New Transition Dereham website

As of today the official Transition Dereham website is www.transitiondereham.org.uk. This Wordpress based site includes a blog with all the old posts copied over from this Blogspot blog. Please also check the events page for details of film screenings currently being planned in Dereham.

Please note that this Blogspot blog will not receive any further updates in future. So please visit www.transitiondereham.org.uk for the latest news of Transition in Dereham. If you have a website link to here, please update it to the new site. Thanks

Energy letters

Last week (Thursday 2nd April) the Dereham Times carried another letter by Malcolm Heymer, responding to the letters printed the previous week, from Geoff Hinchliffe and myself. In his letter Mr Heymer argues for nuclear power instead of wind turbines, and flatly denies the existance of Man-made climate change by citing the claims of a Swedish man, "Dr Nils-Axel Morner", to argue that sea level rise is "the greatest lie ever told".

WHAT A LOT OF NONSENSE! I looked "Dr Nils-Axel Morner" up on the web and what I found was very unconvincing! This man is into strange things like dowsing for water! His case reguarding sea level change includes lots of little bits of truth! But then so does any good deception! I found his case most unconvincing and I'm sure that no-one else (with a good understanding of the real evidence) would be either.

So this week's Dereham Times (9th April) carries two responses to Malcolm Heymer; from Geoff Hinchliffe and from me. I copy my letter below which the newspaper gave a headline of "Communities must generate own energy".

I agree with Malcolm Heymer (letters, 2nd April) that we still need some large power stations of some form, at least for the forseeable future. But I also believe that we need to take responsibility for generating an increasing proportion of our local energy requirements within our own local communities. In an age where energy security looks increasingly fragile, and where terrorists threaten to attack large power stations and distribution grids, this seems particularly sensible!

We need more micro-generation, feeding into a decentralised energy grid, thus removing power from the big energy corporations and giving it to local communities. But with power comes responsibility!

I would be happy to see wind turbines near me, as part of a mix of local micro-generation, along with solar panels, and with micro-hydro (at old watermill sites along the river Wensum for instance). But of these, in relatively flat Norfolk, wind power probably makes the most sense!

What I found from a web search for "Dr Nils-Alex Morner" (mentioned by Malcolm Heymer) was unconvincing! This is a man into strange things like dowsing. His argument reguarding sea-level change (like a good deception) is full of half-truths! But I'm sure that few people with an understanding of the real facts would be swayed by his case.

Matt Walker

Wind Power

Two weeks ago (Thursday 12th March) the Dereham Times reported that the latest planning appeal into two proposed wind turbines in Shipdham, near Dereham, had rejected the proposals. In his column on the letters page of the newspaper, chief reporter Ian Clarke was very dismissive of the proposals, arguing that the planning debate has gone on for so long that it is now time to give up. But he gives no consideration to the serious challenges we face with climate change and energy security. What alternative options does he propose?

I was tempted to write to the newspaper then, but decided to wait a week to see what other reaction there might be in the newspaper's letters pages. I was surprised! Balanced coverage? Hardly! Last week's Dereham Times' letters page (19th March) carried two letters about the Shipdham wind turbines, both highly negative. So in response to these I did write to the newspaper, and my letter was printed in this week's paper along side one by Geoff Hinchliffe from CANIS, the Shipdham group who support the wind turbine proposals. The letters were printed under the headline "Our energy has to come from somewhere - so why not here?" which is very good considering the nonsense the paper can sometimes invent (e.g. what I refer to at the end of my letter)! I post my letter below, as I wrote it. What the Times has printed is in italics (they didn't print all of the last line).


In response to the Shipdham wind turbine debate, I ask doesn't the energy we use have to be generated somewhere? So why shouldn't it be in our own "Back Yard"? It has to be in someone's back yard! Is Brian Kidd [letters, 19th March] arguing to have a coal or nuclear power station, or a waste incinerator on his doorstep? What is he arguing FOR? I know that I would much rather see a few wind turbines! And we cannot continue using up finite resources like oil, coal, and uranium infinitely. We have to start making the transition towards truly sustainable, renewable energy, and lower energy lifestyles for the sake of our economy, our society, and our environment.

