Climate Change

Twenty years ago, nobody believed in this either…

We all know about climate change now, but it's only in the last decade or so that it stopped being a minority interest and reached the global political agenda. Perhaps we'll soon see the two issues being considered equally together.

There are important relationships between them. Reducing oil dependency now will also reduce carbon emissions. International protocols to reduce emissions and ration carbon-based fuels will help slow down the depletion of oil while combating climate change.

However, the political stability needed to combat climate change is threatened by peak oil - in times of shortage, as the saying goes, we're only three meals away from a revolution. And if we see abrupt, accelerated climate change, our globalised economy will be devastated, just when we're most vulnerable from the depletion of oil.

Some commentators have argued that oil and gas running out will reduce carbon emissions enough to limit climate change. Others contend that it will make things worse, if we return to burning coal or biomass, or cut down rainforests to grow biofuels.

Local initiatives like Transition have to begin now to ensure communities have the resilience to withstand climate change impacts alongside the loss of their key energy resource. We will also be reinforcing larger-scale measures to reduce the impacts of both.

"Oil depletion is deadly serious in its own right, but it also has the capacity both to worsen emissions and destroy the wealth needed to fight global warming." David Strahan, author of The Last Oil Shock

Contact Transition Bath at info@transitionbath.org.uk

Check out the blog at www.transitionbath.blogspot.com