ESF-04 was held in Alexandra Palace
in North London. A
Gormenghast-Nouveau palace, vast, ramshackle, Victorian, punctuated with
strange ad-hoc renovations: windows had been bricked-up in the distant past
as though it was an old warehouse, while a shiny ochre BBC TV tower poked
skywards from one end.
I have never been to one of these
giant anti-globalisation events before. There were several oil-related
sessions on the programme. I
went to hook up with a fellow-peaker: Mandy
from www.depletion-scotland.org.uk.
I had never met any of our kind face-to-face before, and her mobile
phone was diverted to an answer phone in Scotland.
There were thousands of people there: apparently no chance of finding
her.
30,000 participants from all over
the world had come to debate in hundreds of events all over London.
A level of accepted disorganisation prevails – though I did
occasionally wish the shade of Albert Speer would reappear to sort things
out.
I had specifically gone to attend
Friday morning Plenary Session “Oil Addiction: energy politics, corporate
power, and global climate change”. This
was in less than half of the West Hall to about 800 people, with
simultaneous translation into five languages. The panel was five speakers,
none of whom mentioned Peak Oil. After
an hour of this I was pretty irritated.
The chairperson announced the Q&A session.
I had intended to ask the first question. Unfortunately questioners were required to go to a microphone
at the front, so by the time I had struggled out there, a queue had formed
of 12-15 people. I joined it.
The procedure was explained: we
would each have 2 minutes to question the panel or make a statement.
A voice behind me said: “This is a
load of rubbish. No mention of
Peak”
I swung round. A tall, nervy guy was clutching The End Of Suburbia.
Me:
“Peak Oil?” A few words established our mutual camaraderie. We
shook hands (we do need some sort of secret handshake). My new
weirdo-loon-cult-member friend, Dan. He
tried to explain Peak Oil to someone else in the queue, which said that
about 1000 nuclear plants in China would solve the energy crisis.
Dan:
“No net energy output.”
(Simultaneously)
Me:
“Hubbert Peak in Uranium.”
I caught Dan’s eye.
I was feeling quite weird. I
think he was too. The woman at
the front of the queue announced herself as Mandy from Depletion Scotland.
My contact!
Mandy:
“Depletion is a huge problem for us all. Oil is depleting every day.
It won’t run out soon but there will be very severe economic
consequences.” She talked
about the workshop she would be doing the next day, inviting people who
wanted to hear more about this subject to come, then went back to her seat
as I watched, puzzled she had not specifically mentioned “Peak Oil”.
I turned back to Dan.
My original intention was to say to the panel I had heard the term
Peak Oil and ask them to explain it (sneakiness – it has more authority if
it comes from the panel, if they can’t then they have to throw it back to
me).
Now I wanted to support Mandy but
add the term “Peak Oil”, then introduce Dan to do a review of The End of
Suburbia. Which might intrigue
the audience. Unfortunately I
hadn’t grasped the mercurial nature of Dan’s personality, as he
continually changed what he was going to say so we couldn’t coordinate a
smooth double-act. Meanwhile
the speakers in front of us were waffling on, or declaring their manifestos:
Peoples’ Front of Judea demands Roman Army Out Now, that sort of thing.
Speaker followed speaker as Dan and I struggled to work out what to
say.
Some words broke into my train of
thought; “…disgraceful that the panel hasn’t mentioned Peak Oil,
Climate and Convergence, economic contraction….” An angry bloke in a
black roll neck sweater stalked off. I
scoped him.
My turn to spout off had arrived,
for that’s all it was. Nobody on the panel was bothering much to answer
questions. I asked the audience
to investigate Peak Oil on the internet because it was a problem that would
affect all of us, reiterated the information about Mandy’s workshop the
next day, and “Coming up next” a film review from Dan.
Unfortunately he suddenly decided
that the person next to him was actually in front, so the audience got told
about Trade Unionism in Bermondsey instead, making me look like an idiot.
Then Dan spoke somewhat incoherently
about The End of Suburbia.
Not auspicious. I sat back down,
rather squashed. I did not feel
we had come across at all well.
The Panel did a roundup response to
the “questions” which omitted all mention of Peak Oil, even though 4 out
of about 14 people had talked about it.
Mandy had buttonholed Dan, possibly
under the impression he was I. I
went over to them, and then I spotted Black Sweater Guy and pulled him into
the conversation. This will
give you an impression of what it was like:
“Seen Bloomberg: 54 and rising?”
