
Gulf Oil Spill 2010, Image: Reuters, UK
I can’t help but think, with the Gulf oil spill, that we’re simply fleas on the back of a living organism that’s about to shake us off. The spill is big. A retired expert mentioned this morning on The Power Hour internet radio show with Joyce Riley said there is not an easy way to stop such a huge oil spout, which is under such high pressure. It’s escaping the man-made hole created thousands of feet under the ocean’s surface. The expert actually said the only way he knew of containment, was to use an atomic blast, placed just in the right way, to seal the hole.
In any event, Chief Sealth from the Pacific Northwest was right, “We do not own the earth.” This latest mishap by us, seems to really be screwing things up. To be more informed on a culmination of “the perfect storm” read Richard Heinberg’s Peak Everything which addresses a number of issues which are peaking on our planet today.
Below if from Amazon’s page on Peak Everything.

Heinberg is Brilliant
From Publishers Weekly
In his latest, “Peak Oil” expert Heinberg (Oil, War and the Fate of Industrial Societies) puts that theory in place alongside corresponding peaks in population, food production, climate stability and fresh water availability to paint a grim future of overlapping and accelerating global crises. For an introduction to Peak Oil, the idea that coming fossil fuel shortages will be sudden and drastic, readers should seek Heinberg’s earlier works; this volume assumes familiarity and addresses the challenges a post-carbon world poses for a global community “as reliant on hydrocarbons as it is on water, sunlight, and soil.” The worst-case scenario, “global economic meltdown” read more
Description of Peak Everything
The twentieth century saw unprecedented growth in population, energy consumption, and food production. As the population shifted from rural to urban, the impact of humans on the environment increased dramatically.
The twenty-first century ushered in an era of declines, in a number of crucial parameters:
* Global oil, natural gas, and coal extraction
* Yearly grain harvests (more…)