What can we do to change the minds of decision makers and people in general to actually do something about preparing for the forthcoming economic/energy crises (the ones after this one!)?
Barry Gardiner (Brent, North) (Lab): The stone age did not end because of a lack of stone, and the oil age will end long before the world runs out of oil. In fact, the oil age is clearly already coming to a close, and three things have precipitated that. First, we have either just arrived at, or, as is more likely, just passed peak oil—the point on the Hubbard curve at which the maximum rate of global production has been reached....
Hmmm... there's a lot there worth reading - including Joan Ruddock's reply. Not sure she's quite got all the message yet, but there's a perceptible forward shuffle.
My hon. Friend the Minister would perhaps laugh if I told her that I had put off upgrading my mobile phone for the past 16 months because a little girl was stung by a jellyfish on a beach in Devon in 2007. However, it is the growing demand for the latest mobile phone that has made coltan so valuable. Mining for this resource has fuelled the conflict in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and central Africa. That conflict has led to deforestation. This has seen the loss of habitat and a reduction of forest mammals. That has resulted in an increased demand for an alternative animal protein. That has seen the depletion of high-trophic fish stocks. That has resulted in fishing down the food chain. That has led to blooms of jellyfish, which have replaced fish as the dominant planktivores. And that has resulted in the beaches of south-west England being invaded by jellyfish.
If climate change teaches us anything, it is that we are interconnected, but our institutional structures have not yet begun to recognise that...........
The IEA estimates that only about a third of all ultimately recoverable conventional and economically recoverable oil has actually been produced to date. The report also states that
“there are reserves to meet demand at least through to 2030 if the investment is there”.
That's only 21 years, so doesn't it make sense to put the investment into something that will last rather longer? Or is the fact that it's after the next election, and the decisions makers will be dead or senile by then anyway, all that matters?
The International Atomic Energy Agency would suggest that there are enough proven and probable reserves of conventional oil left to supply the world with oil for a further 40 years at current levels of consumption.
[...]
None the less, the IAEA outlook predicts annual production decline from now on, at a rate of 6.7 per cent.
Eh? I didn't know the IAEA reported such things. Does he mean the IEA or am I the daft one?
"If we don't change our direction, we are likely to wind up where we are headed" (Chinese Proverb)
