Akhtar Chaudhry, Norwegian MP, about climate and the need for rich nations and people to limit their consumption
Duration : 0:1:24
Limit oil production and consumption
How Peak Oil Could Affect You
ANCHOR:
A number of respected petroleum geologists believe the peak of world oil supplies may be closer than you think, with in the next ten years. For each barrel of oil discover the world is consuming four. But on a brighter note, as our reporter Charlotte Cuthbertson discovers, there are initiatives set up that can help you and your family to make a smoother transition.
STORY:
Rising demand for oil has always been met by increased supply. But when global oil production reaches its peak in the not to distant future there will be shortages, much higher prices and increased international tension. So what does the peak oil crisis mean for you?
Now, you don’t have to trade your brand new Range Rover for a horse and cart just yet, but you can at least start warming up to the idea, as obvious things like transport, health care services and most importantly food production which rely heavily on oil, will all be affected.
There are also initiatives set up like Transition Towns which aim to guide communities into creating more low energy lifestyles.
[Juanita McKenzie, Transition Towns Volunteer]:
“I love the idea of building the resilience of community, we need some answers and peoples movements are the most powerful.”
About 300 towns around the world are actively working with the Transition town’s model.
But will there be enough time to build a sustainable infrastructure to carry us through this looming oil crisis?
[Samuel National Support for Transition Towns Movement New Zealand]:
“We have set a target of planting 20,000 fruit tree’s with in the next 10 years. We have identified a piece of public land. There will be 35 species of trees planted in that one area. That will help us to build resilience, rather than panic when the big trucks don’t arrive to fill us the Woolworths supermarket.”
There are some individuals out there who will not wait until the oil runs out and are instead taking steps to ensure their families will be well fed.
[Grange Gordon, Semi Self Sufficient Land Owner]:
“Great education for the kids, it’s a good footing for them to see what they can do. It’s good for them to see us their parents getting in there and digging in. It’s a family thing, it’s a collective thing. It’s about recycling it’s about not going to the supermarket, the plastic world. And fresh is best. Fresh is the ultimate. And anyone who eats home grown knows that the flavor is the way it’s supposed to be.”
So start growing your veggies, insulate your homes, get on your bikes, and we’ll race you to a more sustainable future. This is Charlotte Cuthbertson, NTD, Wellington, New Zealand.
Duration : 0:1:52
Offshore drilling is not the answer to high gas prices
There have been a lot of discussions about the high gas prices in USA the past months and what exactly should be done to curb this trend. Some politicians, like McCain, Bush, and Gingrich, are taking advantage of the situation and tries to push for the ending of a 27-year moratorium on offshore drilling along the coastlines of USA.
But offshore drilling is not a “quick fix” and it won’t help to lower the gas prices. The only ones that will profit from this are Bush and McCain’s friends in the oil industry. While people are suffering from the high gas prices the oil companies are reporting record profits after record profits.
“The United States burns 24 percent of the world’s oil, yet we only have 3 percent of the world’s oil reserves. Even if we drilled every drop of oil the U.S. has on shore or off its coasts, we will never be able to drill our way to lower oil prices or energy security. We simply burn more than we could ever drill.”
“Offshore oil drilling is not a short-term fix. It would take at least a decade to bring new leases into production. And, it will be years before exploration could begin and years after that before production would start. If any effect were to be felt on gas prices (most likely only a few pennies per gallon), that effect is decades away.”
“Offering up more of our coastline for drilling won’t lower gas prices. Since President Bush took office in 2000, the number of wells in federally leased areas has increased exponentially, yet gas prices have doubled during that same time. Yet, this type of evidence is never mentioned in the media or by proponents for offshore drilling.”
“Another reason that drilling for more oil in the U.S. won’t result in lower gas prices is because oil prices are set on the global oil market. What this means is that all oil produced around the world is sold all at the same price. There is no guarantee that we would even be using the oil that was drilled here in the U.S. And, we certainly wouldn’t get a discount just because we drilled for it on U.S. soil. We would pay the same rate as the rest of the world.”
[Source: http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/offshore-drilling-it-s-not-t ]
The only things that will lower the fuel prices, create more jobs, solve the climate crisis and fix this fragile economy is to invest in clean renewable energy sources, setting strict mpg standards for all automobiles and transform our current society to a sustainable one.
Going green will fix many problems, one of them are high gas prices.
Duration : 0:2:24
Peak Oil
Have you noticed, more cars, more trucks, more road building? Peak Oil deals with the recent world-wide speculation that global oil production has reached its peak and may now be in serious decline. ‘Peak Oil’ is a short atmospheric documentary film by Larry Larstead and shot in the Northern-Rivers region of NSW, Australia, and tackles the big question: What happens when the oil starts running out?
Duration : 0:3:56
World Oil Consumption
Video of World Oil Consumption by Country represented as foot height per barrel per day according to CIA Factbook. Rendered in Google Earth
Duration : 0:2:3
Solar Tower – renewable energy green global warming
EnviroMission Limited (www.enviromission.com.au) produced this 5 minute video on the pilot plant in Spain. It is an older video (2000) but gives a decent understanding of the solar tower concept.
EnviroMission, Ltd. (US Market: EVOMY, Australian Exchange: EVM) is a renewable energy developer of sustainable “green” energy solutions for the energy market. EnviroMission aims to be one of Australia’s leading producers of clean renewable energy. EnviroMission holds the proprietary rights to Solar Tower technology, a large-scale renewable energy technology based on simple fundamentals of physics — hot air rises. Solar Tower technology has the potential to offer competitive renewable energy with equal reliability to fossil fuel generators.
A single 200MW Solar Tower power station will provide enough electricity to power around 400,000 households. The energy output will represent an annual saving of more than 1,960,000 tonnes of greenhouse CO2 gases from entering the environment when compared to brown coal emissions in Victoria. The greenhouse savings equate to the removal of approximately 500,000 cars from the road. The Australian Solar Tower project consists of six distinct phases, the first two of which (project optimization and pre-feasibility commercialization) have already been completed. The third phase (final feasibility), paving the way for the implementation of the next three phases (final design, construction, and commercial operation).
Duration : 0:4:47
SOS California and Offshore oil Production
The truth is the largest environmental benefit the Santa Barbara coastline will ever see is the large reductions in offshore oil and gas seepage pollution. These seepage reductions are due solely to Offshore oil and Gas extraction as explained in a 1999 UCSB peer reviewed study. Over the last 40 years, only 850 barrels have been spilled off the coast of California, compared to over 2,000,000 barrels from natural oil seepage pollution. Environment California and the Lt. Governor have shamefully hidden these facts from Califronia residents.
Duration : 0:4:46