The climate globally is warming as a result of our CO2 emissions (contrary to Malcolm Heymer's assertions [letters, 19th March]). Only recently the official predictions for sea-level-rise during this century have been doubled due to the latest scientific observations from the polar regions which are said to be the fastest warming regions of the planet.

We all have to begin taking the urgent action needed to avert climate chaos. I believe that having some wind turbines in our local landscape will be one small part of this. Another part is to get a "Recycling Centre" in Dereham (it is NOT a "rubbish tip" as the newspaper wrongly labels it! Please use the right term in your headlines).

Matt Walker

TD update

Sorry for being so quiet on the blog for so long. Its high time I wrote an update.

World oil prices, and fuel prices at the pumps, have fallen some way from their peak during last year due to the global financial crisis and the recession that we now find our selves in. This seems to fit with the predictions made previously in some of the films about the threat of Peak Oil and its consequences. I believe that the high price of oil last year (a result of global supply struggling to keep up with rising demand) was one of the key triggers of the financial crisis!

I don't wish to undermine the reckless stupidity of the banks lending so much money to those who could barely afford it. But it was the soaring cost of energy that tipped the balance and lead to people defaulting on those loans which exposed the banks and created the crisis.

Had it not been for the high energy costs, the banks would be continuing as before and there would have been no crisis! Maybe then the likes of Woolworths would still have been open on our high streets. But our addiction to oil, and to unsustainable "economic growth", caused this financial crisis that is killing so many businesses and jobs.


However across the Eastern Region much is beginning to happen with Transition. Transition Norwich has been "Unleashed" and now has themed groups developing projects in a number of areas.

Since October 2008 I've been administrating the "Transition East Anglia" [TEA] google group. One of the things to emerge from this regional e-mail networking was our first Eastern Region Transition network day which was held in Downham Market on Saturday 7th March 2009. About 50 people from across Norfolk, Suffolk, and Cambridgeshire attended the day. Towns represented included; Cambridge, Ely, King's Lynn, Mundesley, Norwich, Dereham, Diss, Bungay, Beccles, Ipswich & Woodbridge.


The Eastern Region is now involved in piloting a regional Transition web portal which will contain information on all the Transition Initiatives in the region. I have also registered a new web address for Transition Dereham, linked to a Wordpress blog, which I'll be advertising once I've had time to further develop the site's content, etc.

I am hoping to organise some Transition film showings in Dereham in the coming months. So keep an eye here, or on noticeboards around the town, or drop me an e-mail at transitiondereham@googlemail.com

Dereham shop sign pictures

I've been out round the town taking lots of little camera-phone photos of shop and business signs and I've begun to collage these together to build up an image of the town. The Transition Handbook talks a lot about "resilience"; being able to meet essential local needs through locally owned shops and businesses suppling local produce and products to local people, thereby being (relatively) unaffected by disruptions to fuel supplies and other large supply chains (as will happen with "Peak Oil"). Its how towns functioned before the age of cheap oil, and we'll have to recapture something of it.

So how much of Dereham is locally owned, independant businesses, or supplies local produce and products to local people, and how much is caught up in the global economic system that seems to be in so much trouble at the moment? Have a look and judge for your self!

Here is my first collage; of shop signs around Dereham Market Place.

Some images of other parts of the town will follow.

In the last week I've created a Google Map of Transition Initiatives and "mullers" (like me here in Dereham) around Eastern England (see link on right of the main page). Following feedback from the Transition groups around the region that I've been able to contact by e-mail about this map, I have now also set up a Google Group to help facilitate Transition networking around the eastern region.

Current fuel prices; Record 5

Last Monday (6th October) I again went round Dereham's petrol stations and here's the fuel prices at that point;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 108.9p
Diesel; 118.9p

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 109.9p
Diesel; 120.9p

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 109.9p
Diesel; 120.9p

As some BBC News journalists are now repeatedly saying, the now falling fuel prices is the result of reduced demand due to growing recession as a result of the Global financial crisis. It all fits quite well with the predicted impacts of Peak Oil and the effects of the high oil prices that we have seen!

Transition events and fuel prices

I realise that I've been rather quiet on this blog for a couple of months and in particular I've let the 'Fuel Price Records' slip a bit! But in the meantime I've been to a couple of larger of Transition initiative events.

