At the risk of sounding unpatriotic or worse, I have to say that my reaction to escalating gas prices is: good! We have been underpaying for our energy for decades. The result is that, like all things that are free, or at least cheap, we are profligate spenders thereof. Now that the price of gas has begun to get our attention we may, just may, begin to think about ways to reduce our pain.
Such as by teleworking more, planning car trips more carefully, dumping the gas guzzler for a vehicle that is more fuel efficient, encouraging R&D on alternative fuels and propulsion systems.
But is that what’s happening? Not in Congress. Most of the activity by both parties seems to be directed toward bringing gas prices down again. Continue reading Fuelishness →
For years I have tried to steer clients away from the use of productivity as a means of measuring the results of what teleworkers do. The reason for this is simply that productivity is a word associated with things, widgets, stove bolts, automobiles coming off the assembly line, and other manufactured objects. The broader, macroeconomic view is that productivity is somehow related to efficiency and value added. If a product sells for more than the costs of capital, materials, labor, and facilities used to produce it, then positive productivity must be at work.
The problem is that it is pretty hard to evaluate that sort of productivity for many types of information work simply because it is hard to identify the product to be measured. Continue reading Teleworker profectiveness →
Here’s the central problem with peak oil:
- World oil production will hit its peak around 2011 unless some totally unanticipated discoveries occur between now and then. So far, none of the discoveries recently announced in the press have been unanticipated. Furthermore, new discoveries tend to be in hard-to-reach places, simply because all the easy-to-reach spots have been exploited long ago. Tertiary exploitation of these resources has begun and will eke out more oil, but at a rising cost of recovery.
- World demand for oil is growing, particularly in Asia. Continue reading Hitting the peak →
. . . about telework, energy and the environment
