BBC Radio 4 afternoon news leads on Peak Oil

newbonic

I was driving home from work this afternoon up the 6 lane M1 motorway (Thurs May 22) tuned into the BBC R4 news (the most influential radio news station in the UK by a mile - UK politicians are addicted to it).

The lead story at 5pm (peak listening time) was an in depth discussion about peak oil and the record $135 pb oil price. There was a energy industry expert interviewed (I didn't catch his name) who said that we are at peak light sweet, and that heavier grades would peak circa 2011-2013, and that absolute drops in output would occur at some point not to long later. For mainstream news it was pretty apocalyptic stuff. It stated that prices would never drop to previous levels. Peak Oil is unequivocally mainstream in the UK.
I think a podcast may be available at BBC R4 website but may be UK only. Or maybe the link in the top right of this BBC website page.

As I listened two 2007 Range Rover Sport SUVs cruised past - I wonder if they were listening to, and if they thought their new motors were the smart choice now?

FishAreBest

What was most remarkable about this feature was that they had nobody speak against it.

This is the BBC which famously shows both sides of every argument, and which only recently stopped bringing on climate-change deniers.

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 3076 Location: UK

I have not found it there, but will check back later.

If I recall correctly, Radio 4's Material World did a good piece on peak oil back in 2004. Little in the way of cornucopian "balance", just the facts.

There is awareness of a sort, but sadly just because something is mainstream, does not mean people change in response. You can have a conversation with someone about the decline of the North Sea, but they will not accept there are any personal implications down the line, and they will still blame government taxation for fuel prices. There is still a lot of casual denial.
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Plantagenet

Plantagenet

"The BBC is out of touch with large swathes of the public and is guity of self-censoring subjects that the corporation finds unpalatable, an official report has claimed.
As part of the report's research the BBC's own controller of editorial policy admitted that people felt that the corporation was guilty of a "bias of omission" by not covering their views.
Authors of the report called on the corporation to be more "open-minded" in the views it reflects and warned against "bias of elimination" which it branded "offensive".
The report noted that the BBC had "come late" to several important stories in recent years, including Euroscepticism and immigration , which as it happens, were "off limits" in terms of a liberal-minded comfort zone".

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Sadly, it appears the Beeb has again "come late" to reporting, this time on Peak Oil.

It was probably hard for them to include some news that doesn't fit into the left wing orthodoxy of *high oil prices = speculation by evil banks and big oil companies*......they may have left off the opposing view precisely because a report on peak oil doesn't fit into their usual leftist worldview, resulting in a different treatment of the peakoil story.

arretium

Starvid

Plantagenet

mos6507

I've been tracking the google news each day and frank coverage of Peak oil is all over UK press (and Australia and New Zealand). It's just very slow to enter the US MSM.

Europeans appear to be more rational thinkers. Also, the fact that they are in the midst of the reality of the north sea decline really reminds them about oil depletion, whereas the US went through that almost 40 years ago.

americandream

Plantagenet

Twilight · Expert Joined: Mar 02, 2007 Posts: 3076 Location: UK

Presumably if the BBC were hand-wringing liberals, they would overstate their bias. So that evidence does not support the assertion. Cool

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yeahbut · Heavy Crude Joined: Oct 30, 2007 Posts: 342

Plantagenet

Plantagenet