PowerSwitch

Will we ever forgive our Governments for not telling us clearly and uniquivocally what is coming and how we are going to have to cope?

I won't. I feel our politicians and Government are letting us down extremely badly in the "Free" West. They aren't telling us anything, in fact they are hiding it intentionally behind The War against Terror.

We are being let down beyond belief and it is going to impact us all and I mean the whole of humanity.

I don't think we will ever rely on central Government again and I suppose this is the reason why I suspect we are likely to return to feudilism.

snow hope wrote:Will we ever forgive our Governments for not telling us clearly and uniquivocally what is coming and how we are going to have to cope?

Will most people ever really believe that our Goverments did know what was coming early enough to have done anything about it? We are being lied to now and will be lied to persistently and cleverly in the future until people think that the governments themselves were also innocent victims of the "unexpected" peak in oil production.

If the blame gets shifted anywhere it will be on the OPEC countries who raised their oil reserve figures to improve their production quotas. I can just see the headlines now (in the last issue of The Times before it too goes bust): "Saudi Arabia's lies misled the world for decades, leaving us totally unprepared for the last oil shock"

There's a comment somehwere on the google video Oil Smoke and Mirrors that the reason the politicians are silent on this issue is that there are no easy answers or palatable alternatives.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... 9548020370

In other words, nobody gets votes for even mentioning PO. In fact, it would spook the debt-driven economy somewhat, so best we let the sheeple borrow against the notional (debt based) 'value' of their houses, and their apparently secure job prospects for a while longer, eh? After all, it's not just corporate interests at stake, taxes and benefit payments are tied into this as well, so there's reason enough for the Powers That Be to advise everyone to STFU...!

I was surprised to see Michaael Meacher on that documentary, that's the first time I've seen a (formerly) senior UK politician talk on PO. Though these days, he's a marginalised maverick, more free to speak out and sound off. He suggested that governments are extremely well briefed on the issue, but somehow I'm not so sure. Either way, it's not going to make a difference, for the reason stated above. It was interesting to see Heinberg on that vid too. My own feeling was that he unfortunately diluted the essential PO message when straying into all that more dubious 9/11 conspiracy stuff.

There was an interesting thread a few months back about getting a high profile advocate to get PO into the mainstream. Having ruled out politicians, it needs a talented maverick, perhaps using humour to preach beyond the converted? So I vote for Rob Newman - his History of Oil black comedy show is excellent, maybe he's the one to get the message through to shake the massively indebted sheeple from their collective delusion? But would that do any good anyway?

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid ... =oil&hl=en

CAT and their MSc in Advanced Environmental and Energy Studies are presenting a study to government on Global Warming and Peak Oil and mitigation measures for both. We are also looking for people to approach MPs and decision makers direct with the paper and message.

So any MPs and decision makers out there who would like to hear what CAT have to suggest about a way forward, PM me and I will make sure you are contacted.

I never voted am I still allowed to blame them?

If you don't vote then you cannot blame anyone but yourself.

johnhemming wrote:If you don't vote then you cannot blame anyone but yourself.

I would vote but I find the BNP far too left wing for my tastes.

John,

Is there awareness of the consequences of Peak Oil in the Commons or House of Lords, other than from yourself and Michael Meacher?

John

Apologies if this question is nieve or stupid, but do you get the opportunity to speak to ministers about issues in person?

Have you had any opportunities to speak to the minister responsible for energy to get their view on PO or the UK electricity/energy gap ?

Hmmmmm, as much as I would like John to respond, I suspect (yet again) he will not, as this is a public forum and he is one of them! ie one of the politicians - you know, the bad guys ( ) who won't talk about Peak Oil as this has no solution, but if we were to discuss "Energy Security".......

Now accepting the term Energy Security, maybe John could respond based on the questions being asked by Mean Mr Mustard and Totally Baffled?

An interesting thing about humans is who they credit and who they blame. If things go well they credit themselves. If things go badly they blame others. Governments are handy things to blame but perhaps we should look at ourselves? We have an opertunity!

snow hope wrote:Hmmmmm, as much as I would like John to respond, I suspect (yet again) he will not, as this is a public forum and he is one of them! ie one of the politicians - you know, the bad guys ( ) who won't talk about Peak Oil as this has no solution, but if we were to discuss "Energy Security".......

Now accepting the term Energy Security, maybe John could respond based on the questions being asked by Mean Mr Mustard and Totally Baffled?

You can hardly accuse John of not talking about peak oil! Read his blog - here's a link to a peak oil search on there: http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/search?q=peak+oil

He is also instrumental in trying to establish the Parliamentary Group for the Study of Peak Oil.

Not only that, but I don't always read all of the threads in this forum.

It is not really the ministers that need to be persuaded of the arguments in respect of peak oil, but the civil servants and organisations such as the IEA.

The ministers generally present what the civil service give them. There are more effective people (such as Michael Meacher and Colin Challon) who do have their own minds, but they are rare.

Ministers tend to follow the conventional wisdom.

When I first became aware of peak oil I thought that one of the best places to get a job would be in the crucial decision making parts of the civil service (of course I haven't a clue how I could do this).

If you liken government to theatre then everyone behind the scenes are the civil service, they decide how many lights are needed, when to do the re-fits and why - ie to get better ticket prices or more punters, they make the props, do the scene changes, put powder on the noses of the actors, feed them their lines when they forget etc, the actors represent the politicans with the majority, the orchestra and front of house is the opposition and we are the crowd. hurrah, hurrah.

When times are good the auditorium is packed full of people. People admire the actors and aspire to be like them. The prizes for the best actors are great not only in terms of money but fame and adulation at every corner. Everyone believes that it is the actors that are great. They marvel at their skill and chant their names thoughout the land.

But times start to change (maybe because those behind the scenes haven't chosen the right plays or done the advertising right or cast the right actors or chosen too higher ticket price or the public has less spare money to spend on entertainment etc) and slowly but surely less people buy tickets, the leading actors seem a little less impressive and management start to realise that their isn't so much money in the bank.

Management start to panic. Behind the scenes meetings are called and decisions have to be made. Management decides it will have to put up the cost of tickets. This only results in more reductions in ticket sales. They have another meeting and decide that they are forced to put on lower budget productions, sack some of the actors, reduce some of the front of house costs. This goes on and on, plays are chosen for their production costs rather than entertainment value. More and more people are sacked until the management finds it can not afford to pay staff to open.

Eventually, the theatre has to shut. A skeleton staff remains all of whom are instrumental to the daily running of the failed business. Critially these employees are all behind the scenes staff. The very last to go is the recently appointed company director; the original director was sacked by the share holders several months earlier for gross incompetance.

The actors that can adapt are left busking to their audience in the streets outside. Passers by listen half heartedly and occasionly toss a coin in their direction but no-one thinks to cheer or chant their name anymore. In fact, no-one can really believe that they used to believe they were so great in the first place.

Will we ever forgive our Governments for not telling us clearly and uniquivocally what is coming and how we are going to have to cope?

Do you think they care what we think?

They have always looted us, are looting us now and will survive PO quite nicely thank you.

Even if we string them up if we encounter them in say 10 years time, they will still have had 10 years of "good years" in the meantime.