The theory of “peak oil demand” was a techno-utopian response to the supposed debunking of the peak oil theory first set out by M. King Hubbert in the 1950s.  Hubbert’s simple observation was that oil fields tend to reach peak production roughly 40 years after they are discovered.  Since most …

Officially, Britain’s worse power outage in a decade is being recorded as an unusual event that nobody could have reasonable anticipated.  Dig a little deeper into the National Grid report on the 9 August 2019 blackout, however, and we discover an electricity system that has been allowed to become increasingly …

Last week my local BBC new channel posed the question, could lower speed limits end air pollution?  According to the article: “Speed cameras to enforce 50mph limits designed at improving air quality on the M4 and other roads have been activated… “The Welsh Government said the cameras would help deliver …

A rise in petty crime has always been an indicator of hard times.  Statistically, the poorer people get, the more property-related crime increases.  Car thefts are just one of many property crimes that are on the increase just now.  As Will Dron at the Sunday Times Driving reported earlier this …

Thinking about car ownership in the years before the financial crash, I reasoned that there were two groups of people who fared best.  The first were those rich enough to buy brand new cars.  Although they lost on the rapid decline in the re-sale cost of the car, the price …

The – largely unmentioned – benefit of a no-deal Brexit is that since the neoliberal global economy is declining, Britain might as well get its collapse in early to avoid the rush.  That is, as the net energy available to the economy declines because of the remorseless rise in the …

As the spectre of a no-deal Brexit looms larger, picking your way through news about the state of the UK economy is increasingly difficult.  Mainstream media report every item of economic news (depending on their Leave v Remain bias) – as a product of Brexit.  If the economic news is …

Every action has an opposite and equal reaction.  In the case of the debate around climate change, the reaction to the new movements around Greta Thunberg, Extinction Rebellion and the Green New Deal will be based on several inconvenient truths that many on the green side of things have chosen …

The funny thing about Britain’s self-proclaimed “educated class” is that it is often far more delusional than the unwashed masses that it so readily disparages.  Nowhere is this truer than in the current fiasco around Britain’s no-deal Brexit on 31 October; a prospect that has become far more likely now …

Serious questions remain about the failures that resulted in a widespread blackout across Britain on 9 August.  According to Jillian Ambrose at the Guardian, the event was triggered by lightning from one of many storms that crossed the UK that day: “National Grid has blamed a lightning strike for Britain’s …