Letter printed in today's Dereham Times

My letter resopnding to last week's "Man of our Times" column by Ian Clarke is printed in today's paper on page 7 and is (almost) word for word as I wrote it. The Times editor has given my letter the heading "We can live without cars" which I'm not sure conveys what I wrote in quite the right way! But judge for yourselves.

Below (in italics) is the full text of my letter as I wrote it;

"In response to Ian Clarke's column commenting on rising fuel prices (Dereham Times, 15th May 2008), I wish to draw readers attention to the fact that many experts believe that the global production of oil is now at its all-time peak and is beginning a terminal decline! Anyone who has any idea of economics will understand that this dwindling supply, coupled with continuing growth in demand for oil, both in the "West", and in rapidly developing countries like China and India, will inevitably drive fuel prices ever higher. And we can already see the knock-on consequences, for instance in spurring the dash for bio-fuels which is diverting agricultural land away from food production, thus adding to the global shortage of grain and driving the price of all our food higher while raising the spectre of famine across much of the globe.

As for the profits of oil companies like BP and Shell - it must be recognised that these increased profits are coming from their oil production operations, due to the rising global demand for oil outstripping the available supply and driving up the value of a scarce resource. They make relatively little money from the filling stations themselves! The other big beneficiary of fuel prices in the UK is the Treasury who impose high tax rates;
a) to try to discourage us from using our cars so much (although this doesn't appear to work as many journeys by car are unnecessary and could be done by other means), and
b) (in theory) to invest the money raised into much better public transport, and into local facilities so that people don't have to travel so far for the arts, recreation, and entertainment, etc (if this investment isn't happening then we should all be asking the Government why not?).

Fuel prices will inevitably continue their rapid rise, leading to very serious economic and social consequences for us all, unless we take urgent action to wean ourselves off our addiction to oil! But there are ways we can tackle this. The "Transition Towns" initiative, which began in Totnes, Devon, in September 2006, and now includes many places around the UK (including Norwich) and globally, sees communities looking to develop and implement "Energy Descent Action Plans" to reduce their use of fossil fuels like oil, with a focus on re-localising their economies - increasing local consumption of local produce, etc, and so reducing the need for oil powered transport and the exposure to rising fuel prices that that entails.

Lets all stop whining about the inevitable rising price of a diminishing resource and start working together to find ways of living without the need for a substance that is so destructive to our world. For anyone who saw the exhibition of old photos in Dereham Library from "Before the car was king", lets all start to imagine positively what our towns and villages will be like when "the car is no longer king"!!! And lets stop our NIMBY cries of objection to schemes like wind turbines, which will help us in our urgent need to cut our dependence on all fossil fuels."

Matt Walker

One other letter (by Raymond Mann) printed in today's Dereham Times argues that "pedestrians are more important than cars" and that if they were given more priority, instead of cars, then Dereham "could be a lovely shopping town". I couldn't agree more.