Hi Chris....

"asked if we could do it faster than this if we had a war-time economy Paul Allen, replied 'Yes, but the public wouldn't accept it, because climate change isn't as visible a threat as Hitler'

It troubles me that a leading thinker on this falls foul of what I have to call sub-standard yet conventional thinking.

1. 'The Public'...... what IS 'the Public'?  A herd to be herded? (voters) A tax revenue base? (workers) THEM?

A HUGE proprotion of 'the Public' are children and youth, and many are really well informed, not merely about this particular aspect - climate/fossil fuels - but about a whole range of areas of adult behaviour within developed civilisation; and they are seriously pissed off with us, the adults. They have access to information, to each other and they learn far quicker than can be taught in schools. They SEE adults failing them every day. They are SCARED for their future and ready to act... however, what's in the way is....

2. Again that old monolith, a VISIBLE THREAT to bind the 'people' in action is a top down, hierarchical mode of thinking and IGNORES the reality of POWER, and how it flows across society. It is fundamentally about manipulation, and under that is FEAR.

These are the very modes of thinking that created the Industrialsied Colonising Powers in the first place.

3. Pretty much all mainstream 'action' on this issue revolve around some few being able to continue exercise power, to retain wealth and comfort and to direct the show... large schemes that require Government etc etc.... 

Yet in nature what you see is grass roots action : the solution is built in from the very base UPWARDS....

and key to that is the issue of POWER, a question ignored by most.....

You gott aunderstadn that when people get and use power effectively, it is seen and experienced  as a direct threat by those who formerly held power - and that the real opposition is not within the public, but within power.

Most people in the Western Industrialised Nations do not trust power any longer, and for the most part are unwilling to TAKE that power  because of the assumptions regarding the  violence required to do so. And they are correct - there is no way to assess how that violence might play out, no known limits to what POWER will do when threatened, and interganerational trauma patterning is very real... so no way to predict what later generations may carry as a psychological wounding...

So the question is about Power, not about Fossil Fuels. And it's easier to blame the people than face the truth about POWER.






 
Kindest regards

Corneilius


www.corneilius.net


"do what you love it's your gift to the universe!"


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From: Chris Keene <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask]
Sent: Wed, 17 November, 2010 20:53:36
Subject: Re: Fwd: Peak Oil

I think the main response has to be that, rather than using oil more efficiently, we should stop using it entirely as fast as we can. 

And that 'as fast as we can' implies a war-time effort. I believe we could do the same again, getting an infrastructure for electric vehicles ready in one decade.  The Zero Carbon Britain report from the Centre for Alternative Technology has a scenario for reduction to zero use of fossil fuels in twenty years, and when I asked the ZCB project director, Paul Allen, if we could do it faster than this if we had a war-time economy he replied 'Yes, but the public wouldn't accept it, because climate change isn't as visible a threat as Hitler'

Chris

On 16/11/2010 20:35, Marianne McKiggan wrote:


Begin forwarded message:

From: "Page A." <[log in to unmask]>
Date: 16 November 2010 12:36:41 GMT
Subject: FW: Peak Oil

See below……..

 

Best Wishes

 

Anton

 

Anton Page

 



 

From: David Knight [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: 16 November 2010 10:54
To: Steve Brine; Jim Kirkpatrick; Chris Holloway; [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; Wendy Barnaby; Frank Barnaby; Bob Douthwaite; Xiao Hu-Wen; [log in to unmask]; [log in to unmask]; Andrew Davis; Page A.; Whitmarsh R.B.; 'Brian Shorter'; Claire Jones; 'David Knight'; Dennis Garrison; 'Don Wooler'; Jessica Lloyd; Wright L.A.; 'Michael Farmer'; 'Michael Wilks'; Woodman N.D.; 'R Primer'; Robert Hutchison; 'Robin Speed'; 'Thomas Rushby'; 'Tom Dicks'
Subject: Peak Oil

 

Dear All,

The International Energy Agency, the Paris-based organization that provides energy analysis to 28 industrialized nations has changed its mind. In line with many other analysts, they now agree that peak oil has already happened!

The agency concludes in its latest annual report, released in November, that production of conventional crude oil probably peaked  for good in 2006 at about 70 million barrels a day. Production from currently producing oil fields will drop sharply in coming decades, the report suggests.

At the same time strong demand growth from China,  now the world’s largest energy user, and elsewhere will require liquid energy supplies not just to hold steady, but to climb by more than 20 percent.

 According to Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA’s exec director,  it is far from certain that tar sands and  increased production of natural gas liquids can compensate for decreasing crude production. At the IEA reports press launch Tanaka said , “Recent events have cast a veil of uncertainty over our energy future …We need to use energy more efficiently and we need to wean ourselves off fossil fuels by adopting technologies that leave a much smaller carbon footprint”.  

IEA forecasts that oil prices should continue to climb in coming decades, reaching $135 a barrel by 2035, a price level that some economists believe contributed to the global economic collapse of 2008.

Some experts found the report’s projections troubling.

“It’s a perfect storm headed our way — a steady rise in global demand for oil crashing up against an increasingly limited supply of economically recoverable oil,” William Chameides, professor of environmental science at Duke University , wrote on his blog.

Your comments on how to respond would be welcomed,

All the best,

David

 






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