At the end of July I went up to the Transition Scotland network day, tagged onto the start of 'The Big Tent; Festival of Stewardship' www.bigtentfestival.co.uk in Fife. This was at the invite of a relative who (after I had mentioned Transition to him) had connected into the Transition Initiative where he lives in Edinburgh, linking it to his own project; a website to help promote locally owned shops www.nearbuyme.com which he was speaking about at the network day. I had a really good time up there and spent a further week around Edinburgh.

This last Wednesday evening (1st October) I went in to "The Great Unleashing" of Transition Norwich at St Andrew's Hall in the centre of Norwich city, which was filled with "350 people" in what the speaker Ben Brangwyn (from the Transition Network) said was "the first UNLEASHING of a major city". It was a very good evening where after Ben and the local MP for Norwich North; Dr Ian Gibson (Lab.) had spoken, we broke into small discussions around tables of about 10 people, each with different themes.

I came away from the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing with a copy of "The Transition Handbook" by Rob Hopkins; the founder of the Transition movement at a discounted price of £10 (RRP £12.95) see www.transitionculture.org which I'm currently reading. It is already giving me fresh ideas about what could (and needs to) be done to transition Dereham and its surrounding areas. This will likely produce thoughts and musings to fill fresh posts in the coming days and weeks.

I also left a feedback slip at the end of the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing saying that I would like to meet up with anyone else from the Dereham area who may have been there, to develop stuff local to Dereham, and that I would be willing to co-ordinate a meeting of such a group. So if you were there (or not, but your interested in being involved) please do e-mail me a message at transitiondereham@googlemail.com to introduce yourself.

To finish this post I do have some fuel prices recorded from August and September. Since my last Fuel Price Record post in July, the retailers have been battling each other to cut fuel prices. But as a chart presented by Ben Brangwyn at the Transition Norwich Great Unleashing showed, this is due to falls in global oil prices resulting from reduced demand in the wake of recession caused by 'the credit crunch' and current financial turmoil!

On Tuesday 12th August the fuel prices I recorded were;

Morrison's supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 0p #)
Diesel; 122.9p (down 10p or 7.52%* & 0p #)

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 2p or 1.76%#)
Diesel; 133.9p (down 10p or 7.47%* & 1p or 0.8%#)

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 111.9p (down 8p or 6.67%* & 2p or 1.76%#)
Diesel; 133.9p (down 11p or 8.22%* & 3p or 2.38%#)


* figures since Tues, 15th July (4 weeks/28 days previous)
# figures since Mon, 19th May (12 weeks/85 days previous)

On Thursday 11th September I noted the fuel prices at Morrison's supermarket, Station Road, Dereham, as;
Unleaded; 112.9p
Diesel; 123.9p

Tomorrow; Monday 6th October I'll try to record the next fuel price record.

Current fuel prices; Record 3

Its been another 4 weeks so its time for another record of the fuel prices at the petrol stations in Dereham. I have been round the town again on the afternoon of Tuesday 15th July (29 days after the last time) and here's what I found;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 8p or 7.15%#)
Diesel; 132.9p
(up 2p or 1.53%* & 10p or 8.14%#)

BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 2p or 1.7%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 3p or 2.29%* & 9p or 7.21%#)

Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 119.9p
(up 1p or 0.84%* & 6p or 5.27%#)
Diesel; 133.9p
(up 2p or 1.52%* & 8p or 6.35%#)


* increase from Mon, 16th June (4 weeks/29 days ago)
# increase from Mon, 19th May (8 weeks/57 days ago)

Energy debate; letters in the Dereham Times

Today's Dereham Times (10th July) carries 2 letters about energy supplies. Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham), replying to my letter printed last week, continues his ill-conceived argument that man-made global warming doesn't exist! Well I'm sorry to inform him that the OVERWHELMING weight of evidence and the broad scientific consensus says that IT DOES EXIST! Yes, there is an element of natural variations in temperature that Mr Heymer speaks of, but this is small compared to what we are facing as a consequence of man-made CO2 emissions!

