Opinion Piece

Letter

Fuel prices are rising. More oil shocks have been predicted, and we remain unready to face a new age that is approaching rapidly.

Some may not have heard of “peak oil”. If so, I suggest Googling it up.

Alerts: This year Exxon Mobil has warned us to prepare for demand-driven oil shocks. Last year, Saudi Arabia’s energy minister Khalid A. Al-Falih warned us to expect an oil supply shortage by 2020.

When it hits, our region will be hard hit. We still lack a functioning rail link or coastal shipping facilities to offset any road transport problems.

Admittedly, the world is moving on to electric cars and bicycles, but heavy transport remains almost totally reliant on fossil fuels.

Oil unavailability or un-affordability will drive us to alternative energy, but before long it will be alternative everything.

Petroleum is part of nearly everything, even jobs.

Peak oil and its impacts have been delayed by shale oil and new drilling technologies such as fracking and horizontal drilling, along with deep sea and oil sand extraction, keeping us addicted to oil that much longer.

With millions of the world’s people homeless, lacking adequate food and clean water, ongoing fossil-fuel-use habits are now morally unacceptable.

The consequences of continuing as we do now are likely to be irreversible.

Using even 20 percent of the known, extractable fossil fuel reserves would jeopardise the basic necessities of human life.

The madness of it all.

Thank God we have a Government that sees the futility of searching for more of this product that threatens our future.

I want a world for our kids and grandkids. What about you?

Bob Hughes