(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA’s positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.)

In mid-June, Chongqing City held its tenth anniversary as a Special Economic Zone in western China. The city government held a fireworks display on the waterfront that saw 120,000 fireworks explode in the sky that evening. As would be expected, traffic was a gridlocked mess and the business district came to a standstill. Bus engines idled and drivers continued to blow their horns as if doing so would move traffic. Walking along, I noticed the relative lack of air pollution for the large amount of vehicles. The thought dawned on me that if I were in Bangkok the air would be a toxic black cloud. Why are there such pollution differences in gridlocked Asian traffic, and how does all this relate to Peak Oil?

(Note: Commentaries do not necessarily represent ASPO-USA’s positions; they are personal statements and observations by informed commentators.)

Every major news outlet in America gave extensive coverage to the release of the highly anticipated final installment of the Harry Potter book franchise last month. On 27 July, for example, a search of the Washington Post.com website turned up 357 stories that had something to do with Harry Potter over the previous 60 days; Paris Hilton’s experience with the US legal system still rated 269. But when searching for a story in July that has significant economic and security ramifications for every American – release of a National Petroleum Council study called “Facing the Hard Truths about Energy” – we found a somewhat smaller tally: 3.