Richard Heinberg has published an excellent analysis of the intersection of CC and PO, how the activists in both camps differ in their backgrounds and concerns, as well as why and how we should be working to bring the two issues into a common framework.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/genera_richard__070107_the_closer_we_look_2c_.htmThe problems of Climate Change and Peak Oil both result from societal dependence on fossil fuels. But just how the impacts of these two problems relate to one another, and how policies to address them should differ or overlap, are questions that have so far not been adequately discussed.
Despite the fact that they are closely related, the two issues are in many respects dissimilar. Climate Change has to do with carbon emissions and their effects-including the impacts on human societies from rising sea levels, widespread and prolonged droughts, habitat loss, extreme weather events, and so on. Peak Oil, on the other hand, has to do with coming shortfalls in the supply of fuels on which society has become overwhelmingly dependent-leading certainly to higher prices for oil and its many products, and perhaps to massive economic disruption and more oil wars. Thus the first has more directly to do with the environment, the second with human society and its dependencies and vulnerabilities. At the most superficial level, we could say that Climate Change is an end-of-tailpipe problem, while Peak Oil is an into-fuel-tank problem.
Because of this crucial divergence, the training and priorities of people who study one problem often differ from those of people who study the other. Most advocates for the Peak Oil concept-sometimes known as "depletionists"-are energy experts, economists, journalists, urban planners, or workers retired from the oil industry (usually geologists or petroleum engineers). Among climate analysts and activists there are more environmentalists, fewer energy experts, and far fewer retired oil industry employees. It is my experience that, when placed in the same room together, the two groups often talk past one another.
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For their part, many Climate Change activists and experts see global warming as potentially having such devastating consequences, not just for humans but for the whole biosphere, that Peak Oil seems a trivial concern by comparison. They argue that, even if global oil production peaks soon, this will provide no solution whatever to Climate Change because society will replace oil with coal and other low-grade fossil fuels-which will simply worsen greenhouse gas emissions. Moreover, since the remedies for carbon emissions that climate activists propose will inevitably lead to increased energy efficiency and a reduction in oil consumption, they often feel such efforts constitute an adequate answer to the Peak Oil problem.
Most oil depletionists (excepting the small group discussed above) appear to hold the opinion that Climate Change is indeed a legitimate concern; however, since the economic impact of Peak Oil looms in the immediate future, the economic and geopolitical chaos that may be triggered by declining global fuel supplies pose the more timely threat. Some have argued that if Peak Oil results in near-term economic collapse and wars over dwindling energy resources, these events will seriously or terminally undermine the ability of national leaders to undertake the cooperative, long-range planning necessary to reduce carbon emissions.
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What would cooperation between the two groups look like? It would help, first of all, for activists on one issue to spend more time studying the literature of the other, and for both groups to arrange meetings and conferences where the intersections of the two issues can be further explored.
Both groups could work together more explicitly to promote proactive, policy-driven reductions in fossil fuel consumption.
Climate activists could start using depletion arguments and data in tandem with their ongoing discussions of ice cores and melting glaciers, but to do so they would need to stop taking unrealistically robust resource estimates at face value.
For their part, depletionists-if they are to take advantage of increased collaboration with emissions activists-must better familiarize themselves with climate science, so that their Peak Oil mitigation proposals are ones that lead to a reduction rather than an increase of carbon emissions into the atmosphere.
Perhaps, for both groups, with a stronger potential for motivating the public will come the courage to tell a truth that few policy makers want to hear: energy efficiency and curtailment will almost certainly have to be the world's dominant responses to both issues.
There is much, much more in the article. I think it's crucially important that activists on both issues read and think about the ideas Heinberg raises. This convergence is the next step in the process, and we should all help drive it.
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