Canadian Dimension article ruminates about running on empty

Canadian Dimension has recently been getting more notice outside its small circulation circle. For instance, there was an excellent package on the crisis in Canadian universities (nominated for a National Magazine Award). And now an environmental blog, Gristmill, points to an article in the July/August issue about the concept of "peak oil". (As we understand it, this posits that the world is on the cusp of a momentous change, when the amount of oil being found and available worldwide begins to be less than the amount of oil being consumed, with shortfalls becoming "relentless and cumulative".) Author Richard Heinberg drills deep into the issue, describing its possible economic fallout and the possible solutions.

Comparably interesting are the comments on Gristmill about the CD story, or the whole idea of "peak oil". For instance, one writer said : " Asking an economist about peak oil is like asking Stevie Wonder to critique your latest painting." Another said: "We are not using fossil fuels faster than they can be produced; fossil fuels are not produced by man at all--they are extracted, and they are extracted at, for all intents and purposes, exactly the rate at which they are used. But we have long since begun using more than we discover, and therein lies the tale."

(By the way, while at first I hated the redesign with its retro logo, the whole thing has begun to grow on me.)