LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
- May 22, 2007
The Editor;
Like most households in his constituency, I have just received Alex Atamanenko's Newsletter.
This time he wants to alert us to B.C.s Future Food Security. He points out that agriculture is highly depended on oil during all the many steps involved in getting your food from the field to the dinner table quite true, of course. Then, however, he vaults into the usual field of Green Prophecy by telling us that the oil gravy train is coming to a screeching halt.
Oil production, after increases for about seven years, will begin to fall, escalating the cost of fuel and threatening our ability to feed ourselves.
None too soon, of course, for those who embrace Green Theology. Very soon, he claims we will have to abandon the environmentally irresponsible notion of shipping and trucking our food in from all over the world.
He continues: It is almost certain that by 2025 we will need to produce most of what we eat locally.
Well folks, forget about salads in the winter and yummy California fruit learn to really enjoy apples; they store well. And, if we can't afford to ship food we certainly can't afford to ship people to vacations in Mexico and Hawaii, or yearly migrations to Arizona. Perhaps a generous investor will build us a greenhouse for carbon credit.
Atamanenko, however, has the answer; an ideal model we should all begin to emulate. He suggests we visit www.cjly.net/deconstructingdinner/ to learn about sustainable living. I also strongly suggest you visit the site!
It is reminiscent of the city garden and back to nature movements of the 1970s; another time when we expected the end of oil. I like the idea of urban gardens but I will leave it to you to decide if this is a practical model for feeding yourself, never mind millions of city dwellers.
So where does the end of oil notion come from? Recently the BBC, CNN and MSN ran specials on the possible exhaustion of the worlds oil, suitably filled with the usual dire predictions.
However, if you visit the website of the Society of Petroleum Engineers, a more credible and dispassionate source, you will find this: World oil resources <http://www.spe.org/spe/jsp/basic/0,2396,1104_12171_0,00.html> to 2025 may be more than two times current reserves <http://www.spe.org/spe/jsp/basic/0,2396,1104_12169_0,00.html> , based on an estimate from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) using USGS data.
Reserve growth of 730 billion barrels accounts for new discoveries and the expansion of what can be recovered from known reservoirs due to advances in technology and improvements in economics.
But EIA estimates that in 2025, countries around the globe will still have more than 900 billion barrels of oil remaining to be discovered. EIA estimates total world oil resources at more than 2.9 trillion barrels of oil.
Atamanenko is the MP for the entire Southern Interior. He speaks for each of us on the floor of the House.
I expect more from him than I have seen in his Newletters and his many letters to the editors more research before he forms opinions, more focus on practical outcomes for his communities, more common sense; and less jumping on popular band wagons when there is no danger whatever that he and his party will ever be responsible for putting their ideas into practice.
- Karin Green, Princeton
