Yesterday’s story about how the IMF foresees a doubling in the real price of oil by 2022, and the consequent urgent need to adapt or redesign our business models, might have raised a few eyebrows. So here are two stories about how adaptation to life with less oil can proceed quite straightforwardly… and in fact …
Author archives: Permabusiness
The Future of Oil: “Geology versus Technology”
The IMF has just published a working paper on the future price of oil. It concludes that: a) the price of oil in real terms will most likely double over the next ten years, and b) there is a large degree of uncertainty in how things might actually turn out.
Top issues in the global ‘water sector’
In January this year Deloitte published a short but seemingly comprehensive overview of the key upcoming issues in the global water sector. Although 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface is covered with water, the report is focused on the “less than 0.5 per cent of the world’s water [that] is available for human and …
Agro-ecology can double food production in 10 years
A UN report (published March 2011) says that adopting agroecology methods, if sufficiently supported, could double food production in entire regions within 10 years. At the same time it would mitigate climate change, and alleviate rural poverty. States and donors must take a leading role in making this happen, the report says, since “private companies will …
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Beliefs drive results
It was Einstein who told us that “You can’t solve a problem by using the same level of thinking that created that problem in the first place.” And Gregory Bateson pointed out, “The major problems in the world are the result of the difference between how nature works and the way people think [it works].” The …
Searching for a money tree
Posting, here, a link to an interesting story about food-growing in sub-Saharan Africa. The article explains how crop yields there have been falling dangerously low, and how the traditional approach of ‘adding more fertilisers’ is no longer working. A new approach, called ‘agroforestry’, involves working more closely with nature — and is having great results. In this …
Clay Shirky on institutions vs. collaboration
Clay Shirky makes some interesting points about the future of ‘institutions’ as a way to get things done, given the extra costs of management, and the c. 20% of value they fail to capture:
George Soros foresees US class war
In a recent interview with Newsweek, George Soros has said that he foresees “riots on the streets [in the USA] that will lead to a brutal clampdown that will dramatically curtail civil liberties.” This is not good news for US citizens, or business. People who are rioting do not make good customers, or employees. And …
From value-obstacle to value-enabler
In this video, Clay Shirky talks about how human beings organise to get things done. The traditional response has been to form an institution. The newly-emerging solution (in 2005) is to enable cooperation through infrastructure tools — essentially internet 2.0. What Clay explains is that the days of the traditional solution are numbered — because …
Energy and Growth — a physicist’s view
We cannot continue to grow our economy forever. A physics professor at the University of California has used the laws of physics to write two blogs that explain why. Permabusiness takes this information and looks at what would come next — both for the financial system and the wider economy. Unexpectedly, we find stories in …