Governor

That's not "governor" in the usual sense for political blogs. I'm referring to one of these:

A centrifugal governor is a mechanical device that regulates speed. As the engine gains speed, the balls rise and the throttle closes, reducing the speed.

Since at least 2005, the decreasing availability of cheap oil and other energy sources have acted as a governor on worldwide economic growth.

This is not going to change, and in fact is the best scenario we can hope for in upcoming years (the worst being various degrees of decline or collapse). The phenomenon is described in this Oil Drum article by David Murphy as "peak era" economics.

Remember how the markets and the eonomy see-sawed more or less opposite of the astromical oil prices throughout 2008? And since? The image above describes the feedback loop.

I'll be exploring these topics in further posts. I envision this blog as a place to discuss, not so much whether peak energy is upon us (see TheOilDrum and EnergyBulletin.net for that), but rather, assuming it is, how are our political and social institutions reacting and adapting?

Or not.