the Government's assessment is that the world's oil and gas resources are sufficient to sustain economic growth for the foreseeable future.

Yes - foreseeable never stretching more than 4 years to the date of the next election.

Here's a quote from Backstop, a Welsh Hill farmer:

we need leadership that bases a wholesale policy review on the issues of GW + PO.

Anything less is effectively reckless endangerment by those elected to the highest duty of care. So at some point perhaps it may be worth assembling an inditement for prosecution at the ICJ on the Hague ?

Just the threat, and associated publicity, might leverage significant effects on policy reform.

Strong stuff I know but when tshtf bringing about teotwawki those responsible will I suspect be held to account.

The precautionary principal should be applied by all our politicians and civil servants. This can be done in such a way that focusses economic actvity towards preserving our future as opposed to lining the pockets of everyone today and living only for the present.

firstly, this one passed me by (Oops!) Probably because I tend to look at the main TOD site more than the UK/Europe one.

Once again, though the official response to an e-petition is one of:

a) didn't RTFQ*

b) an answer worthy of Sir Humphrey**.

This one is more of the second. Maybe there would have been more of a wake up call if the petition had focussed on UK production. But then again, perhaps not. :-(

AKH

* example: http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/midwives/

From the petition:

the government is intending to make professional indemnity insurance (PII) a compulsory requirement for registration within 12-18 months. There is currently no PII available

From the response:

they will need to ensure that they have their own professional indemnity insurance in place

** as a UK Civil Servant, I find this obfuscation depressing.Being parodied in "Yes, Minister" should have been the wake up call, but it seems that Whitehall still can't make simple, easy to understand sentences, 20 years on from that show. Grrr.

Love the emoticon.
In our area, there is a free street paper written by the readers, and they asked for questions to candidates (we have a Federal election coming up in Oz).
Suffice to say I have not had a response to my question.
http://www.theword.ezyzine.com/ThreadView.aspx?tid=1148#post_1148

Petitions won't work. I appreciate the desire to make changes but we need to get real. Asking the government for help will not help. All the government does is point guns at people and force them to do something they don't want to do.

In the U.S. the people of New Orleans asked the government for help and many died. The government actually blocked convoys of food, water and medical supplies from entering the area because they wanted the people to get out.

Save your friends, family and neighbors. If they don't listen to you leave them alone and move on.

The government, any government, will only make the PO situation worse. Disassociate yourself with government and you may have a chance. Wait for the government to save you and you will perish with along with four billion others during the next 40 years.

As the International Energy Agency (IEA) notes in its 2005 publication, Resources to Reserves - Oil and Gas Technologies for the Energy Markets of the Future, the key problem is not the limit of geological oil resources: "The hydrocarbon resources around the world are sufficiently abundant to sustain likely growth in the global energy system for the foreseeable future".

The Government doesn't get it! The petition stated that the rate of extraction will reach a peak from which it will decline. This is the problem. The Government misunderstands the fundamental argument of Peak Oil! I think an education campaign must proceed before anything else gets done. But this is probably impossible due to what appears (to me) to be a disinformation campaign by the IEA to downplay extraction rates in favor of total reserve numbers.

Where to start? – obviously the “brick wall banging smiley” illustrates the content of their answer – and it states PO is called off and for now – postponed … call back some other year … in 20XX and we will look into the developments to this “theory”, and check whether its turned into a practical reality .. We can’t make policies based upon a theory, so to speak.

BUT- What’s the core problem to this PO-ignorance (?) – Because surely many governments “have seen the paintings on the wall” – but still no audible or visible actions nor hints to what may come – hmmm wazz up? hmm

UK is part of Europe and the developed countries.. and has again for a short while become an oil-exporter (Buzzard), so actually the UK (gvt) is not in a “super-hurry” to claim PO with ramifications/remedies/solutions..…

There are countries in Europe which should understand/prompt this reality long BEFORE the UK, pick any country in Europe (minus UK, Norway, Russia, Denmark ..) they have virtually no indigenous oil at all – BUT cars they drive and they even have an economy – Those should wake up and “put out the alarm…” the alarm is yelling now...

I believe the UK (Norway, more) is waiting for some in more severe and dire needs to start to “talk the talk and walk the walk” – because it will not be an easy thing to start to talk about – CATCH 22 , Pest & Cholera comes to mind – and a lot of stuttering … Who will start to talk about down-scalings anyways?

IMPORTANT READING HERE :

BUT – being a Norwegian myself I can reveal that the leader of the Norwegian Labor Party – Martin Kolberg - recently has hinted something “About end of/limits to growth due to ......... ,and has to be urgently adressed” … at this stage it’s a “teaser”, as in not much is explained or revealed as to what this means …. (does he and staff read TOD?)

Till now, all that is explained is that this will be the core-driving ramifications for Norwegian Labor-program before the elections in 2009. The Labor Party is today’s ruling party – alongside a lefty/center coalition.

