that the effluent of our activities is measurably altering our support systems, is beyond embarrassing. It's tragic."

Scientists: Climate change causing Arctic Ocean to acidify at alarming rate

The Raw Story: "Scientists with the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Programme (AMAP) warned Monday morning that the Arctic Ocean is acidifying much more rapidly than previously thought, adding that it will be “tens of thousands of years” before the worst effects of climate change on the Arctic Ocean can be mitigated."

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Climate change will increase extreme rainfall; drought, NASA says | GlobalPost

Climate change will increase extreme rainfall; drought, NASA says | GlobalPost: ""In response to carbon dioxide-induced warming, the global water cycle undergoes a gigantic competition for moisture resulting in a global pattern of increased heavy rain, decreased moderate rain, and prolonged droughts in certain regions," said lead author William Lau of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, in a statement."

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