ASPO Ireland

Planning Our Retreat from Fossil Fuels: Exploring the Ramifications of Peak Oil from justmultimedia on Vimeo.

John Gibbons lead a discussion with the newly appointed Minister of State Ciaran Cuffe, David Korowicz from FEASTA (The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability) and ASPO Ireland Director, Richard O’Rourke, on the ramifications of Peak Oil and what we can and should be doing to prepare for it.

John Gibbons lead what turned out to be a lively and informed discussion between the panel and the audience of about 40 people. After John’s preamble including a chart from the US Dept of Energy’s Information Agency (EIA) showing the growing gap between supply and demand, David Korowicz summarised the main findings from his Tipping Point study. I briefly outlined the emerging consensus within the ASPO community, particularly the clearer understanding of the link between our financial and energy systems. The Minister reiterated government policy and how that policy is being implemented. The audience demonstrated a sophisticated understanding of the nature of the problem by their questions and comments. More under the fold…

John Gibbons did an excellent job chairing last nights panel discussion. He opened by highlighting the contrast between the ideological battle that is being fought out in the media over Climate Change between the believers and the skeptics and, using his prop, see below, how uncontroversial it is to report that we should expect global conventional oil production to shortly start declining.

You can get a closer look at that chart below, click on it to get to the source.

What immediately strikes one while looking at this chart is that production starts to drop post 2012 and by 2020 is below 70mbpd (million barrels per day). That represents an almost 20% drop. When Cuba experienced a smaller drop in oil supply after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989 it’s GDP dropped by one third! That’s the drop Ireland experienced in 2009 continuing for four years.

David Korowicz then kicked off the introductions by the panelists on their particular views on the impact of Peak Oil. He essentially summarised the key findings and observations from his recently published and excellent report Tipping Point: Near-Term Systemic Implications of a Peak in Global Oil Production – An Outline Review. I followed with a short overview of the emerging consensus within the international ASPO community, particularly in terms of the greater understanding of the link between our international financial system and energy production and the particular dilemma presented to countries, such as Ireland, dependent on the confidence of the international bond markets, to keep the show on the road. Minister Cuffe outlined current government policy to reduce carbon emissions and energy consumption and how those policies are being implemented but did concede that a lot of work needs to be done to move the Peak Oil debate along and have it enter into mainstream consciousness.

After the introductions John did a Q&A between the panelists before throwing it open to the floor. He got stuck in straight away and asked the Minister if Peak Oil has entered the political dialogue at the Cabinet table or even within Dail Eireann. The Minister’s curt reply was ‘I don’t think it has’. He went on to describe the lobbying of decision makers that needs to happen, that FEASTA and ASPO haven’t been particularly good at it, that the political system is not well equipped to take on such issues as it’s focus tends to be crisis management, and that we have two large centrist parties committed to business as usual.

Hear it for yourself:

In light of the criticism, John asked me to respond. In haste, I acknowledged that the criticism was probably true. But on later reflection I recalled the ASPO6 conference in Cork and the level of engagement we had not only from an international community of experts from all spheres of society, business, civil society, politics, but the current Minister for Energy actually gave the lock-note address at the event. We can’t get much closer to the decision makers. They can’t have expressed more clearly that they understand the nature of the problem.

However, I did try to make the point that if any lobbying needs to be done it is for the preparation and testing of a national emergency plan to deal with the consequences of the financial and logistical turmoil that will define the Peak Oil event.

Getting to the title of this post, when the floor was opened for questions from the audience, it became apparent from their questions that this was the usual suspects i.e. people sufficiently informed and convinced by the Peak Oil argument that they wanted to be with other like-minded people, akin to a support group. And when I went poking around the net for thoughts on ‘Preaching to the Converted’ I found some encouraging comments that struck a chord:

An interesting comment and question came from a foreign visitor, and guessing by his accent, Dutch, on how the rhetoric of the ‘doom scenario from the environmental scientists which sounds like a marketing message to do something but they don’t tell me what to do’, which has been going on for twenty years now, and blaming government for not acting, and blaming business for not acting. And on the other side, someone from government trying to ‘lure’ us into believing they are doing something when they are clearly not. Neither is telling us what we can do as global citizens when we go home, to work, to school?

‘I hear a strong marketing message, but there’s no number I can call to buy the product?’

I attempted to address the question by drawing attention to a similar debate that is currently going on within the Climate Change community, probably best articulated by physics professor David Mackay, author of Renewable Energy without the hot air; that if we all do a little then we get a little. The nature of these combined challenges are so profound, so large, that they undermine the very manner in which we’ve configured the modern developed economy and political system. If we’re to act in a meaningful way it will have to mobilise every quarter of society. And the ‘doomers’ (read pragmatists) contend that we’ve left it too late to engineer a soft landing, we’re in for a bumpy ride. But we can crash land in a controlled and planned manner or we can simply let go of the steering wheel and party until the bitter end. The prudent, if more difficult choice is hopefully obvious. The point I was at pains to make last night is that we can start putting in place now a risk management and mitigation plan. We did it for swine flu, and spent millions doing it. The reports by Forfas are once again instructive:

Business Continuity Planning – Responding to an Influenza Pandemic

It’s also a point made last night that this is very much a developed world problem, which means it’s only a problem for about 1/6th of the world’s population. Sadly, the other 5/6th’s of humanity gets to look on us with envy and aspiration. How they will deal with the realisation that such aspiration is shown to be unrealistic is something for another day.

John, forever mindful not to let us drift too much to the dark side, at this point interjected an anecdote about the lesser know siege of Leningrad. He described how the citizens of Leningrad, despite getting warnings that the Germans were coming, ignored them saying they would never get across the river. When word came that the Germans had crossed the river, they still carried on regardless, somehow expecting that everything would be fine. It was not until the shells were dropping in the city that the city’s leaders called a meeting to plan a response. The human condition appears to be our greatest enemy when it comes to preparing for crisis.

There were many great points made and questions raised by the audience. If time permits, I’ll detail more later. There’s something strangely comforting about being with people of a similar frame of mind, even if that mind is contemplating very serious and potentially unpleasant prospects. There’s solace singing in the choir as much as preaching to it. There is much to be getting on with, and while it sometimes feels like an impossible task, evenings like last night are good to recharge the batteries.

And now for some light relief…