Article

What's the future of oil? What does it mean for policymakers? Despite the recent drop in oil prices, fossil fuel depletion remains a very real and imminent threat to the global economy. Peak Oil for Policymakers, a collection of videos filmed during the oil crunch of 2008, explores this threat and what it means for local, state, and national policymakers. The DVD is available for purchase for $14.00. You can also stream the videos below:

Available on DVD

	Video: Peak Oil for Policymakers ( watch video ) An executive summary of the peak oil problem and its implications for the global and national economies. By world-renowned peak oil author and lecturer Richard Heinberg and Post Carbon Institute founder Julian Darley. Running Time 12:10. Filmed July 2008.
	Video: Post Carbon Cities ( watch video ) Explores what peak oil means for leaders at the local level and how cities in the U.S. and elsewhere are already responding. By Daniel Lerch, author of Post Carbon Cities: Planning for Energy and Climate Uncertainty, the first major guidebook on peak oil for local government officials and staff. Running Time 29:10. Filmed June 2008.
	Video: Scenarios Planning for Government ( watch video ) An insider's look at spurring government action on peak oil. Connecticut State Representative Terry Backer describes to peak oil activists how he helped establish a state task force on energy scarcity. Running Time 9:50. Filmed September 2008.

More about the issues

Fluctuating oil prices

Peak Oil for Policymakers and Post Carbon Cities were filmed in Summer 2008 when oil prices were at historic highs, topping $147 in July. By December 2008, oil was below $40 a barrel, a drop of nearly 75%. Did we raise the alarm too soon?

The answer is unequivocally NO. The Fall 2008 drop in oil prices may well make matters worse because it has the effect of delaying consumer behavior changes and oil production investments. Indeed, unencouraging trends in global conventional oil production combined with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression may well mean that, in hindsight, 2008 will prove to have been the year of peak oil.

See these online resources for the latest peak oil tracking and analysis by industry insiders and other observers:

• Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas - USA
• Oil Depletion Analysis Centre (UK)
• Energy Bulletin (international)
• The Oil Drum (international)

Why target policymakers?

Peak oil is essentially a problem created by converging geological and economic, constraints on the global production of oil. What can policymakers possibly do that markets can't?

A 2005 report for the U.S. Department of Energy noted that government action on peak oil is essential "because the economic and social implications...would otherwise be chaotic." The report observes that retooling the U.S. economy and its trillions of dollars of oil-centric infrastructure for the post-peak oil would require "a minimum of a decade of intense, expensive effort," preferably two decades.

The private sector has not responded effectively to the long term challenges we face, partly because the there has been no obvious market signal to spur a shift to renewable energy technologies until very recently -- that is, until it was already too late. The collapse this year of the American auto industry, which had been prioritizing energy inefficent vehicles up until very recently, is a case in point.

Markets are starting to respond, and the private sector will ultimately reorient itself to post-peak oil realities. But these changes will come far too late to avoid serious economic hardship for the tens of millions of households and businesses that must make do with our existing infrastutructure --most of which was built for a world of $50 or less oil-- for many more years to come.

Peak oil and global warming

Global warming has become a central public concern in recent years, while Peak oil has only begun to gain widespread recognition. Both require urgent action, but opinions sometimes vary as to the relative urgency and importance of each. Post Carbon Institute holds that responses to peak oil and global warming must be coordinated and must occur in tandem, for a few reasons:

• The causes, and thus the solutions, are largely the same. Both peak oil and global warming are driven by the world's no-holds-barred consumption (and dependence) on oil. Anything we do to reduce our reliance on oil will benefit efforts on both fronts.
• Ill-conceived responses to one could make the other worse. One response to peak oil might be to invest heavily in coal-to-liquids technology -- but that would practically ensure climate chaos, as coal has the worst carbon emissions of all fossil fuels, and carbon sequestration technology is still in its infancy. One response to global warming may be to invest in cleaner-burning natural gas and uranium-fueled nuclear energy -- but the peak oil perspective understands that these resources also face serious upcoming constraints.
• We have no time to lose on either issue. Both third-party observers and oil industry leaders now point to peak oil happening by 2012, and possibly quite sooner. James Hansen of NASA's Goddard Space Institute has warned that we have until 2016 to get global carbon dioxide emissions decisively declining if we are to avoid catastrophic climate change.

Our responses to both peak oil and global warming must be coordinated, decisive and immediate.