September 9, 2000. Coming from all around the country by cover of night, an unlikely and ramshackle force of farmers and lorry drivers meet at the gates of the Stanlow petrol refinery near Ellesmere Port in Cheshire. Quickly they turn their vehicles across the road, blocking the entrance. 60 tanker drivers are now trapped inside, along with 1.8 million litres of fuel destined for hundreds of petrol stations across the UK.
September 12, 2000. The blockades have begun to spread across the country. Queues stretch for hundred of metres from petrol station forecourts, as motorists, ignoring government advice, panic and fill their cars with whatever petrol they can buy. Ambulance services in the north-west cease all non-emergency journeys and impose a 55mph speed limits to save petrol. At some branches of the supermarket giant Sainsibury’s rationing is imposed with shoppers allowed only six pints of milk, three loaves, and two bags of sugar each.
Three days.
It’s now seven years later. Since 2000 the price of oil has risen more than fourfold. By the end of 2005 it was $50 a barrel. In 2006 it averaged over $60. Last week it broke $99 for the first time, the price having risen by almost 50 per cent this year alone. Yet in 2006 for the first time in our history, the UK imported more food than it produced, with air freight being the fast growing method of transport. This October, Money Week – hardly the radical green press – ran an article titled ‘How Oil Peak Went Mainstream’. It says: “Up until today, the idea that there’s only a finite amount of oil in the world that can be recovered, and that once you reach the halfway point there begins an irreversible decline, simply hasn’t been in most people’s awareness….’
Up until today. “the genie,” claims Money Week, “is out of the bottle”. We all, individuals, governments, business, have to acknowledge the coming realities of the low carbon world, and act accordingly. So what should we do? (more…)
