Archive for October, 2008



Earlier this week, when BP announced record profits, it signaled it was going to invest more in oil sands. Yesterday, as Shell smashed analysts predictions and posted a 71% rise in profits to $10.9bn, it did exactly the opposite.
Although Shell’s profits mean the company is awash with cash because of the high oil price over [...]

The following article ran in the Guardian (UK) and was written by Jeremy Leggett.  It is based on the publication of this report (large pdf).
If eight companies across a broad spectrum of UK industry had warned, five years ago, that a ruinous credit crunch would hit the global economy this year, might the government have [...]

A taskforce of eight leading British engineering, utility and transport companies is predicting the world will reach peak oil in three to five years. The taskforce looked at three possible scenarios: a collapse in production, a decline, or a plateauing of production once peak oil is reached.
Taskforce chairman, ex-Greenpeace scientist and chair of SolarCentury, [...]

More bad news on the climate. A study by British researchers has found that the Arctic sea ice thickness “plummeted” last winter, thinning by as much as half a metre in some regions.
The team from University College London argue that the results provided the first definitive proof that the overall volume of Arctic ice was [...]

So its free-fall on the stock-markets again. This morning the London market plunged by over 5 per cent as the chaos in the world’s financial markets continued.
All the expectations are that Wall Street will dive this afternoon. What is spooking the markets is the thought of a painful and long-lasting depression. But in the middle [...]