Australia's new Foreign Minister Senator Bob Carr continues his predecessor's enthusiastic volunteering of Australia in the Coalition of the Willing, this time against Syria. Between 1991 and now, the Coalition caused the deaths of over two million Iraqis and 20,000 Afghan civilians. A copy of the interview in which Carr repeated corporate media lies to justify action against Syria can be found on YouTube and is embedded in this article. Readers may wish to contrast Carr's words with facts about the Syrian conflict to be found on Global Research. See also: Young Syrian patriot fights corporate media lies against her homeland of 10 May 2012, Syria -70% vote to end one-party state - why aren't we celebrating? of 1 Mar 2012, Young Syrian patriot fights corporate media lies against her homeland of 12 Apr 2012 on candobetter.

Humanity has struggled to survive through the millennia in terms of balancing population size with food supply. The same is true now, but population numbers have been soaring for over a century. The limiting factor has been hidden, but this factor -- oil and natural gas, or petroleum -- is close to or beyond its peak extraction. Without ample, free-flowing petroleum, it will not be possible to support a population of several billion for long.

Originally posted on Culture Change on 2 March 2010. Re-posted here by author Peter Goodchild.

I live in a community of right-brained people with innumerate minds full of New Age mush, devoid of logic and antagonistic to science. The shibboleths of 'compassion' and 'caring and sharing' prevail over dispassionate analysis. The medieval mentality of Tibetan Bhuddism combines with the prescriptions of soft-green environmentalism to produce a brew of 'thinking' that is toxic to comprehension. It is a community where people will pay $50 for a psychic reading or a quack medical therapy but balk at paying the same amount of money to fix a leaking kitchen sink or a subscription to Science Daily. I wrote this almost 5 years ago, and despite the development of our much acclaimed "Community Garden" and a local "transition" initiative, I can think of no good reason to make more than one amendment----even we do grow a backbone and a "hard edge"---a local 'fortress' would not indefinitely endure. We are hopelessly dependent on the outside world in ways that we have not yet contemplated. Our deficiencies will only become apparent, I think, when our "Long" emergency becomes a permanent one.

Social Scientist and petroleum depletion writer, Ted Trainer, gives his views on a way forward that does not involve growth. Most of you out there are working three times too hard, and going down with depression and obesity, as your social cohesion crumbles. How about trying a different, simpler way? Frederick Trainer is the author of a new book, Transition to a sustainable and just world, Enviro Books.

Robert Bowman writes about the need to restore the Constitutional rights of American citizens, enhance their national security through a return to Constitutional foreign and military policies, and rebuild their economy by providing financial security to American families. None of these things can be accomplished so long as the giant multinational corporations, the banks and financial service companies, the insurance industry, the fossil fuel conglomerates, the weapons manufacturers, and the billionaires are running the US government. Therefore the first priority of American patriots, he says, has to be separating big money and political power.

On the brink of new year it is tempting to think about our financial situation in the months to come

Has the prospect of global temperature rises between two and six degrees centigrade got you down? Don’t worry, for the world might well be in for a cooling trend. The kind that comes after the planet is enveloped in a canopy of ash and debris following a thermo-nuclear war.
See also: The myth of renewable energy of 22 Nov 11

The supply of the world's most essential energy source is going off a cliff. Not in the distant future, but within two years. Production of all liquid fuels, including oil, will drop within 20 years to half what it is today. And the difference needs to be made up with "unidentified projects" – in other words, we face a potential ‘rank shortage’. According to this graph, we stand on the edge of a precipice, with no prior warning from either the industry or governments, which ostensibly protect the public interest.

The current social/political/economic system is based on the notion that greater economic/material well-being will lead us to "happiness." It doesn't seem to be working too well. Here's why. Although a certain degree of material well-being is necessary for a "decent" life, it is not a sufficient condition for "happiness." What's missing is a centuries-long colonization of the mind that has divorced human life from nature. Unless we reconnect, we will never find "happiness."

Population analyst, Brian McGavin, writes about the silent crisis in our midst, of overpopulation. "Today there is a ‘Silent Crisis’ in our midst. The crisis, still largely unrecognised, is potentially greater than all the other problems that transfix our policy makers. For many decades now there has been a willful blindness in recognising that relentless human population growth is one of the pre-eminent problems we face. Rather than providing solutions and leadership, "More and more developed countries offering new ‘baby bonuses’ make it even less likely that we will achieve the lower figures being quoted in the media."

Are humans individuals with personalities or are we simply portions of a greater whole, with little claim to individuality? Some thoughts on cellular arrangement and the end-game thermodynamics of progress ideology. The tension between a glimpsed view of living wholeness and the steady extrusion of deadness that is crushing around and upon us. I wonder how many other people see this?

