All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas

today was the first meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas .

On Tuesday 26th June 2007, Tony Blair’s last full day as Prime Minister, the All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas (APPGOPO) held its inaugural Annual General Meeting, ensuring that the issue of declining global oil supplies will feature much more prominently in Parliament in the Gordon Brown era.

APPGs are composed of politicians from all political parties and have members from the House of Commons and the House of Lords. APPGOPO will enable interested MPs and Lords to discuss Peak Oil and all its surrounding issues. The interest by MPs and Lords in Peak Oil, and indeed the All Party Parliamentary Group, was much higher than the average Peak Oil commentator would expect. Often it is charged that politicians are not willing to talk about such a difficult subject, but the APPGOPO has the support of over twenty MPs and Lords. This actually makes it the largest political grouping looking at Peak Oil in the world.

The AGM, held at 6.30pm in Committee Room 19 in the House of Commons, made the election of officers the first piece of business. Liberal Democrat MP John Hemming, who has been vocal on this issue since becoming an MP, was elected as Chair, while Colin Challen MP, highly respected for his work on pushing the issue of Climate Change with the APPGCC, and Lord Robin Teverson took the positions of Vice Chair. Labour MP Austin Mitchell, with 30 years of Parliamentary experience, took the position of Secretary, while Mark Williams, Liberal Democrat MP for Ceredigion, was elected Treasurer. David Drew, Labour MP for Stroud, was also present. Many more Parliamentarians have offered their support for the group, but could not attend.

The AGM also established the initial parameters for its mission. It will use available Parliamentary processes to raise the issue, and there is likely to be regular meetings, open to the public, discussing the issue. The first APPGOPO event may take place before the end of July. The group wants to look at the technological and geological issues, the geopolitical issues, the government viewpoints and those of the industry, the impact of alternative fuels such as biofuels, how peak oil and climate change relate, and mitigation and solution options. Although the group will not produce its own prediction for the date of Peak Oil, it will analyse the various predictions that exist.

The All Party Parliamentary Group on Peak Oil and Gas is the result of several months work of collaboration between PowerSwitch.org.uk, The Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (ODAC), and John Hemming MP. Although it has no formal powers, and receives no funding, this group is a vital step in raising the necessary awareness of the issue, from which a rational response to the challenges can come. Educating key decision makers and challenging established views on the issue is a task this group must, and can, achieve. The formation group also provides further evidence that Peak Oil is far removed from the days of being a fringe subject. Many of those concerned about the impending decline of global oil supplies may take hope that a significant group of their representatives are finally going to speak about the Peak openly in the corridors of power.

are people starting to wake up to peak oil and fossil fuel peak I see it in the same position global warming was in a few years ago

 

Well it's great that people are finally talking about it.

 

Sensible government, down to the new boy ?

 

Well it obviously was talked about before Blair left - these things do not spring from fresh air - so NO.

 

There is no plan! They talk and they talk. I think Michael Meacher tried to raise the issue a few years ago.
Its really strange that this issue has virtually no airtyme by the mainstream yet climate change does. We've known about the problems associated with peak for decades but have just ignored them.

Yet with climate change its talked about all the time.

Oh, and hello by the way.

 

Who said there WAS a plan / - what plan do you mean ?.

hahaha 'ello

 

hello welcome to the board .

John Hemming MP is keen on peak oil he posts now and then on powerswitch.co.uk the top uk peak oil board , who have also worked to get this group set up .

I think hes like roscoe bartlett in the states someone a bit in the wilderness who is trying to bring peak oil to general attention .
I think the reason peak oil isnt getting the same focus as global warming is its more likely to spook the markets and generally its a more scarey vision .
but I see that changing lots of things are happening with peak oil at a grassroots level and there have been a few recent newspaper storys , I may be wrong and it may just hit and we may just get a general collapse .

how long have you known about the subject?

 

I wasn't suggesting that anyone had said there was a plan, I just am amazed that there isn't (or doesn't seem to be) one.


I've been following peak oil for about 3 years. I first registered on a site about the subject in Feb 05 but I can't really remember when I first started to look into it. I went all evangelical about it and got called a crazy whatever, you know. I wish I hadn't now. I have posted a bit on powerswitch but tend to read more than I post, its a good down to earth site.

What plan would I like? Well I'm at work so don't have too much time to go into detail. Something along the lines of

- Taxing advertising for consumer items (especially disposable ones)
- Even higher taxes on fossil fuels (we may as well get trained into the mindset of higher prices)
- A method of abolishing fractional reserve banking whereby people can pay off debt slowly without crashing the economy, so like year one the fraction of reserves a bank has to hold against what it lends out is slightly increased. A further increase the year after, and so on
- Newspapers which centre around celebrity and sport can no longer be called newspapers and have to be put with Heat magazine and the like, with glossy covers.

Obviously methods like this where the economy gets controlled by government (or even shock horror the people) will be resisted and resented. Without taking power away from very wealthy private individuals what I would like to see is near impossible. So I sometimes feel a bit resigned to our fate.

Didn't know about John Hemming though, I'll keep an eye out for him.

 

Sorry I can appreciate that now.

Already with us.

Def' resentment from millions.

Never heard of that before - sounds ok.

How about banning them ? - save the trees in the process.

 

your idea about abolising fractional reserve banking sounds interesting economics are going to be the big problem apart from lack of resources .
I find that lots of people when they first find out about peak oil go about telling people and its a bit like the red or blue pill in the matrix, some people get it and it instantly changes their life .
some people get angry, some go into denial and dont want to hear anymore because it is quite scarey if you understand it

 

I worry about transitioning to an economy which isn't based on the assumption of infinite / limitless growth. Its very odd, I work in business and always simply assumed that everything will continue as it is, business as usual, forever. I can't really criticise people who don't get it, for some reason when I came accross the subject

That happened!

Kind of strange too because its such a simple idea, the maths and science is pretty straight forward yet many people are completely unaware or are in denial. Yet the assumption of limitless growth is kind of taken as read, the science and maths behind that theory would be mind bending.

Its going to be a tough task to change our cultural perception, it will be better if we change out of choice rather than experience the limits that nature will impose without understanding what is happening. I expect that you already know that.

We need to take the idea of what has value out of the hands of powerful private interests. We need to be able to issue our own money and not rely on private individuals, or market forces. Expect less, consumption is not a right although many think it is. Don't borrow off our children. Enjoy the fact that we live like lords, appreciate everyday that we are so rich, 'cause someday, maybe soon we will be poor.

By poor I only mean in our power to consume, we need a new indicator of wealth. Liberty is a type of wealth for example.

Anyway, I'm no expert but Peak Oil dictates all sorts of plans for the future that I have.

Peace.