His statements where ridiculed in the Norwegian press, and the interview was not translated into English (to my knowledge)- Commentators from other center to right shook their heads in disbelief, and “aligned” with the press…

Besides the irresponsibility of leaving PO&G to those who come after, let me focus on the strategies the put up front:

Our strategy is to work to liberalise international markets, create the right environment to attract investment in exploration and infrastructure

What the hell “liberalize international markets” means? Is Iraq being liberalized? Is that it?

And how in hell will liberalization bring more Oil and Gas on stream?

This people can only write such enormities if they think those who read it are plain dumb. My only comfort is that it will be this UK government the first one to face real physical shortages of Natural Gas – and then we'll see what “liberalize international markets” really means.

As you indicate, it's like banging your head against a brick wall. Although politicians are a special breed, they are still people and almost all people (at least in developed and developing nations) believe that economic growth is the way forward and, therefore, that humans will figure out solutions to the problems, somehow. The UK government appears to believe that even moving away from fossil fuels will still enable economic growth to continue.

There is no hope of an orderly change to sustainability. We must each do what we can for ourselves and our families.

Let's see - British oil production just bumped up a bit, which means the beginning of a new long term trend must also be up, right?

Of course, using that logic, as the largest government deficit in British history has also been recorded, things are looking up in that area too.

What I find amusing is the disconnect in general - production in Britain is on the downslope, but who cares? The plans and budgets require more production, so of course it will happen.

Sort of like how the USGS computed reserves under Reagan, and how various agencies compute oil production today - we need 88 mbd, so pencilling it in on the chart is enough to make it happen.

This kind of reply is normal, standard, 'govspeak', it isn't really meant to inform or engage or even answer anything; rather it's a form of non-answer, designed specifically to obscure rather than enligten.

Answering properly would entail taking the question seriously, and this in itself would give credence to the underlying premise that the world's energy situation is far less rosy than it would appear to be.

The UK Governments 'reply' reflects the current, official, line that there is plenty of oil for the foreseeable future, 'foreseeable' is a standard and very flexible get-out clause, it means that they can cover themselves no matter what happens. This was our honest opinion then, based on our consensus and the best currently available data and advice, nobody was lying, it was a mistake, that's all in the past, let's move on.

What the same people individually mean in private, is, of course, another matter completely. But the current concensus in Whitehall is that ther'e plenty of oil and gas and will be for the foreseeable future, by which time advances in technology, conservation and alternatives will step in to fill the gap caused by any eventual decline in oil and gas production.

Changing such ingrained perceptions and attitudes will take a long time in normal circumstances, too long a time in my opinion. If one looks at the evolution of the modern 'democratic' state one of the key characteristics of it was 'gradualness'. For example the gradual spreading of voting rights was specifically designed to control and smother the threat from democracy to the established social and economic order. One could argue that the modern 'democratic' states primary role isn't to reflect or represent the democratic aspirations of the people but to control them, by a variety of subtle and often not so subtle means. What this means is that changing the status quo is a very longterm process, often taking decades.

I think this is important to recognise. That changing the way we consume energy will take a long time, in normal circumstances. However, is Peak Oil amenable to 'gradualism' or does it require a certain 'speeding-up' of 'response-time', because we appear to be running out of time and mitigation, alternatives, solutions, need to be initiated in some hast?

Is Peak Oil a phenomenon of such complexity and history-shaping power, that it will actually alter 'normal circumstance' so much that it will undermine 'gradualism' itself and threaten the structure and nature of the modern, 'domocratic' state itself? I am not sure about this as yet. The state's reaction to the challange of Peak Oil could well be authoritarian in nature, leading to more, not less control. The forced 'tightening of belts' scenario.

Personally, I think we cold really do with some shaking up at the top, some fresh air, some new blood gaining access to power. Our society has ossified and our politial system is no longer particularly representative. Vast swathes of the population have been effectively disenfranchised and have become alienated from the entire 'democratic' system,w which I would argue is only nominally democratic in the first place.

Changing our current energy consumption paradigm goes right to the heart of way we have 'chosen' to organize society economically, and politically. Peak Oil is about Power, on very basic level, Power in society. Changing the structure of Power in society in order to deal with the challanges we face is, in my opinion, one of the central challanges associated with Peak Oil.

I used to think that people went into denial about Peak Oil because of fear... I take it back.
Recently I ran into a few people who play cultural psycho-dramas (some for a living) and asked this question about peak oil 'denial'. To my surprise the answer was more like, "I'm enjoying my make-believe (current or promised) social status now, I have no time for your news about me being in danger a few years from now that might change the conditions of my fantasy; GO AWAY!"
If true, then trying to educate the "public" isn't going to go anywhere.
If others can repeat this experiment and come up with a similar (or different) conclusion I'd be interested to hear about it.

Well... at least they gave a responses, which was better than I originally thought they'd do when I started the petition.

I've started a Facebook group for those interested in the UK to look at other ways of getting through to our Government - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=7737166118

... perhaps we can get some talk going on there, and then add a new petition shortly as a follow-up, tackling specific parts of the Governement's response.

Also, more generally just writing letters to our MPs and other methods of building political awareness.