Issues in Sustainable Transportation

There's an interesting op-ed on the Culture Change website, referring to how the national (well, U.S.) conversation on peak oil is getting louder -- in part through conferences like our own:

"Many awareness-raising events concerned with peak oil and petrocollapse are taking place lately. The news media, mainly concerned with price sensation, are helping somewhat to awaken the oil-addicted population, albeit with narrower concerns than the End of the Oil Age. Recent headlines include 'Beijing’s Pursuit of Oil' and 'Consumers Face a New Reality.' The San Francisco Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a peak oil resolution on April 11, 2006. It acknowledges the threats posed by peak oil and calls for the establishment of a city-wide study to assess San Francisco's vulnerability to peak oil."

The bulk of the article is Jan Lundberg reporting on the Pentagon-sponsored presentation, "Energy: a Conversation about Our National Addiction" on April 24th.

Posted by mdudley at 9:02 AM | Permalink

The May/June issue of World Watch magazine has an extensive section with readers' responses to the previous issue on peak oil. While the online issue is password-protected, here are some excerpts:

Continue reading "World Watch Readers on Peak Oil" »

Posted by mdudley at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

China is now consuming so much oil that they are approaching America in its rate of consumption. This is causing some consternation in the U.S., and as a recent editorial in the Baltimore Sun points out, President Bush's belief that the Chinese should mend their ways is hugely hypocritical:

"Mr. Bush is right about this much: China's growth has as much to do with rising oil prices as hurricanes, floods or rumors of war with Iran. As long as demand is high for a limited resource, prices will remain high. But even Mr. Bush ought to be ashamed to suggest the Chinese should go back to riding bicycles so we can keep driving Hummers - cheaply.

The president should have told Americans years ago that the days of cheap gas were over. It's too bad he didn't remind us of that when he had our attention - in the days and weeks after the terrorist strikes of 9/11. Even a nation of oiloholics was prepared to make sacrifices. If the president had imposed a stiff tax on gasoline at the pump, American motorists would have grumbled, but we would have gotten over it."

Posted by mdudley at 1:05 PM | Permalink