All Recent Updates – Page 30 – Stephen Hinton Consulting

How to measure resilience in a muncipality

For more information see

The blog post about the matrix

Or the article about analysing the municipality

Is big data and the big network helping humanity reach new heights?

Amid the signals that capitalism is failing and the climate collapsing I wonder if there is not something very positive happening, too.

Something to do with how all the data and the networking we are experiencing are raising our consciousness and understanding. Continue reading “Is big data and the big network helping humanity reach new heights?”

Finding the Purpose in Your Business Plans

This is great advice from an entrepreneur and investor whom I admire greatly. And it’s good advice for those looking to create sustainable businesses as well.

If climate change were a comet about to hit earth how would you plan?

Video of Professor Krumdieck answering the question “the largest challenge”

The Professor create the Global Association for Transition Engineering, an academic group to effectively manage the risks of un-sustainable resource use and environmental impacts by implementing changes and adaptations in existing engineered systems

Red warning lights

Great analysis from Micheal Robert’s blog on the economic situation in the EU.

Michael Roberts Blog

Speaking at the close of the G20 summit of world leaders in Brisbane Australia, British Prime Minister David Cameron exclaimed that “red warning lights are flashing on the dashboard of the global economy”, threatening another recession.

Of course, Cameron was not talking about the UK economy, which is going great guns, according to the British government, with six months to go a general election. Instead, he was covering his back, so that if any downturn in the British economy took place it could be blamed on the rest of the world. You see, as Cameron put it in an article for the Guardian, don’t blame me, you lefty liberals. If things go wrong from here, it will be because of the Eurozone that you all like so much. “The Eurozone is teetering on the brink of a possible third recession, with high unemployment, falling growth and the real risk…

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Economists: Make sure to look in the right direction

As a Brit living in a country that drives on the other side, I still have a moment of hesitation crossing the road; looking both ways, both sides. I was about to cross the road yesterday to go to a conference on banking, and as I stopped the thought crossed my mind that maybe economists in the mainstream are so used to one way of doing things that they are not looking in the right direction either. I couldn’t shake the feeling something has been missing. Why have the warnings about climate change not changed anything? How are things different now that the IPCC has put its foot down and stated clearly that we need to exit fossil fuel burning and transition to clean, renewable energy? Maybe low inflation is not the answer, but HIGH inflation? Continue reading “Economists: Make sure to look in the right direction”

Embedded energy and the future of product design

This matrix divides products and services up depending on energy required to make and run them. What will happen as energy prices rise or fossil fuel becomes scarce? Products that require a lot of energy to make and run will less affordable. These “make once, run expensively” types of products will migrate to the quadrants on the right. The “make once, run cheaply” or “make cheaply, use cheaply” will take over. Continue reading “Embedded energy and the future of product design”

The falling oil price may presage a future recession

Reproduced from Prof. Aleklett’s blog. He explains the signs that we’re on the edge of a new recession. The reason is the lack of energy to drive the economy. And the lack of demand to drive up oil prices.

Aleklett's Energy Mix

(This is the English translation of my article in the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, Fallande oljepris ett tecken på recession)

Since July the price of Brent crude oil has fallen from $113 per barrel to $85.62 (on October 14). Historically we saw a similarly rapid fall in the in the oil price in late 2008 followed by the start of the global recession the year after. In 2008 the fall from July to December was from $140 down to $40 per barrel. At the moment we see no slowing of the price decline and we do not know how low the price will fall.

The fact that increased global energy consumption is a measure of economic growth means that these recent trends are pointing to an economic contraction. Many economists continue to expect that we will recover from the recession of 2009 and, of course, “growth” was also the…

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WSJ Gets it Wrong on “Why Peak Oil Predictions Haven’t Come True”

Gail again proves that actuarial and analytical skills trump journalists in this clear analysis of the situation with the peak of oil production. A must read for all sustainability afficiendos.

Our Finite World

On Monday, September 29, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) published a story called “Why Peak Oil Predictions Haven’t Come True.” The story is written as if there are only two possible outcomes:

The Peak Oil version of what to expect from oil limits is correct, or
Diminishing Returns can and are being put off by technological progress–the view of the WSJ.

It seems to me, though, that a third outcome is not only possible, but is what is actually happening.

3. Diminishing returns from oil limits are already beginning to hit, but the impacts and the expected shape of the down slope are quite different from those forecast by most Peak Oilers.

Area of Confusion

In many people’s way of thinking, the economy is separate from resources and the extraction of those resources. If we believe economists, the economy can grow indefinitely, with or without the use of…

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