Black Gold Crisis
May 30th 2008 23:23
The Peak Oil debate has been going on since the 1970s. When is Peak Oil? That is, when will we pass the half-way mark and start to run out, with supply and demand curves doing the tango? After looking at the figures myself - and I don't claim to be a statistician - I think we've hit it. (There are numerous websites - just google). It's clear to all but the best-paid big oil propagandists that the age of cheap energy is over. By the time we retire no one but the wealthiest will be able to afford a petroleum powered car. Petrol will need to be used for the manufacture of high tech plastics and medicines.
Last week we saw the political classes in a pother of paper-shuffling denial. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross eat your heart out! Kevin Rudd seems to get it, but doesn't know what to do about it. He knows there is nothing he can do to stop the demand for oil in the booming Chinese and Indian economies - he said so. He knows that there is no way of ensuring cheap oil for Australia's working families in the long run - or even the short or medium term. Cutting the GST on excise will only delay the neccessary adjustments to the Western economy and its attendant lifestyle. Perhaps it's time to increase petrol tax.
An opportunity for statesmanship has been lost on both sides of the House. A serious voice like Kevin Rudd's saying that it's well past the time we all need to make the change to a world of expensive oil in short supply, could make a difference to all our futures. An opposition criticising the Government on the grounds of short-sighted energy policy, rather than pressing the populist buttons in order to regain its precious electoral status, could push the debate in necessary directions. Downgrading of parliamentary travel and residence entitlements might sweeten that bitter pill.
We need to have an informed national discussion on energy efficient public transport, renewable energy sources, the decentralisation of suburbia, population density in inner cities, infrastructure development and a whole host of things not canvassed by Kate Blanchette at the Summit.
Anyone who depends on public transport arrangement in Western Sydney, for example, will know how the criminal delinquency of sucessive NSW Governments has resulted in a system in which buses and trains are infrequent, unreliable, unsafe and overcrowded. At peak hour buses, when they consent to drop by, just sail past because they are too full. Commuters are stranded at shiny new bus stops and end up an hour late for work or miss medical appoinments. Even if you manage to squeeze on, you become part of the Great Sexual and Bacteriological Adventure of Western Sydney Public Transport - and need to travel by way of Ulan Bator to get to work.
The recent energy crisis throws Morris Iemma's electricity privatisation legislation into its proper perspective. Clearly the NSW Government is about to run out of money, and like the tragic pokie queen who hasn't scored the three pyramids for a few weeks, he's mortgaging the house to pay for the bad management that is inherent in a state run by an obviosly biddable parliamentary mate-ocracy. We all know where that leads, but by then, no doubt, he'll have scored a job with MacBank. If NSW were launched on the ASX, I wouldn't be buying shares.
When I joined the NSW ALP in 1992 it still had printed on the ticket a statement of personal adherence to the party platform specifically the celebrated article concerning the socialisation of the means of production. Perhaps it is such recollections that caused the last NSW ALP Conference to condemn the Premier's plans. So much for socialist style democracy, not to mention infrastructure investment to safeguard the future of our fragile energy supply.
Last week we saw the political classes in a pother of paper-shuffling denial. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross eat your heart out! Kevin Rudd seems to get it, but doesn't know what to do about it. He knows there is nothing he can do to stop the demand for oil in the booming Chinese and Indian economies - he said so. He knows that there is no way of ensuring cheap oil for Australia's working families in the long run - or even the short or medium term. Cutting the GST on excise will only delay the neccessary adjustments to the Western economy and its attendant lifestyle. Perhaps it's time to increase petrol tax.
An opportunity for statesmanship has been lost on both sides of the House. A serious voice like Kevin Rudd's saying that it's well past the time we all need to make the change to a world of expensive oil in short supply, could make a difference to all our futures. An opposition criticising the Government on the grounds of short-sighted energy policy, rather than pressing the populist buttons in order to regain its precious electoral status, could push the debate in necessary directions. Downgrading of parliamentary travel and residence entitlements might sweeten that bitter pill.
We need to have an informed national discussion on energy efficient public transport, renewable energy sources, the decentralisation of suburbia, population density in inner cities, infrastructure development and a whole host of things not canvassed by Kate Blanchette at the Summit.
Anyone who depends on public transport arrangement in Western Sydney, for example, will know how the criminal delinquency of sucessive NSW Governments has resulted in a system in which buses and trains are infrequent, unreliable, unsafe and overcrowded. At peak hour buses, when they consent to drop by, just sail past because they are too full. Commuters are stranded at shiny new bus stops and end up an hour late for work or miss medical appoinments. Even if you manage to squeeze on, you become part of the Great Sexual and Bacteriological Adventure of Western Sydney Public Transport - and need to travel by way of Ulan Bator to get to work.
The recent energy crisis throws Morris Iemma's electricity privatisation legislation into its proper perspective. Clearly the NSW Government is about to run out of money, and like the tragic pokie queen who hasn't scored the three pyramids for a few weeks, he's mortgaging the house to pay for the bad management that is inherent in a state run by an obviosly biddable parliamentary mate-ocracy. We all know where that leads, but by then, no doubt, he'll have scored a job with MacBank. If NSW were launched on the ASX, I wouldn't be buying shares.
When I joined the NSW ALP in 1992 it still had printed on the ticket a statement of personal adherence to the party platform specifically the celebrated article concerning the socialisation of the means of production. Perhaps it is such recollections that caused the last NSW ALP Conference to condemn the Premier's plans. So much for socialist style democracy, not to mention infrastructure investment to safeguard the future of our fragile energy supply.
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