Thanks to James and all the speakers @ Bedzed

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 16 Jul 2005, 22:59

We had a terrific conference at Bedzed today and I want to say a big thankyou to James for organising it. Excellent speakers, fascinating group of intelligent and lively peakniks, lovely picnic and entertaining debate all round - top notch stuff

RogerCO · Post by **RogerCO** » 17 Jul 2005, 08:52

Totally agree with Tess. Shame I had to leave and miss the last two sessions - are they going to be available online or by email?

Post by **mikepepler** » 17 Jul 2005, 09:25

I agree - an excellent day. I only wish we had longer! There were so many discussions that could have gone on for hours....

I think James will be posting all the presentations on the website shortly, and of the last two presentations, Julian's has a script, and Clive's had PPT slides, so there should be some info on both of them.

Sam172 · Post by **Sam172** » 17 Jul 2005, 10:20

Shame I missed it

I do believe that I was burning up fossil fuels 18,000 ft above France at the time ?_?

Post by **clv101** » 17 Jul 2005, 10:49

Yes, an excellent event. It's was really great to gather so many people together like we did, so much energy in the room.

James and the others disserve a big thank-you!

Bandidoz · Post by **Bandidoz** » 17 Jul 2005, 18:40

Here here - well done James!

We could have done with more time for Q&As, this was also the case with the Fuelling The Future conference. I thought James moderated very well.

All of the speakers were good, and a few points stuck in my mind:

I liked the balls of Norman Church to announce he believes a 95% dieoff will occur, and I especially liked his lifeboat analogy. It was also interesting to hear how close the system got to breaking down in 2000 (although I remember there being no bread in the shops, there was plenty of flour, yeast, and other bread making kits. No prizes for guessing what I bothered to learn and practice at the time

)

I liked David Flemings talk about how Nuclear is not a panacea, I would like to see references of where he got his information from. Bubsy also said to me that we're past "peak uranium", again, I would like to see where this is documented.

Clive Smith amused me with his "coolness of delivery"; I could imagine him saying "You're all going to die horribly in 5 years, but don't worry about it, it'll be OK" in a very calm manner

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 17 Jul 2005, 19:33

Bandidoz wrote: Clive Smith amused me with his "coolness of delivery"; I could imagine him saying "You're all going to die horribly in 5 years, but don't worry about it, it'll be OK" in a very calm manner

He's lovely isn't he? Compare his reasons for wanting to stock up on supplies to those of the survivalists. I know who I'd rely on.

rnmoore · Post by **rnmoore** » 17 Jul 2005, 21:03

I would also like to thank James and all the speakers for a wonderful day. It is always a pleasure to get together to speak about peak oil, and this turned out to be a great day and at a brilliant venue. It was quite a turnout and am pleased with it all. It would be great to do this more often, unfortunately money prohibits this. I agree with the more time for Q&A's, but what we got was quite satisfactory.

I look forward to the next meeting/conference.

Cheers.

Post by **clv101** » 17 Jul 2005, 23:56

I've written some notes on the event for my blog: www.vitaltrivia.co.uk

If anyone could write a couple of sentences on Tully Wakeman's or Rosamund McDougall's presentations I'd be very grateful!

peaky · Post by **peaky** » 18 Jul 2005, 00:10

Well, I'm going to be unimaginative and say how much I enjoyed the day, putting faces to forum names (correct word?) and the much enjoying the enthusiastic debate. A provocative and feisty day for sure. And a great, though rather warm location...

Thanks James, and everyone else who spoke and assisted in any way.

And Clive, yours is one of the first things I've heard that was quite a revelation; being delivered in your calm and restrained manner made it all the more alarming. Not something that had really been on my radar, or perhaps at the periphery. No longer.

Well, virtual meetings for a while then, eh?

PowerSwitchJames · Post by **PowerSwitchJames** » 18 Jul 2005, 08:36

Absolutely fantastic day, I was so pleased with the quality of the talks. My only regret is that there wasn't as much time as I would have liked for Q&A and just general chat and also having to cut the picnic a bit shorter than I would have liked. I am looking forward to getting all the presentations available on the web (will take about a week or so). I think it gave people a lot to think about. Great to put names to faces too. There'll be more about PeakSpeak on this site as the week progresses.

RevdTess · Post by **RevdTess** » 18 Jul 2005, 09:44

PowerSwitchJames wrote:My only regret is that there wasn't as much time as I would have liked for Q&A and just general chat and also having to cut the picnic a bit shorter than I would have liked.

Well it's all a learning process. Maybe just one less speaker would have made the timing perfect?

PowerSwitchJames · Post by **PowerSwitchJames** » 18 Jul 2005, 10:14

Yes, losing one speaker would have given us exactly the time.

DamianB · Post by **DamianB** » 18 Jul 2005, 11:52

Thanks James and others for putting the event on; great to meet other peakniks, put faces to forum names, meet those newish to peak oil, debate the issues etc. I agree that in hindsight, one less speaker would have been better.

Here are my comments on the speakers:

Norman Church needed to have a more rigorous argument worked out to make his doomer points. The 2000 Fuel Protest is a good illustration of how dependant our systems are on transport but but none of the three core systems he listed (power, banking & telecomms) were affected by that action! He also made the mistake in his subsequent analysis that PO would be similar to the FP. This is not so, we will still have about half the original amount still to consume and the taps are not going to suddenly be turned off. The lifeboat analogy was excellent.

Tully Wakeman gave an excellent summary and analysis of the huge amount of energy used to produce our food and offered some solutions for mitigation. He also made points regarding climate change that sometimes get forgotten in the PO debate; that more water and energy to pump it will be required and that rising sea-levels may reduce the amount of cultivatible land.

David Fleming's two talks were delivered in an entertaining way and were very informative - I'd like to hear him expand on DTQs at the next event and I wondered whether it would be useful to have some sort of simulation game?

Chris Vernon's message (nat. gas problems in the UK are much closer than PO issues) was scary. It was very well researched and delivered. If you've contemplated buying a gas-powered CHP unit, you must look at his slides.

Rosamund McDougall unfortunately got squeezed by the time-pressure and simply presented a brief statistical review of the rise in population and suggested a couple of courses of action. She also appeared to be slightly unnerved by the fact that (as she mentioned) no-one in the audience reacted when she said that our populations need to fall to about 2.7bn worldwide and 30bn in UK. It struck me that in the same way that we talk about going back to 1950s levels of energy use, we need to talk about going back to 1900s levels of population. I hope that this topic is always included in PowerSwitch events in the future.

Julian Jackson confessed that he was an enthusiastic amateur when it came to the topic of complementary money systems and ideas and his short talk stimulated debate with the some members of the audience who were equally well-informed. His plea for us to make ourselves aware of these was well-made and sensible, very much like the next speaker.....

Clive Smith whose engaging manner converted me to follow his example to accumulate some food and useful 'spares' over time. Clive's style of delivery and content was perfect to end on.

A great day. Thanks again.

marknorthfield · Post by **marknorthfield** » 18 Jul 2005, 13:16

I can't say much that hasn't already been said, except to add my personal thanks to James and co for organising the event, and all the speakers for their respective insights - whether or not I agreed entirely with their conclusions! My two months of going slightly bonkers have now led, with the help of these forums and Peakspeak in particular, to a positive focus on what I should be doing, privately and publicly. Community spirit rules!