Mr Heymer refers in his letter to a report by a group calling itself the "Nongovernmental International Panel on Climate Change (NIPCC)". This is clearly intended to deceive many people because it could very easily be mistaken for a reference to the much more widely accepted UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (or IPCC) report (see http://www.ipcc.ch). Mr Heymer also appears to have been deceived by exaggerated predictions claiming that there are vast undiscovered reserves of finite resources like oil and uranium that will thrust the peak of these resources far off into the future! Maybe those reserves are out there somewhere! But who's to say we'll ever be able to find or extract them!!!

The logical thing is to plan based on the resources that we know (or can reasonably predict) that we've got! Regarding oil, the current evidence is that global production is coming to a peak, beyond which it will go into terminal decline. And this is happening at just the same moment that global demand for oil is sky-rocketing due to the growth of India and China (among others). This IS creating a widening gulf between supply and demand, leading to soaring oil prices which is exacerbating (if it didn't directly cause) the "credit crunch" and other economic instability.

The solution to all this is VERY obvious and relatively simple; we must rapidly reduce our dependence on fossil fuels, particularly oil. I believe that through this we can build stronger, more robust local economies, stronger, healthier, friendlier local communities, and a nicer, healthier local environment. But having done a little web search for "Malcolm Heymer, Dereham", I've discovered that Mr Heymer is a very vocal climate change denier and a member of the car lobby, the "Association of British Drivers" (ABD). So I don't expect that he'll be convinced by any of this until long after the facts have been proved.

The other letter is Cllr Rupert Read's response to Malcolm Heymer's previous letter (printed 26th June), answering Mr Heymer's criticisms of Mr Read's previous letter (19th June). Mr Read (quite rightly in my view) dismisses Mr Heymer's argument for building new nuclear power stations to solve our "looming crisis in electricity generation" as economically unviable and physically dangerous (citing Chenobyl, and the modern terrorist threat).

Energy supplies

In last Thursday's Dereham Times (3rd July '08) I had another letter published about energy supplies, which was given the title "We need sustainable energy" by the Dereham Times. It was in response to a letter by Malcolm Heymer (of Wheatcroft Way, Dereham) printed in the Times the previous week (26th June) which appeared to quite misunderstand the comments of Cllr Rupert Read (printed the week before - 19th June) with regard to the decline of oil supplies. Mr Heymer also appeared to foolishly dismiss the facts of global warming!

The main focus of Mr Heymer's letter was "the looming crisis in electricity generation" which I quite agree with him about, although I disagree with his suggested solutions!

Once again with my letter the Dereham Times failed to include the details of this blog when they published it. HOW HOPELESS!!!

Below is my letter in FULL.


Mr Heymer (June 26) miss-understands the science if he believes that slightly cooler temperatures "since 2002" mean global warming had ceased! Temperatures fluctuate from year to year. But the longer-term trend clearly shows a rapid warming of our climate due to humans burning fossil fuels, releasing large amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. It IS rapid relative to what we know of from the geological past.

Mr Heymer is right to say that there is a "looming crisis in electricity generation". But the solution is NOT to build new coal or nuclear power stations. Instead we need to significantly reduce our energy use, and to develop genuinely sustainable energy sources like wind (both off-shore and on-shore), micro-hydro, and wave/tidal power.

I think Mr Heymer misunderstands what Mr Read (letters, June 19) meant about oil supplies (a mistake repeatedly perpetuated by the media's representation of concerns about available oil supplies). Oil will certainly not just "run out". But the point comes, when about half the available oil has been extracted, that the rate of production reaches an all-time peak and then goes into terminal decline. This happens in every oil producing country or region. In the USA (lower 48 states) the peak happened in 1970 and even significant advances in extraction technologies did little to halt the subsequent decline!

The same thing will happen to oil supplies globally. The question is when! No one can say for sure until sometime after the event! Oil companies say it won't be until 2030. But many independent experts believe it will be before 2012! It may already have happened! And with ever growing global demand for oil, the growing gap between supply and demand will create a perception of shortages, and ever-rising prices.

It should also be said that the same process of peak and decline will apply at some time to all finite resources including coal, and uranium ore for nuclear power. So these cannot be sustainable energy solutions!

