In the first two weeks of June, the US House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee held special hearings to examine the needs of the country’s surface transportations system. The committee’s investigations will be used to inform the new federal highway funding law due to be drafted in 2009.
“Many of the nation’s surface transportation facilities are being [...]

An article from Reuters draws attention to one of the system’s most recent attempts to extend its (ultimately doomed) existence as long as possible: getting around oil shortages by transforming coal into liquid fuel on a massive scale.
Coal-to-liquid (CTL) technology was developed approximately 100 years ago, but has only ever been used by Nazi Germany [...]

China’s trade surplus dropped 10% between May 2007 and May 2008, due primarily to increases in the costs of raw materials, including oil. This is exactly the kind of effect that we want to create on colonialist economies across the world. Preventing infrastructure expansion will inevitably raise the costs of raw materials by creating a [...]

The U.S. Department of Transportation is requesting proposals for ways to relieve traffic congestion at the Canadian and Mexican borders, saying that this congestion is “stifling commerce.”
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters noted that the value of freight shipments between the three US, Canada and Mexico increases 8 percent per year, and has gone up 170 percent [...]

Rising fuel costs are wreaking havoc on commercial airlines and the US Air Force, highlighting the entire system’s dependence on cheap raw materials.
The price of crude oil has doubled in the past year and the price of jet fuel has tripled in the past 10, placing unprecedented pressure on airlines of all types.
“The airline industry [...]

The the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) announced on May 26 that it had bombed another Royal Dutch Shell oil pipeline in the Nigerian state of Rivers. The government confirmed the destruction of a flow station, and global oil prices jumped again in response.
Since 2006, MEND has been waging a war [...]

Upside Down World has a good article on Ecuador’s near-total mining freeze that we recommend anyone interested in South American mining issues should read. The gist of it is that on April 15, Ecuador’s Constitutional Assembly passed a law canceling 88 percent of mining concessions in the country, including all large metal mines.
The Assembly has [...]

The vulnerability of major industrial materials to even short-term disruptions is highlighted by an article on the woes of Codelco Copper, the world’s largest copper producer. A two-week strike at three mines in Chile has reduced the company’s output by 41 percent (19,000 tons), costing it $100 million as of April 29.
Copper prices reached record [...]

Crude oil prices jumped to record levels above $117/barrel after indigenous Nigerian rebels attacked three oil pipelines and unknown persons fired a rocket at a Japanese oil tanker in the Middle East.
Oil jumped above $116/barrel after the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta (MEND) announced its sabotage of an oil pipeline at the [...]

Another reminder of how serious our situation is, highlighting the need to take down the system:
The emission of carbon dioxide between increased by 3.1 percent per year between 2000 and 2006, with 8.38 gigatons released in 2006. The “worst case scenario” in the 2000 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change assumed only a [...]