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Peak Oil
Report on “End of Oil” conference in UK
Scott Redding, rabble-dot-ca
“The scale of change in the global economy in the next 20 years is nothing less than apocalyptic, and oil is in a tailspin of decline that could lead to military uprisings and mass refugee movements on a scale we’ve never seen.”
Michael Meecher had our attention. Tony Blair’s former environment minister was the keynote speaker at an October conference in London, “The End of Oil.” Organized by three non-governmental organizations in England (CRed, East Anglia Food Link, and Powerswitch), the day-long event focused on the linkages between climate change, peak oil, transport and food production…
A two-hour afternoon workshop at the “End of Oil” conference discussed how to encourage a more local and organic approach to food production, outside of the control of supermarkets. A world that embraced a more sustainable solution to food, in an era of peak oil, would subscribe to a number of ideas:
* The development of perennial food crops for more northerly countries (Canada; Britain if the Gulf Stream shuts down due to salinity changes with more melted icecap freshwater in the ocean), for example, high-protein sweet chestnuts and walnuts, to avoid international imports
* Biological methods of pest control and soil fertility enhancement
* Thorough labelling of packaged fruit/vegetables: consumers need to be able to choose food produced closest to their home, and to know the “energy content” of the food (was it flown, was it sent by rail, was it sent by boat, were alternative energy sources used at the source farm?)
* Worker control of the former distribution networks used by supermarkets
* A more direct geographic connection between food producers and consumers: Oakland, California has debated that, by 2015, 40 per cent of vegetables consumed in the city should be grown within a 50-mile radius
* Reworking of urban sewage systems to reclaim human excrement for compost Food preparation skills (to avoid processed food) on a mass level: this would entail a drastic change to primary school curricula, with education about food preparation and nutrition, and incorporating food gardens into the design of new schools; for adults, it would mean community-run cookery classes
* A different model of land ownership: common grounds within urban areas for allotment production; green belts around cities of two million people, along the model of Havana; building local markets into new urban developments
…Fiona Williams, an activist from Brighton, reached the heart of the issue by asking Tim Lang, professor in food policy at City University in London, “how to market austerity to the masses?”
His answer was straightforward: why should we drive to a supermarket when we can receive an organic box of fruit and vegetables at a community centre, or direct to our door?
“As a campaigner,” he remarked, “I’ve learnt that you can’t sell bad news. We have to market simplicity, since society is unhappy. Public health will get worse in unequal societies. Simplicity is better than austerity.”
Scott Redding is a former columns editor for rabble.ca. His work has appeared in Red Pepper, In These Times and the Guardian. He now lives in England where he attended this conference.
(21 October 2005)
The peak oil crisis:
The North Atlantic oscillation
Tom Whipple, Falls Church News-Press
Back in our school days, we all learned how the Gulf Stream sweeps out of the warm Caribbean , flows along our East Coast, and crosses the Atlantic where all that warm water keeps Northern Europe from turning into a giant glacier.
What our teachers didn’t tell us, however, is there is a similar and even more potent phenomenon hovering between America and Europe known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).
…Now you may ask, what does all this climatology have to do with peak oil here in America ? The answer, unfortunately, may be more than you really wanted to know. When that big flow of slightly used American air is being sucked by New England on the way to old England , it serves to help block the frigid Canadian air that tries to float down onto the US during the winter. When the trans-Atlantic airflow is reduced our Northeast can get mighty cold too.
Last week, the London Times reported that her Majesty’s government had called an emergency meeting of lots of important people. This meeting is to discuss what to do if the country runs out of heating fuel this winter. It seems the British long-range forecasters are now predicting there’s a 2 out of 3 chance the NAO will turn negative this winter and that Britain , and the rest of Northern Europe , will see lots of very cold weather. How harsh? When we had one of these negative oscillations back in the 1970’s parts of Europe burned 30 percent more heating fuel to keep going.
… The British fully recognize that should the country run out of heating fuel while they are engulfed in 20 degrees below normal weather, the country would be facing the greatest challenge since the Battle of Britain. Thus, when an “experimental” climate-modeling program says there is a 2 out of 3 chance of very cold weather next January; they take to the barricades and start planning.
In the US however, we face a somewhat different set of circumstances. First, it is only the northeast that would have a problem should the NAO go negative. Second, given the precarious state of our natural gas and gasoline reserves, any official announcement that the east coast just might be an icebox next winter would drive the oil futures market and the price of gasoline through the roof. This in turn would drive down the stock market and the administration’s popularity polls.
Given this warning would be based on an experimental climate model, from the government’s perspective there really is little harm in waiting until winter to see what happens. We are not going to ration anything before the Congressional elections unless we absolutely have to.
(20-26 October 2005)
IEA’s “Resources To Reserves” report – not to worry!
Dave, The Oil Drum
Readers of [The Oil Drum] were preoccupied with Hurricane Rita on September 22nd of this year and might have missed the release of the International Energy Agency’s 130 page report Resources To Reserves, Oil And Gas Technologies for the Energy Markets of the Future. Two considerations make this report noteworthy. First, the study is firmly in the Cornucopian camp and so joins the CERA report in this respect but on a much larger scale. The second consideration should interest TOD readers the most: IEA appears to have released the report partly to counter claims of the worldwide Peak Oil community.
(22 October 2005)
Peak Oil: Navigating the Debate
Bryn Davidson, rao-D cityworks
An online slideshow is now available of the presentation “Peak Oil: Navigating the Debate”. This was presented recently to the Central Area Planners for the City of Vancouver.
(September 2005)