Cynthia McKinney is an unusual black US former congresswoman who has spent time reporting on the situation in Libya from Libya on what she calls the "Truth Tour". The article below is her report, which contains parts of alternative journalists' articles and criticises mainstream journalism. The video where she speaks, included here, is an addition. It is quite rivetting stuff.

In light of the riots in Britain, we are publishing an article based on some correspondence from the "Trotskyist", "socialist" and "revolutionary" UK group, Workers' Liberty[1], first published in 1995 at http://www.workersliberty.org/node/4900 on 30 September, 2005. The correspondence calls into question, especially now, different attitudes on the likely consequences of high immigration and population growth in Australia and Britain among other countries mentioned. Describing himself as still a socialist internationalist at heart, James Sinnamon writes that, however, "today the ideal of unconditional internationalism is an unachievable pipe dream, and, in fact, dangerous [because] that ideal has been subverted to suit the needs of globalised capitalism."

Six months ago an Indian energy corporation, Lanco Infratech, bought an Australian coalmine for $750 million dollars. Although, at the time, it agreed to lower-prices for customers, now it is telling the West Australian government that it will stop supplying electricity to West Australians by September unless Australian customers pay double.

Increasing private-public partnerships, contracting out, privatisation, creation of authorities 'outside government' etc over the past 20 years in Victoria "has led to a steady erosion of accountability to Parliament and the public, as these services and the public monies that fund them fall outside existing accountability frameworks and the mandate of this office." (Auditor General, Victoria) The forward plan also notes concerns about population growth, oil supplies and food security.

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France is about to debate a law to totally ban fracking for gas. Australia has allowed the practice with problems quickly developing. Mexico has no defenses. The United States is deeply affected. "Fracking" was developed by Halliburton, the second largest oilfield services corporation in the world. The term comes from the extraction method of hydraulic fracturing of shale beds to access "unconventional gas" i.e. gas that comes out of wells other than classic oil-wells. Under President Bush, the fracking industry was exempted from environmental laws, including clean water protection. As many of us have come to understand, when you take away environmental protection, you take away almost all human rights to object to big business, even if citizens lives are obviously threatened. We also mention the Australian film made by Four Corners investigating the impacts of the industry in Australia.

Imagine trying to drive your car from Alice Springs to Melbourne or from Vancouver to Winnipeg on one tank of gas. One passenger, the environmentalist, suggests that by driving at moderate speed, the car will run for more miles per gallon. Another passenger, the techno-optimist, believes that if the car has a tune-up, it will go farther on that tank of gas than if it didn't. The socialist passenger, meanwhile, believes that conflict in the car between the two privileged people in the front and the 5 people jammed in the back could cause you to drive off the road. Guess what. They are all right---the car would probably go further if you followed their advice. One problem. The difference would be marginal. The car would still fall well short of its destination. Living 'smaller', increasing technological efficiency and achieving equality would make but a trivial and short-lived impact on overshoot. To suggest otherwise reflects a serious lack of perspective and scale.

That is our predicament. We won't make it with 7 billion people, and the preoccupation with green living, technological efficiencies and wealth redistribution will not make a dent on overshoot. The focus then, must be on rapid population decline. The fight for sustainability cannot be a war fought on all fronts, but a single-minded determination to remove the first stumbling block to solving all other problems.

On 18 May 2009 a site visitor objected to the controversy surrounding 9/11 being raised on this web-site.

As that site visitor is considered an authority on the question of petroleum and other fossil fuels and is moderator of the Australian Yahoo Group Running on Empty, Oz (roeoz) concerned with Peak Oil, I would have thought he would have been interested to know that many authoritative people don't accept the version of events used to justify the wars that have ravaged much of the oil-rich regions of the world.

Our schizophrenic environmental movement and its parliamentary voice, the Green Party, continues to make the Alberta Tar Sands Project the focus of its wrath. But the ongoing ecological disaster of mass immigration is completely off their radar screen. In fact, the federal Greens advocate an immigration intake 25% higher than the current Conservative government's. Like the vast majority of Greens across the world, they see no essential relationship between population growth and environmental degradation. So how does the Tar Sands project compare to immigration in the one measurement that Greens almost exclusively regard as an index of ecological impact---carbon emissions?

