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The Petroleum System Is Bigger Than Price

https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-petroleum-system-is-bigger-than-price/

Published: October 26, 2026 10:34

The whole is more than the sum of its parts. That was Aristotle’s conclusion. Yet much of our analysis of the Persian Gulf war remains focused on the parts. The conflict has disrupted millions of barrels per day of oil movements. Eight months into the…

Getting To Know The Oil System

https://www.artberman.com/blog/getting-to-know-the-oil-system/

Published: October 14, 2026 11:29

When someone shows you who they are, believe them the first time. Oil analysts might benefit from Maya Angelou’s advice. The oil market has been showing us what it is since the Iran war began, but few seem willing to accept what it is telling us. After…

Ecomodernism and the Illusion That We Are Separate From Nature

https://www.artberman.com/blog/ecomodernism-and-the-illusion-that-we-are-separate-from-nature/

Published: October 6, 2026 01:57

Modern society has become increasingly liberated from nature. It’s sad that wildlife populations have declined 73% since 1970, but we really don’t need them to flourish. We could pave the Amazon and it wouldn’t affect human prosperity very much. Those were…

The Entropy Fee: The Hidden Physical Cost of Technology

https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-entropy-fee-the-hidden-physical-cost-of-technology/

Published: September 17, 2026 23:22

Technology is commonly seen as the defining engine of modernity and, for millions, almost as an article of faith. In this secular theology, progress is the gospel, innovation the sacrament, and technological advance the miracle expected to solve problems…

The Iran War Phase Shift: Energy shock, rising complexity, and the end of the old growth regime

https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-iran-war-phase-shift-energy-shock-rising-complexity-and-the-end-of-the-old-growth-regime/

Published: September 8, 2026 03:48

The Iran War looks less like another geopolitical crisis and more like a phase shift for industrial civilization. It took decades to recover fully from the oil shocks of fifty years ago. Adapting to a disruption of similar magnitude today may be far more…

The Long Way Home: Carbon, Climate and the Limits of Control

https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-long-way-home-carbon-climate-and-the-limits-of-control/

Published: August 25, 2026 23:32

After tracing Earth’s climate story across deep time, we arrive at the final chapter where the long rhythms of the Cenozoic, the precision of the ice cores, and the shock of the modern carbon pulse converge. In this series, I have tried to approach climate…

The Geology of Climate Change

https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-geology-of-climate-change/

Published: August 18, 2026 03:19

The debate about climate change is often framed as a disagreement between those who see it as a threat to civilization and those who point out that climate has always changed naturally. Both perspectives contain an important truth. Earth has moved…

A Deep Time Perspective on Climate Change

https://www.artberman.com/blog/a-deep-time-perspective-on-climate-change/

Published: August 7, 2026 14:58

Earth’s history over the last 4.5 billion years—from volcanic upheavals and drifting continents to the evolution of climate—has been shaped by a simple thermodynamic reality: Earth is hot and space is cold. Like every hot object, our planet continuously…

Oil Prices Can’t Be Whatever We Think They Should Be

https://www.artberman.com/blog/oil-prices-cant-be-whatever-we-think-they-should-be/

Published: August 1, 2026 03:47

The world is experiencing the largest oil supply disruption in modern history, yet crude prices show remarkably little urgency. Flows from the Persian Gulf have fallen by at least 10 million barrels per day from normal levels of roughly 20 million.…

Why Isn’t Earth Frozen?

https://www.artberman.com/blog/why-isnt-earth-frozen/

Published: July 29, 2026 23:40

A little more than 200 years ago, the French physicist Joseph Fourier recognized a mystery. According to simple physics, Earth should be as cold as the Moon. Fourier calculated Earth’s energy balance (Figure 1). About one-third of incoming solar energy is…

Beyond the Global Average: A Different Way to Think About Global Warming

https://www.artberman.com/blog/beyond-the-global-average-a-different-way-to-think-about-global-warming/

Published: July 26, 2026 05:28

Temperature is the foundation of every discussion about climate. Everything else—causes, consequences, projections, and policy—depends on understanding how Earth’s temperature has changed. Beginning with the temperature record keeps the discussion anchored…

A Climate for Civilization: What Was Special About the Holocene?

https://www.artberman.com/blog/a-climate-for-civilization-what-was-special-about-the-holocene/

Published: July 22, 2026 02:34

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about why climate change is so difficult to discuss calmly. For some, it is the defining challenge of our time. For others, it is exaggerated or even a hoax. How can intelligent, well-intentioned people look at the same…