The jungle book

This book, written by Pedro Prieto can be downloaded (Spanish) in the web site Energy crisis.

+descargar

Bioterrorism Act

In some critical situations, some Governments, have typified the protocols under which water consumption is forbidden.  Canada and the USA have emergency plans over drinking water in case of a disaster. USA, under the Public Health Security and Bioterrorism Preparedness and Response Act of 2002 has a detailed plan for any water system supplying drinking water to a population larger than 3300 people.

+ info

Toyota city

At the end of the 20th century, several companies started preparing contingency and self-sufficiency plans for their headquarters. One of many examples is Toyota. Its headquarters is based in a city that used to be called Koromo. In 1959 the city changed its name to Toyota City, thanks to the efforts that the Toyoda family made to reconvert the city economy, from a declining silk industry, to a new automotion economy. 

Toyota City has designed its own self-sufficieny and food-independence plan.

+ info wiki

+ info

Googleplex

Another example of a company that has bet for their own energy self-sufficiency, is Google. Its headquarters, called Googleplex, are based in Mountain View. Its main target is to achieve 100% energy autonomy along the next years.

+ info Wiki

+ info

Eating fossil fuels

An article from the geologist and writter Dale Allen Pfeiffer about the dependence on fossil fuels of the 21st century agriculture. I reccommend the reading.

+info

Oil and gas are responsible for the demographic explosion in the last century. They have fed a  nonstop growing population and have created and hold the consumption society. When we don't have any more oil and gas left, what will happen to our world?

The limits to growth

Short time before the first oil crisis, the Roman club, commissioned the MIT to prepare a report about the limits of growth. This report has been updated along the years. It analizes the incapacity of the Earth to support a continuous growing  we have experienced during the last fifty years. It talks about the insustainability of the growing system which rules our planet and our economy. 

+ info
+ download energetic limits to growth

Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed

The book written by Jared Diamon, 'Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed' deals with societal collapses involving an environmental component, and in some cases also contributions of climate change, hostile neighbors, and trade partners, plus questions of societal responses.

In writing the book Diamond intended that its readers should learn from history

+info wiki

Societal collapse

Along the ages many cultures, people and societies have dissaparead. They collapsed. Joseph Tainter analize in his book "Collapse of Complex Societies" how societies becomes more complex trying to solve their problems. How they tend to develop layers of bureaucracy, infrastructure, or social class to address the challenge. Tainter, who first (ch. 1) identifies seventeen examples of rapid collapse of societies, applies his model to three case studies: The Western Roman Empire, the Maya civilization, and the Chaco culture.

+ info

Toynbee Theory

A Study of History is the 12-volume magnum opus of British historian Arnold J. Toynbee, finished in 1961, in which the author traces the development and decay of all of the major world civilizations in the historical record. Toynbee applies his model to each of these civilizations, detailing the stages through which they all pass: genesis, growth, time of troubles, universal state, and disintegration.

He argues that the breakdown of civilizations is not caused by loss of control over the environment, over the human environment, or attacks from outside. Rather, it comes from the deterioration of the "Creative Minority," which eventually ceases to be creative and degenerates into merely a "Dominant Minority" (who forces the majority to obey without meriting obedience). He argues that creative minorities deteriorate due to a worship of their "former self," by which they become prideful, and fail to adequately address the next challenge they face.

+ info wiki

Olduvai Theory

The Olduvai theory states that industrial civilization (as defined by per capita energy production) will have a lifetime of less than or equal to 100 years (1930-2030). The theory provides a quantitative basis of the transient-pulse theory of modern civilization. From 2030 on, Humanity would return step by step to previous levels of civilization, ending in one thousand years (3.000 a.C.) with a hunting-culture based as the one that existed in the Earth three millions years ago.

This theory was stated by Richard C. Duncan based upon his experience in energy sources and his passion over archeology.

Industrial Civilization is defined in Duncan's paper as the time approximately from when energy production per capita rises from 37% of the peak value to when it falls to below 37% of its peak value (1930-2030) i.e. the peak in energy production per capita is in between these two endpoints and these two endpoints have values of 37% of the peak value.

+info wiki
+ from capitalism to democracy

Media blackout

Another way to refer to the media censorship. Usually this term is used when the censorship relates to a certain topic that has been blocked by the media or relates to some Government censorship over specific information, as it happend during the droppings of atomic bombs in Hiroshima, or in the UK during the Second World War.

+info

Cyberwar will not take place

It all depends on how we understand cyberwar. Thomas Rid states in this article that all politically motivated cyber attacks are merely sophisticated versions of three activities that are as old as warfare itself: sabotage, espionage, and subversion.

+ read article

The inevitable Peaking of World oil Production

The Hirsch Report of 2005, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy, took a hard look at alternatives that could respond to the scale of the problem in time to have an impact. Not one of the approaches deemed to be currently viable in the report departs from fossil fuels.

A universal conscience

There are many thinkers and doctors tha defend the existance of a universal energy that represents the common conscience. For example doctor Théresse Brosse, who embodies the Psychoneuroimmunology.

Facebook, Google, eBuy founders...

In 2011 the founders of Facebook and Amazon were invited to the G8. Google sent its CEO at that moment, Eric Schmidt (the one in between the two founders).

The governmental power tried this way, to integrate the innovation leaders in their system.

+info

NYC. Public health legal manual

Ten years after the twin towers attack in New York, the council of the city has published a legal manual for the judges, attorneys and medical personnel in case there would be a new critical situation en the city. 

The manual discusses the applicable laws in critical situations (emergency laws, martial law, curfew....), the Governments rights to declare quarantine and isolation areas, compulsory vaccination, pests' control and it also redefines the trials performance to speed even more the summary trials.

+ info (PDF)

Hubbert peak theory

M.King Hubbert was an american geoscientist, that during the 50s developped a prediction model for the production of the oil and natural gas reserves. The theory posits that for any given geographical area, from an individual oil-producing region to the planet as a whole, the rate of petroleum production tends to follow a bell-shaped curve. It is one of the primary theories on peak oil.

Choosing a particular curve determines a point of maximum production based on discovery rates, production rates and cumulative production. Early in the curve (pre-peak), the production rate increases because of the discovery rate and the addition of infrastructure. Late in the curve (post-peak), production declines because of resource depletion.

In 1956, Hubbert predicted the US oil production and pointed that during the 60s or beginning of the 70s. The peak came in 1970, at the same time that the first great energy crisis.

Since then, the Hubbert theory, that also predicted the world peak in 2000, has been a greatly accepted model within the scientific community, not in the oil industry.

+info

Brittle Power

In 1982, Armory B. Lovins, chairman of  the Rocky Mountain Institute (devoted to sustainability and energy efficiency), prepared a report for the Pentagon explaining why the U.S. domestic energy infrastructure is very vulnerable to disruption, by accident or malice, often even more so than imported oil. In 2001 after the 11th of September, this report was published under the name of 'Brittle Power'.

The book explains why the US grid is so fragile and vulnerable by external attacks. It defends the creation of distibuted and spread energy production centers to avoid the dependence over the large production centers, that in case of suffering an attack, would unserve a high percentage of the population.

+ download prologue