Talk - Peak oil and climate change

When I get to speak to the eminent geologist Jeremy Leggett, the author of the book on Peak Oil ‘Half Gone’, there’s one question I particularly want to ask him. Jeremy is coming to Lewes this week to give a speech on climate change and peak oil to help launch the Transition Town Lewes project. What, I wonder, did he think of the Channel 4 documentary ‘The Great Global Warming Swindle’, which suggested that climate change was a naturally occurring phenomenon, and nothing to do with post industrial revolution carbon emissions? “I find it depressing that such an argument should be given an airing despite 20 years of research pointing irrefutably to the opposite being the case,” he replies. “It’s true the world is warming naturally, and this is leading to CO2 emissions which are nothing to do with mankind, because we are in an inter-glacial period. But they are minimal compared to C02 emissions caused by the burning of fossil fuels. The maker of this documentary is a serial abuser of fact. He has been previously censured for misrepresentation of fact in previous documentaries about global warming.”

Leggett believes that there is ‘nothing we can do’ to prevent the economic downturn which will follow the peak oil crisis when fossil fuels start running out. But there is a positive side to his message. “At least this will give us the chance to rebuild society putting emphasis on using local energy and rebuilding local communities,” he says. “We can foster a local renaissance.”