Peak oil: greater threat than terrorism and short-term impacts of climate change

The Guardian reports that a study from the Peak Oil group shows the risk to the UK from falling oil production in coming years is greater than the threat posed by terrorism, according to an industry taskforce.

The 'The Oil Crunch' report warns that the problem of declining availability of oil will hit the UK earlier than generally expected - possibly within the next five years and as early as 2011 and then decline rapidly or collapse.

As regular blog readers will know, Peak Oil has been covered a fair bit on this blog - indeed only yesterday I mentioned it in relation to community resilience - anyhow all along the Government has been in denial - let us hope this is the wake up call they need as it is the first time a group of businesses has weighed into this debate. The report also argues strongly that the risk of an early peak in oil production poses a bigger threat to UK society than tightening gas supplies, terrorism or the short-term impacts of climate change. Wow that is serious stuff - all the more need for more Transition Stroud projects to show what is possible and for all of us to wake up to the need to move away from fossil fuel dependency rapidly....

After all as noted before Sweden plans to be free of oil dependence by 2020 - see more in this blog post here.

However while the Government is failing us on this there are signs they are getting more serious on climate change - all credit to all the campaigners who have lobbied for the change - The UK Parliament now has the world's first Climate Change Law upping the pressure on other European governments to legally commit to cut emissions and on the European Union to agree a strong climate and energy package (Finland is already working on a Bill). Plus they included aviation and shipping but unfortunately the bill does not limit the amount the UK can 'off-set' by purchasing credits from outside Europe - anyway more of that another day....there is still much to do and it shows into even more sharp contrast the Government's absurd plans to expand aviation. Anyhow time for work....

ooohps but before I go I meant to also mention that I will be forwarding info re this to the Council's financial officers - they look at all sorts of info to make judgments about the future so that they can budget - it is my view that like most Councils when it comes to fuel prices they are relying too much on Government and not enough on reports like the one above and the All Party committee looking at this issue.