We must reduce our unsustainable use of energy. We have to rapidly engineer an end to our dependence on cheap oil for transport and agricultural production. And we have to reduce our electricity use to levels that can be provided by sustainable sources like wind and hydro. We must make a Transition in Dereham and surrounding areas towards a sustainable, low-carbon economy. Please come to discuss these issues further and help to develop solutions at the Transition Dereham blog; http://transitiondereham.blogspot.com.

Matt Walker

Cycle town! Its time to get on our bikes

On Thursday (19th June) the government announced a scheme investing £100m into 12 chosen "Cycling Towns/Cities" to improve cycling infrastructure and facilities in those urban areas. But it appears that the money is going to places that already have good cycling infrastructure (like Cambridge)! Friday's EDP newspaper was very critical of Norfolk County Council for failing to even bid for a share of this funding, despite both Norwich and Yarmouth being qualified and Kings Lynn expressing an intrest, because "funds would have to be taken from other transport budgets to match any funding award made" (quoting EDP article).
Rupert Read (Green Party Transport spokesman) says in the EDP that "its about time we took the initiative on getting the key improvements made to road junctions. The more people we can encourage on to their bikes, the less congested the road network will be - and the more people will be saving money, by travelling in a way that is immune to fuel price increases."

SO WHAT IS Norfolk County Council playing at??? We need serious investment into forms of transport (like cycling) that do not depend on damaging and dwindling fossil fuels like oil. Dereham is wofully lacking in cycling infrastructure like cycle lanes/paths, cyclist priority at junctions, and good sheltered cycle racks around the town.

I regularly cycle to the City College learning Station at Trafalgar Business Park, Rashes Green. But there are no proper bike racks there at all! So I have to lock my bike to some rather exposed railings. Service providers (like the Learning Station), employers, and particularly planners at Breckland must do far more to ensure that the infrastructure is there to facilitate cycling. And if there is money out there that the County Council can go for to help fund this then they really MUST GO FOR IT!

The County Council (and others) must get their act together and start investing into our carbon-free transport future, rather than linguring in our dying, oil-adicted transport past! Lets see safe dedicated cycle routes being developed to link Dereham town centre to all the surounding housing areas and on out to all the surounding villages.


Meanwhile, Prime Minister Gordon Brown has been swanning around in Jeddah over the weekend trying to talk Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich countries into giving us back some of the trillions of dollars that we're spending, buying their oil. But Gordon wants them to invest all that money that they're making out of us due to soaring oil prices, back into the UK by financing new nuclear power stations! IDIOT! Nuclear is clearly NOT the solution!

Frankly we would much sooner solve these problems if we were to stop pouring our money away to Saudi's in the first place by not buying their oil! Then we would instead have that money ourselves, to invest into finding zero-carbon solutions, reducing our energy use and rebuilding more resillent and re-localised economies.

Response in the Dereham Times

In reply to my last letter (5th June), today's Dereham Times carries a letter by Rupert Read, a Norwich City Councillor and the Green Party's lead candidate for the Eastern Region in the 2009 European elections, in which he says that "the Green way is ever-increasingly the affordable way". I wholly agree with Rupert's letter and I'm e-mailing him to invite him to view this blog.

Rupert has a blog at http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/
and the Norwich Green Party website is at www.norwichgreenparty.org/

Current fuel prices; Record 2

4 weeks after my first fuel price record (Mon, 19th May) I have been round Dereham's petrol stations again on the afternoon of Monday 16th June and here's what I found;

Morrisons supermarket, Station Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 117.9p (up 6 pence or 5.36%*)
Diesel; 130.9p (up 8 pence or 6.51%*)


BP station, Lynn Hill roundabout, Dereham
Unleaded; 117.9p (up 4p or 3.51%*)
Diesel; 130.9p (up 6p or 4.8%*)


Tesco supermarket, off Yaxham Road, Dereham
Unleaded; 118.9p (up 5p or 4.39%*)
Diesel; 131.9p (up 6p or 4.76%*)

* increase from Mon, 19th May (4 weeks/28 days ago)

Shopping locally

Saturday's Eastern Daily Press (14th June 2008) has the right message. Its front-page headline says "WE'RE STILL GOING LOCAL; Consumers say it's more economical".

