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
Showing posts with label Letter. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Letter. Show all posts
Wednesday, 9 July 2008
Thursday, 19 June 2008
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/
Rupert has a blog at http://rupertsread.blogspot.com/
and the Norwich Green Party website is at www.norwichgreenparty.org/
Thursday, 22 May 2008
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
