The Wall Street Journal today posted an online article indicating that Peak Oil will soon have a serious impact on the United Kingdom’s economy, based on a newly-released report by the Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security (ITPOES).
I found it a bit surprising that a media outlet not exactly given to supporting the business-disrupting Peak Oil concept would permit anyone the opportunity to suggest this as forcefully as did the author of that piece. We can only hope other prominent media begin offering a voice to those of us who are working diligently to spread awareness and information.
Granted, we who believe that we’ll soon be facing the challenges of ongoing oil supply and production constraints don’t have at our disposal a huge supply of snarky and dismissive declarations. This is a shortcoming we’re not likely to overcome. The best we can do is to offer facts—disappointing though that may be.
Nothing I’ve learned about the subject leads me to believe Peak Oil suffers any prejudices or grudges; so if it’s going to strike in the UK (see the summary published by the Energy Bulletin here, with a link therein to the ITPOES report), it’s a safe assumption that it’s going to be affecting many other nations.
The report is offering a time frame of no more than five years before Peak Oil’s impact. That is not nearly enough time for us to make the changes we need to make to effect an orderly transition away from fossil fuel dependency. We’ll have to make do with the tools and options we have available now and expand as quickly as possible.
The sooner we start, the better off we can only hope we’ll be. Short-term focus isn’t going to be of much help.
In the words of Ian Marchant, a member of Industry Taskforce:
We can have a debate about which year this problem will hit us, but I would rather have a debate about how we avoid it becoming a problem. [1]
We need to get busy.
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