By Roger Diamond The news is oozing with opinions on the Eurozone crisis, debt defaults, bailouts and why eating baklava is about to be banned. Although there is plenty of merit in getting stuck into the details of easing the pain of recession and finding short term solutions to employment, liquidity and keeping the monetary…
By Roger Diamond Fantasy and imagination will cause our downfall. The ability of humans to live inside their heads is allowing our civilisation to destroy everything around us, the things we can find most joy from and the very things we need to survive. While people watch computer-animated images of smiling creatures hopping across ice…
By Roger Diamond The last decade of inaction, dithering and incompetence on the part of those deciding South Africa’s energy future is going to leave us in the dark — literally and figuratively. Renewable energy generation should already be in operation with massive programmes on research and further installations under way. Yet we sit with…
By Roger Diamond There are two ways to drive through a brick wall. One is to stop driving, get out the car and go and be all physical, engage with the wall, bash it, break it, explode it or use whatever you can think of to level the bugger. Then get back into the car…
By Roger Diamond “WE TOLD YOU SO!” Let me explain. Peak oil theorists and activists have been warning of the possibility of imminent peak oil for many years now. And what we have been saying is coming true. Oil-price spikes, revelations regarding ACTUAL oil reserves and production, economic tantrums, social unrest, rising food prices and…
By Roger Diamond I find it fascinating that people are attracted to the bump and grind made about relatively inconsequential matters, while the real driving forces in our lives are largely ignored. The headlines are filled with nonsense about what some official in some arbitrary government post has to say about his own opinions. What…
By Roger Diamond The crude oil price is currently hovering at about $100 a barrel, having been well below this mark for a good couple of years now since late 2008. The proximal (or direct) cause of the rather sudden jump in price is two things: an actual decrease in oil supply and a perceived…
By Roger Diamond Fashion and faith — more on the differences later — MAY have a role in shaping our destiny as a civilisation, species or society, but then again, they may not. Facts, however, will. First a bit on fashion. Fashion includes not only the mainstream idea around clothing and other relatively superficial aspects…
By Roger Diamond When people refuse to look beyond their own noses, or the jumping stallion on their sports car, they can contradict whatever you say about the state of the world. Why is this a problem? Because the rich and powerful, who sit behind the closed glass doors of a boardroom or the windscreen…
By Roger Diamond When will we ever know enough? If the scientists are to be believed, never. Politicians love this — it means real action and real change can be forever delayed on the grounds of not really being actually, totally, quite utterly certain! So we can just plop a few million into research and…