Highlighting their own "Shop Here" campaign, supporting locally owned independent shops, the EDP cites its own new survey which says that "consumers still back their local shops - and say it is actually more economical to shop locally, cut back on trips to out-of-town supermarkets and conserve their own fuel." The article includes comments from a number of local Norfolk producers who all appear to be reporting growing demand for their produce despite having to increase their prices to pass on some of their rising fuel costs to their customers.

The EDP article by Kathryn Cross also reports that "Russian oil giant Gazprom predicts that the price per barrel [of oil] could hit $250 before 2009 is over, which would catapult the cost of a litre of unleaded petrol to an incredible 230p and push energy prices sky-high." I'm not at all surprised at these figures! But it should make everyone think; how will we cope IF in a year from now fuel prices are nearly twice what they are today (on Saturday 14th at both Morrisons and BP prices are 117.9p for unleaded and 130.9p for diesel)?

Will we all half our car use? Will we be wasting less good food and buying less heavily processed (energy intensive) food in less excessive, oil based and environmentally damaging packaging? Will we all be growing more of our own food in our own back gardens or in a vast number of new allotment plots that the council is going to have to provide for us somewhere (probably instead of the possible 3500 houses that the Breckland LDF has identified space for around Dereham)?

We WILL ALL have to change our ways to adapt to the soaring cost of energy. Is it not far better to start planning for these things now and begin to implement the changes we need to make, rather than wait until crisis forces us to react? And if we wait for the crisis the resources and options we have to deal with the issues will be severely limited.

With the Shell tanker drivers strike this last weekend and the threat of another 4 day stoppage this next weekend, coupled with increasing road haulier demos against high taxes, I suspect that it may not be long before we get at least a short taste of what life after oil will look like unless we do something about it!

The EDP's Shop Here listing is here

The EDP article mentioned above can be read on their website here

The EDP website www.edp24.co.uk

Letter in today's Dereham Times

Today (Thurs 5th June 2008) I have a letter printed in the Dereham Times in reply (in large part) to the comments made by Mr David Milburn of North Elmham in a letter in last week's Times. The Times has not printed my letter in full and I'm particularly disappointed that they have missed off my last paragraph which gave details of this blog. How will everyone find this blog to continue the debate if the Times refuses to publish the details of the blog address?

Below is my letter to the Dereham Times in full. The Times has titled my letter "Attitudes to oil use must alter" (which I'm much happier with than the title they gave to my previous letter!). The parts in italics are what the Times has printed;


In reply to David Milburn (letters, May 29), I wish to stress that my previous letter (May 22) NEVER said "We can live without cars"! That was a headline invented by the Times' editor which I believe misrepresented what I had to say! I fully accept that some people would find things very difficult without cars, especially considering our government's failure to ensure that we have access to high quality public transport.

The fact remains that soaring global demand for oil at a time when "cheap oil has gone forever" (Jeroen van der Veer, CEO of Shell) and production is set to begin a terminal decline will continue to drive fuel prices ever higher. A cut in UK fuel tax may provide some temporary respite for drivers. But it would likely have to be offset by other tax rises (say income tax!) and it would send quite the wrong message - that we can all continue to consume oil as usual (which we can't)! Mr Milburn suggests that that fuel taxes should be reduced to the point where "... few people would be worried about the cost of filling their tank..." This view is frankly shocking! We should all be "worried", not least by the environmental costs of burning so much fossil fuel.

So you see Mr Milburn, I am quite firmly on planet Earth!

Our economic and social structures over the last 60 years have been built on the liberal use of energy from relatively cheap and apparently limitless supplies of fossil fuels. But we must now realise that we have hit the finite limits of these resources and our attitudes must change! We will have to make big reductions in our energy use and switch to sustainable alternative energy sources like wind and micro hydro-electric. The use of oil for transport is the greatest and most challenging part of this transition due to its pervasiveness, our high dependency on motorised transport, and a lack of ready alternatives to oil based fuel!

Think back to the last fuel price protest blockades, and how shops were empty and much of the country ground to a halt within a few days without oil! Now imaging what happens to us when global conditions severely restrict the amount of fuel available to the UK! If we are to prevent this from causing severe crisis then we must start building resilient communities that are far less dependent on the consumption of oil to get along. We need better local services, reversing the closures of village schools and post offices. We need to create local jobs so that people don't have to commute large distances, and we need to promote the local consumption of local produce and products that haven't been transported vast distances (with the escalating fuel costs that that transportation entails).

