The fall of Saudi Arabia to #IslamicState will be sudden, like Mosul

ISIS Sets Its Sights on Saudi Arabia, and That’s Bad News for Washington - Defense One: "What these attacks say is that Riyadh doesn’t have the comforting control over its land that Americans like to believe it does. And if the royal family doesn’t have its territory as buttoned down as Washington assumed, what other weaknesses has it been masking? What other vulnerabilities are now on view?"

How much #degrowth is enough?

Chevron expects December UN #climate summit to be toothless

theguardian.: "They also hinted that Chevron did not believe political leaders convening in Paris in December for a UN climate change summit will do much to interrupt the growing demand for fossil fuels.

“Notwithstanding the intent of nations to do so, the level and pace of global policy action indicates a low likelihood of a global accord to restrict fossil fuel usage to the levels referenced by the proponents [of the resolution].”"

Millions took to the streets in 2002 and 2003 demanding the US not invade Iraq

The US, against the advice of millions around the world, invaded Iraq in March 2003. Car-dependency was the driving force. Little has been done the mitigate it.

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Now the US is spending over $8M a day bombing the Islamic State, which has grown to cover more square miles than Great Britain and is less than one year old.

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The long list of confessed #falseflag operations gets longer

Zero Hedge: "In the following instances, officials in the government which carried out the attack (or seriously proposed an attack) admit to it, either orally, in writing, or through photographs or videos:"

More about the panic over falling birth rates. Falling faster than expected.

Peak Population Growth? | Zero Hedge: "Such forecasts, however, misrepresent underlying demographic dynamics. The future we face is not one of too much population growth, but too little.
One could argue that this is a good thing, in view of the planet’s limited carrying capacity."

Capitalism must have growth to survive. By that metric, big changes are coming. The author says that falling birth rate "could be seen as good" but, in truth, capitalism cannot handle it.

US is the most dangerous country in the world due to autosprawl dependent economy

The US economy includes trillions of dollars in fixed autosprawl assets. Refineries, cul-de-sacs, pipelines, pedestrian overpasses, parking lots, big box stores, military hardware, -- almost everything in the US is related to cars and sprawl.

Now oil is no longer cheap. Never mind the price, look and the number of energy units, joules, calories, BTUs. From now on it costs more energy to produce oil every day. In some cases, such as tar sands, more energy goes in than comes out. Huh? Yes, if you count all the costs including pollution, cancer, and carbon dioxide emissions. But the need for liquid fuel to too strong to stop.

The US can no longer even afford the maintenance costs for roads and bridges. In addition, it cannot afford to allow others to control supply sources and routes. As it gets more desperate it will turn to nuclear weapons to fight the oil wars.

The only way out is to start unwinding sprawl as quickly as possible. This could be done with car-free cities, but the oil industry is too powerful to allow this to happen at the federal level. It is up to the people to make buses free at the local level.

Dangerous wishful thinking about renewables

Renewable energy sources like solar and wind do not solve the problem of human growth. In the last 200 years, we have released heat of fossil-fuels that took millions of years to store. This has allowed the human population to grow very fast and develop a complex energy-dependent society.

It seems logical that if we can use the energy that is coming in from the sun before it is stored, we can stop using fossil-fuels. The problem is, we haven't so far, and we won't.

Why?

There are many reasons, but here is what may be the main one.

Too many people think it will work with little or no change to the current growth-is-good thinking.

We still have at least two billion people who are being told it is possible to live like suburban America. That is an extremely powerful force that will keep the oil and gas companies in power for many years to come.

The key to getting out of poverty? Good public transit

New York Times: "Transportation drives social mobility more than many other factors, including crime, elementary school test scores and the concentration of two-parent households in a community, according to researchers at Harvard.

A separate study conducted at New York University came to similar conclusions. Neighborhoods where people depended on public transportation but the network had poor service tended to be poorer than other neighborhoods, according to the researchers' findings. "

US trying to win hearts and minds with bombs. Might work. Not.

FT.com: "Air strikes by the US-led coalition in Syria killed more than 50 civilians, activists said, in what they believe to be the deadliest non-combatant toll since the international force began its campaign against jihadi militants in the country."

The solar artificial heart

The artificial heart is a good example our irrational belief in technology. The time and energy put into inventing, designing, manufacturing, and installing artificial hearts would be better spent stopping tobacco subsidies.

The same is being done with solar energy. We think we will create magic batteries that will allow us to replace fossil fuels with solar energy. The time and energy would be better spent stopping the autosprawl subsidies.