Oil Independent Berkeley

NPR has a new ombudsman--Alicia Shepard . Write and ask her to urge NPR journalists to cover peak oil and gas. Here is the text of my e-mail--feel free to draw from it. (Go to http://www.npr.org/templates/contact/index.php?columnId=2781901) to submit your comments).

Dear Ms. Shepard,

I am a journalist and activist writing to urge NPR to devote full coverage to the woefully underreported issue of peak oil and gas.

What’s peak oil and why should I care?

The so-called "peak oil" problem refers to the fact that oil and natural gas reserves have already or will in the next few years reach their maximum level of production. The fact that global oil and gas reserves will soon be depleted is no more debatable than global warming; the only question is how soon and how prepared our nation will be to subsist without petroleum and natural gas. Forecasts as to when oil supplies will peak range from the present year to 2020, with most predictions clustered in the current decade. After oil reserves peak, they will be rapidly depleted by large, oil-dependent nations like the US, China, Russia and India. Energy and economic analysts warn that if oil depletion catches us unprepared—if oil becomes scarce or runs out before alternatives are in place—the consequences will be dire. At best, we face a massive recession along with soaring inflation; at worst, severe global food shortages that threaten wide-scale starvation and an overall breakdown of social and economic institutions.

Every sector of the US economy is premised on an ongoing supply of cheap oil--food production and distribution, pharmaceuticals, information and communication technologies, textiles, durable goods, etc. You name it, and we currently need oil to make it, ship it and run it.

Is this an alarmist, fringe issue (Y2K revisited)?

Not at all. In February, 2007, the General Accounting Office dropped a quiet little bombshell: They issued a report on peak oil, concluding that there is an urgent need for need for a swift, coordinated government strategy to assess and develop alternative energy technologies in order to avert severe consequences. (See http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d07283.pdf). Other mainstream peak oil experts include Matthew Simmons (former Bush energy advisor and member of the National Petroleum Council and the Council on Foreign Relations), Robert Hirsch (DOE consultant), Richard Heinberg (author and New College professor), Howard Kunstler (author), Boone Pickens (oil tycoon), Congressmen Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD) and Tom Udall (D-NM) who recently formed the congressional Peak Oil Caucus. In 2005, Chevron took out two-page ads in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal announcing that “the era of easy oil is over” and that the world is on course to consume proven reserves (about a trillion barrels) within 30 years (though shortages will wreak havoc much sooner).

How much attention is peak oil getting?

More and more, but not nearly enough. Five months after the release of the GAO report, it does not appear that any of the recommended assessment or planning has begun, nor has the issue (to my knowledge) surfaced in any of the presidential debates. Neither the NY Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal nor the LA Times reported on the release of the GAO report nor did any follow-up reporting.

The GAO report received the same reception as the 2005 peak oil risk management report commissioned by the Department of Energy, which warned of the "extremely damaging" impacts that will ensue if mitigation measures are not put in place ahead of time. (See http://www.projectcensored.org/newsflash/the_hirsch_report.pdf); that is to say, both reports were ignored. Project Censored listed peak oil as one of the top 25 censored news stories of 2005. Personally, I'd call it THE top censored story, and every year that goes by without the government taking even a baby step toward preparedness makes the lack of news coverage all the more irresponsible.

In the progressive media, there have been only a number of articles in the past couple of years (in Mother Jones, The Nation, The Progressive, Yes, Orion, Utne, the American Prospect, The Guardian (UK), The Independent (UK), and Tom Dispatch). There at least four independently produced documentaries on the subject: Escape from Suburbia, The End of Suburbia, The Power of Community: How Cuba Survived Peak Oil and A Crude Awakening.

Mainstream media are beginning to wake up. Just the other day, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page story explaining why oil supply cannot possibly keep pace with demand. (See http://online.wsj.com:80/article/SB119543677899797558.html?mod=todays_us...). The National Review ran a piece by a Hoover Institution scholar last week (http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=OTdhNDFkODBjY2Y2M2I1MGFlZTY3NTM0Zjk...) and the San Francisco Chronicle published an op ed a few months ago (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/08/26/INF7RM3OC.DT...).

What can responsible journalists do?

Journalists should be examining the following dimensions of the peak oil problem:

1. Food: How will it be grown without petrochemicals and diesel-fueled farm equipment? How will it be transported? What will become of food packaged in petroleum-based plastic?

2. Health Care: What alternatives are there for drugs, medical equipment and contraceptives currently manufactured with petrochemicals? How will they be shipped to pharmacies and hospitals? How will health care workers get to hospitals and clinics?

3. Public Safety: Fire trucks, police cars, ambulances--What will they run on when the pump runs dry?

4. Water: To what extent is water purification and delivery dependent on oil? (California, for example, uses 88 billion gallons of diesel a year pumping water). What are the alternatives and how soon can they be on-line? Are any communities exploring options such as underground rainwater catchment systems?

5. Unemployment: With the gradual obsolescence of industries like airlines, refineries, and gasoline-fueled vehicle manufacturers along with the massive layoffs that will accompany a major recession triggered by soaring oil prices, how will the government support the millions of unemployed Americans? Do we need a New Deal-style public works program that trains and deploys laid-off workers into the growing alternative energy and sustainable agriculture sectors?

6. Transportation: Mass transit, mail delivery, railroads, ocean freighters, cars. Is anyone looking at the timing of when alternatively-fueled modes of transport will become widely available vis-à-vis peak oil timing? Are coal-rich China and the U.S. likely to start burning more coal when oil runs dry? Consider the global warming implications of such a trend.

7. Public utilities: In the short term, what will the 7.7 million households that rely on oil for home heating use? What about natural gas, which is also on the verge of peaking? More broadly, to what extent is the operation of the power grid reliant on fossil fuels and what is its capacity in the absence of fossil fuels.

8. Waste management: How will garbage and recycling be collected and processed when oil and gas reserves grow scarce?

9. Rationing: Iran has already begun rationing oil. At what point will the U.S. begin taking measures to guarantee that dwindling supplies are used for essential services rather than frittered away on leisure travel, plastic toys, needless packaging, etc.? The specter of rationing begs a question that is very hard to answer at the present moment: When exactly will oil and gas run out or become too expensive to use? With oil companies and OPEC members notorious for overstating and/or obfuscating the size of their oil fields, what steps is the government taking to undertake an accurate accounting of global oil reserves?

10. How do the issues of peak oil and climate change intersect and overlap? Clearly, both call for the conservation of existing oil reserves so as to reduce carbon emissions and allow maximum time for post-oil preparedness. Are climate change activists aware of the issue and using it to apply more pressure on government to mandate conservation? I’ve never heard Al Gore mention it.

11. Resource wars: If history is any guide, and the Carter Doctrine remains in effect, we can expect to see ongoing military incursions into the few remaining oil hot spots. Is the U.S. destined to burn through every last barrel of oil fueling its humvees, battleships and aircraft?

12. Relocalization: What communities are taking the lead in planning for oil shortages by enhancing their capacity to grow their own food, collaborate with nearby CSAs and develop their own alternative energy infrastructure? If the federal government shows no inclination to develop Plan B, does hope lie with local and regional governments?

These are complex and often frightening issues to investigate, contemplate and synthesize. All the more reason that hardball journalists need to start asking the tough questions and inform the public of the looming crisis. Even among my educated, progressive peers, less than half of the people I've talked to have even heard of peak oil.

Thank you for taking the time to reflect on what role NPR can play in publicizing this issue. I’d be happy to provide you with whatever resources I can by way of background on this story.

Sincerely,