How many people do you know who are aware of Peak Oil?

chubbygristle · Post by **chubbygristle** » 29 Dec 2008, 22:34

i sat through a family xmas conversation this weekend where someone started going on about how the government were not taking climate change seriously enough. Ten minutes past, then they were going on about how great their daughter was doing in her job due to all the international (air) travel involved. Later in the conversation she declared that she was off on holiday for a short break this year via ryan air for 1 pound and how it wasn't going to do her environmental credentials any good.

Similarly, the vast majority of people I meet at work or via friends and family see things like climate change (and some, peak oil too) as a 'threat' but is something that the magic 'they' need to sort out and seem to have divorced themselves from the possibility of being personally responsible for.

Having to listen to the same people then talk about the current economic woes and their opinions on what should be done... almost spat out in verbatim from the Daily Mail is enough to make me want to forget xmas get togethers next year!

RenewableCandy · Post by **RenewableCandy** » 29 Dec 2008, 22:48

You might have to spend next xmas away somewhere...like fly to the Bahamas

???

JohnB · Post by **JohnB** » 29 Dec 2008, 22:52

I did my family Christmas bit the Saturday before the big day, then escaped to Cornwall, 200 miles from any of them

.

snow hope · Post by **snow hope** » 29 Dec 2008, 23:04

I voted more than 25 - but a lot of them I have personally informed. I have told a lot of close friends, family and business colleagues and I think most of them have "got it", but some don't think it will have a great impact in the short time-scale.

I put posters and A4 sheets up in my office recently. They were there for about 3 weeks, before one of my senior staff suggested they were not what we ought to have up on the wall as we are a computer company. He actually took them down and handed them to me. I could have put them straight back up again, but the way it was said was a little hard to argue against and I could see the argument coming that I was bringing my own personal interests into the business, which is an area I have always had a concern and internal conflict about. So I let it go. Maybe I was right or maybe I was wrong. But with oil prices down below $40/barrel, the situation is harder to argue at the moment.

In summary, I think lots of people know about it, but very few think it is an immediate problem, or, very few think at all, or, very few give a shit as their more immediate concerns are getting through to the next pay day without running out of credit/cash/food/drinks every month! In other words, they have more pressing issues currently and fuel is currently back below £1 / litre so there is no problem! Short-termism - feck!