We have a choice;
EITHER we plan for higher oil prices and reduced availability, taking steps to reduce our high dependence on oil (and through this we can also improve our genuine quality of life as we go),
OR we can ignore the warning signs and wait until severe crisis hits and forces us to react, by which time we will have lost the chance to do many positive things and be prepared!

I've created a blog to encourage further local discussion about these issues at; http://transitiondereham.blogspot.com. I believe that the focus on UK fuel taxes is an unnecessary distraction from the far more serious global issues around Peak Oil and its impacts, along with Climate Change, which require us all to make very big cuts in our use of fossil fuels.

Matt Walker

10 Downing Street petition against fuel tax cuts

In reaction to a Facebook group that I came across yesterday promoting a petition on the 10 Downing Street website that calls for fuel tax cuts, I have created a petition calling on the Prime Minister to resist these calls of road hauliers (and others) over fuel taxes, and to maintain the current policies of high taxes to help deter unnecessary use of private vehicles and excessive transportation of goods.

I believe that any tax cut at this time would send quite the wrong message – that we can go on consuming oil as usual! We can’t. In light of Peak Oil we need radical action to reduce our dependence on oil. High fuel taxes are one of the measures we need to help deter unnecessary use of fuel.

Please sign this petition at;
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/maintainfueltax/

Responses in the Dereham Times

Just to note that in this week's Dereham Times (Thursday 29th May) there was one letter in response to my letter the previous week. David Milburn of North Elmham majored on fuel taxes, saying that they should come down, and in response to my comments on fuel taxes asks "which planet [am I] living on?" Well I'm quite firmly on planet Earth thank you very much!

Mr Milburn also fails to differentiate between my letter and the exaggerated title given to it by the Dereham Times' editor! I have drafted a reply to Mr Milburn to send to the Times.

Good on-line videos about Peak Oil and Transition Towns

I would like to recommend that people take a look at the following two on-line videos;

"The Video - More Peak Oil"
on Darren Workman's Blog; Green Desires and Intentions. A very good 13 minute film explaining what Peak Oil is, featuring Geologist and author Dr Jeremy Leggett.

and;

Rob Hopkins - founder of the Transition movement, talking about his new book "The Transition Handbook" (5 minutes: 46)
see Green Books or YouTube

Enjoy.

More links

This evening I've watched the documentary film "The 11th Hour" on Channel 4, looking at the serious environmental crisis that humanity is creating for our planet and ourselves, and talking of the urgent "transition" that we all need to make if we're to stand any chance of avoiding total disaster! The film is very well worth a watch. There's more about it at;
www.11thhourfilm.com or www.11thhourmovie.co.uk

And a couple more good Peak Oil websites I've come across today (both UK based);
Peak Oil; www.peakoil.org.uk
and PowerSwitch; www.powerswitch.org.uk which has an on-line map that you can stick a "pin" in to show people where you are and see who else is near you who shares the same interest. Find the map HERE

BBC News reports on soaring fuel prices

As if to emphasize my point about fuel prices, the lead story on last night's BBC Look East (Wed, 21st May 2008) was that the price of diesel had "jumped by more than 6% in [just the last] one month - its biggest rise this century..."
"... Over the past month the price of diesel in the east is up by 6.4% - from 117.8p to 124.2 pence per litre. Petrol is up by 4.1% - from 108.5p to 112.6p/litre (source: AA Fuel Price Report)."
"Fuel prices are tipped to reach £1.50 per litre this summer."

see; http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7413774.stm

And then on tonight's national BBC News the lead story was that the price of a barrel or oil on the world markets has hit a new all-time record high of $135 - that's double what it was a year ago. But I suspect that in another year even $135 will look incredibly cheap! The BBC News suggested that the price could hit $200 by the end of 2008. But they also suggested that it might fall back the other way in coming months (I think that is rather unlikely!).
"Western" governments appear to be blaming OPEC for not increasing their oil production as the cause of higher prices, while OPEC appears to be blaiming market speculators for the price hikes! But the media continues to pay less than adequate attention to the fact that global demand for oil is now outstripping available supply with an ever widening gap.