Oil

Collapse by Michael Ruppert

A documentary, directed by Chis Smith, on Michael Ruppert, a police officer turned independent reporter who predicted the current financial crisis in his self-published newsletter, From the Wilderness.

Ruppert, a former Los Angeles police officer who describes himself as an investigative reporter and radical thinker, has authored books on the events of the September 11 attacks and of energy issues. Critics call him a conspiracy theorist and an alarmist but he’s been proved to be truly prophetic.

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“Collapse” Author, Michael Ruppert on Dorner, Peak Oil and more

Michael Ruppert is an investigative journalist and author of two books, Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the End of the Age of Oil and Confronting Collapse: The Crisis of Energy and Money in a Post Peak Oil World. In the 1970s, Ruppert was a narcotics officer for the LAPD. While there, he discovered evidence that the CIA was complicit in the illegal drug trade. He alerted his superiors with this information and soon found himself dismissed even though he had an honorable record. These events spurred Ruppert to begin a new career for himself as an investigative journalist. He was the publisher/editor of the From The Wilderness newsletter which, until its closure in 2006, examined government corruption and complicity in such areas as the CIA’s involvement in the war on drugs, the Pat Tillman scandal, the 2008 economic collapse and issues surrounding Peak Oil.

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The Sparks of Rebellion

Artists, like rebels, are dangerous. They speak a truth that totalitarian systems do not want spoken. “Red Rosa now has vanished too. …” Bertolt Brecht wrote after Luxemburg was murdered. “She told the poor what life is about, And so the rich have rubbed her out.” Without artists such as musician Ry Cooder and playwrights Howard Brenton and Tarell Alvin McCraney we will not succeed. If we are to face what lies ahead, we will not only have to organize and feed ourselves, we will have to begin to feel deeply, to face unpleasant truths, to recover empathy and to live passionately. Then we can fight.

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The End of Growth

Our economy is based on a model of constant growth – growth in production, consumption and population. Economic growth has provided rising standards of living in the West and seen millions in China and India lifted out of poverty. This model has been disrupted in many countries by the global financial crisis, which is now seeing another round of casualties, particularly in Europe. Will things settle down with growth resuming, or will our economies bump up against a wall of finite resources? And if they do, what will this mean the global balance of power?

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Well and Truly Fracked

In the real world, the most important task facing each of us right now is that of grasping that the absurd abundance of energy and resources that Americans enjoyed in the second half of the 20th century was anything but normal.

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Battle of Balcombe: Opposition to Cuadrilla Resources UK Fracking Plans

“People will try to convince you that hydraulic fracking is going to be good for the country, that it’s going to bring jobs, that it’s going to make the price of fossil fuel cheaper – don’t be fooled,” added Bianca Jagger, the former wife of the Rolling Stones lead singer, who visited Balcombe this weekend to show her support. “The harm that it will cause to this beautiful area – they’re fooling you.”

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Pipelineistan and the New Silk Road(s)

Ask Western elites – oh, those were the days, in the 17th century, when the rise of European sea powers led to the collapse of the caravan trade and the end of the Silk Road as Europe found a cheaper – and safer – way of trading between East and West.  By Pepe Escobar (Asia Times – Roving Eye) This […]

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Peak oil, climate change and pipeline geopolitics driving Syria conflict

Root-cause environmental and energy factors sparking violence will continue to destabilise Arab world without urgent reforms by Nafeez Ahmed The civil war in Syria has been devastating, generating a death toll fast approaching 100,000, while uprooting millions of civilians from their homes. But as the US and Russia signed an unprecedented accord on Wednesday in search of a political solution to […]

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The U.S. has Spent $8 Trillion Protecting the Straits of Hormuz

By James Burgess A group of nine student journalists from the Medill National Security Journalism Initiative have created a website as part of a project to report on the US energy security situation. An incredibly interesting article on the site, and written by Dana Ballout, looks at how oil travels around the world on the seas, and where the vulnerable […]

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