Trapped in a morass of middle class mediocrity--- a life of long commutes, road rage, double-income stress, crippling mortgages and rents---- the average American urbanite dreams the fantasy of weekend escape. Car makers and the advertising agencies they employ are there to offer it to them. TV commercials assure us that the SUV is your ticket to the promised land, the ticket to off-road heaven, the chance to enjoy the tranquillity and space that willderness offers by trashing it. Not to worry. As the commercials show, there is plenty where that came from. The world is without limits, and you can be one of a 100 million to find a chunk of solitude just for yourself. To use and abuse.

Anti-growth activists are caught in a vice. In large urban areas bursting at the seams with overtaxed infrastructure, the potent force of the growth lobby and the pervasive influence of the media that supports it makes opposition to the growth juggernaut hazardous to mind, body and spirit. Yet life in a rural locality presents an even more daunting challenge. The costs of growth are not so manifest to those who do not understand its exponential nature. The benefits of fresh air, tranquility and wildlife are taken for granted, and the allure of big city amenities is irresistible. Locals are beguiled by the promise that new development will solve unemployment, increase the supply of affordable housing and keep young people close to hearth and home. To stand up against growth in a small town is to invite ostracism and ridicule from uncomprehending minds that cannot understand why anyone would oppose "progress". The following letter was submitted to the newspaper of one such town, but it could have been the template for letters to almost any small town newspaper in North America or Australia or elsewhere---newspapers which live on the advertising revenue from the businesses that profit from growth.

A study by a German military think tank, the Future Analysis department of the Bundeswehr Transformation Center for the German military, has shown how "peak oil" might change the global economy. The shrinking global oil supplies will threaten the world’s economic foundations and possibly lead to mass upheaval within the next 15 to 30 years. Democracy itself could come under threat.

Peak soil is the concept that the soil's capacity for production is finite. 
We have the converging situations of peak energy combined with exponentially rising energy demand, and peak everything from pollution to peak soil, peak water, peak population growth combined with the implications of an aging baby-boomer generation.

Michael Lardelli, who is on the governance committee of the new Australian party, Stop Population Growth Now, says why he agreed to help form the new party, which is based in South Australia. The party seeks "to reduce Australia’s population growth to zero as a matter of urgency." Other Australian anti-overpopulation parties.

We look at Dr Katharine Betts's latest graph of ABS statistics on the ratio of working to dependent in Australia, noting that it is both untrue and discriminatory to imply that the 'Aged' are by far the biggest group of 'dependents.' In relation to the graph, we also look at the role of land-use planning and the social division of work in industrial society in creating financial dependencies where none previously existed. We note that established financial and institutional investment in the post-war industrial-contractual model makes it inflexible and resistant to changes in economic feedback, but that change it must as fossil fuels deplete. Left to their own devices, Australians would probably return to the human default social organisation around kin and place, which is flexible and low cost. This will only become possible, however, with cheaper land and an economic system which permits increasing relocalisation and more flexible use of land than the current plans for packed appartments and dense dormitory-suburbs anticipate.

A retired Australian farmer writes, "Three of the bigger questions in my life have been: Is there a god ? Will the oil run out ? Are humans smarter than lemmings ?"

Acland was the site of the last underground coal-mine in Queensland's Darling Downs, closed in 1984. Now the town itself will disappear into the maw of a vast new open-cut coal-mine, and with it all the creatures that cannot get a ticket out - like the koalas and the trees. Mark Copland asks, "What is the price of progress - and who will bear the cost? He compares the treatment of Acland people to the treatment of the people on the Planet of Pandora in the film Avatar, where miners from earth were prepared to sacrifice almost anything in the pursuit of more of something, which ultimately, will never be enough. Copeland says, "I am sure when the Acland mine was first proposed there was never any mention of closing down a town."

Originally published as "Community must ask who bears the cost of progress" by Dr Mark Copland of the in the Tooowoomba Chronicle of 5 Jan 10 (URL of article unkown).
See also: Web site of the New Hope coal company: www.newhopecoal.com.au (including environmental impact statements, newsletters and assorted other pro-coal-mining propaganda); Friends of Felton web sites: www.fof.org.au, www.friendsoffelton.blogspot.com. (See article for links to other articles related to Acland.)

What you can do: Sign e-petition calling for resignation of Queensland Government. For further information, please read "Why Queenslanders must demand new state elections" of 8 Jan 10. The original candobetter.org name of this article was originally "The Pursuit of Unobtainium in Acland, Queensland."

This story is based on a report on France2 television news about growth in public and private stock of photovoltaic panels in France, payments by Electricite de France (EDF)for contributions to the electricity grid, tax rebates available, income from providing electricity to the grid and prospect of funding retirement through this for farmers and others with roof and other space. The bottom part of the article contains comments about the situation of rebates etc in other countries. Readers are asked to add comments about their own experiences. We can build up an international policy data base here.