nimrod wrote:I don't have any detailed proposals and, if I'm honest, I frankly feel that PO mitigation will remain reactive and a million miles from optimised, with all that implies for major resource conflicts and social disruption. I just feel that the evidence for PO is so "in your face" - as someone said earlier, that if anything can be forced onto the non-clandestine political agenda, this ought to be it.
Won't hold my breath though
On Radio 4's the World Tonight last night, they had a piece about the growing acceptance of climate change at the sub federal level (states and cities). The last speaker (a democrat, I think) mixed in concerns about climate change with concerns about energy security pretty indiscriminantly. I think acutally he was more concerned about energy security, and he said something like that the US had already peaked and the world was going to peak sometime very soon,
Blue Peter wrote: The last speaker (a democrat, I think) mixed in concerns about climate change with concerns about energy security pretty indiscriminantly.
Yes... its interesting that the two issues are becoming conflated.
As others here have pointed out, not a bad thing, as the policies required to address the theory of anthropogenic global warming (putting aside whether it's bollocks or not - not something I intend to lose sleep over or waste time on - I'd be more worried if the Earth was cooling) also neatly address Peak Oil.
I do get the feeling that climate change - real or otherwise, although I can see how pumping loads of crap into the atmosphere could cause it to clog up, certainly - is being given by the UK government as the reason for energy reforms, although resource depletion may actually be the more urgent matter.
By focusing on climate change, the government can appear to push for the right solutions, without panicking people *too much*. For most, the idea of the climate changing isn't anywhere near as scary as the prospect of running out of oil and gas in the not-too-distant future. By tackling 'climate change', the energy issues can be publicly addressed, whilst the security issues associated with PO (civil contingencies act etc) can be tackled 'below the radar'.
Plus of course, we are all to blame for 'climate change' (especially the Americans, who the world loves to hate), whereas the Government itself could be held to account for problems caused by resource depletion - selling off our North Sea assets when we should have been conserving them.
Climate change may well be real, but it also seems to be a handy scapegoat for the misdirected energy policies of successive UK governments.
That's a trucklaods of references to spend a few hours reading, which I will when I get the time
I still don't know what I think about the whole thing yet, but that fact that I have a huge amount of respect for the quality of yours posts and your knowledge that it's really given me food for thought even without reading the links. However, as many have said, and something I've said at every PO talk I've given, CC and PO are both saying the same thing - "reduce your fossil fuel consumption" and ultimately demand and restructure our society so the end is the same, and I imagine fairly much, so are the means.
I know all the posts weren't directly in response to what I asked, but thank you one and all for the info.
I agree with you peaky. One reason I focus on peak oil is that it is easy to understand for the ordinary person. Climate modelling is horribly complicated whereas any numerically literate person can understand hubbert modelling and even have a go themselves if they feel so inclined, and as you point out the steps to fix either are the same.
Anyway I've done enough climate proselytising on this site I'm too busy arguing with someone on another site who took umbrage to an article I wrote because I said biofuels couldn't be scaled up to replace all our oil usage. He/she said this was oil company propaganda and even had the hide to call me ... (oh I can hardly bear to say it)... an economist! ( apologies to any economists out there).
