Maggie Kennedy speaks on Peak Oil

Energy investment banker Matt Simmons
is telling the world that despite the oil sands,
we have reached Peak Oil.














Hi Bryan
It would be nice to add my comments in the section
in your blog, but each time I press the space bar
(between words), it flies to the bottom of the page,
so I've given up. Instead, I've written a tirade below.
If you consider it's worth it, and you'd like to lift into
your blog, by all means do.


Wearing my conservationist hat, I am astounded
that the majority of current city council members can
so blithely ignore the decline of the oil era; but then,
wearing my jaundiced cynic's hat, I'm not surprised
at all. After all, most of the same councillors' interests
lie in development and more development, and that
includes profligate use of the private motor car, and
the roads on which to drive them. They blithely
imagine that they and the buyers of these developments
will have no trouble affording oil-based fuels, no matter
how much the market price may rise. In their eyes, the
idea of putting money into easy-access,cost-effective public
transport smacks of proletarianism(i.e. mixing with the
great unwashed), to be avoided andprohibited at all costs.
Also, the expenditure required toextend the public
transport system might mean curtailment of their
frequent "fact-finding"jaunts toNew York and other
points beyond these shores. All of this, before we start
looking at the seriousness of the dying oil era.

Just to make the subject more complicated, I have
heard lately about the oil sands of Alberta. However,
although it contains very high quality crude, it is very
expensive to extract, and therefore, until now, there
has been reluctance to develop the fields. The people
involved in Alberta say, watch this space. But in the end,
that will be merely a delaying exercise of perhaps50-70
years. Not long in historical terms.

Maggie Kennedy