Photo by Mr Sardonicus

Ed Miliband makes no mention of peak oil in his review of his recent experience of being a ‘keynote listener’ at Transition Towns conference. In his review he talks of ‘climate change’ and ‘low carbon’ but to me it feels like a big important memo has gone round parliament telling politicians they are not under any circumstances allowed to worry the public by bringing attention to the small matter of fossil fuel dependency and how little time we have to prepare for a future without such an incredible resource.

I’ve been wondering for a while (since I first watched the very brilliant BBC 2 documentary ‘A Farm for the Future‘ made by Rebecca Hoskins – do please watch it if you haven’t already, it is absolutely brilliant and very thought provoking) WHY DO WE NOT HEAR ABOUT THIS IN THE MEDIA?

Surely surely surely if little old me can work out what’s likely to happen to millions of innocent UK citizens if adequate awareness programs and preparation programs are not started as soon as possible (errr I’m so sorry folks but we, you and our/your children are likely to starve, be very cold, go short on medicines and be without access to lovely clean drinking water) then SURELY the clever people elected to govern our country have also been tipped off on this trifling matter?

According to the Rob Hopkin’s Transition Culture website, his accompanying book ‘The Transition Handbook‘ was one of the top 5 books taken on holiday by *all* MPs last summer. I’ve got this book and there is little doubt that the subject matter is all about the very terrifying prospect that the one substance the whole of our society requires for most of things we do is not going to come out of the ground easily or cheaply anymore. The book aims to help towns across the country (or the world) to make themselves become ‘resilient’ to supply deficiencies which are inevitable as oil and its derivatives become less and less plentiful (and owned by Arab countries who may not want to sell their precious commodity to us nasty westerners).

So, this terrible fact is known to our lovely leaders. Yes it is. But, for some mysterious reason, ‘They’ are hell bent on keeping this knowledge to themselves. They seem to be going to really really great lengths to not have communities begin to prepare for life without global food distribution networks, without loads of nonsense high-tech jobs, without affordable heating, without affordable transport. Yes it would be of huge concern to all the electorate if the message started coming out but at least the electorate would have the opportunity to Do Something (like the electorate did in the war years when people grew food at home, adopted a ‘make do and mend’ culture and generally pulled together for the common good). For those of us who have figured out for ourselves what is likely to happen we all went through a period of shock, horror, denial, anger and worry but are also able to begin to take steps to mitigate disaster wherever possible.

Doing Something is what the Transition movement is all about – it is a people powered initiative which encourages those concerned about peak oil and climatically changed futures to spread awareness of the issues throughout their local communities and start to put in place simple things which may end up being the difference between life and death in the future (eg. allotment projects where people are getting together and sharing gardening space with those keen to learn how to grow food; car-sharing networks; skill swapping events where people are able to learn how to make and mend).

For everyone getting involved in their local Transition group (and there are hundreds around the world now) we are so grateful to Rob Hopkins for starting such a straightforward, repeatable process which essentially allows all communities big or small to get together with the common ground of peak oil concerns and work towards what is called An Energy Descent Plan’ which envisages a low-energy future in approximately 2020 (because households will have insulated their homes, increased their food production capabilities, got to know one and other so they can care for each other, teach each other, shop for each other, share transport with one another) which means beginning to wean themselves off the lovely crude oil we’ve used without due regard for all of our lives.

The interesting thing is that the future that is envisaged by Transition initiatives are in many ways healthier and happier than the bizarre lives we live right now in this throw-away, isolated, impulse-driven society. People will talk more, use their bodies more, eat better quality food, make things which last for generations and pull together in ways in which we assume the societies our grandparents’ grew up in did.

Going back to why the government have so clearly chosen not to help us in this matter must be due to the fact that they are scared to be the bearers of extraordinarily bad news and know that we are very much addicted to our power-hungry ways and will probably vote for the politicians who promise more house price rises, more and more jobs and endless endless carefree consumption in the forms of throw-away fashions, more digital tat, two-weeks on a sunny exotic beach and round the year in-season salad and tropical fruits.

The Green Party are the only one who mention peak oil on their website and have clear policies on how to tackle this as a nation. They do not give ‘behaving like an ostrich with our heads safely buried in sand’ or ‘pop your fingers in your ears and say LA-LAH-LAHHHHHH lots and lots of times’ as a solution to the problem(s).

Sadly (and it is enormously sad once one begins to come to terms with the calamitous situation we and our poor dear children are faced with) the government are not just doing nothing while they are in a position to do something they are doing worse than nothing – they are covering up the fact that there is anything to do something about and are deluding themselves and the population of their country that the lifestyles we are used to now can be like this forever and there is absolutely no need to think any other way despite all the very disturbing evidence which contradicts this policy.

More from two of my favourite writers:

Cross Your Fingers and Carry On
Posted April 14, 2009 by George Monbiot

Why does the government refuse to make contingency plans for peak oil? In February 2008 I sent a freedom of information request to the Department for Business, asking what contingency plans the government has made for the eventuality that global supplies of crude oil might peak between now and 2020. The answer I received astonished me. “The Government does not feel the need to hold contingency plans specifically for the eventuality of crude oil supplies peaking between now and 2020.”

Rock vs. Hard Place vs. Immovable Object
by Sharon Astyk, June 11th 2009

Rock: Collapsing economy based on made up money and huge quantities of debt

Hard place: Our depleting fossil fuel stores or ‘our energy situation’

Immovable object = climate change

Our present position, is, to put it mildly, unenviable.  We are trapped, proverbially, between rock and hard place, with immovable object pressing down on top.  We have squandered our chance to find the easy ways out, and our best options aren’t that appealing to most of us.

The only possible case for them is that they are real.  That is, that outside the world of fantasy, outside those invested in raising consumer confidence or denying our ecological predicament for their own purposes, we have the choices we have.  Nobody chose this.  Nobody wanted it, and yet, it happened, and we allowed it. And now, we go from where we are.  Or we do not, and we never go anywhere at all worth going – we spend the rest of our lives in a trap, with the walls slowly moving together.