“Natural Gas is depleting fast –
North Sea down”
“Hydrogen – what a waste of
time”
“China/America”
“Like an unstable marriage with
nukes” (best line of the
event: can’t remember who said it, probably Dan)
“Petro-euro”
Peak Strange. In a hall of 800 people, all of who were interested enough in
oil to attend this particular event; there were four of us peakers, speaking
a secret language.
We exchanged details.
Mandy had to find a friend and rushed off.
The other three of use talked for some while about the subject and
our own plans. Dan seemed quite serious about liquidating his assets to move
to an ecovillage in Ireland. James,
in the black sweater, hadn’t done anything, but had obviously had some of
the dark nights of anguish that we all seem to get.
He had contributed a considerable sum of money to a pension scheme
that was stock market based. He
said it was selfish to consider this in the face of all the other problems,
but as a Baby Boomer, he had been expecting to have a pleasant retirement in
a decade or two. Not be facing
financial ruin.
I went to some of the other events
with Dan. He tried to convince a few people at random about Peak Oil.
We had invented a repulsor force field: people swiftly left our
vicinity, smiling placatory.
I was feeling very, very weird.
Had I joined a cult? It
was like I was a Jehovah’s Witness at an atheist’s convention.
My tolerance of Dan was sinking.
Sample his in-your-face-approach:
“Heard of Peak Oil? No? You should have – it’ll cause a recession that will last
a hundred years.” Not
productive, yet I could not abandon a fellow peaker.
I dragged him off, trying to get him
to moderate his views so he didn’t come across as completely barking.
We parted to go to different events.
The “Ally Pally” is so enormous
that it comfortably held the 20,000+ people.
It was crowded, but not unpleasantly so.
The Great Hall is the size of a Wal-Mart, with a stained glass window
at one end and a huge organ at the other.
There are gold-leaf columns, good imitation renaissance-master
frescos on the walls, and downmarket motorway service station-type eateries
built awkwardly into alcoves. A
giant awning like a half-zeppelin shades the curved glass roof. Below it a rock concert lighting rig blazes down.
I wondered how much fossil fuel it
was burning.
Going round the numerous stalls, for
every leftwing cause in the world – the food court of the mind – I
talked to various people, sneaking Peak Oil into the conversation…just
like a nutty evangelist: “What
do you think of the oil price rise? Will
it affect you? Did you know
besides fuel going up, it will affect lots of things, like plastic, which is
made from oil? We’re doing an event tomorrow, would you like to come
along? “ I had some interest,
but I don’t think my quieter approach was much more successful than
Dan’s. Except when I went to talk to a young woman at a stall about
Sustainable Farming.
It will come as no surprise to you
all that I have suddenly developed a strong interest in UK farming and
sustainability. As soon as I
started talking about oil, she interrupted me:
“Fossil fuels have a huge input into agriculture”.
We had a productive discussion, I bought some of their booklets and
she said she would look into Peak Oil.
I bumped into Mandy again; we had a
coffee and a long talk. Depletion
–Scotland are a small but energetic group.
They are planning a Peak Oil Conference in Edinburgh in the spring
– it sounds great – but plans are not finalised. I will ensure that
further details get posted to this forum when they are available.
Mandy thinks that the term “Peak
Oil” sounds too technical, so tries to avoid it, and made the case that
the people who will be most attuned to the idea will be environmentalists
and Climate Change groups. We
arranged details for the following workshop.
At the end of the first day I felt
completely exhausted, burned out, alienated.
Had I somehow gone mad and not noticed? Did I need a tinfoil hat and sandals?
The next day I felt better.
I had to stop off to discuss kitchen fittings, so this made me feel
mainstream again. The workshop was being held in part of the University of
London – a small shabby seminar room, so good old déjà vu kicked in –
like I was back in college.
The seminar was co-hosted by 3
groups, besides Depletion
Scotland, there was Rising Tide http://www.risingtide.org.uk/
a climate change group, and Platform www.carbonweb.org,
an activist group who track the interconnections between oil corporations,
government, and environmental damage/human rights abuses.
Around 20 people attended, from
perhaps 12 European countries. Each
group had ten minutes to give a presentation, and then we had a discussion.
Mandy’s was excellent, the clarity a product of her scientific
background. She covered most of
the basics, exhorting people to look into this themselves; we had prepared
various leaflets with further information, websites, etc.
Mandy deliberately did not go into the scary aspects as she felt that
people shut down if you do that.