Peak oil, John Hemming MP and bollocks.

The Times Online Green Central has a piece on Peak Oil, in which I am delighted to see John Hemming MP (Lib Dem) is chair of the all party parliamentary committee for peak oil and gas. Hemming trained as a physicist, is one of ours and prepared to call bollocks when he sees it. The Times relates:

In July last year, Hemming called on the government to review its policies in the light of The International Energy Agency shifting its prediction as to when oil production will peak – from 2030 to just five years from now.

On behalf of the government, the then-chief scientist Sir David King responded. “I am personally not convinced that focusing on the “peak oil” concept is the most helpful approach. The challenge I believe lies in framing policies and in advancing the technologies that will enable the fossil fuel resources to be utilised effectively, economically and sustainably.”

But how can fossil fuels, by definition a finite resource, be used “sustainably”. You either use them, or you don’t.

“I thanked him for his written response,” Hemming tells me. “It was a load of bollocks but I thanked him.”

It’s good when politicians use words we do and in a way we do. John Hemming is a blogger and like me has a issues with social services - his bugbear is forced, irreversible adoptions. Mine is that they put incompetents in change of my former foster sister.

However, one of the academics quoted in piece is less impressed with the breed (politicians): Dr Colin Campbell says: “There is little hope of politicians taking the lead. It’s much easier for them to react to crisis when it happens.”