Difference of Opinion (ABC Television) - Are We Running On Empty?

Broadcast Thursday 26 July 2007

Notes from Steve McCready

The shows focus was more about the impact of the peak oil scenario on transport needs, particularly the private car, in Australia, all the usual points were bought up:

· The problems with the design of our cities and suburbs

· The cost of transport costs for those people on low incomes who live in outer suburbs and find they have long distances to travel to work etc etc

· The complete lack of coordinated federal policies/legislation on future transport needs and similar problems at state level

· Alternatives were discussed, one of the speakers pointed out that a realistic hydrogen solution was still 20 years away and that peak oil problems are likely to impact us well before then

· There was a lot of discussion about the successful public transport policies in Switzerland and that some 100+ US cities have developed future public transport policies.  Apparently Australia is seen internationally as a bit of joke for its lack of coordinated policies.  Sydney and Melbourne were singled out in this respect.  Too many individual companies/bodies doing there own thing.

· Also lots of discussion on what incentives should be given to car manufacturers to encourage them to produce smaller more fuel efficient cars….and why they haven’t done that already.  They have been caught out by the falling demand for bigger 6 cylinder cars and job losses have already resulted.

· Talked about the reluctance of people to give up their cars and also highlighted that petrol is still quite cheap in Australia. Raising the price and carbon taxes were discussed as incentives that could force an increase in demand for public transport

Interestingly most of the panel and the presenter clearly accepted that peak oil was a reality; there was some discussion about the urgency, timing and impact of the issue….i.e will we fall off a cliff?  Panel speakers were critical of the apparent lack of government awareness/action on the issue i.e. still spending huge amounts on road transport infrastructure.  (Despite a Senate inquiry into peak oil).

There was only a brief mention about the importance of oil in other aspects of our society….plastics and petrochemicals were mentioned without further explanation.  The potential impact on food production was not mentioned at all.

One speaker, a Dr Moran, didn’t acknowledge or deny peak oil as an issue and strongly argued that public transport was too costly and heavily subsidised and that a move away from the private car to public transport wouldn’t work.  I didn’t follow his arguments although he quoted statistics in support; these were heavily rebutted by one of the other speakers.  The term “bollocks” was used.

One of the speakers made a comment that there was a lot of Y2K like hysteria surrounding peak oil, but then continued to highlight the problem.

One audience member made a comment (can’t remember the exact words, see link below maybe) that Australia’s involvement in Iraq was all about mitigating the oil supply issue…this was acknowledged by the audience.

With respect to discussion about peak oil in Australia (ODAC asked: “I get the impression that Australia is way ahead of the UK in terms of discussing Peak oil / Peak oil awareness. Do you think this is correct?” ), there have certainly been a lot of great TV shows on the subject, all presenting the same clear message. Yet when I speak to people the general lack of awareness surprises me….the delusion continues.