Back in January 2008, before most people even realized that trouble was brewing with our economy, Gail Tverberg wrote how the financial system was in for a serious battering. Because she worked as an insurance actuary, she was in a unique position to understand the intertwining and dependencies of financial products and institutions.

Here is a link to a talk she gave in October 2009, which updates her view of what she feels will influence the world’s economies.

I ask myself: Why did we not have more warning? Is it possible we were not looking at the right things?

Being a farmer, I tend to rely on simple physical processes as a basis for explaining things. The simpler, the better. “Energy Return on Investment” is much easier for me to understand than graphs and charts. It has predictive value and it seems like common sense –- i.e., there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. Water does not run up hill. Things cool off by themselves. Etc.

I do think that we can still do meaningful things for our future, providing we don’t waste time. For us here on the Big Island, it is clear that we need to develop geothermal sooner, rather than later.