UK Peak Oil Roadshow.... DISCUSS!

[Paul Mobbs]

I've launched a discussion on the PowerSwitch forum:
http://www.powerswitch.org.uk/forum/viewforum.php?f=1

I'm sending this to those who probaly are not on PowerSwitch to raise the 
issue separately (or to reinforce the issue with those that are).


P.



UK Peak Oil Roadshow.... DISCUSS!

I'm sort of reluctant to say this because from previous experience it really 
screws up your life for a few weeks... but following my hectic shecdule over 
the last few weeks, and what transpired from it, I think we really need to 
have it!


I'm currently organising my Spring diary, and meeting people's requests for me 
to speak around England and Wales. Usually this involves a sedate tour around 
the UK on trains and buses with a few days clearance between each event to 
get home and made the bread/till the garden. However, it occurs to me that it 
might be easier to get together with others and organise something a bit more 
wide-ranging. So... here's the pitch:


   In April or May, let's organise 
   a UK-wide string of events and 
   have a co-ordinated publicity 
   machine to push them. We take 
   the resources/speakers of all 
   those groups interested in Peak 
   Energy and put them into a 
   common calendar of events to 
   try and significantly boost the UK 
   profile of Peak Energy 
   (note, I use the term "Peak Energy" 
   because I think we need to broaden 
   this issue out into Peak Oil, Peak Gas, 
   lack of uranium to fuel new nuclear 
   build, climate change and the 
   restrictions it places on future energy 
   options, options for energy descent, etc.)


This has two effects:

Firstly, we can saturate the UK with a series of events, hopefully feed of 
each other's publicity, and generate a lot of attendance (compared to a 
disparate set of events);

Secondly, if it's big enough perhaps the national media will wake up and cover 
the Peak Energy issue on OUR terms -- and in any case a national tour is 
something that might get a lot of local media to cover something that (from 
my experience) they are reluctant to if it's just a one-off meeting by a 
local campaign group.


What I've found over the last few weeks of travelling around on a short 
speaking tour is that there's a lot of activity around Peak Energy within 
local environmental networks, the Green Party, permaculture groups, and the 
Powerswitch Network/web site, but there's not a lot of connection between 
these different worlds (and that which does take place tends to be centred on 
certain individuals who inhabit these different camps concurrently).

I think we need to have events by all these different organisations, and use 
the speakers/resources of these different organisations to try and achieve a 
'critical mass' of coverage that might jump the issue into the national 
consciousness. We don't have to sing form the same song sheet, we can all 
keep our respective hats on, but by co-ordinating events and running 
publicity for each others events we can boost the general coverage of Peak 
Energy.

We don't need to organise lots of funding for this since each group/events 
need only to pay for its own costs. The only common expense will be emailing 
each other our meeting dates and publicity material/web links, and that cost 
is pretty insignificant in the scheme of things (i.e., we each foot our own 
costs). If we do need some common web space, then I've got a few megs some I 
can throw in free of charge if we need it. 

The only thing we actually need is for people to sync their brains/diaries and 
organise a series of events that take place within the same time frame, and 
which hopefully are sequenced in a way that means those who volunteer to go 
"on tour" and speak at other venues don't have to constantly travel to and 
fro across the country.

Any comments? 



P.


-- 


"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government,
nor are we for this party nor against the other but we are
for justice and mercy and truth and peace and true freedom,
that these may be exalted in our nation, and that goodness,
righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity with
God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')

Paul's book, "Energy Beyond Oil", is out now!
For details see http://www.fraw.org.uk/ebo/

Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864
email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html