Back to the backyard: the answer to peak oil

Current Affairs from 2SER FM, Sydney, Australia.
Aired on March 29, 2008 07:27PM

While many Sydneysiders escaped the big city over Easter, a national permaculture conference was held with people lining up to learn about innovative ways of farming and backyard gardening.
A key speaker at the Australian Permaculture Convergence was the co-founder of permaculture, David Holmgren.

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Earth Hour 2008

This year, Earth Hour goes global. Last years' Earth Hour in Sydney was a raging success, surpassing their targets and reducing green house gas emmissions to the equivalent of 48,000 cars for 1 hour.

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Cover Your Arse, Learn to Grow Your Own

As the price of oil soars to the unprecedented figure of $100 USD a barrel, I’m wondering how long before we see further impact to the price of food. Fruit and veg in Australia (and I’m guessing elsewhere in the world) has already seen significant rises over the last few years. The way I see it, might as well learn to grow your own now rather than waiting for the pain of further price hikes.

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Spuds and Oil

When recently speaking with my neighbour we got on the topic of growing potatoes. When he asked me what’s the price of potatoes got to do with the price of oil, I nearly fell over. Our entire society is blindly running headlong towards peak oil and the basic facts are still not even public knowledge.

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To Kill A Mocking-Snail

Being new at the whole veggie gardening thing, I’m endeavouring to start small and get the basics working – a herb garden. As I face my first hurdle, that being a snail infestation of my coriander plants, I can see why people opted for inorganic pesticides. Damn! I hate snails!

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Explaining Peak Oil to a beer drinker

 
Colin Campbell heads up the Oil Depletion Analysis Centre [ODAC] in London. He predicts that global production of oil is set to peak in the next four years.
According to "peak oil" theory our consumption of oil will catch, then outstrip our discovery of new reserves and we will begin to deplete known reserves.
Dr Campbell says, "It's quite a simple theory and one that any beer drinker understands. The glass starts full and ends empty and the faster you drink it the quicker it's gone."

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Free Energy ?

I came across an interesting claim that a company in Ireland called Steorn was in the process of validating a mechanism called Orbo that exploits a curious behaviour in magnetic fields and has the potential to generate free energy.

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Coming Clean on Water Wastage

As a kid, I recall having sleep-overs at a mates house on the farm. Being on tank water, they had some strict guidelines on how we were expected to shower.

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Peak Oil Rant

There were 2 shows on SBS the other night called "Crude Impact" and "2013: No More Oil". It was a part of the Future Focus showcase currently running on that station. To me, Peak Oil is probably the most concerning issue I see in our near future. Forget what rising sea levels are going to do to the value of your beachside property, or whether you’re going to be able to cruise around city streets in your hulking 4WD.... be concerned more about how the hell you're going to be able to eat when all the transport trucks across the country become too expensive to operate. Nearly everything we use in modern society relies on oil, either for its operation, manufacture or distribution. The price at the bowser is the least of our worries.

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